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Poplar Bluff High School senior Zain Siddiqui was awarded the $1,000 Michael D. Laseter Memorial Scholarship, which is limited to a senior planning to major in the medical field. Siddiqui, 18, has been accepted into the pre-med program at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Laseter was a physician specializing in internal medicine at Kneibert Clinic for over 20 years. After retiring from medicine in 1994, he taught physiology at PBHS on a voluntary basis for five years. Since 2008, the memorial scholarship in his name has been awarded to a student each year.

Poplar Bluff High School senior Lydia Keller has been awarded $2,300 in scholarships for her achievements both in and outside of the classroom. Keller, 18, received the Mary Lynn Wolpers Scholarship, which was established in 2007 for graduating seniors. She also received the Poplar Bluff School Foundation Scholarship reserved for a past or present graduate planning to become a teacher. Keller will study early childhood education at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

Poplar Bluff Junior High School participated in the Missouri Council of Teachers of Mathematics middle school math contest on Saturday, April 11, in Jackson, competing in the spring, target and team events. The students who competed were the top scorers on a voluntary placement test. Student Brett Keele qualified to go on to states, placing fifth overall in the eighth grade category as well as the spring event, and was the top scorer for PBJHS. The state competition will take place Saturday, April 25, at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. R-I special education teacher Chris Dell, and math instructors Rebecca Tuley and Chris Wheat accompanied the students during the trip.  

About 50 members of the Poplar Bluff High School Beta Club chose to help the Historic Depot Restoration Corporation tear out a floor on Wednesday, April 1, in order to complete their volunteer hours required by the student organization each semester.

Poplar Bluff High School seniors Namara Haq and Zain Siddiqui were selected as honorable mentions in the Missouri Scholars 100, a statewide program sponsored by the Missouri Association of Secondary School Principals that honors the top academic students in the graduating Class of 2015. Each student nominated had to meet criteria of an “academic decathlon,” which included 10 events designed to assure the academic strength of the individual, according to the MASSP. To meet the requirements, the student must have a minimum GPA of 3.750, a minimum ACT score of 29 or a minimum SAT score of 1,900, be ranked in the upper 10 percent of the class, and have taken upper level courses in mathematics, science, English and foreign