Palo Alto High School departments honored 69 students with the Rachel Austin Award in front of parents, teachers and administrators on the Paly Quad during lunch on Thursday, recognizing select students who continue to strive for excellence.
The awardees each received a certificate and a check for $25.
According to choir teacher Michael Najar, who spoke at the ceremony, the annual award is given to exceptional students from each department in honor of Rachel Austin, a former Paly Home Economics teacher.
“The Rachel Austin Award is the most enduring award that Palo Alto High School has to offer,” Najar said in his speech addressing the attendees. “For almost 40 years this award has been bestowed upon great students like yourselves. Faculty is always excited to award students in this category because … they are engaged in the curriculum and will often benefit the most from the great instruction that Paly has to offer.”
Each Paly department has a role in selecting the award recipients. According to Math Instructional Leader Arne Lim, the decision process consists of meetings and discussions between teachers.
“Each department has a meeting, and at that meeting we know how many awardees we get and we do it by grade level,” Lim said. “We know how many slots we have to fill, so if we have too many students for those slots, we talk it over about who would be a good candidate for this year.”
Since each student can only receive the award once during their career at Paly, the decision process can become difficult.
“All the names from the other department come together, and if there is a duplicate, then we kind of have to arm wrestle over which department gets to bestow [the award],” Lim said. “We also keep track of these names for four years because the stipulation for this award is that a student can receive this award once and only once while he or she is here at Paly.”
Freshman Anna Feenstra was recognized by the Math department at the ceremony.
“I was very surprised,” Feenstra said. “I felt honored … It was cool to get the award.”
Feenstra’s parents were both in attendance to celebrate her recognition. Prior to the ceremony, students and their parents were not notified of which department had selected them for the award.
“We didn’t know what kind of award it was so [we were] surprised to see it for math,” Feenstra’s father, Peter Feenstra, said. “I’m very pleased with that.”
Senior Alexander Sun, who is currently enrolled in Advanced Vocals and Concert Choir, was honored by the Visual and Performing Arts department. Sun, who has been part of choir for the entirety of his four years at Paly, was not surprised that his award was from the Visual and Performing Arts department.
“When they described the premise of the award, I was pretty sure I would get it for choir,” Sun said.
Sun enjoyed the ceremony and the opportunity to share the experience with his friends.
“I felt really proud of what everyone did, and knowing that some of my friends got it as well made me feel very happy for them,” Sun said.
In his speech, Najar recounted the story of the award’s sponsor and namesake, Rachel Austin.
“Rachel was forced into retirement by the now-removed rules of education,” Najar said. “She was so dedicated to her job that she was at a loss of what to do when she was forced to retire.”
According to Najar, Austin returned to Paly and requested to work as a volunteer in the Home Economics department. When she died, Austin left a quarter of her estate to Palo Alto High School, which amounted to the modern equivalent of $200,000.
Since Austin’s passing, the award created in her honor has recognized students with Austin’s dedication and commitment to learning.
A slideshow of the event and a list of awardees are included below.
ENGLISH
Freshmen
Ethan Slafsky
Giselle Miller
Sophomores
Ashley Guo
Sonny Young
Loeline Rudelle
Juniors
Paloma Mitra
Evan Baldonado
Eric Solway
Seniors
Anna Promokova
Joan Wolfgram
HISTORY/SOCIAL SCIENCE
Freshmen
Alex Selwyn
Kendall Toland
Sophomores
Anuva Banwasi
Isabel Armstrong
Kimberly Cisneros-Martinez
Juniors
Raymon Chen
Juan Aguila
Seniors
Nicholas Blonstein
Patricia Valbuena
Alique Papas
SCIENCE
Freshmen
Ashanti Barnes
Myra Xu
Sophomores
Miranda Jimenez
Louis Passarello
Ben Knopper
Juniors
Audrey Mechali
Samantha Hwang
Seniors
Audrey Li
Sophie Frick
MATH
Freshmen
Anna Feenstra
John (Jack) Higgins
Victoria Soulodre
Michael Santullo
Makayla Miller
Sophomores
Ella Henry
Armani Barnes
Catelina Nguyen
Juniors
Braxton Miller
Maya Star-Lack
William (Will) Statler
Anna Oft
Seniors
Luis Chavez
Amira Garewal
Mariana Buxton
VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS
Fine Arts
Jeremiah Cohn
Declan King
Rebecca Cheng
Theatre
Samuel Kim
Dance
Tessa Fletcher
Music (Choir)
Alexander Sun
Music (Instrumental)
Stefanie Kriel
Video Production
Reuben Vinluan
CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION
Game Design
Jason Yeh
Computer Science
Nicole Lazovsky
Home Economics
William Talbot
Journalism
Ashley Wang
Hayley Levine
Maya Homan
Business Law
David Wei
Stage Technology
Gail Hildebrand
WORLD LANGUAGES
Spanish
Omer Hart
Paul Thie
Clara Luehrs
David Hickey
French
Andrew Shih
Dominic Thibault
Chinese
Melissa Carleton
American Sign Language
Ciel Tracton
Japanese
Charlotte Saunders