A gift of $20,000 would be a huge help in the start of Alex Knoll, Abigail Stephens, and Kyra Wine’s college careers.

“I honestly wasn’t even expecting to get into the semi-finals,” Wine said.

So when the three Kootenai County high school seniors were selected as semi-finalists for Coca-Cola Scholars Program scholarships in that amount they were excited, Knoll and Wine said.

“The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation celebrates and empowers visionary leaders who are refreshing the world,” the Coca-Cola Scholars Program stated on its website. “With the addition of the milestone 35th class, the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation will have provided more than 6,750 Coke scholars nationwide with more than $81 million in scholarships since 1986.”

Coca-Cola will award 150 students an achievement-driven scholarship and recipients will be members of the 35th class of Coca-Cola scholars. In the class, students will network as a team and with previous recipients, as well as mentor following classes.

Knoll, Stephens and Wine were three of 1,557 semi-finalists chosen from over 91,000 applicants nationally.

In the next step, applications will be reviewed by the Coca-Cola Scholars Program Reading Committee, which will pare the 1,557 semi-finalists to 250 regional finalists.

Knoll is an international speaker and inventor of the Ability App, an application designed to help people with disabilities find accessible locations across the world.

Stephens received the Student Excellence in the Arts award at the Coeur d’Alene Mayor's Awards-in-the-Arts ceremony in October for her musical prowess on the violin.

And as a double-amputee, Wine wants to work in prosthetics to show people she knows what they’re going through, and help them cope with their prosthetics. She’d like to work in design to improve the experience of living with prosthetic limbs.

Final awardees will be selected in March, 2023.