COVINGTON, Ga. - Following some ambitious family footsteps, Ashley E. Pope, a seventh-grader at the Newton County Theme School, has received a certificate of merit from the Duke University Talent Identification Program. 

Founded in 1980 and headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, TIP is an education program that identifies gifted children and provides them and their parents the resources needed to reach their full educational potential.

Ashley took the SAT in December, and her score and percentile ranking earned her a Talent Search certificate of merit—the highest honor at that level. The achievement is something to be proud of but has become almost routine in the Pope family. Her aunt, Sharon Pope Hodges, MD, of Mansfield, participated in the Talent Search in 1980, and four years later, Ashley’s father, Gregory Pope, Esq. (brother of Sherry), participated in the same Talent Search. Mr. Pope passed away in December, shortly after his daughter took the SAT.

Ashley’s mother is Elizabeth Pope, a practicing attorney in Covington, and her paternal grandparents are Ann and Walter Pope, also of Covington.

In addition to the Talent Search, the nonprofit TIP conducts research into the educational, emotional, and social factors impacting the lives of gifted children, and maintains on-site student programs in several states and five foreign countries, including China and Germany.