Update: Nerine Uyanik, grade 11, finished 32 in the Challenge CEP Marathon Flueret in Paris out of 150 fencers from around the world in under-17 competition! http://marathon-fleuret.com/resultats_2019.html
Also: Kira Bardin, grade 5, has been training in epee for about the past year and plans to begin competing soon.
Jan. 31, 2019
Harker has a strong contingent of fencers who compete regularly, along with alumna Jerrica Liao ’18, now fencing for Northwestern. Harker fencers, who train at various clubs around the Bay Area, recently competed in multiple local, regional and national events. Virtually all are on track to qualify for the national championships in June. Here are some of the results!
Liao, in her first year at Northwestern, is competing in individual women’s foil events as the college team has some strong starters returning from last year. Liao competed in Division 1 in the December North American Circuit (NAC) event in Cincinnati and in Junior Women’s foil in the NAC in Charlotte in January where she finished 39th out of 175 fencers. In a series of six meets in late January, Northwestern beat Temple, Columbia, NYU, Yale and the U.S. Air Force. Liao crushed, going 4-0 in individual matches. She holds an A-2015 rating. Ratings run from A-D, A being the best, followed by the year earned.
Nerine Uyanik, grade 11 has competed in several National and local events this season, taking three medals: two in November, earning fifth place in both cadet and junior events at the Regional Open Circuit (ROC) in San Jose, then taking seventh for another visit to the podium in a very tough Division 1-A event out of 36 rated fencers. Medals are awarded to the top eight finishers in regional and national events. Uyanik holds a B-2017 rating in foil and a C-2019 rating in epee earned in late January with a third place finish out of 31 fencers in a Division 1A (all ages) event.
Sana Pandey, grade 11, has competed in several local and national womens epee events, including Division 1 competitions, taking first place in junior womens epee in December to add to her second and third place medals from regional events in November for a clean bag of 3 top four finishes. Pandey holds a C-2017 rating.
Ethan Choi, grade 10, continues to build on his Division III National Championship from last summer, fencing foil in both the October and November NACs, finishing 18 of 154 in Division II in October and 85 of 249 in Cadet in November, both very respectable finishes in tough events. He medaled, finishing eighth of 57, in the ROC in late November. He holds a C-2018 rating.
Kishan Sood, grade 10, fenced in national events in October and November in Cadet, Junior and Division II events. He had a really great finish, taking a bronze medal out of 34 in Division II mens foil, open to all ages, in an ROC in late November. He also finished 18 of 53 in Cadet mens foil at that tournament. He holds a D-2018 rating.
Alysa Su, grade 9 has also fenced in at least 11 National and regional events at the Cadet, Division II and Division I levels, recently. She took third out of 37 in September in the San Jose RYC in Y-14 womens foil and earned a medal finishing seventh out of 43 in the January Regional Youth Circuit (RYC) event in San Francisco. She holds a C-2018 rating.
John Cracraft, grade 8, finished 38 out of 68 in the September RYC in Sunnyvale, then 43 out of 61 in the Y-14 mens foil event at the Treasure Chest RYC. No rating.
Ethan Liu, grade 7, has not competed yet this year but fenced in several events last year, finishing 43 of 73 in March 2018 Silicon Valley RYC. No Rating.
Ishani Sood, grade 7, has had a great year so far, with a bag of six medals, all except one a top-four finish. She has fenced in Junior, Cadet, Y-14 and Y-12 girls foil events, taking two first place medals at the Super Youth Circuit (SYC) event in Southern California in both Y-12 (48 fencers) and Y-14 (57 fencers). She also finished first in Y-12 and third in Y1-4 in the Super Youth Circuit (SYC) in Denver later in the fall. Finally, she competed in late January in the South Coast RYC and Regional Junior Circuit (RJC), placing second in Y-14 and fifth in Juniors, a remarkable finish in that age bracket! She has a C-2018 rating.
Alena Su, grade 7, has also had a great year earning RYC medals in two September competitions, coming in seventh of 44 in Y-12 womens foil; third of 28 in the same event earlier in the month. She took fifth out of 50 fencers in December in Y-12 womens foil, an excellent result. No rating.
Aaron Bao, grade 6, has fenced in many events this season with very respectable results. In September at the North Texas SYC, Aaron stood on the podium to receive his third place medal out of 63 fencers. In late November, he finished 12 out of 70 at an RYC, and in the mid-January RYC, took 15 out of 60, both in Y-12 mens foil. No rating.
Ethan Wang, grade 6, has competed in many events, local, regional and national as well, finishing 13 out of 60 in the Y-12 mens foil event at the Treasure Chest RYC in San Francisco. He took ninth of 25, locally, in October and traveled to a variety of events out of the Bay Area. He took 39 out of 49 in the Arizona SYC in Y-14 mens foil, 28 out of 38 in Y12 MF. No rating.
Chuyi (Luke) Zeng, grade 6 has fenced a number of local and regional events, taking a respectable 24 out of 60 in the Y-12 mens foil and 46 out of 61 in the Y-14 event at the Treasure Chest RYC in San Francisco in late January. No rating.
Zoie Wang, grade 5, competes very regularly and took second in a late November RYC in San Jose, out of 20, and took first of 14 in a local Y-10 Womens foil event. In the Late September RYC in Sunnyvale, Wang took second of 18 in Y-10 womens foil and 17 of 44 in Y-12 womens foil and in early September, she took second in Y-10 womens foil at the SYC in North Texas. No rating.
Jiening (Jason) Zhang grade 5, had an excellent result in late January at the Treasure Chest RYC on Treasure Island in San Francisco, taking second out of 38 in Y-10 mens foil and seventh out of 60 in the Y-12 event. Two nice podiums! He took seventh out of 17 in Y-10 MF North Texas Roundup, 44 out of 63 in Y-12 MF. He medaled in late November at the San Jose RYC, taking second out of 31 in Y-10 mens foil and 21 out of 70 in Y-12 MF. In early December, in the San Diego SYC, Zhang took fifth out of 36 in Y-10 mens foil action and 29 in the Y-12 event out of 97. No rating.
Please report all fencing and other activities results to news@harker.org. We love to report how our students are doing!
On Jan. 19, Harker’s own “Eagle Bots” FIRST Lego League Team – made up of fifth graders Sahil Jain, Farhan Ansari, Mihir Gupta, Daniel Wu and Jaden Chyan – was awarded Most Innovative Solution at the Northern California FLL championship (held at the University of California, Berkeley) for a science project it devised to help astronauts eat better.
The students’ project explored how the quality of food can affect the mood of astronauts in space, who must cope with a lack of fresh produce in addition to constant isolation, leading to issues with physical and emotional health. Upon researching these topics, they found that smell and taste are closely linked, and developed an idea for an “AroMask” that astronauts can wear to immerse themselves in the scents of their favorite foods to stimulate hunger. The team consulted with psychiatrists and NASA scientists as part of its research.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2018 issue of Harker Magazine.
Karen Glovka teaches Spanish at the lower school, but her classroom isn’t the only place she utilizes her language skills. She teaches Spanish-speaking children through her church, and often helps Hispanic immigrant families understand the ins and outs of public school. She also teaches in Harker’s ELI program each summer. And to aid her Harker students with oral comprehension, she wrote a series of stories featuring her 16-year-old cat, Chiquita. Read on to learn more about this caring and fun teacher.
What are two things you like to do when you have a block of free time?
Reading and watching Turner Classic Movies – always with a good cup of coffee for both.
Why do you do what you do?
I’m from inner-city San Francisco. Many of my school friends could not read, even in middle school while I was consuming novels. A teacher encouraged me to help others with their schoolwork. As they made progress, I was very excited to watch them learn. It’s why I am a teacher.
What is the biggest risk you have taken in your life?
In 1985 I went to teach with a church group in Cali, Colombia. It wasn’t a safe place, but I had seven fulfilling years there.
What gives you a reason to smile?
Kid logic and funny stories. I have a rather quirky, “Far Side” kind of humor.
Where in the world are you the happiest?
Most Thursday nights I’m at choir practice. Music makes me very happy!
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
I was diagnosed with a severe hip problem at an early age. The first doctors said I would never walk. Thanks to skilled surgeons and continued improvement in treatment, I walk, and I am very grateful.
Face Time: Karen Glovka
Karen Glovka teaches Spanish at the lower school, but her classroom isn’t the only place she utilizes her language skills. She teaches Spanish-speaking children through her church, and often helps Hispanic immigrant families understand the ins and outs of public school. She also teaches in Harker’s ELI program each summer. And to aid her Harker students with oral comprehension, she wrote a series of stories featuring her 16-year-old cat, Chiquita. Read on to learn more about this caring and fun teacher.
What are two things you like to do when you have a block of free time?
Reading and watching Turner Classic Movies – always with a good cup of coffee for both.
Why do you do what you do?
I’m from inner-city San Francisco. Many of my school friends could not read, even in middle school while I was consuming novels. A teacher encouraged me to help others with their schoolwork. As they made progress, I was very excited to watch them learn. It’s why I am a teacher.
What is the biggest risk you have taken in your life?
In 1985 I went to teach with a church group in Cali, Colombia. It wasn’t a safe place, but I had seven fulfilling years there.
What gives you a reason to smile?
Kid logic and funny stories. I have a rather quirky, “Far Side” kind of humor.
Where in the world are you the happiest?
Most Thursday nights I’m at choir practice. Music makes me very happy!
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
I was diagnosed with a severe hip problem at an early age. The first doctors said I would never walk. Thanks to skilled surgeons and continued improvement in treatment, I walk, and I am very grateful.
Lower school service efforts were in full swing this month as the annual grade 4 toy drive delivered 550 toys to St. Justin Community Ministry in Santa Clara, which every year offers underprivileged families the opportunity to “shop” for toys to give to their children. Although the collection effort is led by grade 4 students, all lower school families were encouraged to participate. The 10-day toy drive coincided with hot chocolate sales on Dec. 7 and Dec. 13, organized by the grades 4 and 5 student council, which raised more than $1,000 for schools affected by the devastating November Camp Fire.
Fifth graders Farhan Ansari, Sahil Jain, Mihir Gupta, Daniel Wu and Jaden Chyan won the Robot Design Award at last month’s First Lego League Northern California Qualifier, held at Lowell High School. The win secured them a spot at the Northern California championship in January in Berkeley.
Prior to the qualifier, the team had been hard at work redesigning their robot, adding two motors, two color sensor and a gyro sensor. “They made clever use of gears to build attachments for performing different tasks on the field and made their programs modular for ease of use,” said Farhan’s mother, Monica Ansari, who coaches the team along with Sonali Jain, Sahil’s mother.
The team also put together a research project that delved into the link between astronauts’ emotional states and the foods they consume while in space, working with health science experts and scientists at NASA.
Monica credited Harker’s science programs with fostering the team’s enthusiasm for robotics. “They projects they have done at school in science and computers have really sparked their interest in robotics and science,” she said, “and it has helped them to tackle the challenges in FLL.”
Please see the accomplishments of our lower and middle school fall sports teams and individuals below:
MS Swim
Team awards went to Johnathan Mo, grade 8 (MVP), Rajas Apte, grade 6 (Eagle), and Linette Hoffman, grade 8 (Coaches). The team was coached by Tania Chadwick and Sachi Ujifusa.
WBAL Swim Finals top three finishers:
Grade 6 boys 100-yard medley relay, second place
Grade 6 boys 100-yard free relay, third place
Oliver Roman, grade 6, 100-yard IM, third place, and 25-yard fly, second place
Adam Pawliger, grade 6, 20-yard free, second place, and 25-yard back, second place
Stefan Maxim, grade 6, 25-yard back, third place
Angelina Burrows, grade 6, 100-yard free, third place
Reshma Kosaraju, grade 7, 50-yard breast, third place
Johnathan Mo, grade 8, 50-yard breast, second place
Carlo Banzon, grade 8, 50-yard breast, third place
LS Swim
Team awards went to Janam Chahal, grade 5 (MVP), Shloka Chawla, grade 5 (Eagle), and Justin Yang, grade 5 (Coaches). The team was coached by Tania Chadwick and Sachi Ujifusa.
MS Cross Country
Team awards went to Markus Zhang, grade 8 (MVP), Shaila Tandon, grade 6 (Eagle), and Eric Zhang, grade 6 (Coaches). The team was coached by Samantha Salfen, Sara Pawloski and Brighid Wood.
WBAL Cross Country Finals top five finishers:
Grade 7/8 boys team, second place
Michael Pflaging, grade 8, fourth place
Markus Zhang, grade 8, fifth place
MS Golf
The middle school golf team took first place in the WBAL fall tournament, winning by 17 strokes and shooting a 139 (best score since the tournament started)! The top golfer of the tournament was Claire Chen, grade 8, who shot a 32 and also got a hole-in-one on the fifth hole, followed by Ryan Zhang, grade 7 (34), Athreya Daniel, grade 8 (36), and Freddy Hoch, grade 8 (37).
VA (Grade 8) Flag Football: The varsity A team, coached by Richard Amarillas and Tim Hopkins, finished in sixth place in the WBAL with a record of 0-5 and went 0-7 overall. Team awards went to Chris Tonev and Nicholas Delfino (Eagle) and Sukrit Kalsi (Coaches).
VB (Grade 7) Flag Football: The varsity B team, coached by Mike Delfino and Dini Wong, finished in third place in the WBAL with a 3-3 record and went 3-4 overall. Team awards went to Thomas Egbert (MVP), Ryan Barth (Eagle) and Jack Ledford (Coaches).
JVA (Grade 6) Flag Football: The junior varsity A team, coached by Matt Arensberg, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 1-3 record and went 2-4 overall. Team awards went to Vyom Vidyarthi (MVP), Drew Diffenderfer (Eagle) and Rahul Yalla (Coaches).
JVB (Grade 5) Flag Football: The junior varsity B team, coached by Karriem Stinson and Walid Fahmy, finished as co-champs in the WBAL with a 4-0-2 record. Team awards went to Brennan Williams (MVP), Rishaan Thoppay (Eagle) and Topaz Lee (Coaches).
LS Intramural (Grade 4) Flag Football: Team awards went to Zackary Delfino and David Kelly (Eagle), and Ian Lee (Coaches). The team was coached by Tobias Wade.
VA (Grade 7/8) Softball: The varsity A team, coached by Raul Rios, Vanessa Rios and Adam Albers, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 4-1 and went 4-2 overall. Team awards went to Katelyn Abellera, grade 8 (MVP), Gwen Yang, grade 8 (Eagle), and Saira Ramakrishnan, grade 6 (Coaches).
JVA (Grades 4-6) Softball: The junior varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich and Megan Regan, finished in third place in the WBAL with a record of 0-4. Team awards went to Raeanne Li, grade 4 (MVP), Elie Ahluwalia, grade 5 (Eagle), and Sofia Shah, grade 5 (Coaches).
LS Intramural (Grade 4) Softball: Team awards went to Sophie Chen (MVP) Gizelle Sanchez (Eagle) and Arshia Sankar (Coaches). The team was coached by Colleen Campbell and Brittney Moseley.
San Jose Taiko returned to the lower school campus on Wednesday, treating students to a pair of entertaining and educational assemblies about this Japanese rhythmic art form that dates back to the sixth century. As its popularity grew in the 20th century, taiko artists began to incorporate styles such as jazz into their performances. San Jose Taiko was founded in 1973 and has since established itself as one of the world’s top taiko ensembles.
The visiting musicians performed selections from their repertoire and gave students a primer on taiko performance techniques and concepts, such as the use of shouts known as “ki-ai,” an expression of spiritual energy, or “ki.” These shouts often function as cues to other ensemble members of which beats to play. Students (as well as a few teachers) were later given the chance to perform on the drums, delighting their peers and faculty in attendance.
After Mikhil Kiran, grade 5, attended a children’s business fair in Burlingame, he decided to bring a similar event to the South Bay. He checked with Kristin Giammona, Harker’s elementary division head, who directed him to the upper school’s DECA program. After weeks of planning, the Santa Clara Children’s Business Fair took place in Santa Clara’s Live Oak Park last weekend, with more than 40 children’s businesses displaying products and several hundred attendees shopping.
The event was co-sponsored by the Harker DECA club as the event was created to promote and inspire student entrepreneurship and encourage children from ages 5-12 to pursue business.
Kiran had help from his father as the venture required fundraising, working with city officials on permits and marketing efforts to make it a reality. Kiran made a video to help raise money and he pitched the sponsorship to multiple retailers and corporations, successfully raising most of the money required, his father, Kiran Ganesh, noted.
Prior to the fair, Mahi Kolla, grade 11, executive vice president of Harker’s DECA club, gave a pep talk about her entrepreneurship journey building the Minty Boutique to help inspire the budding entrepreneurs. Following the event, the kids noted that Kolla’s pep talk was very motivating.
The displays at the fair featured innovative products and ideas including hand-drawn comic books, slippers made to slide on carpet, cosmetic products, handmade arts and crafts, and recycled papier-mache decor pieces.
For three hours, the kids pitched their products and made sales while customers visited booths. Ishaan Chandra, grade 11, Harker DECA’s vice president of operations, and DECA advisor Juston Glass, helped at the event and acted as judges. Representatives from Sand Hill Angels Investment Group also participated as judges.
“The event was a great success with over several hundred attendees shopping and interacting with the kids,” said Ganesh.
At the end of the event, certificates were awarded to the top three businesses in two categories, “Business Potential” and “Salesmanship,” in each age group. Two Harker teams won prizes. Bee the Key members Mikhil Kiran, Krish Nachnani and Sahil Jain, all grade 5, won second place in Best Salesmanship age 10 and above, while Slip-n-Slide members, Trisha Shivakumar and Risa Chokhawala, both grade 4, took first place for Best Salesmanship ages 10 and under.
Kathy Watanabe, vice mayor of Santa Clara, was a special guest at the event and spoke about the need to encourage student entrepreneurship and the importance of students in business. Students left with the experience of an amazing first step into the business world. Check out this great video of the event!
Have you ever felt dismay about the increasing quantity of litter along our freeways, including our own Saratoga Avenue exits? If so, you may take heart when you see white “Adopt-a-Highway” bags along the road! Several years ago, former upper school history teacher Carol Zink noticed the bags along our Saratoga Avenue exits, and decided to find out just who was responsible for taking on the eyesore of trashy freeways. She met former public school teacher Loui Tucker and her partner, Sabine Zappe, a math teacher at Del Mar High, who had adopted the section of highway between Meridian and Saratoga avenues 12 years ago.
Said Tucker, “I clearly remember becoming obsessed with an enormous piece of plastic (it could have wrapped a car!) on the off-ramp from 280 southbound up to San Jose City College. I snarled at it every time I drove past it. Finally, late one night, I stopped on the off-ramp, jumped out, grabbed the plastic, stuffed it in my car, got back in and drove off. I felt great! I contacted the Adopt-A-Highway program in Northern California and, after a couple of delays and false starts, got my first five-year permit. I suppose I could have asked for any section, but it made sense to clean an area that I would be able to easily keep an eye on during the month.”
Since then, the pair have faithfully coordinated groups of volunteers one Saturday each month, and this past July reached a milestone 5,000th bag of trash. After contacting the group, Zink put out an email to the Harker faculty, encouraging other members of our community to join the efforts, and since then several faculty members – including Diana Moss, Shaun Jashaun, Agnes Pommier and Brian Yager – students and parents have also volunteered. Kristin Carlson, administrative assistant to Jennifer Gargano, has even pitched in several times to buy lunch for the group, as Tucker and Zappe take the volunteers to lunch after each cleanup.
After each cleanup, Tucker sends amusing reports to participants chronicling the unusual discoveries along the freeways and on- and off-ramps. She said, “We have returned dozens of items to their owners. Many of them were obvious items like backpacks, wallets, purses, credit cards and drivers licenses. There was a chest X-ray that we dropped off at Good Samaritan Hospital. We returned an envelope full of very crisp new $5 bills, found along with a calendar that identified the owner, to the owner of a Chinese restaurant who had planned to give the $5 as Chinese New Year’s gifts to his employees. We found a wallet and called the woman who owned it. Initially she said to toss it because she’d replaced it – until we mentioned that tucked inside was a love note from someone named Dave. She gasped, said she’d be right over. She brought a bottle of wine.”
They are always looking for more volunteers to help, and high school students may fulfill community service hours for pitching in. Tucker explained, “You have to be 18 to work on the highway with us without permission of a parent. If you’re 16 or 17, you can work with parental permission. I try to give high school students who want to participate a relatively safe area to work – like Southwest Expressway – rather than the freeway shoulders. For those under 16, I have made bags available and sent them out to clean city streets or a neighborhood park instead.” If you would like to support this effort, you may contact Loui Tucker at loui@louitucker.com and ask to be included on the email list that she sends to each month.
We are grateful to Tucker and her group for helping pick up in our own neighborhood!
Harker chess powerhouses Omya Vidyarthi, rising grade 3, and brother Vyom Vidyarthi, rising grade 6, represented the United States at the 2018 Pan American Youth Chess Championships, held in Santiago, Chile, from July 21-28. Players from 22 countries participated. Omya, defending champion for the girls U8 division, upheld her crown, winning the event for a second time! She was the only player among 600-plus participants to win all nine games. In the Blitz event, Omya again stood first, winning all nine rounds. Brother Vyom had an excellent run in one of the toughest sections, taking fifth in the tournament and second in the Blitz event. Overall, Team USA earned four gold, two silver and six bronze medals to come in first in the medal count. Final standings.