HEB ISD School & Family Magazine Winter 2015 | Page 25

Seniors Make National Merit List Six HEB ISD high school students have been named semifinalists in the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program. Four students attend L.D. Bell High School and two attend Trinity High School, making them part of a select group of high school seniors in the country. They were recognized at the November school board meeting. They were selected based on their scores from the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and are among the students scoring the highest in the state. Finalists will be notified in February 2016. L.D. Bell High School semifinalists are Jeremy Bartlett, Samantha Elizondo, Jeanette Harper, and William Schroeder Trinity High School semifinalists are Patrick L. Grady and Amin F. Hamza. The following L.D. Bell students received National Merit Commended recognition Jeremy Bartlett, Kaleb Bates, Samantha Elizondo, Jeanette Harper, Katherine Keithley, Sha Li, Jeffery Meyer, Neel Rebotee, William Schroeder, David Xia, Jennifer Yakubek, Benjamin Yerigan and Junlin Zhu. The Trinity students who received National Merit Commended acknowledgement were Sikenderali Ashraf, Cydney C Barber, David R Brauchler, Mitchell T Buehler, Samantha L. Buehler, Ryan M Cruz, Namrata D Desai, Braeley George, Patrick L Grady, Amin F Hamza, Jordan Hardin, Katie E Hodges, Basil F Holloway, Bridget P Keith-Tieri, Abigail E Morphew, Andalucia E Orozco, Hannah M Simon, Arham Suleman, and Terah G Trail. The National Hispanic Scholars from L.D. Bell High School include Samantha Elizondo, Gisela Ponce and Joseph Menes, and from Trinity the students are Ryan Cruz, Patrick Grady and Andalucia Orozco. The National Merit Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. An estimated 16,000 semi-finalists -- less than one percent of high school seniors nationwide -- were announced this fall by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955. More than 1.5 million juniors entered the 2016 National Merit Program by taking the 2014 Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. 23