Fifteen area high school seniors are now in elite academic company.
They were named semifinalists for the 2025 National Merit Scholarship program, the organization announced Wednesday.
This is the 70th year for the program, which will award 6,870 scholarships totaling more than $25 million this spring.
Morgantown High School was tied with Cabell-Midland High with having the most nominees in West Virginia at eight apiece.
University High is boasting three semifinalists this year. Trinity Christian School has one nominee.
Across north-central West Virginia, Preston High, North Marion and Grafton also have one nominee each representing their schools.
Two home-schoolers and one virtual charter student were also named.
Regional semifinalists:
Morgantown High
Anton Boyce
Julianna Ferrell
Daniel Han
Joyce Hu
Madelynn Jackson
Austin Luo
Maxwell Phillips
Shankar Subramani
University High
Wesley DeLeurere
Tyler Grabrick
Lainey Holderness
Trinity Christian School
Ethan Tomlinson
Preston High School
Ira Shaffer
North Marion High School
Hunter Upton
Grafton High School
Sydney Chen
Along with the home-schoolers and online students, 70 students in all qualified across West Virginia, with 33 schools represented.
The National Merit Scholarship program was born of the Cold War in 1955, over concerns the U.S. was lagging intellectually in the world.
More than 380,000 have earned the National Merit Scholar to date, while going to all walks in their professional lives.
Past semifinalists range from Bill Gates to blues guitarist Elvin Bishop and filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.
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