San Mateo County has 31 Merit winners in ’22

One strong indicator is the list of National Merit Scholarship winners.

The scholarships are regarded annually as being among the most prestigious in the United States because of the nationwide scope of the competition and the high standards required to secure an award.

Participants in the program, which began in 1955, are screened via standardized tests to winnow the considerable field. Those remaining in the mix then proceed by submitting writing samples, transcripts, extracurricular work, teacher recommendations and other relevant data.

This year, 7,500 high school seniors have received National Merit awards (less than 1% of all U.S. seniors). The total value is reported to be $28 million. Our county has 31 resident pupils who have secured these coveted scholarships.

They are (in alphabetical order):

Alexandre Acra, Menlo School; Shareen Ahmad, Burlingame High; Anouscha Bechtolsheim, Nueva School; Maya Bodick, Nueva School; Anusha, Chatterjey, Aragon High.

Alina Chen, Crystal Springs Uplands School; Pascal Descollonges, Nueva School; Adam Farris, San Mateo High; Jessica Fu, Aragon High; Max Goldman, Menlo-Atherton High.

Darshan Gupta, Aragon High; Elle Horst, Carlmont High; Lindsay Huang, San Mateo High; Claire Lenden, Menlo School; Ryan Lin, Mills High; Ella Macko, Burlingame High.

Alec Machlis, Mills High; Ethan Man, Carlmont High; Joseph Moff, Aragon High; Anya Patel, Nueva School; Mayank Patil, San Mateo High; Gursimran Panesar, College Prep (Oakland).

Jack Peacock, Carlmont High; Virginia Pistilli, Woodside High; Aylin Salahifar, Carlmont High; Sophia Sharif, Menlo-Atherton High; Daniel Voyles, Aragon High.

Allison Warren, San Mateo High; Austin Willis, Crystal Springs Uplands School; Ashley Yoshii, St. Ignatius College Prep (San Francisco); Marie Anne Xu, Crystal Springs Uplands School.

A supplemental winners’ list is scheduled to be released in July. If a county resident is among those honored teens, we will note it.

LIZ BRUNO WAS AHEAD OF HER TIME: Somehow, it seemed fitting. On the evening of June 23, Liz Bruno was inducted into the Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame.

That date happened to coincide precisely with the 50th anniversary of the signing into law of Title IX, the landmark 1972 federal legislation that mandates equal athletic opportunities for girls and women, among other federal requirements.

Bruno, a graduate of Mercy High School in Burlingame late in the 1970s when the women’s sports boom was barely getting started, was ahead of her time. She was a pioneer.

She was a tall, talented basketball player, an imposing figure among her prep peers, who wound up later starring at Santa Clara University; her name is still in the school’s record book; her Number 42 has been retired.

Bruno, as she recalled during her induction at the San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City, competed in her chosen sport well before the nuts and bolts of Title IX’s regulations really kicked in with significant force.

Mercy, in those days, had to scramble to field a basketball team, Bruno noted. “There were only a few of us who wanted to play,” she said.

There was no gymnasium on the all-girls’ Mercy campus (there still isn’t). The basketballs were rubber. Locker room facilities were spartan. Every game was on the road. Everything was bare-bones. There was no regional/state championship competition. There was no organized club basketball for female teens.

Nonetheless, Bruno remembered her younger days on the Peninsula with fondness and grace. Like the other inductees in attendance at last week’s sold-out ceremony, she thanked her teammates, coaches, family members and friends for her success.

Along with Bruno, the other five inductees (Donovan Blythe, Ron DiMaggio, Chris Dorst, Scott Feldman and the late Helen Lengfeld) were added to a local Hall of Fame roster that now embraces more than 300 athletes, coaches, administrators and other sports figures with deep Peninsula roots.

The Hall of Fame made its debut in 1989.

Email John Horgan at johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.