One-hundred and forty-nine Beaufort County eighth-graders were honored recently for being named Junior Scholars by the South Carolina Department of Education.

The students and their parents were recognized at a Junior Scholars Banquet sponsored by the Beaufort County School District.&nbsp; &nbsp;

“This recognition recognizes your potential to become a success in school and in life,” said Superintendent Jeff Moss. “Whether you live up to that potential is up to you.”

The banquet’s featured speaker was Brooke Everly, who graduated as the valedictorian of the Class of 2016 at Whale Branch Early College High School with both a South Carolina high school diploma and an associate’s degree from the Technical College of the Lowcountry. &nbsp;

Everly is currently a cadet at The Citadel, where she maintains a 3.8 GPA and plans to graduate next spring with the intention of continuing into the Citadel’s Accelerated Master’s program for biology.&nbsp; Her longer-term goals include attending medical school and becoming a surgical oncologist.

The Junior Scholars Program was developed by the South Carolina Department of Education to identify eighth-graders with exceptional academic talent and to develop strategies for inclusion into special programs. The program includes a process for screening, identifying and recognizing students with high scholastic achievement and intellectual ability.

Eligible students include those who score 50 or higher on the PSAT (preliminary SAT) in verbal, math or writing, or those who participated in Duke University's Talent Identification Program (TIP) during their seventh-grade years.

Students from Northern Beaufort County who were honored include:

Nevaeh Babb, Danyelle Bethea, Matthew Bornscheuer, Brody Connell, Esasha Frazier, Ethan Glover, Elizabeth Gray, Kaiya Johnson, Trey Smith and Amyah Todd, all of Beaufort Middle School; Travis Cato, Claire Davis, Karissa Gold, Caleb Henry, Drake Ireton, Mark May, Omarion McKinnon, Lucas Michels, Zoe Pejsa, Jacob Schatzle, Megan Schoener, Aidan Taylor and Ariana Watson, all of Lady’s Island Middle School; Samantha Aguero, Jaykob Aguilar, Jaxon Beebe, Sophia Corey, Sadie Flemetis, Dawson Hatch, Quintin Rowley, Emily Rivard, Hannah Parson and Michael Montanez, all of River Ridge Academy; Owen Dando, Lilah Delbos, Henry Harper, Walker Perryman, Hopi Stewart, Grace Trask and William Winburn, all of Riverview Charter School; Thien Tran and Anthony Dix, both of Robert Smalls International Academy; and Piper Reid of Whale Branch Middle.