DV students excel in variety of fields

By Anya Tikka
MILFORD — Four high school groups got their chance to showcase their talents at a recent Delaware Valley Board of Education meeting.

After an award-winning High School jazz quartet performed, SkillsUSA, Future Business Leaders of America, and Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) took their turns to talk about their recent achievements on State and national levels.

Seniors Greg Giliberti, William Mullen, Josh Shepard, and Tyler Williams all took part at the PMEA All-State Music Festival in March the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA, and invite only elite festival. Shepard and Williams are singers, and Mullen is a saxophonist; Giliberti plays trumpet. They got together to perform at the start of the meeting, bringing smiles on everyone’s faces.

Next SkillsUSA group walked up in their bright red jackets. They had been to Pennsylvania State Leadership and Skills conference in April in Hershey. Twelve members of the club participated, and out of those, 10 won in four events. Seniors Mike DaSilva, Dom Divergilio, and Justin Tants won silver medals in Occupational Health and Safety; Seniors Sean Wagner, John Rivera, and Rich Wardlaw also won a silver medal in the same category. Bronze medals were brought home by Kim Koncelik in painting and decoration, and another one by the team Jordan Cunningham, Krista Cabany and Brandon Plumley in Career Pathways and Showcase.

SkillsUSA mission is to empower its members to become world-class workers, leaders and responsible American citizens through a structured program of citizenship, leadership, employability and technical and professional skills training. The organization holds 300,000 students and instructors annually and has 13,000 school chapters in 54 state and territorial associations.

Future Business Leaders of America chapter also went to Hershey for State Leadership Conference in April. They won several individual and team awards. Cathy Li took the first place in Membership Madness, second place in Introduction to Business Communications, as well as eight place in Retail Management. Madison Metzger also won 1st in Membership Mania, Hannah Matthews 4th in Computer Applications, Saimun Shahee 5th in Desktop Application Programming, Vanessa Paolella 6th in Public Speaking, and Julia Cuevas and Anthony Gosch 6th in Emerging Business Issues. Chris Rhoades won the 8 place in Business Financial Plan, and Morgan Weems came 9th in Electronic Career Portfolio. Finally, Joseph Gurkan took the 10th place in Spreadsheet Applications and Ashley Vecchio also 10 in Word Processing.

The DV Chapter also won 9th Williams Selden Outstanding Chapter, and 10th Big 33 Community Service for 393.75 hours.

Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) went to the HOSA State leadership conference in Lancaster in March. Out of the 18 students who attended, five won medals, and they’ll go to the HOSA National leadership conference in June in Anaheim, Calif., later this year.

Donlon, Coyle and St. John all won gold in their categories of Medical Assisting and Sports Medicine, Medical Law and Ethics, Transcultural Healthcare, Pharmacology, and Human Growth and Development.

Donlon competed in the Transcultural Healthcare, Coyle in the Extemporaneous Health Poster, and St. John in Veterinarian Science categories.