Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Two Students Honored By National Merit Scholarship Program

Leonard Gills, principal at Gurdon High School announced Monday that Whitney Hogue and Andrew Wilson have been named Commended Students in the year 2000 National Merit Scholarship Program.

A letter of commendation from the school and National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which conducts the program, will be presented by the principal to these scholastically talented seniors.

Some 34,000 commended students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise. Although they will not continue in the competition for Merit Scholarship awards to be offered next spring, the students placed among the top five percent of more than one million students who entered the year 2000 Merit Program by taking the 1998 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

A merit program spokesperson commented, "The young men and women named commended students have demonstrated outstanding academic potential by their high performance in the extremely competitive National Merit Program.

"These scholastically talented youth represent a valuable resource to our nation and it is important to publicly recognize their attainments and to credit schools for the important part they play in their development.

"We hope this recognition will help to broaden the educational opportunities of Commended Students and serve as encouragement to them and other able students to develop their abilities to the fullest."