Harker Forensics has continued to do well at competitions across the country. At the Blue Key tournament in Florida, held Oct. 30 through Nov. 1, Michael Tsai, Gr. 11, earned his second Congressional Debate bid after making it to the semifinal round, fully qualifying him to the Congress Tournament of Champions. Meanwhile, sophomores Rohan Bopardikar and Daryl Neubieser made it to round of eight at the Manchester-Essex tournament in Massachusetts that same weekend, thus earning their first bid to the Public Forum Tournament of Champions.
Earlier in October, Kristi Lui and Tyler Koteskey, both Gr. 11, reached the top 21 in the public forum debate category at the Big Bronx Invitational in New York City.
At the New Trier tournament, held in the greater Chicago area, seniors Adam Perelman and Arjun Mody made it to the semifinal round (round of four) and earned a bid to the policy debate Tournament of Champions.
The lower school’s annual Gr. 5 food drive begins on Mon., Nov. 9, and ends on Fri., Nov. 20. All the food and donations collected from this year’s drive will be delivered to St. Justin’s Church in Santa Clara, where they will be used to make meals and food bags for those in need.
“As we start to prepare for the holidays, I like to see my students take a moment to reflect on the good fortune they have been blessed with while also taking the time and effort to make a concerted effort to improve the lives of others who are less fortunate,” said Gr. 5 math teacher Pat Walsh, in an announcement to parents.
Food donations can be dropped off at the Bucknall campus gym lobby. Cash and check donations are also welcome, and should be delivered to the front office or to Walsh. Please make checks payable to St. Justin’s Community Ministry.
This year’s Gr. 6 outing to Yosemite proved once again to be an exciting venture into one of California’s most treasured natural preserves. The week prior to the trip, students wore boots for the entire week to break them in before they were put to use.
The students and chaperones arrived at Yosemite on Oct. 26, along with their buddies from Tamagawa Gakuen in Tokyo, Japan. They spent the day hiking to the Spider Caves before meeting with their guides from the Yosemite Institute (YI).
Breakfast was had before the next day’s activities, which included an educational hike with the YI guides. The day was capped off with a special ice cream party to bid the Tamagawa students farewell.
“Despite a belly full of ice cream, students were able to fall asleep in order to reenergize for yet another day at Yosemite,” reported Lana Morrison, middle school dean of students. The day was spent doing a group of team activities led by the YI guides. Later that evening, middle school science teacher Danny Sommer made dessert for student Anish Velagapudi’s birthday celebration. After a night hike, the group arrived at a nearby theater to see a Bear Program put on by the YI guides, who performed skits and showed an educational video about bears.
The final day at Yosemite saw great hiking weather, and students were given the choice of returning to some of their favorite hiking locations or heading somewhere they hadn’t yet been. In the evening, the trip was formally and fittingly concluded with a campfire under the stars.
During this year’s Gr. 6 trip to Yosemite, middle school Spanish teacher Susan Moling’s hiking group became the first among Harker students to make the hike from their base camp to Glacier Point. The group started their hike at 9 a.m. and traveled approximately eight miles and climbed 3,200 feet over a period of five-and-a-half hours, taking short breaks along the way. After reaching the summit, the group took a bus back down, as walking back would have taken much too long. “We wouldn’t have made it back till 7 or 8 p.m.,” Moling said.
Harker paid homage to its fall senior athletes in late October and early November as seasons wound down. In October, water polo said goodbye to Michael Clifford and Stefan Schwartz from the boys’ team; and Kelsey Chung, Monisha Dilip, Sarah Jane Estrada, Melanie Herscher, Andrea Lincoln, Christina Ma and Shanthi Rajagopalan from the girls’ team. Girls’ tennis bid farewell to Kelly Chen, Brittany Chu, Vivian Huang, Jyoti Narayanswami and Arthi Padmanabhan.
In early November the volleyball team saluted Danielle Buis, Tiffany Kyi and Amy Rorabaugh, and the football squad honored Bogdan Botcharov, Patrick Campbell, Jose Costa, Cole Davis, Kyle Drummer, Kevin Fu, Won Hee Lee, Sean Morgan, Rohan Prakash, Mark Roh, Jacob Schwartz, Rohan Shah, Patrick Smith and Stephen Wang.
Cross country said adieu to Stefan Eckhardt, Vishesh Jain, Arjun Mody, Adam Perelman, Aadithya Prakash, Tara Hansen, Kelsey Hilbrich and Sarah Teplitsky, and the girls’ golf team celebrated Priya Banerjee, Sonya Huang and Jacqueline Son.
The 2010 fashion show, “Outside the Box,” is coming on fast; designers are hard at work on specialty garments and model tryouts are just around the corner.
A team of six upper school students, led by Priya Bhikha, Gr. 12, is hoping to complete a half-dozen garments made from recycled material. The call has gone out for plastic bags, soda can tabs, paper clips, unused coffee filters, unused duct tape and CDs.
These items will be used by the team to make outfits of recycled materials for one of the fashion show segments, and to get enough material, all three campuses are collecting. “We won’t be able to return any of these items (obviously), so please make sure they don’t donate their mom’s favorite Barry Manilow CD,” said Sue Prutton, director of US volunteer programs and fashion show liaison. The recycled outfits will augment fashions provided by Macys and the Tuxedo Wearhouse at Westgate Mall.
Along with the behind-the-scenes work, there are models to select and train. Applications are due this Thursday, Nov. 5, and tryouts are Sunday. Harker Students, parents, faculty, grandparents and staff are all welcome to try out. There is an optional workshop on Saturday, too. Details are online in the Harker Parent Portal.
Gridiron great Jeff Garcia, former San Francisco 49er quarterback, came to Harker in late October, fulfilling a 2009 fashion show package purchased by Sean and Leslie Doherty (John, Gr. 9). The visit just happened to occur on John Doherty’s birthday. Garcia gave a pep talk to both J.V. and varsity football teams, then threw passes to J.V. team members. The gathering wrapped up with a barbeque and each member of the J.V. squad got an autographed football. “It was really fun for students and adults,” said Danielle Wood-Hammond of Harker’s advancement office, who joined the group to help cut cake for the crowd.
Senior volleyball player Tanya Schmidt made Harker history in November as the first Harker student ever to sign a national letter of intent. Schmidt will attend Santa Clara University. We are fortunate to be able to continue to watch the outstanding middle blocker over the next four years as she plays for the Division 1 Broncos on a full athletic scholarship. Schmidt plans to enter the College of Arts and Sciences. Long-time Harker student Schmidt commented, “It’s a bonus that I will be close to home, so I will still be able to support Harker’s athletics and keep in touch with the community.”
The Harker Speaker Series kicked off its 2009-10 season in grand fashion with the appearance of travel author and television personality Rick Steves, who discussed his newest book, “Travel as a Political Act.” Having traveled to Europe regularly since his teens, Steves began his travel writing career in the 1980s with the publication of “Europe Through the Back Door.” He went on to author more than 40 books that specialize in traveling Europe cheaply and experiencing the less tourist-oriented aspects of European cultures. He now hosts the popular public television series “Rick Steves’ Europe” and organizes European tours for thousands of people each year, in addition to writing a syndicated newspaper column and hosting a weekly radio show. Steves spoke to a packed audience at the Saratoga gym, and was also seen via live video feed by audiences in Nichols Hall. The theme of his hour-long discussion was how Americans can use the experience of travel to improve their understanding of the world and its many different peoples. In so doing, they can help improve America’s relationship with the rest of the world. Learning about the key figures in a country’s history can teach us much about the culture and people, he said, citing El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero, an advocate for human rights who was assassinated for his outspoken stance. Steves compared him to the soldier Nathan Hale, who was captured and killed by the British during the Revolutionary War – understand the people’s heroes and you will understand their culture. He covered some of the key differences between Europeans and Americans, such as work habits. Europe, Steves said, is often criticized by Americans because its citizens make less money than those in the U.S. “The full story is not being told here,” Steves said. He pointed out that workers in Europe actually make roughly the same hourly wage while choosing to work less. “Europeans are adamant about not working themselves into an early grave,” Steves said, noting that he was very happy to be an American citizen and would much rather run his business at home than abroad. “Because I love my country and love this way of life, I believe it is good style and patriotic to bring home a few challenges to encourage my neighbors to get it a little better,” Steves said. “We can learn from other people.” Toward the end of his presentation, Steves talked about his recent trip to Iran, saying he wanted to humanize its people. He confessed that he was nervous about visiting the country at first, a fear that was quickly assuaged. While stuck in traffic in Iran’s capital city of Tehran, a man in the next car handed Steves’ driver a bouquet of flowers, saying, “Give this to the foreigner in your backseat and apologize for our traffic.” He also shared the story of an Iranian woman who implored Steves to “tell the truth” about her country’s people: That they were strong, united and didn’t want their children to be “raised like Britney Spears.” These attributes, Steves said, are common among Americans who worry about how culture affects their offspring. “Think about their counterparts here that are most quick to hate Iran,” Steves said. “They’re good people, motivated by fear and love.” Steves said that among young people there is an opportunity to learn more about the world outside their borders and understand it, rather than fear it. “There’s a lot of fear being used against us these days,” he said, “and I’ve learned the flipside of fear so often is understanding.” He closed his presentation with an anecdote about a whirling Dervish he observed in Turkey. Whirling Dervishes are Muslim worshippers known for their distinct method of praying, which involves a circular dance that the Dervish does as a form of meditation. The Dervish explained to Steves that when he prays, he places one foot down to represent his home and family, and the other foot circles around, to praise the wonder and variety of God’s creation. One hand is raised to receive God’s love and another is lowered to bring this love down to his creation. He then begins whirling and entering his trance-like state. Steves said that the Dervish’s reverence of home, family and the world around him made them “fundamentally the same, and if I can go home with that appreciation, and then employ that broadened perspective as a citizen of this great nation, that’s the most powerful and beautiful souvenir, and that’s making travel a political act.” Following the presentation, Steves spent a brief period taking questions from the audience and signed books for his fans. Students interviewed after the event enjoyed Steves’ well-articulated and balanced perspective. Vamsi Vemereddy, Gr. 11, found the presentation “very interesting. I learned lots of different things about Europe, like how they view us.” Fellow junior Priya Sahdev said, “It makes you want to travel a lot more than I expected. I didn’t really know who [Steves] was when I was going in there, but going out of there, I really enjoyed the whole talk and I learned a lot from it.” “It was really educational to learn to learn about all these different places,” said Puneet Sidhu, Gr. 11. “It kind of makes me want to visit these places now, and have the experience myself.” Launched in 2007, the Harker Speaker Series invites inspiring, visionary individuals from a wide variety of fields to share their stories and expertise with Harker parents, students and faculty, as well as individuals from the larger community. For more information, visit http://www.harker.org/page.cfm?p=1307.[kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”http://skylark.harker.org/hno/backups/wp-content/story-slideshows/Rick_Steves_October_29_2009/soundslider.swf” width=”500″ height=”400″ targetclass=”flashmovie”]
