2021 Awards

From Loudoun Valley High School, our Jane Pratt & Jed Shilling Blue Ridge Mountain Award winner is a young woman, Arya Tadepalli, whose resume is stunning: in addition to stellar performance as a student and as an athlete, Arya has been an active volunteer in everything from computer programming to animal and domestic violence prevention. (In fact, she has founded several nonprofits to support her activism.) Most important for our considerations, she is currently doing work to synthesize a membrane for carbon sequestration and plans to explore a career that combines her passion for preserving the environment with her penchant for programming.

Friends presented our second Jane Pratt & Jed Shilling Blue Ridge Education Award to Liza Ricker at Woodgrove High School. It was a lovely ceremony and a lot of appreciation was expressed by the school for all of those who invest in students . . . and from Liza and her family.