Leonia High School

Summer Reading List 2013-2014 

Leonia DECA Thrives in Anaheim

Leonia High School’s 20 DECA members have returned from the International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, California with great results! Six members were recognized for their outstanding achievements in their competitive events.  The Entrepreneurship Promotion Project inspired by seniors Ryan Abi-Hanna, Ariana Durollari and Zoe Edelman was recognized as a Top 10 national project. The Public Relations Project led by seniors Humberto Marcia, Emily Sullivan and Rupert Aranda was cited for its outstanding merit as a Top 16 national project.  Additional competitors and their respective events included seniors Clair Jiang, Molly Kennelly and junior Aya Nukina in the Creative Marketing Event, juniors Michael Gutter and Danilo Lavia in the Buying and Merchandising Research Event.  Sophomore competitors included Simran Kaur in the Professional Selling event and Tony Vargas, Moustafa Abdelaziz and David Johannesson in the  Advertising Campaign event.  Seniors Daniel Kindler, NJDECA’s current State President and Emily Sullivan, NJDECA’s current Northern Vice President served as voting delegates for the 2013-14 National Officer Team and led the 650 New Jersey delegation of members.  Senior leadership delegates Tony Bonadies and Megan Chacon-Diaz met with executives from national corporations during the Executive Mentor Session while Sophomores Sofia Haikin and Bailey Chen networked with 200 delegates from across the nation during the Leadership Development Academy.

LHS students competing against students from all 50 states as well as Canada, Germany, Guam and Puerto Rico.  Over 16,000 students, advisors and professionals were in attendance at this annual event. DECA is a co-curricular international association of marketing students that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges.

The National French Contest “Le Grand Concours”

    
The National French Contest is one of the most important contest sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of French. This year, they were 95,564 students of French participants in the US. It offers seven different levels of French. For the second time, Leonia High School has participated in this contest.  LHS is proud to announce that we have seven winners for this contest in Level 2 (24,219 participants) and two winners in Level 5 (5,312 participants):

Winners of Level 2:
  
Grace Yoo , Bronze medal/Laureat National Certificate (4^th place in the Nation)
Nasir Ismail, Bronze medal/Laureat National Certificate (5^th place in the Nation)
Raquel Espassandre, Bronze medal/Laureat National Certificate (6^th place in the Nation)
Albert Chung, Bronze medal/Laureat National Certificate (7^th place in the Nation)
Soojin Kim, Bronze medal/Laureat National Certificate (8^th place in the Nation)
Reena Lee and Roberto Ruiz-Melendez  tied and both won Bronze medals/Laureat National Certificates (9^th place in the Nation)

Winners of Level 5:
  
Faustin Cantareil and Loup Cantareil , tied and both won Bronze medals/Laureat National Certificate (4^th place in the Nation)

Congratulations to all of them for such great results!

 Emily Kaufman Wins
2013 Scholastic Writing Award Recognition

Emily Kaufman, a member of the class of 2014 at LHS, has won Honorable Mention for her Dramatic Script, “Savannah’s Gun,” in the 2013 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards competition presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards is the longest running, most prestigious arts recognition program and the largest source of scholarships for creative teenagers in grades 7-12 in the United States. Past recipients include Andy Warhol, Richard Avedon, Sylvia Plath, John Updike, Robert Redford, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Zac Posen.

Emily is a student of Dr. Michael Pinker in A. P. English III, with whom she posed recently for the above photograph. Congratulations, Emily!

Shark Alum Barbara Corcoran
Visits Leonia High School

On Thursday April 12, 2013, Barbara Corcoran, the billionaire real estate mogul, and Shark Judge from the ABC hit television show, Shark Tank, visited Leonia High School and spoke to the marketing students about her journey to success. She came as a part of the Educating Entrepreneurship Campaign, a chapter project run by seniors Ryan Abi-hanna, Ariana Durollari and Zoe Edelman that aimed to celebrate, educate, and inspire entrepreneurship around the community.

Barbara Corcoran is a Leonia High School alumnus who lived a humble childhood in Edgewater, NJ. She took a $1,000 loan and transformed it into a $5 billion real estate empire through the creation of her company, The Corcoran Group. In 2001, she sold the company for $66 million to NRT Incorporated. Since then, Barbara has written several New York Times bestselling books, is the real estate consultant for the Today Show, as well as a star on The Shark Tank where she has invested in several successful businesses.

Mrs. Corcoran talked freely to the students about her experiences in the field and the obstacles she has overcome to make it this far. She stated that she is “great at failure,” and that the prospect of failing should not discourage you to give up. She inspired the students to build a career that they will enjoy so that everyday is fun. Listening to her bold life decisions encouraged students to constantly work towards a goal, even in the face of adversity.