Two Leeds students were among those who completed their Bachelor of Arts degrees and collected their diplomas during Huntingdon College Commencement Exercises May 4, 2013.

The class included Zachary Aaron Elkins and Marybeth Grace Wheatley.

Elkins, the son of Kim and Gary Reach of Trussville, was a 2009 graduate of Leeds High School.

A cell biology major, he was a member of the American Chemical Society and Chemistry Wizards. He was a four-year member of the Huntingdon Hawks varsity football team, playing on the defensive line. Elkins’ academic achievement earned recognition on the Dean’s List of Honors. He is included in the 2013 edition of Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities. He traveled and studied in Costa Rica in May 2013 through the Huntingdon Plan. He plans to pursue graduate study in optometry.

Wheatley, the daughter of Gina and Michael Wheatley of Leeds, completed her degree with a major in communication studies.

She was a 2008 graduate of Shades Valley High School. A four-year member of the Marching Scarlet and Grey and the Huntingdon Winds Concert Band, she led the flute and piccolo section. She was inducted into the honorary national band fraternity Tau Beta Sigma, for which she served as vice president and secretary. Through the Huntingdon Plan, she traveled and studied in Austria and Germany in May 2012. Wheatley is employed with Wells Fargo Bank as a banker coach in Homewood, Alabama.

Huntingdon College, grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition of the United Methodist Church, is committed to nurturing growth in faith, wisdom, and service and to graduating individuals prepared to succeed in a rapidly changing world.

Founded in 1854, Huntingdon is a coeducational liberal arts college. The College motto, “Enter to grow in wisdom; go forth to apply wisdom in service,” is inscribed in stone above the front door of John Jefferson Flowers Hall. Ranked in the top tier of regional colleges by U.S. News and World Report and consistently listed in the Princeton Review’s “The Best Colleges: Region by Region,” Huntingdon has for three years been recognized on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Washington Monthly, which ranks colleges on the basis of their contribution to the public good, places Huntingdon in the top 20% of 352 Baccalaureate colleges.