By Elizabeth Gillingham

Art shows what inspires students

Patrick Henry High School (PHHS) has spent the last five years working on developing a strong culture and sense of pride within our community. Three pillars were selected and much discussion during advisory groups has been centered on being welcoming, doing no harm, and using choice words.

This year, the advisory team headed up by English teacher, Chad Miller — with the help of his support team of teachers Linda Good, Tom Knapik, Elise Morgan, Mindy Bunch, Mike Pinto, Karl Bolton, and Karen Thomas — decided to change the focus toward developing a schoolwide growth mindset. They created videos with the help of some student leaders and provided an avenue for students to consider the idea of “Not Yet” when considering one’s ability to do a challenging task.

From that idea, we moved toward considering what inspires you and that’s where our program created something special. If you enter past the main gate, you’ll now see something amazing! At first glance, you might think it is Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night” painting that has been created on a 6-by-10-foot wall. But as you get closer, you’ll see that it’s made from small square paper tiles with a message written on each one.

The students at Henry (all 2,400) were given the task to write down on these tiny notepapers what inspires them. From there, teacher extraordinaire Karl Bolton create a mural by digitizing the art piece and putting it together tile by tile.

Reading each piece is inspirational enough, but knowing that every student helped create this artistic display makes it very special. Comments like I’m inspired by: “My family,” “music,” “my parent’s happiness,” or “art” show up time and time again reminding us of our influence in what we say or do around our students.

You definitely need to stop and see this mural to truly admire the work done by one (Mr. Bolton) on behalf of many (everyone at Henry) to share PHHS inspiration!

Alumni Association Golf Tournament

Thank you to all our great sponsors, donors, volunteers and attendees for making Thursday, May 16, a special Patriot Day! Patrick Henry High School (PHHS) would like to thank the Alumni Association and specifically the president, Kevin Carlson, for the continued support provided by this organization of volunteers. They spend over a year planning the golf tournament with the hope of raising funds that will directly go to the students at PHHS.

Members from the Alumni Association give their time and in many cases, their financial support, through hole sponsorships and other donations to make this event successful. We are very grateful for all that they’ve done and I hope you enjoy reading about the tournament so that it will inspire you to attend the next one on Oct. 22, 2020!

Through their support, we’re pleased to announce that our event this year netted $43,000 for special capital projects, equipment, and other teaching aids items unfunded by the school district.

Add to that number more than $36,000 in cash donations received from Patriot alumni ($25,000 restricted to the Patriot baseball program by Class of 2000 alumni Dahnte Sullivan — thank you, Dahnte, along with two anonymous $5,000 donations and many other smaller amounts) and your alumni association will have a net impact this year alone to the school of over $79,000!

This means in just seven years, your Patrick Henry High School Alumni Association, Inc., (PHHSAA) has raised in excess of $334,000 while holding seven fun events for alumni, current and former faculty members, parents of students, and other friends of the school.

Your Alumni Association has also been the recipient of a $200,000 donation of furniture for the school’s main office, $90,000 of donations earmarked for the new PHAME building, the $25,000 and two $5,000 pledges mentioned above, an anonymous $25,000 grant used to help purchase 38 new PCs and monitors for the school’s computer lab, along with two separate $10,000 pledges received in a prior year from various alumni.

All in all, with your assistance, we have raised and are in the process of donating nearly $700,000 in goods and material support for the school and its student body in the brief seven-year history since the Alumni Association’s founding. Not bad for a dream born out of a luncheon reuniting Class of 1978 and 1979 football and baseball players to thank several of their coaches back in the summer of 2011!

More alumni fundraising

New Patriot Head Football Coach J.T. O’Sullivan (a 10-year NFL quarterback) is busy transforming the Henry football team. This fall, Coach O’Sullivan will be running his team into a newly remodeled stadium and field in new Nike green Henry uniforms purchased by your PHHS Alumni Association, Inc.

Coach O’Sullivan is actively raising funds to replace the white Henry away uniforms. If you would like to support this effort, please send a check to the PHHS Alumni Association, Inc. at 9292 Activity Road, or click on the “Donate” button at bit.ly/2XPSu0A and we will insure your funds go to this purpose.

All net funds are overseen by our seven-member PHHSAA board of directors. Grants and/or disbursements are given careful consideration upon receipt of a requesting party’s completed grant request or via recommendations of our scholarship committee to our board of directors.

On May 30^, Jeff Schindler (‘78) presented a $1,500 check each to our 2019 PHHS senior class members Libby Swanson, Alan Inthavong and Shusheng Li for their winning entries in our college scholarship awards program.

More thanks

All of this would not be possible without the tremendous support of all of our sponsors and attendees as well as the hard work from a dedicated group of (listed alphabetically): Committee members —Kevin Carlson (‘78), Tom Conklin (‘77), Jeff Cyr (‘78), Todd Faucett (‘82), John Harris (‘76), Deanna Hopkins-Christman (‘78), Listy Gillingham, Leta Keyes, Bill McColl (‘80), Marla Mohr (‘84), Al Naliboff (‘78), Mike Nokes (‘78), John Osborne (‘78), Bob Ruane (‘78), Jeff Schindler (‘78), Mary Treadwell, Marie Tuthill, and Tom Weikel (‘80).

Volunteers — September Chappellet (‘84), Steve Cosio (‘78), Diane Darley-Munoz (‘78), Erin Doherty-Karnetski (‘78), Duane Lester (‘78), Terri Racine-Stolberg (‘82) and Deanna Rodriguez-Carlock (‘84).

PHHS parent volunteers — Darcy Denton, Bessie Gellenfeldt, Elaine Legaspi (‘82), Andrew Schacke (‘82) and Niki Schacke.

We also want to give special recognition to our co-title sponsors: Scott Slocum (‘93); Winfield Development, Inc.; Peter Vander Werff Construction, Inc.; and Chuck Gossage for their outstanding overall financial support, as well as to Marie Tuthill, her assistant Leta Keyes and our auction item donors for their help in making our silent auction as well-presented as you will see anywhere and financially successful as well.

Golf tournament winning teams

North Course — First place goes to Steve Barker, Ron Cantor, Kevin Burningham and Greg Sidlo (repeat winners, congrats to them!); runner-up Hillary Page, Mike Gentile, Scott Slocum and Chris Munro; and third place Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Mike Peavy and Thomas Malone.

South Course — First place goes to Brian Cantor, Tom Conklin, Brian Smock and Mike Gillard; runner-up Sean Rapp, Dennis McNamara, Frank Furtak and Reagan McGowan; and third place Robert Browns, Gary Bley, Jeff Bley and Sean Weismann.

These first-place winners will be added to our perpetual Patriot Cup trophy in the lobby of the main office at school. They, along with the second- and third-place foursomes, will receive an invitation to play in the Randy Jones Invitational (RJI) Golf Tournament in January and February of 2020. The winning overall foursome from the RJI tourney receives an all-expense paid trip for eight to Pebble Beach, California. Should the RJI winner come from one of our groups mentioned above, the PHHS Alumni Association will receive a check in the amount of $10,000 from the RJI.

PHHS top 1 percent for the Class of 2019

Patrick Henry High School (PHHS) honored the top 1% of the senior class at SeaWorld last month in the district’s annual Salute to Excellence event. Every high school in the district was represented and students were honored by their principals through a special recognition program. PHHS was proud to name the following students as the top six seniors for their outstanding GPAs:

Ranked 1: Ivy Vuong, 4.80 GPA, going to Yale University

Ranked 2: Maya Rozenshteyn, 4.79 GPA, going to Princeton University

Ranked 3: Andrew Hua, 4.74 GPA, going to University of California, Santa Barbara

Ranked 4: Trevor Chubb, 4.72 GPA, going to Georgetown University

Ranked 5: Lilly Mai, 4.71 GPA, going to University of Southern California

Ranked 6: Celester Lintz 4.71 GPA, going to University of Pittsburgh

Most Remarkable Teen

The San Diego County Public Defender’s office selected 25 teenagers from 201 applications around the county and Patrick Henry high School (PHHS) senior, Angelo Salazar, was selected after being nominated by teacher Jim Achenbach.

In a letter sent last month, Chairwomen Diane Jacob stated, “Congratulations on being honored as one of the San Diego’s 25 Most Remarkable Teens by the County Public Defender’s office! Please know we are very proud of your success. You have demonstrated abilities at your young age that certainly indicate your potential to develop into one of our region’s most committed and outstanding citizens.”

San Diego County Public Defender Randy Mize said, “It was difficult choosing just 25 from so many amazing kids, but it was also encouraging to learn that San Diegans want to talk about the good things San Diego teens are doing. And that is a good conversation to have in itself.”

In Angelo’s application, Achenbach noted that Angelo excels academically and plays on the PHHS varsity ruby and football teams. He also mentors and tutors special needs children, coaches a youth basketball team and tutors students for the ACT exam. Achenbach continued by stating, “Angelo volunteers countless hours and is a steadfast and conscientious participant who inspires other to do wonderful things. Angelo is personal, good natured, smart, engaging and outgoing. He chooses to work hard to bring out the best in both the special needs students, as well as the other students involved in the club.”

Angelo is attending United States Military Academy at West Point next year and plans to study law so he can continue to help people and give back to the community.

PHHS Scholar Athletes of the Year

Congratulations to our male and female athletes of the year! Allison Arend and Jonathon Marshall were selected this year to represent the best and brightest athletes at Henry.

Allison was selected due to her cumulative GPA of 3.91 and her work on both our field hockey and soccer teams. She was noted for earning the following recognition in both sports: Field Hockey Captains Award 2016, Field Hockey MVP 2017 and 2018, Women’s Soccer MVP 2018, Field Hockey First Team All-League 2017 and 2018, Women’s Soccer First Team All-League 2016 and 2018, Conference Player of the Year for Women’s Soccer 2018, and a four-year Honor Roll student at PHHS! Allison will be going to the University of New Mexico to continue playing soccer.

Jonathon was selected for his strong academic standing in the class earning a GPA of 4.37 and his outstanding contributions to our Henry baseball program. He earned other distinctions which included: San Diego Union-Tribune Scholar-Athlete, San Diego Union Tribune Prep Athlete of the Week, Perfect Game All-Tournament Team, four-year Honor Roll student at PHHS, PHHS Top Ten Junior Recognition earning the Brandeis Book Award, Seal of Bi-Literacy Seal for Spanish, and AP Scholar with Distinction. Jonathan will continue his baseball career as a catcher at Occidental College next year.

PHHS wishes both Jonathon and Allison the best of luck with their future endeavors.

— Elizabeth Gillingham is principal of Patrick Henry High School.