Merit Scholarship Winner

Hilton Head Island High senior wins a National Merit Scholarship

A Hilton Head Island High School senior is one of five students statewide and 1,100 nationally to receive a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship, according to a release.

Jordan Edwards,son of George and Pam Edwards, earned the National Merit Tenet Healthcare Foundation Scholarship. The scholarship is worth $500 a year for four years.

"It feels pretty cool," Jordan said of receiving the award. "... I definitely didn't think I'd get one of the scholarships."

Earlier this spring, Jordan received the local Heritage Foundation Scholarship valued at $18,000.

Edwards serves as team captain of his school's FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics team and is a member of Hilton Head High's chapter of Mu Alpha Theta, a math honor society. He plans to go to Cornell University to study engineering.

According to the National Merit Scholarship Corp., more than 1.4 million high school juniors from nearly 21,000 U.S. high schools entered the 2008 National Merit Program by taking the 2006 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The national pool of semi-finalists, representing less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, consisted of the highest scoring entrants in each state.

Edwards was one of four Hilton Head High seniors recognized as semi-finalists.

Others were Megan Carey, Dominic DeSantis and Paige Wartko.