Senior Michael Lai has been selected as the STAR student for Region 4. He will be sponsored by the Oconee Chamber of Commerce and will compete for the 2010 State STAR title on April 28 at the Hilton Atlanta Hotel. Michael has chosen Ms. Julie Boyd as his STAR Teacher.

Michael is a member of Student Council and the varsity tennis team. He is also the captain of the Math Team and the Academic Team and is president of the Media & Technology Club. In addition, Michael was recently named an AP Scholar with Distinction and a National Merit Finalist.

Ms. Julie Boyd teaches chemistry and AP Chemistry in the Upper School. She is also the coordinator for the Class of 2012. Ms. Boyd has taught at Athens Academy since 2005.

The Student Teacher Achievement Recognition (STAR) program honors Georgia's outstanding high school seniors and the teachers who have been most instrumental in their academic development. During the past 51 years, the STAR Program has honored more than 21,500 high school seniors who have in turn chosen their STAR Teachers to share in this recognition.

Athens Academy Latin teacher Kelly Ryan was recently awarded a Fulbright Teacher Exchange Scholarship for the upcoming summer. Ms. Ryan will spend the summer in Athens, Greece, participating in the 2010 Greece Classics Seminar. As part of the program, she will study Athenian monuments and sites and travel throughout the country, spending a week on Crete, ten days in the Peloponnese, and a week in Northern Greece. The scholarship also provides a stipend for the purchase of classroom materials to be shared with students and fellow teachers upon Ms. Ryan’s return to Athens, Georgia.

The Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program provides opportunities for teachers to participate in direct exchanges of positions with colleagues from other countries for a semester or a year. By living and working abroad, exchange teachers gain an understanding and appreciation of different educational systems and cultures, and enrich their schools and communities by providing students with new perspectives about the world in which they live.

The Athens Academy FTC Sparbots robotics team had a fantastic first season, winning three awards and finishing in fourth place at the Georgia FTC state robotics championship. The state championship took place on Saturday, February 20, on the Southern Polytechnic State University campus in Marietta. The competition included 27 teams from Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia. During the three tournaments the team participated in this year, the Sparbots competed in 26, 2.5-minute matches against teams from over 20 high schools from around the southeast. Juniors Christopher McGahee and Caleb Dasher led six Athens Academy Middle Schoolers, including eighth graders Max Ruston, Charles Lankau, Darshan Parikh, and seventh graders Will Divers, Raleigh Lumpkin, and Hayden Lanzilotta. Congratulations on a great season, Sparbots!

On Sunday, February 20, eight Athens Academy students participated in Georgia Shakespeare’s third annual High School Acting Competition in Atlanta. Sofie Wasserman-Smith, Anne Lanier Gilbert, Billy Pate, Cate Jackson, Mary Katherine Malone, Becca Schell, Maggie Kellett, and CJ Brown traveled to the Oglethorpe University campus with Drama Department Director Lorraine Thompson. Anne Lanier Gilbert placed second in the Female Monologue category and Sofie Wasserman-Smith placed third. Three of the seven students selected to perform in the final showcase were from Athens Academy: Sofie Wasserman-Smith, Anne Lanier Gilbert, and Billy Pate. In addition, Athens Academy took the “First Place School” honors for the second year in a row.

The group is pictured with Georgia Shakespeare Artistic Director Richard Garner and Educational Director Allen O'Reilly.

Following the 32nd Annual Schacht Lecture on Wednesday, February 10, 41 Upper School students were inducted into the National Honor Society. The students tapped for the Athens Academy chapter of NHS included Harry Alex, Wrenica Archibald, Mary Banister, Sara Beisswenger, John Braucher, Nick Brown, Jennifer Cotton, Caleb Dasher, Deeva Desai, Tim DeWitt, Jennifer Dorfman, Tavish Gantz, Tom Greene, Emmeline Hale, Bethany Hanscom, Cate Jackson, Hoe Bin Jeong, Anna Justice, Josh Gibbs, Andy Kim, Braden Lapp, Robert Leverett, Madi Linck, Max LoParco, Laney Mallet, Chloe McWilliams, Breanna Moore, Kurt Mueller, Torie Owers, Aneet Patel, Will Seagraves, Lisa Sheppard, Christina Shin, Elizabeth Sinyard, Kelsie Smith, Karishma Sriram, Emma Templeman, Lidya Teshome, Dy’nelle Todman, Daniel West, and Tony Xu.

The National Honor Society was founded in 1921in order “to create enthusiasm for scholarship, to stimulate a desire to render service, to promote leadership, and to develop character in the students of secondary schools.” These are the criteria used by the faculty and administration as they select students for membership. Membership in NHS not only recognizes students for their accomplishments but also challenges them to develop themselves further through active involvement in school activities and community service.

Athens Academy was proud to have Mr. Pat Bassett, president of the National Association of Independent Schools, deliver the Schacht Lecture via Skype from Washington, D.C., before the NHS inductions. The Schacht Lecture honors the late Elmer C. Schacht, for whom Schacht Hall was named. Mr. Schacht became a trustee of Athens Academy in 1968 and became the first life trustee in 1974.

Senior Michael Lai has been recognized as Athens Academy’s STAR Student for the 2009-2010 school year. Michael selected Ms. Julie Boyd as his STAR Teacher.

Michael is a member of Student Council and the varsity tennis team. He is also the captain of the Math Team and the Academic Team and is president of the Media & Technology Club. In addition, Michael was recently named an AP Scholar with Distinction and a National Merit Finalist.

Ms. Julie Boyd teaches chemistry and AP Chemistry in the Upper School. She is also the coordinator for the Class of 2012. Ms. Boyd has taught at Athens Academy since 2005.

The Student Teacher Achievement Recognition (STAR) program honors Georgia's outstanding high school seniors and the teachers who have been most instrumental in their academic development. During the past 51 years, the STAR Program has honored more than 21,500 high school seniors who have in turn chosen their STAR Teachers to share in this recognition.

On Tuesday, February 16, NASA Astronaut Tom Marshburn will visit Athens Academy to share his experiences on the International Space Station (ISS) last summer. After lunch with a small group of students and faculty, Dr. Marshburn will conduct sessions for the Middle and Upper Schools.

Emergency physician Thomas Marshburn was selected by NASA in November 1994 to serve as a flight surgeon for NASA personnel deployed to the Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. After ten years of medical work of various types with NASA, Dr. Marshburn was selected to train for a space mission. In February 2006, he completed Astronaut Candidate Training that included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in Shuttle and International Space Station systems, physiological training, T-38 flight training, and water and wilderness survival training, and was qualified for various technical assignments within the Astronaut Office and future flight assignment as a mission specialist.
In July 2009, Dr. Marshburn participated in his first spaceflight onboard the Shuttle Endeavour. He logged over 376 hours in space, and 18 hours and 59 minutes of Extravehicular Activities (EVA) in three spacewalks. While in space, Dr. Marshburn and the rest of the crew completed the construction of the KIBO Japanese Experiment Module, installed scientific experiments on its Exposed Facility, and delivered critical spare parts and replacement batteries to the orbital complex, in addition to transferring 24,638 pounds of hardware and 1,225 pounds of water to the station. While the Endeavour was docked to the station, the mission featured a record 13 astronauts working aboard the Station representing all five ISS partners -- NASA, the Russian Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency. The mission was accomplished in 248 orbits of the Earth, traveling 6,547,853 million miles in 15 days, 16 hours, 44 minutes and 58 seconds.
Dr. Marshburn and his wife, Ann, have one child. He is also the uncle of Athens Academy students Meagan (11th grade) and Bobby (9th grade) Marshburn and alumna Rebecca '08.

Christian Lapp was awarded the Elks Foundation Student Scholarship on Sunday, January 17, at the Lake Oconee Elks Lodge. He received $500.00 at the local level, and his application has been forwarded on for judging at the district level.

A reception was held at the lodge to honor all the local winners, and Headmaster Bob Chambers and Associate Head J.P. Watson were on hand to congratulate Christian and his family. “Athens Academy has been the best thing that has ever happened to us,” says Christian’s mom MaryJo. “It has given us endless opportunities and Christian’s dream of becoming a veterinarian will soon become a reality.”

Junior Andy Kim and eighth grader Joy Kim were recently selected to participate in the Georgia Music Eeducators Association’s 2010 All-State Orchestras. The brother and sister traveled to The Westminster Schools in Atlanta on Saturday, January 23, to compete at the state-level audition.

In March, Andy will perform with the 11-12 Orchestra, and Joy will perform with the Middle School String Orchestra. The concerts will be held in Savannah, March 4-6. Congratulations to these outstanding musicians!

Athens Academy has been named the Georgia State Champion in the President’s Challenge Physical Activity and Fitness Awards Program for the eighth consecutive year. The State Champions program recognizes one school in each state in each of three divisions that has the highest percentage of students receiving a Presidential Fitness Award in the spring. According to the President’s Council, “Athens Academy serves as a leader and role model in physical fitness.” Athens Academy is one of only 219 schools across the country to reach this level.

Last fall, 339 students in grades 3-8 took part in the President's Challenge Fitness Battery. Of those, 136 students qualified for National recognition (50% or higher on all five tests) and 121 students qualified for Presidential recognition (85% or higher on all five tests.) Overall, 84% of Lower School students and 70% of Middle School students received recognition during this testing period. “This award would not be possible without the extremely hard work of the students, who daily engage in a very rigorous program geared to enhance their strength, speed, fitness, agility, and sports skills,” says Physical Education Department Chair Don Chuboff. Students regularly attend physical education classes, participate in interscholastic activities, and are involved in a variety of after-school programs that ensure a high degree of physical activity. This emphasis on student activity and wellness manifests itself in wonderful fitness scores as well as in increased academic performance, as has been highlighted by several recent scientific studies.

Since its inception in 1966, the President’s Challenge Physical Activity and Fitness Awards Program has challenged America’s young people to raise their activity and fitness to the next level. The Physical Fitness Test recognizes students for their outstanding level of physical fitness in five events: curl-ups or partial curl-ups, shuttle run, endurance run/walk, pull-ups or right angle push-ups, and V-sit or sit and reach.

Congratulations to the Upper School Sparbots team for their first place win at the FIRST Tech Challenge tournament in Gwinnett on Saturday, January 16. The team received the Rockwell Collins Inovate Award, which “celebrates a team that not only thinks outside the box, but also has the ingenuity and inventiveness to make their designs come to life.” The team also placed second for the Inspire Award. This qualifies the Sparbots to move on to the Georgia State FTC Championship on February 20 at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta.

During the regional tournament, the Sparbots competed against teams from Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia, and were judged by a panel of engineers and computer specialists based on their engineering design, computer programming, documentation, and presentation skills. Team members Christopher McGahee, Caleb Dasher, Max Ruston, Darshan Parikh, Will Divers represented the Sparbots at the tournament along with team sponsor Mike Callinan.

Athens Academy’s Interact Club recently collected shoes as part of the Soles4Souls program in conjunction with the Athens-Clarke County Recycling Division. The students, led by junior Anne Lanier Gilbert, collected the shoes to benefit the needy and also to help the environment by keeping shoes out of our landfills. Over 9,000 pairs of shoes were collected by area schools, with Athens Academy leading the way with 1,184 pairs.

Soles4Souls, a national charity, challenged organizations all over the country to raise 250,000 pairs of shoes for the needy. Georgia was challenged to collect 50,000 pairs for the overall goal. “The amount collected [in Athens] represents twenty percent of the state goal, which is a tremendous amount for a community that struggles with poverty issues,” commented Suki Jansen, waste reduction administrator for Athens-Clarke County. “Athens Academy had 1,184 pairs of shoes—more than 300 pairs ahead of the next participating school, and approximately eight percent of the total collected in our community!”

Athens Academy’s Middle School robotics team, Sparbots, participated in the Regional FIRST Lego League competition at Memorial Middle School in Conyers on Saturday, December 5. The team placed third out of 27 teams in the “Engineering Design and Programming” category and placed tenth overall. They qualified to participate in the super-regional tournament in Atlanta in January. As part of the competition at the regional level, students researched and presented a skit about the advantage of commuter rail systems that could serve Athens, called the “Brain Train.” Congratulations, Sparbots, and good luck in January!

Congratulations to senior Katie Kalivoda, who was recently recognized as Athens Academy’s Student of the Semester by the Rotary Club of Oconee County. Katie is the president of the Interact Club and the National Honor Society as well as co-captain of the varsity girls soccer team. She devotes a great deal of time to serving others as a senior mentor, Service Day leader, and a member of the Twelfth Man Club. She has also been awarded Medals of Excellence in Spanish, English, and math. “Katie epitomizes the Academy’s motto ‘Excellence with Honor,’” says Headmaster Bob Chambers. “She is a delightful and wonderful person to know.”

In addition, English teacher and guidance counselor Jeff Stachura was selected as Athens Academy’s Teacher of the Semester. Mr. Stachura, who is also the head of the English department, has been at Athens Academy since 2005. Mr. Stachura came to Athens Academy from The Lovett School in Atlanta.