Local students named as National Merit semifinalists

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has selected 51 Southern Nevada students as semifinalists for the 53rd National Merit Scholarship Program. The corporation named about 16,000 semifinalists nationwide.

The high school seniors selected are: Jessica Buckley and Nathan Pandian of Coronado High School; Nicholas Beatty of Foothill High School; Ashley Artmann, Anupa Gewali, Kathleen Phelan, Amanda Slagle and Jason Yee of Green Valley High School; Sydney Goings, Benjamin Norby, Natalie Orlin and Michael Zurawik of Advanced Technologies Academy; John Adams of Centennial High School; Ariane Both, Adler Chang, Joyce Pang and Trenton Tabor of Clark High School;

Also, Tracy Riordan of Del Sol High School; Bryan Dodson and Andrea Vancura of Faith Lutheran Junior-Senior High School; Erica Bobak, Kristen Kelley and Brianna Susa of Bishop Gorman High School; Shelby Dahl and Shane Palmer of Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Visual and Performing Arts; Jon Chino, Wenbo Jia, Bobby Kim, Kevin Kowalski, Steven Kozmary, Daniel Liu, James Lovett, Kelsey Parsons, Jeremy Selesner, Brandon Silverman, Luke Thienhaus and William Zhu of The Meadows School;

In addition, Michael Jones and Katherine Yost of Palo Verde High School; Erin Schumacher and Brittney Wilcox of Shadow Ridge High School; Brian Trinh of Sierra Vista High School; Alexander Cooper and Daniel Weiner of Silverado High School; Pamela Matsumoto of Southern Nevada Vocational Technical Center School; Stephanie Ralli of Spring Valley High School; Travis Baratcart, Daniel Duan, Kaushik Govindaraju and Morgan Ong of Valley High School; and Atkin Smedley of Legacy High School.

The scholarship winners will be announced in April.

In other youth news:

* Scott Eierman, a sixth-grader at Hyde Park Middle School, will attend the Junior National Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 6-11. The theme of the conference is "Voices of Leadership: Reflecting on the Past to Create the Future."

During the conference, youths will visit Capitol Hill to meet with elected officials and congressional staff, and visit historical sites, including monuments and memorials.

* Three young men from the Las Vegas Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America have recently become Eagle Scouts:

Marcus Christensen, 18, is the son of Eric and Ann Christensen. He is a member of Troop No. 470.

Mike Srp, 16, is the son of Ray and Judy Srp. He is a member of Troop No. 99.

Thomas J. Thomas, 16, is the son of Tom and Leslie Thomas. He is a member of Troop No. 407.

If you know of a worthy candidate for this column, mail information to Youth Spotlight, Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125-0070, or send faxes to 383-4676.