Entertainment

Kudos

• Junior is finalist in DuPont Challenge :

  Junior Nikhil Bhattasali placed in the top three of the 2013 DuPont Challenge Essay Contest. Bhattasali was sponsored by physics and CAD teacher Michael Walker.

• Three seniors win National Achievement Scholarships:

  Seniors Morgan Cheatham, Kleo Greenwood and Howard Small are three of the 800 black high school students nationwide who won National Achievement Scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Selection of scholarship winners was based on PSAT scores, academic performance and recommendations.

• Five students win Quill and Scroll awards:

  In the 2013 Quill and Scroll International Writing and Photo Contest, five tjTODAY reporters won awards. Students include seniors Tahmina Achekzai and Amy Ahn, sophomore Ellen Kan and Class of 2012 graduates Joshua Baquedano and Colleen Marshall.

• DuPont honorable mention winners announced:

  Senior Gordon Hart and Jisu Park and sophomore Hanna Carolina Hatanpaa are honorable mention winners in the 2013 DuPont Challenge Essay contest.

   

• Economics students win Governor's Challenge :

  The team of senior Scott Gibson, juniors Catherine Shi and Robert Wang and sophomore Hamil Shah won first place at the 2013 Governor’s Challenge Champions in Economics and Personal Finance competition, which was held at Virginia Commonwealth University on April 17. They competed in the David Ricardo Division.

• Senior wins trip to Germany :
  Senior Vaughn Varma is one of 42 seniors in the U.S. who won a paid, four-week stay in Germany from the American Association of Teachers of German. He qualified based on his National German Exam score and an application and interview process.
• Nine win corporate National Merit scholarships:
  Seniors Alex Dalzell, Christie Freund, Kevin Huo, Andrew Jiang, Raynor Kuang, Mayank Mahajan, Arjun Nandra, Chloe Siebach and Ye Tao are among the 14 students from Fairfax County selected to receive corporate-sponsored scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. 
• Student publications take home honors at convention :

  At the NSPA/JEA Spring Journalism Convention in San Francisco from April 25-28, Threshold was named the first place Best of Show literary magazine, Techniques was named the fourth place Best of Show 275-324 page yearbook, and tjTODAY was named the sixth place Best of Show 13-16 broadsheet newspaper.

   

• O'Connor named Athlete of the Year:

  Senior Patrick O’Connor was named the Allstate Foundation-VHSL Achievement Award Group AAA Male Athlete of the Year.

   

• Senior scores Scholastic Art awards:

  Senior Emily Barrett won two Scholastic Art National Silver Medals for her work in digital art and photography.

   
• TjTODAY reporters garner awards :

  At the NSPA/JEA Spring Journalism Convention, sophomore Ellen Kan earned a Superior in Feature Writing, junior Shayna Hume earned an Excellent in Editorial Writing, sophomore Alexis Williams earned an Excellent in News Writing, senior Sunny Kim earned an Honorable Mention in Commentary Writing, and sophomore Sandy Cho earned an Honorable Mention in News Editing, Headline Writing and Current Events.

   

• Science Olympiad team wins at States:

  The Jefferson Science Olympiad team won first place at the Virginia State competition on April 27 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. The team will travel to Dayton, Ohio for the National Science Olympiad on May 18.

• Orchestra performs at Myrtle Beach:

  TJ Orchestra performed at the Fiesta-val National Music Competition from April 24 to 28. The orchestra came home with Superior ratings, a First Place award, the Most Outstanding Section award and were overall Grand Champions. Seniors Hans He, Andrew Jiang, Ian McConnell and Alan Wei were Outstanding Soloists and senior Iman Abdikarim and sophomore Billie Males were Outstanding Dedication and Musical Contribution award recipients.

   

• Science Olympiad team wins at States (cont.):

  Team members include seniors Amy Chen, Katie Hsia (team captain) and Austin Ralls, juniors Sparsh Gupta, Avand Lakmazaheri, Christine Nguyen and Emma Puranen, sophomore Billie Males and freshmen Jake Cui, Ryan Gottwald, Ava Lakmazaheri, Jonathan Lee, Sunlee Stechuk, Sashank Thupukari and Andy Zhao.
• Jefferson wins VHSL Creative Writing Championship:

  The Jefferson overall folder submission to the VHSL Creative Writing Championship won in the AAA division. Juniors Emma Hastings and Anwar Omeish and sophomore Pooja Chandrashekar took first place in their individual categories.

• Fifteen win National Merit Scholarships:

  Seniors Dhruv Bansal, Laura Brouckman, Amy Chen, Sarah Eltinge, Amani Farooque, Suhas Gondi, Lauren Huang, Katherine Lee, Yash Maniar, Seung Young Park, Jennifer Peng, Kalki Seksaria, Cody Silverman, Nalini Singh and Robert Wharton each won a $2,500 National Merit Scholarship.