School briefs: 20 Washington County students named as National Merit semifinalists

Twenty students who live in Washington County were recognized last week as National Merit Scholarship semifinalists — up from 16 students a year ago.

They are among about 16,000 high school seniors nationwide who will compete for about 7,600 scholarships worth about $33 million. The students entered the program as juniors by taking the PSAT, which also is the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, in 2013.

According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, the program "honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies." The semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of all U.S. high school seniors.

About 15,000 of the 16,000 semifinalists are expected to advance as finalists in February. Awards will be announced beginning next spring. Local semifinalists include:

East Ridge High School (Woodbury): Brianna Goetzke, Hanting Guo, James Li, Thomas Sullivan and Julia Theiss.

Forest Lake High School: Michael Palo.

Mahtomedi High School: Kenji Cataldo and Audrey Scott.

Stillwater Area High School: Alexander Eitzman, Ryan Martin, Noah Ruh and Andrea Rustad.

Woodbury High School: Tarunika Anand, Peter Buttery, Kenneth Huang, Harsha Kethineni, Manasa Melachuri, Ellen O'Connell and Marta Williams.

The South Washington County School District received 84 entries for a photo contest that sought to inspire students to keep reading while on summer vacation. The contestants whose photos had the most "likes" on Facebook won prizes.

Winners were:

• Alivia Brink, a first-grader at Nuevas Fronteras Spanish Immersion, who won first place for a photo showing her reading "The Cat in the Hat" at Storybook Island in Rapid City, S.D.

• Melanie and Marisa VanHecke, fifth-grade twin sisters at Red Rock Elementary, who combined to win third place for reading books on a farm in Taunton, Minn.

The prizes consisted of Barnes & Noble gift certificates.

A video of the winners is on the district's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/sowashco.