The Washington Court House City Schools Board of Education honored a Washington High School senior on Monday for his involvement with the National Merit Scholarship Program.
Earlier this year, Washington High School was told by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation that Trevor Minyo was named a finalist in the program.
“We are so very proud of Trevor,” Washington High School Principal Tracy Rose said on Monday evening. “We learned early on in his high school career that he loves to learn, and he has worked really hard to get really good at it. Anything he gets his hands on or any class he gets in, he wants to excel. He has had several meetings with me throughout his high school career (asking), ‘What can I do to be the best, how do I work to achieve as much as I can while in Washington High School.’ So this doesn’t surprise me out of a young man like him, but to know what he does outside (the school), with 4-H, the Junior Fairboard along with his school work and DECA competitions. These accolades are well-deserved and we couldn’t be more proud of him.”
According to a press release from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, over 1.5 million students in 21,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in October of 2018 and entered into the program. In April of 2019, the corporation identified the 50,000 highest scorers and notified their high schools. Out of the 50,000 students, 16,000 were further designated as semi-finalists in September of 2019 and were allowed to continue in the competition.
Then on Feb. 3, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the finalists in the competition, who will be considered for scholarships being offered this year. Out of the 16,000, nearly 90 percent further qualified to be finalists. The corporation said it will now work on the selection of roughly 7,500 scholarship winners. These students will be notified in March if they are named a winner. Three types of scholarships will be offered as part of the competition, the first is what every finalist is competing for — the National Merit $2,500 scholarship. The other two types include about 1,000 corporate-sponsored scholarships and about 4,100 college-sponsored scholarships for finalists.
“I have had a great group of educators in this school system, Mr. Rader, Mr. Frederick, Mr. Penwell and countless others before them, all of these things are things they have prepared me for,” Minyo said. “While we may have complained some days, because I can’t believe we have an entire book to read this week or oh no, I am going to fail this AP calculus test because it only has four questions. We may not like it when we are going through it, but it has been such great preparation. 4-H in particular has taught me a lot about community service, just getting out in the community and I think that experience is such a big part of things like (the National Merit Scholarship program). You can’t just be good in the classroom, you have to get out into the community and engage while trying to do something.”
Finally, Minyo was also honored during the meeting for earning the Franklin B. Walter All-Scholastic Award. This award is earned by one student in each county for their outstanding academic achievement as indicated by high school grades, test scores, school activities and awards. This award is presented by the Ohio Educational Service Center, and Minyo is the 2020 recipient. As the award luncheon may not take place due to COVID-19, the board wanted to commend Minyo on his achievements.
The information in this article was provided by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and Washington Court House City Schools Director of Marketing and Communication Trevor Patton.
Reach Martin Graham at (740) 313-0351 or on Twitter @MartiTheNewsGuy.
