18 More County Students Named Merit Scholars

County high school students won 18 National Merit Scholarships in second-round announcements of the prestigious awards.

The National Merit Scholarship Corp., the Illinois-based, nonprofit group that sponsors the scholarships, announced the latest nationwide winners Wednesday and will reveal the final-round winners next month.

In the first round, announced April 7, the county had 18 of California’s 117 National Merit Scholarship winners. In the second round, there were 165 California winners.

Included were three each from the Irvine Unified School District’s University High and Placentia Unified School District’s Esperanza High.

The second-round winners, listed by school district:

Anaheim Union High School District

Peter A. Lo, Anaheim, Loara High.

Capistrano Unified School District

Karl H. Feng, San Juan Capistrano, Dana Hills High.

Fullerton Joint Union High School District

Susie J. Wu, Fullerton, Sunny Hills High.

Huntington Beach Union High School District

Matthew J. Heinlein, Costa Mesa, Ocean View High, and

Debbie K. Oh, Fountain Valley, Fountain Valley High.

Irvine Unified School District

Michael A. De La Maza, Lydia W. Lee and Lara J. Moore, all of Irvine, all from University High.

Laguna Beach Unified School District

Eric J. Freeman, Laguna Beach, Laguna Beach High.

Los Alamitos Unified School District

Derek C. Stanford, Los Alamitos, and Shubert C. Koong, Seal Beach, both from Los Alamitos High.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District

David C. Bear and Anthony C. Shen, both of Newport Beach, both from Newport Harbor High.

Placentia Unified School District

Phuc H. Pham, Anaheim; David B. Allen, Yorba Linda, and Jonathan H. Lin, Yorba Linda, all from Esperanza High.

Tustin Unified School District

Paul A. Cash and Horace Lin, both of Santa Ana, both from Foothill High.