For the 47th straight year, the Rotary Club of Covington honored the top 10 students from Alcovy, Eastside and Newton high schools

The students and their favorite teachers were given plaques Monday night at Alcovy High School.

"Tonight is about celebrating and honoring those students who have worked so hard over the past 4 years. The students have done the work, but there's also the mentors and teachers out there that have also supported them and we want to thank them as well," said Rotary President Brook Collins.

To be named to the top 10, students must have taken the college preparatory program and earned a minimum of 25 units, including four units of English, math and science, three and half units of social studies, two of foreign language, one of career technical/agricultural education or fine arts, one of physical education and at least five and a half of electives.

The students are also ranked by grade point average and must have spent at least four semesters in an accredited school in Georgia, according to Superintendent Gary Mathews.

"The students we recognize and celebrate tonight are simply put the best of the best. And I am certainty they have been inspired by a teacher along the way who gave them that extra push toward excellence, helped by a parent along the way who provided love, encouragement and a steady hand and supported by some principal who saw the potential in them as leaders and good and productive citizens," Mathews said.

"Even with all of the support from teachers, parents and administrators, each of our students tonight had to decide somewhere along the way that they wanted to excel. They worked hard. They worked smart. They now are reaping the rewards and will continue to do so in the near and distant future."

Mathews left the students with a quote from "A Course in Miracles" by Marianne Williamson.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."