Ryle grad scored national Word honors

By Justin B. Duke • jbduke@nky.com

A Ryle High School grad’s word processing skills earned her national recognition.  Kathleen Langsdale, who just graduated from Ryle, was named a finalist in the United States Competition on Microsoft Office for using Word 2007.

Langsdale got into the competition through a program at Ryle that would help her become certified in the software.  Langsdale’s teacher Lora Evans told her a company named Certiport offers a competition along with the certification.  “I thought, ‘Sure, I’ll try it,’” Langsdale said.

Langsdale was one of 72,000 students who competed.  The competition involved tests on a number of skills needed to make use of all that Microsoft Word does.  “It’s just a bunch of different things,” Langsdale said.

Langsdale took her test during the school year, and didn’t hear anything for some time until she was on vacation after school ended. She was notified she won third place in the U.S.  “I was really surprised,” Langsdale.

Langsdale is getting ready to head to the University of Kentucky where she plans to study marketing. She’ll take advantage of her Word skills a lot over the next few years, she said.

“It’ll be pretty useful, I think,” Langsdale said.

Ryle grad scored national Word honors