Two students from Riverside-Brookfield High School have been named National Merit Scholarship finalists.
The National Merit program, according to the organization’s Web site, is a competition for recognition and scholarships based on a student’s performance on the PSAT/NMSQT test, which is taken by approximately 1.5 million high school students each year.
Of that number just 15,000 are named finalists who are eligible to receive National Merit Scholarships. AT RB in 2010, Hugh T. Berglind and Nathan M. Smith were both named finalists in the competition.
The National Merit Scholarship Program will announce the 8,200 Merit Scholarship winners this spring.
Mr. Gronke goes to Washington
Brookfield resident Brad Gronke is one of four Emergency Medical Service practitioners to receive grants of up to $1,200 from the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians to help subsidize the cost of their participation in EMS on the Hill Day, a lobbying effort to visit congressional leaders and advocate for EMS. The event takes place May 3 and 4 in Washington, D.C.
Gronke, an EMS professional for 12 years, is a volunteer and captain for Starved Rock Trail Safety and a volunteer with the Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team. He has also served as an assistant instructor for Triton College EMT classes. He is also a consultant for the insurance industry and a part-time police officer.
Digging for gold
Tom Lupfer, a Riverside resident, has received a Gold Award from the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association (ILCA) for his company’s work on a sustainable landscaping project for a Hinsdale residence. Lupfer has owned Lupfer Landscaping for 15 years.
The ILCA’s recognizes individual project submissions for its annual Excellence in Landscape Awards in 15 different categories. Gold awards are given to projects that exhibit “the highest level of achievement in landscape design, installation and maintenance.”
Keeping it clean
In March, Riverside resident Ted Denning was recognized as a “top performer” in the water environment field at the annual conference of the Illinois Water Environment Association in East Peoria.
Denning is a senior environmental engineer and team leader in the industrial waste enforcement/pretreatment section of the Department of Monitoring and Research for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
A past president and current delegate of the Illinois WEA, Denning previously worked as manager of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s Chicago regional office, Division of Water Pollution Control.
On call
Riverside resident Georgette Brokopp was invited to be an “on-call RN” for the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s Wing Madness charity event on April 7 at Dick’s Last Resort in Chicago.
Brokopp, founder and president of Infinity Healthcare Staffing in LaGrange, joined emcee Mancow Muller and Dr. Ian Smith, the event’s “celebrity M.D,” and event judge Jesse White in the two-part event. The first competition saw who could consume the most wings in a certain amount of time. The second competition saw how Chicago first responders deal with the heat. Firefighters and police officers squared off in a last-man-standing battle to see who could handle the hottest wings.
Since 1985, the Make-A-Wish Foundation has granted wishes to more than 9,000 children in Illinois who suffer from life-threatening medical conditions.
On campus
Six students from St. Mary School in Riverside advanced to the state science fair competition recently by receiving top awards at the Regional Illinois Junior Academy Science Fair at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago on March 20-21.
The students will compete in the state science fair on May 8 in Champaign. Representing St. Mary’s will be Kate Murphy and Kate Milleker for their project: “Seeing is Believing … Or is It?” exploring what variable affect memory; Martha Murphy and Anna Lyons for “Hold the Mold,” exploring the best ways to keep fruit fresh; and Dan Murphy and David Durkin for “The Truth About Childproof Caps,” which tackles whether such caps really work.
Brookfield resident Francisco Aguirre, a senior at Lyons Township High School, won a silver medal at the Illinois Family, Career and Community Leaders of America regional competition.
Aguirre was on of four silver medalists in the Culinary Arts division of the competition, an event similar to Iron Chef America, according to a press release from Lyons Township High School. Aguirre was one of 22 LT students who will compete in the FCCLA state competition.
North Riverside resident Yevgeniy Kalinin and Riverside resident Hannah M. Toriumi have been named to the dean’s list for the 2010 winter term at North Central College in Naperville.
To be eligible for the dean’s list, students must maintain a grade-point average of 3.6 on a 4-point scale and be enrolled full time.
A team of Hauser Junior High School students won highest honors in the WordMasters Challenge – a national language arts competition entered by approximately 220,000 students annually – earlier this year.
The school’s eighth-graders tied for 10th in the nation in the year’s second meet in February that featured 168 teams.
Gabriella Bova, Francis Enger and Alex Muntean all earned perfect scores in the meet Just 85 eighth-graders nationwide had perfect scores.
Others achieving outstanding results were eighth-graders Clare Bollnow, Connor Culloden, Rebecca Rusiecki, Giuliana Foulkes, Lucia Mancini, Emily Michl, Abraham Ourth and Nick Schliep and seventh-graders Peter Pribyl Pierdinock and John Showel.