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2021 Lilly Scholar: Evan Steffy wins prestigious honor
It is not necessarily true that masks hide emotions. When South Putnam’s Evan Steffy got the news Tuesday afternoon that he was the 2021 Lilly Endowment Community Scholar, it was the opposite.
As it has been previously, the announcement was to be a surprise. Steffy was a finalist for the DAR Good Citizen Award, and thus the pretext was a photo of him with his parents. The Banner Graphic was also in on the ruse.
When the welcome party emerged from a laundry room after the fake photos were taken, it took a few moments for the accomplished student-athlete to realize what was happening. After that, the surprise turned into hugs all around.
The first hugs were for his parents Jamie and Debby Steffy, both of whom are educators. Jamie is a teacher at Cloverdale Middle School, while Debby is the principal at Fillmore Elementary School. He then went to hug Dean Gambill, Kate Knaul and Brandon Wells of the Putnam County Community Foundation.
Steffy is a familiar face being a three-year member of the Putnam County Youth Philanthropy Committee and serving as the youth co-chairman. Indeed, North Putnam’s Grace Elmore and Grace Timm and Greencastle’s Paige Kaiser -- the other finalists for this year’s award -- are also members of this committee.
Knaul, who served as this year’s Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship chairman, commented on what made Steffy stand out from his peers in what can become a very competitive pool of applicants.
“I think your application was the first one that I read, and I thought, “If all the others are half as good, we have an impossible decision to make here,’” Knaul told Steffy about the selection process in general.
Steffy is a four-year member of FFA, having received both individual and team recognition at both state and national conventions. He has been president of his class each of his four years, president of the National Honor Society, twice captain of the English Academic Super Bowl team.
Knaul described Steffy as being forthright, articulate, humble during the interviewing stage, implying that the scholarship committee looked forward to getting to know him beyond what certainly looked good on paper.
“In the end,” she said, “we felt the consistency he showed, the maturity that he presented in his responses and in his interactions with others ... as difficult as it was with this group of kids, he was the one that we thought really embodied the Lilly Scholarship this year.”
Knaul referenced an essay Steffy wrote about the importance of a fraction of a second, a nod to his achievements as a swimmer at South Putnam. To her and the committee, this demonstrated how committing the most to those small moments can make a difference.
Steffy has been named Western Indiana All-Conference five times and All-County nine times. He holds two individual WIC conference records, and also holds -- either individually or with a relay team -- four county records and five SPHS records.
Steffy has had his eyes on the Lilly scholarship since he was in sixth grade. After hearing a South Putnam senior had received it, he looked into the Lilly and ultimately knew he wanted to go after it.
“It’s just crazy being here,” he said. “I want to thank everybody along the way that’s helped me get here. Also just ‘Thank you’ to those people that may not realize they’ve been there, but have supported me along the way.
“It’s truly an honor, and something that I look forward to uphold is the Lilly Scholar name as I go throughout the rest of my life.”
Steffy looks to attend a college or university and major in civil engineering, as well as be able to continue swimming. Once he graduates and perhaps goes to graduate school, he said he wants to be close to Putnam County at least personally, if not professionally.
The Lilly scholarship provides full tuition and fees for four years of attendance at any Indiana college or university. In addition, recipients receive a $900 annual stipend for books and equipment.
Steffy is the 39th Putnam County student to be named a Lilly Scholar since the Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program was established in 1998.
