Congratulations to Ian Weller, the recipient of this year's Fedora Scholarship!
From the http://opensource.com/education article:
The winner of the 2010 Fedora Scholarship is Ian Weller, a student from Salina, Kansas who first got involved with Fedora as a software packager during his sophomore year of high school. "When I was browsing http://fedoraproject.org when I was installing FC6, it talked about how you could contribute to Fedora," Weller explains. "I think some of the reasons it gave were stuff like "it's good to give back!" and "you won't have to tell future employers what you did, you can tell them to google your name!" and other cheesy marketing stuff. But it worked... I think what led me to the Fedora project was that I was actively using it and it was the first thing I knew I could contribute back to." More of Ian Weller's story is available at his Fedora Scholarship recipient interview. "It's hard to understand something until it becomes a part of you," says Weller. "And free software is definitely a part of who I am now. I don't think I could go back."
I first had the chance to meet Ian in person at the inaugural POSSE in July 2009, when we were both interns for the Community Architecture team (this is where the semi-tradition of jetpacks at Marketing meetings started, by the way). It's been a pleasure to work with him ever since - and I know others in the Fedora community have been working with Ian for far longer.
There's an interview with Ian available on the Fedora wiki, and we'll be seeing him at the next FUDCon NA (and on IRC and other places in the meantime, I'm sure). Congratulations, Ian! Best of luck at the University of Kansas next year.