Last week, Harker’s upper school student newspaper, the Winged Post, became one of 49 student newspapers identified as finalists in the National Scholastic Press Association’s 2017 Pacemaker competition. A total of 275 student publications were in the running for this year’s Pacemaker award, which NSPA executive director called the organization’s “pre-eminent award.” Of these 49 finalists, 26 will be awarded Pacemakers. According to upper school journalism teacher Ellen Austin, this is the first time the Winged Post has been a finalist in the Pacemaker competition since the 2007-08 school year. Winners will be announced at the National High School Journalism Convention, held mid-November in Dallas.
The girls golf team picked up two big wins last week. The Eagles started the week with a 60-stroke win over Mercy Burlingame. Later in the week, the girls defeated The King’s Academy by 103 strokes with Katelyn Vo, grade 10, leading the way with a 36, followed closely by Natalie Vo, grade 9, with a 37. This week, the Eagles take on Castilleja on Monday.
Football
The Eagle football team continues to roll as it traveled to Healdsburg and handed the Greyhounds a 48-0 thrashing. Nate Kelly, grade 12, threw for 220 yards and four touchdowns; Aaron Smith, grade 11, rushed for 91 yards and a score, with Angel Cervantes, grade 12, also rushing for a score; Floyd Gordon, grade 12, and Jared Anderson, grade 11, each caught a touchdown pass, with Anthony Contreras, grade 12, catching two TDs and adding another on a pick six; and once again the Eagle D came up huge, this time, with Jalen Clark, grade 12, leading the Eagles with nine tackles, and Nemo Yang, grade 11, and Mitch Kole, grade 12, adding sacks. This Saturday, the boys take on Rio Vista for Homecoming. Not able to make it? Check out the live stream here: https://thecube.com/event/745387
Cross Country
Over the weekend, the cross country team traveled to Salinas to compete in the Early Bird Invitational at Toro Regional Park. Peter Connors, grade 12, Gloria Guo, grade 12, Lilia Gonzales, grade 11, Mihir Sharma, grade 10, Delaney Logue, grade 10, Aditya Singhvi, grade 9, and Anna Weirich, grade 9, led their respective classes. This Saturday, the Eagles travel to Stockton for the Pacific Invitational.
Volleyball
Last week, the girls volleyball team dropped a match to Sacred Heart Prep in three games. Lauren Napier, grade 12, led the Eagles with six kills and Emily Cheng, grade 10, added five kills. This week, the girls take on Notre Dame San Jose on Tuesday and Mercy Burlingame on Thursday, both at home.
Girls Water Polo
Last week, the girls water polo team defeated Lynbrook 5-4 behind three goals from Abby Wisdom, grade 11. Later in the week, Harker defeated Cupertino 12-3 with Wisdom once again leading the way, this time with four goals. Alicia Xu, grade 10, added two goals and three assists. This week, the Eagles travel to Fremont on Tuesday and host Monta Vista on Thursday.
Boys Water Polo
The boys water polo team picked up a 9-8 win over Lynbrook early last week before falling to Homestead 13-8 later in the week. Up next for the Eagles is a trip to Palo Alto on Tuesday and a home match with Monta Vista on Thursday.
Girls Tennis
The girls tennis team opens up league play on Tuesday as it faces off with Crystal Springs Uplands. Then on Thursday, the Eagles take on Castilleja.
Last week, the boys water polo team lost to Los Gatos 9-3 and Gunn 6-17 before going 1-2 at the Lynbrook Tournament over the weekend. The Eagles’ sole victory at the tournament was an 18-9 win over Half Moon Bay. Next up for the boys are league home games versus Lynbrook on Tuesday and Homestead and Thursday.
Girls Water Polo
The girls water polo team is 2-0 after opening the season with wins over Santa Clara and Milpitas. In a 10-4 win over Santa Clara, Cas Ruedy, grade 10, led the offense with four goals, while Sammi Yanovsky, grade 11, stopped 17 shots. Then, in the 11-4 win over Milpitas, Abby Wisdom, grade 11, led the Eagles with five goals. This week, the girls host Lynbrook on Tuesday, Cupertino on Thursday and begin the Lynbrook Tournament on Friday.
Congratulations to Meghana Karinthi, grade 12, who was awarded the Outstanding Academic All-American honor from USA Water Polo for the second year in a row. Karinthi earned the award for having a 4.0 or better GPA while playing in national tournaments with the Stanford and Silicon Valley Outlaws club teams. Great job Meghana!
Girls Tennis
The girls tennis team returned from the Central Valley with a second place finish in the Division 3 bracket at the highly competitive California Tennis Classic this past weekend. The Eagles went 4-1 with wins over McClatchy, Clovis, Clovis West and Mitty, with their only loss to eventual champ Simi Valley. The girls open up league play on Tuesday versus Crystal Springs Uplands.
Girls Golf
Last week, the girls golf team took fourth place out of 17 teams at the Helen Lengfeld Memorial Golf Tournament. It was the best finish ever for a Harker girls team at the annual tournament. Katherine Zhu, grade 12, continues to play at a high level as she tied for first place with a 2-over-par 74. Other notable finishers were Natalie Vo, grade 9, who tied for eighth, and Katelyn Vo, grade 10, who tied for 14th. Later in the week, the Eagles suffered a close three-stroke loss to defending league champ Menlo. It’s a busy week for the Eagles as they play Sacred Heart Prep on Monday, Mercy Burlingame on Wednesday and The King’s Academy on Thursday.
Cross Country
The cross country team officially opened its season over the weekend in San Francisco at the Lowell Invitational. Highlights included Anna Weirich, grade 9, placing third in a freshman/sophomore race with 289 runners; Arya Maheshwari, grade 9, finishing eighth out of 294 freshman runners; and Rishi Dange, grade 10, placing 25th out of 260 sophomore runners. Seniors Gloria Guo and Peter Connors led the way for the varsity teams. The Eagles race again this Saturday at the Early Bird Invitational in Salinas.
Volleyball
Last week, the girls volleyball team defeated Saratoga in three games, led by Allison Cartee, grade 11, who had seven kills. Later in the week, the Eagles fell to powerhouse Valley Christian in three close games. Seniors Megan Cardosi and Isabella Spradlin led the Eagles with eight kills each. This week, the girls travel to Sacred Heart Prep on Thursday.
Football
The football team dominated again on Friday night as it defeated Santa Clara High 24-0. The Eagle D picked off three passes and recovered a fumble to pitch another shutout. Anthony Contreras, grade 12, led the Eagles with 12 tackles, followed by James Pauli, grade 12, with 11 tackles and a sack. Nate Kelly, grade 12, threw for 282 yards and three scores, while Aaron Smith, grade 11, racked up 170 yards on the ground. The Eagles have started the season 3-0 and have outscored their opponents by an amazing tally of 136-6. This week, the Eagles take the two and a half hour drive north to face Healdsburg High on Friday.
The Nichols Hall atrium was packed and bursting with activity during the upper school’s Club Fair on Sept. 13, as students flocked to see the offerings of the more than 60 active clubs on campus. Club representatives set up tables and chatted with fellow students about a huge range of interests, including technology, art, music, sports and social justice. Clubs employed unique strategies to entice passersby. Members of the Unplugged Guitar Club got their fair share of attention by staging an impromptu jam session just outside the Nichols Hall entrance.
“We just want to create an environment where people can come and play and learn no matter what experience [they have],” said senior Matthew Sutton, one of the Unplugged Guitar Club representatives working the table.
Ashley Jia, grade 11, of the Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) says the long-running student organization holds discussions about “the LGBTQ+ community and what’s going on with the world and how to help and be active.”
“We essentially try to spread awareness about a lot of issues going on in the community,” said GSA member Clarissa Wang, grade 11, “and I think that’s really important for increasing acceptance and equality.”
As their name suggests, Music Around the World is a club organized around discussions about music from various parts of the globe. “We want to explore different cultures and perspectives, and maybe even history and politics through a musical platform,” said club member Divija Bhimaraju, grade 12. “We just want to discuss and explore music together as a community. Sort of like a safe space to explore music.”
One of the more specific clubs represented at the fair, the Tea Club explores the many fascinating aspects of one of the world’s most popular beverages. “We talk about teas of different cultures and we trace their histories,” explained club representative Leon Lu, grade 11. “At each meeting, we will ask everybody to sample the tea we are talking about.”
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced today that 46 Harker seniors, about 25 percent of the Class of 2018, were named semifinalists in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program. Of the 1.6 million high school students who entered the program last year by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, about 16,000 – or just 1 percent – became semifinalists.
Congratulations to this year’s semifinalists, who are as follows:
Akhil Arun, Anika Banga, Praveen Batra, Divija Bhimaraju, Megan Cardosi, Emily Chen, Gwyneth Chen, Jerry Chen, Kathleen Cheng, Adrian Chu, Peter Connors, Morgan Douglas, Amy Dunphy, Shaan Gagneja, Swapnil Garg, Anastasiya Grebin, Jacqueline He, Adrian Hernandez, Kaitlin Hsu, Charlotte Huang, Julia Huang, Megan Huynh, Seunghoon Jeong, Amy Jin, Sumer Kohli, Maya Kumar, Matthew Lee, Linus Li, Edgar Lin, Millie Lin, Serena Lu, Rahul Mehta, Alexandra Michael, Jacob Ohana, Vignesh Panchanatham, Neelesh Ramachandran, Andrew Semenza, Anooshree Sengupta, Sahana Srinivasan, Megan Tjandrasuwita, Eric Tran, Alexander Wang, David Wen, Derek Yen, Shaya Zarkesh and Patrick Zhong.
Harker student singers were visited by Emily Sinclair, head of the voice area at the University of California Santa Cruz, and an accomplished professional singer and vocal teacher. Sinclair, who has performed with the San Francisco Choral Society and the Littleton Symphony, had students sing a piece of their choice, after which she offered feedback on interpretation, technique and expression. As the students listened to and incorporated her advice, she noted the improvement in their performance, for which the students were very appreciative!
This past weekend, the cross country team opened its season at Golden Gate Park. Arya Maheshwari, grade 9, started the day with an eighth place finish in the freshman race, out of 294 runners. Aditya Singhvi ran an excellent 23rd.
Next up, Anna Weirich, grade 9, took third in her freshman/sophomore race, 2 seconds from winning, in a field of 289 runners. She was 20 seconds behind the leaders with 800 meters left, then sprinted to close the gap to 2 seconds at the finish line.
Senior Gloria Guo, and juniors Lilia Gonzales and Aneesha Kumar, along with Peter Connors, grade 12, and juniors Ryan Adolf and Henry Wong, led the varsity teams.
Rich Dange, grade 10, placed 25th out of 260, leading the sophomore team to a 10th place team finish, out of 32 teams.
Over the summer, senior Liana Wang and sophomore Mohan Awasthi visited Okayama, Japan (a sister city of San Jose) as Silicon Valley Youth Ambassadors. They and other ambassadors headed to Gakugeikan High School and Kyokuto Junior High to meet with teachers and students and teach English. Wang, a prolific dancer and the designated leader of the ambassadors, gave a special dance performance to the students, while Awasthi gave a speech about what schools are like in the United States. “Overall, the public schools themselves are extremely well run and maintained, and there are many extra-curricular activities for any type of student,” he said.
On a visit to Okayama’s city hall, the group met with the Okayama mayor Maso Omori and received a tour of the building. As the leader of the ambassadors, Wang gave a speech to the mayor on behalf of the City of San Jose. “Also, similar to the school speech, we spoke to the mayor about how we came to keep a good relationship between San Jose and Okayama,” Awasthi noted. “Overall, it was an extremely fun and rare experience.”
During a homestay with the family of a local high school student, Awasthi got a firsthand look into the everyday lives of Okayama citizens. “I got to try more authentic Japanese food, play sports, visit their school, and see many landmarks in Okayama: Kojima Jean street, the Stone Windmills, Okayama Castle, and the Makido stone cave,” he said. Forging bonds with his host family, he added, was one of the most memorable parts of his trip. Wang also visited Okayama Castle with her homestay, as well as the Bikan Chiku area in Okayama’s historic Kurashiki district.
Other highlights of the trip included visiting various famous locales around Tokyo, and taking a trip to Onagawa, a city that experienced massive destruction during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, where they planted trees, and Wang gave a message of support to the disaster victims.
Arusha Patil and Alexander Kumar, both grade 9, were recently honored in the 2017 Promising Young Writers Program, organized by the National Council of Teachers of English. Patil was awarded a certificate of recognition and Kumar received a certificate of participation. Each year, the Promising Young Writers Program recognizes grade 8 students nominated by their schools for their writing abilities; Patil and Kumar were eighth graders when they were nominated by middle school English teacher Patricia Burrows. Of the 163 students nominated in this year’s program, 67 received certificates of recognition. The remaining 96 were awarded certifications of participation.
This press release was prepared by Radhika Jain, grade 10, DECA director of communications.
From Aug. 21-22 more than 50 students attended Harker DECA’s fourth annual DECA Launch, a program designed to introduce students to DECA and Harker’s business and entrepreneurship programs and to prepare potential members for the upcoming DECA year. This two-day event consisted of various challenges, presentations, guest speakers and workshops hosted by the Harker DECA officer team.
“DECA Launch is an event that introduces students to not only the business and entrepreneurship program but also the upper school as a whole since most attendees are incoming freshmen or new students,” said Shreyas Chandrashekaran, grade 12, Harker DECA’s co-CEO. “This event is a great way to give these students a head start on their first year at this campus.”
The first day began early in the morning in Nichols Hall atrium, where students mingled with the chapter advisors, guest speakers and officers while enjoying fresh bagels from Noah’s. Everyone then went into the auditorium where co-CEOs Ashna Chandra, grade 12, and Chandrashekaran began the Opening Ceremony with a brief introduction to DECA.
Then the first two speakers were announced. The first was past Harker DECA co-CEO Riya Chandra ’17, who shared her DECA journey through high school; afterward, former California DECA president Moksh Jawa spoke about the impact of DECA in his own life and how he will carry that into college.
Afterward, the officers led a fun icebreaker to get everyone excited for the activities they would participate in during the next couple of days. The Introduction to Events lecture followed, with each member of the competitions team presenting on their respective positions: role-play, examinations and written event. Students also got to see a live role-play performed by sophomore Phil Han, director of role-play events.
Then everyone went to the Innovation Center to learn and begin the Idea Challenge, in which students grouped up in teams of six to come up with an innovative idea using popsicle sticks. Students received 100 DECA Dollars to buy supplies to build their product. An additional part of the challenge was to create a presentation to pitch to a panel of judges at the closing ceremony.
“Seeing the students share their ideas with their teams was very surprising since not a lot of freshmen show this kind of teamwork and all the groups ended up combining their ideas and interests into a product they were all passionate about,” said Shania Wang, grade 11, Harker DECA’s vice president of public relations.
After getting started on their projects, everyone enjoyed Chipotle burritos for lunch. The Scavenger Hunt was next, in which students were to find the Harker DECA officers who were spread out around the campus. When found, each officer asked the students a question about DECA to educate them more about the chapter. This also gave participants a chance to explore the campus and learn more about the officer team. The students then attended lectures on the different clusters: business management and administration, hospitality and tourism, marketing and finance.
At the end of the day, students had another chance to work on their Idea Challenge products before they went home.
The next day, students arrived early in the morning to attend the DECA Debrief, a presentation about conferences and leadership in DECA. Everyone then learned more about written events with by rotating through six different lectures. Afterward, student entrepreneurs, including Mahi Kolla, grade 10, of The Minty Boutique and Nirban Singh, grade 12, from Xpress Chef presented their own experiences as a high school entrepreneurs (Read more about these two entrepreneurs here).
After having lunch from Pizza My Heart, participants were given more time to work in their Idea Challenge groups. “It was really interesting to see all the officers talk to us, educate us and ensure all the freshmen were understanding the material and having a great time,” said attendee Ashley Gauba, grade 9. “Their hard work really paid off.”
One of the last events of DECA Launch was the Role-play Tournament. Officers and associate mentors worked with small groups of students to help prepare them for role-plays. Then, they paired up and prepared case studies before presenting to a judge.
Following this, the students received some time to finish up their products and presentations for the Idea Challenge. Parents arrived to watch their children present their projects, have dinner and recap the conference in the Closing Ceremony. Students presented their Idea Challenge final products and were judged on innovation, sustainability, and teamwork and presentation. As the judges calculated the scores, parents and students were shown a Launch recap video highlighting the main events of the conference.
Finally, the winners of the Role-play Tournament and Idea Challenge were announced. Chandra, Chandrashekaran and chapter advisor Juston Glass gave closing remarks, concluding the event.
“This was an amazing experience. We came all the way here from another state, and DECA was the first event that we attended at Harker,” said Sid Biswas, parent to attendee Sayon Biswas, grade 11. “It was great to see this organization and event that the school put together, and all the students really did well.”
Harker DECA is thrilled to welcome all the new and recurring members and looks forward to another successful year as a community and chapter.
“Seeing what they have accomplished in the last two days, just imagine what these students will accomplish throughout the year. They truly are #limitless,” said Glass.
Students that won awards are as follows:
WWW.HARKERDECA.ORG
Role-play Tournament:
First place: Karan Bhasin (9), Billy Fan, both grade 9
Second place: Andrew Sun (9), Aditya Singhvi (9)
Third place: Benjamin Gicqueau (9), Sayon Biswas (11)
Overall: Jacqueline Au (9), Luisa Pan (9), Michelle Si (9), Aditya Singhvi (9),
Andrew Sun (9), Bryan Zhang (9)
About The Harker School DECA
Harker DECA is an international competitive business organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in four fields of business: marketing, finance, hospitality and management. Our DECA chapter integrates classroom instruction, applies learning, connects to business, and promotes competition in order to prepare the next generation to be academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible and experienced leaders.