Awards Night in Buffalo Sees Deserving Youth Honored With CAC Scholarship and Destroyer Awards

The Ilio DiPaolo Scholarship Committee has named Kenji Walters of Southwestern High School (Jamestown, N.Y.) the recipient of the 2024 Cauliflower Alley Club scholarship award.

The award is one of seven scholarships awarded annually by the committee and is named in honor of the Cauliflower Alley Club, an organization close to the heart of the late Ilio DiPaolo.

The committee also provides a scholarship in honor of longtime CAC  board member, Dick “The Destroyer” Beyer. The 2024 Destroyer award winner was Matt Trim of Maple Grove High School (Jamestown, N.Y.) CAC member, Kurt Beyer, serves on the scholarship selection committee. He and his sister, Kris, also presented Trim with a ring-worn Destroyer mask.

Dan Murphy, Vice Chair of the CAC Advisory Committee, was on hand to represent the Cauliflower Alley Club and to present the CAC award to Walters.

The awards were presented Tuesday at a banquet at Ilio DiPaolo’s Restaurant and Banquet Facility in Blasdell, N.Y.

The CAC scholarship has been awarded since the Ilio DiPaolo Scholarship Fund was established in 1996. The fund was established in honor of Ilio DiPaolo and has raised more than $1.3 million to date for scholarships to high school wrestlers and organizations such as Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, the Center for Handicapped Children, Kids Escaping Drugs, and other charities.

"The entire team of volunteers at the Cauliflower Alley Club are very grateful to everyone that supports our mission of financially assisting people that made a living in the wrestling industry," said CAC President B. Brian Blair. "We have also been blessed in our ability to assist student athletes in regards to the Ilio DiPaulo scholarship fund! Twenty-eight years ago this program was brought to the CAC by our esteemed long time life member, the "Destroyer" Dick Beyer and has been going strong ever since."

"It's so refreshing to see good people working in collaboration to give our youth a fighting chance," continued Blair. "We cannot say thank you enough to our members and contributors to the CAC benevolent fund; without you none of this would be possible!"

*Photos courtesy of Daniel Palumbo.