San Francisco Bay Guardian – Aug. 14, 2009 Enid Davis, library director, K – Gr. 12, was featured in the Street Threads: Look of the Day photo feature, taken while she was on Union Street in San Francisco.
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. Today's Look: Enid the Librarian, Fillmore and Union
Tokyo U.S. Embassy Blog – Aug. 13, 2009 – Tokyo Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission James P. Zumwalt wrote a blog entry about Japan Bowl winners Roslyn Li, Sara Wang, both Gr. 12, and Kevin Wang ’09. An error in the blog states that Wang will be attending Princeton in the fall. Wang will in fact be going to Dartmouth.
Los Altos Town Crier/losaltosonline.com – Aug. 12, 2009 Arjun Chandra, Gr. 12, was featured in this article for his work this summer at UC Davis as one of 40 students statewide participating in the UC Davis Young Scholars Program.
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal – May 15, 2009 Valley Life noted the Harker Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) won top honors at the national competition, bringing home $5,000 and a trophy. See the full story at Harker News Online.
San Jose Mercury News – May 1, 2009 Harker Japanese students were mentioned as the winners of the National Japan Bowl. Harker swept all three top positions and the top team traveled to Japan as part of their award (see full article in Harker News, May, 2009, page 1, read about the trip in Harker News Online)
NAIS.org – May 2009 The Ogre Awards were written about by founder Enid Davis, library director, K – Gr. 12, and the article was published on the National Assocation of Independent Schools’ Web site with an update.
Image Magazine – May 2009 The annual fashion show was featured in a full-page article showing many photos of students and parents.
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal – March 27, 2009 The Valley Life section has a front page feature with three great photos featuring Harker students, volunteers, faculty and staff at the annual Harker fashion show, titled Freeze Frame.
Three Harker students were honored for their fine volleyball season this past year. Chad Gordon, a rising senior, was named to the All-Mercury Second Team as outside hitter, while alumnus Matthew Gehm ’09, middle blocker and Eugene Huang, also a rising senior, setter, received honorable mentions. In addition, for his leadership and inspiration, boys volleyball coach and athletic director Dan Molin was named Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Co-Coach of the Year.
Harker is represented on both baseball and softball teams in the All-Mercury lineups announced in late June. Shelby Drabman ’09 made the Mercury News Honorable Mention squad and first team all-league for softball. In baseball, Barrett Glasauer ’09 also made Honorable Mention for the Mercury News as well as being named league player of the year. Congrats to both! Read more about softball and baseball honorable mentions.
San Jose Mercury News –June 26, 2009 Recent graduate Shelby Drabman ’09 made the list of All-Mercury News honorable mentions and was named to the first team for the Mercury’s Softball All-League team in the Santa Clara Valley’s West Bay region. Another graduate, Barrett Glasauer ’09 received an All-Mercury News honorable mention for baseball.
San Jose Mercury News – June 17, 2009 Junior Chad Gordon made the the All-Mercury News second team for boys volleyball. Senior Matthew Gehm and junior Eugene Huang received honorable mentions. Boys volleyball coach, Dan Molin, named one of two coaches of the year in the DeAnza Division.
Vogue.com – June 2009 The Alexander Wang Gap collaboration collection was written up in this Resort Report column by Mark Holgate.
NAIS.org– May 2009 The Ogre Awards were written about by founder Enid Davis, head librarian and the article was published with an update.
San Jose Mercury News– May 1, 2009 Harker Japanese students were mentioned as the winners of the National Japan Bowl. Harker swept all three top positions and one team will travel to Japan as part of their award (see full article in Harker News, May, 2009, page 1)
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal– May 15, 2009 Valley Life noted the Harker Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) won top honors at the national competition, bringing home $5,000 and a trophy (see full article in Harker News, June, 2008, page 32)
Image Magazine – May 2009 The annual Fashion Show was featured in a full page article showing many photos of students and parents.
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal – March 27, 2009 The Valley Life page featured photos and a short article about the Harker annual Fashion Show.
MercuryNews.Com – March 24, 2009: Congratulations to Kristina Bither, Gr. 12, for making the All-Mercury News Honorable Mention list for girls soccer. Read the full article.
CBS 60 Minutes – March 22, 2009: Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes filmed a segment on Mensa at last summer’s convention in Denver. Julian Wise, Gr. 10, appears about 4.5 minutes in to the segment.
sjsuspartans.com – March 18, 2009: Jason Martin ’07, son of Steve Martin, Harker’s executive chef, is mentioned in the game review post as starting off the two-game series with a three-run homer. Read the full article.
Gentry Magazine – Feb., 2009: Great feature with photos on the opening of Nichols Hall and promotion of the fashion show.
Howard Nichols
October 10, 1940 – December 31, 2008
Leader and visionary of The Harker School, Howard Nichols, passed away Dec. 31, 2008.
A crowd of approximately 750 gathered Jan. 16, 2009 to formally say goodbye to Harker’s longtime leader and and visionary, Howard Nichols, who died Dec. 31, 2008. The event was held in Nichols Hall, a building recently completed and dedicated to Howard and his wife, Diana, in August.
Nichols battled esophageal cancer for years, and as 2008 was coming to a close, he and his family made the transition into hospice care at Howard and Diana’s home in Carmel. Howard and Diana discussed the memorial, and chose the music, musicians and speakers together, allowing Diana, his family and the Harker community the unique and special gift of knowing – and carrying out – Howard’s wishes as our final tribute to him.
To open the memorial, the Nichols family – Diana, daughters Stephanie and Elizabeth, Diana’s son, Greg, their spouses and Howard’s grandchildren, and Diana’s sister, Marie, and her family – was escorted into Nichols Hall by upper and middle school student body officers serving as the color guard. They presented the flags of the state of California, the U.S. and Harker in acknowledgment of Nichols’ military past at the Palo Alto Military Academy.
For the music, Diana Nichols called on friend and performing arts chair Laura Lang-Ree to gather alumni from the early graduating classes to sing with her. Lang-Ree was joined by Siobhan Stevenson ’07, Maheen Kaleem ’03 and Neil Bhalerao ’04, as well as pianist Catherine Snider, upper school vocal group Downbeat, and a string ensemble of upper school students.
In his opening remarks, Chris Nikoloff, head of school, reminded us that we were all loved by Nichols as much as we loved him. Sylvia Harp read the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, a favorite of Nichols’. Teacher John Near gave the main address, and made us laugh even as we cried. Lon Allan, Kelly Espinosa and Pat Walsh each told stories of how Nichols had touched their lives in very special ways. During the open remembrances segment of the program, audience members shared stories and heartfelt memories. Through it all, the recurring theme was Nichols’ indefatigable kindness, generosity and faith in people. Employees who needed a little extra help, students who marveled at his approachability, colleagues who played ball with him – all felt themselves an important part of the Harker family Nichols created, and all have better lives today for having been touched by Howard Nichols.
The service included some video moments: Nichols as he participated in school productions, recited “The Night Before Christmas” to the boarders (an annual holiday tradition), and gave the matriculation address to Harker’s first incoming upper school class. A slide show captured dozens of moments Nichols shared with his immediate and extended Harker family. In the spirit of Harker’s release of doves at each graduation, the program closed with a short film of Diana Nichols releasing a single dove in front of Nichols Hall to help us all say farewell to Howard, beloved husband, father, grandfather, friend, leader and mentor.
Howard Nichols will forever be remembered, respected and revered for the impact of his life’s work in education, for the generous and humble life he led, and for the example he set for us all.
Please visit our Giving page to make a donation in honor of Howard.
Six Harker seniors — Dominque Dabija, Daniel Kim, Elena Madan, Anand Natarajan, Vikram Nathan, and Denzil Sikka — have been named semifinalists in Intel’s Science Talent Search. This represents the highest number of semifinalists a single California school has produced since the contest began.
The students each received $1,000 for this milestone, and are now eligible to win the $100,000 grand prize.
There were only 25 semifinalists in California, out of 300 nationwide. Over 1,600 students submitted entries. Harker winners’ research covered a wide array of subjects, from “Computational Methods for Identifying Functionally Important Residues Involved in Allosteric Communication Pathways” (Dabija’s) to “Novel Quantitative Models of Reaction Kinetics” (Nathan’s). In 2006, Harker’s Yi Sun (’06) went on to the nationals, taking second place and winning $75,000.
Harker students have a long tradition of contributing to worthy causes, but they more than out did themselves during Global Empowerment and Outreach (GEO) Week in November when proceeds more than quadrupled the original goal.
The fundraising activities, as noted in the San Jose Mercury News Online, administered by members of the campus GEO club, ranged from vows of silence by students to the hilarious but lucrative pig-kissing commitment by faculty members. The result? Enough money was raised not only to supply about 50 pigs to rural farmers to bring them above the poverty level, but, ultimately, enough to build an entire school serving up to 500 children. The final amount was more than $14,000, a stunning result in these hard economic times.
A critical component of the effort was GEO’s efforts to educate students on the conditions in China the group hoped to alleviate by providing pigs to help farmers climb above the poverty level. The GEO week kick-off began the Friday before with a talk by Kim Plewes, international youth coordinator for Free the Children, a Toronto-based organization assisting families around the world to escape poverty by harnessing the energy of North American youths.
Plewes traveled from Toronto in early December to accept the oversized check and thank the students in person for their hard work and generosity. “This is remarkable,” she said in front of an assembly of students. “We have not had a single school in Northern California in the last two, three, four years remotely raise this much this much money in an entire year, and you did it in a single week.”
Along with the vow of silence pledges and pig-kissing contest, student fundraising included a beverage and tote bag sale and, to raise awareness, a millennium development goal scavenger hunt trivia contest on poverty and China.
Funds will go to Gansu province in China where alternative income efforts include providing pigs to farmers and training the farmers on their care. That extra income often allows the children to go to school along with reducing hunger and improving living conditions.
“We are amazed at the week that the GEO club at Harker was able to put together in just three short months,” said Plewes. “We haven’t seen this level of organization and successful execution of such a diverse number of fundraising and awareness raising events from any other group in California.
“On behalf of the entire Free The Children team, I would like to thank the GEO club for all of the effort and creativity that they demonstrated during the amazing week that happened recently. We are blown away by the support and energy from the Harker community for our programming in China. Thank you!”
