IOWA CITY — Katherine Day and Ryan Madden, of Fort Dodge and students at Fort Dodge Middle School, were among almost 500 students from Iowa and throughout the nation who were recently honored at the University of Iowa Belin-Blank Center’s Recognition Ceremony. Recognized students were given the opportunity to honor a teacher they credited for having a major influence on their lives. Madden selected Diane Pratt, TAG teacher at Fort Dodge Middle School, for this honor.

Fort Dodge Middle School students Lainey Maehl and Grace Casciato were also invited to attend. The ceremony was held Oct. 8 at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa campus. Students were recognized for exceptional performance in the Belin-Blank Center student talent search, for receiving scholarships for Belin-Blank summer residential gifted programs, for being national awardees from the Scholastic Art and Writing program, for being student research presenters at the Iowa Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, for being an awardees for Invent Iowa State Invention Convention, participants in STEM Excellence and Leadership program, or participants in the Secondary Student Training Program.