Two Ohio County students competing for Presidential Scholarships

OHIO COUNTY, W.Va. (WTRF) – It’s considered by may to be one of the nations highest honors for high school students.

Each year more than 4,000 students from across the country are selected to apply for the U.S. Presidential Scholarship Program. It was established in 1964 to honor some of the nation’s top graduating high school seniors.

Students are selected on the basis of academic and artistic achievement, leadership qualities and community involvement

Two students from Ohio County were selected for the first phase of the program from the more than three million students expected to graduate in 2021.

It really an honor just to be nominated for anything like this and it’s really great to represent Linsly.

Annabelle Blosser

Annabelle Blosser has attended the Linsly School since the sixth grade.
She is head of the Student Voice Committee, enrolled and several AP classes and is a member of the school band and orchestra.

Annabelle has volunteered at the Oglebay Good Zoo for the past four years. It was that experience that led her to her career choice.

She will be attending the University of Findlay to study animal science and plans on being a vet.

Linsly, with our classes being harder, has just pushed me academically to do better and just prepared me a lot to do stuff like this.

Annabelle Blosser

Ben Wade of Dallas Pike was also named as one of the more than 4,000 candidates to take part in the program.

Ben is home schooled and has lived and worked on his families farm. That experience helped him establish a strong work ethic and he said he’d be honored to be selected for the program.

I was born and raised right here in West Virginia. My family has had a farm here for six generations. So, I am glad to represent West Virginia and everything it stands for.”

Ben Wade

Ben is President of the Ohio Country Livestock club, volunteers at Liza’s Place and Valley Hospice Care Center, plays the mandolin and is a member of First Baptist Church in Wheeling He is also a member of Ohio Valley Christian Home Educators.

Ben is deciding on a number of colleges including Perdue, Penn State and WVU. He pans to major in agricultural engineering.

There are 330 million people in the US and two million of those are farmers. That’s less than one percent feeding 100 percent. So, if I can do anything to make farmers jobs easier or let them grow more on less ground or with less water, that’s what I’d like to do.

Ben Wade

The Scholars committee will narrow the field to 600 semi-finalist in April.

Best of luck to Annabelle and Ben!