Moorpark College's Hanley named scholar athlete

The Commission on Athletics Awards Committee has announced that Moorpark College's Mary Hanley is the female recipient of the 2006 Pepsi Scholar Athlete Award. In addition, Moorpark's 2006 women's track and field team was named to the Scholar Team honor roll.

Hanley, along with her teammates, were honored at the Pepsi Celebration of Student Athletes Luncheon during the 10th annual COA Convention Thursday afternoon at the Doubletree Ontario Airport Hotel in Ontario.

The Pepsi Scholar Athlete Award is the highest student achievement honor awarded annually by the COA. The winners, along with the rest of the annual honor roll, are selected by the COA Awards Committee from nominations made by community colleges throughout California.

Candidates for the Pepsi Scholar Athlete Award must carry a minimum GPA of 3.5 and must also show outstanding leadership as an athlete, student or in other college and community activities, as well as having participated in two seasons of sports at a California community college.

The Scholar Team Award is the highest academic team achievement given annually by the COA. All team members must have excelled academically with a total GPA of 3.0 or higher. The team should have demonstrated betterthanaverage accomplishments in intercollegiate athletic competition.

Hanley was a two-year star on the Moorpark College track and field team, qualifying for the COA California Community College Championships in 2005 and 2006 in both the hammer and discus events.

She helped the Raiders to a secondplace finish at the championships last year by placing fifth in hammer and seventh in discus at the state event. She was named to the All-Western State Conference second-team in hammer and received honorable mention in discus.

Hanley's best marks include an impressive 1520 in the hammer, a 146-5 in the discus and a 40-5 in the shot put. She was named the Moorpark College Athlete of the Year in 2006.

In the classroom, Hanley maintained a 4.0 GPA as she tackled courses such as microand macroeconomics, and calculus with analytic geometry. She received the Moorpark College Dean's Scholarship, Associated Student's Scholarship and the Jason Raufman Memorial Scholarship.

Combining her interest in business with her athletic talents, Hanley established the Moorpark Track and Field club and was involved in several community service activities.

Hanley was a member of the Alpha Gamma Sigma, a service-oriented honor society, and was a member of Project Concern, a group that assists students in need of food and clothing. She also served as a parttime helper at the Redwood Middle School autism program.

Hanley received several scholarships through the Moorpark College Foundation and transferred to the University of California Los Angeles, where she is majoring in economics and competing on the UCLA track and field team.