Alumna and UCLA graduate Andrea Wang ’07 made it to the top 10 on ETTV Top Idol 2011, a Chinese spin-off of American Idol. Going into the semi-finals, Wang had the highest score and was chosen as the top performer.
Like American Idol, ETTV Top Idol is an annual competition that launches a countrywide search to discover the “potential pop stars of tomorrow.” This year, ETTV Top Idol auditions were held in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. Wang auditioned at a friend’s suggestion and has had much success in the competition. It is easy to see why from this video of Wang singing Bonnie Raitt’s “Have a Heart.”
The final round of the competition took place in Los Angeles in mid-September but results are not available.
Cyrus Merrill’s grade 6 advisory recently stepped up their Kiva loans efforts, adding to their roster of lendees a jewelry maker in Peru, a Kenyan timber salesman, an artist in the Philippines and a farmer in Tajikistan. Merrill said he expects the group to be able to lend more money in the near future. To date, three of their nine loans have been paid back in full, with one 82 percenet repaid and another 76 percent repaid.
Each year, the lower school provides training for parents interested in chaperoning field trips, and in the last two years, Harker has had about 600 parents go through chaperone training. The evening meetings help maintain Harker’s commitment to safety by making sure chaperones best know how to assist the teachers on school outings to keep students secure. Approximately 45 parents attended the final training for Bucknall field trips, held in late September, and can now join students on off-campus trips. Chaperones-in-training heard Joe Connolly, dean of students K-5, cover everything from the buddy system to bus safety.
Reprinted from Harker Quarterly, Fall 2011. By Kelly Espinosa
Get ready for the fun and festivities on Sun., Oct. 9 at Harker’s annual Family & Alumni Picnic. Our “Top Hatters” (parent committee chairs) have a super HAT-TASTIC event planned that’s guaranteed to knock your socks (and hat) off. Put something crazy on your head and join in the fun!
Throw Your Hat in the Ring!
Everyone needs an admission pass to enter the picnic on Sun., Oct. 9, so make sure you’ve got yours. Visit the online registration page before Sept. 30 to grab your pass for the advance purchase price of $8. Admission is also available at the door for $12. All hat lovers 5 to 75 need a pass!
We’re Passing the Hat …
… and selling tickets for our Grand Prize Drawing! Students K-12, faculty and staff are selling “lids” full of picnic drawing tickets to help us raise money for our school. Sellers are earning incentive prizes as they go and on picnic day we’ll pull out the names of five lucky grand prize winners. This year’s prizes include: a giant SIMPLE 3-speed Beach Cruiser, an Xbox with Kinect 250GB, an iPad2 wifi 16GB, a Las Vegas getaway for two and our fabulous first prize of $10,000! Tickets are available on all three campuses and can be turned in until 3:30 on picnic day to be eligible for the grand picnic drawing at 4 p.m. Happy selling … and maybe even winning!
Go Mad Hattery!
Our Silent Auction promises to have you “bidding like mad” on super silly teacher packages, fabulous trips and wacky, wonderful one-of-a-kind items. How about an evening in San Francisco at “Beach Blanket Babylon”? Or a tour on an America’s Cup yacht? Maybe great seats and a personal field visit during an Oakland A’s game or a beautiful diamond necklace? You can eat, play, tour, trek and create with some of your favorite teachers by bidding on a Teacher Package, or sign up for an evening of fun and games, or a laser tag challenge, or a day at the ballpark, or even a good old fashioned sleepover! Make sure to stop by the “Go Mad Hattery” on picnic day to bid, bid, bid on your favorites.
There’s still time to donate to our Silent Auction. We can always use restaurant certificates, tickets to sporting events, one-of-a-kind art or jewelry items, sports memorabilia and more. Visit us online for more details.
HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT … IT’S GOING TO BE FUN!
Put on your panamas, dust off your derby, break out your beanies and get ready for a wacky, whimsical, wonderful day on the Blackford campus. We’ve added some new surprises to the picnic lineup this year; of course, we haven’t forgotten your old favorites either (with a hat-tastic twist). You can be sure it all adds up to one fabulous family day!
The “Sunbonnet Bowl” will be open as you arrive at the picnic and you’ll be delighted to see the lovely flowers and decorations galore in this family gathering area. The spectacular student show is the big attraction at 11 a.m., but the Sunbonnet Stage will be filled with student performances and special guests throughout the day. Drop your raffle tickets, buy your carnival tickets and you’re set for a HAT-RIFFIC day!
At the “Hat Trick Tavern” we’ll be celebrating sports and all the hats that go with them. We’ve added an outdoor patio, and moved the popular wine booth into the MPR for adults only! Add in the specialty beer and wine, the football gameand super sports munchies and this could be your new favorite area at the picnic.
“Flip Your Lidsville” is this year’s whimsical picnic town, located in the Blackford gym. The town’s people are excited to show off their “main street” and all the “businesses” are sprucing up for our arrival. Stroll by Mr. Hood’s Hardware or the Night Cap Café, take a peek into Hattery Barn, Brimco or the CAPital ONE Bank.
Our most popular area, “The Cap-Tipping Carnival,” will be chock full of carnival games, blow-up attractions and hat-themed activities, all designed for maximum fun and prize-winning! So be sure to mark your calendar, purchase your admission passes and plan to come early and stay late so you won’t miss one second of the lid-flipping, cap-tipping picnic fun we have planned!
Hats Off to YOU!
Our generous picnic sponsors, donors and volunteers really make this event possible… and we want to make sure to give a big “thank you!” to all who have stepped up and done their part as we prepare for a “tip-top” event on Oct. 9! This is truly a Harker family day and our entire family has gone above and beyond this year in every way possible!
Don’t Eat Your Hat …Visit a Food Truck!
Have you joined the food truck revolution? Are you tweeting your friends to find the location of the gourmet ice cream truck or those spectacular garlic noodles? If you’ve been hearing about this craze and wondering what the fuss is all about, the Family & Alumni Picnic has you covered. Harker will be featuring five of the Bay Area’s premiere food trucks at this year’s event on Oct. 9, no tweeting required! In addition to our traditional offerings of Round Table Pizza, authentic Indian cuisine, great grilled burgers, sausage and chicken sandwiches, the food trucks will provide a twist to our food choices this year and give hungry picnic-goers an opportunity to participate in this craze that is sweeping the nation. The trucks will be serving up super-sized Vietnamese sandwiches, tasty Hawaiian fried chicken, killer Cajun cuisine and gourmet ice cream desserts like you’ve never seen before. “We are excited about the whole food truck idea,” says picnic coordinator Kelly Espinosa, “and we hope our culinary experiment at this year’s picnic will be a delicious success!”
Brimming with Pride!
When you see an upper school student on picnic day (and you’ll see many of them) you can bet they are having fun and helping with the event in some special way. Most grade 9-12 students come to the picnic to volunteer first and then they hang around and have some fun themselves. As the upper school has grown over the years the students have found new and exciting ways to “serve” at this family-focused event. Upper school students play in the jazz band, perform in the student show, cover the event as reporters and photographers, run game and activity booths with their favorite clubs, help with setup and cleanup and more … it’s awesome! For the past three years the varsity football team has been in charge of the popular football toss game. “It’s a great way for the team to show their Harker pride, give back to the school, and get some exposure in the larger Harker community,” says coach Karriem Stinson. “My guys work hard and it’s nice to see them interacting with younger students and putting into action the values we teach on the field everyday. Plus, they really have a good time!”
New this year, the Eagle Buddies program will be teaming up grade 4 students with their grade 11 buddies at the picnic. This gives the buddy pairs an opportunity to hang out, play games and get to know each other in the safe environment of our most favorite family festival. What could be more fun? We hope those grade 11 kids have their Ping-Pong-tossing, ball-bouncing, train-riding, frog-flipping muscles warmed up, because fourth graders never get tired! We’re so very proud of all the upper school students who have found a way to give back on picnic day. Their contributions add so much to the “family” part of this fun-filled day!
Picnic Posse Heads Out!
In the middle school, students have formed our first ever Picnic Posse! The group is made up of picnic-loving students who want to help promote picnic spirit and enthusiasm throughout the Blackford campus. “Our students have a special relationship to the picnic,” says campus dean Lana Morrison, “because it all happens right here!” The new Picnic Posse gives interested students a chance to be more involved, get a behind-the-scenes look at the event and help our school at the same time. Posse members will be making posters, helping on the curb donation days, creating bulletin boards, making picnic announcements and more as we count down the days to our Hats Off Harker event!
Alexander Wang ’02, now a major fashion designer, was featured in In Style magazine in mid-September. His interview talks about his inspiration, his fashion tips, and his popular T-shirt line. He was also featured on In Style’s website with designers Sophie Theallet and Billy Reid for the T-shirts the trio designed for Starbucks, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The T-shirts were inspired by the brand, and one shirt in particular appears to have coffee spilled down the front of it — the one thing “everyone tries to avoid,” the magazine quotes Wang as saying.
On Sept. 21, the class of 2013 became this year’s dodgeball champions, defeating grades 10 and 12 as well as the faculty team. The juniors first played against the sophomores to resolve a controversy that arose the previous week, in which the result of sophomores versus juniors match was deemed unclear.
After their victory over the sophomores, the juniors beat the seniors and earned the privilege to face the faculty and staff team, who they also beat in two consecutive rounds. Grade 10 defeated the grade 9 team to take third overall in the competition.
Lower school classes have been getting themselves excited for the Oct. 9 Family & Alumni Picnic, titled “Hats Off Harker,” by decorating their doors with festive posters, each with a different twist on the picnic’s theme of stylish headwear. Students’ and teachers’ faces are pasted on each door poster, and many different hats, from sombreros to top hats to pith helmets, are well-represented.
Imelda Kusuma and Rita Stone, both grade 1 teachers, got their classes together for their annual Friendship Party in mid-September. The parties started five years ago. Stone says the first party was borne of the idea that “the classes could get to know each other a bit better while at the same time using our character development ideas about friendship. It worked beautifully!”
Every year, the Friendship Party starts with a story — which, fittingly, centers around friendship. The story can prompt, Stone said, “good discussions.” Kusuma and Stone thought it would be meaningful for the students to extend a friendly hand to others, so they came up with the idea of all the students making a craft project for them to give to residents of a nursing home. “We explained to our classes that even though we don’t know who will be getting our projects, they will certainly brighten someone’s day, and that’s a big part of friendship!” Stone said. The students did a great job decorating pencils with fake flowers, and their craft will be donated soon.
In late August and early September, lower school families gathered at the Bucknall campus for a pair of special Welcome Back barbecues. Families enjoyed hamburgers, hot dogs, snacks, soda and other treats in a fun, picnic-like atmosphere. Parents had the opportunity to meet and chat with faculty and staff while their children made use of the campus’ excellent playground areas.
Last weekend, The Harker School hosted more than 450 students, coaches and parents from various schools to participate in this year’s Nichols Invitational Debate Tournament at the upper school campus. Nearly every classroom and conference area was used to run the tournament. Because they represented the hosting school, Harker students were only permitted to compete in the policy debate. Harker students were nevertheless highly involved in the tournament, working hard to make sure the event ran smoothly.
Greg Achten, an upper school debate teacher, reported that the tournament “was a great success and we have received effusive praise from our guests about our hospitality and our facilities.” He went on to thank all involved for their participation and support.