A total of 26 terrific juniors and seniors from the high school were recently selected to participate in the 63rd annual New York State Council of Administrators of Music Education All-County Festival, a prestigious event featuring the most accomplished student-musicians from Suffolk County. They will perform at NYSCAME’s All-County concert at Huntington High School on Nov. 15. 

Patrick Bolin, Matthew Cammarano, Eve Castonguay, Paul Ciesluk, Nicole D’Asaro, Andrew Palmer, Marisa Pastore, Ryan Rafferty, Sophia Randazzo, Vincent Santini, Tristan Tran will perform with the All-County Band.

Alexa Camillery, Ty Carpinello, Nicole D’Asaro, Noelle Fallon, Kylie Horan, Hallie Huners, Ryan Lang, Sophia Lopez, Kathryn Paidoussis, Lindsey Pritchard, Dorian Scourtos, Jake Siffert, Kyle Tran and Karina Vartanian will perform with the All-County Chorus.

David Belcher and Taylor Rakovic will perform with the All-County Orchestra.

Students in Janis Quinn’s kindergarten class at Oquenock recently read the Theo LeSieg story “Ten Apples Up on Top,” in which three friends challenge each other to see who can stack the most apples on their heads without letting them fall. After hearing the story, the students competed in a STEAM challenge to see which table team could engineer the tallest tower, stacking 10 apple-colored cups the highest, without letting them fall.  

“My teams were reminded that this was a challenge, not a race,” said Quinn. “A team could be the last to finish and still win, and that is exactly what happened.”

The Green Team took the longest to stack their cups but created a tower that was six stories tall. The Yellow Team came in second with a five-story tower, followed by the Red team with a four-story tower. The Purple Team created a three-story tower but won a “Best Communication” award for talking to each other the most and completing their building first with full team participation.