LEWISTON — A local high school senior has won a scholarship and all-expense paid trip to participate in a conference about education and homeless youth.

For her academic success,

, 18, has been awarded a Le Tendre scholarship to attend the National Association of the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, according to Mary Seaman, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Liaison at Lewiston High school. The conference is this weekend in Albuquerque, N.M.

The annual conference equips educators with the inspiration and best practices to remove barriers and help students experiencing homelessness be successful academically, personally and socially.

“I am very excited about going, but I am also a bit nervous,” Sprague said Wednesday. She’ll attend workshops and meet people from throughout the country who help homeless youth.

Before Sprague got her own apartment through the homeless liaison office, she spent a year sleeping on the kitchen floor of her grandmother’s home because the kitchen floor was the only spot available in the tiny apartment, Sprague said in an April story about homeless students.

In addition to living on her own, Sprague helps her grandmother with housework and makes sure her younger brother does his homework.

She coaches other students, is an honor roll student and plans to go to college and become a doctor. Seaman said Sprague is one of her success stories.

– Bonnie Washuk