Education Notes
Awards/honors
■ Luke Rearic, a junior at Lafayette High School, wrestled with the Kentucky team that placed third in its division at the National Wrestling Coaches Association/USA National Scholastic Duals. Eighteen teams competed in the April 12-14 event at Wabash College in Indiana. Earlier this semester, Luke was runner-up in the 106-pound weight class in the state high school wrestling tournament.
■ Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary won first place for grades 2-3 in the Diocese of Lexington's annual Battle of the Books May 8 with Christ the King School coming in second, and Saints Peter and Paul bringing home third place. In the fourth and fifth grade category Mary Queen placed first, St. Leo's second and Saints Peter and Paul came in third place. Christ the King School once again brought home the trophy for first in the middle school division followed by Saints Peter and Paul in second, and Mary Queen came in third place. Battle of the Books promotes reading with particular attention to detail.
■ Rob Schrader, a junior at Henry Clay High, was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the latest Jeopardy! Teen Tournament, but he brought home $5,000 in prize money.
Trailing his two opponents, Rob went for broke in Final Jeopardy and came up short on the American Revolution — "In 1777, an opponent wrote of him: Money is this man's god and to get enough of it, he would sacrifice his country." All three students wrote down Alexander Hamilton, while the correct question was "Who was Benedict Arnold?"
Fifteen students from around the country landed a spot in the two-week tournament, which ran through May 11. The winner received $75,000.
■ Bryan Station High's Gabe Baczkowski, Victoria Jenkins and Phillip Haddaway were Fayette County's winners in the 2012 Congressional Art Competition, which encompasses 16 counties.
Gabe secured the county-wide award with his piece Kentucky Catfish, Victoria topped the mixed media category with The Golden Gate, and Phillip took top honors for computer-generated art with his Unforgotten, Horrible, Unfocused Dream.
■ Connie Waespe, co-chair of the math department at Lafayette High School, has received the 2012 John R. Bryden Great Teacher Award from the Rotary Club of Lexington.
She was selected based on essays submitted with the scholarship applications of three of her students.
Waespe, who was born in Louisville and grew up in Ashland, earned a bachelor's degree in education and a master's in math education from the University of Kentucky. At Lafayette, she is sponsor of the Mu Alpha Theta math honor society and a member of the School-Based Decision Making Council. She has been with Fayette County Public Schools for 21 years, including seven at Leestown Middle and 14 at Lafayette.
The $1,000 teacher's award, which is made possible in part by a grant from the Steele-Reese Foundation, is presented in memory of longtime Rotarian and scholarship committee member Jack Bryden. In addition, one senior from each high school receives a $700 scholarship and one overall winner a $5,000 scholarship.
This year's Rotary Scholar is Todd William Montgomery of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, who earned perfect scores on the ACT and all eight of his AP exams. He plans to major in mechanical engineering at UK.
■ Travis Kirk, Lafayette High School, and Jay Russell, Tates Creek High School, of Eastside Technical Center finished second in the state finals of the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills Competition, held May 11 in Elizabethtown. Each senior received a total of $27,500 in scholarship offers and a $200 scan tool from OTC, along with various other prizes.
Travis and Jay repaired everything and made no mistakes in the hands-on work and only a misplaced decimal point in an answer about a specification nudged them from first place.
■ Music for All has selected two students from Fayette County Public Schools for the Bands of America Honor Band, which will march in the 2013 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. Elizabeth Howell of Lafayette High will be in the color guard, and Grant Knox of Bryan Station High will play the euphonium.
Members of the 325-piece ensemble will spend a week in southern California for rehearsals, performances, visits to Disneyland and a featured appearance in the New Year's Day parade, themed Oh, the Places You'll Go!
■ Kiara Robichaud, a fifth-grader at Rosa Parks Elementary, is Kentucky's winner in the 2012 "SunWise with SHADE" poster contest for grades 4-8.
The nonprofit SHADE Foundation of America invited students to submit original, creative posters illustrating ways to prevent skin cancer and raise sun-safety awareness.
■ Benjamin P. Kesling, son of Glenda and David Kesling of Lexington, and Sayre School alumnus Class of 1998, received the Deborah Orin Scholarship Award at the annual Dinner of the White House Correspondents' Association on April 28 in Washington, D.C.
First Lady Michelle Obama presented the award, named in memory of Deborah Orin, 20-year White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for the New York Post.
The scholarship benefits qualified students who show exceptional interest and potential in the field of Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
Kesling attended Wabash College as an undergraduate and earned a Master of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. He then served as an Infantry Officer in the United States Marine Corps for more than six years. He is currently a graduate student in journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, Chicago. This summer Ben is interning for the Dow Jones Wall Street Journal in Chicago.
■ Sarah Gooch, a University of Kentucky junior majoring in Japanese language and literature with a minor in anthropology, has been awarded a National Security Education Program Boren Scholarship to travel to Japan this fall. Gooch is one of 161 award winners selected nationally from a pool of more than 1,000 applicants.
Gooch is the daughter of Diana and James Gooch of Georgetown and a 2009 graduate of Scott County High School.
The Boren Scholarships provide up to $20,000 for U.S. undergraduates to study abroad in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study abroad.
Before leaving for Japan, Gooch will intern at Georgetown's Toyota plant this summer, where she hopes to practice her Japanese and learn more about Japanese business customs in an American setting.
■ Students from around the commonwealth were rewarded for their talents and research in history at the Kentucky Junior Historical Society 2012 Conference and Kentucky History Day at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort April 27-28.
State winners have the opportunity to compete at the national level at the University of Maryland in June. The theme for this year's contest was "Revolution, Reaction and Reform in History."
Fayette County winners of the 2012 Kentucky Junior Historical Society Conference and Kentucky History Day Awards are: Nia Johnson, Tates Creek High School, first place, senior individual exhibit; Matthew Russell, Russell home school, second place, senior paper; Jamie Smith and Neha Kadambi, Winburn Middle School, first place, junior group exhibit; Dasha Kolyaskina and Nikki Southall, Winburn Middle School, second place, junior group exhibit; Sai Naidu, Winburn Middle School, first place, junior individual exhibit; Chelsea Carr, Winburn Middle School, second place, junior individual exhibit; Amelia Rogers and David Rader, Edythe J. Hayes Middle School, first place, junior group documentary; Anya Slepyan and Cameron Walton, Winburn Middle School, second place, junior group documentary; Joanna Slusarewicz, Winburn Middle School, first place, junior individual documentary; Kayla Beebout, Winburn Middle School, second place, junior individual documentary; Madison Wheeler, Winburn Middle School, second place, junior individual Web site; Ronit Kar, Ben Xie, Nisarg Patil and Gavin Sullivan, Winburn Middle School, first place, junior group Web site; Meenakshi Singhal and Daryn Smith, Winburn Middle School, second place, junior group Web site; Aislinn Langley, Winburn Middle School, second place, junior paper; Jaycee Taylor, Catey Nash, Mary Grace Timmons, Lindsey Angel and Claire Dilger, Christ the King School, second place, youth group exhibit; Addison Goan, Glendover Elementary, first place, youth individual exhibit.
■ An earthquake-awareness public service announcement created by Samuel Stucky of Bryan Station High School won the $1,000 grand prize in a contest sponsored by Kentucky's Division of Emergency Management.
The inaugural video contest was part of statewide efforts to inform, educate and prepare residents for an earthquake.
■ Two students from the University of Kentucky and one 2006 alumna have been selected as recipients of Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships. The UK recipients are among 1,700 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2012-13 academic year through the prestigious program.
The UK students and alumna awarded Fulbright scholarships for graduate study, research or teaching assistantships are: Amanda Gatewood, a 2006 English graduate of UK, who will do research in Kyrgyzstan; Kenneth Johnson, a second year law student, who will teach in Malaysia; and Verónica Miranda, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, who will do research in Mexico.
■ Fourteen area seniors are among Kentucky's 32 winners of $2,500 awards from the National Merit Scholarship Corp. Nationwide, 2,500 students were the state finalists deemed to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in college.
The selection of these Lexington-area students was announced May 2: Ann Bruner, East Jessamine High School; Robert Cass, Lafayette High School; Alexandra Decarlo, South Laurel High School; Megan Hooven, Scout County High School; Mackenzie Jones, Henry Clay High School; Idrees Kahloon, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School; Allison Murner, Woodford County High School; Erika Russ, Lexington Catholic High School; Amelia Samuel, Gallatin County High School; Caleb Voss, Trinity Christian Academy; Kalin Wilson, West Carter High School; Allison Wood, Bryan Station High School; Mackenzie Wyatt, Montgomery County High School; Christina Zhang, Paul Laurence Dunbar School.
■ Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has announced that University of Kentucky has been awarded $880,523 for a research grant to train and educate the next generation of leaders in America's nuclear industry. The award is part of the Department's Nuclear Energy University Program and Integrated University Program that will support nuclear energy research and development and student investment at 46 colleges and universities nationwide. Researchers at the University of Kentucky use the grant money to fund a project focused on advanced nuclear fuel and fuel cycle technologies that enhance the accident tolerance of light water reactors and safe sustainable fuel cycles. The project will measure nuclear data for elastic and inelastic scattered neutrons on coolants and structural materials, helping to study innovative next generation light water reactors and future fast systems.
For more information on the Nuclear Energy University Programs and the Integrated University Program visit Neup.gov.
Summer Learning Opportunities
■ High school students will get the opportunity to explore careers in design through the Summer Career Discovery Program, an intensive two-week program being presented in two sessions by the University of Kentucky College of Design from June 3-15 and July 8-20. The program, open to rising high school juniors and seniors, will introduce students to design education, including the study of architecture and interior design.
The centerpiece of the Summer Career Discovery Program is an intensive design studio where students will be challenged to think creatively, analyze and present their work to peers and professionals.
A typical day for students will begin at 8 a.m. and will end at approximately 7 p.m. During this time there will be lectures, workshops, time in the studio, films and field trips depending on the agenda for that day. Meals will be catered for the entire program (cost is included in tuition).
Admission into the Summer Career Discovery Program is regulated through a selective admission process. Students will be selected according to the merit of their cumulative GPA and the quality of their statement of interest.
Applications and essays for session two, which runs from July 8-20, must be mailed to UK College of Design by June 4. Those admitted into the program will be required to pay a $1,500 tuition fee. This fee includes the cost of housing and meals. After the fee is processed, applicants will receive forms for parental consent and a packet with additional details about the program.
For more information on UK College of Design's Summer Career Discovery Program, visit the college Web site at Uky.edu/design/index.php/info/category/summer_career_discovery_program.
■ Eastern Kentucky University's 50th annual Summer Writing Conference will feature a lineup of noted authors and poets.
The event, June 11-15 in the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity on the Richmond campus, is the longest running creative writing conference in Kentucky and one of the older ones in the nation. Participants will immerse themselves in creative writing for a week, participate in craft workshops and lectures and discuss their complete manuscripts with conference faculty.
In addition, a Small and Independent Press Panel on Thursday, June 14 will feature Sarah Gorham, co-founder Sarabande Books; Charlie Hughes, Wind Publications; and Kate Larken, publisher, Motes Books.
Evenings feature readings by visiting writers and conference faculty. The readings will take place at 7 p.m. daily June 11-14 in the Noel Studio's Discovery Classroom.
Visiting writers for this year's conference are: Harry Brown, T. Fleischmann, George Ella Lyon, Amy Elizabeth Smith, Crystal Wilkinson, Julie Hensley, Nancy Jensen and R. Dean Johnson.
The application deadline is Saturday. For more information, including tuition costs, contact R. Dean Johnson at r-dean.johnson@eku.edu or at (859) 622-6263.
Students and non-students are encouraged to apply, and on-campus housing is available. For those 65 and older, the conference is free, with a non-refundable $35 application fee.
This story was originally published May 23, 2012 at 9:27 AM with the headline "Education Notes."