Four Wiregrass Georgia Technical College students have been selected as the college’s semi-finalists for the Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL), according to Lydia Hubert, coordinator for the Wiregrass GOAL program.

Chosen as semifinalists are: Brittany Lecates, Early Childhood Care Education, Valdosta; Alex Terrell, Marketing, Valdosta; Jennifer Walker, Accounting, Valdosta, and Charles Williams, Computer Information Systems, Valdosta

GOAL, a statewide program of the Technical College System of Georgia, honors excellence in academics and leadership among the state’s technical college students. GOAL winners are selected at each of the state’s 24 technical colleges as well as one Board of Regent college with technical education division.

All the college GOAL winners will compete in regional judging, which will include students from the other 24 colleges of the Technical College System of Georgia as well as the one Board of Regents college with technical education divisions.

GOAL winners from each college will compete in regional judging in February. In April, all college winners will come to Atlanta where the nine regional finalists, three finalists from each of the three regions, will be announced and compete at the state-level in April and one student will be named as the statewide GOAL winner.

"The purpose of the GOAL program is to spotlight the outstanding achievement by students in Georgia's technical colleges and to emphasize the importance of technical education in today’s global workforce," said Lydia Hubert.

According to Hubert, a screening committee of administrators at Wiregrass selected the four semi-finalists from a list of 25 students nominated by their instructors.

"The next step is for a panel of business, civic and industry leaders from the community to interview and evaluate these four students and select one to be the college’s 2014 GOAL winner," explained Hubert. “The one judged most outstanding will compete in the South regional judging. Three finalists from the South region will be named and will compete in the state GOAL competition in Atlanta on April 24, 2014 and vie to be named as the 2014 statewide GOAL winner.”

The state GOAL winner becomes the student ambassador for the Technical College System of Georgia and receives a grand prize of a new car provided by Chevrolet, the statewide corporate sponsor of Georgia’s GOAL program.