The Central Community Unit School District 301 board recognized Central High School students who represented their school in the annual Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering competition.
The students were Kyle Blankenburg, Hanna Brown, Anton Christensen, Ben David, Lucas Ege, Kevin Jerger, Josh Helsper, Zach Hitzeroth, Jessica Macaluso, Wes Metcalfe, Clay Musial, Kristin Simkus, David Van de Water and Aneeshwar Vivekananthan.
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Andrea Keil, Central High WYSE team coach and mathematics department chairwoman, said this year marks the 16th time that Central High students traveled to University of Illinois Champaign for the annual state competition.
Before the team goes downstate, it must first compete in the regional competition at Elgin Community College and in the sectional competition at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.
“We had a perfect score, 500 out of 500, and took first place at the regional competition in February,” Keil said. “We had the best score we’ve ever had since 1986, 497.8 out of 500, and took first place again at the sectional competition at Northern Illinois University. Five of our team members went to the state competition where we took seventh place with a score of 419 out of 500.”
The five Central High students who competed downstate were Brown, Helsper, Simkus, David and Macaluso.
Brown took second place in English. Helsper took third place in Engineering Graphics. Simkus and David took fourth and sixth place in Chemistry. Macaluso took fifth place in Biology.
Moran is a freelance reporter.