Newsday Fetes Huntington
Scholar-Artists
The ability to create art is a gift, but it also requires plenty of devotion and hard work to cultivate and refine such talent. A reception at Newsday’s corporate headquarters in Melville honored some of the best high school artists on Long Island, including a trio from Huntington High School.
Huntington’s Bo-Ashley Brindley (media arts), Maya Horton (visual arts) and Clare Tonks (dance) were among the 20 teenage award winners from Nassau and Suffolk who gathered with family members, teachers, Newsday officials and the selection committee of the Long Island Arts Alliance scholar-artist program. Schools are limited to only one nomination in each of the five categories, making Huntington’s performance spectacular.
The Huntington School District was formally represented at the festivities by Joan R. Fretz, director of fine and performing arts and computer graphics teacher Kasmira Mohanty. This marks the third year of the LI scholar artist program. “Huntington is the only school district to have achieved three winners in the same year,” said Mrs. Fretz with pride.
At the Newsday complex students posed for photos that will later be published along with artist profiles in the paper’s print edition and posted on its website. Ms. Horton will be profiled this month while Ms. Tonks (Dec.) and Ms. Brindley (May) will follow later in the school year.
Remarkably, Huntington had two other student nominees with strong profiles and the pair was recognized with Awards of Excellence. Rebecca Silverman (theater) was nominated by English teacher and drama club advisor Michael Schwendemann and Colleen Teubner (music) was promoted by music teacher Brian Stellato.
Scholar artist honorees were selected on the basis of a formal application and presentation of their art, their grade point average and letters of recommendation attesting to their dedication to a particular type of art.
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