Featured photo: Open House Award winners Front Row (L-R): Marissa Yamulla, Nathaniel Belanger, Rian Patel, and Xavier Reymunde Wittmer. Second Row: Head of School Theresa Long, Arianna Larsen, Issac Edmonds, and Academic Dean Justin Vincent.

MMI Preparatory School held an awards ceremony on May 8 to honor middle school students for their academic achievements and inducted members into the National Junior Honor Society and the National Classical League for Latin. During the ceremony, eighth graders Siya Patel, Zachary Naugle, Arianna Larsen, and Justin Park received the American Legion Award, the award given to the top two female and top two male students with the highest grade point average.

MMI also presented subject awards in each grade to the following students:

Sixth Grade – Owen Farrell (Geography and Greek), Riley Mason (English and Math), Rian Patel (Science), Sahiba Kaur (Music), and Gabrielle Serock (Visual Arts).
Seventh Grade – Robert Brighthaupt (History), Marlow Basalyga (English and Health), Neal DeAngelo (Math), Thomas Rogers (Science), Yaslin Tejada (Music), and Sophie Schulz (Visual Arts).

Eighth Grade – Evan Polanco (Government), Thomas Pantages (English and Science), Arianny Nieves (Pre-Algebra), Marissa Yamulla (Algebra I), Issac Edmonds (Algebra II), Madalynn Young (Music), and Zachary Naugle (Visual Arts).

Each year, MMI students are challenged with preparing special research projects that are displayed at the annual Open House event. All MMI students display, explain, and demonstrate their projects in classrooms and locations throughout the school and all projects are completed under the guidance of faculty advisers. Each project is then evaluated during Open House by a panel of judges from outside the school. The middle-school winners who were recognized at the awards ceremony include:

Mid-school STEM: First place – Issac Edmonds for Fractals, Second place – Nathaniel Belanger for Understanding the Stirling Engine, Third place – Rian Patel for Lego Robotic Programming. Mid-school Humanities: First place – Xavier Reymunde Wittmer for How Sleep Affects Mental Health, Second place – Marissa Yamulla for Italy, Third place – Arianna Larsen for Psychology of Compliance.

Students inducted into the National Junior Classical League for Latin were: Katherine Arias, Caitlyn Carter, Ian Composto, Avari DeAngelo, Ruhani Shah, Simona Sickler, Amanda Stoffa, and Sharon Zhuang. Philip Benyo and Simona Sickler were also recognized for scoring exceptionally on the National Latin Exam.

Students inducted into the National Junior Honor Society were: Katherine Arias, Philip Benyo, Caitlyn Carter, Ian Composto, Avari DeAngelo, Katelyn Gera, Zachary Jordan, Kennedy Lutz, Ruby Myers, Ruhani Shah, Simona Sickler, Amanda Stoffa, Nicholas Swaditch, Mattingly van den Berg, Delilah Yatsko, and Sharon Zhuang.

Students were also inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. NJHS represents an organization of the world’s highest-achieving middle-level students and provides an outstanding opportunity to grow with academically accomplished peers who are sharpening the habits needed for success in high school and beyond. The students inducted were: Anthony Arias Tejeda, Gianna Brush, Gabriella Carsia, Isabella DeStefano, Anna Drobnock, Benjamin Drobnock, Arianna Larsen, Maia Laverty, Calli Mason, Jackson Moore, Olivia Moore, Patrick Moore, Zachary Naugle, Arianny Nieves, Thomas Pantages, Shreeya Parikh, Justin Park, Siya Patel, Andrew Pedri, Evan Polanco, Derek Radzwich, Angel Reymunde Wittmer, Xavier Reymunde Wittmer, Jared Santana, Gavin Serock, Haden Stash, and Marissa Yamulla.

The event concluded with the Rising Up Ceremony for MMI’s eighth grade students who were recognized by their Advisors Syra Dewar and Grete Floryshak ’92. The students received a gift as they will end this school year by “Rising Up” to start their Upper School careers in the fall.