During a recent Santa Rosa County School Board meeting, school district officials recognized students throughout the county for both achievements in academics and public speaking by announcing this year’s Duke University Talent Identification Program participants and this year’s winners from the 4-H Tropicana Speech Contest.
Twenty-eight students from across the county were recognized for their participation in the Duke University TIP, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying, recognizing, challenging, engaging and helping academically gifted and talented youth.
“This is an opportunity for Duke University to acknowledge outstanding students that have strong intellectual abilities in our schools,” said Clifton “Buddy” Hinote, director of high schools for the Santa Rosa School District. “In order to participate in this program, they have to qualify by scoring at least the 95th percentile on a grade level standardize assessment within our district that would be the FCAT in three different areas.
Hinote said once these students are identified, Duke University TIP registers these students to either take the ACT or SAT college entrance exams.
This year’s winners for the 4-H Tropicana Speech Contest aims to help thousands of children learn how to write and deliver a speech. While doing so, it also helps children build self-esteem and confidence in speaking publicly. According to the Florida 4-H website, more than 150,000 youth participate in more than 50 Florida counties.
For Santa Rosa County, a top winner was selected in the fourth, fifth and sixth grade levels resulting from a county-wide contest. The following student won for their grade level…
4th grade – Jeslyn Salort at Holley Navarre Intermediate School
5th grade – Ethan Jarskey at Holley Navarre Intermediate School
6th grade – Jackson Arnold at Chumuckla Elementary School
Here are the 2015 Duke University Talent Identification Program recipients…
Gulf Breeze Middle
Bailey Bouk
Brooke Davis
Megan Gordon
Genna Hoitt
Courtney King
Bickston Laenger
Adelyn Lewter
Margaret Messer
Tulla Picardi
JayHigh School
Tara Nevels
KingMiddle School
Amelia Akins
HobbsMiddle
Sara Boles
Alexander De Angelis
Sims Middle
Erin Ennis
Bo Gehrke
EJ Monforton
Jacob Pruse
Sarah Rabinowitz
WoodlawnBeachMiddle
Noah Ardoin
William Collins
Trevor Isakson
Alexis King
Isaac Long
Juliana Lucas
Kevin Miranda
Andrew Neville
Mary Russell
Juan Vergara-Diaz
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: School District recognizes speech contest winners, academically-gifted students