Best in Brief

The following students and faculty have recently received recognition:

• Meggie Beth Erwin, junior, has been named to the Rome News Tribune All Area Girls Basketball Team.
  
  
• Senior Charlotte Baker has received a Certificate of Achievement recognizing that she is a finalist in the competition for achievement scholarship awards offered to outstanding Black American students in 2002 by the National Achievement Scholarship Program.
  
  
• The Co-ed Varsity Squad of the Hot Shots All-Stars from Rome, including three Darlington girls, has placed eight out of 10 in the finals of the Universal Cheerleaders Association national competition held over Spring Break at Disney World in Orlando, Fla., making them 8 out of 200 competing teams in the nation. Their routine was included in the ESPN coverage of the event. The squad will be competing next at the college level in the Cheer Sport Competition held in Panama City.
  
  Darlington members of the Co-ed Varsity Squad include sophomores Anice Moore and Brittany Wilson and junior Catie McCoy. The Youth Squad of the Hot Shots, including Darlington fourth graders Payton Payne and Hannah Montgomery, competed in the semifinals of the national competition and achieved ninth in the nation.
  
  
• Tom Sorci, Learning Center director, 12th grade adviser, cross country assistant coach, and swimming/diving head coach, has been included in both the Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, 2002 and Who’s Who Among American High School Students. He was nominated for Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers by Stephanie Rowland ’01 who is attending Young Harris College.
  
  
• Junior Collins Davidson was voted Lacrosse Player of the Week on DiVarsity.com. DiVarsity.com Inc. was founded in the Fall of 2000 as a Web site covering high school sports in Georgia.
  
  
• Nikki Rucker, a junior from Marietta, Ga. who lives in the Gibbons House at Darlington School, has been selected to participate in the Florida Department of Education’s Governor’s Honors Program. The Governor's Honors Program is a six-week summer instructional program designed to provide intellectually gifted and artistically talented high school students challenging and enriching educational opportunities not usually available during the regular school year. Activities are designed to provide each participant with opportunities to acquire the skills, knowledge and attitudes to become independent, life-long learners.
  
  Rising juniors and seniors in Georgia’s public and private high schools are nominated by their teachers to attend. Laura Murray, Rucker’s biology teacher, recommended her for the program.
  
  “Nikki has all of the characteristics needed to get the most out of her summer science experience with the Governor’s Honors Program,” Murray said. “Nikki is a self-motivator, inquisitive, and doesn’t always just accept the information given to her. I hope she will make the most out of this wonderful opportunity.”
  
  Rucker will take courses in honors level courses in biology on the campus of Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga. She will also select a minor area of study. Her instructors are among the most qualified high school and college teachers chosen according to their experience and recommendations. The ratio of teacher-to-student is usually 1:15.