• These Pine-Richland High School students earned second place in the novice category at the Cultural Communications Alliance's Annual International Marketing Competition at the University of Pittsburgh: Danny Nigh, Patrick Nowak and Alexa Profozich.

• Three St. Sebastian teams competed for the first time at the English Festival at Duquesne University last semester. More than 2,000 students from over 70 area schools participated.

Two of the St. Sebastian teams earned first place in the trivia portion of the competition. Participating were Madeline Adamczyk, Joseph Bray, Emmet Cauley, Allison Chammas, Damian Devlin, James Hoak, Elizabeth Huang, Zachary Mannella, Alexa Mosser, Sarah Scholze, Matthew Sieminski, Alexandria Smyers, Thomas Soergel and Sarah Waldschmidt.

• Eleven Pine-Richland High School students qualified to compete in the National Technology Student Association Conference in Denver: Zachary Abbott, Adam Benson, Richard Burgess, Nicholas Stanford, Ariel Kelley, Nikolas Capitano, Zachary Simmonds, Matthew Mannino, Michael Greager, Andrew Baden and Jonathan Balint.

• These students from St. Alphonsus School in Pine won first-place awards at the 75th Annual State Meeting of the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science at Penn State University in State College: Allen DeNisi, Adam Haus, Kevin Pfau, Megan Sangimino, Shelby Wasil, Julia Duken, David Haus, Brian Hammel, Regis Kearney and Maria Monberg. Ethan Conner received a second-place award.

• St. Sebastian seventh-grader David Haddad won third place in the West View VFW Post 2754 Patriot's Pen essay contest last semester.

Third-grader Grace Doerfler and fourth-grader Emma Rutkowski each won honorable mention in the annual Loyalty Day poster coloring contest sponsored by Post 2754 and its Ladies Auxiliary. Each received a trophy, certificate and cash prize.

• Every St. Sebastian student who participated in the Novice Forensics meet placed in their first competition. In poetry, Tina Mustovic earned first and third places and Tessa Fullmer won second and third places.

In prose, Tessa Dilts and Devin Spagnolo each won first and second places and Michael Sosso earned second and third places. In Drama, Michael Cauley earned two third place awards.

• St. Sebastian students Brad Munson, Gwen Munson, Olivia Rauktis and Madeline Wells were selected to perform in the All-Star District Band concert last semester.

• Three St. Sebastian teams of fifth- and sixth-graders participated in the Shaler Library Battle of the Books.

Of the 13 teams entered, Brian Baker, Tessa Dilts, Maria Melchiorre, Sabrina Palmieri and Madeline Wells took second place. The other teams of Tyler Barkich, Jayson Dean, Maria Haileselassie, Dana Krawczyk and Devin Spagnolo and Jamie Gearhart, Allyson Misch, Gwen Munson and Laura Skirtich both tied for fourth place.

• St. Sebastian School was one of 15 Catholic elementary schools to participate in the Math 24 Challenge last semester. Fifth-grader Alex Boone, sixth-grader Tyler Barkich, and eighth-grader Danielle Melvin each qualified for the finals. Tyler finished in fourth place in the diocese.

The tourney calls on a student to mentally compute the solution/algorithm needed to reach a total of 24 given four random numbers.

• Two St. Sebastian students have received The Pittsburgh Catholic Newspaper Elementary School Journalism Awards last semester. Kevin Loughlin won a merit award for the Best Written Sports Story, and an award of excellence for the Best Written Opinion Piece went to Madeline Wells.

• St. Sebastian School students raised more than $2,400 in their Change for Chimbote campaign last semester. The money helps support The Chimbote Foundation, dedicated to the mission city of Chimbote, Peru. Students also raised $1,000 to support the Fallen Heroes Fund in Pittsburgh.

In addition, through the fourth-grade bake sale service project, more than $800 was collected for UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Toys and other items from the hospital's wish list were purchased.

• St. Sebastian seventh-graders Madeline Adamczyk and David Haddad earned first place awards at the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science at Penn State last semester. Second place winners included Lauren Brungo, Emma Doerfler, Gunnar Geyer, Patrick Sennott, Curtis Sobien and Emily Tiche.

• Jonathan Grygiel of Franklin Park, who will enter 8th grade in August, won $175 in awards in the Pittsburgh Regional Science and Engineering Fair held at Carnegie Science Center last semester.

Jonathan is a student at Ingomar Middle School in North Allegheny School District and the son of Pete and Brenda Grygiel.

• Mars Area School District sophomore Alexa Seibert was selected to be a member of the rueTeen Insiders Advisory Board. Rue21 is a specialty teen fashion retailer. Alexa will offer opinions on the retailer's marketing and merchandise.

She is the daughter of Charles and Elaine Seibert, of Mars.

• Two teams of North Allegheny students won honors at the twenty-fifth annual Chemathon hosted by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Maryland at College Park last semester.

North Allegheny's level I team of sophomores, Divya Tumuluru, Daniel Lesh, Aaron Li, Liyan Fan, Jason Chen and Patrick Nollen took second place.

Level II team of juniors, Andrew Adam, Hyun Young Kim, Stephen Guo, Cindy Yuan, Connie Yuan and Liyang Yu took fourth place.

• Two teams of North Allegheny students did exceptionally well at the Thirtieth Annual Chemistry Olympics last semester, where they competed with more than 100 teams from around the Tri-State area.

In the AP Chemistry category, the team of Adrianna Jensen, Aidan MacDonagh, and Kostya Borisov took first place.

In the Organic Chemistry category, the team of Kevin Liu, Nimish Telang, and Shivam Verma took second place.

• The North Allegheny Junior Classical League won its 12th consecutive state championship last semester. Team members earned 34 first-place ribbons, 31 second-place awards and 32 third-place honors.

In addition, the Latin 1 Quiz Bowl team composed of Martin Majewski, Samir Jindel, Brian Boehmke and Connor Phillips, won second place in the state.

• Safiy Khan, a second-grader last semester at Peebles Elementary School in North Allegheny School District, won second place in the fifteenth annual Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest sponsored by WQED Multimedia and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

• Two teams of fifth-graders in North Allegheny School District have been recognized with a plaque of highest achievement for their performance in the 2008-09 Math Olympiad contest.

One team was made up of students from Franklin and Ingomar Elementary Schools: Andrew Fong, Thomas Cwalina, Derek Chen, Trevor Smith, Nila Suresh, Ashvath Sekhar, Keerthi Samanthapudi, Gabriel Ren, Scott Wenig, Eliza Gunn, Garrett Hagan, Ben Klingensmith, Regina Munsch, Jack O'Sullivan, Steven Savchik, Grace Traynor, Koray Tuncel and Jack You.

The other was of students from Hosack, McKnight and Peebles Elementary Schools: Kevin Port, Joie Feng, Nicholas Dela Torre, Michael Bogut, Derek Howell, Sunha Lee, Keegan Phillips, Julia Driscoll, Russell Ruffolo, Michael Struk, Dylan Falk, Adam Tedeschi, Jack Mo, Jason Earle and Yagmur Yuksel.

• Ingomar Middle School eighth-grader Cassie Foulk won first place last semester in the category of Music ages 14-18, in the PNC 2009 African American History Contest.

• Shady Side Academy rising senior Kelly Casey-Latterman, of Fox Chapel, was among 100 students nationwide selected to participate in the U.S. Green Schools Fellows Program and to attend the National Student Climate and Conservation Congress held recently at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency's National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

• The Zonta Three Rivers Pittsburgh North chapter presented Carolyn Shields, a sophomore finance major at La Roche College, with the Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship. Shields is a graduate of Shaler Area High School, from which she graduated with honors. Ms. Shields is the daughter of Bill and Carol Shields from Shaler.