Amber Montgomery

The Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley recently announced this year’s Scholastic Art & Writing Awards regional winners, including Edge staff member Amber Montgomery, a senior at Glenvar High School.

The center received 719 pieces of artwork from around the region for the awards, offered through the National Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. The team of judges awarded five American Vision Nominees, 100 gold keys, 78 silver keys and 75 honorable mentions on Saturday, Jan. 19.

Montgomery received an honorable mention for her painting “Just Thrown Over.”

The winning pieces are currently on exhibit at the center’s gallery at 21 W. Main St. in Pulaski. The awarding of certificates and pins is Sunday, Feb. 17 from 2 to 4 p.m.

The awards were established in 1923 by M.R. Robinson, who also founded Scholastic Inc., now a global children’s publishing and media company, to encourage, foster and reward creativity in our nation’s classrooms. Throughout their 91-year history, the awards have bestowed early recognition upon some of our nation’s most celebrated artists and writers, including Truman Capote, Robert Redford, Andy Warhol and many others.

– Submitted by Judy Ison, Executive Director, Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley

Megan Fenrich of Blacksburg, a first-year student at Gettysburg College, was awarded a Presidential Scholarship by the college.

Gettysburg College recognizes students’ academic achievement in high school by awarding merit scholarships. The Presidential Scholarship goes to top-ranking applicants based upon their grade-point average, class rank and SAT or ACT scores.

Founded in 1832, Gettysburg College is a four-year residential college of liberal arts and sciences that enrolls 2,600 undergraduate students. It is located on a 200-acre campus adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.

– Submitted by Gettysburg College

Harsh Patolia, a 2012 valedictorian of Hidden Valley High School and also a graduate of Roanoke Valley Governor’s School, was awarded the India Heritage Society Merit Scholarship for high school seniors of 2012.

Patolia was one of two graduating seniors selected by the governor of Virginia to act as a delegate from Virginia for 2012 to the National Youth Science Camp. Also, he was accepted into the Virginia Tech Summer Internship program sponsored by the Dr. Carla Finkielstein Lab and participated in the cancer/molecular biological research for three weeks. This was followed by a three-week visit in the summer of 2011 through a student exchange program with the Otto Krause Technical School in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to study chemistry and Rioplatense Spanish.

Patolia is the son of Dr. Harsukh and Shila Patolia and the brother of Soni Patolia, a current Edge staff member. He attends Wake Forest University with the Joseph G. Gordon Scholarship and hopes to study physics, mathematics, and potentially music with the intent of becoming a doctor.

India Heritage Society is a nonprofit organization in the Roanoke Valley that promotes India’s heritage, traditional values and teachings of religious philosophy. This is the third year of this $1,000 annual award, instituted to encourage college education and to recognize a meritorious high school graduate in the community. The winner of this award is selected by a committee that follows an extensive procedure and evaluates all applicants on nine parameters, including overall grade-point average, SAT score, evidence of altruism, and certificates and awards, just to name a few.

– Submitted by Shyam Shahane, India Heritage Society