Two named to ‘Commended’ list

Two Badin High School seniors, Brandon Burke and Leo Hoppa, have been named Commended Students in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program.

That pair scored in the top five percent of the more than 1.6 million students who entered the 2022 scholarship competition by taking the 2020 Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in the fall of their junior year.

Brandon is the son of Andrew and Christina Burke of Liberty Twp. Leo is the son of Jason and Laura Hoppa of West Chester Twp. Both seniors are graduates of Mother Teresa Catholic Elementary School.

Both are Top 10 students and members of the National Honor Society. Hoppa runs cross country and Burke has been to state in swimming. Both are members of the school’s Ambassador Program and heavily involved in their high school experience.

Both are planning STEM majors in college. Burke is looking at Engineering, Physics or Math and his top choices include the University of Notre Dame, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University and Xavier University.

Hoppa is eyeing Biomedical Engineering at either Ohio State University or the University of Alabama.

While neither student will continue in the 2022 competition for National Merit Scholarship awards, each will receive a letter of commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation recognizing their excellent performance on the test.

Burke and Hoppa join classmate Case Trokhan with National Merit recognition from Badin in the Class of 2022. Trokhan is a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist and still eligible for scholarship dollars that will be awarded in the spring. CONTRIBUTED

Meade, Ben Moeller, Harry Moeller, Nathan Sommers, Avery Werling and Baxter Ziepfel.