‘Brilliant’ Lexington high schooler awarded $40k scholarship, Amazon internship

LEXINGTON, S.C. (WIS) - A Lexington County senior will be one of 400 U.S. students to intern at Amazon during college and receive a $40,000 scholarship.

Zdenek Rusek Kotva, a senior at River Bluff High School, was named an Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship recipient.

“Zdenek is a brilliant student who demonstrates a passion and natural talent for coding ... He has made a name for himself at River Bluff as a strong leader that anyone can depend on and I believe he will continue to be a successful leader in all of his future endeavors,” said RBHS Computer Science Teacher Sarah Tooley in a news release.

His class celebrated his scholarship acceptance on Thursday.

The scholarship helps bring more future engineers into the workforce from “historically underserved communities,” according to a news release from River Bluff High School.

After Kotva’s freshmen year of college, he will get a chance to have a paid internship at Amazon and gain “hands-on, practical work experience” at the trillion-dollar company, the school said.

The $40,000 scholarship will be distributed over four years as Kotva’s pursues a degree in computer science or engineering.

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