School Board honors Cooper Mears as National Merit Finalist

At the Feb. 23 meeting of the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education, Belleville High School senior Connor Mears was honored for his recently announced National Merit Scholarship Finalist designation.
Mears is the son of Angela and Todd Mears of Van Buren Township.
Cooper is ranked first out of 392 BHS seniors with a cumulative grade point average of 4.764 as of the end of the first semester of the 2025-26 school year. In addition to his courses at BHS, he also completed Calculus 3 at Washtenaw Community in the fall semester and is currently enrolled in Linear Algebra for the winter semester.
He has completed nine Advanced Placement (AP) courses through the 11th grade and achieved two 4s and seven 5s on the AP examinations, with 5 being the max score.
He has been recognized by the College Board with an AP Scholarship with Honors Award, an AP Scholar with Distinction Award and a School Recognition Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement.
Cooper participates in Euchre and Chess Clubs at BHS, is the vice president of National Honor Society, is the treasurer for Science Olympiad, is the secretary for the Ecology Club, is a squad leader in Marching Band, and is first chair flute and piccolo in Symphony Band. He is also a past member of the award-winning Robotics team.
Outside of school, Cooper is a member of the Civic Philharmonic Orchestra, which is one of the Civic Youth Ensembles through the Detroit Symphony Orchestra organization for the 2025-26 season.
In his free time, he enjoys baking for his friends, family and teachers, volunteering and tutoring.
Cooper will be attending the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and expects to major in Math.
He qualified to be a semi-finalist with a perfect score on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT ).