Countywide : 15 of 101 State’s Merit Scholars From County

The county has 15 of the state’s 101 National Merit Scholarship winners named in the first round of this year’s competition, sponsors said Wednesday.

Four of the county winners came from Tustin’s Foothill High, according to the Illinois-based National Merit Scholarship Corp.

In announcing that fact, however, the organization cautioned against comparisons. “Award recipients owe their attainments to a combination of many factors,” the corporation said.

Nonetheless, Foothill High’s unusually large percentage of scholarship winners produced smiles in the Tustin Unified School District. “The senior class has been outstanding,” Supt. Maurice Ross said Wednesday. “(It) earlier won the Orange County (academic) Decathlon, and it had 20 semifinalists in the merit scholarship competition--more than any other high school or any other school district in Orange County.

The Foothill High winners are Greg I. Nakamoto, Robin C. Williams, Amy Y. Sheng and Christopher D. Elmer.

Esperanza High in Anaheim, which is part of the Placentia Unified School District, had two winners. They are Greg B. Lander and Angela C. Haist.

One of the county’s first-round winners, Mark D. Petteys of Irvine, attends Saint Georges College School in Toronto.

Other county winners are Adam M. Ambrose, Capistrano Valley High, Mission Viejo (Capistrano Unified School District); John N. Bennitt, Corona del Mar High, (Newport-Mesa Unified School District); William C. Conant, Servite High, Anaheim, and Gregory A. Floyd, Brea-Olinda High, Brea.

Also, Erika J. Lynn, La Quinta High, Westminster (Garden Grove Unified School District); Diane L. Mulligan of Cornelia Connelly School in Anaheim, and Yischon Liaw, University High, and Theodore E. Tobiason, Woodbridge High, both in the Irvine Unified School District.