This year South Lakes will send 17 students to various Governor School programs around the state.

This program is a one-month summer residential program, hosted at different universities within Virginia. Students must compete against applicants across the state, submitting teacher recommendation, resumes, and essays as materials to encourage their selection.   

There are various governor school programs to choose from when applying. The language governor school program has the most South Lakes students in attendance and requires that the student sign a contract, committing to speak their learned language during the duration of the program. The students who were admitted and their respective programs are as follows: sophomore Claire Nieusna (French), junior Junior Melendez (French), junior Kaitlyn Hudenburg (German), junior Abigail Reinhold (Spanish), junior Charlotte Dunn (Latin), junior Casey Noll (Latin alternate), and junior Laura Ferraro (Japanese).

The other governor school programs available for students range from Marine Sciences to Visual to Humanities. The students who got accepted into these other programs are as follows: junior Margaret Flemings (Visual and Performing Arts), junior Annabelle Goll (Visual and Performing Arts), junior Kacey Hirshfeld (Mentorship in Marine Sciences), junior Arnim Jain (Math, Science and Technology), junior Sachi Jain (Agriculture), junior Derek Phillips (Math, Science, and Technology), sophomore Charles Quinn (Visual and Performing Arts), junior Kristianne Rulona (Visual and Performing Arts), junior Seema Sethi (Humanities), and sophomore Sahana Thirumazhusai (Humanities).

The Mentorship in Marine Sciences differs from the other programs because it only accepts 6 students from the whole state while other programs accept up to 200 students. Hirshfeld was the first ever student from South Lakes selected to participate in this program and will be working on the conservation of the Chesapeake Bay all summer.

“Every person that goes to this program gets assigned to a specific assignment,” Hirshfeld said. “So I am working on a project that deals with the conservation of the Chesapeake Bay and the area around that watershed.”

Hirshfeld aspires to pursue Marine Sciences as a career and is looking forward to starting her education in the topic early.

“I am excited to meet the people there, and where my research takes me,” Hirshfeld said. “Many people don’t know about Marine Sciences, and I don’t know, the newness kind of interests me.”