Huntington High School’s National Math Honor Society chapter celebrated this year’s Pi Day in a most fitting fashion; by eating and throwing pies.
Pi Day is observed throughout the world on March 14 or as close to it as the school calendar will allow. Get it? 3.14. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the math symbol used to denote a constant; the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which calculates out to approximately 3.14159.
“Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point,” according to the Pi Day website. “As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. While only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, Pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.”
Dozens of Huntington Math Honor Society members and other interested students gathered in the cafeteria after school to join together in some old-fashioned fun.
“We had various contests,” said Monica Racz, who along with math department colleague Jordan Schessler serves as the organization’s faculty advisor.
The pie contest winners included:
- Best Tasting: Katherine Eichenberger for her chocolate chip pecan pie
- Most Circular: Valerie Rogel
- Most Mathematical: Julia Segal
Prizes including Jonny D’s Pizza gift certificates and Pi Day t-shirts.
To help raise monies for the Math Honor Society’s scholarship fund, students bought raffle tickets for the opportunity to good naturedly “throw” a pie in a faculty member’s face. The fun loving faculty members who volunteered for the messy job included Principal Brenden Cusack, Dave Moriarty, Trish Avelli and Amanda Scott. “The pie throwing is always the highlight,” Ms. Racz said.
Mr. Cusack was the grand finale and senior Richaro Romero won the opportunity to “pie” him. “It was his first time and he was a good sport,” said Ms. Racz about the principal. “He said it was a lot of fun.”
Huntington High School’s Math Honor Society chapter is led by executive board officers Andrew Knowles (president), Lily Stein (vice-president), Gabriel Medina-Jaudes (treasurer), Bryan Wong (secretary) and Lia Shechter (tutoring coordinator).
“The students and teachers had a lot of fun and Math Honor Society raised a good sum towards their scholarships,” Ms. Racz said.
