By Mark Boshnack
An Oneonta middle school student was one of the stars at a recent award ceremony hosted by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth and held at Siena College in Loudonville.
Chris Lentner, 13, earned an invitation to the May 30 award ceremony through a high ranking on a recently administered Scholastic Aptitude Test, according to a spokesman. Siena was one of several sites in the state to honor students who tried out for the program, he said.
The Hopkins center offers assessment, programs, services, and publications and resources for academically talented pre-college students, according to its website.
Overall, there were more than 63,000 students who participated in the talent search this winter. About 25 percent of seventh- and eighth-grade students qualify, according to a media release.
In this area, there were about 90, including seventh-grader Lentner, Cody Graves from Norwich and Nicholas Rehberg from Cobleskill-Richmondville middle school.
The recognition is already starting to pay off for Chris, who on Thursday received a one-course scholarship from Hartwick College that he can use for a course of his choice before August 2011.
As part of the program, Chris is eligible for online courses, summer programs and family events, with varying fees.
"I was amazed" to have made the cut, he said while sitting on his couch on Thursday.
When his name was called on Saturday, "It was a great feeling that I had done so well," he said. "It is a privilege" to be involved.
But when he took the SAT at Oneonta High School in January along with college-bound students, he was pretty nervous, he recalled.
"It was the hardest test I've ever taken in my life," he said, and at four hours, it was one of the longest.
Although math and science are his favorite subjects at OMS, he received the award because of a 570 score in the critical-reading part of the test, he said.
His 540 math score was 10 points lower than the cutoff, according to the CTY website.
His mother, Joanne Lentner, said her son became involved in the program after her search for something to supplement his education.
He is involved in a host of activities, including band, soccer, little league baseball and Boy Scouts, but he needed more academic challenges, she said.
Joanne Lentner is an employee of the Otsego-Northern Catskills Board of Cooperative Educational Services, where she is a coordinator for the Catskill Area School Study Council.
She and her husband, J Lentner, a financial aid adviser with the State University College at Oneonta, were discussing with Chris what options he will pursue with the program.
His schedule was probably too busy to take advantage of anything this summer, she said, but she was sure he would eventually utilize the opportunity.
___
If you have good news you'd like to share, call Managing Editor Cary Brunswick at 432-1000 or (800) 721-1000, ext. 217; fax him at 432-5707; e-mail him at cary@thedailystar.com; or write to him at P.O. Box 250, Oneonta, NY 13820.
