CHARLOTTE – Charlotte Catholic High School is very proud to announce that seniors Mary Cecilia Polking, Connor Blaise Ruff and Matthew Louis Weber have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.
Polking has served on Student Council as a Class Representative and as the Executive Council Secretary. She is in the National Honor Society and the CCHS Color Guard, and has competed on the track team. She has volunteered as an Assistant Catechist at her church, as a tutor at the Missionaries of Charity Convent, and as an Assistant Teacher with Vacation Bible School. She works as a Grader/Assistant at Kumon of Charlotte.
As an eighth-grader, Polking won the 2014 Charlotte Observer Spelling Bee. She won an AP Scholar award as a junior, and earned highest honors on the National Latin Examination four years in a row. She is the daughter of Christian and Jean Marie Polking of Charlotte, and the eldest of eight children.
Ruff is the President of the CCHS Speech and Debate Team, as well as the Captain of the Public Form division of the team. He has had a volunteer internship at Levine Children’s Hospital and has volunteered at the Pineville Firehouse.
As a sophomore, Ruff served as Captain of the JV Soccer team. He has played soccer at CCHS all four years, and also played club soccer during his freshman and sophomore years. He works as a soccer referee and at AutoBell as well.
Ruff is in Honors Choir and was chosen to perform with the “Singing Sergeants” of the US Air Force Band. He has earned the Bronze Award from the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and studied abroad through Oxbridge Academy. He is the son of Michael and Jenifer Ruff of Charlotte.
Weber attended the Niner Academy Leader Institute at UNC-Charlotte, a summer program focusing on leadership and community engagement. He has played alto saxophone for six years, and as a member of the CCHS Marching Band, he played in the Limerick International Band Festival and the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parade. He was awarded first chair in the CCHS Symphonic Band.
Weber has volunteered with Servants with a Heart, 24 Hours of Booty, PurpleStride, and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. He has run winter and spring track at CCHS, as well as cross country. He won the Cougar Award for Academic Excellence as a freshman and sophomore, and earned First Honors three years in a row. He is the son of Mark and Patti Weber of Charlotte.
Nearly 1.6 million high school juniors from more than 22,000 high schools nationwide entered the 2018 competition by taking the Preliminary SAT / National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in the fall of 2016.
Approximately 16,000 students qualified as semifinalists, representing less than one percent of all U.S. high school seniors. This group includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
From this group of outstanding students, approximately 15,000 finalists will be named, and more than half of all finalists will receive either a Merit Scholarship or a Special Scholarship from a corporate sponsor. The winners will be announced between April and July.
They will join more than 300,000 other distinguished students who have earned the National Merit Scholar title.
The National Merit Scholarship program was founded in 1955 to distinguish and honor academically talented American high school students and to encourage them to develop their talents and skills to the fullest. The competition is very rigorous, and scholarship winners are chosen based on their skills, abilities, extracurricular accomplishments, and potential for future success.
CHARLOTTE — Many relief efforts are underway to assist the people in Texas with recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. As the damage left by the storm became apparent to the students at Charlotte Catholic High School, they began asking what they could do to make a significant difference in the lives of those who need help after the hurricane.
Campus Ministry staff members made numerous telephone calls in early September, and learned that while many organizations were assisting people in Houston, smaller towns and cities in Texas still were struggling. A call was placed to the Diocese of Beaumont, and the idea was born to help the families of Beaumont’s Catholic schools.
Financial assistance was the first part of the high school’s relief efforts. For 10 days in mid-September, Charlotte Catholic students collected donations from friends and family, and gave themselves, as well. A total of $4,000 was sent to the Diocese of Beaumont, and another $1,000 to the Diocese of Victoria.
“Thank you hardly seems enough,” wrote Marcia Stevens, superintendent of the Catholic schools in Beaumont. “We deeply appreciate all Charlotte Catholic is doing to support and help us recover from Harvey. You give us encouragement and strength.”
Students began the second phase of their relief efforts in late September. They compiled a comprehensive list of items needed by the Beaumont schools and their families. For the schools, students collected rugs for the school floors, school uniforms, books for the school libraries, paper and school supplies, and plastic tubs for storage. Cleaning products, bleach, mold- and mildew-blocking products, paper plates, plastic utensils, paper towels, and hand sanitizers were collected for families. For the rebuilding stage, Charlotte Catholic families sent in furniture, lamps, bedding, towels, dishes, silverware, cookware and small appliances.
Other schools in the Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools system were contacted to see if they would like to help.
“In particular, I’d like to recognize the faculty, students and families of St. Gabriel, St. Matthew, St. Patrick and Our Lady of the Assumption schools,” said M.J. Dawson, Charlotte Catholic’s campus minister. “We are so grateful to them for partnering with us in this outreach project. The kids at St. Matthew also wrote letters of encouragement to the students in Beaumont, which was a very special thing for us to include in the delivery.”
Charlotte Catholic students organized and packed the donations into labeled boxes and plastic tubs, and on Oct. 3, they loaded a 26-foot rental truck with the organized items. Early on Oct. 4, Assistant Principal Randy Belk and retired football coach Jim Oddo set out on the long drive to Beaumont in the rented truck.
“This is something I really enjoy doing,” Belk said. “This is my seventh trip of this kind, and I’m always glad I did it. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to help your neighbors in need.”
“As we got closer to Beaumont, the damage from the storm was obvious,” he continued. “We came in on Interstate 10, and every house along the way had its entire contents piled along the road. Ten miles out, we passed a huge field where dump trucks were unloading people’s furniture and belongings to get them off the roads. The campgrounds we passed were crowded with people in campers and tents who had to leave their homes.”
Their rental truck was unloaded at Monsignor Kelly Catholic High School in Beaumont on Oct. 5.
Belk and Oddo said they were amazed at the spirit and resilience of those they met.
“Everyone at the high school was so pleasant and glad to see us,” Belk said. “Marcia Stevens, the superintendent, met us there, and 30 to 40 kids got the truck unloaded in about an hour. They were excited to see how much we brought, and told us their stories. One young man went to bed on the night of the storm, and woke to find water everywhere in the house. His family got out safely, but they had nine feet of water in their home, so every day after school, he goes home and helps rip out the damage, down to the studs. They lost everything.”
The third phase of the project, prayer for those in Beaumont and all those affected by Hurricane Harvey, continues at Charlotte Catholic.
“It is efforts and projects like this one that make me so proud to be a part of the Charlotte Catholic community,” said Principal Kurt Telford. “The students really drove this outreach project, collecting money and supplies, and our Campus Ministry department united other MACS schools into a community effort that truly will make a difference to the families of the Beaumont Catholic schools. It is amazing how much good we can do when our community pulls together. This is our faith in action.”
— Carolyn Kramer Tillman. Special to the Catholic News Herald. Carolyn Kramer Tillman is assistant director, Advancement and Communications, for Charlotte Catholic High School.