Montgomery High School’s Kai Williams has been named a semifinalist in the National Achievement Scholarship program run by the non-profit National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The award recognizes more than 1,600 black American high school seniors who earned the highest scores on the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as juniors.

The students are in the running to win one of the 800 Achievement Scholarship awards totaling more than $2.4 million. Those honors are announced in the spring.

The National Achievement Scholarship Program was established in 1964 and is a privately financed competition that operates without government assistance.

Montgomery’s Alexandria Sisk earned a $2,500 National Achievement Scholarship from the non-profit National Merit Scholarship Corporation last year.