Countywide : 12 Students Chosen for Merit Scholarships

Twelve Orange County high school students are among 1,450 students nationwide chosen for corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarships, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. announced.

Each winner will receive between $2,000 and $8,000 for undergraduate study at the U.S. college of his or her choice. The corporate sponsors pay for the scholarships, but the tests are administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, based in Evanston, Ill.

The winners are in the first of three groups of Merit scholars to be named this year.

In the 1985 competition, more than 1 million high school juniors in the nation took the qualifying test. Of those, 15,000 in the 50 states became semifinalists, and about 5,700--including the 1,450 named this week--are scholarship winners.

The Orange County winners are:

Benjamin J. Lo, Loara High School, Anaheim (Anaheim Union High School District); Helen Petroff, Troy High School, Fullerton, and David A. Whiting, Fullerton High School (both in Fullerton Union High School District); Paul Bong, Huntington Beach High School, (Huntington Beach Union High School District); Erik S. Anderson, Christopher Martin Chu, and Michael C. Hennahane, all of University High School, Irvine, and John R. Middleton, Woodbridge High School, Irvine (all in Irvine Unified School District); Eva C. Ihle and Ronald L. Sprouse, both of Capistrano Valley High, Mission Viejo (Capistrano Unified School District); Samuel W. Sheng, Foothill High School, Santa Ana (Tustin Unified School District), and Timothy P. Wendler, Esperanza High, Anaheim (Placentia Unified School District).