2 Utahns 'perfect' on ACT

PROVO — Fourteen-year-old Kenneth Brewer skis to unwind.

A piano is the ultimate stress reliever for 16-year-old Lenyae Howard.

Brewer also swims, and when he lived in France, played rugby. Piano is just one of Howard's instruments — she plays the oboe, mellophone, saxophone and drums.

All those things — "extracurricular activities," in the vernacular of teachers — really are just fun diversions from the pressures of classes, grades and scholarship applications.

And although they live in different parts of the state — and do not know each other — the number 36 has given them something in common.

That number is the score both earned on the ACT, a college entrance exam.

It's a perfect score.

"Generally, we get between one and three (perfect ACT scores in Utah) every year," said Mark Peterson, spokesman for Utah's State Office of Education. "But I don't recall the last time I saw a freshman do it."

Others could still do it this year. Some test results haven't yet been received. Howard took the ACT in October, one of the most popular times for students to take the college entrance exam, said Dee Ashcroft, principal at Sky View High School.

"There were only 22 people (with perfect scores) out of 411,000 who took the test," Ashcroft said.

"When I heard she got it I called her in to tell her congratulations. She said, 'You want to see it?' I've seen a million of them, but when you see 36, 36, 99 percentile, 99 percentile, it's kind of fun to see."

The parents of both students say their children are intelligent — but it was hard work that pushed them ahead.

Brewer, who attends Timpview High School in Provo, has taken the ACT and SAT numerous times through the University of Denver's Rocky Mountain Talent Search, which allows scholastically gifted students to chance to take college entrance exams before high school.

His mother, Brigham Young University German professor Cindy Brewer, spoke to him and his five younger brothers in German from the time they were born.

Brewer mastered other languages through studies-abroad programs in Germany, Mexico and an area outside the Bordeaux region of France.

Some programs were funded through a scholarship Brewer earned, said his father, Bruce Brewer, an academic adviser at Utah Valley State College.

Howard, who will be 17 when she graduates in May, is also the oldest child of the Smithfield family, with three younger brothers. Her mother, d'Nell Howard, is a nurse practitioner, and her father, Ray Howard, is a civil engineer.

"She made up her mind she wanted to be a straight A student. I never had to come to her and say, 'Get to your homework,' " her mother said.