Nancy Yoder, an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Maine, was recently named a director of the Penobscot River Educational Partnership: A Professional Development Network.

Yoder, a resident of Hampden, will devote half of her workload to coordinating and facilitating activities for PREP: PDN.

The organization is composed of seven school districts and the University of Maine and is spearheaded by the College of Education and Human Development.

Yoder will lead PREP: PDN in developing long-range planning and a strategic plan, in addition to advancing its communications collaborations and continuing progress.

Yoder earned a doctorate from Emory University. She joined the UMaine educational leadership faculty last year, coming from the Institute for Educational Renewal at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she worked on planning, implementing and assessing collaborative school-university partnership activities, professional development and inquiry projects.

Monica Willey of Bangor has been selected to attend the National Young Leaders Conference Nov. 13-18 in Washington, D.C.

Willey is one of 350 students selected from around the country to present for the NYLC. Students are chosen based upon leadership potential and scholastic merit.

Willey, daughter of Lorna and Larry Willey, is a junior at Bangor High School, where she is a member of the student council, class council, SEED (Students Ending Environmental Destruction), math team, Key Club and AIDS committee. She is president of the Eastern Regional Student Council and has participated with the Maine Association of Student Councils.

At the conference, students will meet members of Congress and the National Press Club to discuss important issues facing the country.

Melanie Rand of Lincoln, a modern languages major at the University of Maine, has been awarded a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to pursue a course of study abroad during the 2001-2002 academic year.

Studying at Universitaet Salzburg, Rand will concentrate on German as a foreign language and will spend from October to July in Austria.

Rand was one of 139 students chosen from 2,200 applicants. Awards were presented by the Institute of International Education on the basis of academic performance, quality of application materials and geographic diversity of proposed course of study. Rand is a 1998 graduate of Mattanawcook Academy.

Mary Molnar of Bangor has been selected to participate in the National Youth Leadership Forum on Law from Nov. 6 to Nov. 11 in Washington, D.C.

Molnar is the daughter of Krista Molnar of Bangor and Dominick Molnar of Maxfield.

Having demonstrated academic achievement and an interest in law and justice, Molnar will join more than 350 high school juniors and seniors from across the United States at the forum.

Students will have the opportunity to interact with partners at law firms, criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, as well as professors and other professionals who work with the justice system.