Seventh-graders Keshawn Wright and Baylee Anderson, sixth-grader Rebecca Padgett and eighth-grader Galen Laurence, students at Southern Middle School, have been accepted into the People to People Student Ambassador Program, an educational travel program founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. These students will explore Australia for three weeks this summer.

By participating in the “Exploring Australia” itinerary, the students will get to know the people, culture and history of the places visited. Ambassadors on this program will earn special insights into the history of Sydney’s first settlements, zoology and botany, World Heritage sites, Aboriginal culture, geology, geography and the anomalies of the region.

The students will take gifts from their school to present to mayors, local business people and other officials with whom they will meet on their educational journey.

The students will be accompanied by Southern Middle social studies teacher Beth Hurley, who has participated in the program for several years in Maryland before coming to Moore County. She noted that the trip coincides with the seventh-grade social studies curriculum, which is a study of Asia, Australia and Africa. She plans to coordinate a trip for students to China in the summer of 2011.

The students have been holding three-hour monthly meetings in preparation for their trip, as well as completing homework assignments related to their upcoming travels.

“This is an amazing program for middle school students,” Hurley said. “From North Carolina to world travelers, it is an opportunity to open their eyes to so many things that they have studied in school.”

Acceptance into the Student Ambassador Program is an honor. After being invited to enroll, each student submitted letters of recommendation and successfully completed an interview process. The Southern Middle students are among a group of 37 students that also includes delegations from Indiana and Mississippi.

President Eisenhower founded People to People during his presidency in 1956 with citizen leaders including entertainer Bob Hope, Olympic champion Jesse Owens, amusement entrepreneur Walt Disney and Hallmark Cards founder Joyce Hall. Having served as a military commander, Eisenhower believed that ordinary citizens of different nations could make a difference where governments could not. The People to People Student Ambassador Programs is based in Spokane, Wash., and has been coordinating educational travel for nearly 50 years.