Four students in diocesan schools have been awarded Gertrude C. Kuehefuhs music scholarships.
Outstanding instrumental and choral music students receive the $250 awards to help them pay Catholic high school or college tuition. Two scholarships are awarded to high school seniors and two to eighth-graders.
Kuehefuhs was a longtime member of the Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral choir and a music teacher at Ohio State University. The awards are made possible from a gift received from her estate.
High School Instrumental Music
Fritzgerald Manuel
Fritzgerald “Fritz” Manuel is a percussionist who has played in the concert band, jazz band and pep band throughout his four years at Columbus St. Charles Preparatory School. He received the John Philip Sousa Band Award in his junior year for outstanding contributions to the school music program and occasionally has been asked by school band director Rick Brunetto to be bandleader in his absence.
Manuel is a Columbus St. Matthias Church member and often plays a drum set at Masses there. He is a freelance sound engineer and has worked at the Columbus Valley Dale ballroom, which Brunetto manages, for the past two years. He is a member of the St. Charles wrestling team and the school’s My Brother’s Keeper social service organization.
He will attend Capital University in the fall and major in music technology. He anticipates a career in the music industry as an audio engineer and artist manager and ultimately hopes to start a record label that is music- and art-focused.
Elementary Instrumental Music
Olivia Hoang
Olivia Hoang will attend Columbus Bishop Ready High School this fall and is a recent graduate of Grove City Our Lady of Perpetual Help School.
She has been playing and studying piano for the past nine years, has received many honors for her performances in National Federation of Music Clubs and Scale Olympics competitions and has taken part in Pianorama honor recitals since she was 6 years old.
Her school music teacher, Kim Nocero, said she is proficient at creating piano arrangements and writing poetry. She performs at holiday events in her parish, the parish art show and community functions. She also enjoys being part of the Out and About program, which brings music to hospitals and nursing homes.
High School Choral Music
Katrina Gunther-Reveal
Katrina “Kat” Gunther-Reveal, a student at Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School, will attend the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and will major in media production. She also anticipates singing as an alto in one of the university’s choirs. After graduation, she hopes to be involved in television production and to continue in a choir or musical group.
She started cantoring for all-school Masses at DeSales in her freshman year and is involved in all aspects of the school’s performing arts program. She is president of the Drama Club and a member of the liturgical and concert choirs and the Horizons choral group. She also has been on the lacrosse and swimming teams. Her other school activities include Student Council, Voice Corps reading for the blind, Student Ambassadors, Stallions for Social Justice and youth ministry. She also takes private piano lessons.
She was the youngest cantor and first full-Mass youth cantor at Westerville St. Paul Church.
Elementary Choral Music
Dominic Louiso
Dominic Louiso, a recent graduate of Reynoldsburg St. Pius X School, will be a freshman at Columbus Bishop Hartley High School this fall.
He has been singing in school choirs since third grade and joined the school band this past year. The school’s sixth- through eighth-graders put on a musical every year. He was the only sixth-grade boy in the 2021 musical, and music teacher Karen Smith said he inspired more boys to join him in the following two years.
He also plays the trumpet and guitar and was involved in other school activities, including the cross country, basketball and baseball teams, flag crew, Chess Club, Math Counts, Ski Club and Beta Club. At St. Pius X Church, he was an altar server, Vacation Bible School volunteer, member of the Forge youth group and participant in Eucharistic Adoration.