A huge cast of 170 students twirled and tumbled their way through this year’s upper school dance production, “Circus,” held Jan. 27-28 at the Blackford Theater. Songs and routines were themed around the daring and bedazzling performances of three-ring circuses, with students dancing to songs including “Everybody Loves a Circus Show” by Take That, “Funhouse” by Pink and “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae. Continuing the long-standing tradition of faculty members performing at the show, Pilar Aguero-Esparza, Kristina Alaniz, Jill Bettencourt, Shaun Kelley Jahshan, Susan King, Diane Main, Suneeta Mani, Sue Prutton and Victor Squillacioti took the stage for a number driven by Flo Rida’s “Right Round.”
Judge John Owens MS ’85, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and is a member of Harker’s board of trustees, visited the lower school yesterday to speak to third graders at the request of teacher Heidi Gough. Owens discussed his career, told entertaining anecdotes about cases he worked on and took questions from the students. Interestingly, Sarah Leonard, primary division head, was Owens’ teacher while he attended Harker.
Formerly a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olsen LLP, Owens’ practice focused on representing individuals and corporations in government investigations, and conducting internal investigations into allegations of corporate misconduct, according to the firm’s website. Prior to joining Munger Tolles in 2012, he was a federal prosecutor for 11 years. Owens graduated first in his class from Stanford Law School in 1996. He served as a law clerk to Judge John Clifford Wallace, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Andrew Shvarts ’03 has published his first book! “Royal Bastards,” for teens and young adults, is the story of a castle lord’s disenfranchised “natural” children who are drawn into castle intrigue. Only they can warn the king in time to prevent civil war.
Shvarts has been writing for young adult (YA) audiences for about a decade in his role as a writer/designer at Pixelberry Studios. “I’ve been exploring branching out into fiction for a while,” he said. “Royal Bastards is actually the third YA novel I’ve written and shopped around.
“The genesis for it was actually a combination of two ideas I’d had for a while: a young adult ‘Game of Thrones,’ and a story about teens on the run from their criminal parents. I realized that these two ideas actually combined really well, and the book wrote itself from there!”
Royal Bastards is the first of a planned trilogy, Shvarts said, noting he is three-quarters done with the second book.
The girls soccer team lit up the scoreboard again last week, defeating Mercy San Francisco 9-2. Joelle Anderson, grade 12, continued her amazing year with four goals. Julia Amick, grade 10, added two goals, with Lyndsey Mitchell, grade 12, Krishna Bheda, grade 11, and Alexandra Lu, grade 10, also scoring for the Eagles. Harker sits in second place, just one game behind Priory in the Skyline Division. This week, the team travels to Pinewood on Tuesday and hosts Castilleja on Friday.
Boys Soccer
Last week, the boys varsity soccer team defeated the German International School of Silicon Valley 7-1 before tying The King’s Academy 4-4 later in the week. This week, the Eagles host Priory on Wednesday before traveling to Crystal Springs Uplands on Friday.
Wrestling
The Harker wrestling team defeated Santa Clara 42-12 last week. Highlights included Diego Figueroa, grade 12, winning by fall, Kobe Howard, grade 10, winning by a 5-3 decision and Danny Reidenbach, grade 12, winning by a 5-4 decision. The Eagles host two matches this week, Tuesday against Palo Alto and Thursday against Homestead.
Girls Basketball
The girls basketball team split two league games last week. The Eagles beat Crystal Springs Uplands 65-22, but fell to Notre Dame San Jose 64-49 later in the week. The girls host Mercy San Francisco on Wednesday and Castilleja on Friday.
Boys Basketball
The boys basketball team lost two league games last week. In a 66-38 loss to Pinewood, Gene Wang, grade 10, led the Eagles with nine points. Later in the week, the Eagles fell to Sacred Heart Prep 55-36 with Jadan McDermott, grade 11, leading Harker scorers with seven points. Next up for the Eagles is a trip to Priory on Tuesday, then a home game versus Crystal Springs
Uplands on Friday.
“Summer Camp,” this year’s grade 5 show, directed by Kellie Binney-Smart, featured a cast of 132 students performing a series of song and dance numbers about their adventures at Camp Runamok – encountering bugs, bears and camp leaders as they learn to fit in and make new friends. Students worked behind the scenes as well as on stage, with Danny Dunn’s lower school technical theater students serving as the show’s crew. Check out all the great, colorful photos, both in this story and the full set in the Harker Parent Portal!
The first Wednesday of February is a day that many elite high school athletes look forward to their entire careers – and for three Harker seniors, that day has arrived! Today, on National Signing Day, Joelle Anderson, Kailee Gifford and Lyndsey Mitchell inked commitments to play college soccer. Anderson will play for the Pepperdine University Waves, Gifford will play for the Golden Bears at UC Berkeley and Mitchell will travel to the Midwest to play for the Nebraska Wesleyan University Prairie Wolves.
Anderson, who played basketball and soccer at Harker, is currently leading all girls CCS soccer players in goals and points and was recently named the NSCAA/MaxPreps California Player of the Week. “This is unreal,” said Anderson. “I am so excited to attend Pepperdine in the fall.”
Gifford, who played basketball, football and soccer at Harker, hit 81 percent of her PATs this year for the varsity football team. However, at Cal she will concentrate on soccer. “I have worked hard for so many years,” stated Gifford, “and the view from the top of the mountain gives you a little retrospective on your journey, and it’s really cool.”
Mitchell, who played softball and soccer at Harker, is second on the girls soccer team in points this season, while mainly playing defense. Mitchell was turned on to NWU by her grandmother who took classes at the university. “This is really emotional,” said Mitchell. “All the hard work my family and I have put in to get here has paid off.”
Congratulations to Joelle, Kailee and Lyndsey on this exciting new chapter in their athletic careers! Go Eagles!
In mid-December, students in grades 2-3 took the stage at the Bucknall Theater for the annual Grade 2-3 Holiday Show. Performers sang a selection of holiday-themed songs, including “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night” and “Happy Hanukkah!” Grade 2 teachers joined in the festivities during the performance of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and grade 3 teachers had a great time on stage during the students’ rendition of “Here Comes the Snow.”
Over the holiday season, middle school students worked hard to collect gifts for Family Giving Tree, delivering 350 gifts to the organization. With the help of Harker’s students, Family Giving Tree was able to distribute more than 76,000 gifts during the 2016 holiday season, surpassing the organization’s goal for the drive.
“I am extremely proud of all our students, families and staff that go over and beyond in the spirit of giving,” said middle school BEST director Lorena Martinez. The goal for the 2017 holiday drive is 400 gifts.
Started as an MBA project in 1990, Family Giving Tree seeks to alleviate Bay Area poverty by organizing major giving drives every year. The annual Holiday Wish Drive works to fulfill holiday gift requests for low-income households, and the Back-to-School Drive provides backpacks with school supplies to tens of thousands of K-12 students.
Harker recently received accolades for its participation in the 2016 High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling (HiMCM). In November, two teams of Harker students worked on solutions to real-world mathematical problems over a period of 36 hours. The first team – made up of sophomores Ayush Pancholy, Ashwin Rammohan, Nishant Ravi and Akshay Ravoor – devised a way to reduce course congestion during a 2,000-person triathlon, earning them an honorable mention in the contest.
The second team – comprising juniors Michael Kwan, Rajiv Movva and Shaya Zarkesh, and sophomore Katherine Tian – earned a successful participant designation for developing a method to expand a small business to serve the continental United States.
Both teams worked through an entire weekend, with each team creating a 30-page document outlining in detail how each of their solutions would work. “I could not be more thrilled by the energy, enthusiasm and fun the students had over the weekend,” said upper school math teacher Tony Silk.
After starting the season on fire, Joelle Anderson, grade 12, was named the state Winter High School Player of the Week for Jan. 18-23 by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America/MaxPreps. Anderson has 31 goals in 11 games this year, which is currently tops in CCS girls soccer. She will attend Pepperdine next year, but this year she is trying to help lead the second-place Eagles to a WBAL title. Congrats, Joelle!