Best friends since they were in fifth grade, Heather Rumpf and Megan Nieckowski have reached a summit in Girl Scouting together — 2004 Girl Scouts of Distinction. They join four other girls in the area named for the elite award by the Girl Scouts of Delaware-Raritan. They will participate in a year-long mentorship program with the council’s Women of Distinction, working with successful women who have built careers, raised families, and still find the time to be involved in their communities.
“The mentoring aspect of our Women of Distinction tradition shows girls that successful women are everywhere and that through hard work, they can achieve any goal they set for themselves,” says Dianne Fairbanks, CEO of the Girl Scout council. “Not only are the Girl Scouts inspired by the strength that they see in the women, but the women are just as inspired by the determination of the Girl Scouts.”
Nieckowski, 18, is a senior at High School South. In her 13th year as a Girl Scout, she began as a Daisy Scout when she was in kindergarten. She has received her Girl Scout Leadership Award and the Silver and Gold Awards.
Through the Girl Scouts, she serves the homeless through HomeFront projects. She also works on community projects to support the Red Cross and the University Medical Center at Princeton. At Dutch Neck Presbyterian Church, she serves as a youth group leader.
Born in Princeton, she has lived in West Windsor for 13 years. She is the daughter of Ruth Nieckowski, a homemaker, and the late Ken Nieckowski, who died in 1993, when Megan was only eight.
Interested in pursuing a career in physical education, Megan is active in soccer, softball, and the High School South varsity swim team. To gain teaching experience, she helps with gym classes at Grover Middle School. She has already been accepted to the University of Rhode Island.
She will be working with Woman of Distinction winner, C. Vivian Stringer, the head women’s basketball coach at Rutgers University. Inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001, she was also named one of the “101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports” by Sports Illustrated in 2003.
Rumpf, 18, is also a senior at High School South, where she carries a 3.4 grade point average. A Girl Scout for nine years, she is a member of Troop 1072. She has spent Girl Scout community services hours planting trees for Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association and dune grass on Long Beach Island, and helping to celebrate the holidays at an annual party of an area homeless family.
Her Gold Award project is almost complete. She has surpassed her goal to work with others to sew 12 quilts for kids with cancer. So far, 14 quilts are finished. Her troop leader is Linda Marsi.
Her mother, Bonnie Rumpf, is the West Windsor and Plainsboro Girl Scout service unit director, and works at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Her father, Robert, works for the State of New Jersey. Her sister, Ashley, 15, is a sophomore at High School South.
Rumpf has been paired with Woman of Distinction, Amy B. Mansue, president and CEO of Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside. Mansue, raised in Plainsboro, is a Hightstown resident. Both Rumpf and Mansue are active in St. David’s Episcopal Church.
Mansue provides leadership to the team of clinicians providing specialized care to close to 10,”000 patients at 10 sites throughout New Jersey. She was previously Deputy Commissioner in the New Jersey Department of Human Services and served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor James McGreevey and a policy advisor to Governor Jim Florio.
The Girls Scouts of Distinction will be honored on Thursday, March 25, at Forsgate Country Club in Monroe. Each girl receives a $200 U.S. savings bond
