Moore County seniors have raked in more than $12 million in scholarship money this year.

The class of 2010 at the county’s three public high schools — Pinecrest, Union Pines and North Moore — pulled in about $11.5 million in scholarships, nearly doubling last year’s total. The O’Neal School’s graduating class hauled in $1.1 million of its own.

“We’ve done very well,” said Eric Porter, the school system’s assistant superintendent for secondary education, in a phone interview Monday. “Our kids worked very well and made a lot of strides from last year.”

Of the 778 seniors graduating from the public schools this year, 258 are receiving scholarships of some kind from different colleges, universities, businesses and community organizations. Local businesses and organizations provided 198 of them.

“We felt that was pretty significant, having the support of our local community,” Porter said. “That’s great, and we do appreciate them continuing to support us.”

Some of the highlights of this year’s senior class include six students receiving military academy appointments, seven being named North Carolina Teaching Fellows, and Pinecrest High School’s Stephanie Downey winning a National Merit Scholarship.

Porter credited the high schools’ scholarship coordinators — who have been in place for three years now — for helping facilitate this year’s success He was quick to praise the students for their diligence.

“I think it was a great class and they’ve worked very well together and very hard with the teachers to go after the scholarships,” he said.

At O’Neal, 24 of its 46 seniors were awarded scholarships, according to Assistant Headmaster Brenda Jackson. She said the students applied to a wide variety of colleges and therefore received a wide variety of scholarships.

Among those, Danielle Bradshaw was named a Washington University in St. Louis National Merit Scholar, and John Shudra received a Marist College National Science Foundation Scholarship valued at $161,520.

“I think whenever you have a class of this size, whenever it exceeds over a million dollars in scholarships, that’s a pretty good year for us,” Jackson said. “I think they did well.”

Contact John Krahnert III by e-mail at jkrahnert@thepilot.com.