CHS names Word, Cottrell top students for ’23

Clarendon High School has announced Catherine Word and Britton Cottrell as the top students for the Class of 2023.

Catherine Word is the Valedictorian and has a GPA of 5.9. She is the daughter of William Word and Tanya Word and has attended all four years at Clarendon High School.

Word is the class president and CHS Student Council president. A National Merit Commended Scholar, she also participated in varsity tennis, annual staff, National Honor Society, and accumulated 60 dual credit hours at Clarendon College. Word advanced to the UIL Regional Academic and Speech contest three years in a row in five different events and qualified for State in Ready Writing her senior year.

Word helped found Clarendon High School’s history club — the Babble-On Historical Society — and served as its president for two years. She has received several Honor-C awards and amassed over 250 hours of community service throughout high school.

She plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin as a biomedical engineering major. Her hope is to attend medical school and volunteer for Doctors Without Borders.

Britton Cottrell is the class salutatorian with a GPA of 5.9. He is the son of Zak and Jade Cottrell and was a three time regional qualifier in UIL academics. He qualified in number sense three straight years, accounting his junior year, and math and science his senior year.

Cottrell played baseball all four years of high school and ran cross country his freshman year. He was also involved in many academic activities. He was inducted into the National Honor Society his junior year. During his time in the National Honor Society, Cottrell worked over eighty community service hours doing everything from yard-work to organizing fundraisers for the senior center.

Along with being involved in those activities, he was also an A Honor Roll student all four years of high school. After high school Britton plans on attending Texas Tech University and majoring in mechanical engineering.

Word and Cottrell will be recognized with the CHS Class of 2023 during commencement Friday, May 26, at 7 p.m. in the Harned Sisters Fine Arts Center.