Acacia Newlon-Yafai of Los Altos Hills has been awarded the Larry Kranich Memorial Scholarship in the amount of $1,000 for the 2005-2006 school year through the California Grocers Association Educational Foundation.

Newlon-Yafai is a graduate of Los Altos High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar, belonged to the California Scholarship Federation and received the Governor Scholar Award. She is a mass communications major at UCLA.

Christina Gonerko, daughter of Grace and Richard Gonerko of Los Altos, received a $3,000 scholarship from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) and Sutter Health’s Sutter Scholars program.

Gonerko graduated from St. Francis High School and is a freshman at UCLA, where she plans to major in business. Her mother is a clinical lab scientist for PAMF’s Fremont Center. Children and grandchildren of employees at PAMF and other organizations across the Sutter network are eligible to apply for the Sutter Scholars program.

Eleven seniors at Pinewood School have been named semifinalists in the 51st annual National Merit Scholarship Program. They are Elizabeth Altmaier, Jeffrey Bien, David Bitner, Amanda Chu, Greg Enenstein, Ragini Kathail, Hannah Lippe, Whitney Mapes, Alisha Marfatia, Kelsey Mead and Tim Wang.