Austin Mahone Meets and Greets West Boca

Update: We have a new video with both Austin Mahone and interviews with local fans from West Boca High, Spanish River High, and Olympic Heights High as well.

Lexi Segal from West Boca High sent us this picture of her with Mahone:
segal-mahone


Copyright Warren Redlich  © 2015. Media welcome to use all images and video. Please credit @WestBocaNews or WestBocaNews.com
Copyright Warren Redlich © 2015. Media welcome to use all images and video. Please credit @WestBocaNews or WestBocaNews.com

Thanks to readers we were tipped off that pop superstar Austin Mahone would be appearing at the Mobil and 7/11 gas station and convenience store on the corner of Glades and Boca Rio. He showed up and we caught just a bit of him on video.

There were well over 100 fans waiting to see him, mostly teenage girls. We talked to a few from local high schools including West Boca, Spanish River and Olympic Heights and we will post a video with that later on.
It appears that Mahone has done some kind of endorsement deal with 7/11 related to Slurpees, which were handed out to the fans who were waiting and you can see them in the photo at the top of the article.
When Mahone arrived the crowd did cheer loudly for him. We caught his arrival in a series of photos:
Copyright Warren Redlich 2015.
Copyright Warren Redlich 2015.

Copyright Warren Redlich 2015
Copyright Warren Redlich 2015

Copyright Warren Redlich 2015
Copyright Warren Redlich 2015

Copyright Warren Redlich 2015
Copyright Warren Redlich 2015

As we understand it, Mahone’s fan club member received a tweet announcing this event, along with the following image:
mahone-slurpee-flyer
We will post a follow-up story with those interviews and more video later this evening or tomorrow.

Battle of Bands at Olympic Heights: Wednesday

Olympic Heights Band
Olympic Heights Band

Olympic Heights High School will host a “Battle of the Bands” on Wednesday, April 22nd, at 7 pm. The event will include swing bands from four county schools including Olympic Heights, Palm Beach Central High, Park Vista High, and Don Estridge Middle School.
Don Estridge Middle School band
Don Estridge Middle School band

The four bands facing off were the top finishers in competitions leading up to the finals. The event is sponsored by the Swing & Jazz Preservation Society, an organization devoted to supporting Palm Beach County public schools with swing and jazz bands.

Please note that we did not have photos of the swing bands so for this story we used other photos of the school bands.

Olympic Heights and Loggers Run Winners

Students of the Olympic Heights SECME team competed at the District Olympiad that was held at Santaluces High School on Saturday, March 28th. Meanwhile two Logger’s Run Middle School students won awards at the 2015 State of Florida Science and Engineering Fair.
SECME stands for “Science, Engineering, Communication, Mathematics and Enrichment”, though originally it was “Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering.” The Olympic Heights SECME team was the defending champion, and needed to place in almost every one of the 8 categories in order to retain their title. The team worked hard on the design and building of their projects, and they are very energized by their decisive victory at the event.
The OH SECME team is mostly comprised of students from the Engineering Academy with the majority from the class of 2015. This was a great way for the current seniors to finish their high school career, and now the team next year has a lot to live up to!
The following are the results of the competition:
Essay – 1st Place (Sarah Curtis), The winning essay will go to Nationals in summer 2015.
Banner – 1st Place (Jennifer Coelho and George Tripp with help from rest of the SECME team)
Poster – 1st Place (George Tripp)
Brain Bowl – 3rd Place (Daniel Baum, Garrett Goode, Jennifer Coelho, and Samantha Jairam)
Generator – 3rd place (Daniel Baum, Vincent Santano, and David Gebka)
Bridge – 3rd Place (Vincent Santano, Emily Lyn, and Garrett Goode)
Mouse Trap Car – 2nd AND 3rd Place (David Gebka, Ryan Dingman, Vincent Santano, Jennifer Coelho, Sarah Fine, Shayna York)


From Logger’s Run, Anam Ahmed’s project, “GMO: Yes or No?” earned her a 2nd place award at the state Science and Engineering Fair. Tesla Radulovic’s “The Goldbach Conjecture” won a 5th place award. That’s some pretty serious math per Wikipedia.
Last month we reported on the success of the Waters Edge SECME team as well.
And for all the whiners at Eagles Landing who are complaining, yes, we did cover you, on the West Boca News Facebook page.
eagles

Boca Kids Get National Awards

Several students from high schools in greater Boca Raton were named as finalists in the National Merit Scholarship program and a couple were finalists in the National Achievement Scholarship program.
noah-graff
From West Boca High, Noah Graff was named a National Merit finalist. A resident of the Mission Bay community, Graff has his own tutoring business and has also volunteered in various ways including shaving his head for St. Baldrick’s. He’s a wrestler and he competes for the school’s academic teams as well.
sarah-curtis
From Olympic Heights, Sarah Curtis was also named a National Merit finalist. Ms. Curtis participated in the school’s Zerobotics team which traveled to MIT in 2014.

“It was an amazing experience,” said [then] junior Sarah Curtis. “Participating in this incredible conference really reinforced my love of engineering.”

Ms. Curtis is also a pretty good softball player, and plays in the school band.
ari-levin-1
Spanish River had two National Merit finalists: Ari Levin and Alexander Sugar. We couldn’t find a picture or any details on Mr. Sugar. Mr. Levin will be attending Northwestern University next year.
Boca High is not in West Boca, but some West Boca kids go there. They had the most finalists.
National Merit Finalists from Boca High:
Elisa Figueras
Peter Lin
James Lynch
Jennifer Menke
Akaash Mohan
Kelsey Powers
Ryan Rice
Jake Woods
National Achievement Finalists from Boca High:
Elgin Davis
Nigel Davis
Disclosure: The founders of West Boca News are friends of the Levin family.

Olympic Heights Students Win Medals

Representing the State of Florida at the National FCCLA Conference in Washington, D.C. are from left to right:  Brianna Glick, Annie Coen, Celeste Elkin Mrs. Kelly Hampton, Jeneva Ontaneda, Lauren Brito and Shaunta Wright.
Representing the State of Florida at the National FCCLA Conference in Washington, D.C. are from left to right: Brianna Glick, Annie Coen, Celeste Elkin Mrs. Kelly Hampton, Jeneva Ontaneda, Lauren Brito and Shaunta Wright.

Another good news press release came in related to a local high school:
Students at Olympic Heights High School Come Home with the Gold!
From March 6th to March 9th Olympic Heights Community High School students who are members of the Family, Career and Community, Leaders of America Club participated in the 2015 State FCCLA Competition in Orlando. FCCLA is a nonprofit national career and technical student organization for students in grades 6-12. They are the only national career and technical student organization with family as its central focus.
Olympic Heights students competed in a variety of areas: Color Photography, Black & White Photography, Advocacy, Career Investigation, Culinary Arts, Entrepreneurship, Fashion Construction, Fashion Design, Food Innovations, Hospitality, Tourism & Recreation, Leadership, Life Event Planning, and Teach & Train. The students have worked throughout this school year to complete research and develop a career project in relation to their topic. This included development of a proposition, planning and implementing their project, providing community service, and developing a presentation to demonstrate their achievements. At the state competition students had to present their project to a panel of judges.
Olympic Heights would like to recognize and congratulate the following students who received Gold Medal Awards at the 2015 FCCLA State Competition: Brandon Arnone, Lauren Brito, Annie Coen, Brianna Glick and Jeneva Ontaneda.
Winning Silver Medals from Olympic Heights at the state competition were: Shelby Black-Smith, Jenna Cammarano, Anielyse Daniel, Reema Hamade, Ashley Jean-Baptiste, Allison Kraus, Cristal Rivera, and Melanie Sosa.
In addition, Olympic Heights students were awarded bronze medals. They are as follows: Leah Brand, Celeste Elkin, Damian Gonzalez, Viviana Hernandez, Natalie Marsal, Aylin Morales, Maxx Padron, Kisha Saint-Louis, Brianna Sylfont, Natalia Velez, and Shaunta Wright.
Olympic Heights FCCLA Chapter:  Top Row (Left to Right) – Chef Eric Schlossberg, Allison Kraus, Jenna Cammarano, Cristal Rivera, Anielyse Daniel, Melanie Sosa, Natalia Velez, Damian Gonzalez, Shelby Black-Smith, David Maxxwell Padron, Ashley Jean-Baptiste, Brandon Arnone, Whitney Vilsaint, Natalie Marsal, Shaunta Wright, Lauren Brito, Annie Coen, Taina Alexis, and Mrs. Kelly Hampton.  Bottom Row (Left to Right) – Leah Brand, Brianna Glick, Kisha Saint Louis, Aylin Morales, Vivianna Hernandez, Brianna Sylfont, Celeste Elkin, and Jeneva Ontaneda.  Not Pictured – Reema Hamade.
Olympic Heights FCCLA Chapter: Top Row (Left to Right) – Chef Eric Schlossberg, Allison Kraus, Jenna Cammarano, Cristal Rivera, Anielyse Daniel, Melanie Sosa, Natalia Velez, Damian Gonzalez, Shelby Black-Smith, David Maxxwell Padron, Ashley Jean-Baptiste, Brandon Arnone, Whitney Vilsaint, Natalie Marsal, Shaunta Wright, Lauren Brito, Annie Coen, Taina Alexis, and Mrs. Kelly Hampton. Bottom Row (Left to Right) – Leah Brand, Brianna Glick, Kisha Saint Louis, Aylin Morales, Vivianna Hernandez, Brianna Sylfont, Celeste Elkin, and Jeneva Ontaneda. Not Pictured – Reema Hamade.

Of the twenty-four students competing from Olympic Heights High School, six students earned the highest scores in their category. Therefore, they will represent the state of Florida at the National FCCLA Competition this summer in Washington D.C.
Special recognition was given to Lauren Brito and Jeneva Ontaneda who each received a $1,000 scholarship for their Hospitality, Tourism & Recreation entry from Johnson & Wales University.
This outstanding winning FCCLA Team is sponsored by two very dedicated Olympic Heights teachers, Mrs. Kelly Hampton and Chef Eric Schlossberg. Two additional chaperones accompanied the team this year and they are both parents of FCCLA members, Ms. Phyllis Fimiani and Mrs. Jazmine Ontaneda.
Congratulations to the Olympic Heights team on their outstanding success!