Kilmer Model UN Racks up Honors at RAMSMUN

Kilmer Model UN students took many honors at RAMSMUN at Rocky Run Middle School on Saturday, April 21:

• Peter Rohrer and Tom Freebairn took Best and Outstanding awards in the European Union Committee
• the teams of  John Han and Nic Thomas, and Numan Khan and Priya Krishna  took Best and Honorable Delegations for Disarmament and International Security Council; 
• the teams of Sarah Huffman and Bella Choi, and Millen Anand and Nikhil Sakhumuri  won Outstanding and Honorable Delegation awards in the World Health Organization;  
• and Nakul Dar was awarded Verbal Commendation in the Inheritance Cycle.  

Congratulations and great work to all students who participated as well as to Kilmer MUN sponsors, Ellie Altman and Kara Tichoc.

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Optimist Club Oratorical Contest

Congratulations to Clare McConnell and Thomas Mecherikunnel on advancing to the District Level in the Optimist Club's Oratorical Contest.  They took on the high school students at the Zone competition on Saturday, April 21, and came out on top.  This can be attributed to their hard work and the support of their parents and Kilmer's oratorical contest sponsors, Barbara Appling and Ellie Altman.

The District contest will be held in Richmond on Saturday, May 19.

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Kilmer Science Olympiad Places SECOND in State Tournament

Kilmer Science Olympiad came in 2nd out of 29 teams competing at the Virginia State Tournament on Saturday, April 14, 2012. 

The students (7th and 8th graders) on the team who medaled in one or more events were : Aly Luckett, Jordan Ganley, Shreya Bhatia, Sarah Huffman, Victoria Yang, Sophia Wu, Joyce Tian, Sophie Tian, Thea Prevalsky, Andy Zhao, Arthur Tisseront, Ryan Gottwald, Jake Cui, Kevin Lin, John Han, Keerthi Puvvada and Nakul Dar.

Kudos to all students who participated for their hard work and team spirit. They made Kilmer proud!

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Sucess at the Virginia MathCounts State Competition

Youngchan Lee and Kevin Lin from Kilmer MathCounts team competed as individuals on March 17th, 2012 with other mathletes from various Virginia chapters at the MathCounts State Competition held at Dominion Virginia Power’s Corporate Headquarters.

During a day-long competition they achieved the following:   
Youngchan Lee   1st place individual,  2nd place count down   
Kevin Lin       3rd place individual

Youngchan Lee and Kevin Lin will both be part of the Virginia Mathcounts team to compete at the National Mathcounts at Orlando Florida on May 10th. Congratulations to both of them!

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Vienna Optimist Club Oratorical Contest

On Thursday, March 15, Kilmer held a school level Oratorical Contest of the Optimist Club of Greater Vienna.

Congratulations to ALL 29 students who gave their speeches last Thursday before the Oratorical Contest judges. Everyone who heard them agreed that all speakers came prepared with very poised and professional speeches on the topic How My Optimism Helps Me Overcome Obstacles.

For the GIRLS, runners-up are SWETHA RAMESH and ISABELLE MARICOR.  Girl’s second place winner is ELIZABETH ELLINGER and girl’s first place is CLARE McConnell.

For the BOYS, runners-up are SAM HASSETT and DANIEL NEE. Boy’s second place winner is RAMEN KHANNA and boy’s first place winner is THOMAS MERCHERIKUNNEL.

Our best wishes go to Clare and Thomas as they compete at the next level against Luther Jackson MS and Thoreau MS.  GO KILMER!

Once Again, Kilmer Rocks WordMasters!

Two teams of students representing Kilmer Middle School recently won highest honors in the WordMasters Challenge, a national language arts competition entered by approximately 220,000 students annually.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the Challenge, the school's seventh graders tied for first place in the nation in the year's second meet, held in February, among 294 school teams participating at this level and in this division. At the same time, the school's 8th graders tied for fourth place in the nation among among 302 competing teams.

Seventh graders Vishal Bhasin, Melody Chiang, Alyssa Czaban, Quiana Dang, Ethan Epstein, Heather Hong Fong, Emma Kohm, Jessica Lewis, Nathan Oo, Jordyn Park, Sarina Prasad, Mistaya Smith, Jay Swarup, Andy Tan, Khoi Tran, and Devlin Wesolowski, and eighth graders Kat Hanna, Nikhil Sakhamuri, and Dhriti Vij all earned perfect scores in the meet, while in the entire country only 97 seventh graders and only 24 eighth graders did so.

The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably harder than grade level), and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of relationships. The students will participate in one more WordMasters meet during the coming months, and medals and certificates will be awarded in June to those who achieved and/or improved the most in the course of the year.

Successful Model UN Conference at Washington-Lee HS

The Model UN Club competed in a conference at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington on Saturday, March 3, with great results!

Spencer Weiss and Kiran Hampton took the gavel for Best Delegation in the Specialized Political Activities Committee, and Jake Biderman and Daniel XU were awarded Verbal Commendations.

Sarah Hoffman and Siri Doddi took the gavel for Best Delegation in the Social and Humanitarian Committee.

In the United Nations Environmental Program, Nikil Rao and Numan Khan were named Honorable Delegation and Namita Dongre and Rohan Taneja received Verbal Commendations.

In the Disarmament and Security Committee, Will Frank and Andrew Howard were awarded Outstanding Delegation.

On the British Crown Committee, Peter Rohrer received Outstanding Delegate and Tom Freebairn received a Verbal Commendation.

Congratulations to all of our award winners and participants!

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