Page One Awards judge: ‘You’re thinking, Wooooo! What hope for the future!’

The details from the first of her 27 consecutive years as a Page One Awards judge are fuzzy, but Susan Wiggins clearly remembers how the experience felt.

“It was one of the worst things I’ve ever done and one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Wiggins, the vice president for stakeholder relations at the W.C. Bradley Co., said with a smile. Then she chuckled and added, “I still feel that way, and every year I pledge I’ll never do it again.”

But she keeps coming back because, despite the heartbreak from helping to select a winner and runner-up in the general scholarship category among more than a dozen impressive nominees each year, interviewing some of the Chattahoochee Valley’s most successful and promising high school seniors is so invigorating.

“When you get back in your car,” she said, “you’re thinking, ‘Wooooo! What hope for the future! How uplifting a day has this been! With all these bright kids, our future is going to be in good hands. It reassures you. It comforts you. My world is a better place because they are fixing to walk out into it in a few years.”

On Tuesday, 198 outstanding students from 18 schools, plus 17 teachers, will walk across the Bill Heard Theatre stage in the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts as nominees for the Ledger-Enquirer’s 42^nd annual program honoring educational excellence in the Columbus area. Theceremony, starting at 7 p.m., is free and open to the public.

A total of $19,000 in awards will be presented in 13 student categories and one teacher category, bringing the 42-year total to $572,000. Perhaps nobody understands the value of this investment better than Wiggins, the longest-serving of this year’s 43 Page One Awards judges.

Initially intimidating

Her first judging session, in 1991, was “sort of a little bit intimidating, because the students are really just brilliant young people,” Wiggins said. “To this day, it still is, to a degree. It’s so interesting to meet all these different, very, very diverse students, in every sense from their backgrounds, young men and young women.

“They are so exceptionally gifted academically as well as involved civically at a level that defies my comprehension. How can they make the grades they make and do all the things that they’re involved in and then have time to sleep at night?”

She recalled joking this year with fellow judge Mike Venable, co-publisher of Columbus and the Valley and Valley Parent magazines, that she was relieved she didn’t let the expression on her face give away the fact that she didn’t know the definition of the arcane word a student used.

“It’s pretty amazing what comes from them,” she said.

Wiggins and her fellow general scholarship category judges typically don’t leave Spencer High School, the interview site, until 4 p.m. after arriving there by 8:30 a.m.

“It comes down to splitting hairs to pick the winner,” she said.

The selection criteria mixes academics and community service but isn’t based on financial need, Wiggins emphasized. She asks herself when evaluating each candidate, “How do they communicate? How much energy and enthusiasm do they have for their dreams? Some of them have just lofty goals.”

Passion and vision

Wiggins equates her approach to interviewing a potential employee at W.C. Bradley Co., where she has worked for 37 years.

“It has to do with not just the intellect but passion and vision,” she said. “On paper, they’re brilliant, they’re accomplished, so the winner really often comes down to the interview.”

She added wryly, “Sometimes you’re talking to someone you realize might be smart enough to find the cure for cancer but, because they’re so quiet or so nonverbal, you worry that they might not be able to tell anybody they found it.”

One candidate this year was so nervous, Wiggins said, the judges could see the trembling. That’s when the judges focus on a more conversational tone and try to reassure candidates that they already achieved an honor by being nominated.

“And then you’ve got others that walk in as bold as they can be,” she said.

The 15-minute interview can seem like a mighty long time if the candidate isn’t talkative, Wiggins said. “With others,” she said, “You can say, ‘Tell us about yourself,’ and the next thing you say is, ‘I’m sorry, but our time is up.’”

The community service is most impressive from the candidates who start an initiative and ensure it can be sustained after they leave, Wiggins said. “That’s a sign of a leader who thinks ahead,” she said.

Wiggins enjoys the camaraderie with her fellow judges. “It’s brought me together with some other community leaders that I don’t normally interact with in the course of my business day,” she said.

Inspiring and funny

Asked for the most inspiring moment she had during a Page One Award interview, Wiggins told her story about a poetic football team captain.

“He was a darling boy but looked like a big ol’ jock in every way,” she said. “He fidgeted around a bit in the chair, but he had a great interview. He had a great personality. You could tell he was a leader, but he had a lot of humility. We were all charmed by him.”

In his application, he noted that he likes to write poetry. So, as the interview was ending, Wiggins asked him to share a sample.

“I wasn’t really expecting he would do that because he wasn’t prepared,” she said, “and that’s another rule: They can’t bring anything into the room to show the judges.”

But with a “yes, ma’am,” he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and recited “one of the sweetest, most beautiful, most sensitive poems I think I’ve ever heard in my life,” Wiggins said. “We were just like ‘Wow!’ when he got through it.”

And, yes, the poetic football captain won the general scholarship category that year.

Asked for the funniest moment she had during a Page One Award interview, Wiggins chose a comment from a sun-dress-wearing candidate.

“She was very attractive,” Wiggins said, “and she had a cute personality.”

Her hair bounced from side to side while she nonchalantly listed some of her accomplishments and attributes — including “of course, I’m pretty.”

Wiggins laughed at the memory and explained, “It wasn’t egotistical. It was just her being different. Some are so intense, and then others are artsy and carefree, and others are so quiet. We see the gamut.”

Significant changes

Through the years, Wiggins has heard the common answers significantly change to two standard questions.

Wiggins, the salutatorian of Russell County School’s 10-student Class of 1968, when her last name was Smith, likes to ask the candidates whether they plan to return to this community after college.

“Years ago, nobody — literally nobody — ever said they were coming back to Columbus,” she said. “They didn’t think there was any opportunity here. … Now, I would say 90 to 95 percent of the students over the last few years say they want to come back to Columbus, which I find extremely encouraging.”

She also likes to ask the candidates to name the most influential person in their life. The traditional answer had been a parent, but this year, more than ever, Wiggins said, teachers are the most influential.

“That really says a lot about the caliber of educators,” she said.

Soaking up the scene

Wiggins soaks up the scene at the awards ceremony, especially when the nominees introduce themselves.

“Their personalities shine through on stage,” she said.

When the winner and runner-up are announced in the category she helped judge, “I slink down in my chair a little bit,” she said with a laugh. “I’m thinking about the mamas and the daddies of the 17 who didn’t win, because their child could have.”

But that tinge of guilt is overwhelmed by joy when the winner and runner-up return to the stage and accept their award.

“They earned the right to be there,” Wiggins said. “It’s a very high standard of excellence represented in this program. It’s a really terrific thing that the Ledger-Enquirer has continued to do for all these years.”

And it’s a really terrific thing that Wiggins has continued to be a part of this program for 27 of these 42 years.

“It’s difficult sometimes to get people to give up a whole day of their time to do judging, and Susan just never fails to accept,” said Ledger-Enquirer assistant to the publisher Debbie King, who has coordinated or co-coordinated the Page One Awards as long as Wiggins has been a judge. “She does such a great job. She makes the candidates feel comfortable, puts them at ease and lets them know that they’re all winners.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2017 at 2:59 PM with the headline "Page One Awards judge: ‘You’re thinking, Wooooo! What hope for the future!’."