Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Students chosen for Governor’s School
PRAIRIE GROVE — Prairie Grove High School once again will send students to Arkansas Governor’s School this summer.
Lillie Mays, Weston Lowe Jr. and Gracie Marler, all high school juniors, have been selected for Governor’s School, which will be held for four weeks in July at Arkansas Tech University. Wade Davenport is an alternate and is waiting to hear if there will be an opening for him.
Mays, who transferred to Prairie Grove from Fayetteville this year, will study visual arts. Lowe will study mathematics, and Marler will study social sciences. Davenport is signed up for engineering if he is able to attend the school.
Melanie Nations, who is the gifted and talented coordinator for the Prairie Grove School District, said Governor’s School provides a program that not only allows students to study specific subjects, but also encourages them to engage in critical thinking and to consider philosophical questions.
“The goal is to get kids to pursue their passion and apply it to the real world and to help their communities,” Nations said.
Mays said art is a hobby of hers and she has self-taught herself to draw and paint.
She believes studying art at Governor’s School will be an opportunity for a “really cool experience.”
Lowe and Davenport also applied to go to the program because of the opportunities they would receive. Being selected also will look good on their resumes, they both agreed.
“It’s good resume building, and I love math,” Lowe said. He’s enrolled in three upper math classes this year at the high school: AP physics, AP statistics and precalculus.
Lowe said he’s interested in engineering as a career, possibly mechanical engineering.
Davenport also is interested in an engineering career and is in his third year, out of four, with the high school’s Project Lead the Way curriculum for engineering.
The 2022 Governor’s School will be held July 5-Aug. 1. It is a four-week residential program for incoming seniors and is funded by the state through an appropriation to the Arkansas Department of Education’s Gifted and Talented program.
Students are nominated for the program and, if they choose to apply, they have to fill out an application form, provide a school transcript, write two essays and provide teacher recommendations.