Columbia county newsmakerws

Scholarship contest

Adrienne Popplewell, a senior at Augusta Christian Schools, was selected by the school at the start of this year to participate in the Daughters of the American Revolution scholarship contest.

To participate, the contestant must display qualities of dependability, service, leadership and patriotism. The scholarship contest consisted of two parts.

First, Adrienne wrote a personal description of how she has tried to display the qualities of a good citizen and submitted a grade transcript and two letters of recommendation. Part two consisted of an essay in which Adrienne was allowed two hours, without assistance of reference materials, to write on a topic given to her at the beginning of the two-hour time limit.

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Adrienne's essay went to the College Hill Chapter of the Daughter's of the American Revolution where she competed against students from Evans High School and Augusta Preparatory Day School. Adrienne won at this level, and her essay will now go to the district level where there will be opportunities for scholarship money. She and her parents are invited to a luncheon given by the College Hill Chapter in May.

AP Scholars

Five students at Augusta Christian Schools have earned the designation of AP Scholar by the College Board in recognition of their exceptional achievement on the college-level Advanced Placement Program Exams.

Students took AP Exams in May 2003 after completing challenging college-level courses at their high schools. The College Board recognizes several levels of achievement based on the number of yearlong courses and exams.

At Augusta Christian, five students qualified for the AP Scholar award by completing three or more AP Examinations, with grades of 3 or higher. The AP Scholars are John Allen Beckman, Marcus Smith and Erin Swearingen from the class of 2003. Jessica Faulkner and Jean Lopez from the class of 2004 also earned the distinction.

Hispanic honor

Jean Lopez, a senior at Augusta Christian Schools, has been recognized by the College Board's National Hispanic Recognition Program.

The National Hispanic Recognition Program, established in 1983, is a College Board program that provides national recognition of the exceptional academic achievements of Hispanic high school seniors and identifies them for post secondary institutions.

Students enter the program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as high school juniors and by identifying themselves as Hispanic. From more than 124,000 students nationwide, about 4,300 highest scoring students were initially identified. Based on further evidence of their academic achievement, a select group of 3,300 students have been recognized by the program as a Scholar or Honorable Mention Finalist.