Faces & places

Barbara Vigil, former chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court and a former Cabinet secretary of the state Children, Youth and Families Department, recently presented the 2023 Life Center Foundation Leadership Award of $20,000 to the Institute of American Indian Arts. The Leadership Award will support IAIA’s Wellness and Counseling Therapy Program.

The 2023 Leadership Award runners up also received grant awards: Children’s Grief Center of Albuquerque,

St. Elizabeth’s Casa Familia Shelter, Tierra Nueva Counseling Center and the New Mexico School for the Arts.

The finalists for the 2024 LCF Leadership Award are:

Saranam Inc.: A homeless shelter in Albuquerque serving children and families throughout Central New Mexico.

The Sky Center: An organization that counsels youth at risk of suicide and their families.

Solace: A center that provides sexual assault counseling services.

Girls Inc.: Preteen and teen programs for girls, many of them low-income, after school and in the summer.

Education standouts

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. recently announced the names of more than 16,000 semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring. Among them were the following area students:

Las Vegas, N.M.: Kavya Chandra, United World College.

Los Alamos High School: John F. Cawkwell, Willow J. Chartrand, Rosario E. Dodd, Min-Htet P. Htoon, Finley Inglis, Andres S. Iturregui, Lucy Kelley, Shiv Antar S.

Khalsa, Daniel S. Kim, Jinheon Kim, Rebecca M. Li and Kahtia Nelson.

Santa Fe: Natalia Sabato, the Academy for Technology and the Classics; Annalee E. Auer, Santa Fe High School; Clifton N. Layman, Santa Fe Preparatory School.

William L. Franklin of Santa Fe and Carl J. Weinmeister of Taos were named on the Scholastic Honor Roll for summer 2023 at Oregon State University.

Miles Teng-Levy, a member of the Class of 2021 at Mandela International Magnet School, recently was named to the dean’s list at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.

Jessica Lopez of Santa Fe recently received a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama’s summer 2023 commencement in Tuscaloosa, while Marquita Rufus of Santa Fe received a Master of Science from the school.

Southern New Hampshire University announced the following students were named on its summer 2023 president’s list.

◆ Jonathan Guise of Los Alamos.

◆ Benny Lujan of Taos.

◆ Monica Rivera of Los Alamos.

◆ Arron Waldron of Los Alamos.

◆ Alfredo Burdwell of Santa Fe.

◆ Alexander Howell of Santa Fe.

◆ Isaac Burdwell of Santa Fe.

◆ Matthew Sandoval of Los Alamos.

◆ Matthew Valdez of Santa Fe.

Zakary Kerr of Santa Fe was named to Southern New Hampshire University’s summer dean’s list.