MMI News

Emily Seratch, a 2015 MMI Preparatory School graduate, placed sixth in the competitive event of Client Service at the 2015 FBLA National Leadership Conference in Chicago, Illinois. Seratch, the daughter of Frank and Sarah Seratch of Hazleton, earned national recognition among thousands of other high school students. A total of 11,000 students gathered from all over the country to compete for national accolades. Among those competitors were 400 students from Pennsylvania, including five representatives from MMI.

MMI held the seventh annual Jake Kislan ’56 Memorial Golf Tournament Friday, June 19 at the Valley Country Club in Sugarloaf. A record 112 total golfers competed in the event, which was sold out for the second year in a row.

MMI Preparatory School seniors Claire Sheen and Michael Eisenhart were recently named the Hazleton Elks Lodge 200 Teenagers of the Year. Sheen is the daughter of Kwangsup and Chaeyun Sheen, Mountaintop; and Eisenhart is the son of Stephen and Denise Eisenhart, Freeland.

Three MMI Preparatory School students finished among the top five in their respective levels during regional competition for the National Spanish Examination. Senior Claire Sheen was second in Spanish 4, sophomore Daniel Tron placed fourth in the Spanish 2 bilingual category, and freshman Angel Alday finished fourth in Spanish 1 among students from all Spanish classrooms in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

MMI Preparatory School Head of School Thomas G. Hood announced that Dr. Joleen Beltrami has accepted his invitation to deliver the Founder’s Day Address during MMI’s 123rd commencement ceremonies, which will be held on Thursday, May 21 at the school. Beltrami, a 1982 MMI graduate, joined the faculty of the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) in San Antonio, Texas in 2009 as an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. She was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor in 2014.

MMI Preparatory School sophomore Anirban Chowdhury recently recorded the region’s highest score on the Susquehanna Valley Section of the American Chemical Society’s annual chemistry exam.

MMI’s team of Jay Solgama, Joshua Kalada-Kania, William Bower, Samuel Sessock, and Sarah Moyer received the highest score in the Aquatics component and were third overall out of 34 teams at the 2015 Luzerne County Envirothon. Aquatics deals with species identification, water quality, ecosystems and ecology, watershed management, and invasive organisms.

MMI recognized 5 students in the seventh, ninth and eleventh grades as “Best of the Best” during a recent assembly.

MMI Preparatory School sophomore Anirban Chowdhury and junior William Bower both placed second in the Cedar Crest Biology Olympics. Chowdhury, the son of Bhaskar and Saumitri Chowdhury of Hazle Township, was second in Ecology. Bower, the son of Dr. Kathy Young of Sugarloaf and Philip Bower of Emmitsburg, Maryland, was the runner-up in Cell Biology.

MMI Preparatory School freshman trombone player Aaron Harman recently participated in the Pennsylvania Music Education Association’s (PMEA) District 9 Jazz Festival.

Several MMI Preparatory School world language students attained national recognition for their excellent performance on the 2015 National Spanish Examinations. MMI students earned a total of six silver and five bronze medals along with 11 honorable mentions from Spanish 1 through Spanish 4.

MMI Preparatory School sixth-grade student Millie Symbula captured first place in the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Luzerne County’s “Be Kind to Animals Week” poster contest.

Students in Lisa Ferry’s Anthropology class took a field trip on April 26 to the Conrail Site (officially referred to as 36LU169) to join The Frances Dorrance Chapter (Chapter 11) of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology for an archeological dig.

Eighth-grade students from MMI Preparatory School were inducted into the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) and the National Latin Honor Society (NLHS) at a ceremony at the school.

MMI Preparatory School’s eighth grade class recently completed a lesson on shale and had an opportunity to celebrate Earth Day with a presentation on the subject from a state expert. Dr. Roberta Winters, the former Vice President for Issues and Action on the State Board of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania (LWVPA), presented a program to MMI eighth, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth grade classes on Wednesday at MMI educating students about Marcellus Shale and the extraction process called hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as “fracking.” Her presentation was made possible through the League of Women Voters of Greater...