Liz Johnson graduates with two prestigious Clemson awards

Liz John­son, a 2009 Big Wal­nut High School alumna, just grad­u­ated from Clem­son Uni­ver­sity in South Car­olina, but she came away with much more than a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Finance Man­age­ment. John­son received two pres­ti­gious Clem­son awards — the Wal­lace Dab­ney Tre­vil­lian Merit Award, and the Nor­ris Medal.

The Wal­lace Dab­ney Tre­vil­lian Merit Award is a scholas­tic award from the Col­lege of Busi­ness given to the most out­stand­ing stu­dents in that college.

The Nor­ris Medal is a university-wide honor given to the most out­stand­ing grad­u­at­ing senior out of 4,000 grad­u­at­ing seniors. The recip­i­ent is cho­sen by a fac­ulty vote and is awarded not only for schol­ar­ship, but also for lead­er­ship and service.

Big Walnut Middle School Students SOAR

Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School just ended it’s SOAR pos­i­tive behav­ior pro­gram inau­gural year, and to cel­e­brate the program’s suc­cess SOAR stu­dents gath­ered on the hill­side beside the mid­dle school on the final week of the school year for an unusual pho­to­graph. They wore their SOAR T-shirts and lined up to spell out SOAR.

SOAR, an acronym stand­ing for Schol­ar­ship, Own­er­ship, Aware­ness and Respect, is unlike tra­di­tional inter­ven­tion pro­grams because it pro­vides inter­ven­tion before neg­a­tive behav­iors occur; and by rec­og­niz­ing pos­i­tive behav­iors SOAR instills mid­dle school stu­dents with a tra­di­tion that the school is a home away from home where every­one feels safe.

Rines, Davis earn Superiors at State Science Fair

Big Wal­nut High School stu­dents Jesse Rines and Kyle Davis each earned Supe­rior rat­ings at the 2013 State Sci­ence Day on Sat­ur­day, May 11, at The Ohio State University.

Rines’ project, Grätzal Cells: The Future of Energy, earned a 77 out of a pos­si­ble 80 and two impres­sive schol­ar­ship offers. Should he decide to attend the Col­lege of Wooster Rines now has an aca­d­e­mic schol­ar­ship for $18,500 per year for four years; if he decides to attend Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­sity he can write off $7,000 per year for four years.

Davis, a sopho­more enter­ing his junior year next school year, not only earned a Supe­rior at State Sci­ence Day, he earned his Supe­rior with a per­fect score. Davis’ per­fect score of 80 was the result of this year’s ornitho­log­i­cal project: Size Vari­a­tion With Alti­tude in the Rufous-collared Spar­row. He earned $15,000 per year for four years at Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity, and he also applied for a Gov­er­nors Thomas Edi­son Award with the same project.

Souders holds Kindergarten preview

For chil­dren the first day of any­thing can be trau­matic — that first visit to the den­tist, a first hair­cut, the first time mom and dad leave you with a vir­tual stranger called a babysitter.

Then there’s that first day of Kinder­garten. You’re fac­ing a room full of other chil­dren your own age, most of whom you have never seen before and who are just as con­fused as you are; there’s an adult in the room that’s approx­i­mately your mother’s age telling you what to do; and it’s no longer pre-school play­time – you have a whole host of things to learn dur­ing the next 12 years, and this is day one. Talk about a shocker, and you don’t even know yet that some­where out there in front of you is AP Calculus.

But at Hylen Soud­ers Ele­men­tary School Kinder­garten teacher Maria Tar­ney invited preschool­ers that will be attend­ing Soud­ers next year to spend some time in her classroom.

BWHS holds Annual Senior Honors Night

In past years, Big Wal­nut High School’s Hon­ors Night included recog­ni­tion of under­class mem­ber achieve­ments; but on Mon­day, May 20, Big Wal­nut High School staff, admin­is­tra­tion, stu­dents and their fam­i­lies gath­ered in the high school audi­to­rium for the school’s Third Annual Senior Hon­ors Night.

To start the evening mov­ing for­ward Robert Weiler pre­sented Robert Weiler Com­pany Weiler North­Star Schol­ar­ships to Emily Chucta, Alli­son Daw­son, Lucas Miller, Nancy Mitchell and Abi­gail Painter.

Next, Mar­lene A. Casini, Pres­i­dent of the Delaware County Foun­da­tion, pre­sented the Manos Schol­ar­ship and the Sher­iff Wal­ter L. Davis, III Fam­ily Schol­ar­ship to Alli­son Dawson.

BW swim team members seeking individual, business sponsors

Mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut High School Swim Team are look­ing for indi­vid­ual and busi­ness spon­sors for the 2013–14 school year.

BWHS National Honor Society grows to 58

Each school year, in front of an audi­ence of fam­ily, friends and school dis­trict staff mem­bers, Big Wal­nut High School stu­dents hold an impres­sive National Honor Soci­ety Induc­tion Cer­e­mony; and even more impres­sive were the num­bers of new Big Wal­nut juniors and seniors inducted dur­ing this years Thurs­day, May 9, NHS Induc­tion Cer­e­mony — 58 new mem­bers were added to Big Walnut’s NHS chapter.

Dur­ing his remarks Big wal­nut High School Prin­ci­pal Steve Fujii chal­lenged the inductees to par­tic­i­pate in mankind’s next leap forward.

“Your achieve­ments in the realms of Schol­ar­ship, Lead­er­ship, Com­mu­nity Ser­vice and Char­ac­ter are being hon­ored here tonight by your induc­tion into this pres­ti­gious soci­ety,” Fujii said. “An honor such as this is a won­der­ful way for the school and com­mu­nity to rec­og­nize and cel­e­brate the choices, and some­times the sac­ri­fices, you have made.

“But I believe that what should make you and your par­ents the most proud is not the actual honor itself, but what you had to do to get it,” Fujii added. “As Ralph Waldo Emer­son said ‘The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.’ Any recog­ni­tion is just the icing on the cake, not to be expected but def­i­nitely to be enjoyed … tonight’s induc­tion is the reward of sev­eral things done well. Your char­ac­ter makes me believe you are capa­ble of the sec­ond great leap for mankind.”

BWHS Drama Awards 2013; Way better than the Oscars, way …

The Oscars? Who needs the stink­ing Oscars when Big Wal­nut High School has its very own 2013 Drama Awards, com­plete with a ban­quet and cos­tumes rang­ing from haut cou­ture (really, really nice), to flam­boy­ant (really, really strange), to casual (hey, we got here after the game, right)?

And, as an added ben­e­fit, Big Walnut’s drama enthu­si­asts are a whole­some crowd who enjoy their craft, not like Hollywood’s play­boys and play­girls who are in it for the money and who seem to be in the news more often for unsa­vory behav­ior than Oscar-winning performances.

Last Thurs­day evening, Big Wal­nut High School Drama Coach Erin Gib­bons, mem­bers of the high school’s 2012–13 drama sea­son casts and crews, par­ents and friends, gath­ered at the high school cafe­te­ria for a pot-luck ban­quet, fol­lowed by an awards cer­e­mony in the auditorium.