Duke keeps its eye on talent for future

The Duke University Talent Identification Program, or TIP, will hold a series of recognition ceremonies to honor selected Columbia County pupils along with some of the most talented seventh-graders in the nation.

This year, 24,726 students within Duke TIP's 16-state region will be invited to attend State Recognition Ceremonies.

Students invited to the Grand Recognition Ceremony earned a math or verbal score on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Testing Assessment (ACT) higher than 90 percent of college-bound high school seniors as part of TIP's 24th annual Talent Search.

Of the 78,850 students who participated in the 2003-2004 Talent Search, 1,367 qualified for this honor. These students also qualify for state recognition.

To qualify for State Recognition Ceremonies students must have received at least a 510 on either the verbal or math portions of the SAT or 500 on each section. If they took the ACT, students had to receive at least a 20 on the math or English, or a 21 or higher on the ACT reading or science reasoning.

To qualify for the Grand Recoginition Ceremony, students must have received at least a 650 on either the verbal or math portions of the SAT or a combined score of 1260. The student must have scored at least a 28 on the ACT math or English, a 30 on the ACT reading or at least a 27 on the ACT science reasoning.

The Columbia County seventh-graders recognized were:

Augusta Preparatory Day School - Steven Brown, Caroline Catchpole, Brandon Chappell, Joseph Hall, Jaclyn Howard, Clarence Mabry III and Akshey Walia.

Columbia Middle School - Kristy Hardin, Laura Revolinski and David Zabriskie.

Evans Middle School - Gregory Brooks, Zachary Brooks, Kevin Caughman, Jackelyn Hamill, James Neumeister, Brandon Paschal, Nicholas Reed, Anesia Sandifer, Margaret Shepherd, Matthew Wehman and Michael Ziemba.

Greenbrier Middle School - Derek Alexander, Rebecca Copeland, Ryan Daigle, Merry Dirksen, Daniel Graybeal, Hyeji Park and Christopher Rhodes.

Grovetown Middle School - James Nichols.

Lakeside Middle School - Beth Carter, Kristen Combahee, Andrew Gaddy, Hannah Hall, Mackenzie Hinds, Nicholas Labon and Felix Sosa-Rivera.

Riverside Middle School - Dexter Chan, Rachel Colbert, Parveen Dhillon, Timothy Duvall, Carolyn Granade, Kevin Hennecken, Brianne Jenkins, Daniel Jones, Perry Kantor, Declan Konesky, Robert Mcindoe, Alison Podlaski, Nicholas Rhea, James Seward, Emily Shank, Jennifer Stanley and John Wilson.

Tyler home school - Tyler Wright.

Episcopal Day School - Rand Floyd of Martinez.

St. Mary on the Hill School - Emily Bragg of Grovetown.