Sterling Scholar winners announced

MURRAY — Hugging and dancing in circles, Rachel Kennedy, Erin Hunt and Amanda Ricks let loose their enthusiasm and squealed congratulations to each other as they came offstage Wednesday night, having just been named three of Utah's Sterling Scholars for 2011.

"I just feel ecstatic," said Kennedy of Box Elder High School. "This is all of the hard work paying off. I'm seeing the success of all the little things I've done in my life."

Kennedy, the Sterling Scholar for Family and Consumer Sciences, said it was her mom who taught her to sew and cook, developing skills that would turn into a lifelong passion.

Kennedy, Hunt and Ricks are three of 13 students named Regional Sterling Scholars at Cottonwood High School on Wednesday night. Chosen from among 195 finalists from 57 high schools across the Wasatch Front, the winners are students who have excelled in categories ranging from science to visual arts, showing scholastic acuity, community service, personal motivation and leadership skills in their respective categories.

Michael Benson, president of Southern Utah University, helped judge the Sterling Scholar competition, along with LDS artist Greg Olsen, LDS musician Michael McLean, Utah Valley University Dean Briant Farnsworth and Mormon Tabernacle Choir organist, Andrew Unsworth, among others.

Each Sterling Scholar winner was awarded $2,000 in cash, while the two runners-up in each category received $700. Two more students won the Douglas F. Bates Community Service Award and the Philo T. Farnsworth Governor's Excellence in Education Award and received $400 each. Several colleges in the Intermountain area that recognize the accomplishments of Sterling Scholar participants also offer scholarship opportunities to the competition finalists.

In addition to the cash scholarship awards provided by the sponsors of Sterling Scholars, the Deseret News and KSL 5 Television, all winners and runners-up received vouchers for Pioneer Theatre's upcoming production "Sunset Blvd.," courtesy of Chris Lino. The Utah Shakespeare Festival also donated vouchers to the students for any production this summer.

Erin Hunt of Alta High School was emotional after winning the award for Visual Arts and excited that it would help her pay for college.

"I never thought this would happen to me," she said. "The greatest part about it is being recognized as the artist, being known as creative and expressive. It's a part of humanity I love to be a part of because I can tell people things through my artwork."