Best-selling author and ABC television news correspondent Cokie Roberts will speak and sign her new book, Ladies of Liberty, at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, May 2, in the Stratford High School Auditorium, 14555 Fern. The special high school appearance will be hosted by the Stratford High Library and is sponsored by Blue Willow Bookshop. For details on this special event, please visit www.bluewillowbookshop.com or call the bookstore at 281-497-8675.

Four theater students who perform with Spring Woods High’s highly rated ComedySportz team will represent Spring Branch ISD at the upcoming City Finals competition.

The U.S. Dept. of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools has awarded a three-year Mentoring Grant valued at more than $580,000 to Spring Branch ISD’s Community Relations Dept. to support its award-winning district Mentor Programs.

Memorial High’s Marlen Nahhas was named Best Leading Actress and Stratford High’s Al Fallick took home the Best Supporting Actor prize April 22 during the sixth annual Tommy Tune Awards held downtown at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Marlen, a senior, played Annie Oakley in the Memorial High production of Annie Get Your Gun. Sophomore Al Fallick portrayed the Cowardly Lion in Stratford Playhouse’s sensational staging of The Wizard of Oz.

Two SBISD principals have been named semifinalists during preliminary judging of the 2008 H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards. Each principal was awarded $500 in H-E-B gift cards for making it to the semifinalist level, a ranking earned by only 50 principals statewide, according to awards program officials. Semifinalists are Spring Woods High Principal Wayne Schaper Jr. and Housman Elementary Principal Jerona Williams.

Memorial Middle School eighth-grader Jennifer Fan has won a National Scholastic Art Gold Award, one of the nation’s highest recognitions for young artists. Jennifer has been invited with her family and art teacher to attend The Scholastic Awards National Ceremony at New York City's Carnegie Hall in early June. National Scholastic awards have been awarded to some of the nation's top artists, photographers and writers.

Three Spring Branch ISD campuses have been recognized along with 131 other schools as Texas Distinguished Performance Schools by the Texas Education Agency’s division of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Program Coordination. They include Cedar Brook and Treasure Forest elementary schools and Cornerstone Academy, a district charter middle school.

Housman Elementary school nurse Diane Roberts will be honored May 7 as one of Houston’s 10 Outstanding Nurses as part of the Houston Chronicle’s annual Salute to Nurses. This regional recognition was created to honor outstanding nurses and nursing students during National Nurses Appreciation Week, the newspaper stated in a recent news release.

Six Spring Woods High seniors who are officers in the campus’ Junior Achievement and Business Professionals of America program have been named finalists in the Company Program Officer and Achiever of the Year competition sponsored by JA of Southeast Texas. This successful high school program is directed by Career & Technology Education instructor Estie Cuellar.

Four SBISD high school theater departments and 10 students won 28 separate nominations for the upcoming Tommy Tune Awards presentation, sponsored by Theatre Under the Stars. Memorial High received 14 nominations, Stratford High won 12 nominations, and Spring Woods High and Westchester Academy for International Studies each earned one  team nomination. The annual Tommy Tune Awards gala will be held at 7:30 p.m. on April 22 at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts downtown.

Spring Branch ISD schools and the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum will host several special events this weekend and early next week These not-to-be-missed activities include a benefit Car Wash at Frostwood Elementary School, Westchester Academy for International Studies' annual International Festival and Garage Sale, and an upcoming lecture by an international textile artist at the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum.