News of the achievements of local students and members of the Armed Forces.
** Josh Hurst, Liberty Metcalfe and Mary Grace Wilson of Arlington have been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at Loyola University Maryland.
** Alexis Rowland of Arlington has been inducted into the James Madison University chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest honor society for all academic disciplines.
** Joshua Wacker of Arlington, a student majoring in management at James Madison University, was part of a team that recently won first place in the COB300 Business Plan Competition.
Team members shared a $6,000 in scholarship funds for their entry, which described the manufacture and rollout of a premium-quality landscape-lighting project.
The proposal also received the Accenture Innovation Award in the competition, and team leader Kenya Balso received the Ferguson Top Female Leader Award.
** Retta Laumann, a Wakefield High School graduate, portrayed Granny/Giant Voice in the recent production of “Into the Woods” at Baldwin Wallace University.
** Casey Richmond of Arlington has been named to the honors list for the winter term at Pomfret School.
** H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program seventh-graders Olivia Soldano and Ava Yi placed third in the Junior Group Exhibit category of the annual Virginia History Day District 5 competition.
Their project – “Trail of Tears” – focused on removal of Native Americans from the Southeast in the early 1800s. They were among 29 students from H-B Woodlawn that entered works in the district competiton.
As one of the top three teams in the category, the students will move on to state Virginia History Day competition, to be held at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond April 23-24.
Virginia History Day is an affiliate of the National History Day Contest, founded in 1974 to inspire students to conduct original historical research. Each year, more than a half-million students take part.
“Creating a project for the National History Day contest is challenging. It requires hard work and dedication. But it also provides great reward,” said Cathy Gorn, executive director of the national competition.
The theme for the 2022 competition is “Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences.”
“The skills of conducting research and recognizing credible sources are crucial to increasing civic engagement in young people,” Gorn said.
For a complete list of Virginia award recipients, see the Website at https://virginiahistory.org/VHD.