* The A&M Garden Club recently won top state honors as 2008 Outstanding Green Club of the Year from Texas Garden Club Inc. at the state meeting in Killeen.

Idalia Aguilar, A&M Garden Club president, accepted the award for the second year in a row.

First place state awards were: Arbor Day, Club History, Horticulture Award, Communication, Publicity, Scrapbook, Special Achievement, World Gardening. A Citation Certificate was received for Club Service.

In addition, the club received District V Awards: first place for Club Program, first place for Yearbook, and first place for donations to the Texas Garden Council's Endowment Fund, Scholarship Fund, Seeds for Life, Rio Grande Wildlife Corridor, and District V Scholarship Fund.

The club also received top awards from South Central Regional: first place for World Gardening, and Honorable Mention for Arbor Day and National Garden Week.

A&M Garden Club members attending the state meeting were Idalia Aguilar, Delma Cassaro, Jane Cohen, Judy Schafer and Suzanne Milstead. -- Heather Lee

* Two recent A&M Consolidated High School graduates have been awarded Eagle Scout rank by Boy Scouts of America.

Bradley Sweitzer and Hart Nolte-Roth, both 18, received their Eagle Scout rank June 1 at Christ United Methodist Church.

More than 50 friends and families attended the service for the scouts, who are both members of the Venture Crew of Boy Scout Troop 60 at the church.

The teens completed large-scale community service projects in order to earn their rank. Sweitzer organized painting and restoration of College Station park signs while Nolte-Roth collected more than 350 American flags and coordinated their honorary retirement.

Both projects were sponsored by the College Station Parks and Recreation Department.

* Eight A&M Consolidated High School cheerleaders earned All-American status from the National Cheerleaders Association this summer.

The girls attended cheer camp in San Antonio in July and were nominated by staff to try out for the award.

The winners are: Daria Harmon, Maddy Becker, Rachel Hargrove, Holland Knapp, Avery Scherr, Maci Green, Megan Tate and Sterling Knapp

According to the group's Web site, the National Cheerleaders Association was founded in 1948 at Sam Houston State University to create an atmosphere in which cheerleaders could learn all aspects of cheerleading and become ambassadors in their schools and communities.

* State Farm Insurance has donated $5,000 to underwrite a portion of a home for Bryan-College Station Habitat for Humanity.

The Ortega family will own the home, to be built by the nonprofit Christian housing organization at 1316 Celia's Dream in the Angels Gate subdivision in Bryan.

Habitat for Humanity is dedicated to eliminating poverty in housing and partners with low-income families to work side by side with local volunteers to construct their homes, officials said.

The organization has partnered with 157 local families, affecting more than 688 people over the past 19 years, according to its Web site.

Local State Farm agents and employees will be on site to help construct a portion of the home in coming months, officials said.

* Aggie Kimberly Dillon, class of 1991, is celebrating the release of her first book, The Ghosts of Wolf Creek.

Dillon will sign copies of the young-adult mystery book at a 2 p.m. reading Sunday at Book Woman in Austin.

The Ghosts of Wolf Creek is the story of 12-year-old Cora, who moves to her mother's hometown in Texas. After a car accident, Cora awakens to find that she can see ghosts. These visitors want Cora to uncover the truth about a town tragedy that occurred in the 1800s.

The story was born when Dillon combined her loves of writing and the paranormal with a look at the book market. She came up with a teen version of the CBS primetime television show Ghost Whisperer, named the main charcter Cora Richards and set the story in Texas.

"I fell in love with my characters," she said in a statement. "I'm so excited that other will have a chance to fall in love with them, too."

Dillon lives in Cedar Creek with her partner, Rhonda, and 4-year-old daughter, Abbi Rose, as well as two dogs and several cats.

* Former A&M Consolidated High School student Margaret Dunlap will make her television-writing debut with the Aug. 25 episode of The Middleman, which airs at 9 p.m. on ABC Family.

Dunlap originally was hired as a writers assistant by the show's creator, her mentor during graduate work at the University of Southern California. She eventually was invited to make suggestions for the show and then rewarded with an assignment to write "The Clotharian Contamination Protocol" episode.

According to Dunlap, The Middleman's creator describes the show as a "light scenice-fiction action comedy drama." It tells the story of an art school graduate who is recruited to help fight comic-book evil in the real world.

Dunlap attended Consol her freshman and sophomore years before being selected for an early admission program at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Massachusetts. Her parents are College Station residents Thomas Dunlap and Susan Miller.

* Chris Mathewson, a regents professor of geology, has been tapped to receive the Pete Henley Mentor Award given by the Texas Section of the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists.

The award is designed to recognize people who have made lifelong efforts in providing professional, ethical and technical mentoring for engineering and environmental geologists.

Mathewson was recognized for "his outstanding role as counselor, friend, guide, educator-mentor," as well as his "impact upon aspiring young engineering geologists, students, members and Texas Section officers as well as his role in the shaping of the Texas Section of AEG," the award states.

* The work of A&M oceanography professor Doug Biggs and research scientist Ann Jochens was highlighted in an article in the July issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife that focused on sperm whales and their comeback in the Gulf of Mexico.

The pair were principal investigators in a five-year Sperm Whale Seismic Study funded by the U.S. Minerals Management Service in cooperation with the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and five oil and gas companies.

The article is called "Hidden Giants" and can be found online at www.tpwmagazine.com.

* Distinguished political science professor George Edwards III will receive the Presidency Research Section's Career Service Award at the 2008 American Political Science Association annual meeting this month.

The award is given during presidential election years to recognize career service to the study of the presidency.

Edwards is a leading presidency scholar. He has authored dozens of articles and written or edited nearly two dozen books on American politics and public policy making. He is the editor of Presidential Studies Quarterly and consulting editor of the Oxford Handbook of American Politics series.

* Kyle Smith, who has worked more than three decades with the Texas A&M System, was named executive associate director of the Texas AgriLife Extension Service on Friday. Smith, the agency's associate director for county programs since 1993, replaces Margaret Hale, who announced her retirement earlier this year. His appointment, approved by the A&M System Board of Regents, went into effect on Aug. 1.

* Dr. Malcom G. "Gayne" Fearneyhough has been named by the A&M System Board of Regents as associate director of the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory. Fearneyhough has served as head of diagnostic services for the agency since 2002, coordinating testing and results generated from various laboratory functions. He also previously served as agency interim director.

* Computing and Information Services recently was recognized as a Campus Technology Innovator for the successful deployment of the new "Texas A&M Email," a system that provides updated e-mail and full-featured collaboration tools.

The extensive conversion, which involved moving 80,000 mailboxes and 22 million messages, was accomplished with just 12 hours down time.

The Campus Technology Innovators award recognizes higher education information technology advances on North American college and university campuses. A&M was one of 14 winners selected from 275 nominations and is featured in the August 2008 issue of Campus Technology.

* Texas A&M University administrators Sherylon Carroll, John Crawford and Phillip Ray were selected to participate in the Governor's Executive Development Program.

The special executive development program is offered annually and is taught by nationally recognized experts from the public and private sectors.

The three-week program is designed to provide top state executives with top-of-the-line training in executive management.

The trio were selected by Gov. Rick Perry after being nominated by Texas A&M President Elsa Murano.

Carroll, associate vice president for communications in the division of marketing & communications, oversees the daily operations of media relations, internal communications and external affairs for the university in College Station.

Crawford, associate vice president for finance and controller, has extensive knowledge of higher education financial issues and has served in several leadership positions within the university's Division of Finance.

Ray, assistant vice president for strategic sourcing and contract administration, has worked in both the private sector and higher education, in addition to serving in local government positions.

He also is in the division of finance.

* Texas A&M Oceanography professor Will Sager and six of his students worked on a poster and Web site that won a 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers.

Sager and his students were part of Deep Earth Academy, the educational arm of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, which won the award for the poster and Web site created as part of the "Sea90E" research cruise.

Sea90E was a site survey cruise for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program in the Indian Ocean during the summer of 2007.

* Texas A&M AgriLife's Texas Water Resources Institute awarded Mills Scholarships to 13 A&M graduate students who will pursue water-related research during the 2008-09 academic year. The Mills Scholars Program is an endowed fund to support research in water conservation and management.

The students are Andrew Leidner, Israel Parker, Dipankar Dwivedi, Reema Padia, Bailey Sullivan, Sean Tolle, Cara Harclerode, Leon Holgate, Yujin Wen, Bhavana Viswanathan, Sanghyun Kim, Chihun Lee and Chan Yong Sung.

* Star Duplicate Bridge Club met Aug. 8 at College Station Conference Center. The winners were as follows:

N/S

1. Joyce Greinert and Barbara Petty

2. Lois Fox and Zo Granberry

E/W

1. Sara Branch and Freddye Thompson

2. Sheryl Pace and Ed Booker

On Aug. 11, the winners were:

N/S

1. Fox and Lucy Nelson

2. Kathy Baldwin and Chuck Gates

E/W

1. Sally Koestler and Elizabeth Ward

2. Ann Fleischer and Lynda Shepard

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