Student Achievements
Students in the News
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Grace Erny Recognized in State Poetry Out Loud Finals
Grace Erny of Sonoma Academy took the second runner-up spot in this year's highly competitive California's Poetry Out Loud state finals. Placer County student Roshawnda Bettencourt of Oakmont High School took first place and Sacramento County student Daniel Horne of Elk Grove High School took the first runner-up position. This year marks the third time the California Arts Council has produced the statewide Poetry Out Loud competition, a contest that encourages high school students to learn about poetry through memorization, performance, and competition of classical poetry.
Academic
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Students Win at Agilent Robotics Competition
Nicole Pope
SA engineering students represented very well in the 5th annual Agilent-MESA robotic competition.
After our students had to make a quick decision to continue to compete while our community was grieving a tragic loss, they had to immediately get in the robot zone. It was incredible that the first time an SA engineering class was offered and our students competed in the college division of the robotic challenge, we placed in the top 5. Liberty Moyer and William Jaeger took 1st place, Dylan Barth, PJ Lasseter and Joe Larsen placed 4th, and Nick Angell, Erin Mahoney and Rebecca Nadeau placed 5th. Cash prizes were awarded to the top 4 teams, gift cards were given to all the teams that beat the Agilent engineers, and all students received a backpack, memory stick, and more goodies. Our shining moment was in the Pit o’ Despair competition (where the robot attempts to cross the pit from one end to the other). SA robots were so fast that we broke records. Joe, Dylan, and PJ completed the pit in a little over 4 seconds. Nick, Erin and Rebecca had a personal best time in around 5.6 seconds. We took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in this competition. SA’s high school students beat the master robotic college teams and Agilent’s engineers in this competition.
You can read the Press Democrat article at http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080523/NEWS/352142616/1033/NEWS&title=Building_a_better_robot# -
Seniors named National Merit Scholar Commended Students
SA seniors Jennifer Robinson and Eliana Trenam have been named Commended Students in the 2007 National Merit Scholarship Program. The two are among 34,000 students throughout the U.S. to be recognized for their exceptional academic promise. Commended Students placed among the top five percent of more than 1.4 million students who entered the 2007 competition by taking the 2005 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
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Four Students Named National Merit Scholarship Finalists
Arts
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Heather Littlefield's Work in National Arts Exhibition
Heather Littlefield’s national award-winning artwork, Ophelia, from The Scholastic Art Awards was selected for exhibition in Washington D.C! The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the Department of Education will exhibit 50 artworks by national award winners in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building September 2008 through August 2009.
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Students Win Art Awards in National Competition
Four SA students earned Gold Key Awards, or regional recognition, in The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a national competition sponsored by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. Hannah Harb-Murley, Class of 2009, won in the category of digital imagery for “Racism in America.” Heather Littlefield, Class of 2010, earned an award in the category of design/graphics for “Ophelia.” Toby Newman, Class of 2008, won two awards in the category of digital imagery, for “Hand Head” and “Wire Tree.”
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Theater Class wins Marin Theater Co. Competition
SA’s contemporary theater class won the Grand Prize for Best Overall Performance in the Marin Theater Company's Scenefest, competing against Miller Creek, San Marin, San Domenico, Marin School of the Arts, and Branson.
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Grace Erny Wins Poetry Out Loud Competition
Ben Wallo and Grace Erny, backed by a large turnout of Sonoma Academy students, took Sonoma County by storm at the Poetry Out Loud competition held at CHOPs on Friday night. Grace won first place and Ben honorable mention. She will compete in Sacramento at the state competition on March 14. Ben gave two very dramatic presentations: the first a dazzling performance of Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," followed by William Carlos Williams' "To Elsie," which he delivered with flourish and style. And then there was Grace, who delivered a riveting rendition of Sylvia Plath's "Fever 103." Everyone in CHOPs was spellbound for the entire two and a half minutes. Next, she performed T.S. Eliot's "Preludes," probably the longest and most difficult piece attempted by any of the contestants...
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Laura Pugh Wins Photography Award in Youth Art Contest
Community Service
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SA and Leadership Institute Share Environmental Award
At the 32nd annual Environmental Awards Dinner on March 29, The Sonoma County Conservation Council and the Sierra Club Sonoma Group awarded the Outstanding Environmental Education Program/Project to “Leadership Training for a Sustainable Future and Sonoma Academy Youth Program,” led by Suzi O’Rear, Program Director at the Leadership Institute, and SA math-science teachers Sam Horton, Mike Peller and David Vaughn. The program recognized is the one being implemented with sophomores this year during CONNECTIONS. Initiated in 2006, this award is granted to programs and projects that are recognized by the SCCC as having used special innovation and insight to teach students, young and old, about the environment.
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Community Youth Service Award Honorees
Afroz Baig received a Community Youth Service Award at the Press Democrat’s annual recognition ceremonies, which were held last night at the WFC. She won in the category of health science for her fundraising to support and AIDS nurse in Kenya. She was chosen from group of 18 other nomimees in it. Seniors Hallie Detrick and Jenni Robinson were both honored nominees; Hallie in the category of Vocational for her fundraising work to support the Kenya AIDs nurse and Jenni Robinson in the category of Community Action for her work with the Teen Court. SA has had students recognized in the Community Youth Service Awards every year since 2005.
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NAIS 2005 National Award
The community service dedication and enthusiasm of our entire student body won Sonoma Academy the prestigious Leading Edge Award for Community Relations from the National Association of Independent Schools for our CONNECTIONS program.
Conferences
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Model United Nations
Sonoma Academy has sent students annually to at least one regional Model United Nations Conference.
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People of Color Conference
Every year since its opening, Sonoma Academy has selected students to send to national People of Color Conference of the National Association of Independent Schools. The student portion of the conference is called the Student Diversity Leadership Conference.
Sports
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Sonoma Academy Athletes of the Year
Athletic Department Staff
The Press Democrat hosted their annual Empire athlete of the year awards banquet on May 21st and Sonoma Academy athletes won the following awards:
Boys athlete of the year: Julian McIntosh
Girls athlete of the year: Grace Hafner
Boys scholar athlete of the year: Urban (Ben) Anderson
Girls scholar athlete of the year: Bianca Farrow For more information on the SA winners, please click below. -
Rhiannah Rovelli-Alyxander Named All-Empire
Students and staff,
Please congratulate Rhiannah, who was selected to the Press Democrat All-Empire honorable mention team for girls basketball. This is a tremendous honor, since athletes are selected from all of the schools in the Redwood Empire. Congratulations to Rhi on this great honor!
For a complete list of the boys and girls teams, visit the following link:
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080510/SPORTS/636467144 -
Alex Simmons Takes 20th at World Fencing Championship
Senior Alex Simmons finished 20th in the Junior World Fencing Championships held in Acrieale, Sicily, Italy. Alex lost to eventual gold medalist Suguru Awaji of Japan 15-11 in a closely contested bout to make the round of 16.
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All-League Teams in Press Democrat Today
The students who earned All-League honors for basketball were recognized in the sports section of the Press Democrat today, Wed., March 12. You can see it online at: http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=PREPS
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Winter athletes recognized
Athletic Department
The boys and girls basketball teams had their postseason banquets last week and student-athletes were awarded team and All League honors. Both teams were recognized as NCS Distinguished Scholastic teams. The boys team GPA was 3.44 and the girls 3.40 In addition, 12 student-athletes (listed below) were recognized as NCS scholar athletes for earning a 3.5 GPA or higher:
