The University of Notre Dame, through the National Alumni Organization and the Notre Dame Club of Atlanta, has inaugurated an annual award to be presented to the outstanding high school male junior in the greater Atlanta area.

A local committee of Notre Dame Alumni will select the recipient from among the top junior students in the public, private and parochial high schools in the greater Atlanta area. Candidates, selected by their schools, were given individual interviews by the committee.

The committee follows the same criteria used by the University of Notre Dame in their selection of students for admission to the University. The committee will consider, among other factors, the candidate’s high school record, his rank in class, the results of the preliminary scholastic aptitude test, the recommendation from the high school, the applicant’s extracurricular record and extraordinary talent or ability.

A breakfast meeting with the finalists and their counselors is tentatively scheduled for mid-May. The committee will make the presentation to the winner during the “honors convocation” or similar assembly conducted at the end of the academic year. The committee, on the basis of personal, individual interviews and the above noted factors, has selected the following sixteen men as finalist in the competition:

Granville Bland Byrne, Westminster; Hershal Buchanan, Clarkston High; Garnett B. Gunn, southwest DeKalb; Neal Hornston, Towers High; Mark Ilgenfritz, Sandy Springs; Milton H. Jones, Jr.; St. Joseph; Anthony McClendon, Harper High; Michael McDermott, St. Pius X; Toby Larry Merlin, Northside High; Al Sidney Olansky, Avondale High, Robert Darrell Prager, Therrell High; Mark Randman, Hapeville High; Richard M. Trapani, Marist; Richard Walker, Archer; Lewe West, Druid Hills; T. Dirk Younker, Cross Keys.