SYRACUSE, NY, May 23rd, 2002 -- Daniel Aridgides, a 2002 graduate of Fayetteville-Manlius High School, is one of nearly 50 students nationwide to win a Lockheed Martin Scholarship for academic excellence. The scholarships are $3,000 per year for four years of undergraduate study and were awarded to top-performing high school seniors who are the children of Lockheed Martin employees. Daniel's dad, Tom Aridgides, works in the advanced engineering group at Lockheed Martin in Syracuse. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation administers this highly competitive program and notes that all of the Lockheed Martin Scholarship winners are within the top one half of one percent of all U.S. high school graduates.

Daniel earned a 1600 on his Standardized Achievement Test (SAT), a perfect score. In addition, he earned a perfect 800 on three SAT II tests in math, writing and physics. He is an accomplished French horn player and has played with the Syracuse Symphony Youth Orchestra for the past three years. Daniel has won several music awards and has participated in All County and Area All State orchestras. When he's not playing his horn, he is working on complex math problems with his school's Math League team. Daniel has participated in county and state math teams, too. He participates in skiing, biking, hiking, camping and playing chess in his spare time and plans to study biomedical engineering at either Duke or Cornell Universities.

To be considered for Lockheed Martin Scholarships, high school students must take the PSAT/NMSQT in the fall of their junior year. Students whose scores qualify them as National Merit Semifinalists are notified through their schools in the fall of their senior year and invited to complete the National Merit Scholarship Application.

"I couldn't be prouder of Daniel's achievement," says his father, Tom. "He has always been a highly motivated student and I am constantly amazed at how many different interests he has and how hard he works at mastering them."

A leader in the design, development and integration of radar systems, vessel traffic management, submarine electronic warfare and anti-submarine warfare systems, minehunting systems, simulation and training systems, and other complex electronic systems, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems (NE&SS) in Syracuse, N.Y. serves customers including all branches of the U.S. armed forces, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Transportation and State, and defense and transportation departments of countries on six continents. NE&SS employs more than 2,300 people at its Syracuse, N.Y. location, and is a unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation.