The following story has been updated from its original form.

The Colquitt County High School Junior ROTC Program will continue its proud tradition of sending a local graduate to a military service academy when Dylan Globerman departs later this month for the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Globerman, 18, said he decided in the eighth grade that he wanted to be a Marine Corps officer and he knew what he had to do. He joined the ROTC in his ninth grade year, played soccer all through high school to hone athletic skills, and served in leadership positions in ROTC, as junior class president, and as president and vice president of the Y Club.

“I took the hardest classes that were available to me,” said Globerman, who recently received accolades at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

He participated in the Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Conference and other leadership activities.

He praised the ROTC program for helping him toward his goal.

“Gunnery Sgt. Bryant and Col. Nagy did an outstanding job of teaching me about the military,” he said. “… They do that for everyone, and they do a great job of it.”

Beyond the training and the opportunities, Globerman needed nominations to get into the Naval Academy. He went every route that was open to him: nomination by the ROTC program at CCHS, from Rep. Austin Scott, from Sen. Saxby Chambliss and even from the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden. The only one of those who did not nominate him was Biden.

The reason it was important to get multiple nominations is that each leader gets to make several nominations, but the academy then chooses one to actually join the class. For instance, he said, Chambliss could nominate 10 people to the academy, but only one would get to go based on that nomination. Globerman is attending the Naval Academy on Chambliss’s nomination.

Globerman, son of physician’s assistant Mark Globerman and CCHS teacher Cathy Wentworth, was ready for the competitive nature of the process. He’d been competing his whole life.

“My dad was always a big advocate: You’re always competing with everyone in your class for anything,” he said.

Globerman has seen much success in scientific competition too. Last year he won first place at the Regional Science Fair, which earned him a spot in this year’s International Science and Engineering Fair and in the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, which he called “the military science fair.”

At the symposium, he won a $1,000 scholarship. At the international fair, he won a special award from Saudi King Abdulaziz that included a $1,000 cash prize.

Globerman’s project used waves to power a generator to make electricity. He said it’s the first design of its kind, and he’s looking into a patent for it.

Globerman will leave Moultrie in time to arrive at Annapolis for induction June 27. He’ll have six weeks of basic training before the academic year starts. Each summer he’ll participate in training exercises. Four years from now, he’ll receive his commission.

“I’m excited,” he said. “I’m ready to go try something new.”

Globerman is the third Colquitt Countian to attend a military academy in less than 10 years. Andrew Pritchett graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in May 2006, and Rich Tyndall started at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point last year following a year at Valley Forge Military College.