Banquet to Honor Academic Excellence

6High School athletes get them. Band members too. So why not have a banquet dinner dedicated solely to students who achieve academic excellence in a particular subject?

That germ of an idea prompted Conejo Valley school Trustee Mildred Lynch to launch the school district’s first-ever “Celebration of Excellence� dinner, scheduled for 7 p.m. today at Joseph’s on the Green.

“I think this is appropriate because we have always maintained that we support and foster excellence, but we have never celebrated it before,� Lynch said.

At the prime-rib dinner, students from Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Westlake high schools will be honored in the academic disciplines of English; applied technology, fine arts or performing arts; foreign language or English as a second language; and mathematics, science and social science. One student from the alternative high school, Century, will be honored as well.

The honoree from Century High School is Alex Rubalcava.

Newbury Park’s honorees are Kyle Buchanan in English, Janel Anderson in applied technology, Ron Garcia in ESL/foreign language, Jamie Walker in math, Elisa Muran in science and Ted Kremenek in social science.

From Thousand Oaks, the honorees are Victoria Chan in English, Lindsey Boardman in fine arts, Erin Schmidt in foreign language, Merredith Pappas in math, Trisha Sando in science and Brian Stevenson in social science.

At Westlake High School, the honorees are Sedigheh Keshavarzi in English, Mark Schwartzman in performing arts, Andrea Ruelas in foreign language, Benjamin Chen in math, Diana Ho in science and Jeffrey Katersky in social science.