Beverly Brown has been selected as a National Merit Semifinalist.
More than 1.5 million juniors entered the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.
With a 4.63 GPA, Brown is ranked first in her class and received the award for Outstanding Student 1st Place in AP Biology. She is President of Students Against Destructive Decisions, a Student Minister, Student Council Representative, and a member of Color Guard, Key Club, World Culture Society, National Honor Society, National English Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta National Math Honor Society, Excalibur National Science Honor Society, and Rho Kappa National Social Studies Honor Society.
Additionally, Brown scored in the 99th percentile on both the SAT and ACT.
Brown holds an advanced green belt in Kenpo Karate and is captain of the SSA lacrosse team and co-captain of the SSA golf team.
She also runs cross country and is a US Lacrosse certified girls lacrosse referee.
Brown is the president and co-founder of Kids Wanna Help, a 501(c)(3) formed in 2007 to provide confidence building programs for youth through activities that raise money for charity.
To date, these programs have raised more than $140,000 for 35 local, national, and international charities.
In 2012, Kids Wanna Help was recognized by the Association of Fundraising Professionals as Foundation of the Year. In 2013, Brown developed an entrepreneurship curriculum for third and fourth grade students.
She teaches this program at Lyon Elementary, a Title 1 school in Covington, and Anna’s Place NOLA, a safe haven for New Orleans at-risk youth in the Lower 7th Ward and Treme.
Appointed by the Louisiana Commission on Civil Education, Brown is serving her third term on the Louisiana Legislative Youth Advisory Council.
She is also a Leader in PRIDE, a community-wide high school organization that spreads the message “Love Yourself – Be Drug Free.”
Brown is an alumna of the United States Senate Youth Program (USSYP), where earlier this year she gave the closing remarks for a speech by Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank, in Washington D.C. She was selected as one of two Louisiana Delegates to the USSYP based on her academic performance and knowledge of U.S. history, government, and current events.
This summer Brown attended the Vital Voices International Women’s Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C. as an ANNpower Fellow. During the second half of the summer, Brown attended Yale University as a Young Global Scholar: Science, Policy and Innovation.
She was one of 200 students from the U.S. and 80 countries selected for this intense academic program which focuses on understanding and confronting emerging global challenges.
Brown’s capstone project was “The Colonization of Mars,” which she presented at the end of the program.
Brown is the daughter of Stacy and Brent Brown of Covington and the granddaughter of Shirley and Cliff Dodge of Rayville, and the late Archie Neal Brown, Jr. of Rayville