Here's a great new idea out of Columbia High School's Guidance Department: How about recognizing two worthy students every month of the school year?

With more than 1,800 students to choose from, the Guidance Department has many options for spotlighting talent, drive, success and hard work.

For October, the department singled out juniors Annie Newberry and Nathaniel Tazewell. Here's the text from the Oct. 17, 2011 Board of Education meeting at which Newberry and Tazewell were recognized:

An intelligent and motivated young lady, Annie has completed coursework in Mandarin at the Confucius Insitute of the Michigan Virtual High School. This past summer she received a full scholarship to attend the New York China Institute's High School Summer Study in China program. Annie enjoyed living with a local family and experiencing the culture first hand. She is becoming fluent in Mandarin which she hopes will help her in her career choices. Annie is also a member of Wind Ensemble and the JV Girls Lacrosse team. Her guidance counselor is Nancy Tenenbaum.

Nathanael was accepted to the Kenyon Writer's Review Workshop in Ohio, a highly competitive summer writing program for students. At the workshop program, her took three courses per day (meeting for an hour and a half each), taught by Kenyon professors. The courses covered everything from general writing techniques to genre sessions, where the participants practiced writing short stories in all genres. Nate loved writing Science Fiction. Now back at Columbia, Nate is an improved writer and is incorporating what he learned into his school work. His guidance counselor is Falynn Bleiberg.

Also at the Oct. 17 Board of Ed meeting, seniors Ethan Oberman and Elizabeth Epstein were recognized for their film Sedated Seat which was shown at the 2011 Woodstock Film Festival in September in the teen program category. The CHS film teacher is Boris Gavrilovic.

Teachers also came in for some recognition at the meeting: Pat Hurley, CHS physical education teacher was selected as a presenter at this year's NJEA Teacher's Convention in Atlantic City, presenting a workshop entitled "LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning): What Does It All Mean?"

CHS Social Studies teacher Melissa Cooper recently earned her Ph.D. in history from Rutgers University. her area of concentration was in African-American history and Africa Diaspora history.