Alito Called 'Perfect' Student; but Nominee Stayed Humble

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Byline: Guy Taylor, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

HAMILTON, N.J. - Judge Samuel Anthony Alito Jr., the son of two public-school teachers and prominent members of the Italian community surrounding nearby Trenton, was never the sort to draw attention to himself, unless it was praise for his perfect grades in school.

"He was painstakingly perfect," says Grace Bolge, who taught the Supreme Court nominee Latin in ninth grade and has long been a friend of his mother, still a resident of this quiet township 50 miles south of New York City.

"He was a wonderful student," she said. "However, I have to say this ... he was never a rah-rah cheerleading type of student. If anything, you could call him humble. He could have shown off because the kids knew he was bright, but ... he was not an attention-grabbing person at all."Far from the heated battles over his views on abortion and other matters that will hover over Judge Alito's Senate confirmation hearings beginning Jan. 9, is a quiet past - one where he grew up in a modest, middle-class Italian-American family on a path to Princeton, Yale, a star-studded legal career and an eventual federal judgeship.

Judge Alito was born April 1, 1950, in Trenton to Italian …