• For the fourth year in a row, the Alpharetta High School chapter of Future Business Leaders of America won the Sweepstakes Award for the most competitive-event wins at the FBLA State Leadership Conference last month. Most of the students had to compete at the Regional Conference in January to advance and compete at State. Alpharetta's first-place winners were: Anita Ramanathan, Business Financial Plan; Josh Seides and Rohan Bagga, Community Service Project; Suraj Masand, Desktop Application Programming; Dhakshi Balakumar, Andrew Fu, and Haiwen Gui, Entrepreneurship; Sid Vemuri, Kayvon Dibai, and Divyesh Gutta, Global Business; Christopher Sun and Cecilia Gonzalez, Graphic Design; Nivethaashri Sundaramurthy, Intro to Business Presentation; Jessica Zhang, Management Information Systems; Colby Tobin and Ryan Tobin, Mobile Application Development; Srikar Thammishetti, Ben Dugger, and Nishant Reddy, Sports and Entertainment Management; Gerald Nash, Cyber Security; and Evan Zhang, Intro to Financial Math.
• The Starr's Mill High Academic Bowl Team for the Deaf will represent Fayette County and Georgia at the 2016 Academic Bowl Nationals at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. Starr's Mill is one of the top 24 teams in the country that will compete at the 20th annual academic bowl April 23-26. Team members include Darius Copper, Anna Martin, David Martin, and William O'Connell. The team qualified for the national competition after earning a wild card spot at the Kentucky School for the Deaf Southeast Regional, one of four regional competitions in the nation. Starr's Mill competed against teams from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Maryland, and South Carolina. In addition to advancing to the nationals, William O'Connell was named an All-Star Player at the regional competition. This is the seventh year that Fayette has had a team competing at the national level. The coaches are Cindy Hartpence and Samandra Muniz.
• Creek View Elementary School's Academic Bowl team placed second and thrd overall in the Elementary School division at the Cherry Blossom Buzzer Bowl on March 12 in Macon.
• Woodward Academy fourth-grader Emily Brown won a gold medal in the 2016 North Georgia Winter Classic figure skating competition that took place March 6 in Cumming, Ga. Emily competed in the Basic 8 Program group. The competition is an official event of U.S. Figure Skating.
• The North Gwinnett Middle School Honor Orchestra has been invited to perform in the National Band and Orchestra Festival in Carnegie Hall on April 27. The ensemble, 70 students who audtition to participate, is under the direction of Sarah Black, Amy Clement and Matt Thomas.
• The National Art Education Association has named Aimee M. Burgamy, of Lilburn to receive the 2016 National Middle Level Art Educator of the Year Award. This award, determined through a peer review of nominations, recognizes the exemplary contributions, service, and achievements of one outstanding NAEA member annually at the national level within their division.
