Children win awards for music, literature and art
By PAM MARINO
They came, they performed, they walked away winners.
More than 50 local children were highlighted recently at the 1998-99 Reflections Program Awards Presentation at the Quinlan Community Center. The students were winners in the annual Reflections contest, sponsored statewide by the Parent Teachers Association (PTA). This year's theme was "Suddenly you turn around and ..."
As part of the awards ceremony for winners from the Cupertino-Fremont Council of PTA, the students showed off their talents by performing their winning musical compositions, reading their stories and poetry, and displaying their art and photography.
"Suddenly you turn around and you have a little brother; you thought you were the only one, but now there is another," Faria Elementary third-grader Sameer Tharakan, a runner-up in the literature category, read. The audience chuckled as he recounted in rhyme what a pain little brothers can be, but he ended with the lesson that despite how annoying they are, "you play and laugh and joke around, your brother is kind of cool."
The Lai family had three first-place winners in the music category. Faria kindergartner Benjamin Lai won first place for his composition called "I travel to Africa." His sisters Jenny, a fifth-grader at Faria, and Sunny, a seventh-grader at Kennedy Junior High, also won first-place prizes. Jenny won for "I Got Bitten By a Jellyfish," which musically tells the tale of being bitten by a jellyfish on a beach in Italy (complete with a loud "ouch" from Jenny amidst the piano/violin/cello piece). Sunny won for "My Heart Is Still in Positano," which she said she composed after attending a music camp in Positano, Italy.
Pauline Chang, a sophomore at Monta Vista High School, won first place for her music composition called "Tomorrow is Gone."
First-place winners for literature were Chalia Bhavna, a first-grader at Blue Hills Elementary; Shah Pooja, a Blue Hills third-grader; Sophia Lee, a seventh-grader at Hyde Junior High and Gerald Pan, a Monta Vista senior.
In photography the first-place winners were Megan Fisher-Colbrie, a Faria second grader; Justin Reginato, a fifth-grader at Stocklmeir Elementary; Lauren Hoffman, a Kennedy seventh-grader and John Hsu, a Monta Vista senior.
First-place winners in the visual arts were Christopher Lin, a first-grader at Lincoln Elementary; Courtney Wen, a third-grader at Meyerholz Elementary; Jean Rovegno, a Kennedy eighth-grader and Edward Tung, a Monta Vista senior.
All first-place winners from the Cupertino-Fremont Council won $50 savings bonds.
Many of the students in the local council, both first-place winners and runners-up, went on to win top awards at the PTA Sixth District level, which includes all of Santa Clara County. According to council co-chair Ilana Tepman, out of 16 first-place winners in the Sixth District, 9 were from the Cupertino-Fremont Council.
Sixth District first-place winners in music were Jenny Lai, Rachael McLachlan, Sunny Lai and Pauline Chang. Natalie Grant was the district first-place winner in literature, and Erik Anderson was the first-place winner in photography. In visual arts the first-place winners were Janice Yoon, Louis Ma and Hitomi Koyama.
Of those winners, three went on to win Awards of Merit at the state level: Anderson, Yoon and Koyama.
Honorable mentions at the Sixth District level in music went to Benjamin Lai, Rachel Carandang, Christine Travis, Kim Jong, Debora Kim and Lili Yang; in literature, Bhavna Challa, Jasmine Jadali, Rebecca McLachlan, Sophia Lee, Erin Loury and Roberta Cockcraft; in photography, Pascal Gyger, Jennifer Ishii, John Hsu and Elizabeth Dei Rossi, and in the visual arts they went to Christopher Lin, Winny Huang, Brian Lee, Leann Fujinami, Niki Ghaderi, Katherine Yu, Jean Rovegno, Toshiro Akabori, Steven Lewis, Edward Tung, Tamara Struk and Lili Yang.
Other runners-up at the council level in music were Sarah Ardern and Irena Pikovski. In literature, runners-up were Rachel Carandang, Pooja Shah, Sneha Challa, Natasha Naik, Sameer Tharakan, Eugene Berson, Daniel Kleinman and Neeha Puppala, and in photography, Rebecca McLachlan, Trent Toda, Tyler Fisher-Colbrie, Natasha Sarin, Michael Chien and Alain Gyger.
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