Highline Community College’s 14 Honors Scholars for the 2008-2009 academic year received $624,000 in financial aid and scholarship offers to continue their education, including Burien student Jennifer Anne Kemp.

The Honors Scholar program’s 70 graduates have earned a combined $2.4 million in scholarships and other financial aid since the program began in 2003.

“The 2008-2009 academic year has been a banner year for the Honors Scholar program,” said Barbara Clinton, the program’s adviser. “The entire group of graduates earned about 25 percent more in financial aid and scholarships than last year’s students.”

The program is open to all students who have 12 credits of college-level work with a 3.5 GPA or higher. The program prepares students for upper division courses, typically offered at a four-year university or college.

It has shaped Gates Millennium Scholars, USA Today Academic All-American, Coca Cola Gold Scholar and Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship and QuestBridge College Match Scholarship winners.

The 2009 scholars will graduate on June 11 and include Boreth (Terry) Long, a national Guistwhite Scholar winner.

The White Center resident was one of the 20 students across the nation who won the honor, a $5,000 scholarship for academic achievement, community service and participation in the national honor society for two-year colleges, Phi Theta Kappa.

Long emigrated from Cambodia to the United States four years ago and has found success in Highline’s Honors Scholar program.

“The program inspired and motivated me to do more in my classes than what was expected,” Long said. “I’ve learned so much and I am confident I will be successful when I transfer to a university.”

He plans on attending the University of Washington in fall 2009 and will graduate with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering at Highline.

In addition, he has maintained a 3.87 GPA while working as a math tutor in Highline’s Math Resource Center and organizing the Fundraising to Make a Difference Club, a group that has helped raise about $500 each quarter to support children’s education and to fight trafficking of women in Cambodia.

In June 2009 he received one of the college’s top awards – the Shirley B. Gordon Academic Excellence Award – a $1,500 scholarship named in honor of Highline’s former president.

“The Honors Scholar program is a must for everyone who comes to Highline,” Long said. “It is a privilege to be part of such a program.”

This year’s 13 other Honors Scholars, by city, are:

• Auburn: Tierney Kuhn, Katherine S. Tacke
• Burien: Jennifer Anne Kemp
• Des Moines: David Ganett, Nari Kim, Mang (Jerry) Li, Kuan-Hung (Eleven) Liu, Robert Martin, Tuyet Anh Nguyen, Jerry Zarski
• Federal Way: Lei Lam (Selina) Chan
• Renton: Ashley L. Matsumoto
• Milton: Rikki-Rachelle Hinz

For more information about Highline’s Honors Scholar program and to read more success stories, visit http://flightline.highline.edu/honors/.

Highline Community College was founded in 1961 as the first community college in King County. With approximately 10,000 students and 350,000 alumni, it is one of the state’s largest institutions of higher education. The college offers a wide range of academic transfer and professional-technical education programs, with day, evening, online and weekend classes.

With the most diverse population of any college in Washington state, Highline takes a multicultural approach to education for the success of all its students and the prosperity of its surrounding communities. Alumni include former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, entrepreneur Junki Yoshida, Washington state poet laureate Sam Green and even Scott Schaefer, Publisher/Editor of this here website.