A dozen LCPS seniors advance in quest for all-expenses-paid college educations

A dozen LCPS seniors from four high schools took a giant step in recent weeks toward all-expenses-paid college educations, advancing in the competitive process designed to bring top students to top four-year institutions and reward them for their academic excellence.

The prize for these students includes prestigious merit-based scholarships at storied universities like Duke, UNC, NC State and Campbell, as well as admission to the nation’s most elite service academies.

“The recent successes of our high school seniors is a testament to the high-quality opportunities a Lenoir County Public Schools education has to offer,” Dr. Amy Jones, LCPS’s director of high school education, said. “Students from LCPS are equipped to compete at the highest levels with students across the state and nation.”

North Lenoir High School senior Christian Wiggins and Lenoir County Early College High. School senior Hayden Cauley moved closer to admission to, respectively, the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Both won nominations for admission from U.S. Rep. Don Davis last week, an essential step in a highly selective process that will identify about a thousand young men and women from across the nation as members of each service academy’s incoming class.

Two students – Cody Baggett of South Lenoir High School and Halle Powell of Early College – have advanced as semi-finalists in their quest for the Morehead-Cain Scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. About 500 semi-finalists are chosen from a pool of about 2,500 applicants, based on academic performance end community involvement, among other factors, as well as individual interviews, which Cody and Halle sat for in December.

Morehead-Cain finalists will be named later this month and scholarship winners are typically announced in February or March. About 70 scholarships are awarded each year. Since 2017, LCPS has had three Morehead-Cain winners.

Jenna Van of Early College is a semi-finalist for the Park Scholarship to NC State University, among the top 20 percent of applicants for NC State’s top academic scholarship. About 110 finalists will be named after interviews later this month and the announcement of Park winners is expected in February. About 35 scholarships are awarded each year. LCPS has produced two Park scholars in the past two year and three since 2016.

Cenque Jones of Kinston High School is a semi-finalist for the Robertson Scholars Leadership Program, a unique scholarship opportunity that offers winners dual enrollment at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill. Semi-finalists interview for the merit-based award in February and finalists interview in March, with winners announced soon after. Twenty-seven recipients were named in 2025.

Like the Morehead-Cain and the Park, the Robertson scholarship covers college expenses for eight semester and offers funding for summer leadership experiences and study aboard.

Four students are semi-finalists for the highly competitive J.A. Campbell Scholarship to Campbell University. Brayden Burd of South Lenoir, Taryn Barnett and Amiyah Best of Early College and Madeline Gilmore of North Lenoir have been invited to the Buies Creek campus this month, where each will participate in an interview, compose a short essay response and meet faculty and staff. The university awards five of the full-tuition scholarships each year.

Another South Lenoir student, Braden Barnett, was named a semi-finalist for the Levine Scholarship to UNC-Charlotte.

Rose Zayyad of North Lenoir is in the running for two top scholarships, the Gates Scholarship and the Woods Family Scholarship. The Gates, which covers expenses for Pell-eligible students at any accredited four-year institution in the U.S., has scheduled finalist interviews for March and selection of winners in April. The Woods Family Scholarship, a full-ride academic scholarship to UNC-Chapel Hill, names 10 winners each year.

“We are incredibly proud of these high school seniors and wish them the best of luck as they move forward in the process,” Jones said. “No matter what the outcome, we know their foundations are solid and their futures are bright.”