Members of the

Rich-Mar Rotary Club recently passed out more than 700 free dictionaries to third grade students in both the Pine-Richland and the Mars school districts.The club has been distributing the dictionaries to students for four years.The club also made a recent donation to the Pine-Richland Youth Center for literacy programs.In addition, the club presented $6,500 to Andy Brown and Michael Stanton of Hosanna Industries. Hosanna will use the funds to purchase a stake bed truck for their ministries.———The University of Padova, Padova, Italy, has named

Raymond Sedwick the winner of the Bepi Colombo Prize for 2006.The Bepi Columbo Prize is for outstanding achievements in the field of research and of technology transfer and is open to researchers around the world.Sedwick, the associate director of the Space Systems Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was chosen from a field of 10 finalists. He is a 1988 graduate of Karns City High School and studied aerospace engineering at Penn State University. He received both his masters and doctorate from MIT.The research submitted for consideration of the Bepi Columbo prize dealt with formation flying of low earth orbit satellites.Sedwick was presented a cash prize of 50,000 Euros ($65,789 in U.S. dollars). during a ceremony held at the University of Padova.———

Clearview Mall recently presented a donation of several toys to the

Lifesteps organization, for use in its children's programs.For information about Lifesteps programs and services, call 724-283-1010 or visit www.lifesteps.net.———Winners at the

Butler Duplicate Bridge Club's holiday party and championship game held Dec. 21 were

Polly Black and

Alan Martin. Tying for second place were

Jean Purvis and

Jean Reitmeyer and

Ray Kramer and

Tino Powers.