What's Happening

Don’t Miss Tomorrow’s Party!!!
Terry Ferguson, President, RHP Board of Trustees
Don’t miss the celebration!!!!  Come and help the Board of Trustees toast Head of School Peter McCormack on his 15 years of dedication to RHP.  All parents and other friends (adults only please) from both RHP and Renaissance, are invited to the on-campus “Monty’s Tavern” tomorrow, between 4:00 and 7:00 p.m.

Annual Fund at 60%   Yes!!!!!
Thank you so much to all our families, friends, administration and faculty for increasing our Annual Fund participation from 29% to 60%!!! As you know, your tuition and fees do not cover all our expenses, and with your Annual Fund contributions we are able to guarantee that your son or daughter has access to college caliber academic preparation, an outstanding theater and fine arts program, athletic opportunities and much, much more. Did you know that your contributions to the Annual Fund also support our on-campus security personnel, our highly touted robotics program, our burgeoning botany center, and a very strong college counseling program (ask our seniors; don’t take my word for it)?  We need the 40% of you who haven’t yet sent in your contributions to please send in your form, or better yet, log onto our new web site and make your contribution on line: https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=20106. 100% participation by June 30th is our goal!  Please help us make it.  And thank you, again, to those of you who have contributed!

Math Olympiads
This year the 6th grade math classes participated in Math Olympiads, a national math program. The program’s goals are to “stimulate enthusiasm and a love for math, strengthen mathematical intuition, foster mathematical creativity and ingenuity, and provide for the satisfaction, joy, and thrill of meeting challenges.” The students were challenged to complete many different types of problems each week, and they competed in five contests between the months of November and March. The students learned a number of strategies to solve different types of complex problems and think “outside the box.”  At the end of the year, Shannon Herbst earned 3rd place, Alisa Fuentes earned 2nd place, and Ben Gerber earned the 1st place trophy in the class competition.  Congratulations to these three outstanding math students as well as the other 25 students who participated in the program.

Spelling Bee Coming Up!
Get out your dictionaries and mark your calendars for our annual Middle School Spelling Bee on Wednesday, May 28, at 7:00 p.m. Come watch talented sixth, seventh, and eighth graders vie for prizes and glory by spelling those words that stumped you back in middle school and may still plague you.  Can you remember how many double letters are in “accommodate”? Or is it “accommodate”? This fun event takes place in the multi-purpose room. Refreshments follow the contest! 
  
Debra Davis to Speak at Author’s Luncheon
Former RHP teacher Debra Davis will be the speaker at the annual Author’s Luncheon on Thursday, May 29, in the multi-purpose room.  Debra holds an MFA from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program and has published essays in the Harvard Review, Utne, and The Massachusetts Review. Her piece, “Betrayed by an Angel” was honored as a “notable essay” in The Best American Essays 2005 (Houghton Mifflin). Currently a corporate communications specialist, Ms. Davis has recently begun a ten-book series of novels about a sixteen-year-old girl, Alicia Verity Blaine. Parents are invited to the luncheon but need to RSVP by email to Gayle Taylor, English Department Chair, by May 23.

Press Conferences
Twelve special guests from history graced the RHP multi-purpose room last Friday, giving the 8th-12th graders a taste of what their lives were like.

Portrayed by students in John Trausch’s 11th grade history and 12th grade government/economics classes, 1960's rebel Abbie Hoffman (Tamer Aziz) hosted the event.  The assembled students were educated about bear hunting by Davy Crockett (David Martz), slavery by Frederick Douglass (Adam Provinchain), and the evils of alcohol by Carrie Nation (Debbi Gu).  They were blessed by Gandhi (Amishi Doshi) and growled at by Gen. George Patton (Tristan Macdonald Nieto).

Each guest, in full costume with many visual aids, spoke to the assembly for three to four minutes. 
Other luminaries included:  Emilio Aguinaldo (Tiffany David, portraying her great-great grandfather the Filipino hero), Josephine Baker (Gina Su), Henry David Thoreau  (Lindsey Gaudenti), Victoria Woodhull (Sarah Ruttenberg), Kurt Vonnegut (Max Hamilton), and Ayn Rand (Gabby Hew).
The assembly grew out of term projects in history and government/economics classes, where students present first-person oral biographies of historical figures, and then are grilled by their classmates in a “press conference” format.

Assisting the performers were: Jenny Connelly, Galen Boone, Wolfie Trausch, Chelsea Gaudenti, Terry Kim and Andrew Frisina.

NHS Kudos
By Max Gibbons, Class of 2008
JSA is the “Junior State of America,” which is the largest student run organization in the US.  High schools all over the country have JSA chapters which debate and talk about issues ranging from religion to universal health care.  Twice each year large conventions are attended by thousands of who all join together to elect JSA student officials and participate in debates and thought-talks.  However, JSA is not strictly academic, it is a great way for students to come together to talk about the issues that they really care about in a situation where they feel comfortable.  At the recent Spring State convention, RHP had the largest delegation attend ever with over 30 students (about 20% of the high school)!  Everyone had a great time and many students got up to participate in debates and thought-talks. We also had a great time at the dances in the evenings.

Kudos
Senior Christine Nguyen was presented with a $1,000 Romeo Doty scholarship from xceed financial credit union of El Segundo. Christine has been named the Valedictorian of the Class of 2008.
Junior Sarah Ruttenberg received the “Shining World Compassion Award from the Ching Hai International Association for her compassionate work with animals this year.
Junior Adam Provinchain has been named as among the top 50,000 (out of 1.5 million) scorers in last fall’s National Merit Scholarship/PSAT testing.

Family Film Night
The Parents’ Association announces its second annual Film Night on Saturday evening, June 7, at 7:30 p.m. Come on out and enjoy a drive-in movie, Napoleon Dynamite!

Guys and Dolls
RHP’s 2008 spring musical, Guys and Dolls, performs Friday, May 16, at 7pm and Saturday, May 17, at 2 & 7pm at the Warner Grand Theater, 478 6th Street in San Pedro.

Set in New York in the forties, small-time gambler Nathan Detroit (Tamer Aziz) bets his bigtime pal Sky Masterson (Max Hamilton) that he can’t make the next woman he sees fall in love with him. When the next doll he sees happens to be the neighborhood missionary Sarah Brown (Keyanna Rees), the stage is set for an unforgettable evening’s entertainment. Tickets at the door are $15 & $17 or you may order  tickets online at: www.warnergrand.org

Coming Soon