The Central Community Unit School District 301 school board has announced that Burlington Central High School students who competed in the Worldwide Youth in Science & Engineering sectionals held recently at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb took first place.
According to the district, “the team points were 497.8 out of 500. They also took home 16 medals. The team will advance to the state level at the University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana on Monday and Tuesday, April 13 and 14.”
The Central High WYSE team will be honored during the next district board meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 20, at Central High.
Twenty-seven Burlington Central High students also recently had their history projects judged at the 2015 Northern Illinois Regional History Fair at Northern Illinois University.
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Laurel Bradley, Central High social studies teacher, coordinated the program at the high school.
“The students had to choose an Illinois subject for their project,” said Bradley. “This is the fourth year that Central High has participated in the history fair. The students worked independently.”
Central High sophomores Lauren Parsons, Emma Pieroni, Max Freeman and Joe Sherman all earned first place.
Angela Andrada, Ryan Cilano, Madison DeRaedt, Maddie Drescher, Jeremy Lu, April Nieto, Alex Pasternak, Ami Patel, Milan Patel, Kyra Pellikan, Megan Safranski, Karli Stankus and Sarah Ziwiski took second place.
Celines Aquino, Arielle Carani, Leslie Cruz, Celines Gonzales, Elizabeth Huerta, Ana McMahon, Alex Rabe, Megan Rivera, Shelby Stager and Bianca Trigo took third place.
A Central High project that won first place was about “Killer Clown” John Wayne Gacy. He killed 33 young men in Illinois and was executed for his crimes in 1994.
“We wanted to focus on a murder case,” Pieroni said. “We worked 14 hours on the project.”
Students learned that former Judge Sam Amirante, who acted as Gacy’s defense attorney and later co-authored a book titled “Defending a Monster,” wrote legislation after the Gacy case that required police to immediately begin searching for missing children rather than waiting 72 hours before starting a search. Known as I-Search, it was the precursor to the Amber Alerts that are used to help find missing persons today.
Other Central High history fair projects focused on the Chicago fire, the Egyptian Theater in DeKalb, Elgin Mental Health Center and Navy Pier.
First place winners in the regional history fair at NIU will get the opportunity to compete in the Illinois History Expo on Thursday, May 7, in Springfield. Some projects at the Springfield expo will be chosen to represent Illinois at the National History Day competition at the University of Maryland.
The District 301 board applauded the Central High students who competed at NIU events.
“I know it was a lot of work,” said Laura Rabe, District 301 board president. “We appreciate that you represented our school.”
Denise Moran is a freelance reporter