Saluting our Best & Brightest young people
Getting their names in the newspaper is not all that difficult for young people. Doing something wrong will usually do the trick.
But the opposite is not always true.
We often hear the lament that the accomplishments of young people when they are doing something good often go unheralded.
This weekend we aimed to once again do something to change that image. Sunday we presented our annual All-Delco Hi-Q team. Ironically, this year our All-Delco Hi-Q team appeared at the end of a week that saw our latest series of All-Delco student athletes grace the pages of the newspaper.
This newspaper has always prided itself on our coverage of high school sports. We often have boasted that while many large metro newspapers offer pro sports coverage, and that many suburban papers focus on high schools, very few do both, or least not to the extent that we do.
The All-Delco Hi-Q team, one player from each high school team in Delaware County that takes part in the nation’s oldest scholastic quiz competition, is one of the ways we endeavor to shine a positive light on kids who excel in the classroom.
The members are not selected by the newspaper, but rather by their teammates.
On our front page was a photo of the triumphant team from Haverford High School, which defended their title this year in a dramatic championship round, defeating Delaware County Christian School and Garnet Valley High School for back-to-back titles.
As part of the package inside was biographical information on each sterling young student, their background in Hi-Q, their other academic achievements as well as their notable community involvement. They are indeed our “Best and Brightest.”
Take Nadia Lartey of Penn Wood High School, for instance.
She was selected before this year’s competition to take part in an All-Star kickoff match that pitted the high schoolers against a panel of county celebrities.
Lartey noted it was interesting to be sitting beside some of the very same students she would be competing against once the season got underway.
“I loved the All-Star team,” Lartey said. “It was different to be with people you compete against – I became friends with a couple people.”
Lartey noted that she honed the stage skills she would need to excel at Hi-Q by taking part in the Pennsylvania High School Speech League.
“When you debate, you read people better,” Lartey explained. “You explain to the audience why something matters and how the pieces interconnect.
She will attend Yale University in the fall and continue her interest in both math and the humanities. She will seek a double-major at the Ivy League institution.
That gives her something in common with another All-Delco Hi-Q member. Quinn Gallagher of Haverford High School also is headed to an Ivy League institution, to the University of Pennsylvania.
Gallagher got interested in Hi-Q after attending a meet his freshman year. He was immediately intrigued by the idea of a competition that focus on academics.
“It was glorying academic skill in a way I’d never seen before,” Gallagher said. “You can go to a football game and see athletic ability – seeing the smartest kids on stage drew me in. I went out for the team the end of freshman year and ended up making it.”
It’s a theme that is heard again and again from all 21 members of this year’s All-Delco Hi-Q team, one from each participating school.
But Gallagher also notes something else that often is mentioned by athletes. It’s not always what happens on the field – or on the stage in the case of the Hi-Q kids – that leaves the biggest mark on these young minds.
“We won the Delco championship two years in a row and that’s awesome,” Gallagher remarked. “Winning and losing is why you’re there, but being with the team – people I’ve know since sixth grade – that’s the best thing. Getting to leave school and go answer questions together, that’s the highlight.”
We salute the 21 members of this years All-Delco Hi-Q team.
Never let it be said that young people are not doing great things. These kids prove that is simply not the case – either on stage or via their work in the community.
They are indeed and Best and Brightest.