How Virtual Hi-Q conquered the pandemic

The need to turn the proverbial ship around quickly was a must for the industrial players along the Delaware riverfront of the mid20th century. Scott Paper Co. – then the nation’s largest paper manufacturer – had traversed the Great Depression and World War II homefront on the strength of product innovation, such as pushing public sanitation forward with its invention of paper towels. As the post-war economic boom meant a need for innovation in public relations, and the Baby Boom and Atomic Age put a spotlight on education, Scott unveiled Delco Hi-Q in 1948.

Seven decades later, current sponsor Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union Foundation and member schools rose to the challenge of pandemic shutdowns and launched a virtual season for Hi-Q. Of the 20 competing schools’ teams, one member rose to earn the recognition of their faculty advisors and peers during the videoconference season to make the 2021 All Delco Hi-Q rooster.

Jeffrey Carberry served as senior-most member of Chichester High School’s team through the modified competition, which included two meets during at-home days in the school’s hybrid schedule. “We had to join a separate meeting call so that we could say ‘you’ll take this answer, you’ll take that answer,’ as we would in person,” he said.

A four-year member, Carberry was the lone freshman recruit from his class. A chance question at the first practice meet of the season led to being called up for competition performance right away. When a current events question on “What Republican senator recently criticized Pres. Trump” left only Carberry knowing the answer of “Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee,” the faculty advisors took notice.

Civics interests have also led to two officer positions in four honor societies. “Due to age limits I can’t run for anything big (in public office,” but the presidency of Rho Kappa social students honor society “fit that pursuit,” he said. He also holds the presidency of music honors society Tri M and is a past historian for the Spanish Honor Society past secretary for National Honor Society. He has played trumpet in the marching, concert and jazz bands, along with the student-run volunteer band which plays a spring concert at senior living facilities.

In the political arena, the Upper Chichester Township resident became a campaign volunteer in state Sen. John Kane’s (D-9) successful primary and general runs in 2020. “Once he won… I was able to get an internship with his district office,” Carberry said, whose responsibilities now include visits to school board and municipal meetings as a liaison.

The campaign experience provided ground game lessons beyond classroom civics. “It was especially interesting when you’d have longer conservations with people on what they’re concerned about and interested in as a voter,” he said. “I know most state reps or senators, or members of the U.S. Congress, don’t offer these opportunities until you’re in college, so to get it at the high school level is especially great,” he said.

Chichester High School also provided a close up look at politics through its Close Up Foundation chapter. “We traveled to Washington, D.C., my sophomore year for a week,” he said. The week included visits to Capitol Hill, Ford’s Theater, Union Station, Arlington National Cemetery and monuments around the city. The four Chi students in attendance were joined by groups from North Dakota, Florida, Louisiana and Puerto Rico, totaling about 60 to 70 students. “We talked to students from around the country about ‘what does each of these parks represents? What does the Washington Monument represent?,’” he said, calling it a high point of his years at Chichester.

Looking to the fall, George Mason University in Vir

ginia is currently atop Carberry’s college shortlist. He plans to major in government and international affairs. “Hopefully I’ll go onto grad school and after that work somewhere in probably in Washington” in the political field, he said.

A district over at Sun Valley High School, junior Kelsey Celestino also landed an on-stage spot freshman year. Scoring the highest in open tryouts, she was the only first-year student to earn a spot on the roster. Leaning toward the STEM fields in her personal interests, she took on the Shakespeare category out of the gate thanks to a chance elementary school assignment. “We had just lost our person who handled Shakespeare. My fifth grade teacher had me read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ so I was familiar with his plays,” she said. Testing into the Gifted Education Program in second grade, fifth grade teacher Jennifer McDougall elected to challenge Celestino with the Bard in place of a class reading assignment.

Celestino gained an edge in her Hi-Q stage performance with work in the Mock Trial club, getting a “Best Attorney” nod from a competing team in one meet, and placing second in an Impromptu Speech as part of the Speech and Debate club.

Drawing the topic of “candy companies,” Celestino’s delivery on Reese’s earned her the second place finish. “You can talk about whatever you want while adhering to that topic. I talked about why they’re my guilty pleasure and why it’s important to have guilty pleasures,” she said. Celestino was one of the first members is the debate club’s launch her sophomore year, having participated on Northley

Middle School’s team. The impromptu speech area of the club “definitely helped me get better to respond on the spot and not be as selfconscious on stage” for HiQ, she said.

While keeping up with a current AP class slate of Chemistry, English Language and Composition and Calculus AB, she holds officer positions of Mock Trial co-captain and Choir Government secretary. Outside of school she is active in Girl Scout Troop 5251 and a Vacation Bible School volunteer at St. John Fisher Parish.

Celestino encouraged other time-consumed students to still try out for HiQ. “It’s a really fun experience. It’s almost like being on a game show – everybody loves a good game show.”

After high school Celestino is aiming for medical school, ideally through an early acceptance program at Boston University. Other considerations for undergraduate studies in Bryn Mawr College, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University and Harvard University.

Across the county at Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, in person classes since September meant less of a competition change for junior Madison Frank and her teammates. “We were all sitting with each other in our classroom” during virtual meets, she said. “We could confer with each other, which was nice.”

Frank deemed one alteration a change for better. Practices were switched from in-person morning sessions to a weeknight videoconference. “People were always running late in the morning. We had a longer session and everyone was on,” she said. The longer sessions lent themselves to the team’s in depth study methods for literature, breaking down the themes of the short stories and plays to make straight fact questions stick better in competitors’ minds.

Hi-Q has stuck in the mind of the two-year on stage member for longer than most of her fellow All Delco honorees. Starting at Notre Dame in sixth grade, Frank watched home meets throughout her middle school years. “Freshman year I didn’t join the team because it had traditionally been juniors and seniors at our school, so I thought I’ll join later,” she said. A dearth of members her sophomore year landed Frank a recruitment email from Hi-Q advisors.

She took on the time commitment alongside a slate of athletic and writing pursuits, all of which have had an impact on her Hi-Q performance. The West Chester native took up field hockey with Fast Flicks Field Hockey League in first grade, culminating in a verbal commitment to play at Georgetown University two days before speaking with the Times. The intramural experience landed her at the club level with Horizon Field Hockey at age 10. Alongside her varsity play for Notre Dame, she now coaches and referees for Fast Flicks. Her time coaching and behind the whistle has informed her Hi-Q perspective, helping the team earn the Most Improved title for the 2020/21 season.

“Field hockey is all about communication… that plays into Hi-Q,” she said. “We didn’t have the answer to a Shakespeare question one time, and we were throwing out names at each other and working off each other and commu

nicating and we ended up getting the question right,” she said.

The new perspective on field hockey also crossed over to Frank’s interest in writing, landing her a guest writer spot on the topic for the U.S.A. Field Hockey website in the fall. The article was one of several writing highlights across 2020. Her longtime creative writing efforts landed awards in the poetry and short categories in Philadelphia region Scholastic

Awards.

Frank balances her creative writing with the sports editor position for The Gates, Notre Dame’s school paper. With club meeting times restricted for COVID-19 protocols, Frank responded to a corresponding drop off in newspaper membership by taking on the majority of sports reporting this year along with her editor role.

While taking on the fall sports beat, she also devoted four Saturdays across October and November to learning news radio production and copywriting through the KYW Newstudies

Writing

program. Frank interviewed a friend about a recent trip to Kenya for a charitable effort, editing the interview and writing her narration script under the tutelage of KYW staffers. The segment aired in December, marking her first non-sports reporting effort outside of school dance features. “It was my first experience being more in depth and having an impartial journalistic feel to something,” she said.

Frank was able to pick up news fundamentals in the classroom this year with the reintroduction of a journalism elective, prompted by becoming the inaugural recipient of the Literary Arts Scholar program at Notre Dame. The scholar program – previously offered in the STEM and Global Citizenship categories – “provides dedicated students with the platform and support to create an intentional focus on a given subject area” through classroom, co-curricular and off-camp activity, according to the school.

Outside her main academic focuses, Frank also picked up awards at the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science competition freshman and sophomore year with botany experiments. Thinking through the scientific method proved useful in Hi-Q and other pursuits. “You have your hypothesis, the way you think things are going to go, but not everything goes to plan,” she said. “Especially with Hi-Q, with field hockey; I might think something’s going to go some way and something might go wrong. I can reevaluate and move forward now, thinking ‘what can I try next?’”

Looking past her senior year, Frank has verbally committed to Georgetown University to play field hockey. “That’s been my dream school for forever,” she said, outlining a plan to double major in English and government in preparation for law school. “I’m interested in doing criminal justice reform as a defense attorney, or I’d like to work as a lawyer for the CIA or FBI,” she said. An interest in constitutional law after AP U.S. Government may mean other agency work. “There’s not a lot of people who use constitutional law unless you’re going into the department of justice or working with the Supreme Court,” she said. In the meantime, she will pick up credits during senior year through the Philadelphia Archdiocese’s Diocesan Scholar dual enrollment at an area Catholic school yet to be assigned.