JAY – Seventeen-year-old Rachel Rier is writing a youth awareness novel in her spare time.

It’s half-done. She plans it to be 12 chapters, 250 pages. She started it this summer.

Rier also writes a lot of music.

“I love music,” she said. “I love writing.”

She writes poems and a lot of short stories and spends a lot of time with her kitten, Fang.

Rier was recognized Friday as one of the best and brightest students in the state and country.

The 6-foot redhead was named a Commended Student in the 2005 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Commended students placed among the top 5 percent of more than 1 million students who entered the 2005 competition by taking the 2003 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

She was among the top 100 students in Maine who took the test and showed “exceptional academic promise” by earning high scores.

Jay High School Assistant Principal Kenric Charles and school guidance counselors Julie Talmage and Ben Milster met with Rier and her mother, Maria Rier, a French teacher, Friday in the high school library.

Seated beside her mother, Rachel Rier was the center of attention.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, as she was handed a letter of commendation. “Thank you.”

Afterwards, Rier said she studies about two hours each day.

“I do study a lot,” she said, “but I say a lot of my intelligence comes from my father and mother.” Her father is Frank Rier.

The senior said she likes to challenge herself in choosing more difficult classes.

“I feel like I want to work up to my full potential,” Rachel Rier said. “I try to beat my old academic records.”

She has already applied to attend Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass.

“I’m going to major in English education,” she said. “I want to be a high school English teacher. I’ve had teachers who’ve made a big influence in my life.”