By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
For their performance in challenging honors courses at NTCC in relation to their peers, two Presidential Scholars will win $100 checks. Neida Perez, a biomed major, won her award as an honors freshman, ranking number one in the Stat-Psych Honors Seminar taught this past spring by Dr. Karyn Skaar and Dr. Paula Wilhite. NTCC’s 2022-2023 James and Elizabeth Whatley Scholar, Victor Diaz, who graduated this past May with his associate degree, was the sophomore who took all six honors seminar courses—not to mention honors calculus, and ended with the highest GPA.
Neida Perez, who is slated to be next year’s James and Elizabeth Whatley Scholar, won the Eckman for her second time. She also placed second in the state this past spring in the upper-division Caldwell Awards, defeating university entries with her essay on Texas’ historical struggle with pathogens.
Victor Diaz was the producer of the award-winning film, Pedal to the Metal about the life of Carroll Shelby. He placed second in the 2022 McGraw Hill Poster Contest for his work with social media, and presented NTCC’s film work at the meeting of the National Collegiate Honors Council last fall.
An anonymous donor has funded now twenty-four Eckman Awards at NTCC in memory of the late Richard and Joan Eckman. Richard Eckman was a long-time inventor for Dresser Industries, a signature Texas oilfield corporation. Many NTCC Eckman Award winners such as Verania Leyva (2019, 2020) Matthew Chambers (2017, 2018), Chesney Davis (2017), Brenda Godoy (2016), Jordan Whelchel (2019), and Aaliyah Avellaneda (2020-2022) have won impressive transfers. Whelchel, for example, won a full-ride to Rice, and Avellaneda, a full-ride to Southern Methodist University.
Both Diaz and Perez were graduates of Mount Pleasant High School.
