Fort Bend Lifestyles and Homes Magazine Jul 2009: Fort Bend Campus News 3

Missouri City Recognizes Earth Day Poster Contest Winners. Winners of the Quail Valley Garden Club's Art Contest, held in conjunction with Earth Day, were honored by the Missouri City Council at the May 4 city council meeting. Prizes were awarded to students from four Missouri City elementary schools. A total of 242 elementary school students from four Missouri City elementary schools entered the contest.

Best of Show winners were Blue Ridge Elementary art teacher Erika Walker, Toni Ingle, Robianna Hart, Nestor Perez, Erendira Claudio, Monica Bembry, Xavier Garcia and Cedric Marin, who are all students at Blue Ridge Elementary.

Among those recognized in the Judges’ Favorites category were Briargate Elementary art teacher Natalie Anugwom, Lantern Lane Elementary school art teacher Teresa Booker, Lantern Lane students Sierra Landis, Joseph Franco and Lauryn Ewend and Briargate Elementary student Marlyn Santana.

Armstrong Elementary art students and their teacher were honored in the Sweepstakes category including Peniel Haile, Jovanny Luis and Jacalyne Whitaker and art teacher Fahmi Khan.

Best of Show winners of the Quail Valley Garden Cub Earth Day Poster Contest are: (l-r) Blue Ridge Elementary art teacher Erika Walker and sixth-graders Toni Ingle, Robianna Hart and Nestor Perez. Not pictured are Erendira Claudio, Monica Bembry, Xavier Garcia and Cedric Marin.

Foster Student Earns National Merit Scholarship to Texas A&M - Foster High School’s Rebecca Zama is one of more than 2,800 winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities by National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Zama will attend Texas A &M University in the fall.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among finalists in the 2009 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution. These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

Scanlan Third-grader a State Finalist in National American Miss Texas Pageant - Phebe Le, a third-grader at Scanlan Oaks Elementary, was chosen as a state finalist in the National American Miss Texas Pageant. The pageant is held for girls ages 7 through 9.

Phebe’s activities include ballet and jazz dancing and playing the piano. She also enjoys painting, drawing, playing with her younger cousins and entertaining her family with jokes and comedy acts.

Fort Bend Baptist Academy’s Valedictorian and Salutatorian - Christopher Chen was the valedictorian at Fort Bend Baptist Academy. Megan Esteb was the salutatorian. Both will attend Texas A&M University and plan to become physicians.

Synchronized Swimmers Headed to Nationals - The First Colony SynchroStars competed at the Gulf Regional Championships. The top four competitors in each age group qualified to compete in the Age Group National Championships in Gainesville, Fla., in June.

SynchroStars had 10 members qualify for Nationals in its second year as a competitive team. National qualifiers are: Elise Bauer, Hannah Chui, Zoe Carlson Stadler, Hillary Dressel, Elizabeth Oh, Cassie Tipton, Abby Amundson, Emily Dressel, Lauren Woltemate and Olivia Montagna.

The 11-12 group qualified in a team routine, two trios and duet. The 13-15 group qualified in a trio and duet and 16-17 qualified in solo.

The novice swimmers including Isabelle Duenas, Christy Lee, Allison Lawrence, Ashley Lawrence and Yen Saibandith all took top honors in their routine competitions.

Sienna Crossing Makes $4,000 Donation to Dew House. Sienna Crossing Student Council presented Fort Bend County Museum Special Project Historian Diane Ware and DeWalt Heritage Project Director Jerry Hoover with checks collected from their Dropping Pennies for Dew House Campaign.

The students collected $3,877 and principal Linda Ruckman tossed in the additional $123 to make it an even $4,000 contribution.

Kempner AFJROTC Named Distinguished Unit by Air Force - Unit TX-924 at Kempner High School has been selected as one of 393 units to receive the 2008-09 Air Force Junior ROTC Distinguished Unit Award with Merit.

This award recognizes Air Force Junior ROTC units that have performed above and beyond normal expectations, and that have distinguished themselves through outstanding service to their school and community while meeting the Air Force Junior ROTC mission of producing better citizens for America. Units that have been identified as “with merit” were identified by their area administrators as earning an Exceeds Standards Rating on their Unit Evaluation for AY 2008-09.

Exchange Club of Sugar Land Presents Youth of Year Award to Clements Senior - Justin Banerdt was honored by the Exchange Club of Sugar Land as Youth of the Year.

Justin has lived in many countries throughout his young life. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, moved to Santiago, Chile, then Luanda, Angola, then to Houston, Texas, then to Baku, Azerbaijan and finally back to Sugar Land, Texas.

He is a senior at Clements High School with a 3.96 GPA, scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT and was number 8 in his class of more than 500 students.

He helped found The Asian Cultural Exchange Society at Clements High School. He is a member of the Chess

Club and president of the English Honor Society. He is also vice president of the Junior Engineering Technical Society.

Justin plans to attend Harvard University and study genetic engineering.