Education Notes: Zahn to compete at MIT; PLD win JV/Novice Jag Bowl | Lexington Herald Leader

awards/honors

■ Max Zhan, a senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, has been named a regional finalist in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, a research competition for high school students. Max was to present his research on a novel enzyme therapy for treatment of cocaine abuse and concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol at the Regional Finals at MIT on Nov. 1-2. Winners of the regional finals will advance to the national finals at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7-10, where $500,000 in scholarships will be awarded, including two top prizes of $100,000.

■ Lafayette High School's marching band, known as the Pride of the Bluegrass, earned the 2013 Class 5A state championship Oct. 26 with a performance called "With All My Heart." It was Lafayette's 18th title in the Kentucky Music Educators Association's competition. Paul Laurence Dunbar finished third.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, which has seven state championships, won in 2010 and 2011. Lafayette was runner-up both those years.

■ Centre College in Danville has again been named a "Best Value Private College" by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Ranked No. 22 in the nation. This is the eighth year in a row that Centre has made the list that measures academic quality and affordability.

Centre demonstrates its commitment to affordability with need-based aid packages that average $23,642 a year, part of the College's overall annual financial aid total of about $23 million.

In addition, the average debt at graduation of a Centre student is $21,800 compared to the national average of nearly $27,000, according to the Pew Research Center. At the same time, Centre has kept annual cost increases at or below 3 percent and is committed to doing so for the foreseeable future.

Among the top 25 colleges on Kiplinger's list, Centre has the lowest overall total cost per year. Centre's cost is not just the lowest, but it also is more than $10,000 less than the average cost of $57,938. In fact, four of the top 25 colleges exceed $60,000 a year, and five more are within only $1,000 of this price.

■ Bluegrass Community and Technical College has received two awards. The Bluegrass Chapter of APICS, The Association of Operations Management, has selected Ted F. Nicholson, BCTC Workforce Solutions project manager, as Individual of the Year, and BCTC's Workforce Solutions program as its Organization of the Year for fiscal year 2012. The chapter gives these awards to the individual member and the organization that have provided leadership and partnership in advancing the art and science of supply chain in the Central Kentucky area.

■ The junior varsity academic team from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School captured the JV championship in the JV/Novice Jag Bowl on Oct. 26 in Athens, Ga. Southeastern high schools compete in this annual event, which is associated with National Academic Quiz Tournaments.

The winning team included sophomores Adil Yusuf, Zainab Kahloon, Shaoyi Sheng and Joanna Slusarewicz and freshman Ananth Miller-Murthy. They played 10 rounds against other schools — including fourth-ranked Dorman High from Spartanburg, S.C., and No. 12 Chattahoochee High School near Atlanta — and won all but one game during the day. Dunbar is the first Kentucky team to win this tournament, according to Coach Susan Magedanz.

■ Cody Barnes, who earned a baccalaureate degree in aviation-professional flight in 2011, recently became the first EKU aviation graduate — and probably the first in the nation, according to program director Ralph Gibbs — to receive one of the Federal Aviation Administration's newly created 1,000-hour restricted Airline Transport Pilot certificates. Barnes now has a flight training class date with Chautauqua Airlines.

This summer, EKU's Aviation Program, the only university-based program in Kentucky, became one of the first three universities nationally authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration to designate their aviation graduates as candidates for the 1,000-hour restricted Airline Transport Pilot certificate.

EKU has the only university-based aviation program in the United States to offer both the 1,000-hour path, plus 100 hours of multi-engine time in its commercial pilot certificate training. For information about the program, go to Aviation.eku.edu.

■ Bryan Dyer, an associate professor in the Department of Applied Engineering and Technology at EKU, has received the Distinguished Engineer in Education award from the Kentucky Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Dyer teaches in EKU's Construction Management Program.

miscellaneous

■ Christ the King School will have an open house from 1-3 p.m. Sunday. Registration for the 2013-14 school year will be 8 a.m.-noon Nov. 11. Contact Kim Thompson at (859) 266-5641 or kthompson@ctkschool.cdlex.org for information. The school is at 412 Cochran Road.

■ The partnership between Lloyd's of London and the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment is continuing, with representatives from Lloyd's recently presenting a check for $45,000 to UK. The contribution supports the Lloyd's Equine Disease Quarterly, a research-based publication dedicated to equine health produced by the UK Department of Veterinary Science.

The award-winning publication includes articles written by researchers from around the world and provides reports on the most important issues facing the equine industry. The Quarterly reaches more than 18,000 readers in 102 countries. It is available for free in paper and online. It is co-edited by Roberta Dwyer, Peter Timoney and Neil Williams from the UK Department of Veterinary Science.

The current version of the Equine Disease Quarterly is located online at Www2.ca.uky.edu/gluck/q_oct13.asp.