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Click here to watch the "Standout Student" segment on Claire Drysdale '14, who was recently featured on Channel 12.

Congratulations to Breck's Mock Trial team, which competed at nationals for the third consecutive year and took third place.

Marielos Cabrera won an All-American Witness award at the competition, which took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Congratulations to 43 Spanish students from who attained national recognition for excellent performance on the 2012 National Spanish Examinations.

Breck students earned a total of 6 silver, 11 bronze medals and 26 honorable mentions.  “Attaining a medal or honorable mention for any student on the National Spanish Examinations is very prestigious,” said Kevin Cessna-Buscemi, National Director of the Exams, “because the exams are the largest of their kind in the United States with 140,373 students participating in 2012.”

The National Spanish Examinations are administered each year in grades 8 through 12, and are sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

Silver (Plata)

Level I: Brianna Bruggeman, Prashant Godishala, Madeline McCue, Ingrid Thyr

Level V: Evie Mackenzie, Nick Thyr

Bronze (Bronce)

Level I: Sara Carle, Amanda Gillen, Lewis White

Level II: Parsa Najmaie, Sophia Schonwetter

Level IV: Julia Florey, Clarissa Martin

Level V: Robert Aldrich

Level VI: Omead Eftekari, Karin Fujioki, Anna Hendrickson

Honorable Mention

Level I: Lilly Johnson, Margaret Keiser, William Setterberg, Andrew Stuempfig, Jake Uchitelle

Level II: Grace Carle, Taylor Finken, Lily Hammer, Cecily Hibbs, Emily Ratner

Level III: Maria Bell, Brian Bolles, Adria Duncan, Jennifer Fabian, Gage Prior, Lorelei Lange, Mark Murray, Jessica Ryvlin, Makayla Samountry, Yosi Sela

Level IV: Daniel Bergerson, Deonna Johnson, Sarah Short

Level V: Sarah Koop, Josh Stillman

Level VI: Abby Chapman

To mark Faculty and Staff Appreciaiton Day 2012 -- and give a nod to Breck's sustainability efforts -- the Breck Parents Association has planted 400 longleaf pine tress in the Blackwater River State Forest.

The planting was done by the Arbor Day Foundation.

Congratulations to sophomore Claire Drysdale, whose work was the winner in this year's Fifth Congressional District Art Competition, sponsored by Rep. Keith Ellison.

Claire's work will be displayed in the U.S. Capitol for a year.

More information: http://ellison.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=141&catid=14&Itemid=135

At the annual Faculty/Staff Appreciation Day All-School Chapel on May, 1, Head of School Edward Kim presented awards to many.

Service Awards

Ten Year: Silvia Del Villar, John Gray, Steven Heim, Rodney Hillstrom, Angie Kritta, Leighton Ladd, Lisa Lokke, Chris Ohm, Mark Ryks, Kim Schafer, Michelle Summer, Larry Thompson, Jean Wang

20 Year: Karen Kaverman

30 Year: Stephen J. Berg, Frank Eustis, James Magnuson, Joyce McCann, Sharon Stallworth-Rogers, Judith A. Stenwick

Ernest Campbell Award

Voted by faculty and staff to a colleague who has displayed "self-giving love for Breck," the award is named after a much-loved chaplain and religious studies teacher on Breck's River Road campus. The 2012 Ernest Campbell Awardee is Paul Lundgren.

Master Teacher

The title Master Teacher is considered the highest honor accorded to a classsroom teacher at Breck School. Before the recent announcement, there were six Master Teachers at Breck: Carol Harrison, Tom Hegg, Jacob Miller, Karen Pape, Ruthanne Swenson and Alice Wright. Middle School teacher and Breck alumna Sarah Flotten '85 has been named Breck's newest Master Teacher.

Yearbook Dedication

The editors of the 2012 Mustang also announced that the yearbook has been dedicated to Upper School teacher and coach Brian Wright.

For the 15th consecutive year, projects from Breck Middle School will move on to national History Day competition.

At the Minnesota state competition on April 29, projects from Breck captured both first and second place in the Group Exhibit category.

Congratulations to Brittany and Elena on their first-place project on The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, and to Melanie, Halcyon and Cassidy for their second-place project on The Anesthetic Revolution.

This year's theme is "Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History."

National competition will take place in Washington, DC, in June.

Breck's Drama Director, Tom Hegg, talks about his latest book, Bring It! It's advice for high-school graduates, and it was inspired by his Commencement Address to the Breck Class of 2004.

Watch a brief video from KARE-11: http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=972713

Breck's Stampede Robotics team traveled to national competition April 26-27 and finished in 23rd place of the 100 teams in their division.

Congratulations to Coach Colianni and the team!

Congratulations to many of our Lower and Middle School Chess Club members, who did well at the recent School Chess Association tournament held at Breck April 21-22.

In all, more than 500 students, representing 16 teams, competed in the tournament.

Breck's Primary team took sixth place in the competition, and our Intermediate team took tenth.

At the Trustee Day Chapel, three faculty members wee honored with special awards.

Lower School art teacher Carol Grams received the Ralph and Peggy Burnet Family Faculty Chair, a three-year appointment that provides the recipient with funds to use for a professional development project of her choice. Ms. Grams has taught at Breck since 1989.

Upper School science teacher Dr. Jacob Miller received the Wallace and Mary Lee Dayton Family Faculty Chair, a three-year appointment that provides the recipient with funds to use for a professional development project of his choice. Dr. Miller has taught at Breck since 1978.

Middle School Chaplain Alexis Kent received the Jean Wigley Award for excellence in teaching, an award established by the Wigley family to recognize exceptional faculty members. Ms. Kent has taught at Breck since 2007.

For more information about recognition for Breck faculty and staff, click here. 

Congratulations to Sarah Mevissen '12, who has earned an "American Visions" Award -- equivalent to a Best in Show -- for her ceramics piece at the 2012 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition.

She also won a national Silver Award for her portfolio.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are the nation's largest, longest-running and most prestigious scholarship and recognition program for teenage artists and writers.

Sarah has been invited to an awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City on June 1. Her award-winning piece is pictured below.

Head of School Edward Kim has announced that three faculty members have been awarded grants for study and travel this summer. 

Chelen Johnson (upper School Science) will travel to the island of Kauai, Hawaii, to participate in an earth science field study. She will concentrate on areas including aspects of biodiversity, climate change and the impact of natural disasters on the island’s ecosystem.

Elizabeth Powers-Dempsey (Lower School) will travel to Italy to investigate a concept from the kindergarten multicultural lesson plan and create a movie that answers the question, “If I went to a place I have never been before, would I find patterns?”  She will visit Pisa, Luca, Florence, Venice and Rome.

Jean Wang (Upper School Modern Language) will travel to Tianjin, China, to observe classes at two high schools, visit the Tianjin Folk Museum and Tianjin Ancient Culture Street and Tianjin Food Street. Jean will bring back materials to use in her classes and build connections for her students.

The following projects were winners at the Regional World Savvy Competition over spring break. Winners are eligible to have their Knowledge to Action Plans move onto the National Competition to receive posible funding. 

Over spring break, members of Breck's advanced science research team competed at the Minnesota State Science Fair. Congratulations to all!

Tri-State Junior Science and Humanities Symposium Honorable Mention

• Caleb Kumar: Designing and Validating a Java program to improve the Diagnosis of Bladder Cancer: Year 2
• Aris Prince: A Three-generational Study on Knowledge about and Sources Used to Find Information on Brain-related Conditions 

ISEF - International Science and Engineering Fair

• Robert S. Dorn and Saeed Hakim-Hashemi: The Future of Lighting: Improving the efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)  

Seagate Rising Star Award 

• Anna Hendrickson and Eva Wang: Interaction of Cyclin D1 and PPARa in Cancer Cell Metabolism 

Seagate Technology First-year Award

• Alejandro Fenn and Andrew Engel: Engineering an Optical Cell to Determine Dissolution and Re-plating Rates of Metal-particle Contaminants in Lithium-ion Batteries  

Grand Award Silver

• Alejandro Fenn and Andrew Engel: Engineering an Optical Cell to Determine Dissolution and Re-plating Rates of Metal-particle Contaminants in Lithium-ion Batteries  

• Aris Prince: A Three-generational Study on Knowledge about and Sources Used to Find Information on Brain-related Conditions 

Grand Award Bronze

• Robert S. Dorn and Saeed Hakim-Hashemi: The Future of Lighting: Improving the efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)  

• Anna Hendrickson and Eva Wang: nteraction of Cyclin D1 and PPARa in Cancer Cell Metabolism 

• Samarth Damania: A Data-mining Approach to Identify Factors that Contribute to High Pharmaceutical Drug Costs 

• Jessica Ryvlin and Claire Simpson: Mercaptopyruvate-TEA: a possible antidote against threats of chlorine-induced lung injury   

• Roshny Vijayakar: Effects of Perinatal Iron Deficiency on Glucose Transporter Gene Expression in Five Regions of the Brain

Special Awards

• United States Army Award for Scientific/Engineering Excellence: Alejandro Fenn and Andrew Engel
• United States Navy Award: Taylor McCanna
• American Chemical Society Honorable Mention: Nathaniel Breitenfeldt
• American Association for the Advancement of Science Award: Jessica Ryvlin and Claire Simpson
• American Psychological Association Award: Aris Prince
• General Mills Food and Nutrition Award: Annie Jiao 
• General Mills Food-based Social Change Award: Roshny Vijayakar
• Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award: Caleb Kumar, Samarth Damania
• Institute of Food Technology Award: Annie Jiao
• Medtronic Award 2^nd place: Samarth Damania 
• National Society for Professional Engineers: Taylor McCanna
• Pentair Award: Ellie Soskin 
• SPIE Optics and Photonics Award: Robert Dorn and Saeed Hakim-Hashemi
• Wolfram Research Mathematics Award: Alejandro Fenn and Andrew Engel; Anna Hendrickson and Eva Wang

Breck's robotics team, The Stampede, competed in Minnesota's FIRST Robotics 10,000 Lakes Regional Competition on March 30-31, 2012. This is the second year of Breck's robotics team, and the second year the team qualified for the National Competition. The Stampede won the Chairman's Award, which "... represents the spirit of FIRST. It honors the team that, in the judges’ estimation, best represents a model for other teams to emulate, and which embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST. It remains FIRST’s most prestigious award."

And congratulations to coach/mentor Gene Jasper, who won the Woodie Flowers Award, signifying the best mentor of the year.

Click here to watch the team's YouTube video about the Chairman's Award and their competition experiences.

Nationals will be held in St. Louis, MO, on April 26-28, 2012. Go Stampede!

In an overtime thriller at the X, the boys hockey team took third place at the Class A State Hockey Tournament by a score of 4-3 over Thief River Falls.

The winning goal was scored by senior Nate Breitenfeldt.

Congratulations to the Mustangs for a wonderful season!

The Mustangs fell to St. Thomas Academy 1-0 in a hard-fought semifinal game in the state hockey tournament. They'll play in the third-place game on Saturday at 9:00 AM at the X.

Breck's opponent will be the loser of the Hermantown-Thief River Falls semifinal game.

Breck's FIRST Robotics team, The Stampede, is competing in the Minnesota 10,000 Lake regional with 150 other teams on March 29-31 at Williams Arena. Last year, we won Rookie of the Year at this event, and we hope to perform well again this year! The event is free and open to the public! For more information, follow us on twitter, @stampede3630, or at our blog: http://breckstampede.wordpress.com

Congratulations to our Mockstangs, Breck's mock trial team, for a victory at the state tournament March 7 in Rochester. It was our third consecutive win at State -- a new record!

Here's how they won:

Trial # 1: Breck Defense beat Lakeville South Plaintiff

Trial #2: Breck Plaintiff beat Buffalo Defense

Trial #3: Breck Plaintiff beat Albert Lea Defense

Championship Trial: Breck Defense beat Nova Classical Academy