Student Selected For Swiss Summer-This Day In Norwood History-June 20, 1969

Leslie E. Finn Awarded Local AFS Scholarship for International Exchange Tour

Leslie E. Finn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Finn of 15 Marlboro Road, will leave Norwood Tuesday for a summer in Zurich, Switzerland, under the sponsorship of the American Field Service (AFS). The Norwood High School student, who is just completing her junior year, was recently chosen as recipient of the local $850 Americans Abroad International Scholarship. Leslie was selected from a field of 28 juniors at Norwood High. After individual interviews here, this group was narrowed down to eight. Then a group interview brought the field to two. These two names were sent to the main office in New York where the final selection was made.

Leslie will fly from New York City to Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday. She will then take a train to Zurich where she will undergo one week’s orientation before meeting her host family. In Switzerland, she will live with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fritz Zwonicek and their two daughters, Christiane, 18, and Danielle, 15. Mr. Zwonicek is an insurance agent. Leslie will spend about four weeks in a Swiss school and the rest of the time vacationing. Her host family is interested in touring, mountain-climbing, and music.

Leslie moved to Norwood from Brookline nine years ago. She has been a member of the high school’s concert band, concert chorale, and madrigal singers. She also is a member of the National Honor Society, the student council, and the tennis team. Leslie’s foreign language training has been in French, which she has studied since the sixth grade. Although most people in Zurich speak German, her Swiss family is French-speaking. Leslie also has been studying German books on her own lately and is not apprehensive about the possible language barrier. “I’ll listen very closely,” she says. “I think this trip will be really great. I’m very excited. I can’t wait to leave.”

The AFS program is designed to provide an opportunity for high school students to experience everyday living for a summer in a foreign land. The Norwood scholarship is made possible by contributions from individuals, organizations, clubs, and businesses. A girl from Thailand will spend nearly a year in Norwood and will attend the high school in September under the AFS exchange program. This year’s foreign exchange student, Barbara Meuller of Hamburg, Germany, will leave Norwood on June 28 for a four-week bus tour of the eastern United States before returning home. After a four-day parley in Washington, D.C. with all 3,100 AFS foreign students who spent the past school year in the United States, Barbara will fly home from New York City on July 23. She has one more year of high school to complete in Germany.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger