Pictured (from left): Stephanie Hernandez and Mary Faith Wilson
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
For their performance in the spring of 2025 in honors at NTCC in relation to their peers, two Presidential Scholars won $100 checks. Sophomore Mary Faith Wilson, the college’s Gladys Winkle Scholar, came out ahead among the sophomores, scoring the highest among the two-year cohort in the McGraw Hill Poster contest, and concluding with a perfect GPA, and a high score in Honors Psychology. Mary Faith has now won Eckmans for both of her two semesters in honors. Among the first-year students, ending the year with impressive scores in the ChemPsych Seminar, Stephanie Hernandez came out on top. She also won a cash award in the poster contest, and was the first Presidential Scholar to reach apex scores for both sides of the 2nd year-old seminar, performing brilliantly in both chemistry and psychology. Like Wilson who won a Red River Symposium Award in Texarkana, and a Caldwell Award in Houston, Hernandez has also led NTCC to awards elsewhere this spring—in Denton, Houston, and Texarkana.
“The Eckman winners for the spring of 2025 represent levels of achievement that deserve a regional spotlight,” noted Honors Director, Dr. Andrew P. Yox. Wilson had a brilliant aptitude, and an unswerving commitment to superior work; Hernandez, was four for four in winning important scholarly competitions, and able to win in both biology and history.”
An anonymous donor has funded now thirty Eckman Awards at NTCC in memory of the late Richard and Joan Eckman. Richard Eckman was a long-time inventor for Dresser Industries, a signature Texas oilfield corporation. Many NTCC Eckman Award winners such as Verania Leyva (2019, 2020) Matthew Chambers (2017, 2018), Chesney Davis (2017), and Brenda Godoy (2016, obtained excellent transfers. A 2019 Eckman winner, Jordan Whelchel, won a full-ride to Rice University. NTCC’s lone four-time Eckman-winner, Aaliyah Avellaneda, won a full-ride scholarship to Southern Methodist University.
