For 26 weeks at 5:30 on News Channel 11 sports we have honored the best and brightest student athletes in the Tri-Cities and Southwest Virginia area.

Thursday night out of those 52 featured, we chose Brooke Shepherd from Virginia High and Michael Crowder from Sullivan Central as our News Channel 11 Sports /Embarq scholar athletes of the year.

Shepherd is headed to UAB on a full ride to play basketball, while Crowder is headed to Princeton in the Ivy league to play football.

They were chosen for exhibiting both excellence in the classroom as well as in athletics.

Each student athlete was given 1-thousand dollars and plans to use it for school supplies.

Shepherd, plans to study psychology, while Crowder is leaning towards corporate law.