Four Blazers received awards at the annual NAACP Afro-Academic, Cultural Technological and Sciences Olympics (ACT-SO) regional competition, held on Sunday, March 26 at the Montgomery College Rockville Campus.

The four Blazers were: juniors Ariana McLean, awarded a gold medal for her photography; Saron Yitabrek, awarded a gold and silver medal in the original essay and music vocal categories, respectively; Keianna Dixon, awarded a bronze medal in the original essay category; and Brandon John-Freso, awarded a bronze medal in the music instrumental contemporary category.

Competitions are first held by regional NAACP branches and local gold medal winners advance to the national competition. High school students have the option of participating in up to three categories in the sciences, including architecture, biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, physics electronic and physics energy; the humanities, including music composition, original essay, poetry and playwriting; the performing arts, including dance, dramatics, music instrumental classical and contemporary, music vocal classical and contemporary, oratory and spoken word; the visual arts, including drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography and sculpture; and business entrepreneurship.

McLean and Yitabrek will be continuing on to the national competition to be held in Washington, D.C., in July 2006.