COLCHESTER, VT. – Benjamin O. Hartnett of Auburn and a student at Edward Little High School was named the 2007 recipient of the Saint Michael’s College Scholarship and Service Book Award. The award recognizes students who demonstrate a commitment to volunteerism and leadership through community service.

Saint Michael’s, located in the Burlington area of Vermont, was founded on the belief that serving others is part of its Catholic tradition. Through the award, the school seeks to honor those who demonstrate the true spirit of volunteerism. Award recipients are high school juniors who are inductees of the National Honor Society or an equivalent school-sponsored honors organization.

Hartnett was presented the book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers” by Loung Ung, a 1993 Saint Michael’s College graduate. In “First They Killed My Father,” Ung gives a powerful autobiographical account, from a child’s perspective, of surviving captivity during the genocidal Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Ung has written a riveting memoir about a family’s survival and, in turn, about the development of Ung’s ongoing crusade for a landmine-free world.