HIGH Q-UALITY!
All-Delco Hi-Q team represents best & brightest from quiz contest
When Scott Paper Co. began to expand its Chester facilities in the 1920s to become the nation’s largest paper manufacturer, the figure of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller still loomed large in American industry. While history’s assessment of Rockefeller may fluctuate over time, his assessment of needing hard work to enjoy the pleasure of success has held true: “I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.”
The top competitors in Delco Hi-Q, the nation’s oldest academic competition founded by Scott Paper as a community relations project in 1948, have made the most of their time in high school and forged promising futures through working hard not only in Hi-Q, but in the arts, athletics and volunteer roles.
The 2017 All-Delco Hi-Q Team is made up of an outstanding member from each of the 21 competing teams chosen by their faculty adviser. Today the competition is sponsored by Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union and the Delaware County Intermediate Unit, running for 69 continuous years since one of Chester’s top industrial players began a showcase for the county’s most industrious students.
Jack McGovern finished his final season in Hi-Q at Haverford High School as the most senior member on a county and national champion team. “We thought we had a lot of potential building this year’s team. When we won our first match of the season, we started to believe we could win this for Haverford for the first time in 20 years,” said McGovern, who knew it would take serious effort to defeat the “well-oiled machines” of Penncrest, Garnet Valley and Radnor who had previously stopped Haverford from claiming the championship for the first time since 1997.
McGovern brought experience as a tennis cocaptain and club president of chorus to mentoring his younger Hi-Q teammates. “I think any time you’re working with groups of people, whether in sports or planning events for a club, you know better how to solve problems, account for difficulties and do something successfully,” he said.
He also increased his self-confidence for the Hi-Q stage as a volunteer public relations coordinator and tournament organizer for Major League Quidditch, the highest level of play for an adaption of the sport from the “Harry Potter” novel and film series. “It’s absolutely been a confidence builder. From the time I was in middle school doing work with Quidditch clubs, I’ve seen that I can do whatever I want to if I work hard and get a little bit of luck.”
Part of the team’s success came from its hard work and a little luck with a strategy of evenly assigning large categories to all members, then assigning the remainder to the team member most passionate about the subject. This allowed McGovern to focus on political science, which he plans on majoring in at Williams College in Massachusetts.
Along with the team’s study strategy and the will to bring a championship back to the school that had five wins in a seven-year period in the 1960s, McGovern also gave credit to 2015 graduate and current University of Pennsylvania undergraduate Owen Pollock as a personal motivator. “He led our team to second place in 2015 before I was a starting member. I remember watching and really wanting to get to that championship round, finally make that last step and win,” he said.
“I feel privileged to be part of something so historic and meaningful to the community,” he said of his time in Hi-Q. We appreciate that the student bodies are excited and engaged about Hi-Q and that other members of the community are interested.”
When a friend suggested Elayna Filippone visit a Hi-Q team meeting her sophomore year at Chichester High School as a potential new member, she didn’t know joining would give her the study skills necessary to enter the second semester of senior year still holding a first-place class standing. “It definitely taught me how to study, which is not something I did. I would not have been able to maintain straight A’s without it,” she said.
Filippone added Hi-Q to a busy schedule that includes four school music ensembles, three honor societies, tutoring work and volunteer positions at Darlington Arts Center in Concord. “I often wonder how I find the time, but I always do. You find these little timeframes to work in and don’t procrastinate to stress yourself out.”
The time spent in band gave Filippone the knowhow to work in a group setting. “There’s never just one person, it’s leading a group to a goal,” was an important experience she brought to Hi-Q. The daughter of a social worker, marching band and the school’s Peer Social Tutor program also gave her the chance to work with students with conditions on the autism spectrum on making the most of their high school experience. “That was one of the most rewarding aspects of marching band.”
While her mother’s social work career influenced Filippone’s high school activities, her grandmother’s work as a dog-sitter shaped the career path she wants to follow. She is attending Colorado State University in the fall, studying biology with a pre-veterinary medicine track. “It’s one of the best programs in the country,” she said, looking forward to new learning challenges like the ones Hi-Q provided in high school. “Always keep Hi-Q in our schools. Sometimes I’d get bored with class content, then I’d go to Hi-Q and get to learn what I wanted to learn. It really helps academically and socially.”
“I have always kept myself busy. It helps me to get my work done in a timely manner and better — I’m focused because I know I need to get it done in a certain amount of time,” said Riley Dolan, co-captain of the Monsignor BonnerArchbishop Prendergast Hi-Q team.
Dolan came into high school as an Irish dancer since age 3 after seeing cousins perform at a party. The decision to start dancing gave her the opportunity to travel the world for competitions and performances. Choosing to limit her Irish dance work to being an instructor so she could continue another passion, field hockey, in high school, she knew she still needed a second outlet for team competition and meeting new people. The opportunity came when she received an invitation to join Hi-Q in her sophomore year, also spurred on by a family connection. “My older brother Quinn was a member and co-captain his senior year. He spoke with our moderator that it would be a good idea for me to join.”
“It opened my eyes to the abundance of knowledge that can be gained outside of your class subjects. It was a great program that it’s been a joy to be a part of,” said Dolan, who also served as a captain for the Mathletes mathematics competition team.
Dolan’s dedication to field hockey led to recruiting by the University of Delaware, where she will study nursing in the fall, another area where a family connection encouraged her to get an early start. With aunts and cousins in the nursing field, Dolan applied and was accepted into the selective Medical Careers Program from Delaware County Technical School, spending two hours each day after classes at Delaware County Memorial Hospital.
“I made new friends and learned strategies and techniques I’ll be able to use for the rest of my life,” said Upper Darby’s Ishaan Bhatt of his time in Hi-Q. Bhatt’s time learning study skills, teamwork and personal interaction will serve him well in his goal to become a medical doctor, which he’ll pursue at Drexel University in the fall.
Bhatt served as team captain his senior year, bringing in skills he learned on the school tennis team playing doubles and singing in the school choir.
“In tennis I would have to work with my partner on techniques and match strategy, and quickly go over tenor section parts before daily rehearsal,” Bhatt said of the teamwork skills that helped him mentor the younger members of the Hi-Q team. Realizing their command of the study material didn’t always translate to getting points on the board, the team had to look at its fundamentals. “One of the things we started as a team was improving our buzzing-in technique. Often times we’d know the correct answer but another team would buzz in first.”
Bhatt also realized that to be a well-rounded future medical student and doctor it would take more than academic prowess. He currently works as a Junior EMT with Springfield Ambulance Corps on weekends and volunteers at Bryn Mawr Hospital. “I transported patients between different hospital facilities at Bryn Mawr, and that got me interested in other ways of working with patients. That led to taking an EMT course.”
“Volunteering at the hospital, I developed independence thinking and leadership skills. I was only one of two patient transportation and I’d have to react quickly. That carried over when I was captain of Hi-Q — developing strategies and working with team members.”
“I only joined things that I was passionate about,” Bhatt said of his busy schedule. “I was able to give equal dedication to everything,” which also include a technology editor for the school’s Acorn newspaper. “I think what matters most is participating in what you like to do and putting in a lot of time in doing so.”
Bhatt will be putting in that same effort Drexel University in the fall, majoring in biology in a highly selective accelerated medical program that will allow him to complete his undergraduate degree in three years with automatic acceptance in the university’s College of Medicine.