Patrick Carney is Salutatorian for CM's Class of 2011

Patrick Carney of Milton has been named the winner of the 2011 Cornelius P. Ryan, CFC General Excellence Award at .

Ranked second in his graduating class, Carney went to the Pierce Middle School in Milton through grade six and enrolled at CM in seventh grade. A member of the NHS and Spanish Honor Society, Carney also played varsity rugby and traveled with the school's immersion program - to Peru, New Orleans and South Korea. This spring, he devoted his time in the school’s Senior Service Project to the Milton Animal Hospital.

Carney still remembers his first day at CM. "I had Mrs. Murphy for homeroom," he recalls. "She's a great teacher, who always cared so much about her students. And if we needed extra help, she'd go out of her way to help us."

In his salutatorian address, Carney intends to thank his teachers, like Mrs. Ellen Eberly, Dr. Michael Dempsey and Mr. Tom Beatty. "Ms. Eberly pushed me further than I thought I could go and taught me how to write better," he says. "Dr. Dempsey always helped me with my writing, and Mr. Beatty helped me decide to study engineering in college."

Carney will pursue that field at Johns Hopkins University, which he will attend in the fall. It was a tough decision, he says, as BU, WPI, RPI and the University of Michigan also accepted him.

Carney earned high praise from his AP Calculus teacher, Mr. Beatty this year.  "This year, I have truly come to understand Patrick's depth and devotion to mathematics," says Beatty. "His questions have the substance and creativity that very often amaze me for a student his age."

This is a press release from Catholic Memorial.