Meet Westonka's Distinguished Students of the Second Quarter

by Lorrie Ham

A total of 24 Mound Westonka High School students who exhibited outstanding effort, citizenship and academic achievement for the second quarter of the 2012-2013 school year were honored at the quarterly Distinguished Student Breakfasts at the high school Feb. 7 and 8.

These students are invited to a breakfast with their parents where each teacher's nomination is read to the group and each student introduced. This long-time tradition, started by retired teachers Roger and Jan Fischbach, is now planned and hosted by a faculty committee. The photos of the honored students remain on display in the case near the north doors for the next quarter.

Eighth and ninth-grade honorees, who were hosted at the Feb. 7 breakfast, included Zak Edington (9) Physical Education; Jaxon Helland (9) Honors English 9; AJ Bomar (8) Geometry X; Emily Staunton (9) Intro to Marketing; Angelica Jansons (8) Spanish 1; Erika Whaley (8) Earth Science; Henri Lind (8) Advanced English 8; Sydney Wagner (9) Geography; Nathan Leif (8) Intro to Theater and Lilli Russick (8) American History.

Distinguished 10th, 11th, and 12th graders honored at the Feb. 8 breakfast were Lauren Elskamp (12) Super Aide in Office; Tucker Poikonen (12) Function, Stats & Trig; Jackson Leenay (10) Honors Chemistry; Jack Leschisin (11) Advanced World History; Jesse Mord (12) American Government; Josh Wyman (10) Algebra Part 2; Trevor Omann (11) Ceramics 1; Katie Kuhbander (12) Work Experience; Tony Christopulos (10) Marketing 1; Sidney Cordie (11) Advanced Psychology; Noah Johnson (11) Honors American Literature; Karlie Wagner (10) English 10; Alex Robbins (11) AP Calculus AB, and Hannah Berg (12) AP Calculus BC.

At the end of each quarter teachers are asked to name a distinguished student in each broad subject area for each grade level.