Student Activities HALL OF FAME

2006-2007

JUNE Over the summer, fifteen hundred students met at the National Forensics League National Championship in Wichita, Kansas. Of the five Congressional Debaters allowed to participate from Illinois, two were from Stevenson High School: senior Zoe Madigan and junior Jordan Stone. Stevenson enjoyed great success with Madigan finishing in 73rd Place and Stone finishing in 6th Place overall. Stone’s amazing performance automatically qualifies him for the prestigious Tournament of Champions in Lexington, Kentucky. In the history of SHS, Stone is only the second Stevenson Debater to finish in the top ten at the National Championship. The 2007 edition of the Wit, Stevenson’s student literary journal, achieved the second-highest rating from the National Scholastic Press Association’s publications critique service. The Wit garnered First Class honors overall, with Marks of Distinction in the categories of content, writing and editing, and photography/art/graphics/typography. MAY Future Problem Solvers' Aimee Yang, John Lipari, Parul Koul and Nicole Chiu won Fifth Place in the Oral Presentation at the Illinois State University Competition. The top sixty congressional Debaters in the country met in Lexington, Kentucky to endure a marathon of debating at the Tournament of Champions. Stevenson qualified five students (an incredible 8.3% of the total population) at this invitation-only tournament at the University of Kentucky. Coach Bill Fritz escorted senior Zoe Madigan and juniors Jordy Stone, Ari Kasper, Brad Dlatt and Josh Fliegel. Both Dlatt and Stone advanced to the semi-finals and Stone finished in eighth place in the country. Both Madigan and Stone will compete for a week-long tournament at the National Championship in Wichita, Kansas. Four Stevenson students were part of the Lake County High Schools Technology Campus Team that won First Place at the Illinois Skills USA Leadership and Skills Conference in Springfield. Brian Coia finished First in Java programming and Second in quiz bowl; Daniel Piet was First in video product development; Brian Vaughn was Third in health knowledge bowl and Fourth in first aid/CPR; and Michelle Barkins was Fifth in essay and Fifth in essay-personal narrative.

Robert Warren was been named to the 10-member 2007 All-State Journalism Team selected by the Illinois Journalism Education Association. He will be honored at the IJEA banquet that also will honor Illinois Journalist of the Year Kristina Hauptmann and runner-up Josh Frydman, both from Stevenson. Business Professionals of America had three winners at the National Leadership Conference in New York! Ilissa Sabath - Top 10 in Management/Marketing/HR, Jordan Sheer - Top 10 in Financial Math & Analysis, Dan Stin - NATIONAL CHAMPION in payroll accounting. All six projects from Stevenson won First Place awards at the Illinois State History Fair, and two were chosen to represent the state at the National History Day finals at the University of Maryland. This marks the 20th straight year Stevenson has had at least one history fair state champion, and the third consecutive year at least two projects will travel to Maryland. Winning team members include: Stephanie Coon, Geneva Costopolous, Carly Penzik, Alex Petti, Sneha Elango, Margaret Straszewski, Michie Adachi, Samantha Nimerov, Danielle Baich, Amanda Carlson, and Christina Parenti. "Forecast," a one-act play written by senior Tommy Novak, was named one of the winners in the Northlight Theatre’s Young Playwrights’ Competition for Chicagoland high school students. His one-act play will be performed by the NTA Company in Skokie. Stevenson's Psychology Team finished Second at the 12-team Psychology Quiz Bowl held at the College of DuPage. Stevenson’s roster included: Ariel Moser, Stephanie Nudelman, Sam Margolis, Brittany Carlson, Sharon Yeung, Harshish Chitkara, Karthik Shastri, Samara Silverman, Max Wang, Jonathon Stein, Sarah Walker, Caroline Whitehead, Allie Clemens, Sarah Leibach and Megan Lutz Vikram Baruah took First Place in the astronomy division at the Illinois Junior Academy of Science state fair on Saturday. His winning project was entitled "Can we reach Alpha Centauri in 50 years?" APRIL Senior Michael Levine is one of 10 Chicago-area students named to the Chicago Tribune’s annual All-State Academic Team for 2007. There were 235 entries submitted to the newspaper. First Place State Champions in Science Olympiad are Amit Patel and Connor Wood in Environmental Science and Amit Patel and Matt Deram in Chemistry Lab Kristina Hauptmann was First in State for Journalism - yearbook copy.

Math Team (TYMP) finished Third at the ICTM State Meet. The Freshmen-Sophomore Relay team consisting of Chen Chen Chien (2010), Ranna Zhou (2010), Zhihong Qui, (2009) Jimmy Yu (2009) and Donald Yang (2009) won First Place. MAKING HISTORY: Stevenson’s National History Day Team has qualified for the state finals for the 20th straight year. Six of seven projects that qualified for the metro finals were chosen to advance to state. All seven Stevenson Music Ensembles earned Division I "Superior" ratings at the Illinois High School Association Music Organization Competition. Ensembles were Patriot Singers, Advanced Women's Choir, Patriot Orchestra, Concert Orchestra, Honor Band, Advanced Symphonic Band and Symphonic Band. Of the participating schools, Stevenson had the most ensembles entered. Science Olympiad, for the third straight year in their four year history, had their best season to date. The team finished Fifth out of 37 high school teams at the U of I State Competition. Standouts were - Fourth in state: James Abdo and Adam Gervasio in Wright Stuff, Taylor Twarowski and Namrata Kodali in Disease Detectives; Third in state: Jill Christolini, James Abdo and David Lin in Junk Yard Challenge; Second in state: Adam Gervasio and James Abdo in Robot Ramble; First in state: Amit Patel and Connor Wood in Environmental Chemistry, Amit Patel and Mat Deram in Chemistry Lab. Journalism won the Illinois High School Association Schaumburg Journalism Sectional at Roosevelt University on Saturday, easily beating second-place Buffalo Grove for the championship. In addition to the team title, eight students qualified for the IHSA state finals at Eastern Illinois University on April 28 by finishing third or better in their division. Three students won individual sectional championships: Inna Komarovsky (editorial cartooning), Josh Frydman (headline writing) and Sam Taylor (feature writing). Four students earned Second Place honors: Lee Zucker (advertising), Bryan Epstein (infographic design), and the team of Mary Beth Pacewicz and Stephanie Wojton (yearbook theme development). Robert Warren was Third in feature photography, while Kristina Hauptmann took Third in yearbook copy writing. The SHS Table Tennis Club took both First and Second Place in both team and individual honors in the North Suburban Ping Pong Tournament. Senior Pat Yee took home the First Place honors and Wayne Luan finished in Second in the individual competition. Seniors Pat Yee, Wayne Luan, Adam Stevens, Scott Pechter, Max Wang, Sophomores Josh Pechter and Sandeep Merneedi helped bring home both the First Place and Second Place team trophies. 50 Stevenson Visual Fine Arts students displayed their works in photography, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, painting, drawing and animation at the annual North Suburban Art Show held at Vernon Hills High School. SHS Award Winners include: Jason Pang (animation); Kristin Marks (jewelry);

Anna Vlajkovic (oil pastel drawing); Kevin Murray (charcoal drawing); Liesl Schubel (color pencil drawing); Tayana Padova (graphite drawing); Molly Murphy (photography); Eunie Kim (sculpture); Yana Genchanek (sculpture); and Jenna Schiller (ceramics). Statesman students captured Best of Show at the National Convention for high school journalism students. The Statesman placed First in the nation for high school newspapers of 13-16 pages. In the Special Edition category, the Statesman placed Eighth in the nation for the Super Bowl special edition. Statesman staff members include: Mike Carson, Mina Mineva, Marian Fukuyama, Josh Frydman, Robert Warren, Kristina Hauptman, Lenny Goldman, Heather Anuta, Stephanie Chang, Sam Taylor, Jamie Hausman, Maggie Serafin, Sean Madden, Jenna Rodrigues, Inna Komaravsky, Jordy McNamara, Danielle Gordon, Bryan Epstein, Eunice Chung. Kristina Hauptman, Mike Carson, Robert Warren, Josh Frydman, and Eunice Chung were honored in the 2007 International Journalism Honor Society's individual contest sponsored by Quill and Scroll. Of the 3,461 entries sent to Quill and Scroll, 309 winners were named. Junior Sunjay Gorawara and sophomore Karthik Singh have qualified for the Illinois Junior Academy of Science State Science Fair at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gorawara and Singh each won Gold Awards at the regional science fair, earning berths to the state finals. In addition to their gold awards, Gorawara and Singh were elected regional President and Vice President, respectively, by their peers. Congratulations to Senior, Karthik Shastri, on being one of 20 students to be named as an All-State Player in Scholastic Bowl. Karthik served as captain on this year’s varsity Scholastic Bowl team. Future Business Leaders of America's Greg Sergay won First Place at State in Economics. Future Business Leaders of America's Shannon Aquino won First Place at State in Computer Applications. MARCH 10 Debators participated in the Illinois High School Association State Championship. Cate Veeneman, Jacob Chodash, captain Aaron Hertzberg, Ari Kasper, Ben Nellens, and Steven Heiss advanced to the semi-final round. Kasper finished Fourth overall. Nellens placed Sixth. In the semifinals, Nellans and Chodash both Won Best Presiding Officer Awards. Veeneman and Kasper advanced to the IHSA Super Congress.

Debate Team members placed First at the National Forensic League's Glenbrook South Tournament. First Place winners include Jordan Stone and Zoe Madigan. Color Guard captured Second Place in the AAA Tall Flag and AAA Short Flag divisions at the IDTA State Competition held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This is the first year in the Color Guard's history that they have double medaled two years in a row! WAY TO GO COLOR GUARD! Color Guard placed First in Tall Flag and First in Short Flag at the IDTA South Super Sectionals held at the University of Illinois. Academic Decathlon won State Championships in all three mathematics divisions at the Illinois Academic Decathlon finals, propelling the school to a Second Place finish in team standings. Individual winners include Sofya Kreiman First Place Varsity Division mathematics title, Fan Wu and Dimitar Stamatov tied for the Scholastic Division Crown, and Matthew Deram took First Place in mathematics within the Honors Division. Business Professionals of America won State Titles at the BPA State Championship. Justin Sylvan won the Fundamental Accounting Crown and Galina Rybalov won the Advanced Accounting title. T.E.A.M.S (Test of engineering Aptitude Math and Science) Junior Varsity placed First and Varsity placed Third at the State Competition in River Grove. Junior Varsity team members include: Peter Yoon, Vissagan Gopalakrishnan, David Jung, Chinatsu Shimanaka, Alex Guo and Peter Shin. Varsity members include: Shiori Nakai, Nicole Lamond, Matt Deram, Dennis Bluver, Justin Kopinsky, Tony Zhang and Kevin Mark. FEBRUARY Angelina Kim won First Place in the 82nd Society of American Musicians Competition. SHS Science Olympiad's two teams finished Second and Sixth at Prospect's Invitational, which is the oldest and most revered invitational in the Chicago area. First Place individual winners include: Paul Michalowski, Ariel Wang, Regina Wang, Mat Deram, Kiran Pookote, Jennifer Ding, Amit Patel, Gaurav Gaonkar, Max Pardo, Stephanie Ding, Sarah Christolini, Jill Christolini, Adam Gervasio, James Abdo, Jennifer Ding, Jennifer Abdo. Color Guard placed First in Tall Flag & Second in Short Flag at the Stevenson IDTA Invitational.

Chess Team finished Fifth in State at the 118-team Illinois High School Association State Tournament in Peoria. This is the team's fourth straight top-six finish. Individually, Jordan Cohen and Daniel Dolnik each finished Fourth on boards 3 and 5, respectively. Nathan Wong was Fifth on board 1, and Kenny Alldredge was 10th on board 8. Also representing Stevenson were Daniel Cohen, Jimmy Yu, Eugene Raskin and Robby Hecht. Also, Coach Oliver was honored by the Illinois Chess Coaches Association for more than 25 Years of Service. Academic Decathlon won Regional Championship. On the way to victory the team collected over 50 medals & 3 students - Junior, Jennifer Hong, & Seniors, Anthony Parkhill, & Amelia Wallace – were the Top-Scoring competitors in their divisions. Color Guard placed Second in Short Flag & First in Tall Flag at the HD Jacobs Competition. T.Y.M.P. placed First in the fourth North Suburban Mathematics League competition at Lake Forest High School. SHS swept all five categories -- freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors and the oral competition. Winning rosters include: Oral Competition: sophomore Zhihong Qiu. Seniors: Matthew Deram, Daniel Kim, Artem Sereyenko, Shiori Nakai and Alex Sheen. Juniors: Justin Kopinsky, Tara Raam, Wanna Zhang, Tony Zhang and Chinatsu Shimanaka. Sophomores: Jimmy Yu, Michelle Ran, Peter Shin, Andrew Minenko and Namrata Kodali. Freshmen: Ranna Zhou, Paul Kim, Da-Yae Lee, Stephanie Doong and Julia Wang. JANUARY The Wit, Stevenson’s literary magazine, received the rank of Superior in the 2006 National Council of Teachers of English’s 23rd annual Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines (PRESLM). The program honors quality literary magazines from middle schools, junior high schools, and high schools in the United States, Canada and American schools abroad. Chess Team received one of the top seeds in the Illinois High School Association state tournament scheduled for Feb. 10-11 at the Peoria Civic Center. Stevenson is the No. 6 seed, behind defending state champion Niles North, Whitney Young, University High of Urbana, Lincoln-Way Central and Evanston Township. SHS finished sixth in the state last season. Debate Team captured multiple victories at the ICDE Deerfield Conference. Aaron Hertzberg, Jacob Chodash, Zoe Madigan and Ari Kasper won Critics' Choice. Anush Vesikaran and Jeff Zhang won Best Legislation. Julia Padeanu won best Presiding Officer. Zach Albun won First Place speaker. Josh Fliegel, Shreya Bansal, Steve Heiss, and Jimmy Yu won Second Place speaker. Also nominated for speakers' awards were: Amit Patel, Jordan Feldstein, Carrie Shapiro, and Jeff Zhang.

Speech and Drama Team won the First Place trophy in the Small Teams Division at the Libertyville Tournament. Marissa Salat finished Fourth in Special Occasion Speaking. C.J. McFate finished Second in both Special Occasion and Impromptu Speaking. Science Olympiad captured multiple honors at the Crystal Lake Central High School Invitational. Finishing First were Namrata Kodali, Stephanie Change, Taylor Twarowski, Keli Liu, Sarah Christolini, Jill Christolini, Paul Michalowski, Adam Gervsio, and Max Pardo. Color Guard finished Second in Tall Flag and Third in Short Flag at the Illinois Drill Team Association Invitational at Oak Forest High School qualifying both routines for the IDTA Supersectional. Speech and Drama Team's C.J. McFate finished First in impromptu Speaking at the Rolling Meadows competition. Marissa Salat placed Fourth in Special Occasion Speaking. DECEMBER Give-a-Thon's 22nd year was a great success providing more than 270 families with food, gifts, and baby supplies. Six Science Olympiad competitors placed First at the Hinsdale South High School Tournament. Winners include Ariel Wang, Janell Hughes, Amit Patel, Gaurav Gaonkar, Jill Christolini, and Sarah Christolini. Second, Third, and Fourth place finishers include Kiran Pookote, Jennifer Abdo, Namrata Kodali, Jennifer Ding, Jia Guo, David Lin, Max Pardo, Taylor Twarowski, Ranna Zhou, Ragina Wang, and Stephanie Dong. IM Flag Football raised $1200 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. This year's flag football season marked the biggest season in school history. Eighty-one teams consisting of almost 1.000 students participated in October and November. Students Helping Soldiers donated more than 3,200 Beanie Babies to the children in Afghanistan. Debate Team senior Catherine (Kate) Veeneman attended the National Youth Leadership Forum on Law in Washington, D.C. During the 6 day conference Kate and other students from around the country took part in courtroom simulations and heard from partners at law firms, criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, professors, and other experts of the legal profession.

Four Stevenson faculty members were honored at the Illinois Directors of Student Activities convention in Oak Brook, Illinois. Ted Goergen, Cheryl Singley, and Andrew Conneen received 2006 Community Educator Awards for their involvement with Stevenson's 300 Club, which honors seniors with 300 or more hours of community service. Debbie Durham was one of three finalists for the Illinois Directors of Student Activities' Distinguished Service Award, given to someone whose career contributions have made an impact on the development of Student Activities. 23 members of Interact Club attended the Fourth Annual Partnership Walk and raised $813 for the Aga Khan foundation. AESHS was presented the Team All Award for having the most registered walkers in attendance. Videos and pictures of the team were featured on the NBS 5 News and in other media outlets. The Aga Khan Foundation works to alleviate poverty, hunger and illiteracy through health, education, and rural development. The Ambassador, Stevenson's yearbook, was honored by Walsworth Publishing for exemplary journalism and design. Thirteen SHS musicians were selected to participate in the 2007 Illinois Music Educators Association All State Conference. Participants include Janet Lyu, Byron Park, Alex Sheen, Sarah Chaffee, Harrison Kay, Audrey Snyder, Scott Spector, Samantha Toeller, Colin Funk, Chihiro Kashiwakura, Dan Gerber, Shiori Nakai, and Sara Ghadiri. Sara Ghadiri was also selected as part of a cadre of Future Music Educators who will attend additional workshops and performances. Mathematics Team placed First in the third North Suburban Mathematics League competition held at Rolling Meadows High School. G.I.V.E. Leader Samara Silverman addressed more than 250 sixth and seventh graders from around the country as the closing keynote speaker at the Junior National Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C. The purpose of her speech was to inspire young leaders to become involved in their communities. Color Guard placed First in the AAA Short Flag and Third in the AAA Tall Flag at the IDTA Argo Invitational competition. The Wit, Stevenson's student literary magazine, garnered a First Place award in the 2006 American Scholastic Press Association's annual review and contest for scholastic yearbooks, magazines, and other publications in the magazine competition for high school with enrollments above 2,500.

NOVEMBER Alex Service and Michael Levine were selected to the 2006-2007 Daily Herald Leadership Team, recognizing high school students who excel in volunteerism and community service. Mathematics Team placed First in the second North Suburban Mathematics League competition held at Stevenson High School. Debate Team members Brad Dlatt, Zoe Madigan, and Jordan Stone finished in the Top 10 at the largest High School hosted Debate Tournament in the country. Three other Debaters reached the semifinals: Joshua Fliegel, Ben Nellens, and Ari Kasper. Brad Dlatt is currently ranked Eighth in Forensics Online's National Student Congress rankings. Five members of Stevenson’s Model United Nations club won awards at last weekend’s competition at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. About 700 students from across the United States simulated U.N. committees and wrestled with some of the world’s most pressing issues during the conference. Stevenson’s award winners were: Liz Bersin, Danyal Sheikh, Brian Liss, Ed Klebanov, and Marc Kalinsky. Speech and Drama Club members had a strong showing at the Lake Forest Competition. Marissa Salat, Pam Wahl, Annie Flaherty, CJ McFate, Tina Xu, and Phil Salat all placed in their respective events. National Honor Society's Alex Sheen placed Second in Mathematics while Simon Goldstein placed Third in English in the National Honor Society Scholars' Bowl competition held in Orlando, Florida. Stevenson's National Honor Society Executive Board was recognized for organizing one of the Top 10 service projects in the country at the NAASP National Convention held in Orlando, Florida. This year's Spirit Walk, which raised over $15,000 for Cystic Fibrosis was selected as one of the winning projects. Board members include: Kelly Boger, Jacob Chodash, Simon Goldstein, Kevin Lu, Kiran Pookote, Alex Sheen, and Jess Vallapurackal. Frosh-Soph Scholastic Bowl Team placed First in at the Carmel Invitational Tournament. OCTOBER Mathematics Team placed First in the first North Suburban Mathematics League competition which was held at Stevenson High School. Frosh-Soph Scholastic Bowl Team placed Second in the annual Fremd Tournament.

Student Council President, Ashley Kraus was one of 21 young women honored at the Lake county Women's Coalition Annual Tea Party in Grayslake. Krause and the other honorees received plaudits for their community service, leadership, academic excellence, sportsmanship, and spirit. SEPTEMBER Spirit Walk raised over $17,000 this year for Cystic Fibrosis research. Six members of the Web Weavers Club, Chris Bartunek, Constance Chen, Sean Anderson, Andrew Duffey, Daniel Kim, and George Shakhnazaryan, captured First Place in Group Website Design at the 18th annual Gutenberg Student Graphic Arts Contest. Steve Pinkowski and Tankun Guo placed Second in Color Screen Printing. Tankun Guo also received a Second Place Individual award in Process Color Electronic Publishing.

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