A pair of Sandpoint High School students have been honored by the Sandpoint Elks Lodge No. 1376 as its students of the month for December for the Sandpoint school.

To be selected as an Elks student of the month, students must meet guidelines for character, citizenship, service, scholarship and leadership. Each month the Sandpoint Elks Lodge selects students from Sandpoint and Clark Fork high schools to honor for their academic achievements.

The Elks actively seek to reward youth through many different programs including scholarship awards, Hoop Shoot tournaments, dictionary donations to third graders, drug awareness programs and many other activities and programs.

Sandpoint Elks Lodge award thousands of dollars in scholarships and local students also received an additional money in state and national Elk scholarships. The Elks are the third largest awarder of scholarships in the county and several students have received large scholarships from the state and national level of Elks.

Selected for the honor for December are Annaby Kanning and Peter Nelson.

Annaby Rose Kanning

The daughter of Nathan and Becky Kanning, the Sandpoint High School senior is a varsity member of SHS golf and cross country teams. She cross country skis competitively for the Spokane Nordic Club and has represented the Pacific Northwest at the past three Cross Country Skiing Junior Nationals.

Academically, Annaby has maintained a 4.37 GPA and is currently ranked fourth in her class. She is a member of the National Honor Society and volunteers within the community.

In her free-time, Annaby enjoys art, reading, and spending time outside. She looks forward to paddle-boarding in the summer and downhill skiing in the winter. She loves traveling to new places and finding adventure.

After high school, she is looking forward to attending college but is still looking at many different options. She is interested in majoring in business administration or engineering.

Peter Keegan Nelson

The son of Duane and Renee Nelson, Keegan is a senior at Sandpoint High School.

He enjoys running and spending time with his teammates from the cross country and track and field teams. Since Keegan moved to Sandpoint in 2015, he has enjoyed skiing and snowboarding at Schweitzer, and floating the Pack River with friends and family.

In his high school career, he has been a varsity athlete all four years, and has competed at the state championships for the last three years, being on the team that brought the fourth-place trophy home in 2020. Keegan is the 8th fastest student in Sandpoint High School cross country history, a captain for the 2020 school year, and two-time winner for the “William Johnson Most Motivational and Inspirational Award.”

Keegan is the vice president for Sandpoint’s National Honor Society, and vice president of Sandpoint’s Math Club. Keegan has a 4.08 weighted GPA, and is 33rd in his class and shooting for high 20s by the end of the school year.

He plans on going to Colorado School of Mines or Montana State University, where he can study engineering and make his way to work with Elon Musk either at Tesla or SpaceX in design and development of new technologies.