EDITORIAL: Speaking of scholars …
If earning ridiculously competitive scholastic recognition is your thing, try becoming a Rhodes Scholar. To win two or three years of study at England’s Oxford University, all expenses paid, you have to be one of the very best students at your college. This year, just 857 applications were endorsed by 327 colleges and universities, and only 32 Americans were selected to enroll at Oxford next fall.
One of them was Clarke Knight, a 2010 graduate of Green Valley High School. Ms. Knight, a 21-year-old chemistry major at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., wants to help the world address climate change through evidence-based policy. “I really want to be a bridge between the two cultures of science and policymakers. They need a translator, and I want to be that person,” she told Martin Griffith of The Associated Press.
An athlete and author, Ms. Knight already has studied plant disease in Australia and earned a fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Congratulations to Ms. Knight and her parents, Kenneth and Teri Knight. It’s a life-changing honor and a reminder that Clark County schools and families, working together, can give our children the rigor they need to succeed.
“I had a fabulous public education in Nevada,” she said. “My parents have always been the No. 1 people behind me.”