![At the bottom of the third inning, the Lions are still scoreless. Rowe stands at home plate, preparing to bat, while Vandenbrink stands off to the side as the next batter up. Despite having the bases loaded, the team was unable to score any runs. “It’s just the beginning of the season. We’re just going to be playing out best by June, [and] that’s where champions are,” Rowe said.](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_3077-1200x900.jpg)
![All smiles. The group poses for a photo with last year’s book, “This is Our House,” along with their award for third Best in Show. Meikle, who was an Editor-in-Chief for the yearbook last year as well, holds both and stands at the center of the group. “That was an amazing feeling, going and grabbing the third place award,” Meikle said. “All of it paid off. I cried so much over that book, being able to receive [the award] was one of the highlights of my high school career, it was like the coolest thing ever.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/8bookpose_philly-1200x800.jpg)
Reed Sturtevant and Miranda James, seniors, were surprised earlier this month when they were informed that they were National Merit Scholarship finalists. James and Sturtevant were notified that they scored high enough on the PSAT to qualify as semifinalists in November.
Only 15,000 students nationwide are selected as finalists each year, and these students have the chance to win a plethora of scholarships and monetary rewards for their scholastic excellence.
Sturtevant was expecting he would be notified whether or not he had made the cut as a finalist by letter and was pleasantly surprised when Lou Bailey, principal, approached him in the hall to tell him that he was a finalist. “I was pretty excited about it; it’s a good thing,” Sturtevant said.
James was told that she was a finalist and was elated, but she says that she and her parents were not too surprised. “I think they were sort’ve expecting me to become a finalist because they have those expectations of me in general,” James said.
Sturtevant’s parents were proud of him for living up to a family legacy; Andi Sturtevant, Reed’s sister, was also a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. Though Sturtevant has already been accepted to Dartmouth College and plans to major in theater, it is still possible that he will receive some reward from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
James, however, has already seen the fruits of becoming a National Merit Scholar.
“The biggest difference is that I’ve gotten a letter from a college I was interested in,” James said. She received a letter from Kenyon College in Ohio, one of the colleges where she hopes to study writing.
