THREE PUSD SENIORS NAMED NATIONAL MERIT SEMI-FINALISTS

PEORIA, Ariz. – Centennial High School’s Jared Penner and Ironwood’s Kyle Stidham and Kevin Yang have been selected as National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists. Approximately 16,000 students were selected nationally to have the opportunity to compete for 8,200 Merit Scholarship awards worth $34 million.

First in his class of 525 seniors, Penner enjoys pushing himself academically, and particularly loves history and biology. He is the captain of the Scholar Bowl team and was featured in the December 2007 issue of Leadership for Student Activities, a publication from the National Honor Society. He competes on the Varsity tennis team and serves as the captain of the Varsity cross-country team. Last year, Penner and his partner placed second in the state 5A-II doubles tennis championship. In his off-school hours, he is a leader in AWANA, a non-denominational discipleship program through his church. He applied for and received a nomination to the United States Air Force Academy, and hopes to major in astronautical engineering or physics, focusing on manned exploration of space.

Stidham’s academic love is reading and poetry. He calls himself a “nerd for literature” and enjoys American authors Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman. He recently played the part of the Otto, Anne Frank’s father, in Ironwood’s production of The Diary of Anne Frank. The senior sees himself as a writer in the future, and possibly a college professor. He has a gift for languages and particularly loves Russian. Stidham applied to Georgetown University, and hopes to be accepted into the Foreign Language department and the Foreign Service department.

Anticipating an Ironwood three-peat win at this year’s Scholars Bowl, Yang hopes that his participation in the International Baccalaureate program will serve him well as a team member. He feels that this educational opportunity has provided him with a deep, rather than broad, experience. The semi-finalist plans to major in biology, chemistry or genetics after high school. He is an accomplished pianist and has played since he was six-years-old. He loves to read a variety of genres. Because of his status as a National Merit Semi-finalist, Yang is guaranteed admission and a scholarship to the University of Arizona. He has also applied to Stanford. Wherever he attends, his goal is to become a pediatrician, doing his residency in Maricopa County.

More than 1.4 million juniors in nearly 21,000 high schools entered the 2008 National Merit Program by taking the 2006 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. This test served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nation-wide pool of semi-finalists, which represents less than one percent of U. S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.