“Closing out the top two spots in original oratory stands out as an achievement that was unparalleled by any other,” said Heath Martin, a member of the California Coast District Committee and director of speech and debate at Presentation High School. Odekirk’s hard work in serving local competitions, which included streamlining the process of running tournaments, was also a factor. “His was a unanimous selection by the committee this year,” said Martin. “We are very proud to have him as our Coach of the Year. It’s a decision we know we got right.”
Last week, senior Ashna Reddy’s sculpture, “Soaked,” was awarded first prize in the sculpture category in New Museum Los Gatos’ 2020 ArtNow exhibition. The piece, an umbrella constructed from mesh, “explores the idea of uselessness, missing that which makes one whole,” Reddy wrote in her comments on the work. She was inspired to create the sculpture after witnessing the various ways in which the Earth’s “wholeness” has been depleted through human activity such as pollution and deforestation.
April 16, 2020
In March, pieces by senior Ashna Reddy and juniors Elliot Kampmeier and Maria Teplova were selected for the 2020 ArtNow exhibition by New Museum Los Gatos (NUMU). This annual juried exhibition highlights the top high school talent from Silicon Valley. The 76 entries in the exhibition were picked from more than 900 entries. The art for the exhibition was installed just before the museum closed in March due to California’s ongoing mandatory shelter-in-place. In lieu of a live reception, NUMU created a virtual tour to showcase this year’s exhibition. Each year’s ArtNow follows a different theme, and this year’s student submissions used water as the theme for their work. Pieces are evaluated and selected by a jury of university-level instructors. Prizes and scholarships totaling $10,000 are also awarded during the program.
After an impressive 13-2-3 season for the girls soccer team, four Eagles were named as part of the Prep2Prep All-CCS teams. Megha Salvi, grade 10, earned third team recognition, with Sarah Baicher, Emma Boyce and Aria Wong, all grade 11, earning honorable mentions. Check out the full list of girls soccer honorees. Go Eagles!
Over spring break, middle school math chair Vandana Kadam spent her spare time teaching math online to students who were unable to attend school due closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. She asked some of her current students, as well as former students who are now at the upper school, if they would like to assist, and seventh grader Jonathan Xue, eighth graders Claire Luo, Julie Shi, Cynthia Wang, Michelle Wei, Olivia Xu and Ella Yee, and ninth graders Riya Gupta, Stephen Xia and Sally Zhu all jumped at the chance to help. The sessions have continued past spring break and now take place twice a week. “It is so rewarding to see our students taking time from their busy schedules to help other students,” Kadam said. “They do it with tremendous dedication ensuring that the students benefit from the coaching.”
In mid-April, the Journalism Education Association named senior Eric Fang one of its national runners-up in their Journalist of the Year contest. Among the qualities that judges noticed in Fang’s work were his strengths in storytelling and leadership, as well as his ability to learn new skills. Judge Leah Waters of Heritage High School in Frisco, Texas praised Fang for his “firm understanding of the importance of a free press for an electorate and democracy.”
As a runner-up, Fang as also been awarded a Sister Rita Jeanne Scholarship of $850.
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April 8, 2020:
Last week, senior Eric Fang was named the 2020 California Journalist of the Year by the Journalism Education Association, becoming the first student in Harker history to win this recognition.
Fang has been highly prolific in Harker’s journalism department, contributing regularly to the Winged Post newspaper and student news website Harker Aquila. He has also served as news editor at the Winged Post and is currently its co-editor in chief. Fang has also been published in the San Jose Mercury News and the Stanford Daily, and presented on political reporting with other Harker journalists at the JEA/NSPA fall convention. His passion for the politics beat has led him to interview eight 2020 presidential candidates and travel to numerous town halls, rallies and protests. Last year, he visited Sonoma County to cover the aftermath of the Kincade wildfire, documenting the local community’s struggles through photos and interviews.
This contest requires entrants to submit portfolios that are judged on criteria such as news gathering, writing, editing, design and photojournalism. Judges also look for work that impacts communities, amplifies the voices of marginalized groups and increases awareness of pressing issues. Fang received high marks in every area, and is now in contention to be named Journalist of the Year. The winner will be announced April 16.
Last week, Anu Aiyer’s AP Statistics students were recognized by the New York Times for their contributions to a discussion on a graph posted in the Times’ “What’s Going On in This Graph?” series. Each week, the Times posts a graph and invites students to participate in live discussions on the information it contains. The April 16 graph depicted consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, showing how spending habits changed during the last week of March as compared to the same week in 2019. Students were invited to discuss what they noticed about the graph, ask questions about the data presented and come up with a headline for the graph that encapsulates its main idea. Aiyer’s students’ headline, “COVID Troubles & Fiscal Bubbles: How COVID-19 Changed Our Spending Habits,” was one of four recognized.
“We have been doing this in my classes throughout the year and this time we sent in our analysis and out of 400 entries, our names were selected,” Aiyer said.
Even with a lost spring season, two junior Harker swimmers are getting national recognition. SwimSwam recently came out with a list of the top uncommitted high school junior boy swimmers and our very own Matthew Chung and Jason Kwok both made the list. The complete list can be seen here:
SwimSwam then published a second list naming the top NCAA swimming recruits in the boys high school class of 2021, with Chung earning an honorable mention on the exclusive list. Check out all the swimmers here:
Harker students had a great showing at the 2020 Synopsys Science & Technology Championship, winning multiple first awards and grand prizes. Eighth graders Gautam Bhooma and Ramit Goyal were each grand prize winners, and also won first awards along with fellow eighth graders Zachary Blue, Alex Guo, Jordan Labio, Nathan Liu, Ella Lan and Heidi Lu. All won first awards and qualified for the California Science & Engineering Fair, which has been canceled along with the International Science and Engineering Fair, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixth graders Brenna Ren, Kallie Wang, Hubert Lau and Serena Lau were also first award winners.
At the high school level, juniors Krishay Mukhija, Sidra Xu, Russell Yang, Nicholas Yi and sophomore Harsh Deep all won grand prizes. Deep, Muhkija, Xu and Yang also took home first awards. Other upper school first award winners were juniors Michael Eng and Aditya Tadimeti and sophomores Akhilesh Chegu and Deven Shah.
Harker students had another great year in the Technology Student Association’s annual TEAMS (Tests of Engineering, Aptitude, Mathematics and Science) competition, with four teams taking top spots in California. The team of freshmen Rohan Bhowmik, Brian Chen, Riya Gupta, Nicholas Wei, Stephen Xia, Sabrina Zhu, Sally Zhu and sophomore Alex Hu took first place in the 9/10 division, where the team of sophomores Akhilesh Chegu, Harsh Deep, Shounak Ghosh, Mark Hu, Caden Lin, Sasvath Ramachandran, Kailash Ranganathan and Deven Shah took third overall. Also in the 9/10 division, Zach Clark, Angela Jia, Chirag Kaushik, Alex Liou, Rohan Thakur, Michael Tran, Aimee Wang and Gloria Zhu, all grade 10, placed fifth. Placing fifth in the 11/12 division were juniors Shray Alag, Annesh Ghosh Dastidar, Sophia Horng, Helen Li, Luisa Pan, Aditya Tadimeti, Bowen Yin and Alex Zhai.
The annual TEAMS competition tasks students with answering multiple-choice and essay questions on a chosen topic for the year. Top qualifying teams from each state are invited to the National TSA Conference, where teams solve written problems and present their solutions. This year’s national conference, originally scheduled to take place in Nashville from June 27-July 1, was canceled due to safety concerns stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.