• Artwork created by two Butler County students has received the annual Golden Arches Artists Award from the McDonald's Corp.

Ross Sobot, a middle school pupil in the South Butler County School District, and Destinee Schmitt, who attends school in the Seneca Valley School District, received the awards.

Melissa Kosnacs, a student in Reynolds Area School District in Mercer County, also won an award.

The winners were chosen from the Very Special Arts exhibit sponsored annually by Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV, the education service agency for Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties.

The winning artwork has been displayed in the McDonald's in London, Mercer County.

• Ben Colabrese, a sophomore at North Allegheny Intermediate High School, will attend Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week this summer on the campus of Lycoming College in Williamsport, on a full scholarship.

The weeklong program will invite mock student companies to simulate operation for the equivalent of three years. Volunteers from business will serve as advisers as students make decisions often faced in real business situations.

Ben is the son of Ron and Lisa Colabrese, of Franklin Park.

• A Pine-Richland High School ninth-grader has taken home the top award in a national contest.

Natalie Ficco won first place in the "Make Sense of Your Makeup" Braincake design contest and earned a $250 scholarship.

The contest was part of the Girl, Math & Science Partnership, through the Carnegie Science Center, an initiative aimed at engaging, educating and embracing girls ages 11 through 17 as architects of change.

More than 900 votes were cast in the poster contest. Natalie won on overall online votes and final votes from the initiative's judges.

Natalie's poster addresses the ingredients in cosmetics.

"I am really interested in this issue because the amount of chemicals that companies put in makeup is unnecessary and harmful to our health," she said.

Her design will become the letterhead in the Compact for Safe Cosmetics.

To see Natalie's poster, visit www.braincake.org.

• The Girl Scouts Trillium Council announced that Pine-Richland High School senior Michelle Calabrese was an honoree in its 2008 Women & Girls of Distinction Awards program for demonstrating achievement in the category of technology and innovation.

• Three seniors in teacher Jeff Maple's classroom at Pine-Richland High School took top honors recently in a local competition to design a dental office.

The architectural drafting contest was sponsored by the National Association of Women in Construction.

Lauren Novak won $200 for first place, Shelby Merilli won $100 for second place, and Evan Hunter won $50 for third place.