It wasn't until the past two years that trying to become a Rhodes Scholar made sense to Byron Gray.

But when the University of Washington senior from Post Falls made the connection, he made the most of it.

Gray was recently named among 32 Rhodes Scholars worldwide for 2012. A pool of 830 candidates were nominated by 299 different colleges and universities for the honor.

The award provides all expenses for two to three years of study at the prestigious Oxford University in England. The value of the scholarship averages about $50,000 per year.

"It's a huge honor and I was very floored to get it," said Gray, who was home-schooled in high school and played tennis at Lake City High.

"One of the things that hit home during the application process was how much it has to do with the mentors and instructors you've interacted with in college."

Gray, who has a 3.99 GPA, is the son of Diana Gray of Post Falls and Donald Gray of Veradale.

He is majoring in political science, law, societies and justice and Asian studies. His senior thesis is on family law, human rights and religious sectarianism in India.

He won U.S. State Department scholarships for the study of Urdu and Hindi and worked for a non-governmental organization in rural northern India. He has also studied the status of immigrants in Italy and worked on human rights and religious violence in South Asia.

Gray plans to pursue degrees on contemporary India and in socio-legal studies at Oxford starting in October 2012.

"I thought that it would be nice to study law and politics in South Asia, which is a very socially diverse part of the world," he said.

Rhodes scholarships were created in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes. Winners are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes.

Another UW senior from the Northwest, Cameron Turtle, from Pullman, was also named a Rhodes Scholar. The UW is the only public university in the nation with more than one new Scholar.