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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Over 400 attendees gathered at the Westmoreland Club Saturday evening to honor an esteemed member of the community and raise funds to assist students looking to become the first college graduates in their families.</p><p>Wilkes University held its annual Founders Gala, announcing attorney Eugene Roth as this year&#8217;s recipient of the President&#8217;s Medal, the university&#8217;s highest honor.</p><p>Acting as the university&#8217;s premiere event, the gala was created six years ago to bring together students, community pillars, local businessmen and more to raise money that helps students become the first college graduates of their families.</p><p>&#8220;Half of our undergraduate students are first-generation, and that&#8217;s such an important part of who we are,&#8221; Wilkes President Patrick Leahy explained.</p><p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter what you are if you&#8217;re not changing lives, and Wilkes University is changing lives,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;We bring in 50 percent of our students whose families have never achieved a college degree and we do everything we can to support these students.&#8221;</p><p>Three students who have directly benefitted from the First Generation Scholarship Fund were able to speak to the crowd during the event, expressing how achieving a degree has helped them better their future.</p><p>For recent graduate Romeo Rosario, earning a psychology degree means he can go on to help people just as he was helped himself. Growing up on modest income the Allentown resident said his mother always pushed the importance of education.</p><p>Having access to the scholarship fund has not only allowed him to get a degree, but pay the kindness forward.</p><p>&#8220;I definitely want to look back in 50 or 40 years and say that I had a successful career helping others who needed help,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Students continuing to help others is just the word Roth wanted to hear.</p><p>The 1957 Wilkes graduate echoed worlds of humility and giving back while describing the importance of offering such a fund to students like Rosario.</p><p>His own parents having been immigrants, Roth was accepted into the university after graduating from GAR. Admitting that he didn&#8217;t earn the best grades, he said he fumbled through his first year of college until finding a great source of mentorship and support from the staff at the university.</p><p>&#8220;As a result of being at Wilkes and having the kind of mentoring that was made available to me &#8230; I did well, graduated in 1957 and was admitted on a hair&#8217;s breadth to law school and wound up graduating with honors,&#8221; he said.</p><p>From there Roth thrived, and is now the longest-serving attorney for Rosenn Jenkins and Greenwald, having earned countless awards throughout his lifetime for his work &#8212; professional and to the community.</p><p>Surrounded by his family and friends he spoke of the scholarship he and his wife, Connie, created in honor of their late son, Lawrence, which is bestowed upon a student who has an interest in law, politics or community service.</p><p>&#8220;I feel to this day that I still owe Wilkes for managing to make me into a mensch (person of integrity and honor),&#8221; Roth said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Wilkes alumnus and former board chair Eugene Roth, Esq., &#8216;57, center, chats with friends before being awarded the President&#8217;s Medal during the sixth annual Wilkes University Founders Gala at the Westmoreland Club in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday evening. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060219WilkesFounders_1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Wilkes alumnus and former board chair Eugene Roth, Esq., &#8216;57, center, chats with friends before being awarded the President&#8217;s Medal during the sixth annual Wilkes University Founders Gala at the Westmoreland Club in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday evening. </caption0><photoCredit0>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060219WilkesFounders_2-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Wilkes University President Patrick Leahy, center back, greets guests at the door during the sixth annual Founders Gala at the Westmoreland Club in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday evening. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060219WilkesFounders_2-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Wilkes University President Patrick Leahy, center back, greets guests at the door during the sixth annual Founders Gala at the Westmoreland Club in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday evening. </caption1><photoCredit1>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Marcella Kester</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div>

Roth honored at Wilkes University Founders Gala