Four Sanpete students win Sterling Scholar medals; 14 runners up

RICHFIELD—Versatility, perseverance and resilience were once again on display Monday night in high school students from throughout Central Utah who participated in the regional Sterling Scholar awards program Richfield High School.

Sanpete County students were the winners in four of 15 subject categories. And local seniors landed 14 of 30 runner-up recognitions.

While Manti, North Sanpete and Gunnison Valley high schools collectively had four winners, fewer than in recent years, Manti distinguished itself by having its students named as runners-up in 10 of the 15 categories.

The Sterling Scholar program is structured around academic disciplines. But the four Sanpete County winners could hardly be pigeon holed into single subjects and narrow interests.

Landon Sorensen from Gunnison, the winner in ag science, has held leadership positions in Future Farmers of America and worked in the veterinary clinic in Gunnison.

His agriculture experiences, his Sterling Scholar profile notes, have taught him the value of hard work, “which has carried over into his school experiences.” He is ranked first in his class with a 4.0 GPA and scored a composite 32 on the ACT, which puts him in the 97th percentile.

Rebekah Stewart, also of Gunnison, was the winner in science. She plans a career in the medical field and is already working at Gunnison Valley Hospital. She is a member of a chapter of the Health Occupations Students of America at her high school and organized a blood drive when the American Red Cross had a shortage.

But she has also acted in plays and musicals at the high school, is on the drill team and is a senior class officer.

Matthew Lundeberg of Manti High, the winner in speech and drama, wrote that when he was about 7 years old, he started being interested in talking in front of people “and off the bat, I was surprisingly good.”

Besides leading roles in Manti plays, he has taken classes in sound and lighting and completed in public-policy-oriented categories on the Manti debate team.

In his Sterling Scholar profile, he wrote that one of his biggest challenges was playing Justice Wargrave, a murder, in the play, “And Then There Were None.”

“I had always considered myself a comedic actor, and the thought of portraying this character in a high-stakes performance scared me,” he wrote. But with the help of teammates and his director, he says he was able to bring “the deceptive old psychopath to life.”

Calder Bailey of North Sanpete High, the winner in computer technology, says computer science has become a passion. He has programmed his own computer search engine with an integrated search algorithm and web crawler. He has built many websites.

One of his projects, which combined science with computer technology, was building a weather balloon capable of rising into the stratosphere.

At the same time, he has run cross-country for four years and track for three years. He played tennis for one year and was on the North Sanpete robotics team for one year. On top of all that, he has a perfect 4.0 GPA.

Below are photos of Sanpete County runners up in the regional Sterling Scholar competition, with their schools and disciplines.