December 18, 2009

CHICAGO – There are some 4,500 auxiliary police in New York City. One of them, a volunteer on foot patrol in the 26th precinct, is Raphael Graybill, a 20-year-old student from Great Falls, Mont. – a Lutheran and one of 32 Americans named as 2010 recipients of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships.

The scholarships support two-year educational experiences "for exceptional all-around students" at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. This year's U.S. winners were selected from 805 nominees by colleges.

"It's very humbling," said Graybill in an interview. "It's an exciting process, and it's nice to see that a lot of hard work in school pays off."

Graybill, a political science major at Columbia University, New York City, learned last month that he will head to Oxford next fall. He is considering a course of study in political theory, social anthropology or theology, and will decide on the topic soon, he said.

This week he learned he will be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa at Columbia.

Graybill is a member of Bethel Lutheran Church, Great Falls, and attends St. Peter Lutheran Church, Manhattan, while he's at school. He is the son of Turner Graybill and the Rev. Jessica R. Crist, bishop of the Montana Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

"I am very proud of him, of course," Crist said. "This is such a wonderful opportunity for him to broaden his horizons. He has the gift of two years with no strings attached."

Competing for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship is not new for the family. Crist said her husband and their daughter, Rhiannon, were both Rhodes Scholarship finalists. Crist herself was not eligible for the scholarship when she was a college student because at that time women could not compete for Rhodes.

A few days before he was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship, Graybill was awarded a prestigious Marshall Scholarship, which provides financing "for young Americans of high ability to study for a degree in the United Kingdom," according to the Web site. Graybill said he decided to forego the Marshall for the Rhodes because the Marshall scholarship is awarded to a runner-up if the recipient declines; Rhodes scholarships have no such provision, he said.

In the past two years Graybill has lived out his interest in politics, serving as a Montana delegate to the Democratic National Convention and working for the Montana Democratic Party on legislative and statewide elections in 2008. Last summer he worked with the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's team working on health legislation.

For now, Graybill, once Columbia's ski team captain, is working toward graduation and walking his beat in Morningside Heights/West Harlem. Serving as an auxiliary police officer is something Graybill got into when he saw a recruiting advertisement on a subway in New York and went to training classes.

"Young people are interested in community service, giving back and doing interesting things," he said. "My friends do lots of other things – mine just happens to be the police department."

Graybill's job as an auxiliary police officer is to provide a police presence to deter crime. Other officers actually investigate crimes and respond to specific complaints, he said. "My (police) supervisor always said that the best way to give back to the community is to protect it, and that's what auxiliary police do."

American politics is his passion, aided by his Lutheran background. "Faith informs my values and motivates my actions," he said. "Faith informs a lot of what I do. It isn't always something you wear on your sleeve. It's certainly ever-present and all-pervasive in your work."

Dr. Kathleen Knight, associate professor of political science at Columbia, was among those who recommended Graybill for the Rhodes Scholarship. Graybill had been a student in three of her classes during his time at Columbia. He often visited her to talk about his interest in politics.

"He is the most outstanding student that I think I'd ever seen. I was always surprised to hear about the number of activities he was involved in. You seldom find somebody that has that much responsibility and is thinking that far ahead. He always worked incredibly hard," she said in an interview.

Knight said she often observed him helping other students. "He is a particularly generous individual. He certainly set a new bar for me in terms of what to expect from students."

Graybill will have plenty of time to consider his future while in the United Kingdom. He said he is considering possibly attending law school, or maybe divinity school. Eventually, he said, he wants to return to his native Montana after completing his education. Graybill said he may be interested in opportunities for public service there.

"I can hardly think of a better way to live out faith and values than serving in government or in law. Public life is certainly a way to live out what you believe," Graybill said.

Information about Rhodes Scholarships is at http://www.rhodesscholar.org/on/.

ELCA News Service