BEURLING ACADEMY GRADS AND SUPERSTARS GET HONORED

It has been a busy month of June with Beurling Academy holding their awards evenings and it also marked the return of a June convocation on June 4th and it was standing room only as about 150 grads along with parents and siblings and invited guests took to the auditorium to take in this always popular event.

It was the first grad event for Principal David Abracen as he welcomed all in attendance and extended his best wishes to the Class of ’09 and then introduced teacher Miss Debi Dixon as host for the remainder of the evening.

Former guidance counselor, the highly popular Myrella Fuga made a return and was the guest speaker. Before the grad certificates and subject proficiency awards were given towards the end of the evening, those always highly regarded Special and Grad Awards were presented.

As usual at these events, there are always big multi-award winners. The top student was Jake Jensen who picked up 7 awards including the LBPSB Gold Medal, the Governor-General’s Medal, the PTU bursary, and the U. of T. National Book Award….. Jessica Marrone earned 6 awards including the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Award and the Avon Scholarship…..Kristopher McMahon was next with 5 honors including the McGill Science Award, the Birks Bronze Medal, and the R.Eggleton Applied Science Award.

Three students earned 3 awards each and they were: Omar Gayle, Annick Nestruck-Beaupre, and Rabia Rauhullah.

But there were two moments that most seemed to think were the highlights of the evening. Kayla Vardon, in what many considered her most powerful performance of her BA years had the crowd in the palm of her hands as she sang a farewell tribute to her fellow grads by singing Leona Lewis’ Footprints in the Sand. Kayla was also asked to sing this song again at the subsequent awards evenings for the other grades.

The other highlight had to be the speech given by Jessica Marrone, who was the valedictorian. In her address, she broke down several times recounting her many memories of her high school years and also paid tribute to a friend and fellow grad who had asked her years before why she would want to be friends with him. It was an emotional moment and the crowd was in a hush. The evening ended with a reception in the caf with the jazzy music in the background of Gary Linder and friends. It was a classy, well-planned event, something which the class of 2008, the first class who did all their schooling at BA, unfortunately did not get to experience according to some grads from last year

The awards evenings last week was also the chance for admin and teachers to honor those who put in great efforts for the past year. On the first night, it was for the Sec 1 and 2 students. The big award earners here were Lorie Manea-Huaman with 5 honors followed by Ashton Thibeault with 4. The evening also saw Sec 2’s superstar athlete Treyvon Grant pick up 4 honors, all in athletics. Treyvon, not surprisingly, was the male athlete of the year and was MVP for indoor and outdoor track and field and for midget basketball.

A few nights later, it was for the Sec 3 and 4 students, and familiar names were again honored at the top of the list. For the sec 3 students, the night saw Stephanie Valente pick up 6 awards, followed Amanda Pidlisny with 5 including MVP in midget girls badminton and volleyball, and Helen Jewell picked up 4 awards. As for the Sec 4 students, it was the Cassandra Loj - Roop Sekhon show as they picked up 7 honors each.