Whiz Kids: Pine-Richland Students Amaze With Awesome Accomplishments

Pine-Richland Patch features a Whiz Kid or Kids to honor young people who wow us with their accomplishments. Lately we have heard about so many amazing kids and accomplishments that we decided to list them all at once. Special thanks goes to Rachel Hathhorn, communications director for Pine-Richland School District, for providing us with this information.

PRHS Students Earn Chemistry Competition Awards

l earned two awards at the Chemistry Olympics competition at the University of Pittsburgh.  PRHS Chemistry Teacher James McNally said 53 high school teams from around the region participated in the daylong chemistry competition sponsored by the American Chemical Society.  Students were required to complete experimental work and answer theoretical questions dealing with their experiments.

PRHS earned third place in the First Years Honors Chemistry category. That team was made up of Kevin Klingensmith, Mike Cikovic and Maria Battaglia. The high school earned fifth place in the AP Chemistry category. Team members included Mike Matty, Jonathan Marks and Casey Donnelly.

PRMS Students Take Top Honors in Stock Market Game

GATE students earned top awards in the Allegheny County Online Stock Market Game for seventh and eighth graders.  

First place winners included an eighth grade team consisting of Ben Gongaware and Ryann Mann. Eighth grader Noah Blake earned second place and seventh grader Aiden Lakshman earned third place.  

Teacher Kathy Deal says students could invest in stocks and mutual funds and monitor their stock portfolio online at school and at home.   

Teams competed in their region and state to see who could make the most profit in a 10-week period using $100,000 game dollars.  Students researched companies and selected those they thought of having the best chance of appreciating in 10 weeks.   

In all 27 teams participated in the program coordinated and run by Economics Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh and Robert Morris University Centers for Economic Education. 

PRHS Students Earn Awards at Film Festival

Pine-Richland High School students earned awards at the first Antelope Film Festival, sponsored by Avonworth High School and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Students in PR-TV and Video Production III classes earned two awards.

PRTV student Jeff Burgess won a third place award in the narrative category for his short film: "The Last President of the United States." Video III student Selina Bitting won a second place award in the animation category for her short film: "Save The Earth."  

Teacher Aaron Koehler says the event was held at the Melwood Screening Room at Pittsburgh Filmmakers in Oakland on April 27. 

PRHS Students Finalists in Film Challenge

Pine-Richland High School students were named finalists in the Seventh Annual CAUSE Film Challenge held at the Rangos Omnimax Theater in the Carnegie Science Center.

Video Production III students Matt Horan and Chase Takacs were named finalists for their film, "Bakery Square," and Video Production III student Dan Micco was named a finalist for his film, "The Unexpected Threat." The film festival is sponsored by the Bayer Corp., Carnegie Science Center's Regional SciTech Initiative and Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

PRHS Students Earn Top Three Awards

The National Association of Women in Construction named three Pine-Richland High School seniors as top winners in its annual computer-aided drafting contest. Ashley Schantz earned first place, Shane Raber won second and Mark Bland placed third. The students earned $200, $100 and $50 respectively. Students were challenged to create designs of wheelchair-accessible homes in PRHS technology teacher Jeff Maple’s classroom.

Students Do Their Part for Recycling Rama

Students in Heidi Davis' Festive Foods class baked cookies and donated them to feed 50 volunteers who helped with Pine Township's Recycle Rama held Saturday. 

Student Earns First Place in Essay Contest

Pine-Richland High School sophomore Marcus Colella was named the winner of "Imagine Career Week Essay" Contest.  He earned first place for his entry titled "Radiology, a Career of Helping Others".  He was recognized and presented his award by Gov. Tom Corbett at the Southside Works.

National Writing Award

 Sophomore Clarissa Suparman earned a National Silver Key Award for her personal essay, "A Journey to Rebirth,” earning national recognition in the 2011 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program.  She has been invited to attend an awards program on May 31 in New York City.

German Day Competition

Eleventh-grader Anna Goertler earned third place in the nonfiction writing category at the Annual German Day Competition at Washington & Jefferson College. Eleventh-grader Lauren Berlin placed second in the poetry recitation category and senior Samantha Shipeck earned second place in the nonfiction writing category and first place in poetry recitation.

DAR Essay Contest

Eighth-grader Hannah Zafar earned first place in the 2010-2011 Daughters of the American Revolution Essay Competition of the Kushkushkee Trail chapter for her essay titled "Memoirs of Paul Revere".
 
National Technical Honor Society Inductees

A.W. Beattie Career Center announced the 2011 National Technical Honor Society inductees from Pine-Richland High School included Shawn Frankowski, Blake Joyce, Lauren Ladesic and Matthew Mannino. 

Academic Triathlon Competition

Seventh-grade GATE students earned second place in the Academic Triathlon hosted by the Northern Area Gifted Consortium.  They included students Benjamin Harris, Maddie Hess, Leann Klingensmith, Matthew Lacek and Aidan Lakshman.

District 1 Elementary Sing Fest

students Grace Antol and Hyun-Young Kim were selected to represent the school at the District 1 Elementary Sing Fest West held at Quaker Valley High School.

Drill Competition

The Pine-Richland AFJROTC Color Guard team earned fourth place in the North Allegheny Intermediate High School's Air Force JROTC Drill Competition. Cadet Captain Nate Bodnar commanded the Color Guard team that was made up of Cadet Senior Airman Brad Eckendahl, Cadet Airman First Class Caleb Wulforst and Cadet Airmen First Class Will Hutchinson.

Artwork on Display

Artwork created by Andrew Aukerman, Jillian McAliney and Abby Bissell and seventh graders Alexander Engel, Jacob Early and Danielle Pillart was selected for display at the Oxford Center Rivers Club  during the Allegheny Intermediate Unit 3 board convention.

History Day Competition

Several Pine-Richland Middle School students earned awards at the 2011 regional National History Day Competition at the Senator John Heinz Museum. This year’s theme was “Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures & Consequences.”  Second place winners included Sahil Dadoo, Julia Herrle and Andrew Lancia. Third place winners included Cristina Ahrendt, Joe Clark, Christine Dawson, Samantha Holland, Justin McCarthy, Kaylyn Rocher, Melissa Rudolph, Enio Tozzi, Jessica Uhrin and Zachary Young.

Students participated under the direction of PRMS Teachers Joe Bailey, Sue Bartley and Eric Brown.