Thirty-one Bolles students were published in the 2009 Pine Tree Poetry Collection, a national publication of poetry from students aged 5-18.  Each year, the Bartram Campus English teachers offer an opportunity for students to submit a piece of original poetry.  English instructor Deborah Carney then submits the poems to Pine Tree Poetry for consideration.

Pine Tree Poetry receives, reads, and evaluates poems of students from around the country and selects the best ones for publishing in the annual collection.  Students receive notice in the summer if their poem has been selected and then must reply by September granting permission to publish the work.

Congratulations to the following students whose poems have been published in the 2009 Pine Tree Poetry Collection.  The students were in seventh and eighth grade when the work was submitted last year.

Seventh grade students in 2008-09:
Sarah Griffin
Zereen Sarwar
Cheyenne Shrader
Kelly Duggan
Anna McCrary
Brooke Robertson
Christine Gaitanzis
Taylor Watson
Alexandria Acree
K.C. Adams
Martin Cohen
Natalie Barakat
Olivia McGurrin
Brenna Gehlen
Kari Culler
Hunter Cabi

Eighth grade students in 2008-09:
Kate Anderson
Burgay Staley
Alex Frias
Joey Bove
Holly Cummins
Kate Bushong
Andriana Bove
Danielle Weindling
Kalen Koch
Ellie Boline
Andrew Ullmann
Amy Angelo
Alex Tyre
Whitley Turner
Megan Block

The Bolles upper school Competitive Hip Hop Team, coached and choreographed by Adriana Stam, attended the National Dance Alliance’s (NDA) National Dance Team Championship.  The event was held at the Hard Rock Live in Orlando on February 5-7. Over 100 dance teams from around the country compete in this event each year.  The Bolles team competed in the Hip-Hop Division and earned third place in the nation for their routine!

Congratulations to the 2009-10 Bolles Hip Hop Team Members:
Aaron Bernhardt
Ellie Boline
Ali Brown
Holly Cummins
Mackenzie Dowdell
Caroline Holder
Amanda Lee
Carolyn Lee
Cameron Makeever
Nicholle Moye
Amy Katherine Skinner
Alex Pierson
Danny Pierson
Morgan Redding
Margaret Willetts

Last week’s Bolles varsity lacrosse game against the Nease Panthers was the Comcast Game of the Week and will be airing on Cable Channel 29 on Saturday, March 13, at 2 p.m. Starting Monday, March 15, it will also be listed on video on demand: go to channel 1, select local/high school sports. Tune in to watch the Bulldogs’ 15-8 victory over Nease!

A group of 17 Bolles upper school students, along with two faculty members, will spend their 2010 spring break in the Dominican Republic.  While the trip may provide some fun-in-the-sun, the alternative spring break is providing the students an opportunity to help orphans in that country.

Organized by upper school science instructor Kristin Wilson, the trip is being planned through the non-profit Orphanage Outreach.  The group will be visiting orphanages in Monte Cristi and Jaibon, assisting a total of 70 orphans.

Wilson, upper school Latin teacher Meredith Sitz, and the students will spend March 27-April 3 teaching and tutoring the orphans, helping with construction projects, and other volunteer activities at the orphanages. The students registered for the trip are Hannah Abel, Chase Block, Caila Carter, Aaron Gao, Elizabeth Givens, Kayla Henrichsen, Leah Jimenez, Winston Jones, Annie Lee, Matt McPhillips, Nimisha Mohan, Ashlyn Perry, Lian Ren, Cameron Saffell, Nicole Santeiro, Stephen Schroeder, and Patty Xu.

The group is also holding a donation drive on the San Jose Campus through March 15.  Students are asked to fill a book bag with supplies that the Bolles group will bring to donate to each orphan.

Monetary donations can also be made specifically to the Bolles team’s effort with this cause, available online HERE.

The University of North Florida Athletic Department’s 2010 Hall of Fame class included a few members with Bolles ties.  The 1988 and 1989 baseball teams, the first at UNF, were inducted as a group into the 2010 Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the UNF Arena on February 12.  Members of the Bolles community on those teams were Matt Denmark, Rusty Peery ’84, and Dan Skinner. 

Denmark, a member of the 1989 UNF baseball team, is the Bolles middle school athletic director, a varsity baseball assistant coach, a current parent, and his wife Allison is also a Bolles faculty member.  Their son Caleb ’10 has signed a scholarship to play baseball at UNF next year.

Peery, a member of the 1988 UNF team, is a 1984 graduate of Bolles, a current parent, and his wife Holly Hasbani Peery ’82 is also a Bolles graduate and serves as director of alumni programs at the School.  

Skinner, a member of the 1989 UNF team, is a current Bolles parent.

The inaugural team for UNF baseball won 100 games over the first two years of the program.  During the 1988 season, the team won 47 games, a feat that had never been accomplished by a first-year program.  In 1988, the team swept the Florida Conference Tournament to advance to the NAIA District 25 Tournament.  The Ospreys defeated Kennesaw State two games to one in the District 25 Tournament to capture the championship and advance to the NAIA Area V Tournament.  In 1989, the team won 53 games and advanced all the way to the NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho.  In just its second year, the team won its second NAIA District 25 Tournament Championship and advanced to the NAIA Area V Tournament.  With wins over Trevecca Nazarene and Southern Arkansas, the Ospreys advanced to the NAIA World Series.  At the World Series, UNF won three games to finish the season third in the nation. 

The Bolles Upper School Symphonic Band hosted a special guest on Thursday, March 4. Dr. Dale Blackwell guest conducted the band during an extended rehearsal period and offered insight and performance tips to the students. All of this is in preparation for the band’s adjudication performance at the Independent Schools Concert Band Festival on March 11. The Bolles Band will be performing the most difficult wind literature they have ever played at this event.

Dr. Blackwell recently completed a distinguished career as Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Florida Community College at Jacksonville, a position he held since 1971. He previously served as a brass instructor at Valdosta State College and held the position of band director at Kecoughtan High School and H. Wilson Thorpe Junior High School, both in Hampton, Virginia, and Cartaret County Schools in his hometown of Beaufort, North Carolina. Dr. Blackwell has been a professional trumpet player since the age of 16. He earned his B.S. and M.M. degrees in music from East Carolina University, and a Ph.D. from The Florida State University. He is currently the co-conductor of the First Coast Wind Ensemble.

Don Zentz, the upper school band director and director of fine & performing arts at Bolles, has known Dr. Blackwell for almost 30 years. From 1992-94, Zentz was one of Dr. Blackwell’s colleagues at FCCJ in the instrumental music program. Zentz served as the Associate Director of Bands and Director of Jazz Studies during that time and worked very closely with Dr. Blackwell in bringing national acclaim to the FCCJ band program.

Bolles senior football players Chris O’Lessker and Jordan Garside were named to the Rotary Club of North Jacksonville’s 23rd Annual Duval County Academic Football Team. Honored at a ceremony at the Jacksonville Zoo on March 5, Garside earned “With Recognition” honors for maintaining at least a 3.5 GPA throughout his high school career and O’Lessker was recognized with “High Honors” for maintaining at least a 4.0 GPA.

The Bolles Brain Brawl team placed second out of 16 teams in the Duval Brain Brawl Competition on Saturday March 6.  Coached by faculty members Melissa Tyler and Clare Lange, the participating team members on Saturday were Kyle Morgan, Kal Gezahegan, Sophia Array, and Daniel Leichus.  Other Brain Brawl members include CJ Brown, Matt Silverstein, Katherine Pogrebniak, and Will Knox.

The trophy is on display in the Swisher Library.

As part of the continuing monthly musical performances at the Bolles Ponte Vedra Beach Campus, the featured theme for March was the Chinese New Year. Bolles upper school students in the Chinese Club and Chinese classes visited the Ponte Vedra Beach Campus on March 5 to perform a play and music for the lower school students.

Chinese language teacher Cheng Mei Rothschild organized the performance, helping to expose the students to Chinese culture. The upper school students performed Chinese music, acted out a play explaining the Chinese calendar and 12 animal signs, and handed out red envelopes filled with candy and fake money to the lower school students. These envelopes are a Chinese tradition offering good fortune in the New Year.

The Whitehurst Campus Kindergarten held its annual Dad’s Day on March 5. With Father’s Day in the summer, Dad’s Day allows the students to honor their dads during the school year. The dads visited campus in the morning, starting with refreshments in the classrooms. Then the fathers joined the flag ceremony where the kindergarten students recited a poetic tribute to their “heroes”. The students and their fathers returned to the classrooms to continue the morning visit. The children made a portrait of themselves with their dads and a ceramic piece for them to take home. The dads were the show and tell of the day. The students wrote clues about their dad’s hobby, job, or special interests and the rest of the class tried to guess what that might be.

View a slideshow from Dad’s day on Smilebox.com here.

Students in second grade on the Bolles Ponte Vedra Beach Campus researched animals and created online video projects in Cynthia Clements’ computer class.  The students researched the animals utilizing the San Diego Zoo web site and created Powerpoint slides with information, photos, and their own art work depicting their selected animal.  The projects were then uploaded to the internet using Smilebox.com.  Each student created their own Smilebox and Clements combined all of the projects into group presentations. 

View Nancy Halvorsen’s class Smilebox presentation here.

View Patricia Daly’s class Smilebox presentation here.

Several Bolles upper school students placed well and/or earned awards at the 2010 Northeast Florida Regional Science and Engineering Fair, held February 22-23 at the University of North Florida University Center.  Bolles students Lily Herman, Katherine McGrane, and Doug Trippe each advanced to the Florida State Science and Engineering Fair April 7-9 in Orlando.

Congratulations to all of Bolles’ participants in the Regional Science Fair:

Senior Botany
Stephanie Hum- 2nd place
Angelica Inclan- 4th place

Senior Chemistry
Emily Keator- 3rd place

Senior Computer Science
Doug Trippe- 2nd place, State Team

Senior Engineering
Edward Avery- 4th place, ASM Materials Education Foundation Award, Air Force Award, US Navy Office of Naval Research Award

Senior Environmental Science
Lily Herman- 3rd place, State Team

Senior Medicine and Health Sciences
Alora G. Clark- 3rd place, Grand Army Award

Senior Microbiology
Katherine McGrane- 1st place, UNF Microbiology Award, State Team
Winston Jones- 4th place

Barbara Bent- Stockholm Water Prize
Shan Choudri- Army Award
Veronika Koren- Army Award
Patty Xu- Stockholm Water Prize, NOAA Award

The inaugural JAX 50 Sprint Dual Challenge will bring a dozen of the world’s greatest swimmers to The Bolles School’s Uible Pool in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 10-11.  A unique weekend of racing and interaction with elite swimmers from around the world, the JAX 50 welcomes swimmers of all ages, includes trophies and $10,000 in prize money, and most importantly, supports a worthy cause- DKMS Americas, the world’s largest bone marrow donation center. 

The swimmers will compete in support of former Bolles swimmer Seun Adebiyi ’01, who is in need of a bone marrow donor after being diagnosed with lymphoblastic lymphoma and stem-cell leukemia.  Adebiyi’s story, and his desire to be the first Nigerian to compete in the skeleton in a Winter Olympics, has already made national headlines.

Several Olympic medalists and internationally ranked swimmers, including Bolles alumni, have committed to participate in the JAX 50.  Scheduled to appear are Olympic medalists Matt Grevers, Ryan Lochte, Cullen Jones, George Bovell (Bolles ’02), Christine Magnuson, Kara Lynn Joyce, and Amanda Weir. Also slated to appear are internationally ranked swimmers Caitlyn Geary (Bolles ’07), Nicolas Nilo, Arianna Vanderpool Wallace (Bolles ’08), Sabir Muhammad, and Arlene Semeco.

The event will be an opportunity to help both Adebiyi and the bone marrow donor center DKMS Americas, in its effort to register 10,000 more Americans as potential bone marrow donors.  On April 10, from 7 a.m.-7 p.m., the event attendees will be able to join the bone marrow registry in person.  A portion of the proceeds from the meet will be donated to DKMS to fund donor registrations for potential bone marrow matches.

The format of the meet will allow for swimmers of all ages to compete in a morning session, with trophies to the top three swimmers in each age group.  These swimmers will also be competing for four spots (two for men and two for women) to race among the marquis athletes in the evening session. The evening session will feature heats of only two swimmers at a time, racing head to head, for a chance to advance to the final and win the event’s top money prize. 

Participating swimmers will also have an opportunity to register for a swimming clinic the day after the races. The clinic will be a chance for the participants to meet and learn from the dozen guest athletes. This is a rare opportunity to interact with so many of the world’s elite swimmers and will certainly mark a highlight in many young swimmers’ careers.

More information about the JAX50, including links to bios on the participating swimmers, can be found at www.planetswim.org/jax50

More information about the life-saving work of DKMS Americas can be found at www.dkmsamericas.org.

The Bolles School had nineteen of their top symphonic band members selected this year for the district private schools honor band, including Davis Lowe (tuba) and Katie Greene (flute) from our middle school.  This was the most Bolles has ever placed into the honor band.  In score order, the upper school instrumentalists participating were:  Chrissy Tofferi (flute), Heather Nearing (oboe), Corey Munn (clarinet), Amanda Harris (clarinet), Jennifer Kight (clarinet), Danielle Zentz (clarinet), Jennifer Margettes (bass clarinet), Katherine Pogrebniak (bassoon), Ajay Shroff (alto sax), Sammy Honig (bari sax), Jeffrey Ferrell (French horn), Scott Fligor (trumpet), Alora Clark (trumpet), Julia Ferrell (trombone), Ivy Jameson (euphonium), Kal Gezahegn (tuba), and Daniel Majarwitz (percussion).

The honor band concert was held on Saturday, February 27, in Terry Concert Hall at Jacksonville University.  Artie Clifton was the conductor of the band.  Selections included new works with a rhythmic focus – El Palomino Noble (Compello), Clash (Main), Dreamsong (Saucedo), Arabian Dances (Balmages), and American Barndance (Saucedo).  As part of JU’s young artist program, Bolles students Jeffrey Ferrell and Katherine Pogrebniak were each presented with a $5,000 music scholarship offer (renewable each year) to attend Jacksonville University.

Don Zentz, conductor of the upper school symphonic band and the director of fine and performing arts at Bolles, stated “I am so appreciative of the work that Artie Clifton does with the honor band, and the support that JU offers independent school band programs through this event.  This is the 17th year of the honor band.  At a time when there is so much competition between schools, and in our society as a whole, it is a wonderful thing for young people to have the opportunity to work together and contribute their talents and abilities to a collective artistic endeavor.  The arts truly bring people together in a very special way!”

Bolles Athletic Director and Wrestling Head Coach Matt Morris is one of six 2010 inductees into the Florida Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Morris was recognized during the state wrestling tournament in Lakeland on February 20 and will be formally inducted at a ceremony in August at Disney’s Regal Sun Resort in Lake Buena Vista.

In his 28 years as a wrestling coach, Morris has guided the Bolles program to two state titles, one regional title, and seven district titles, as well as 12 individual state champions, 20 state finalists, and 36 state place finishers. Morris also spent five years at Nease High School in between his time at Bolles, initiating the wrestling program and leading the Panthers to a district title.

More details on the Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be available soon.

The Bolles School participated in the worldwide Megaconference Jr. on February 25, broadcasting live from the Alumni Conference Room in Bolles Hall.  The Bolles upper school chorus led a collaborative music experience from 8:45-10:30 a.m., interacting and discussing their collaboration with schools in Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Slovenia.  Later in the afternoon, fifth grade students from the Whitehurst Campus participated in a math competition.

With the music collaboration, Bolles was one of just six schools in the world that hosted and led a segment of the conference.  The students created pieces for the collaboration, while some added to projects from the other schools.  Bolles students also served as VJs, hosts for the collaborative segment, broadcasting on the internet around the world.

The Bolles chorus students, along with Chorus Director Rachel Clifton, invited any schools that wanted to experiment with creating full musical pieces by uploading and downloading tracks each of them created.  Participating students and faculty were from Cornell School District in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania; The Medical and Cosmetic High School in Maribor, Slovenia; Naperville North High School in Naperville, Illinois; Peters Township School District in McMurray, Pennsylvania; and Port Huron Northern High School in Port Huron, Michigan.

The participants in the musical collaboration used an online software tool called Kompoz to share tracks and post the final production.  The finished projects contained a variety of musical instrument and vocal tracks, each of which was created by students and teachers from different schools. 

Due to Bolles’ involvement in previous Megaconferences, Academic Technology Coordinator Frank Adsit was contacted by the organizing committee about hosting a segment of this year’s production.  Adsit researched tools available for music collaboration and contacted Clifton about getting the Bolles chorus involved.   

Adsit recorded and uploaded the students’ vocal tracks to Kompoz.  He has also maintained the Megaconference webpage in which Bolles advertised the project and sought schools to participate.  Adsit has helped prepare the VJ teams for the segments they are hosting as well.  With the help of Bolles Network Administrator Brian Huggins, Adsit conducted two videoconference tests, one for technical quality and the other as a dress rehearsal for the students. 

During the Megaconference, the group shared the finished pieces, along with comments from the students who collaborated on the project.  The participants discussed creating the music, collaborating with other students, how the process went for them, what inspired their pieces, the challenges of the process, and ways to improve music collaborations. 

The students from Slovenia provided a live performance during the conference.  They played folk music from their country with instruments such as the accordion, guitar, tuba, bass, and clarinet.  They even had two dancers perform a folk dance behind them while they played.  Following their performance, they shared a video and slideshow depicting their country, hometown, and school.

Clifton commented on the experience as she and the Bolles students concluded the music collaboration segment.  “Think of all we have done.  We have collaborated with people thousands of miles away.  Being involved in this Megaconference has been a tremendous gift for everyone.  When we made this music, we came together for one piece.  That’s the real joy of collaboration.  It was an emotional experience.”

The fifth grades students participated in a “Jeopardy” styled math competition in the afternoon.  Topics ranged in subject from Algebra, Geometry, fractions, and more. The Bolles students worked together to solve the questions and took turns announcing their answers over the live video feed.  The Bolles fifth grade students beat a middle school team in the competition!

“They were amazing and did a wonderful job!” Whitehurst Campus Principal Carol Imfeld said of the fifth grade students.  “It was evident that our new higher level math program has really paid off for our students.  They were so confident and knew exactly how to solve all the problems.  Mrs. Collins, Mrs. Schaefer, and I were so proud of them!”

Students in the Lower School Whitehurst Campus third grade presented Fifty Nifty United States on February 24 in McGehee Auditorium. The students have been studying the United States in recent weeks and the theme of the play was inventions and the people who created them from each state. Such facts included bubble gum being invented in Pennsylvania, Kool Aid being created in Nebraska, the Otis elevator being from Vermont, and more! Students performed songs including “Fifty Nifty United States” and “I Love the Mountains”. The students concluded the performance with “Grand Old Flag”, while holding placards to form a human flag.

The play was written and directed by Michael Fritton, with original music by Andrea Duke, and the backdrop was created by the students under the direction of Helen Meatte.

See more photos on our online photo gallery.

Cheer tryouts for the 2010-11 Varsity and Junior Varsity squads will be the week of April 19-23.
Tryouts will be held at:

First Class Athletics
6026 Bowdendale Avenue
Jacksonville, Fl 32216

April 19-22, (Monday – Thursday)
Daily Clinic from 4:15 p.m. – 6 p.m.
April 23 (Friday) Actual Tryouts beginning at 4 p.m.

Candidates MUST bring a current medical release form signed by a physician.

If you need transportation, it will be provided by Bolles.

Attire for the week:

Cheerleading Shorts (anything that allows movement)
Sports Bra
T-Shirt or Tank Top (not oversized)
Tennis Shoes & Socks (lightweight, preferably smooth bottoms)

If you have any questions, please call or email:
Christi Petrie, Head Coach
904-838-7641 (day)
904-646-0512 (evenings)
petriec@bolles.org