This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
When junior Ashwini Iyer was in grade 7, she went to Tanzania with her father and a teacher to help orphans there learn math and English. That firsthand experience, she said, planted the seeds for her current volunteer efforts to empower povertystricken women and children from around the globe, and led to the founding of Harker’s Rising International Club.
“Ever since then, I have been trying to find ways to give back and help those who are not as fortunate, without having to travel too far,” said Iyer, founder and president of the the club, which is one of several local chapters of an international nonprofit by the same name whose mission is to help end world poverty.
On March 30, Iyer, with the help of schoolmate and club vice president Roshni Pankhaniya, grade 11, hosted a home-based fundraising event attended by about 60 Harker students and parents, as well as neighbors and family friends. All proceeds from the event, which totaled $4,226 (with more donations expected to flow in from people who could not attend but wanted to donate), went directly to the organization.
For more information about Rising International, go to http://www.risinginternational.org.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
After being diagnosed her freshman year with hypothyroidism – a disorder in which the thyroid gland fails to produce sufficient thyroid hormone, causing fatigue, lack of focus and other symptoms – Samantha Madala, now grade 11, became determined to help prevent health problems from interfering with children’s education.
To that end, Madala founded Healthy Scholars last year to raise awareness of health issues that could stymie education. In December, Madala and her team trekked to Varni, India, to perform screenings for medical problems that could be obstacles to learning. Healthy Scholars worked with organizations in India, including the Lions Club, NICE Hospital and LEAD Foundation, to offer blood pressure tests, individual medical consultations, dental exams, vision and hearing tests and more to nearly 600 schoolchildren.
That same month, Healthy Scholars kicked off a fundraising effort, raising nearly $4,000 via fundraising website Crowdrise. An additional $25,000 donation enabled Healthy Scholars to stage more screenings. Madala is planning another trip to Varni in early June. Stateside efforts are also on the agenda. “We also aim to hold a similar health screening camp for at-risk Native American youth in Montana,” she said.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
This year, enough donations were collected at the upper school’s annual blood drive to save up to 81 lives, according to Sabrina Sidhu, grade 11, who serves as president of Harker’s Red Cross Club, which organized the recent drive.
“By the end of the day, we had collected 27 units of blood, which went to the American Red Cross,” she said. “I’m glad that so many people were interested in donating. Unfortunately, a large portion of potential donors were turned away because their hemoglobin levels were not high enough. Regardless, I was really happy with the way that everything came together. It was heartwarming to see how excited all of the donors were to have the chance to help out someone in need.”
Harker students, faculty and staff united to give blood, which was distributed to local hospitals within the required 72 hours. According to Red Cross statistics, every donated unit can save up to three lives. Every two seconds, a patient relies on blood and platelet donors for help.
The Red Cross is the largest single supplier of blood in the United States, collecting and processing more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood supply and distributing it to some 3,000 hospitals and transfusion centers nationwide.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
This year, enough donations were collected at the upper school’s annual blood drive to save up to 81 lives, according to Sabrina Sidhu, grade 11, who serves as president of Harker’s Red Cross Club, which organized the recent drive.
“By the end of the day, we had collected 27 units of blood, which went to the American Red Cross,” she said. “I’m glad that so many people were interested in donating. Unfortunately, a large portion of potential donors were turned away because their hemoglobin levels were not high enough. Regardless, I was really happy with the way that everything came together. It was heartwarming to see how excited all of the donors were to have the chance to help out someone in need.”
Harker students, faculty and staff united to give blood, which was distributed to local hospitals within the required 72 hours. According to Red Cross statistics, every donated unit can save up to three lives. Every two seconds, a patient relies on blood and platelet donors for help.
The Red Cross is the largest single supplier of blood in the United States, collecting and processing more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood supply and distributing it to some 3,000 hospitals and transfusion centers nationwide.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
This year, enough donations were collected at the upper school’s annual blood drive to save up to 81 lives, according to Sabrina Sidhu, grade 11, who serves as president of Harker’s Red Cross Club, which organized the recent drive.
“By the end of the day, we had collected 27 units of blood, which went to the American Red Cross,” she said. “I’m glad that so many people were interested in donating. Unfortunately, a large portion of potential donors were turned away because their hemoglobin levels were not high enough. Regardless, I was really happy with the way that everything came together. It was heartwarming to see how excited all of the donors were to have the chance to help out someone in need.”
Harker students, faculty and staff united to give blood, which was distributed to local hospitals within the required 72 hours. According to Red Cross statistics, every donated unit can save up to three lives. Every two seconds, a patient relies on blood and platelet donors for help.
The Red Cross is the largest single supplier of blood in the United States, collecting and processing more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood supply and distributing it to some 3,000 hospitals and transfusion centers nationwide.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Education activist Kakenya Ntaiya, Ph.D., founder of the Kakenya Center for Excellence, gave an eye-opening and inspiring talk in early May as a guest of the Harker Speaker Series. After being introduced by young activist Aliesha Bahri, grade 8, Ntaiya first took the audience back to Kenya, where she was born into one of 42 tribes, each with different languages, customs and traditions. Her tribe, the Maasai, “are very, very famous,” she said, known for the jumping dances performed by the tribe’s warriors and their red attire.
By the time she was 5, Ntaiya’s marriage had already been arranged. “They put a [necklace] on my neck, and that was always a reminder for me that I have a husband,” she said. Ntaiya attended school as a child, because she remembered that her mother had wished she could have stayed in school longer. “She would tell us, ‘Do you see the member of parliament? I was smarter than him in class,’” she recalled.
At the age of 12, Ntaiya realized that her days of attending school could soon end, as she was nearing the day when she would undergo the Maasai’s female genital cutting ritual – a painful and often life-threatening procedure – and would soon thereafter be married. “I had to come up with a way of escaping that,” she said. Ntaiya normally would have to send her mother to inform her father of her intentions to continue school. However, fearing that her mother would be beaten for delivering bad news, she delivered the message herself as tradition forbid him from beating her. She told him she would go through with the cutting if she could be allowed to continue her education. If he refused, she would run away, bringing shame upon on him. Her father agreed.
During high school, Ntaiya applied and was accepted to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia. Initially, she faced resistance from the other villagers, but managed to convince them to pay for her trip overseas to begin her college career. She later learned much about the plight of girls around the world who did not have access to a good education. “I started questioning every little thing because what I was reading in books was my life,” she said.
Her newfound purpose led her to work at the United Nations after finishing her undergraduate degree. She also visited home on a number of occasions, often hearing “horrible stories” about the people she once knew in her village. Moved by these accounts, she decided to build a school for girls.
In May 2009, the Kakenya Center for Excellence opened in Kenya for girls in grades 4-8. It now serves 170 students in grades 1-8. The school provides uniforms, books and other materials, but it was the added importance of providing lunch that caught Ntaiya by surprise. “It had never registered in my mind that that actually made a difference,” she said. Normally, girls would only have a cup of tea in the morning, walk anywhere from 2 to 5 miles to school and not eat until the evening, “because you can’t just run another 5 miles to go have lunch.”
Qualified teachers were also very important. “We had teachers who are very, very caring,” she said, “teachers who came there, who knew that it’s a girls school and all the girls have dreams and we’re going to cultivate those dreams to become a reality.” This was crucial because girls are often neglected at school, as they are assumed to be getting married. Toward the end of her talk, Ntaiya spoke briefly about her work with Girls Learn International, which partners schools in the United States with those in other countries where girls struggle with access to education. “If you look at me, if I got the mentorship that I needed when I was 12 years old, where do you think I would be?” she asked. “If we can give these girls that mentorship, if we can mentor them … you will see a different world.”
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
To honor beloved former faculty member Jason Berry, who unexpectedly passed away last summer, this year’s graduating class has dedicated their senior gift to creating an orchard in his memory.
“The Berry Orchard is this year’s senior class gift. It will be a beautiful orchard located in the space between Dobbins and Nichols halls, in memory of Jason. The seniors have raised most of the money to fund it, to pay for trees, a statue, a pathway, a bench,” said Melinda Gonzales, Harker’s managing director of advancement.
Through class fundraising and their senior donations, the students rallied together to raise $8,414. A donation from the graduating class also will be made to The Jason Berry Endowed Scholarship Fund.
An initial tree-planting ceremony heralding the coming of the orchard took place at the end of April, with many students participating, including Berry’s former advisees, soccer players he coached, English students he taught and members of the senior class.
According to Gonzales, Modern Woodmen of America also donated and took part in the planting of four fruit trees for the planned orchard. In past years, representatives from Modern Woodmen of America have donated trees to the upper school campus, in conjunction with Earth Day and National Tree Planting Day, as part of the group’s charter to give back to the community. Founded in 1883, Modern Woodmen of America is a fraternal society that provides financial services and other benefits to its members, which number more than 750,000 nationwide.
Berry was an English teacher and athletics coach at Harker. He died suddenly on Aug. 24, 2013 of a pulmonary embolism resulting from a blood clot in his leg. A memorial was held Aug. 29, and family and friends filled nearby WestGate Church to say goodbye. Heartfelt memories of his childhood and early years as a teacher were shared; the loss to his family and the community was mourned.
A large group, many of whom were alumni, then proceeded to Harker’s upper school campus for a reception. Family members joined the group shortly thereafter, and Head of School Chris Nikoloff and two of Berry’s colleagues briefly addressed the group, followed by more memories exchanged, and more tears shed for the life cut short.
Born in New Hampshire and highly regarded by students during his five-year run at Harker, Berry wrote as a critic during his time as a member of the American College Theatre Festival and was honored for excellence in teaching by the Clemson University PanHellenic Council. The Harker Class of 2012 selected him as the faculty speaker for the 2012 baccalaureate ceremony, during which he said to the soon-to-be graduates, “Be who you want to be, and if that doesn’t agree with you, then find, once again, your center, your inner voice; don’t settle for an imitation of yourself. Bend the rules, but try not to break them.”
During his high school years, Berry was a decorated All-American soccer player, an experience he later applied at Harker as a head coach of the girls’ soccer team, leading the team to record seasons during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years.
“Jason’s life reflected his wise counsel, and he was always, authentically, himself,” said Nikoloff. “He impacted many with his wisdom, wit and warmth, and is deeply missed.”
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
The 2014 Eagles varsity basketball squad made school history this winter, overcoming adversity and injuries to shock the league by becoming the first Harker boys team in any sport to reach the section finals. This is their tale.
With only three games left in the league season, Harker was staring down a potential under-.500 year. The team had lost all of its captains to injury at various points in the season and its final games were against top league teams, including two teams vying for first place. A few weeks later, the team had rewritten Harker’s record books. How did the Eagles pull it off?
Early Hopes
When the season began, the Eagles looked like the championship squad it eventually would become. In scrimmages before the start of league play, the team faced off against teams it rarely plays, like powerhouses Gunn and Monta Vista. Harker ambushed Gunn 70-58, led by 16 points and eight rebounds from senior Will Deng and 15 points and seven rebounds from junior Eric Holt. Next, the team stunned Monta Vista, trumping them by 17 points on the back of Holt’s double-double, including a massive 19 rebounds. Harker was on a roll, and the whole team could feel it.
“Starting 2-0 with those as the two wins was very exciting,” coach Butch Keller reported months later. After a summer in which Harker had won the summer league and a fast start before the league season, Harker looked primed to go on a dynamic run.
Adversity Strikes
In the very next game, the adversity began. Harker entered the Lynbrook Tournament and drew Homestead, another top team, in the first game. They were well on their way to handily defeating Homestead, giving them three wins against three powerhouses by at least 10 points each, when captain Holt, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, broke his thumb. Holt was to be out for six to eight weeks. In their next game, Harker was crushed by Mills. “They beat us pretty badly,” recounted Keller. “The loss of Eric threw us into a little tailspin.”
The Road Gets Tougher
After the Lynbrook Tournament, Harker’s next major preseason competition was the Monta Vista Tournament. The team had so far survived the injury to Holt, rattling off a series of wins against beatable teams. Now, in the first game of the tournament, Harker would play Bellarmine, a fearsome team it had never played – and the Eagles’ toughest challenge yet. That’s when, in the final practice before the game, Harker’s all-league starting point guard of the last three years, senior captain Johnny Hughes, rolled his ankle. Bellarmine crushed Harker. The Eagles rebounded in their next game, but lost a heartbreaker in the third game of the tournament by a single point on the last play before the buzzer. It was a rough way to end the preseason, and a tough loss line in the final tune-up before league play began. The road would only get more challenging, however; in the weekend before the very first league game – against Pinewood, the eventual champ – Hughes’ replacement, junior Nicholas Nyugen, hurt his back. Harker would enter league play down three players, including two captains.
Rough Losses and Setbacks
Harker would lose to Pinewood and then to Sacred Heart Prep, starting the league season in an early 0-2 hole. As the team adjusted to the injuries, it rallied off a few wins, then a skid of losses, including to teams it expected to beat. Slowly, Holt, Hughes and Nyugen came back from their injuries, but just as the team had learned to adjust to life without them, they now had to learn how to gel again with the newly restored lineup. “When players come back, you’ve already adjusted, and it takes another adjustment to get used to that,” said Keller. As the season drew to a close, Harker faced a sobering prospect: a best-case scenario fourth-place finish, and a worst-case scenario sixth-place finish. “We were pretty shot,” recalls Keller. “We might end up finishing under .500 for the season.”
That was when the Eagles found themselves with three games left – against three of the top teams in the league: Woodside Priory, Sacred Heart Prep and Pinewood.
The Final Three Games
There was great news, though. For the first time all season, Harker had its whole team back. Against Woodside, the Eagles played like a team rejuvenated, leaping out to a 20-point lead at halftime. That was when injury struck again. The team’s all-league first-team center, Deng, who according to Keller, “put the team on his shoulders” during the most challenging days of the season, tore his ACL. The Eagles had their team whole for only half a game.
Harker finished off its win against Woodside, but the next game would be one of their toughest of the season as the team faced Sacred Heart Prep, a first-place team with only one loss for the year. As Keller would later recall, “nobody remembered the last time Harker beat Sacred Heart.” Now, Harker was to play them without their center, who had started every game for the last two years and was the team’s leading scorer and rebounder.
Deng’s replacement was senior Huck Vaughan, who would go on to have the game of his life in an upset that would shake the league and make the San Jose Mercury News. Vaughan would score 23 points, more than any other player in the game, to lead Harker to a 71-65 stunner and dash Sacred Heart’s hopes for a league title. Suddenly, something special was happening for Harker.
Going into the game, Sacred Heart was tied with Pinewood for the league lead, with each team having only lost once this season. The loss thrust Sacred Heart into second place, but if Harker beat Pinewood – which would have to be an upset as well – Sacred Heart would finish first and potentially play Pinewood for the championship. So Sacred Heart Prep traveled to watch Harker take on Pinewood, and see if maybe, just maybe, they would tie for first. Lo and behold, in the final game of the regular season, still without Deng, Harker entered the second half trailing 29-21, then roared back, outscoring Pinewood 30-16 in the second half and winning 51-45. Harker was on a phenomenal run, and the clubhouse could feel it. “When we walked into the locker room” during this stretch, Holt recalled, “everyone had a smile on their face.”
Now, the CCS seeders had some work to do: Pinewood and Sacred Heart Prep finished tied for first, but Harker was the only team to have beaten them both, and had just laid a beating on Priory. Suddenly, from staring down the barrel of an under-.500 year, Harker had earned a first-round bye.
Big Playoff Wins
Harker’s first playoff game was against Carmel High. Despite what the coach called an “awful matchup without Will,” the team, through sheer tenacity, won the game, catapulting it into the quarterfinals. Now, the boys would travel to Santa Cruz to play Soquel in the massive Kaiser Permanente Arena, home to the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA’s Developmental League.
Though Harker was the sixth seed and Soquel was the third, it was a sure bet that Soquel would not underestimate Harker as two years ago, a seventh-seeded Harker team had knocked out a second-seeded Soquel. Soquel’s star player now, a senior, was a sophomore when that happened and was not going to take Harker lightly.
Soquel jumped out early, building up a double-digit lead. That continued into the fourth quarter, which got off to a rough start for Harker. The coach called a timeout with just over six minutes to go and the team down a dozen points. The message was simple and stark: “You have been on an amazing run and nobody would blame you if it ended here, but I truly believe that we are the better team.” From that point on, Harker went on a 20-2 run, winning by nine. The arena went from rocking to so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Keller noted that that run, in that huge venue, was a highlight of his coaching career he will long remember.
Next up: The semifinals against Seaside, an athletic team with two Division 1 prospects and a deep bench. And while the players might not have underestimated Harker, Seaside’s fans sure did. Keller recalls a Seaside fan spotting two Harker fans in the stands and commending them for appearing while offering his condolences for the beating they were about to witness. “It’s so great of you to come out and support your team,” he is rumored to have said. “It’s going to be a tough afternoon. We’re probably going to score 100 points on you.” Famous last words, as the saying goes. Indeed, Seaside jumped on Harker hard, but just as they had all season, the Eagles rebounded, hitting 10 of 10 free throws down the stretch and winning by 10. The fan was stunned. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Keller recalls him lamenting.
The Season Ends
That game would mark the high point of Harker’s season. In their next game, despite a packed house of Eagles fans, Harker lost to Sacred Heart Prep. Harker had earned its first-ever trip to the section finals and traveled to play one last game, on the road, against the fourth-seeded team in all of Northern California, which it lost. However, the Eagles’ amazing run had rewritten the rules for Harker basketball. If the team, which has many of its players returning, makes it to the section finals again, it will do so with the experience of having already been there once.
For his part, Holt cites veteran leadership and a deep bench as one reason Harker excelled. “This was our first year of having mostly juniors and seniors on the team,” he says. “Their leadership really helped us battle through.” He saw that first-hand after his own injury. “A lot of my teammates were pretty depressed,” he recounted, “but they got over it pretty quickly, because they realized they had the ability to step up and play through it even without me, and I thought they played really well without me.” When pressed on who stepped up in his absence, Holt gives credit to the whole team, saying that “everyone, on every single night, had the ability to play really well,” whether it was junior Sriv Irrinki nailing a number of threes on a tough shooting night for the rest of the team, or senior Wei Wei Buchsteiner’s running up of 20 points.
Harker’s tenacity was particularly exemplified by Deng, who was knocked out late in the season and worked hard with the team’s trainer to finally be able to return for the very last game of the season, and the last of his Harker career, in the section finals. Many players off the bench had to step up from playing less than half the minutes of the game to playing nearly all of them. Throughout it all, one tough bunch of athletes weathered storm after crashing storm, stayed strong in the face of adversity and bonded to write a new page in Harker athletics history.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
What a spring for Harker sports! Harker’s hard-working athletes excelled on the field this spring, with amazing streaks, playoff competition and some jaw-dropping results! On the academic front, Harker had 10 – count ’em, 10! – top five varsity spring 2014 CCS scholastic championship teams. Those 10 teams had the highest collective grade-point average of all teams competing in their sport. Harker’s teams finished in the top five for every spring sport in which we field a team, an amazing accomplishment. Together, the athletic and academic accomplishments are a strong testament to Harker’s ability to foster highly competitive athletes and great minds!
What a spring for Harker sports! Harker’s hard-working athletes excelled on the field this spring, with amazing streaks, playoff competition and some jaw-dropping results! On the academic front, Harker had 10 – count ’em, 10! – top five varsity spring 2014 CCS scholastic championship teams. Those 10 teams had the highest collective grade-point average of all teams competing in their sport. Harker’s teams finished in the top five for every spring sport in which we field a team, an amazing accomplishment. Together, the athletic and academic accomplishments are a strong testament to Harker’s ability to foster highly competitive athletes and great minds!
Golf The boys varsity golfers had a historic run this year, finishing third in the CCS regional tournament and sixth in their first-ever appearance in the CCS championships, ahead of league-rival Sacred Heart Prep! The future of Harker golf looks exceptionally bright as well, as the entire boys team will return next year, and the middle school golf team won its fifth consecutive WBAL tournament! Golfer Shrish Dwivedi, grade 11, was among the athletes who best exemplified the combination of athletic and academic achievement. After becoming co-league MVP, Dwivedi traveled to Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., to compete in the Future Collegians World Tour (FCWT) Championship, where he brought home a top three finish trophy in an international field of about 140 players, was named to the FCWT All-Academic Team and was awarded the First Team All-FCWT Award, becoming the only male to receive both academic and athletic honors.
Track and Field The track and field team competed in the league finals on May 17, where freshman phenom Niki Iyer became the new league champion in both the 1,600m and 3,200m runs! Meanwhile, senior Wei Wei Buchsteiner became the league champion in the high jump, setting a new Harker record of 5’9” – a foot better than the previous record. At the junior varsity championships, freshman Davis Dunaway won four events, while freshman Misha Ivkov placed in the top six in four events en route to the JV boys winning the team championship! These performances catapulted Harker’s athletes into the CCS preliminaries, where Iyer finished second and set a new Harker record.
In late-breaking news, Iyer placed fifth overall in the CCS 3,200m run, breaking her own week-old school record with a time of 10:51.14!
Swimming The swim team qualified for all CCS relays and sent a solid half of its swimmers and divers to the championships!
In a late-breaking update we are glad to report junior Aaron Huang made CCS finals, placing 14th in the 200 IM and 12th in the 100 breaststroke; senior Kimberly Ma placed 14th in the 500 freestyle and junior Stacey Chao placed 35th out of 51 1-meter divers.
Volleyball The boys went 20-14 this season, reaching the CCS quarterfinals after crushing Sobrato in their first-round matchup in straight sets. The team averaged 10 kills and 11.7 digs per set on the year, while also racking up 121 aces and 157 total blocks in its 34 games. Senior Andrew Zhu led the team in kills per set with 3.7, while junior Matt Ho led the team in kill percentage (59.7 percent) among players who played more than 50 sets. Zhu also led the team with 33 aces and an ace percentage of 13.2. Senior Will Deng led the team with 48 blocks.
The future of Harker volleyball looks bright as well, as the middle school squad won 53 of 54 games over the past three years, including winning the last 35 straight!
Baseball It was a rebuilding year for the team as the young squad faced off against varsity competition and finished 3-22 overall and 0-12 in league. As a whole, the team hit .248 with an excellent .355 on base percentage but a less-than-optimal .318 slugging percentage. In 25 games, the team scored 112 runs and hit 32 doubles, four triples and two homers. The speedsters also stole 62 bases, and were only thrown out three times all year! Pitching will be a key area of improvement for the team next year, as it finished with a 9.09 earned run average in 156 1/3 innings pitched.
Softball The softball team also is in the midst of a rebuilding year, going 1-15 and 0-8 in league. Overall, the team hit .238 with a .352 on base percentage and .298 slugging percentage for a total .650 on base plus slugging. The team also scored 90 runs with the help of 15 doubles, three triples and a homer. On the mound, the team finished with an 8.52 earned run average in 92 innings pitched.
Lacrosse The girls finished in second place in league this year with a 5-3 record, ending the year by avenging an earlier loss to Sacred Heart Prep with a 13-7 trumping.
Tennis Big news in middle school tennis! Harker’s varsity A team, comprising students in grades 6-8, went 20-0 this year and swept both the public and private league championships! That makes this the first time the team has ever gone undefeated and the first time it has won both titles. Winning, however, is not new to these players; the team is 36-2 over the past two years and has won three of the last four division titles!
In late June, a 3-D art piece created by recent graduate Manon Audebert was chosen to be featured at the 2014-15 AP Studio Art Exhibit. Audebert’s work, a visual representation of tension showing pieces of cloth being pulled in multiple directions, was among the 30 pieces selected from nearly 49,000 portfolios submitted for entry into the exhibit. Pieces for the exhibition are chosen by experienced high school and college art instructors, who select work that exemplifies the high standards and hard work of students in the AP program.
The 2014-15 AP Studio Art Exhibit begins July 9 at the AP Annual Conference, which takes place in Philadelphia from July 9-13. It will then head to Princeton, N.J., to be displayed at the conference center at the Educational Testing Service. For the remainder of the year and into 2015, the exhibit will be shown at various locations throughout the country, providing inspiration to students and information to teachers in search of professional development opportunities. The remaining locations for the exhibit will be announced later this year.
“I was completely shocked and honored to be selected,” said Audebert. “It was a great validation of all the work that I put in during the year.” She credited upper school art teacher Jaap Bongers as a crucial source of guidance: “He pushed me throughout the year to improve my designs and stay on track.” Audebert plans to attend Pomona College in the fall.