Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce (GDAACC) holds 2008 Excellence in Education banquet

by Monica Dutia

DALLAS — The GDAACC will hold the Excellence in Education banquet to honor a number of Asian American high school seniors for their academic achievements and community services. The sixteenth annual event, which is set to occur on June 26, will take place at the Intercontinental Dallas Hotel in Addison.

For the past 16 years, the GDAACC has honored students from around the metroplex. United Central Bank is the sponsor for the fourth consecutive year. This year’s keynote speaker will be Randall S. James, Commissioner of the Texas Department of Banking.

Two of the twenty students being honored will also be presented with an additional award, one with the Jerry Junkins Memorial Award and the other with the James Yoo Award. The Junkins Award is in honor of the late Jerry Junkins, Past Chairman of Texas Instruments, and recognizes the student’s contributions to the community. The Yoo Award was created in honor of James Yoo, the current Chairman of the Board of United Central Bank. It honors the exceptional overall performance of a student.

The banquet will also honor 25 Asian American professionals who are graduating from GDAACC’s Leadership Tomorrow Class.

The Excellence in Education Award recipients are: Josjua M. Adair (R.L. Raschal), Wajiha Khan (Little Elm High School), Ashley J. Kim (McKinney High School), Jaclyn H. Le (Nimitz High School), John J. Lee (Trinity High School), Michael J. Lee (W.T. White), Tyler C. Liu (Carroll Senior High School), Jonash A. Loh (Carroll Senior High School), Stephanie O. Nguyen (Richland High School), Thu K. Nguyen (North Garland High School), Joohyun Oh (Cedar Hill High School), Reena A. Patel (The Academy), Angelo G. Ramirez (The Academy of Irving), Waziha Samin (The Academy of Irving), Najam A. Siddiqui (North Mesquite High School), Sally Tam (North Garland High School), Christophe T. Trinh (Southwest High School), Aivy H. Truong (Forth Worth Country Day), Khiem T. Vu (Grapevine High School), and Anthony L. Xie (Lake Highlands).

The graduates of the Leadership Tomorrow program are: Anna-Lisa Leefers (ACS), Noorjehan Javed (American Airlines), Lifang Niu-Brown (American Airlines), Gayathri Thaikkendiyil (American Airlines), Xia Vabg (American Airlines), Atul Choudhary (Citi), Evren Dincsoy (Citi), George He (Citi), Tarek El-Yafi (Citi), Melody Cadungog (DART), Prema Sachdeva (Deloitte & Touche LLP), Ajay Bhaskar (Frito-Lay, Inc.), Vamsi Kotla (Frito-Lay, Inc.), Honghai Nguyen (Frito-Lay, Inc.), Akshay Wani (Frito-Lay, Inc.), Justin Hung (JCPenney), Jittada Kittiyamonkol (Oncor Electric Delivery), Baskaran Audiksavan (PepsiCo), Robert Biedinger (PepsiCo), Kulsum Hussian (PepsiCo), Chynika Hampton (State Farm Insurance), Wennie Allen (Texas Instruments Inc.), David Chen (TXU Energy), Seung Song (United Central Bank), and April Ho-Nishimura (Verizon Communications, Inc.).