Valencia girl wins national writing medal

FOX CHAPEL — Shady Side Academy junior Abbie Minard of Valencia was recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers with two national medals in the writing category of the 2015 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Abbie earned a national gold medal for her short story “Elvis Has (Already) Left the Building” and a silver medal for her poem “Little Cowboys.”

Her writing was judged on originality, technical skill and emergence of personal vision or voice. More than 300,000 works were submitted at the regional level in 28 categories of the awards.

At Shady Side, Abbie is president of the Egerian student literary magazine and the Slam Poetry Club and vice president of speech for the speech and debate team. For two years she has been assistant director and head writer for the school’s fall play.

She is the daughter of Jeffrey and Diane Minard of Valencia.

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SV Academic Team wins big at state finals

JACKSON TWP — The Seneca Valley Academic Games Team excelled at the Pennsylvania State Academic Games Competition, known as the Tri-Bowl.

Thirty-four Haine Middle School students and six Evans City Middle School students competed with schools from across the state in four different academic games.

In the game of Equations, a team from Haine won first place and are state champions. The team included Jack Veverka, Anoop Savio, Sebastian Wary, Zach Garcia and Parker Logue.

Students who earned undefeated scores were Jack, Renhan Xu, Brenna Wrubel, Anoop and Sebastian. Jack had a perfect score, becoming the state co-champion in Equations.

In the game of Presidents, a team from Haine finished in second. The Pennsylvania State runner-up team was Sebastian, Brenna, Dilini Ranaweera, Vibha Hodachalli and Zach. A Haine team also finished in fifth place and included Arya Nayak, Sarah McKinley, Andrew Drozynski, Evan Howley and Simren Jayaraman. Sebastian, Brenna, Roma Kesavan, Dilini and Brendan Malloy scored in the top 10 percent of the competition.

Sebastian posted the highest score of the day becoming the state champion in Presidents.

In the game of LinguiSHTIK, a team from Seneca Valley won first place and were state champions. The team was Zach, Ananya Rao, Dora White, Christian Williams and Dilini.

Seneca Valley teams also placed third, fourth and fifth in the state. The third place team was Brenna, Matt Murphy, Renhan, Evan Howley and Zack LaValle. The fourth place team included Sarah, Cameron Ailes, Megan Bablak, Jacklyn Ko and Lauren Ehret. The fifth place team was Benaifer Sepai, Ryan Jones, Arya, Brendan and Nick Folino.

Matt, Ananya, Renhan, Sarah, Parker, Ryan, Zach, Jacklyn and Benaifer earned an undefeated score for LinguiSHTIK.

Matt, Ananya, Renhan, Sarah, Parker, Ryan and Zach had perfect scores and were the state co-champions in LinguiSHTIK.

In the game of Propaganda, Seneca Valley finished in second place. The team was Parker, Zach, Rob Appling, Anoop and Kaitlyn Moore. Also, Brenna, Ananya, Parker, Zach, Ryan and David Choi scored in the top 10 percent of the competition. Brenna posted the highest score of the day and was the state champion in Propaganda.

The students will compete against students from schools around the country at the Academic Games Leagues of America National Competition this month.

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SALT LAKE CITY — Aaron Kniess of Prospect received the Teacher Appreciation Scholarship from Western Governors University in Utah.

The online university awards scholarships based on the applicant’s academic record, readiness for online study, financial need and other considerations.

Notices of student awards, scholarships and other honors are printed each Sunday in the Butler Eagle. Notices should be sent to: Focus, Butler Eagle, P.O. Box 271, Butler, PA 16003, or focus@butlereagle.com.Student announcements should include the name and phone number of the person providing the information.