RELEASED: Dec. 17. 2002

DANVILLE, KY—Centre graduate Michael Lanham has found himself in the news again.

In 2000, Lanham '00 was named a Rhodes scholar, earning the world's most prestigious undergraduate scholarship to study at Oxford University. At the time he was 18 years old, the youngest person to ever receive the honor.

He was edged out last week when Devi Sridhar, a student at the University of Miami (Fla.), was named a Rhodes scholar. She is three and half weeks younger than Lanham was when he won a Rhodes scholarship.

Don't expect Lanham to shed any tears that his record was broken.

He's too busy working on a doctorate in mathematics at Oxford University in England and singing in a number of Oxford's acclaimed choral groups.

The Centre graduate is slated to graduate from Oxford in the spring.

Lanham, a native of Gravel Switch in Marion County, Ky., was 15 when he enrolled at Centre. He received a double-major in math and music.

He was Centre's seventh Rhodes scholar. The others are: Winchester Stuart (1908); R.W. Dunlap (1917); W. Strother Hynes (1923); John Patton Harrod (1967); Raymond Burse (1973); and David M. Fowler (1974).

British philanthropist and colonialist Cecil Rhodes created the program in 1902.

Centre has produced more Rhodes scholars than any other private institution in Kentucky, and two-thirds of all Rhodes scholarships Kentucky has won in the past 40 years.

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