Students Earn High Honors at McGivney

By Randy Pierce

Several local area students are among those who have attained the highest honors possible, summa cum laude, upon their graduation from Father McGivney Catholic High School in Glen Carbon.

Among those earning this recognition for having a grade-point average of 3.9 to 4.0, which is the perfect equivalent to straight As, are three who attended St. Jerome Catholic Elementary School in Troy, Mary-Elizabeth Benware, Alexander Sobczak and Paige Yasitis.

Benware will be continuing her education at St. Louis University from which she has received a vice-president tuition scholarship, Catholic high school award, Jesuit community award and another grant. Sobczak is going to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville as a recipient of its Cougar Pride scholarship. Yasitis received an academic board scholarship from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. 

Alumni from Mother of Perpetual Help Parish’s St. John Neumann Catholic School in Maryville honored as summa cum laude graduates from McGivney include Emma Bukovac, Keira Cope, Samuel Chouinard, Evan Schrage and Alyssa Terhaar.

Both Bukovac and Terhaar will be attending SIUE with the help of Cougar Pride scholarships while Chouinard is going to the University of Alabama at Huntsville, having received an academic recognition scholarship, and Schrage is a Merit 10 scholarship recipient from the University of Mississippi where he will be a student. Cope will attend Webster University in St. Louis as a result of being awarded a gold scholarship and bordering state tuition grant from there. 

A graduate of the First Baptist Church Maryville Christian School who achieved a summa cum laude GPA at Father McGivney CHS, Madeline Burnett, is planning to attend the University of Florida.

Coming to FMCHS from Holy Cross Lutheran School in Collinsville, Taylor Haerr is another Cougar Pride scholarship recipient who will be going to SIUE.

Two grads from SS. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Collinsville who are moving on from Father McGivney with summa cum laude honors are David Lowe and Melinda Smith.

Lowe plans to study at SIUE and Smith will pursue a degree at Butler University in Indianapolis from which she received an academic scholarship. 

Coming from St. Cecilia Parish in Glen Carbon and achieving summa cum laude status at FMCHS are Jackson Rodgers and Gretchen Rybolt. 

Rodgers is going to further his education at Western Illinois University in Macomb, earning commitment and athletic scholarships from there, while Rybolt received a Cougar Pride scholarship from SIUE which she has chosen as her college.