Stratford has nominated 12 seniors for the 42nd annual Golden Eagle awards.

The Golden Eagles is an awards ceremony sponsored by The (Macon) Telegraph. They are given to high school seniors to honor their scholastic achievements.

To be considered for an award, students must be nominated by their high school in one category which can be anything from Science to Math to Drama. After that, they will need to go through an interview process.

This year, the interviews will take place on Saturday, Feb. 9.

The candidates for this year have participated in many impressive activities in their category throughout their high school career, allowing them to receive the nomination.

Sai Pagadala and Carter Atkinson were accepted for the Governor’s Honors Program in science and world language.

Marta Stevenson has been a member of the yearbook staff for the past four years and served as the editor for the last two.

Maggie Fuchs has played saxophone for District Honor and Region Honor Bands in addition to playing for the school marching and symphonic band and receiving other honors.

Li-An Tsai is currently in Ms. Anastasia Fink’s AP Art class and has illustrated a book called Dance, Gremlin, Dance her junior year.

Meggie Aivalotis is an active participant in Stratford’s theatre program.

“I know from actually being a judge that community outreach is a big part of what they’re looking for in the winner and honorable mention. So when looking this year for the best representative of theatre in terms of reaching out to the community, Meggie’s resume’ stood out to me,” director of theatre Ms. Sylvia Haynie said.

Kenzie Muenzer has worked on the literary magazine throughout high school and participated on the literary team as a writer. She also serves as English department head Ms. Michelle Fleming’s intern.

Andrew Moring has a passion for technology.

“Being able to create my own things was pretty cool, but the fact of learning how I could do it was even,” he said.

He has taken Programming Ⅰ and Ⅱ with Mr. Mike McCue as well.

Outside of class, he has built a drone out of old server parts and has begun working on the security system in the Fab Lab.

Holland Schell is a top math student, making perfect or near perfect scores on almost all her quizzes and tests.

“One of the nice things about her is that she’ll come in here, she’ll do her work, but if other people have questions, she’ll help them,” Math Department Chair Mr. Bobby Stecher said.

McKinley Thompson is the state high jump champion two years in a row. He is a captain of the football team, soccer player, and basketball player.

Every year, an award is given for the football player in each grade with the highest GPA after the first quarter. McKinley has received this award three out of the four years.

“He is an excellent student, he is an excellent teammate, he is an accomplished athlete, and just overall a very impressive model type guy,” Athletics Director Mark Farriba said.

Rush Patel is head of the Financial Investment club and Debate Club here at Stratford. He is an accomplished member of Model UN, winning many awards at competitions. He has participated in GCAPs (Georgia Civic Awareness Program), and been involved in government and international relation programs through it.

Last year, Stratford had three first-place winners in Golden Eagles, more than any other school. Tejas Athni won first place in the science category. Akshay Rannabhotu was the winner in technology,  Nischal Bandi was the top student in math.