Chesterton High School hosted their annual Academic Competition Awards on Monday evening. All the academic groups were recognized for their participation and coaches in each area gave the highlights of this school year.
The Academic Decathlon team Participated at the Lowell Invitational, DAC Tournament and The Area contest. CHS qualified for State, but was unable to attend due to a blizzard.
Individual medal winners at the Area contest were: Julia Graff with 1st place in speech, math, economics, 2nd place in language. Jessica Oswald with 1st place in essay, 2nd place in math, 3rd place in music and interview. Jacob Weitzel with 2nd place in interview, 3rd place in music, math and economics.
Josh Sweet with 1st place in economics and 2nd place in math. Xavier Pittman with 3rd place in social studies and economics.
Julia Graff, Jessica Oswald and Jacob Weitzel were nominated for Duneland Academic Conference (DAC) All Stars for their contribution to the Decathlon team.
CHS won the PNW Porter County Tournament with Interdisciplinary and Social Studies placing first, Science placing second and Math placing third. At the DAC tournament, Math placed third. At the area competition, Interdisciplinary placed first, Science, Math and Social Studies placed second, English and Fine Arts placed third.
Students Branen Wong, Laura Estridge, Joe Adcock and Josh Sweet were nominated for DAC All Stars for their contributions to the Academic Super Bowl team.
The Science Olympiad team placed fifth (in class AA) high school division at the IUN Regional Competition.
At the State competition at IU, the team placed 11th. The team earned 2 medals at the state competition.
Both the Quiz Bowl Varsity Team and Junior Varsity placed second in the Duneland School Corporation Area Competition.
The only losses on the regular season came against regular season champs Andrean. Furthermore, in the end of the season DAC tournament, the Varsity came in second, also losing the championship match against Andrean.
Members of the Quiz Bowl team include juniors Branden Wong, Matthew Van Kley, Haydn Malackowski, Alec Fulayter, and Jeegar Singh, and sophomores Drew Engels, Josh Sweet, Aidan Li, Delano Davison, Xavier Pittman, and Joseph Adcock. The Quiz Bowl coach is Chris Hackett.
Chesterton High School had another successful season in their mathematics competitions. In the MATH FAX competition CHS competed in various levels with much success. The top three finishers for CHS in Algebra I were Eric Sparks in first place, Emily Richardson in second place and Hannah Estridge in third place. This group finished third in the state and tenth in the nation. In Geometry David Manojlovic and Carter Casbon finished tied for first at CHS and Connor Casbon finished third at CHS to help the group finish fourth in the state and fifth in the nation. In the Algebra II division, Gavin Dooley and Xavier Pittman tied for first place at CHS while Joseph Adcock was third in the school to help the school finish second place in the state and third place in the nation. In the top class, Advanced Mathematics, Branden Wong was the top scorer at CHS followed by Haydn Malackowski in second while Laura Estridge, Molly Grimes and Roman Camacho all tied for third place at CHS. The team finished eighth in the state and seventeenth in the nation.
In another competition Ð Indiana Math League, Chesterton finished in first place within their division (7th year in a row) and was ninth overall in the state.
Nolan Poczekay was the school winner in yet another mathematics competition called Trig Star conducted at CHS by the American Society of Land Surveyors. Nolan wins $50 cash and is in competition for the state winning of $500 cash based upon his score and time in the competition.
Team members Amber Heilmann and J.D. Browning were standout competitors. J.D. Browning was the Mental Award winner. Their coach is Jennifer Jendrzejczyk.
CHS was state runner-up in the second-year division and placed third in the fourth-year division at the Japanese Olympiad of Indiana at Earlham College in Richmond. CHS won the Japan Bowl/Japanese Olympiad state championship twenty times along with three national Japan Bowl championships and one national runner-up.
The Japanese Olympiad of Indiana is an academic competition for second, third and fourth-year students with categories including speaking, culture, kanji characters, proverbs, listening, geography, current events, history, and onomatopoeic expressions.
The CHS second-year team of Aidan Li, Emily Case and Hunter Stewart finished second to Indiana Academy and ahead of Avon High School. The other second-year team of Abbey Leffert and Jacob Waters did well in their preliminary round.
In the fourth-year division, the team of Nate Kravitz, Jonathon Sumita and Orion Bohren finished in third place to Bloomington North and Michigan City.
Competing in third-year, but not advancing to the finals were the teams of Will Shook, Hannah Grimes and Sam Henderson, and Eve Senderhauf, Elise Dorsey and Davian Ojeda. Japanese Olympiad coach is John Sparks.
Florence L. Gloser “Moma Lou,” age 73 of Chesterton, passed away on Monday, April 20, 2015, at the VNA Hospice Center in Valparaiso.
She was born on July 16, 1941, in Valparaiso to Orrin and Myrtle Bennett-DeWitt, both of whom preceded her in death.
Florence is survived by her daughter, Peggy (Richard) McConnachie of Chesterton and her son, Gary (Debbie) Howard of Kouts; her three grandchildren: Joshua (Amber) McConnachie of Westville, Lucas (Trish) Howard of Valparaiso and Justin (Jamie) McConnachie of Chesterton.
Also surviving are her four great-grandchildren: Brianne and Corbin McConnachie, Sidney Howard and Stella McConnachie. She is also survived by her brother, Bill DeWitt of Kouts and her sister, Ruth Wade of Kouts, along with several nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.
Florence is also preceded in death by her husband, John R. Gloser and her daughter, Cindy Lou Howard.
Florence was very active in the Machinist Union Local 1227 and worked as a Machinist at McGill Manufacturing for thirty-three years. She was a member of the VFW Post 2511 Ladies Auxiliary, as well as the American Legion Women’s Auxiliary.
She was a phenomenal cook, loved arts and crafts and most importantly, she was a treasured friend, mother and grandmother to all she knew.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 25, 2015, at 3 p.m. at White-Love Funeral Home, 525 South 2nd St., Chesterton with Pastor Phil Willingham officiating.