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Anna Schimmelfing received the Arnold Strauch Award at the Omicron Delta Kappa Annual Awards Day at Elon University on April 26. The Award is presented to an outstanding senior in education with the criteria of an outstanding academic record, superior student teaching performance, high level of professionalism and potential for contributing to the field of Education. Schimmelfing is serving as a permanent substitute at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill, having finished her academic coursework at Elon in January. She is the daughter of Lucy and Lee Schimmelfing of Chapel Hill.

Neal Weakly of Chapel Hill appeared on "Turkey Call," a hunting series produced by the National Wild Turkey Federation, recently on The Outdoor Channel. Weakly and Buck Kitchin, both federation volunteers, hunted eastern wild turkeys in the Appalachian hills of North Carolina. Kitchin and Weakly each played a vital role in bringing back the wild turkey in the Tar Heel State.

Jeff Whetstone, assistant professor of art; William Ferris, Joel R. Williamson eminent professor of history and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South; and Bob Goldstein, associate professor of biology, all in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, have received 2007 fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Guggenheim fellows are appointed based on distinguished past achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Charlotte M. Stewart, daughter of Brad and Emily Geerdes of Chapel Hill, has been accepted to the Joffrey Midwest summer ballet intensive for the second straight year. The program accepts 100 dancers from across the United States and Canada and brings them together for four weeks of ballet technique and artistic ballet training on the campus of the Flint Cultural Arts Center in Flint, Mich.
Charlotte is a sophomore at East Chapel Hill High School and dances with The Ballet School of Chapel Hill and the Chapel Hill Dance Theater.

UNC art professor Mary C. Sturgeon has been elected chairwoman of the managing committee of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, founded in 1881, is the principal resource in Greece for American scholars conducting advanced research on the language, literature, art, history, archaeology and philosophy of Greece and the Greek world from pre-Hellenic times to the present.
Sturgeon, who teaches courses on Greek and Roman sculpture and Greek painting at UNC, has been elected to a five-year term as head of the 304-member managing committee. The committee, under the general control of the board of trustees, has full charge of the American School and of the work done by it. In the United States and Canada, 174 colleges and universities are cooperating institutions of the school.

Air Force Airman Kirsten A. Curry, daughter of John Curry of Chapel Hill, has graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. During the six weeks of training, the Curry studied the Air Force mission, organization, and military customs and courtesies; performed drill and ceremony marches, and received physical training, rifle marksmanship, field training exercises, and special training in human relations.

Ronald Strauss, dental director of the UNC Craniofacial Center since 1977, has received the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association's highest honor: the Honors of the Association Award.
Strauss is chairman of and Dental Friends distinguished professor within the UNC School of Dentistry's department of dental ecology, as well as a professor in the School of Medicine's department of social medicine.
The award honors individuals whose lifetime of research, health care delivery or leadership has improved physical, behavioral or social effects associated with cleft lip and palate or other craniofacial disorders.

Jonathan Kotch, a professor in the UNC School of Public Health, has received a $682,000 Duke Endowment grant to help prevent child maltreatment in eastern North Carolina. Over three years, the Family-Friendly Child Care program, with Kotch as principal investigator, will develop and implement a plan that includes direct services for families and child care providers in Lenoir and Beaufort Counties.

Sophia Lapidus of Chapel Hill was named to the academic honor roll for the winter term at Northfield Mount Herman School in Gill, Mass.

Genna Rae McNeil, a history professor in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, has received a research fellowship by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Her project title is "Witness: Two Centuries of African American Faith and Practice of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, New York, 1808-2008."
McNeil will conduct research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

Elsbeth Love Grant, a student at East Chapel Hill High School, recently serves as a page in the N.C. Senate. She is the daughter of Robert Grant and Sharon Hogan of Chapel Hill. She was sponsored by state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird. Pages serve for a week in the Legislative Building in Raleigh. They attend the daily Senate sessions, deliver bills and amendments for senators, have committee assignments and assist staff members with office duties.

Sarah C. Michalak, university librarian and associate provost for university libraries, has been appointed to the PubMed Central National Advisory Committee of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
PubMed Central is a free digital archive of journal articles in the biomedical and life sciences. Launched by NIH in 2000, it provides unrestricted access to the full text of critical, peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Michalak's appointment to the committee is through 2011.

Matthew Frankford Johnson has received a faculty scholarship at Cedarville University in Ohio. Faculty scholarships are awarded to first-year students who have high ACT/SAT scores and a cumulative high school grade-point average of 3 or higher. This renewable scholarship ranges from $2,000 to $2,500. Johnson is the son of Sue and Frankford Johnson of Chapel Hill.

Will Okun, a teacher at Westside Alternative High School in Chicago and a 1992 graduate of Chapel Hill High School, the winner in The New York Times' second annual Win-a-Trip-Contest. Each year an exceptional student and teacher are chosen. Okun will travel through Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo. He is the grandson of Dan and Beth Okun of Chapel Hill.

Tova Boehm, an Earlham College junior and daughter of Nancy Luberoff and Bruce Boehm of Chapel Hill, performed in Earlham's Spring Instrumental Concert on April 21 in Goddard Auditorium. Boehm is a member of the Earlham Orchestra.

Ginger S. Brooks, a teacher at Seawell Elementary School, recently attended a support seminar for teachers pursuing certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, held at the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching.
The center provides residential seminars in the arts, sciences, humanities and technology for pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade public school teachers. The seminars are offered on a year-round basis at no cost to participating teachers. They are designed to renew teachers' vitality for teaching and to equip them with new knowledge for the classroom.

Al "MC Premonition" Mask, 17, Chapel Hill is among 10 finalists in the Essence magazine and Berklee Collage of Music Take Back the Music campaign. Their tunes are available for listening at essence.com/takebackthemusic and Berklee.edu. The public is also invited to vote on their favorite in an online poll. The five winners will receive a free music education from Berklee.