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MORGANTOWN - West Virginia's National Merit semifinalists have been announced for 2027 and Morgantown High School is once again in elite academic company.
As in recent years, the school on Wilson Avenue is leading the state in nominations for the honor.
Of the 76 students named across West Virginia, 11 are from MHS.
They are: Maxwell Abildso, Natalia Cassim, Emily Collins, Lucille Dahle, Larry Du, Dashiell Harms, Joshua Saldanha, Pavan Subramani, William Tapia, Caden Yao and Claire Yoon.
University High's four nominees are Corinne Connoley, Evelyn Holderness, Logan Mercer and Josiah Werner.
Four students from neighboring Marion County also made the field.
Judah Overstreet and Keishaun Siltner are from North Marion High. Ashleigh Waldron is from East Fairmont High. Logan Miller is a student at Fairmont Senior.
In Harrison County, Leroy Song was named a semifinalist from Bridgeport High School.
They now join more than 16,000 of their counterparts across the country.
To qualify for the scholarship competition, U.S. traditional or homeschooled high school students must score highly in the Reading/Writing and Math sections of the Preliminary SAT (PSAT).
Some 6,700 scholarships will be awarded this year, totaling $24 million in the offering.
West Virginia, meanwhile, brought forth semifinalists from 34 public and private schools across the state.
The National Merit Scholarship Program was born of the Cold War in 1955, over concerns that the U.S. was lagging intellectually in the world.
Its goals, the Illinois-based organization said, remain the same as 71 years ago: to encourage students to develop their full academic and professional potential.
More than 350,000 have earned scholarships since that first year.
Past scholars include Bill Gates, blues guitarist Elvin Bishop and filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.