OCA-EVC YOUTH OF THE YEAR AWARD 2015
To download the flyer: 2015 OCA-EVC-CallforYouthAward
Purpose
This prestigious OCA-EVC Youth of the Year Award is given annually to an Asian Pacific Islander American youth residing within the area of OCA-ECV District who has demonstrated his/her outstanding records of leadership, community services, citizenship and character in extracurricular activities, accomplishments in academic, sport, art or other talents.
Eligibility to Enter Competition
1. All Asian Pacific Islander American youths between (including) the age of 16 and 18, reside in the Eastern Virginia Chapter.
2. The candidate shall be nominated, in writing, by an OCA-EVC member who is neither the parent nor legal guardian of the candidate.
3. The candidate shall be enrolled in high school, has earned a cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) of 3.0 (4.0 scale) or higher in the latest report card.
Nomination and Submission Process
1. The nominator shall submit the nomination letter addressed to “OCA Youth Award Committee”. The letter shall be in a sealed envelope, properly labeled, included in the complete package of application.
2. Do not send nomination letter (PS mail or email) individually to any OCA board member.
3. One OCA-EVC member can only nominate one candidate.
Package of Application
1. A copy of the candidate’s unofficial high school transcript.
2. An essay in typed letters, approximately 500 words. Refer to following page for essay topic.
3. A brief resume detailing the accomplishments of the candidate.
4. Two (2) confidential letters of recommendation each sealed by the respective referral in an envelope.
5. Item 1 to 4 above and the nomination letter shall be gathered in a single large envelope for submission. Candidate would be disqualified if the package is incomplete.
Deadline and Submission
1. Submission package shall be mailed to OCA-EVC, P.O. Box 65408, Virginia Beach, VA 23467, attention Shirley Chiang.
2. Package shall be post mark no later than Nov 13, 2014.
3. As an alternative to mailing, the application package can be hand delivered to Guo Xin (757-214-3792) before Nov 17. Submission by email will not be accepted.
Organization of Chinese Americans, Inc.
Eastern Virginia Chapter
P. O. Box 65408, Virginia Beach, VA 23467
http://www.ocaevc.org
ESSAY TOPIC
Please read the article from the New York Post in the next four pages. There are three groups of characters in
this story.
1. The “golden girl”;
2. The girl’s father and mother;
3. The group of men who executed the killing.
Each group of these three played a role to the suffering and the ultimate crime. You are asked to choose one group of characters from the above three, and put your focus on it to discuss your thoughts on this human tragedy. You may decide the title of your essay.
Winner’s Prize:
Youth of the Year $300
Youth of Achievement $200
Outstanding Youth $100
The‘golden girl’ who hired hit men to kill her parents
July 28, 2015 | 12:39pm
On the outside, Jennifer Pan looked like the golden child.
By News.com.au
Jennifer Pan.
Photo: York Regional Police
The ‘golden girl’ who hired hit men to kill her parents | New York Post Page 1 of 9
http://nypost.com/2015/07/28/the-golden-girl-who-hired-hit-men-to-kill-her-parents/ 10/5/2015
Wearing the cloak of a perfect student from a Catholic school, and later the veil of a university graduate with a pharmacology degree, she made her parents, Bich Ha and Huei Hann Pan, very proud.
But what would later unfold would be a story of love, hate, lies and murder. Jennifer’s parents were hard-working laborers employed in auto-part manufacturing.
The former Vietnamese refugees were frugal so their two children could get a good start in life. They valued education and were strict parents to Jennifer and her younger brother, Felix.
But Jennifer was a light of brilliance in their world.
As a child, Jennifer was enrolled in piano lessons and figure skating. She’d hoped to compete at an Olympic level until she tore a ligament.
She had practiced martial arts, she was a good swimmer and on top of all of her extracurricular activities, she also studied late into the night.
Partying and dating were forbidden in Jennifer’s home. Education was everything. Jennifer had felt immense pressure to be what her parents wanted her to be. But she wasn’t coping, the Washington Post revealed.
In eighth grade, she had hoped to become the valedictorian of her class. She missed out.
And so began a slow demise from overachiever to the darkest of liars.
In an intricate tale of sinister horror that unfolded, it would be revealed how Jennifer was living a double life — full of forgery and deceit.
In an article in Toronto Life `Karen K. Ho, who knew the family and went to school with Jennifer, revealed the shocking web of lies and sinister plot Jennifer would concoct, which would later destroy lives — including Jennifer’s own.
Weaving the web of lies
While her parents thought she was a straight-A student, Jennifer was actually receiving B grades.
So she started to forge her report cards.
Jennifer also began cutting herself.
She was covering up for deep feelings of inadequacy.
Despite this, she was accepted early to Ryerson University in Toronto. But she failed one of her math classes in her last year of high school and the offer was withdrawn.
Desperate not to disappoint her parents, she instead pretended to go to college.
She collected used textbooks. She faked a scholarship so her parents wouldn’t know why she didn’t have university fees to pay.
And while her parents thought she was heading off to study, Jennifer would actually be going to the public library instead.
When it came time to graduate, Jennifer lied and said there were not enough tickets for her parents to attend the ceremony.
Hatching a plan for murder
Finally, Bich and Hann became suspicious of their daughter and they began to follow her.
When Jennifer was finally caught, after lying about having a job at a hospital, her misery soon escalated. Her parents became even more strict on their daughter, who was now an adult.
No mobile phones, no computers, no more dates with her boyfriend Daniel Wong. Even the odometer on the car was monitored.
Jennifer was ordered to continue her education. And she was constantly checked.
Daniel broke off their relationship, and that was the tipping point for Jennifer.
Later, she would catch up with a man named Andrew Montemayor, with whom she had attended primary school.
It was in his company that she started to think about how she could get rid of her strict parents.
Along with Montemayor’s roommate Ricardo Duncan, they began to hatch a plot.
But it wasn’t until later, when she started to reconnect with Daniel, that a plan to hire a hit on her parents came about.
Daniel supplied Jennifer with a new mobile phone and connected her with a man named Lenford “Homeboy” Crawford. Crawford wanted $10,000 for the hit on Jennifer’s parents. But as the murder plans became firmer, Daniel wanted out of the deal.
Execution
On the night Jennifer decided to execute her plan, just after 10 p.m., “Crawford, [David] Mylvaganam and a third man named Eric Carty walked through the front door, all three carrying guns,” Toronto Life reported.
Bich and Hann were taken downstairs, their heads were covered with blankets.
Hann was shot twice, once in the face. Bich was shot three times in the head.
Miraculously, Hann survived — and he remembered everything.
The murder trial began in 2014 and lasted 10 months.
“When the guilty verdict was delivered, she showed no emotion, but once the press had left the courtroom, [Jennifer] wept, shaking uncontrollably,” Toronto Life reported.
“For the charge of first-degree murder, Jennifer received an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years; for the attempted murder of her father, she received another sentence of life, to be served concurrently. Wong, Mylvaganam and Crawford each received the same sentence.”
Carty’s lawyer became ill during the trial. His trial has been rescheduled for early 2016, according to Toronto Life.