I graduated from high school in 1991. There were seven valedictorians in our class but all had 4.0 averages and all but one were in the same advanced classes. Sometimes there’s just a bunch of hard working smart kids.
In my BS Nuclear Engineering class, about 11 out of 25 graduated with honors..............
I think we had 7 valedictorians, all straights As throughout HS even in AP classes.