Scholastic Attitude Dedication Earns Lc Senior Status As Presidential Scholar

He’s spent a year working to get permanent, outdoor chessboards in Riverfront Park.

He took the Scholastic Aptitude Test four times until he perfected his score with an even 1,600.

That’s the kind of dedication that helped Nadav Tanners, a Lewis and Clark High School student, win one of the most prestigious awards in the nation for high school seniors.

Tanners, 17, is one of about 140 students to be named 1997 U.S. Presidential Scholars. He’ll join the others at a reception in Washington, D.C., next month.

Tanners’ history teacher, John Hagney, also will make the trip. In an essay, Tanners named Hagney as the teacher who most influenced him. The Commission on Presidential Scholars, in turn, named the veteran educator a 1997 Distinguished Teacher.

Hagney, who also teaches a community involvement class, captures students’ interest by letting them delve into subjects they care about, such as the project to make chessboards more accessible, Tanners said.

Hagney said he also tries to set a good example for high-achieving students by continuing to learn himself.

“We’re really talking stuff of the heart, not stuff of the head,” he said.

Tanners, who is also a class valedictorian, made it easy to be a good teacher, Hagney said. “You can tell there’s that inquisitiveness that many of us lose between elementary and high school.”

Hagney was especially impressed with a research paper Tanners wrote on anti-Semitism and how it flourished before the Holocaust.

“The Holocaust really interests me as a Jew,” said Tanners, whose family attends Temple Beth Shalom.

He’s since done even more research, trying to figure out how the Holocaust happened and how it could have been prevented.

“I’m kind of getting Holocausted out, I guess,” Tanners said, chuckling.

Tanner’s perfect SAT score won him an automatic nomination for the 33-year-old Presidential Scholar Program. He wrote the required essays at the urging of his mother, Dina, who teaches English as a Second Language at Gonzaga University.

Still, Tanners said his own high standards - not parental pressure - keeps him on top academically.

“They don’t really put any pressure on me,” he said.

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