Spotlight on Youth

FORD/AAA STUDENT AUTO SKILLS COMPETITION

Automotive students from Clark County Skills Center and Prairie High School will compete with teams from eight other Washington schools at the auto skills state finals on May 6. The winning two-person team will advance to the national finals in June. In the state competition at Renton Technical College, each team will race each other and the clock to correctly identify and repair “bugs” installed in identical 2014 Ford Fiesta vehicles. They will compete for scholarships, prizes and tools.

The Clark County Skills Center students are Mykhailo Buchatskyi and Earl Dempster. Their instructor, Justin Flick, will travel with them to Renton.

The Prairie High School team consists of Cole Hoffmann and Trevor Peterson. Their instructor is Kurt Sitton.

Qualifying teams were selected based on their scores in the online exam, which tests overall automotive knowledge.

WASHINGTON SCHOLARS

Recently, 196 high school seniors from schools throughout Washington were honored by the state as Washington Scholars or Washington Scholar Alternates in recognition of their academic achievements, leadership and community service. The students, representing the top 1 percent of graduating seniors, are nominated by their principals. Local students honored are named below.

Battle Ground High School

Taylor Beardall.

Hudson’s Bay High School

Ashley Kourn, Carmen Mand, Lauren Urke.

Mountain View High School

Austin Chang, Waverley He, Jason Liu, Ernie Tao.

Seton Catholic College Preparatory High School

Julianna Vidales.

Union High School

Nicole Blake, Maximilian Hsiao, Christiana Lee.

Woodland High School

Karina Rayl.

WOMEN IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AWARD

Katie Bittner, a senior at Skyview High School, was recognized for her academic accomplishments by the National Center for Women in Information Technology. Thirty people from Oregon and Southwest Washington were selected for their scholastic performance and plans to pursue a computer-related field of study.

Items for Spotlight on Youth should be brought to The Columbian, News Department, 701 W. Eighth St., mailed to P.O. Box 180, Vancouver, WA 98666, emailed to pauline.sipponen@columbian.com or neighbors@columbian.com, phoned to 360-735-4524.