Ever since she can remember, 18-year-old Noama Iftekhar has begun her day with a glass of milk. Her healthy eating habits have landed the Adrian C. Wilcox High School 2012 graduate a $7,500 college scholarship awarded to athletes who make breakfast a priority. As a role model for youth, she gets to appear in a full-page ad in USA Today at the end of June—wearing an iconic milk mustache smile.
Iftekhar is one of 25 high school seniors selected from a pool of more than 30,000 applicants to receive a 2012 Scholar Athletes Milk Mustache of the Year (SAMMY) Award, sponsored by the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board, which runs the National Milk Mustache “got milk?” Campaign. SAMMY Award winners will be photographed for an ad at an awards ceremony at Walt Disney World in Florida.
“I’ve grown up with the Milk Mustache campaign, so it will be pretty cool to see myself in a Milk Mustache ad!” says Iftekhar. “My parents were strict about my diet. Instead of drinking sodas, they gave me the option of drinking milk.”
If Iftekhar gets the most votes by June 25, she also will win $5,000 to donate to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, benefitting children with life-threatening illnesses.
“Please go to www.sammymvp.com and vote for me!” she says.
Iftekhar excelled in high school with a 4.01 GPA, in tennis and track, and in community service in Santa Clara and beyond, helping start a girls’ school in Pakistan, where her parents were born. She will study biomedical engineering at University of California Berkeley.