Heading to Governor’s School this summer are (from left) Aidan Williams, Emma Balbier, Andrew Nenow, Yoojin Oh, and Collin Linnville.
Watauga High School students Emma Balbier, Collin Linnville, Andrew Nenow, Yoojin Oh, and Aidan Williams have been chosen to attend Governor’s School of North Carolina, a highly selective summer program offered to some of the most academically and artistically gifted students from across the state.
High schools are limited in how many students they can nominate for the program and less than half of the highly accomplished students that are nominated receive an invitation to attend.
“We are extremely proud of these students,” said Watauga High School Principal Marshall Gasperson. “We know they have worked very hard to develop their skills and talents. Their selection reflects the commitment to excellence that we strive to encourage in all of our students, and it also reflects the support they have received from their teachers and families over many years. We congratulate them on this well-deserved honor.”
Students attending Governor’s School are nominated and chosen in one of eleven subject areas: art, choral music, dance, English, French, Spanish, instrumental music, mathematics, natural science, social science, and theater. In this year’s students from Watauga High School, Oh and Williams were selected for instrumental music, Balbier in French, Nenow in Natural Science, and Linnville in Theater.
Students concentrate their studies in the subject in which they were selected but also participate in shared courses and activities with students from all subject areas.
Governor’s School is an intellectually demanding program in which no grades or tests are given and no course credit is received. Its courses and activities are designed to stimulate student creativity, encourage students to question basic assumptions, and develop an acceptance of change.
The faculty and staff of Governor’s School include leading teachers, professors, and professionals from across the country.
A $500 tuition fee is charged for students attending Governor’s School. However, Watauga High School has paid the fee for its students each year since tuition was first charged in 2010 and will do so again for 2016.
The Governor’s School of North Carolina is the nation’s oldest statewide summer residential program for academically gifted high school students. The program runs for approximately five and one-half weeks and usually starts in mid-June. It operates at two locations, a western campus at Salem College in Winston-Salem and an eastern campus at Meredith College in Raleigh.
