Catherine Hare’s rocketry team, Noah’s TARC, from St. John Paul II Catholic High School in Huntsville, Alabama, recently placed third in the world’s largest student rocketry competition, the American Rocketry Challenge, which took place at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia.

In total, more than 4,500 students from nearly 800 teams in 45 states entered the 2023 competition. Teams at the national finals represented 27 states from Alaska to Florida and competed for a total of $100,000 in prize money and scholarships, split among the top 10 teams. For more information on the competition, see rocketcontest.org/result/2023/.

Hare graduated from St. John Paul II Catholic High School in Huntsville, Alabama, and is the daughter of Peanut Keller and William Hare III of Brownsboro, Alabama, and the granddaughter of Annie B. Keller of Winchester and the late Paul Keller Sr. of Tullahoma. 

She is a National Merit finalist and will attend Georgia Tech this fall, majoring in mechanical engineering with a minor in Spanish.