Walton STAR Teacher Nominated Again

After being named the Georgia STAR Teacher of the Year for 2012, biology teacher Dr. Tina Link of Walton High School has been nominated for the award again.

Link, who earned STAR honors last year with Walton's Lisa Wang, was nominated by the current Walton STAR student, Alex Wu.

They were among the individual school STAR teachers and students who were honored Monday by the Kiwanis Club of Metropolitan Marietta.

The Walton duo also was among a final group of four teachers and four students who will represent Cobb County in the regional STAR competition.

Another Walton student, Catherine Niu, is among the finalists, according to a story in The Marietta Daily Journal.

STAR, which stands for Student Teacher Achievement Recognition, is an awards program of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators Foundation.

The Marietta Kiwanis honored a student from each public and private high school in Cobb for having the highest SAT score achieved on any single date.

STAR students also must be among the top 10 percent or top 10 students in their class, based on grade point average. Three Cobb public schools, including Walton and Pope in East Cobb, were among five with ties for STAR student.

The other East Cobb-area schools' STAR students and teachers are as follows:

• Kell: Michael Tarbell and Sara Griffin;
• Lassiter: Brian Cohn and Dr. Wylie Brown;
• Pope: Krystal Lo and Debra Strydom, Wendi Bao and Dan Sorensen;
• Sprayberry: Tiffany Nguyen and David Martin;
• Wheeler: Lucy Zhang and Dr. Cheryl Crooks.