This article originally appeared in the summer 2017 issue of Harker Magazine.
Judge John Byron Owens MS ’85 earned his first paycheck, for $180, from Harker in 1985. He rode his bike from Cupertino to campus every day that summer to work as a camp counselor. It was the beginning of a journey distinguished by hard work, intellect and honor.
“No one at Harker is surprised by John’s success,” said Pat Walsh, Owens’ fifth grade teacher. “It’s not just that he’s brilliant, which he is, but that he’s filled with integrity.”
Owens, who attended Harker from grades 3-8, has remained in touch with Walsh. In 2014, Owens even invited Walsh to his swearing-in ceremony as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Before being nominated by President Barack Obama, Owens had a successful career as an attorney, served as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and graduated first in his class at Stanford Law School. All these successes came with a lot of hard work, one of Owens’ core values, along with honesty and kindness.
“There is no substitute for hard work, especially when you are in high school and college. Hard work now makes the rest of your life much easier,” is advice he has shared with Harker students in the past and regularly shares with his two daughters.
And Owens definitely walks the talk. Last season he coached his eldest daughter’s club basketball team, which made the playoffs. He stressed to the team to work hard at practice but also at home on shooting and dribbling. He realized that a coach cannot ask his players to work hard if he also isn’t willing to put in the time, so he spent hours reviewing game films and statistics, and designed a new offense for the team. They won both playoff games by nearly 20 points.
“So it may seem crazy – a federal judge is spending hours watching youth basketball games – but it was an important lesson for our players and especially my oldest daughter to understand that success only happens through hard work,” said Owens. “It is not fair to have hard-working players led by an unprepared coach.”
Owens has always loved sports and even worked as a marketing assistant for the Golden State Warriors when he was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. But his love of the law prevailed. His law career includes serving as an assistant U.S. attorney for both the central and southern districts of California, as well as a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.
Owens, a big science fiction fan, was lauded by “Above the Law” for “nerding out.” The legal website referenced Lone Star Security & Video v. City of Los Angeles, where he incorporated “a Monopoly analogy and a reference to ‘The Twilight Zone’ to urge the Supreme Court to reconsider its holdings.” Other opinions have referenced “Game of Thrones,” “Star Trek” and the horror movie “The Thing.”
His lighter, nerdier side often peeks through when he returns to Harker, from sharing his experience as a judge with third graders to discussing honors and ethics with upper school students. He earned the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007 and serves on Harker’s Board of Trustees.
“He is well-respected regardless of his role on campus,” said Sarah Leonard, Owens’ third grade teacher and now primary division head. “He has a wonderful way with the third grade students, really driving home his message about hard work, determination, setting goals and perseverance, but he does so in a manner that captures the children’s attention and holds them almost spellbound.“
Owens and his family live in San Diego. In their free time, they enjoy going to the boxing gym on Saturday mornings, where they hit the bags while the youngest takes karate. A perfect day would include a 5-mile run for Owens, followed by a relaxing afternoon and watching the Warriors play in the evening (he’s still a big fan).
Owens values time with his family and, when asked what his proudest accomplishment was, he replied, “That’s easy – my two girls. They both learned at an early age from my wife and me that success in life – academics, sports, the arts – requires hard work.”
Contributor Vikki Bowes-Mok is also the executive director of the community nonprofit Compass Collective.
Gargeya is one of only 20 students nationwide to recieve the award; he will use it toward his education at Stanford University. Gargeya earned several awards for the development while at Harker, including a first prize in the RRI physical science and engineering category at the 2016 Synopsys Championships. He was a semifinalist in the 2016 Siemens Competition and a regional finalist in the international Google Science Fair 2016. Here is an article about that accomplishment from the Merc: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/08/10/saratoga-harker-senior-a-google-science-fair-finalist/)
In his official bio, Gargeya had some nice things to say about his time at Harker:
“Rishab attributes his time at The Harker School for having given him an amazing opportunity to push himself in a highly academic environment. Rishab has been fortunate to have worked with many intellectually driven people throughout his high school career, including his science teacher Mr. Chris Spenner, who has been very influential in shaping his research.”
Read Gargeya’s full bio here: http://www.davidsongifted.org/Fellows-Scholarship/2017-Davidson-Fellows/Rishab-Gargeya
Andrew Zhu ’14, a junior at NYU, was recently recognized with All-Academic honors by the United Volleyball Conference. This is the second year in a row that Zhu has received this award. This season, his team won its first UVC title, as well as made its first trip to the NCAA D3 volleyball tournament and finished the season ranked No. 7 in the nation. While at Harker, Zhu was a three-time captain and MVP. Congrats Andrew!
Congratulations to Izzy Connell ’13 on being named a CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) third team Academic All-American this week. Connell graduated from Pepperdine University this spring as a psychology major with a 3.96 GPA. She also was the school’s top female sprinter in the program’s history, holding nine school records, and was named Pepperdine’s Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the 2016-17 season. Check out the full story here:
Ashvin Swaminathan ’13 was recently awarded Harvard’s David Mumford Undergraduate Mathematics Prize, which is given to the “most promising” outstanding seniors who have chosen mathematics as a concentration, according to the Harvard University website. Swaminathan will graduate from Harvard this month with degrees in mathematics and physics. Last month he was awarded a Soros Fellowship for New Americans, earning additional funding for his graduate studies in mathematics, which he plans to begin in the fall at Princeton.
The career of D.J. Blickenstaff ’09, a musical theater certificate graduate, continues to heat up! Check him out in the trailer for Netflix’s new series, “Dear White People,” which premiered April 28! https://www.instagram.com/p/BRi7bRfh6tx/
Elisabeth Siegel ’16, a Mitra Grant recipient during her senior year at Harker, has had her Mitra paper, titled “Ideology through Subliminal Propaganda: A Critique of Portrayals of Palestine and Palestinians in Israeli and Western Online News Media during Operation Protective Edge,” published by Yale Review of International Studies! http://yris.yira.org/essays/2005.
Harker history teacher Damon Halback, who mentored Siegel while she wrote the paper, spotted Siegel’s Facebook post, and noted she had added a call to action to current Harker students:
“HARKER STUDENTS — if you still have the chance to apply for a Near/Mitra grant, PLEASE do. It was definitely one of the highlights of my time in high school. It took me on so many unexpected twists and turns, from learning practical skills like writing natural language processing stuff to aid a social science paper as well as not leaving footnotes till the last week before the due date, as well as less tangible things, like determination and self-drive, how much of my life I’d taken for granted, and much more. DO IT!”
Halback also added a special kudos to his colleagues who help administer and manage the endowment papers process. “This is a credit to all the hard work put in every year by Donna [Gilbert, history department chair], Sue [Smith, library director], Meredith [Cranston, upper school librarian] and Lauri [Vaughan, upper school campus librarian] to make Near/Mitra such a wonderful example of the scholarly values that Harker promotes,” he said.
The deadline to apply for a John Near or Mitra Family endowment grant is April 21 at 6 p.m. Details can be found here: http://library.harker.org/Scholars/ScholarApps
Harker alumnus Ayush Midha ’15 is still winning debate awards – now as a Harvard student! He and his Harvard debate partner won the Rex Copeland Award, which is presented to the top college debate team in the nation.
Midha and partner won several invitational tournaments, giving them the best overall record of the year. The award was announced at the National Debate Tournament, held March 24-27 at the University of Kansas. Other teams in the top five included Georgetown University, Wake Forest University and two teams from U.C. Berkeley.
Harker debate coaches Greg and Jenny Achten attended the tournament and were very proud to see Midha receive the Copeland and to make it to the quarterfinals of the tournament. “It is a ton of fun to watch our alums debate so successfully at the collegiate level,” said Jenny Achten. Greg Achten added that Midha’s debate achievements are especially laudable alongside his rigorous premed course of study.
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.
Congratulations to Michael Amick ’13, who was selected in the second round (32nd overall) of the MLS draft by the Portland Timbers. Amick played college soccer at UCLA, where he was a three-time team captain, first team All-Pac 12 selection in his sophomore year, honorable mention All-Pac 12 selection in his junior and senior years, Pac 12 All-Academic first team selection in his junior and senior year, and Pac 12 men’s soccer Scholar Athlete of the Year in his senior year. “When I finally heard my name, it was a huge relief and a very exciting moment to walk on stage, taking the next step to pursue my soccer career,” said Amick. See the moment when Amick was selected: http://www.timbers.com/post/2017/01/13/2017-mls-superdraft-defender-michael-amick-s-draft-day-podium-speech
Girls Basketball
The girls basketball team dropped a close 37-35 game against Castilleja last week. Jordan Thompson, grade 12, led the Eagles with 18 points in the loss. Later in the week, the Eagles bounced back with a 60-33 win over Mercy Burlingame. Thompson again scored 18 points, with Selin Sayiner, grade 11, adding 11 points. The Eagles have most of the week off until they host The Kings Academy on Friday.
Boys Basketball
The boys basketball team picked up a 66-50 win over Crystal Springs Uplands last week, with Eric Jeong, grade 11, leading the way with 17 points. The victory also marked the 600th win in the impressive career of coach Butch Keller. However, later in the week, the Eagles fell to Eastside College Prep 51-44. Gene Wang, grade 10, led Harker with 11 points. Next up for the boys are home games versus The Kings’ Academy on Tuesday and Menlo on Friday.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team dropped two matches last week, a 2-1 loss to Crystal Springs Uplands and a 4-0 loss to Sacred Heart Prep. This week, the Eagles host Menlo on Friday and Eastside College Prep on Friday.
Girls Soccer
The girls soccer team was defeated 8-0 by Woodside Priory last week, but looks to rebound with three matches this week. The Eagles travel to Castilleja on Tuesday and Mercy Burlingame on Thursday, before hosting Eastside College Prep on Friday.
US Wrestling
The Eagles wrestling team opened its league season with a 45-36 loss to Los Altos last week. Alan Hughes, grade 11, Eric Fang, grade 9, and Davis Howard, grade 12, all picked up wins by pin. This past weekend, the Eagles competed at the Los Gatos Wildcat Invitational with Fang finishing third in the 195-pound division, Devin Keller, grade 9, finishing fourth in the 136-pound division and Kobe Howard, grade 10, finishing seventh in the 132-pound division. The Eagles host their first match of the year this Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at Blackford against Saratoga High.
MS Wrestling
Congrats to Dezi Johnsen, grade 7, who took first in the grade 6-8 boys 142-pound division at the prestigious New Year’s Bash middle school wrestling tournament in Clovis this past weekend.
Congratulations to cross country and track coach Scott Chisam on being named a starter at this year’s state track meet. Chisam is a member of the CCS Starters Association and was nominated to join starters from other CIF sections at the finals in June.
Izzy Connell ’13 continues her stellar collegiate career at Pepperdine University as she set two school records in the first meet of the women’s indoor track season. At Northern Arizona’s Friday Night Duals last Friday, Connell broke her own school record in the 60-meter sprint, placing sixth in the event. She also placed sixth and broke the school record in the 400. Connell also holds the school records in the 100, 200, 400, 4×400 and the indoor 200.