UPDATE: The Georgia Highlands College PTK chapter won big at the international conference held in Nashville, winning the Distinguished Honors in Action Theme Award for Theme 6-Natural and Engineered, the Distinguished Honors in Action Project Award and the Distinguished Chapter Award. Mykayla Jeter won a Distinguished Chapter Officer Award and Bryce Pitts won the Prepared Speech Competition held at the conference and won a $500 scholarship. Additionally, GHC’s PTK was also recognized as a Top 100 Chapter.

PREVIOUSLY: Georgia Highlands College’s Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) chapter’s stellar year reached a new height this month when the team brought home more honors than any other college in attendance at the All-Georgia Academic Team Awards luncheon in Atlanta.

Mykayla Jeter, from the Paulding site, was selected as a Coca-Cola Academic Team Gold Scholar, winning a $1,500 scholarship, and Mary-Kate Billings, from the Cartersville site, and Elle Summers, from the Marietta site, were both selected as Coca-Cola Academic Team Bronze Scholars, winning a $1,000 scholarship each.

Only 50 students from across the nation are chosen as Coca-Cola Academic Team Gold, Silver or Bronze scholars each year.

Six PTK officers and members were selected as GHC’s All-Academic Team at the luncheon, as well. Those students are: Mykayla Jeter, Bryce Pitts, from the Floyd campus, Mary-Kate Billings, Elle Summers, Amanda Lewis, from the Cartersville site, and Lacey Turner, from the Douglasville site.

In addition to these honors, GHC’s PTK also served as the 2016-2017 Regional Presidential Chapter and hosted the PTK Regional Spring Conference this month.

The team earned multiple awards and top regional honors: the Distinguished Officer Award and the Hall of Honor Award went to Mykayla Jeter; the Sarah Anne Staples Award was given to Bryce Pitts; Mary-Kate Billings took home the Janet Walker award; and Assistant Professor Karen Huggin was recognized as this year’s Distinguished Advisor. Together, the team brought home the Distinguished Officer Team Award, Distinguished Honors in Action Theme Award, Distinguished Honors in Action Award overall, Distinguished College Project Award and the Distinguished Top Regional Chapter Award. This is the second year in a row the chapter was honored with the Distinguished Top Regional Chapter Award.

The chapter also won two scholarships to the Honors Institute this summer at Loyola University in Chicago and was additionally elected for another regional office of secretary for 2017-2018.

The GHC All-Academic Team and Gold and Bronze scholars will be honored again at GHC’s Honors Night on April 20th.

PICTURE: Left-Right: Mykayla Jeter, Bryce Pitts, Lacey Turner, Elle Summers, Mary-Kate Billings, Amanda Lewis