Student news: Parent volunteer needed, rowing champion, student production awards and more

Parent volunteer needed at Fairview Elementary

Fairview Elementary School in the Fox Chapel Area School District needs a parent representative to serve on the school’s site-based management team for a two-year term.

The term will start in the fall of 2021 and end in the spring of 2023.

The team is responsible for helping to make decisions about the operations of the school and meets monthly. The parent must have at least one child attending Fairview Elementary for both years of his/her tenure.

Anyone interested should write a letter of interest postmarked by Aug. 9. Applicants will be selected by a lottery system. Mail letters to Principal Stephen Edwards at Fairview Elementary School, 738 Dorseyville Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15238. Letters can also be emailed to stephen_edwards@fcasd.edu.

SSA student claims national rowing title

Shady Side Academy rising senior Lauren Jochims won a national rowing title.

She competed in the Youth Women’s 8+ and Youth Women’s 2x events at the 2021 USRowing Youth National Regatta, held June 10-13, in Sarasota, Fla. The Regatta represented the national championship races for the 2021 rowing season.

In the Youth Women’s 2x event, a boat includes two rowers each using two oars. Jochims and her boat partner, Audrey Lyda, a rising freshman at the University of Miami who attended The Ellis School, posted the fastest time in both preliminary time trials on June 10 and in the semifinal heats on June 11. On June 13, their boat bested the field by more than 3 seconds, taking home the national championship title.

Jochims rows with Three Rivers Rowing in Pittsburgh and is a member of the SSA girls prep ice hockey team. Through her junior year, she has earned varsity athletic recognition in all nine terms for rowing and ice hockey.

Just a few days after returning from her national championship, Jochims traveled to the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif, where she is competing for a seat on the USRowing Women’s U19 Junior National Team in advance of the 2021 World Rowing Championships held Aug. 11-15, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

College graduate

Fox Chapel Area resident Richard Baron graduated from the University of Utah. Baron earned his Bachelor of Science degree with a major in writing and rhetoric studies.

FCA students win award for Fred Rogers documentary

Seven Fox Chapel Area High School students and graduates received a 2021 Student Production Award for Excellence from the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS). The students won the award for “Our Assignment from Fred Rogers,” a 70-minute documentary on the life and work of Mister Rogers.

District students won in the long-form category for the documentary that was released in July 2020. It included interviews with Mister Rogers’ biographer Maxwell King; David Newell who played Mr. McFeely on the children’s television show; producers Hedda Sharapan and Margy Whitmer; and Mister Rogers’ wife, Joanne.

Students involved were 2019 graduates Adina Munin (producer) and Santiago de la Torre; 2021 graduates Jean Daniher (producer), Ryan Kenyon and Jonathan Snider; and 2020-2021 juniors Anushka Vis and Lance Wilhelm (director). Digital media production teacher Ryan Devlin and Jessica Morris, a then-college student intern at Fox Chapel Area High School who is now a math teacher at Dorseyville Middle School, were also involved with the production.

The documentary, “Our Assignment from Fred Rogers,” is available on the Swift Fox Media YouTube Channel at youtu.be/0ijzTmatpdM.