Lia DeRoin is a unique student at Lawrence High School, and that’s something of an embarrassment in the Lions’ domain.

DeRoin, a talented musician and athlete, is the only LHS senior named Tuesday as a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist. Normally, there are at least a half dozen of these elite students in the 1,370-student high school.

“I wish I could say I had a clear picture as why this happened,” LHS counselor Linda Allen said.

Free State High School has nine semifinalists this year, just under the three-year average of 10. It has 1,160 students.

The 100-student Bishop Seabury Academy, a private Episcopal school in Lawrence, has two semifinalists. It’s the first time Bishop Seabury placed students on the list.

The National Merit program named 16,000 U.S. semifinalists, making each eligible for 8,000 scholarships totaling $30 million. National Merit finalists will be announced this spring.

Semifinalists were chosen from more than 1.3 million students who entered the 2003 program by taking the Preliminary SAT last year as high school juniors.

In Kansas, 12,000 students took the qualifying exam. Only 169 semifinalists emerged from that group.

Sherry Slade, counselor at Free State, said this year’s winners represented the top 0.5 percent of all high school seniors.

“We’re always excited for the kids,” she said.

Free State’s semifinalists: Tim Belcher, Adam Bittlingmayer, Glen Friedman, Erik Lauridsen, Annie McEnroe, Hugh Naughtin, Jesse Page-Adams, Lucas Thompson and Nathaniel Twarog.

Slade said Page-Adams is a full-time college student during what would be her senior year at Free State.

“She started an accelerated program in ninth grade, took KU classes and is at Dartmouth,” she said.

Bishop Seabury’s semifinalists are Sean Hill and Louis Wigen-Toccalino. They entered the school as junior high students.

“These two boys are extremely talented, and I am very proud of both of them,” said Chris Carter, Bishop Seabury’s headmaster.

In Baldwin, Katherine Lammers was named a National Merit semifinalist.

Allen said the LHS showing in the scholarship program this year was likely “a fluke.”

“It’s totally based on PSAT scores,” she said. “We had one or two kids a couple of points away. They didn’t make the cutoff.”

Last year, the Lawrence public school district had 17 semifinalists. Eleven were at Free State, while six attended LHS.