Author: Donnie Sewell

Kelvin Orduna, a senior from Huntsville at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts, has been selected as a Coca-Cola Scholars-Select.

The Coca-Cola Scholars Program is sponsored by the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, a joint effort by The Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola bottlers across the country to create the largest corporate-sponsored, achievement-based scholarship program in the United States, according to a release announcing the 2025 recipients. This is the 37^th year of program.

This year’s program recognized 150 high school seniors nationwide who each will receive a $20,000 college scholarship. This year’s recipients were selected from a pool of more than 105,000 applications. Coca-Cola Scholars-Select will attend a Coca-Cola Scholars Weekend in Atlanta in early April where they will participate in the Coca-Cola Scholars Leadership Development Institute.

“Being selected as a Coca-Cola Scholar is an incredible recognition of the service I have done to create positive change in my community,” Orduna said. “I am excited to join a network or leaders and visionaries who are just as committed to transformative change in their communities.

“The Coke Scholars Program is much more than a scholarship — it’s a lifelong membership in a community of trailblazers. I’m eager to learn from diverse experiences and perspectives of my fellow scholars, who are spearheading advancements in research, policy, advocacy and entrepreneurship.”

Orduna said he felt a mix of excitement and nervousness when he received an email from the Coca-Cola Scholar Foundation with an update.

“It took a moment for the ‘You are a 2025 Coca-Cola Scholar!’ message to sink in, but all I said was, ‘I just won $20,000.’ Out of 105,000 applicants, only 0.14 percent were chosen, and to be chosen from Arkansas was a reminder of the incredible talent that exists within our state,” Orduna said.

Four Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students were selected as winners in the 2024/2025 Thea Foundation Scholarship Competition.

Seniors Olivia Busby of Heber Springs, Hannah Dalencourt-King of Poplar Grove, AB Maness of Benton and Jaime Hernandez Perez of Decatur were awarded $3,000 scholarships for their entries in the competition.

Jaime Hernandez Perez

More than 300 students from across Arkansas entered the competition for a chance at part of $219,000 in scholarships, according to the foundation’s website. Thirty-six students in five different categories were awarded scholarships. ASMSA’s students were recognized in the Visual Arts category with Dalencourt-King placing seventh, Busby placing eighth, Maness taking ninth-place and Hernandez Perez placing 10^th. The students’ artwork as well as a full list of scholarship winners may be found on its website.

Other categories in which awards were announced included Performing Arts, Creative Writing, Film and Fashion. The annual competitions are for Arkansas graduating high school seniors. The organization’s first scholarship was awarded in 2002. The program is now endowed and has awarded more than $2.8 million in scholarships to Arkansas students, according to its website.

A piece by Preston Lowe, a senior at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, has been accepted into an exhibit for young artists sponsored by the Central Arkansas Library System.

Lowe’s piece “Afro Daze” will be included in the “Imagining Black Futures: Young Artists Envision Afrofuturism” exhibition, which invites young artists in the ninth through 12^th grades “to explore themes of Black identity, autonomy, and liberation through the lens of Afrofuturism,” according to the system’s website. The exhibition will include paintings, finished ink/pastel/multimedia drawings, printmaking, photography, videography, fiber and textile art, jewelry and sculpture. It will be displayed at CALS Mini Main Library from Feb. 15 through May 17.

“Afro Daze” is an acrylic on canvas using the layering and scratching technique. “I wanted to create something bold and experimental. I’ve always had a thing for afros, so I decided to incorporate that into the painting,” said Lowe of Mayflower.

Lowe’s piece will be considered for two awards at the show — Best of Show and People’s Choice. The awards will be announced at an opening reception on Feb. 15.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts welcomed University of Arkansas System President Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jay Silveria to campus for his first visit the Hot Springs campus on Feb. 4.

Silveria was chosen to lead the UA System in November after longtime President Donald R. Bobbitt announced his retirement las summer. Silveria began his tenure on Jan. 15.

During his time at ASMSA, Silveria visited with Executive Director Corey Alderdice as well as a group of constituents that included faculty and staff members, parents, and members of the ASMSA Board of Visitors. He also participated in a campus tour led by a group of Student Ambassadors.

Silveria is planning to visit each of the UA System’s 21 campuses and units this semester. ASMSA was the first stop of his tour. During his visit with campus constituents, Silveria touted the System’s focus on two most important aspects — student access and success.

“If we’re not involved in creating student success and creating student access, then what is our role? What are we doing?” Silveria said. “The fact that those two are priorities for the System is really the major reason that drew me here. I’m privileged to be a part of it.”

Silveria said it is important to find ways to better integrate ASMSA into the System. While that will take ASMSA sharing ideas with him on how to do that, it is also important for the other System members to better understand what the school and its students have to offer.

After his visit, Silveria said that it was obvious how deeply the ASMSA’s faculty and staff care for the institution.

“That is evidenced by the students I spent time with how much they could talk about how the faculty and staff care about them. It was story after story about so-and-so did this for me and so-and-so did that for me. It’s so obvious that everyone really cares,” Silveria said.

Three Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts students recently learned their artwork was selected for recognition in the Fall 2024 CelebratingArt Contest sponsored by CelebratingArt and Blick Art Materials.

Students who are recognized in the contest are featured in CelebratingArt hardcover book edition. ASMSA students selected for the Fall 2024 edition were seniors Leah Fouste of Eureka Springs, Preston Lowe of Mayflower and AB Maness of Benton.

Fouste’s piece selected for the book is an oil painting named “Caravaggio-ish.” Fouste said the piece was inspired by the work of the artist Caravaggio and his “interesting use of light in his paintings.” Fouste earned a “High Merit” award for her submission.

“I was quite enthusiastic about being chosen to be published in the book,” Fouste said. “I think the publication means a lot to me because it is a step towards my future career in the arts.”

Lowe submitted “Young Amber Nichole,” an acrylic and collage magazine on canvas with palette knife texture. “I wanted to create something bold and experimental,” Lowe said. “The painting is a reimagining of my mother in her youth. I accentuated her dress with a striking collage element, allowing it to stand out, while the colors I chose were ones I had fallen in love with.”

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Lowe said having a piece selected for recognition “means so much to me because it feels like a recognition of the emotion and intricacy I poured into the piece. It reassures me that I’m on the right path with my art, motivating me to keep making what feels right. I was in complete shock to find that I’ve accomplished something as huge as this.”

Lowe also had an art piece and writing submission included in the “Our Voices Scholarship” magazine. He said that opportunities such as these fuel his hunger for creating more art with the hope of making work that speaks to others.

Maness’ piece that was accepted is an acrylic paint on canvas called “Master Copy of Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” inspired by a Vincent Van Gogh painting called “Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette.”  Maness said she was “honored to be considered for publication. Being able to see my art published means that the hard work I’ve put into my art for the past six years has been for something.”

Katelynn Cavin, a junior from Mount Vernon, won the ASMSA Poetry Out Loud competition and will represent the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts at the state competition in March.

Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition for high school students across the country, according to the program’s website. Students recite selected poetry before a group of judges who score the students’ performance and recitation accuracy.

Students qualify for the state competition through a contest sponsored by a school or another recognized organization. The winner of the state competition will have the opportunity to compete in the national competition. The statewide Poetry Out Loud competition, sponsored by The Arkansas Art Council with the Division of Arkansas Heritage, will be held Saturday, March 1, at the Ron Robinson Theatre in Little Rock. The state champion will have the opportunity to compete at the national level for a chance to win $20,000 this spring in Washington, D.C.

This was the fourth year ASMSA has hosted a school competition, which was held Jan. 15 at the Hot Springs Wednesday Night Poetry event at Kollective Coffee + Tea. During the event, each competitor recited two poems, one from memory and one read from the page.

Cavin recited “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Tennyson and read “Ars Poetica” by Jose Olivarez. At the state competition, Cavin will have to recite three poems from memory.

Other students who placed in the competition were April Adams, a junior from Clinton, second place; Sephora Faiq, a junior from Arkadelphia, third place; and Donovan Hurtarte, a junior from Little Rock, fourth place.

Madeline Liachenko, an Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts senior from Benton, has been recognized as a U.S. Presidential Scholar Candidate.

The U.S. Presidential Scholars program is considered one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students. It was established in 1964 by executive order of the president to recognize and honor some of the nation’s most distinguished graduating high school seniors.

The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars’ review committee selects honored scholars annually based on their academic success, personal characteristics, leadership, and service activities, in addition to the quality and content of their essays.

Liachenko was among almost 90 Arkansas students selected as candidates this year. Each year, more than 4,000 candidates are identified for the component of the program that focuses on academic achievement as well as having scored exceptionally well on the SAT or the ACT.  Eligible students are U.S. citizens and legal permanent U.S. residents who will graduate or receive their high school diploma between January and August of the current program year and have taken the ACT or SAT assessment on or before October of the previous year.

Approximately 800 students will be named semifinalists in April after the next round of review, and up to 161 students will be recognized in May as Presidential Scholars. If a student is selected as a U.S. Presidential Scholar, they will be honored in Washington, D.C., in June. To commemorate their achievement, the Scholars are awarded the U.S. Presidential Scholars medallion at a ceremony sponsored by the White House.

When the 95^th General Assembly opened session on Jan. 13, Lincoln E. Barnett was sworn in to represent District 63 in the Arkansas House of Representatives, marking the next step in a political journey that began as a young child in Blackfish Lake, Ark., a small community near Interstate 40 located between Forrest City and West Memphis.

Growing up, Barnett attended school in Hughes. After riding the school bus home one day during his kindergarten year, he recalls asking his mother a question: “Mom, what’s wrong with Hughes?”

“To which she replied, ‘Baby, there’s a lot wrong with Hughes,’” Barnett said. “To which I thought, ‘Well, what are we going to do about it?’”

The conversation left an impression on Barnett, a member of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts Class of 2007. An encounter in sixth grade with the then-mayor of Hughes sparked an interest in one day becoming the mayor of Hughes himself. He would do so in 2018 when at the age of 29 he was elected as the youngest mayor in the town’s history as well as the second African American to hold the position.

Prior to serving as Hughes’ mayor, Barnett served as a member of the Hughes School District school board from 2012-2015, representing rural areas of the district including his home communities of Blackfish Lake and Heth. Declining enrollment forced the school district to consolidate with the West Memphis School District in 2015 in accordance with Act 60 of 2003.

“Many in the city of Hughes began to lose hope because they saw the school as the heart of the community,” Barnett said. “I initially felt that way also, but after engaging in community activism, preparing our community for the forced merger and advocating for students, parents and families, that childhood thought of ‘Well, what are we going to do about it?” led me to seeing no other option than offering myself to and for the service of the city of Hughes in the capacity of mayor.”

Barnett said his goal was to restore hope to and empower the people of Hughes by reminding them that it was the people who were the heart of the community and not the school. After his first term as mayor, he decided to seek the House District 63 seat, but he lost to the incumbent in the primary by 258 votes. He was soon back in the mayor’s office, however, when the Hughes City Council asked him to return as mayor in January 2023 after his successor abruptly resigned two days into their term of office.

“So that makes me both the 17^th and 19^th mayor of Hughes,” Barnett said.

In 2024, Barnett again decided to seek the District 63 seat. In the March 2024 primary, he earned a spot in an April 2024 runoff for the Democratic nomination and was then elected in the November 2024 General Election.

“I wanted better for my regional community, and I’m willing to do more than just complain. I ran because I was willing to step up and try to make a difference,” Barnett said. Now he gets that opportunity to do so in the Arkansas House of Representatives. “Our part of the state has many challenges, and it will take engaged leaders with the support of engaged citizens to collectively bring about and advocate for the progression of Eastern Arkansas and the overall state in general.”

Barnett said his service as both a school board member and a mayor in a small rural area has given him first-hand experience of direct citizen engagement to learn about and address from a ground level the challenges and obstacles people in the region and state face.

While a student at ASMSA, Barnett was involved in student governance, served as a Community Leader in the residence hall, served as president of the Rotary Interact Club and in other student organizations. He said that as a student he was challenged “to lead as a scholar among my peers in a rigorous setting which helped me sharpen my skills of critical thinking and thinking outside the box. As a student at ASMSA, I enjoyed the challenges each day brought.”

Barnett said he fondly remembers the time spent with his friends and peers during free time at ASMSA as well as mentoring his fellow students as a Community Leader. He also praised the wisdom he gained from his favorite teachers — Dr. Carolyn Hunter and Ernestine Ross. “They along with my mother helped keep me focused and challenged me daily to be my best in whatever I pursued and within whatever space I occupied.”

The freshman representative will serve on the House of Representatives Education Committee; the Aging, Children & Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs Committee; and as an alternate on the Joint Budget Committee. He hopes to use his time in the Legislature in a way that will most benefit his constituents, he said.

“My goals include giving voice to my constituents by supporting and proposing policies that will improve their quality of life and actively speaking against policies that will negatively impact their life. Also, I am looking forward to working across the political spectrum to bring about progressive change that will move the state of Arkansas forward and improve our state’s standing in the areas of public and affordable higher education, public and mental health, jobs and business growth, and food security.”

Barnett holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Morehouse College and a Master’s of Divinity with a concentration in ethics and counseling from Memphis Theological Seminary. He serves as pastor of Salem Baptist Church in Forrest City. In June 2024, he married Dr. Freda Cunningham, Pharm.D.

Eighteen student musicians at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts qualified for the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association Region II Senior High All-Region Concert Band.

Dr. Patrycja Krakowiak, a life sciences Instructor of Excellence at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, has been named a Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) recipient.

The award recognizes outstanding science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers who have demonstrated a commitment to professional development, innovative teaching techniques and technology in their classroom. The program is conducted by the National Science Foundation on behalf of The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.