One of Fountain Hills High School’s very own Falcons has garnered attention for his academic prowess.

Senior Casey Timms is officially a finalist for the National Merit Scholarship, a scholarship competition that has been running since 1955.

Timms’ journey to becoming a finalist started in his junior year when he was taking not the SATs, but the practice SATs.

“Essentially, junior year, I took the pre-SAT and my score on that determined that I could be a semi-finalist for National Merit,” Timms explained. “Then I had to submit another application to be a finalist.”

As a senior who has spent the past year applying to colleges and other scholarships, submitting another application wasn’t a big issue for Timms.

“It wasn’t too bad,” Timms said. “I just had to write a short essay about how I overcame a difficultly or challenge in my life. Then, of course, I had to do well on my actual SATs.”

For the essay Timms chose to write about his band experience.

“I actually wrote about overcoming challenges in band because I have never been a super musical kid,” Timms said. “So I had some trouble understanding how to play music at first, but during freshmen and sophomore year is when the improvements came. So improving in that way is what I focused my essay on.”

Timms will be attending the University of Arizona next year where he plans to major in Physics.