Author: Donnie Sewell

Seven Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students were named National Merit Finalists for the 2019-20 academic year by the National Merit Scholarship Corp. The National Merit Scholarship Corp. recently announced the names of the Finalists for the 65th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The students who are all members of the Class of 2020 will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth about $31 million that will be offered next spring.

The ASMSA seniors named Finalists are:

• Yoo-Jin Ahn of Jonesboro;
• Tristan Eoff of Little Rock;
• Carson Hardin of East End;
• Jason Hoang of Hartman;
• Howard Orlina of Little Rock;
• Emily Smith of Cabot; and
• Haven Whitney of Searcy.

To be considered for the National Merit Scholarship Program, students take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as a junior. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of anticipated graduating seniors.
Students were required to fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist standing, including a detailed scholarship application that includes information about their academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.

Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The National Merit Scholarship Corp. is a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance. It was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

Scholarships are underwritten by the corporation with its own funds and by approximately 400 business organizations and higher education institutions.

Three Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students earned a trip to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in May at the West Central Regional Science Fair held Feb. 26-28.

Victoria Hwang of Maumelle won first place overall followed by Catherine Kwon of Little Rock in second, Jason Hoang of Hartman in third place and Roriana Burgess of Blytheville taking fourth place. Hwang, Kwon and Hoang will compete in the Regeneron ISEF in Anaheim, Calif., in May.

Hwang’s project focused on removing a protein from cancer cells that would not allow them to reproduce and die thus providing treatment without harsh chemicals. Kwon researched ways to predict epileptic seizures through machine learning. Hoang studied bacteria in soil that may break down a common ingredient in plastics, allowing the plastic to degrade over time.

Students who placed in first through third in their individual categories are eligible to compete in the Arkansas State and Science and Engineering Fair that will be held April 3-4 at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. ASMSA has won the state overall school title at the state science fair for seven straight years.

Individual category awards included:

Animal Science: Amadeo Scott of West Fork, first; Maria Quintero-Pena of White Hall, second; Kaitlyn Pearson of Berryville, Lilli Hickman of Omaha and Peyton Manry of Melbourne, tied for third; and Chloe Kirk of Eurkea Springs, honorable mention.

Behavioral and Social Science: Team of Max Green of North Little Rock, Reed Karman of Little Rock and Rhiannon Smith of Bismarck, first place and winner of the American Psychological Association award; Abigail Bryan of Huntsville, second place; Michah Vess of Dover, third place; and the team of Benjamin Smith of Mountain Home and Ryan Reynolds of Hampton, honorable mention.

Cellular and Molecular Biology: Victoria Hwang of Maumelle, first place; Tristan Eoff of Little Rock, second place; and Kindall Evans of Dumas, third place.

Chemistry: Blayne Griffin of Conway, first place; Yoo-Jin Ahn of Jonesboro, second place; and Brayden Ireland of Harrison, third place.

Computer Science: Ronan Devlin of De Queen, first place and the recipient of the Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award; Jaden Turner of Sherwood, second place; Trinity Robinson of Fayetteville, third place; and Tyler Kuper of Van Buren, honorable mention.
Systems Software: Karsen Beck of Maumelle, first place; Devin Patel of Blytheville, second place; Isha Patel of White Hall, third place; and Hannah Grimes of Benton, honorable mention.

Earth Science: Team of Howard Orlina of Little Rock and Amanda Carson of Russellville, first place; team of Esther Filipek of Bismarck and Sydney Hazeslip of Cabot, second place; and Paul McDonald of Pine Bluff, third place.

Engineering — Electrical and Mechanical: Roriana Burgess of Blytheville, first place; Haven Whitney of Searcy, second place; Salim Al-Tamimi of Jacksonville, third place; and Cooper North of Conway and Caleb Brown of Harrisburg, honorable mentions.

Engineering — Materials and Bioengineering: Hyunseo Seok of Jonesboro, first place; Joshua Bryant of West Helena, second place; and the team of Luke Stouffer of Fort Smith and Ian Panzer of Hot Springs, third place.

Environmental Science: Jason Hoang of Hartman, first place; Ethan Talley of Conway, second place; team of Emily Smith of Cabot and Minola Lee of Charleston, third place; Tyler Crabtree of Altus and Whitney Hazeslip of Cabot, honorable mentions.

Mathematics: Team of David Huang of Little Rock and Jacob Holmes of Rector, first place and winners of the Mu Alpha Theta Award; Sarah Balenko of Russellville, second place; and Coen Winter of West Memphis, third place.

Medicine and Health Science: Catherine Kwon of Little Rock, first place; team of Nnume Nwankwo of Alexander and Macey Ross of Jonesboro, second place; Madelyn Talbert of Greers Ferry, third place; and Bailey Scoggins of Lepanto, honorable mention.

Microbiology: Team of Katrina Smith of Franklin, Gwyneth Coleman of Clarksville and Sarah Xie of White Hall, first place; Caitlin England of Magnet Cove, second place; team of Aly Navarro of Hot Springs and Laura Hansen of Rogers, third place; team of Lidia Belete of Marion and Aviance Haymon of Osceola, honorable mention; and Rachel Means of Carlisle, honorable mention.

Physics and Astronomy: Nova Ammerman of Cherokee Village, first place; and Kyle Smith of Emerson, second place.

Plant Science: Xander Adams of Arkadelphia, honorable mention.

Several special awards were also announced during Friday’s ceremony. They included:

Regeneron Science Talent Search Awards: Entrants included Ethan Talley of Conway, Blaine Martin of Texarkana and Victoria Hwang of Maumelle, who was chosen as a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar.

American Fisheries Society Outstanding Aquatic Science Contestant and Advisor: Maria Quintero-Pena of White Hall and ASMSA mathematics instructor Nikki Kennedy.

American Meteorological Society Outstanding Climate or Earth Science Project: Whitney Hazeslip of Cabot and the team of Esther Filipek of Bismarck and Sydney Hazeslip of Cabot.

ASM Materials Education Foundation Outstanding Materials Science Project: Team of Luke Stouffer of Fort Smith and Ian Panzer of Hot Springs.

Association of Women Geoscientists Outstanding Geoscience Project by a Female Student: Team of Emily Smith of Cabot and Minola Lee of Charleston.

NASA Earth Systems Award for Outstanding Earth Science: Team of Howard Orlina of Little Rock and Amanda Carson of Russellville.

NOAA Taking the Pulse of the Planet Award for Outstanding project in NOAA-related Science: Team of Esther Filipek of Bismarck and Sydney Hazeslip of Cabot.

Office of Naval Research Award for Outstanding Projects Related to the mission of Navy and Marine Corps: Jason Hoang of Hartman, Rorianna Burgess of Blytheville and Victoria Hwang of Maumelle.

Ricoh Sustainable Development Award for Outstanding SD Project: Salim Al-Tamimi of Jacksonville.

Society for In-Vitro Biology Award for Outstanding 11th-grade Life Science Project: Kindall Evans of Dumas.

Soybean Science Challenge Award for Best Project and Project Advisor: Joshua Bryant of West Helena and ASMSA physics instructor Shane Thompson.

USAF Awards for Best Projects supporting U.S. Air Force Mission: Catherine Kwon of Little Rock, Blayne Griffin of Conway, Hannah Grimes of Benton, Sarah Balenko of Russellville, Bailey Scoggins of Lepanto, Nova Ammerman of Cherokee Village, Karsen Beck of Maumelle and Haven Whitney of Searcy.

U.S. Metric Association Award for Best Use of SI Units: Brayden Ireland of Harrison.

Stockholm Junior Water Prize for Best Aquatic Science Project: Team of Emily Smith of Cabot and Minola Lee of Charleston.

Yale Science and Engineering Association Award for Best 11th-grade exhibit in Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry or Engineering: Hyunseo Seok of Jonesboro.

U.S. Agency for International Development Award: Team of Aishani Singh of Hot Springs and Sara Ali of Little Rock; honorable mention for Ethan Talley of Conway.

Oaklawn Foundation Community Innovation Award, created for the purpose of supporting communities in underserved areas in Arkansas. The award goes to a student or team who has done a project that could better humanity and improve conditions in the local community. The winner was Rorianna Burgess of Blytheville.

Arkansas Environmental Foundation Award: Jason Hoang of Hartman, Victoria Hwang of Maumelle and Catherine Kwon of Little Rock.

To view an album of photos from the awards ceremony, visit https://asmsa.me/2020scifairawardsphotos.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts will hold the annual West Central Regional Science Fair on Feb. 26-28 on campus. The science fair will be open to the public on Friday, Feb. 28 from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. in the Creativity and Innovation Complex on campus.

The West Central Regional Science Fair features exhibits by ASMSA students. Participants compete for the opportunity to attend the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the largest international science fair competition in May.

The public viewing of the West Central Regional Science Fair is an opportunity for the public to view some of the top competitors in the state. Participants also compete to qualify for the Arkansas State Science and Engineering Fair that will be held at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway on April 3-4. ASMSA has won the state science fair school title seven years in a row.

The regional fair awards ceremony will be held at 2:30 p.m. Friday. For more information about the West Central Regional Science Fair, visit https://sites.google.com/a/asmsa.org/wcrsf/home.

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts seniors Amanda Carson of Russellville and Caitlin England of Magnet Cove were recently named semifinalists for the prestigious Cooke College Scholarship Program.

The highly selective scholarship provides high-achieving students with financial need up to $40,000 annually for four years of college to enable them to attend a top college or university. The program is sponsored by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need. Since 2000, the foundation has awarded more than $200 million in scholarships to more than 2,700 students from eighth grade through graduate school.

The 477 semifinalists were chosen from a pool of more than 5,300 applicants. Students from all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico and 420 school applied for the scholarship. Approximately 60 semifinalists will be selected to receive the scholarship. The 2020 Cooke College Scholarship recipients will be announced in April.

Cooke College Scholars are selected on exceptional academic ability and achievement, financial need, persistence, service to others and leadership. Students must be current high school seniors residing in the United States.

For more on the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, visit www.jkcf.org.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts has found a unique way to address the challenges that come when students live and learn away from home. ASMSA will bridge the distance between the school and its students’ families with technology.

Recently, ASMSA partnered with Possip to empower parents to routinely share praise and constructive feedback about their family’s experience with the school. ASMSA is the first school in Arkansas to use Possip, and the first residential school to partner with the EdTech company, recently named by the Nashville Business Journal as one of Nashville’s top start-ups to watch in 2020.

Parents were able to share praise about teachers and culture.

“My daughter’s teacher contacted me because she had noticed she seemed sad and homesick. She just wanted to make sure I knew. I was so impressed that she had taken the time to get to really know our daughter and recognized that something was off with her.”

Parents are also able to share feedback, needs, or ideas.

This ability for parents to have a routine and easy way to share their thoughts and ideas is very important to ASMSA.  One of the nation's top public schools, students come from 50 counties across Arkansas to live and learn within a community of 230 intellectual peers. Many students attending ASMSA live 3 to 4 hours away from the school’s Hot Springs campus.

“Schools like ASMSA are redefining family engagement by showing parents that they don’t have to be physically present in a school building to participate in their child’s school experiences,” said Shani Dowell, founder and CEO of Possip.

“Whether parents are working, providing military service, or have their kids at a residential school, they should still be able to easily participate in their child’s school experience.”

“Our students don’t have traditional time at home with parents.  We get to see one part of their daily lives - but parents have important information as well,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice. “We are using this tool to remove any barriers for families who want share and participate in ASMSA’s community of learning.”

Possip—so named from a mashup of positive gossip—was created by a former educator and school parent based in Nashville, Tenn. Shani Dowell, whose own children are in elementary school, shared “We know that parents and school staff share a goal of creating the best school experience possible for kids. The research is clear that an engaged parent body is one of the surest ways to achieve that goal.”

In the simple form of a text message, which can be sent in over 100 languages, Possip sends parents routine prompts asking about their happiness, praise and feedback for schools and gathers the responses into an actionable report for principals. Possip staff crafts each report, surfacing and organizing praise and feedback into priorities and recommendations for follow-up or development.

ASMSA will use the bi-weekly reports in the school’s weekly Strategies Team meetings.  The group of nine employees includes staff across the academic and residential experience.  The Possip report provides additional opportunities for student intervention and parent engagement.

“We were incredibly pleased with the format of the report and the insights we gained,” said Alderdice. “We have already used the first round of feedback to follow up directly with parents while also using their suggestions for new programs and opportunities as we plan for the next academic year this fall.”

Learn more about Possip at www.possip.com.

When many of us are asked to think back to our interaction with our school counselor, the answers are often similar. It was very limited. In many cases, we didn’t even visit with the school counselor.

It wouldn’t be surprising to hear the same answers from today’s graduates. The American School Counselor Association says the national average is a 442-to-1 ratio of students to school counselors. That’s a large number of students for one person to try to assist. Even the ASCA’s recommended 250-to-1 ratio is very large.

Yet deciding what path to follow after high school graduation is one of the more important decisions we are asked to make in our lives. But without proper guidance, making the right decision isn’t always easy.

At the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, students have the benefit of working with one of three student success coordinators — Penny Lock, Jasmine Phillips and Bret Vallun. ASMSA’s 230-plus students are split between the three SSCs to try to ensure a more individualized attention.

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Lock, Phillips and Vallun provide important information about college admission changes and scholarships to the students. They also help guide the students in selecting coursework and class schedules that will be the most beneficial for students to reach their goals.

“It is important for a student success coordinator to stay up to date on college admission changes and scholarship information,” Locke said. “Therefore, maintaining connections to various college and military admission representatives is vital. Having such contacts helps in mapping specific planning for each individual student.”

Vallun said he encourages students to visit him early during their first semester. As he helps them work on their schedules, he asks them about their interests and passions. Getting to know the individual student is important, he said.

“Once I have that information, I can recommend specific opportunities to students as I am made aware of them. At any given time, no matter the subject, I can recommend a handful of students who would be perfect for a scholarship, award or program,” Vallun said.

Lock agreed that getting to know the student beyond their grades is important.

“I enjoy working with students and getting to know the individual student as a whole,” Lock said. “Each student has individual needs and goals. They have different personalities. I try to provide a welcoming and safe space for my students to ask questions and to try to express themselves and any concerns.”

Having that knowledge about each student also helps the SSCs with one of their more important duties — writing recommendation letters.

“Individualized attention allows us the opportunity to know a lot about each student,” Vallun said. “We know their personality, learning style, past, present and aspirations. They have the opportunity to share personal stories of success and failure. It allows us to write outstanding recommendations for their prospective colleges and create individualized action plans instead of a generic trial and error approach to common struggles. We can really advocate for these students while remaining credible because we know them.”

It’s also important for the SSCs to have a relationship with a student’s parents, Lock said.

“I believe it important for the parents to continue an active role in their student’s journey at ASMSA. They know their student therefore their insight can be helpful to us in assisting the student,” she said.

Vallun agreed with Lock, saying it is important that parents encourage and support their students.

“As long as parents are motivating their students to pursue their educational dreams, supporting them through the process despite failures, and encouraging them to seek out helpful resources, their student will have a positive high school experience,” he said.

Both Lock and Vallun said the favorite part of their job is watching students grow and succeed.

“It is amazing to witness the transformation from their beginnings at ASMSA to graduation day,” Lock said.

“My favorite part of my job is when a student shares their success stories with me,” Vallun said. “Whether it is a college acceptance, scholarship or award, it is a great moment because they are so happy and grateful.

“I especially relish college signing day. Students experience so much stress throughout the application process, so when they have several acceptances in front of them, it makes me happy to see that all of their work was recognized.”

Vallun enjoys when ASMSA graduates come back to visit him as well because they usually provide some information that he can share with current students.

“They usually offer some insight into their college experience that I can share with current ASMSA students. Most importantly, it helps me realize that our office is making a positive impact on our students,” he said.

For the third time in a row, the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts won the Dolphin Challenge — the northern Texas competition for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl.

The National Ocean Sciences Bowl is a nationwide, high school science competition focused on marine issues and knowledge. Students demonstrate their knowledge of marine and coastal science by answering questions from biology, physics, chemistry, geology, geography, mathematics and the social sciences. Each team consists of four students plus an alternate and a coach.

The Dolphin Challenge regional competition was held Feb. 1 by the Texas Sea Grant College Program at the Texas A&M University campus in Galveston, Texas. The competition included teams from across Texas.

ASMSA’s A team of seniors Emily Smith, Howard Grant Orlina, Amadeo Scott, Kasey Meyer and Hadley Medlock defeated Brandeis High School from San Antonio, Texas, to win the region title. It was the second time the two teams played each other during the regional weekend. Brandeis defeated ASMSA in round robin play earlier in the tournament. ASMSA also eliminated Cypress Woods, Texas, in the afternoon single-elimination round after suffering a loss to Cypress Woods in the earlier round robin round.

“Our students really seemed to shine more in the afternoon when the questions became harder,” said Dr. Lindsey Waddell, a geoscience and chemistry instructor at ASMSA who served as the team’s coach. “When the questions are easier during the round robin rounds in the morning, the scores between two strong teams tend to be determined more by buzzer speed, and in particular by the decision of whether to risk losing four points for giving an incorrect answer after interrupting the reading of a question.”

ASMSA first won the regional title in 2017 followed by the 2019 regional competition. The 2018 regional competition was canceled in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

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The team earned a trip to the National Ocean Sciences Bowl Finals on April 16-19 at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park campus in Long Beach, Miss. Waddell said the team worked very hard over the past year to earn the regional title.

“My biggest fear with this team was that they might forget material during the year in between the regional competitions,” Waddell said. “However, they approached me about holding weekly buzzer practices beginning last spring, and they attended weekly practices this fall alongside students who were currently enrolled in my oceanography course.”

Students from Waddell’s fall oceanography class comprised ASMSA’s B team in the regional competition. Members of that team were seniors Esther Filipek, Gwen Coleman and Said Angeles and juniors Alec Gatewood and Terrance Meinardus.

Emily Smith, who served as captain of the A team, was a member of the ASMSA team that won last year’s regional title and competed for the national title.

For more information on the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, visit nosb.org.

Sometimes you just need someone to listen to you. It may be one person or it could be a group of people you can easily identify with and feel comfortable sharing personal feelings and information.

Every-day life of being a teenager can be stressful on its own. Add in that you are living away from home — sometimes hours away — with 200-plus people from all kinds of backgrounds and beliefs who you don’t know while attending a school with a rigorous academic schedule. It can become a bit overwhelming.

It’s no wonder that many students said adding mental health services to campus were a necessity.

Staci Stich began in April 2018. She has a bachelor’s in psychology from Louisiana Tech University and a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Arkansas. Prior to coming to ASMSA, she was a counselor at a school in Mississippi serving children with emotional disabilities as well as students on the autism spectrum.

Stich has an additional 30 years of experience in community health, focusing primarily on working with children and adolescents in southeast Arkansas, northwest Arkansas and South Carolina. She also has worked in residential care in Louisiana and two years with the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

When she first arrived at ASMSA late that spring semester, many students weren’t comfortable coming to visit her. Most of the students she spoke with were recommended by staff and faculty members to visit her.

In the fall 2018, Stich began introducing groups that would meet at lunch time. She would send out an email to all of the students encouraging them to attend the various meetings. She told students they could meet with her first if they were interested, but what she found was that students were more relaxed coming to the groups.

Once they attended a group session, they usually came back for additional meetings. “There was no commitment required. I told them it was up to them to choose if they come back or not. Attendance might drop off at the end of each semester, but then it would pick back up the next. Individual sessions would increase a lot at semester test time,” Stich said.

“Group members began to encourage other kids to come or to bring someone to come to the meetings with them. They would come up with their own assignments to do before the next meeting with each other. They always followed through with it and completed their tasks.”

Students would exchange phone numbers and seek each other out to do things. They’d also ask each other for help while studying, she said. Having the meeting allowed the participants to develop a core group of if not friends at least colleagues to whom they could reach out.

Dr. Rheo Morris, dean of students, was one of the early advocates of providing licensed professional services to students. Prior to coming to ASMSA, she worked at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. She had opportunities to interact with UCA’s Schedler Honors College participants.

“I have seen in the past the type of pressures they place on themselves and that others place on them and how sometimes they struggle to juggle these pressures,” Morris said. “UCA’s Counseling Center did a great job with these students through teaching them coping skills and simply just listening to them while normalizing students asking for help.”

Destigmatizing the use of mental health services is one of the main challenges Stich must work to overcome. Morris said she saw that on the college campus as well which is another reason she felt it was important ASMSA have a mental health professional on campus.

“I felt that some of this normalizing should have occurred before the got to college. Having a counselor on campus helps to remove the stigma from asking for help because it is no longer a huge event to get into seeing someone just chat. I think mental and emotional health are very important because they affect every aspect of your life — your thoughts, your emotions and your behaviors,” Morris said.

As the first year progressed, Stich noticed students becoming more willing to visit with her one-on-one. It might just be dropping by between classes to visit with the door open or it might be a more serious matter that required a closed-door session. Regardless, students were becoming more comfortable with the idea of seeking help when they needed it.

“A lot of them didn’t feel comfortable talking about situations before coming here. Now they feel more comfortable discussing some of it,” Stich said about both one-on-one sessions and group sessions.

Whether it’s in a group session or individual visits, she encourages each student to work on their problem-solving skills and focus on what you can do to improve a situation rather than looking at what you can’t do.

“They need to understand what they can take control of. They’re used to parents asking have you done this or have you done that. They need to learn to come up with a plan and work on one thing at a time,” Stich said.

Morris said she and her staff are very appreciative of having Stich on staff because she educates the residential life staff on signs of mental distress and helps them build coping skills for living and working in the same place.

“Having Staci around creates an environment where students know that there is always someone to support them outside of the people they live with. The majority of students love having her around to just chat with. Group sessions are amazing, and I think in time more students may take advantage of her services and group sessions as we continue to normalize mental and emotional health conversations,” Morris said.

Eleven Arkansas School for the Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students were selected as a member of the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association Region II All-Region Band.

Selected for the band were:

• Yibing Hu, a junior from Jonesboro, flute, first chair, first band;
• Aishani Singh, a junior from Hot Springs, flute, sixth chair, first band;
• Amanda Carson, a senior from Russellville, bassoon, first chair, first band;
• Solomon Ni, a senior from Jonesboro, bassoon, second chair, first band;
• Nova Ammerman, a junior from Cherokee Village, clarinet, seventh chair, first band;
• Logan Richerson, a senior from West Memphis, clarinet, 17th chair, first band;
• Shaan Hyder, a senior from Cabot, clarinet, 21st chair, first band;
• Rachel Means, a senior from Carlisle, bass clarinet, second chair, second band;
• A.J. Navarro, a senior from Hot Springs, alto saxophone, fourth chair, first band;
• Hyunseo Seok, a junior from Jonesboro, alto saxophone, third chair, second band; and
• Jacob Holmes, a junior from Rector, trombone, seventh chair, first band.

Region II auditions were held Jan. 25 at Lake Hamilton High School. The Region II All-Region Clinic will be held at Lake Hamilton High School on Jan. 31-Feb. 1. A concert will be held at 2 p.m. Feb. 1 featuring members of the Region II All-Region Band.

Eight members of the band qualified for All-State Band/Orchestra auditions. Hu, Singh, Carson, Ni, Ammerman, Richerson, Navarro and Holmes qualified to audition for the All-State Band/Orchestra on Feb. 8 at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. The All-State Band/Orchestra Clinic will be held Feb. 20-22 at the Hot Springs Convention Center.

Four high school seniors at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts were among 76 students statewide recently named candidates for the 2020 United States Presidential Scholars program, considered one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students.

The U.S. Presidential Scholars 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 2020 candidates for the U.S. Presidential Scholar from ASMSA are:

• Tristan Eoff of Little Rock;
• A.J. Navarro of Hot Springs;
• Emily Smith of Cabot; and
• Haven Whitney of Searcy.

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.

Each year, more than 4,000 candidates are identified for the component of the program that focuses on academic achievement and based on 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.

“ASMSA candidates for the U.S. Presidential Scholars program are not only exemplary leaders within the classroom but also dynamic members across our community of learning,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice. “These young people excel in scholarly research, global engagement, artistry and entrepreneurship.  They are a clear indicator that the future of our state is exceedingly bright.”

Approximately 800 students will be named semifinalists after the next round of review, and up to 161 students will be recognized in May as Presidential Scholars. The majority of the Scholars will be selected on the basis of broad academic achievement. Approximately 20 students are selected on the basis of their academic and artistic scholarship in the visual arts, the performing arts or creative writing. Additionally, approximately 20 additional students will be selected on the basis of their ability and accomplishment in career and technical education fields.

If a student is selected as a U.S. Presidential Scholar, they will be honored in Washington, D.C., in June.  During this trip, U.S. Presidential Scholars are guests of the U.S. Department of Education and the Commission and enjoy an expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to meet with government officials, educators and other accomplished people.  To commemorate their achievement, the Scholars are awarded the U.S. Presidential Scholars medallion at a ceremony sponsored by the White House.