Katherine Miller and Kayla Kermode are the valedictorian and salutatorian of Lake Leelanau St. Mary's Class of 2008.

Miller, the daughter of Peter and Lisa Miller of Leland, is Student Council secretary and past president as well as a member of St. Mary's chapter of the National Honor Society.

She has served on several student government and school improvement committees. She is also active with the Leelanau Youth Advisory Council and 4-H Natural Helpers.

Katherine Miller

Miller has also distinguished herself as an artist in the studio and on stage. She played lead roles in Annie and Little Shop of Horrors at Leland Public School and had artwork selected for the spring 2007 Northwestern Michigan College juried art show, and has been published several times in Exposures, the county student arts magazine. As part of her independent art class this year, she led weekly art activities for the St. Mary kindergartners.

Miller attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and the Indiana University summer journalism workshop and has served as the editor of Provemont Press, the St. Mary school newspaper.

During her high school career, Miller participated in athletics and the Business Professionals of America (BPA). She was on the varsity basketball and softball teams and advanced to the national leadership conference for BPA for the last three years, placing nationally in 2005, 2006 and fifth in entrepreneurship in 2008.

Miller is also the 2007 recipient of the Robert Wolf Christian Athlete Award and has earned several departmental academic awards during high school. She is a Michigan Competitive Scholarship and Michigan Merit award winner, and was awarded the Presidential Scholarship at Hope College.

She plans to attend Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Kermode is the daughter of Steve and Dosie Kermode of Maple City, She is a spiritual chair of the Student Council and past vice-president, and a member of the National Honor Society, Natural Helpers, Leelanau Youth Advisory Council, the St. Mary high school choir and held a supporting role in School House Rock.

Kayla Kermode

Her writing has been published in Exposures and Generation Why. Her BPA financial analyst team placed seventh in the national competition in 2006.

Kermode was a member of the varsity basketball, softball and cross country teams as well as cooperative ski, track and soccer teams. In addition she has also participated in the Michigan Youth Cycling Program and was a member of the color guard in the Civil Air Patrol.

This spring she was chosen as one of student delegates from Michigan to attend the U.S. Senate Youth program in Washington, D.C. Last summer, she attended the U.S. Naval Academy summer seminar and the Thomas Aquinas College Summer Great Books Program, and in 2006 was a teen leader at the Franciscan University Youth Conference.

At St. Mary, she served on the school improvement team and was student catechesim leader for the middle school.

Kermode earned the Michigan Competitive Scholarship and the Michigan Merit Award and will begin her Great Books studies at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., in August.