It was again a successful year at the Synopsys Championship for Harker middle and upper school students. Andrew Jin, grade 10, in the bioinformatics category, and Anika Radia-Dixit, grade 12, in medicine/health/gerontology, were both awarded grand prizes and an expenses-paid trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which takes place May 12-17 in Phoenix, Ariz. Venkat Sankar, grade 8, received a middle school special prize and a trip to the California State Fair in Los Angeles for his project in the environmental sciences category.
Harker was also named one of the top three high schools at the event, and upper school science teacher Chris Spenner was one of the top three high school teachers. Thomas Artiss, middle school science teacher, was named most promising new teacher.
A total of 26 upper school students were winners of various awards at this year’s contest. In the biochemistry/microbiology category, Sriram Somasundaram, grade 10, earned a First Award, while classmate Stanley Xie won a Second Award along with Pranav Reddy, also grade 10, who also received an Honorable Mention Certificate of Achievement from MedImmune.
Rohith Bhethanabotla, grade 11,won a First Award in chemistry, while fellow junior Mercedes Chien received a Second Award in the same category. Freshmen Rishabh Chandra and Jonathan Ma and juniors Avinash Nayak and Shreyas Parthasarathy all won Second Awards in physics.
Rishabh Jain, grade 10, won a second award in computers/mathematics as well as a First Place award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which included a certificate and programmable robot. In the same category, Cindy Liu, grade 10, earned an Honorable Mention, and juniors Brian Tuan and Andrew Wang each received Honorable Mention Student Awards and certificates from the Association for Computing Machinery.
In earth/space sciences, senior Andrew Luo received a Second Award, and junior Stephanie Chen and sophomore Matthew Huang each received Certificates of Achievement from the NASA Ames Research Center.
Neil Movva, grade 10, earned several recognitions in engineering, including a First Award, a Certificate of Achievement and $50 voucher from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, an Honorable Mention from the U.S. Army and a Special Award from Varian Medical Systems, which included a $75 cash prize and a Certificate of Achievement. In the same category, Ramakrishnan Menon, grade 12, received a Second Award, was named a second-place student by the American Vacuum Society and was awarded a $50 cash prize and a Certificate of Achievement. Michael Kling, grade 11, also received a Second Award in this category and a Certificate of Achievement and Pewter Medallion Voucher from the Yale Science and Engineering Association. Yet another winner in engineering was Alison Rugar, grade 12, who earned a Third Place Award from A Society for Materials which included a $50 prize, a subscription to Popular Science magazine and a Certificate of Achievement. Finally, Avi Agarwal, grade 11, received an Honorable Mention.
In addition to Andrew Jin’s Grand Prize, the bioinformatics category also saw Steven Wang, grade 10, earn a First Award and a first place $150 cash prize and Certificate of Achievement and an award from the University of California, San Francisco Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology.
Other upper school winners were juniors Daniel Pak and Christopher Fu, who both received Second Awards in Zoology, senior Suchita Nety, who received a First Award in medicine/health/gerontology and sophomore Nikash Shankar, also a First Award winner in medicine/health/gerontology, who also won a second place prize of $200 from Rambus, honorable mention from MedImmune and an invite to the California States Science Fair.
The middle school had 16 students winning awards this year, including grade 8 students Avi Khemani and Manan Shah, who earned First Awards, and Jonathan Liu and Justin Xie, also both grade 8, who received Honorable Mentions in biochemistry/microbiology. In engineering, eighth graders Peter Wu, David Zhu and Amrita Singh all won Second Awards, with Singh also receiving a Certificate of Achievement and lapel pin from the National Society of Professional Engineers. Sandip Nirmel, also grade 8, received a Family and Friends membership from the Tech Museum of Innovation.
Eighth graders Aditya Dhar and Arjun Subramaniam each won Second Awards in computers/mathematics and Meena Gudapati, grade 7, won a First Award in behavioral/social. In the same category, grade 8 students Joyce Huang, Meilan Steimle and Swetha Tummala all earned Second Awards.
Grade 8 student Andrew Gu’s project in the botany category earned him a First Award, and Evani Radiya-Dixit, grade 8, was named a middle school Top Finalist for her medicine/health/gerontology project.
Congratulations to all the winners, and good luck next year!
The Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO) student club held its annual GEO week in mid-March, raising nearly $1,000 for Pencils of Promise, an organization that works to build educational programs in poor areas of the world. Some of Pencils of Promise’s efforts include building schools, training teachers and providing supplies. The organization has already completed construction on 110 schools, and 14 are in construction with plans for at least four more.
GEO raised funds this year by selling merchandise during lunch and after school. “As a school ourselves, I thought it would be meaningful for students to be able to help out a fellow student somewhere else in the world,” said Amie Chien, grade 12, who serves as GEO president. “Given the opportunities we are blessed to have at Harker, I wanted the chance to be able to ‘pay it forward’ in a sense, passing on the chance at a good education for someone else, too.”
According to Chien, the cost to provide a year’s worth of education for a child in one of these areas is just $25. “A pair of jeans from Express is easily $25, a week’s worth of Starbucks every morning, about the same. If we were to give up a little luxury for a week, we could easily find a $25 lying around,” she said.
Cross Country The cross country team continues to stomp on old Harker history; just about every week, an existing school record falls, replaced by a faster time from this year. At the league’s second meet at Sacred Heart, Sophomore Cheryl Liu broke a Harker record by running an 18.74 in the 100-meter hurdles, two seconds better than her best of the year so far and one second better than the previous record. Just three minutes later, however, Freshman Nadia Palte ran an 18.48 in that very same contest, breaking the record Liu had just set! Michael Cheng, grade 12, then stepped up for the discus competition and broke the old mark by one foot after having hurled his discus 130’5″. Cheng’s mark now leads the entire league.
At that same meet at Sacred Heart, Ragini Bhattacharya, grade 12, ran 52.93 in the 300m hurdles. Sumit Minocha ran 50.94 in the 400-meter. Matt Giammona set a personal record with a 111’5″. Arjun Kumar moved to the top 10 board with a personal record in the discus throw of 89’10”. Julia Wang improved on her second place standing in discus with a toss of 71’1″. Finally, the boys 400-meter relay team improved to their season-best mark at 45.32. That time, naturally, now leads the entire league.
Some days later, the team met again for a WBAL track meet. It will perhaps not be suprising that Sumit Minocha, grade 12, improved on his CCS-leading mark in the 100-meter with a 10.80, setting, what else, a new Harker record. Isabelle Connell, grade 12, who already had the Harker record for her 100m, advanced her time with a 12.22, moving from #7 to #3 overall in the CCS. Freshman Nadia Palte also topped her existing school record — this time in hurdles. Palte had an 18.20 in the 100-meter hurdles.
Congratulations to all of Harker’s track and field athletes as they continue to break records at breakneck speeds!
Golf
Harker’s cross country team does not have the media all to themselves, however. Two of Harker’s golfers, Ryan Vaughan, grade 8, and Katherine Zhu, grade 7, are making some waves on the junior circuit. Competing in the Spring Series IV at Deer Ridge / Shadow Lakes Golf Course in Brentwood, Zhu narrowly missed out on the championship, finishing as the runner-up for the second time this year while shooting rounds of 73 and 75. Vaughan came in third place amongst the boys with rounds of 74 and 78. He had earlier this year been a first flight winner. Both Zhu and Vaughan were competing in the Junior Tour of Northern California. Zhu’s current ranking is in the top three of the Junior Tour. Already this year, she has won the Junior World Golf Champion Tournament Qualifier and finished as a runner-up in the Girl Champion Flight at the Nor Cal Golf Junior Tournament.
On Monday, May 20th, Zhu will play in the US Women’s Open Golf Qualifier Tournament at Lake Merced Golf Course and two days later will play in the US Women’s Amateur Golf Qualifier Tournament at the Reserve in Spanos Park Golf Course. This July, she will play in the Junior Golf Champion Tournament in San Diego. Wish her luck!
Swimming
Both Harker’s Varsity and JV swim teams beat our four opponents this last Wednesday. Harker came in first in every relay, including an exciting race with Priory in the Varsity girls 200 Free Relay which ended in a tie for first at 1:48.44. Our Varsity girls swept the 500 Free with Manon Audebert, grade 11, taking first, Amie Chien, grade 12, second, and Anika Mohindra, grade 9, third. The Varsity boys, meanwhile, took the 100 Fly with Aaron Huang, grade 10, first, Craig Neubieser, grade 10, second, and Kenneth Zhang, grade 11, third. Other CCS qualifying times include: Audebert 50 Free (25.93), Grace Guan, grade 9, 100 Back (1:04.04), Kimmy Ma, grade 11, 200 IM (2:20.58), Huang 100 Fly (56.07) and 500 Free (5:02.54).
Sophomore Stacey Chao, Harker’s lone diver, entered the first high school meet of her career and won, coming in first place in the JV meet. Chao defeated 7 other divers — 5 from Presentation and 2 from St. Ignatius. Congratulations, Stacey! Softball
Harker blew out Alma Heights yesterday to the tune of 11-1. Alison Rugar, grade 12, threw a great game, striking out 11 opponents. Ashley Del Alto, grade 12, led the offense, going 3 for 3 with 3 RBI’s, a double, and a triple. Alisa Wakita, grade 9, added three more hits, and Laura Thacker, grade 10; Brianna Liang, grade 10; Tong Wu, grade 9; and Alana Shamlou, grade 11, also had a hit apiece. After the win, the girls’ record stands at 9-6 overall. They are undefeated in league play, 6-0. The girls travel to King’s Academy on Friday.
Lacrosse
Girls lacrosse has a firm grip on first place in the league after defeating Notre Dame on Monday 13-9 and Woodside yesterday 14-1. After the high-scoring games, the girls are now 10-1 overall and 4-0 in league play. Michelle Douglas, grade 12, and Hannah Bollar, grade 10, scored six of yesterday’s goals each. Wendy Shwe, grade 12, scored the other two. The girls travel to PAL Stadium on Friday to face off against Notre Dame again.
Baseball
Baseball defeated Trinity Christian by a large margin on Monday,16-6, to improve to 6-8-1 overall. Keanu Forbes, grade 10, had two hits and an RBI. Jacob Hoffman, grade 12, had two RBI’s and Kevin Cali, grade 12, pitched for the win. The boys play away games on Thursday and Friday.
Golf
Boys Golf defeated Kings Monday to improve to 6-3 overall. Maverick McNealy, grade 12, shot a 38 and Shrish Dwivedi, grade 10, shot a 39.
Tennis
Boys Tennis lost to a strong Crystal Springs team yesterday 6-1 with the lone win coming from senior doubles pair of Justing Yang, grade 12, and Rahul Desirazu, grade 12.
Each spring, all three of Harker’s campuses hold art shows, giving students age-appropriate venues in which to display the special works they have completed throughout the year. The middle school art show is unique in that it hosts its opening reception off-site, over at the upper school.
Following a well-attended reception for the artists held in March, Harker’s middle school spring art exhibit officially went on display in the upper school’s main office lobby.
The beautiful gallery-style showing featured select student work of colorful paintings, ceramics, figurines, wire sculptures and mobiles. After a brief run on the Saratoga campus, it will be relocated to the Blackford multipurpose room.
Among the items on display were animal-themed ceramics, playful illustrations of sneakers and high-heeled shoes, small canvas paintings held on stands, intricate hanging glass designs and an array of sculptures depicting familiar scenes, including that of a diner.
In May, the middle school will host an end-of-the-year art exhibit at its Blackford campus, which is all-inclusive and will run through that month with an opening afternoon reception held on May 6.
According to art instructor Elizabeth Saltos, the middle school spring art exhibit (as opposed to the upcoming end-of-the-year exhibit) is equivalent to the AP art exhibit at the upper school in that it is a juried show.
“It involves all middle school grades but focuses on eighth because they soon will be at Saratoga. If there were a theme it would be ‘the most successful art evaluated in terms of aesthetics, craftsmanship, creativity and artistic merit.’ The work demonstrates the students’ experience through the exploration of the lesson parameters, and the end result shows their ability to transform materials into their own artistic statements, sometimes not an easy thing. It was very difficult to select out work,” she said, adding that it has been a “wonderful year for artwork” at the middle school.
Harker has long held an excellent reputation in the local art community (and beyond) for providing students with exceptional visual arts offerings. In the lower and middle schools, students learn drawing, printmaking, painting, woodworking, carving, ceramics and art history. In the upper school, fine art students can choose Study of Visual Arts as their mandatory yearlong arts survey course and select from a variety of drawing vehicles, as well as stone carving, bronze casting, ceramics and architecture.
“Once upon a time there stood an enchanted library. Within its walls, stories would come to life. Each year, the children of the land would invite characters from their best-loved tales to a celebration filled with music and merriment.”
So begins the program from the 17th annual Ogre Awards, the lower school’s beloved production, dedicated to the characters of 21 classic folk and fairy tales, as well as the storytellers who created them.
Starring all of the grade 2 students (otherwise known as the Ogre Academy), the show was proudly presented last month by the library department. It was originally created by former library director Enid Davis, who participated in this one as well.
Held in the “Kingdom of The Harker School” (aka the school’s gym) the Ogre Awards led off with a disgruntled witch who, throughout the event, mixed up the acts in revenge for not being invited to the show.
The student performers portrayed characters and creatures from the folklore of cultures worldwide (including tricksters, witches, magical objects, enchanted princes, heroines, wolves and fools), which they had learned about throughout the school year.
Folk stories and fairy tales featured in this year’s award ceremony came from such well known, endearing stories as Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, The Princess and the Pig, Lazy Jack and The Water of Life.
According to Sue Smith, Harker’s current library director, the Ogre Awards show was extremely fortunate to have had Danny Dunn, lower school technical director, take over as the new director following Davis’ retirement last year after nearly two decades of service.
“She (Dunn) had some very big shoes to fill,” said Smith, noting that as her parting gift to the award show, Davis left behind a fully-written script for this year’s ceremony. “That allowed Mrs. Dunn to focus on the technical aspects of the show, including adding her many creative talents.”
All but one of the Ogre Awards are bestowed upon fairy tale characters, with a special honor going to a real person. This year that special someone was none other than Davis, who was thrilled to return to the Ogre Award stage as a guest and recipient of the 2013 Special Ogre award.
“We give this award each year to someone who provides exceptional service or support to the Harker libraries. I can’t think of anyone who fits that bill better than Mrs. Davis. As creator and director of the show for 16 years, she has written scripts and song parodies, made sets and props by hand, designed costumes, and rehearsed the children in library classes in the weeks leading up to the performance. It is pure joy for her to see the children experience the magic of theater in the shows she has written,” enthused Smith.
Smith further noted that the Ogre Awards are the culmination of the second grade library curriculum, which Davis also developed. “I loved Mrs. Davis’ acceptance speech – she said that being given the Special Ogre award meant so much .… After giving the award to others for so many years, it came back to her!”
Adding to the festive event was a special guest appearance by Brian Larsen, Harker’s production manager, appearing as the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. Towards the end of the show, the much anticipated Best Folk or Fairy Tale award went to the book “The Water of Life.”
Ensuring the Ogre Awards ran smoothly was a dedicated team both on hand and behind the scenes, comprising volunteer faculty and parents helping out with technical direction, music, costumes, videography and choreography.
All that hard work paid off, as this year’s show went off without a hitch, much to the delight of parents and other members of the audience, who gave the students rousing applause as the performance came to a close.
Each year Harker holds its Teacher Institute as the school year wraps up and this year, it will be led by Lisa Diffenderfer, Scott Kley Contini and Diane Main, all of the instructional technology department. The event, June 8 this year, features presentations by Harker teachers on a wide variety of classroom techniques. Last year, more than 175 participants came out for the event held on the upper school campus to learn about technology and different methods to improve classroom curricula. Read all about last year’s event!
Watch for updates, and register early to get a spot!
This story was submitted by Harker parent Narendra Nayak (Avinash, grade 11).
With a busy year winding down, grade 11 families decided on a get-together that would be fun and entertaining for all. Initiated by grade-level coordinators Ana Duraiswamy (Kevin, grade 11; Ashley, grade 5) and Priya Cherukuri (Varun, grade 11), a large group of families congregated March 16 at Nichols Hall on the Saratoga campus for the Multicultural Family Social. Attendees enjoyed music from across the world and across the decades, which helped set the tone for the evening. Several guests were attired in traditional clothing and the social hour that preceded dinner provided ample opportunity to meet and greet other guests. The multicultural dinner spread gave the guests a true taste for the diversity in culture the school’s families offer.
It was then time for family games. A challenging round of Bingo followed by a well-contested musical chairs had everyone in the audience on their feet, cheering the contestants as they engaged in cordial competition. The games were followed by entertainment in which both children and adults performed dance and vocal numbers. The crowd often tested the limits of the loudness meter when expressing their appreciation.
For the grand finale the floor was opened up for dancing to lively music with parents and children stepping it up with vigorous participation. While the four-hour event helped the grade 11 families mingle in a relaxed atmosphere, the one complaint from the 80-odd guests was that it was too short! Much credit for the success of the event goes to Harker’s advancement office, kitchen staff, facility department and security staff for their support in planning and running the event.
Sadhika Malladi, grade 9, received an Aspirations in Computing Award from the National Center for Women in Informational Technology (NCWIT), which recognizes young women in high schools across the country for their achievements in the various fields of computing. The NCWIT chooses awardees based on their aptitude, leadership skills, academic standing and their future goals for a career in computing. Malladi chose upper school AP Computer Science teacher Richard Page to endorse her.
Malladi said that winning the award has introduced her to a community of inspiring women in the computing industry. “I’ve been welcomed into this community of amazing and inspiring women who work in the computing field and many high school girls who share a similar interest in computing,” she said. “More than the prestige of the award, I’m excited to be part of this community because they share exciting technological opportunities and scholarships with everyone.”
Prizes that Malladi received for winning the award included an iPod Touch, a $250 Amazon gift card and a tour of the Google campus.
Previous Harker winners of this award include Sierra Lincoln, grade 12, Shreya Nathan ’11, Vivian Wong ’10 and Jacqueline Wang ’13 (deceased).
This year’s “United Voices” concert moved to the beautiful Mexican Heritage Theater in San Jose, where every one of Harker’s student vocal groups performed. The Bucknall Choir, directed by Kellie Binney-Smart and Jennifer Sandusky and made up of grade 4-5 students, got things started with the traditional Irish folk song “Shady Grove,” Franz Schubert’s “An Die Musik,” one of the few songs that evening to be sung in a foreign language, and “We Believe in Music” by Teresa Jennings.
Mary Ellen Agnew-Place directed the grade 6 show choir Dynamics, the first of the middle school groups, who went on stage to perform their own three-song set, performing songs such as the iconic World War II hit “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Bigger Isn’t Better” from the Broadway musical “Barnum.”
Next up was the grade 7-8 group Harmonics, directed by Agnew-Place and Monica Colletti, who sang “All That Jazz” from the musical “Chicago” before being joined by their classmates in Vivace, led by Paul Woodruff, to sing their rendition of the Cyndi Lauper hit “True Colors.” Vivace then took over to perform “Sing and We Chant It” by Thomas Morley and Duke Ellington and Bob Russell’s jazz standard “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”
Starting off for the upper school was the Sandusky-directed group Bel Canto, who sang a medley from the much-loved Broadway musical “West Side Story” and the traditional spiritual “Battle of Jericho.” Susan Nace then directed Camerata, who sang Thomas Morley’s “Shoot False Love” before the upper school show choir group Downbeat, directed by Laura Lang-Ree and Sandusky, brought the house down with the Michael Jackson classic “Man in the Mirror” and funk legends Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Sing a Song.”
Crowd favorite Cantilena, led by Susan Nace, was the final group to represent the upper school, singing Ko Matsushita’s “Dona Nobis Pacem,” “The Hanging Tree” by Michael Sheppard and concluding with the evocative “See the Chariot at Hand” by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
The show ended with the all of the night’s performers gathering on stage for a stirring performance of Jim Papoulis’ “Oye.”
This story was submitted by middle school Latin teacher Lisa Masoni and upper school Latin teacher Scott Paterson.
Over the weekend of March 16, Harker Junior Classical League (JCL) students headed south to Sage Hill School to attend the JCL State Convention. They enjoyed workshops, fellowship with Latin students from all over the state and competitions involving many aspects of classical knowledge. The students performed admirably, winning many prizes and earning the middle school first place at the middle school level and the upper school second place at the high school level.
Upper school students brought back the following awards in individual categories:
In the HS-2 category (for Latin 2 students):
Jessica Chang, grade 10: first in Roman Daily Life; Serena Wang, grade 10: first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations; Tyler Yeats, grade 12: first in Latin Derivatives; Anthony Luo, grade 9: second in Classical Mythology.
In the HS-3 category (for Latin 3 students):
William Bloomquist, grade 10: first in Catullus Recitation; Elisabeth Siegel, grade 9: first in Academic Pentathlon, second in Classical Mythology, second in Grammar; Sreyas Misra, grade 11: tied for second in Latin Derivatives; Allison Wang, grade 9: tied for third in Academic Pentathlon, third in Classical Mythology, third in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations.
In the HS-Adv division (for students in Latin 4 and above):
Nik Datuashvili, grade 12: tied for first in Latin Sight Reading (Prose), first in Reading Comprehension, first in Latin derivatives, second in Latin Vocabulary, third in Latin Sight Reading (Poetry); Kevin Duraiswamy, grade 11: tied for first in Latin Sight Reading (Prose), first in Catullus Recitation, first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations, second in Grammar; Richard Fan, grade 12: tied for first in Ancient Geography, first in Classical Art, second in Roman Daily Life; Maya Nandakumar, grade 10: first in Dramatic Interpretation (Girls); Erik Andersen, grade 12: tied for second in Latin Derivatives, fourth in Grammar; Sean Fernandes: second in Ancient Geography; Billy Bloomquist (playing up a level): second in Latin Sight Reading (prose); Helena Huang, grade 11: tied for third in Classical Mythology, tied for fourth in Latin Derivatives; Laura Pedrotti, grade 12: tied for fourth in Latin Derivatives; Sophia Shatas, grade 10: fourth in Classical Mythology; Eric Zhang, grade 12: third in Ancient Geography.
In the general HS category (including all levels of high school Latin):
Sarika Bajaj, grade 11: first in Photography, third in Multimedia; Andrew Luo, grade 12: first in Chess; Maya Nandakumar: first in Vocal Competition; Sreyas Misra: second in Chess
Middle school students brought back the following awards for group competitions:
William Bloomquist, Rishabh Chandra, grade 9, Kaushik Sankar, grade 9, and Allison Wang: first in HS-3 Competitive Certamen; Elisabeth Siegel (playing up a level), Nik Datuashvili, Kevin Duraiswamy and Richard Fan: second place in HS-Adv Competitive Certamen; second Chariot Race (Girls)
Finally, Elisabeth Siegel won the Individual Academic award for HS-3 by earning the most points overall within her level.
A t the Middle School 1 level (all grade 6):
Robert Bloomquist: first in Latin Vocabulary; Nikhil Dharmaraj: first in Sight Latin Reading, second in Brass/Winds, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Taylor Lam: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, first in Dramatic Interpretation, third in Latin Sight Reading; Arthur Oung: second in Mythology
Middle School 2 (all grade 7 unless otherwise noted):
Justin Au: first in Reading Comp I, first in Dramatic Interpretation, first in Brass/Winds, second in Grammar I, second in Sight Latin Reading, third in Latin Oratory, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Praveen Batra: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, first in Mythology; Rahul Bhethanabotla: second in Classical Art, fourth in Ancient Geography; Adrian Chu: first in Classical Art, second in Roman History; Derek Kuo: fourth in Classical Art; Michael Kwan: third in Ancient Geography; Nikhil Manglik, grade 8: first in Ancient Geography, second in Academic Pentathlon, fourth in Mythology.
Middle School 3 (all grade 8):
Aditya Dhar: first in Latin Derivatives, first in Mythology, second in Academic Pentathlon, second in Dramatic Interpretation; Alexander Lam: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, second in Reading Comp II, second in Latin Oratory, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Venkat Sankar: first in Ancient Geography, first in Roman Daily Life, first in Reading Comp II, first in Sight Latin Reading; Arjun Subramaniam: second in Latin Derivatives, second in Mythology, third in Reading Comp II; Arnav Tandon: first in Reading Comp III, second in Grammar II; Austin Tuan: first in Grammar II, first in Academic Pentathlon; Albert Xu: fourth in Mythology; Raymond Xu: first in Classical Art, first in Roman History, fourth in Ancient Geography.
In the chapter competitions, the Certamen (quiz bowl) teams also did well, benefiting from their depth of knowledge and quick thumbs on the buzzers: Middle School 1 placed third (Bobby Bloomquist, Nikhil Dharmaraj, Taylor Lam and Arthur Oung; Allison Cartee, grade 6, also played on the team at the qualifying rounds in February); Middle School 2 placed third (Justin Au, Praveen Batra, Rahul Bhethanabotla, Adrian Chu and Nikhil Manglik; Justin Su, grade 7, also played on the team at the qualifying rounds in February); Middle School 3 placed second with an edge-of-the-seat five-point loss to Mirman (Aditya Dhar, Alexander Lam, Venkat Sankar and Arjun Subramaniam).
JCL club members who were unable to attend the convention contributed greatly to Harker’s success in chapter contests. Harker was second place in the banner, T-shirt (designed by Heidi Zhang, grade 6), scrapbook (created by Allison Cartee, grade 6) and spirit contests, and third in the chariot race.
When all the sweepstakes points were added up, Harker middle school students swept the state champion results. The winners of the Individual Academic sweepstakes were Taylor Lam (MS1), Justin Au (MS2) and Venkat Sankar (MS3). All three then went on to win Individual Combined as well.