Student Achievements: The Artist, The Architects, and The Scholars

1. Preservation scholarships

Preservation Park Cities gifted two Highland Park students a scholarship through the Highland Park Education Foundation Tartan Fund this past school year. Grey Webster and Elise Waterston are interested in architecture and history, subject areas which reflects PPC’s passion for historic preservation. Over the past 10 years, the organization’s board has voted to donate funds from the Distinguished Speaker Luncheon, the Historic Home Tour, and the Classic & Antique Car Show to create an endowment with the Education Foundation. This endowment of $250,000 provides the underwriting for the Distinguished Chair for History at Highland Park High School, a post Bradley Sanders will fill for another three years.

2. Birthday flowers

Yihan Li, a fifth grader at McCullough Intermediate School, was recognized as winner of the 2022 HPISD Birthday Card Cover Art Contest. Li designed her cover art last year as a fourth grader at Armstrong Elementary and created her Heart with Flowers drawing with colored pencils and markers. The annual contest is open to all students in the district. Superintendent Tom Trigg uses the chosen artwork to wish HPISD’s 800 employees a happy birthday. 

3. Top science

The Society for Science selected Highland Park Middle School eighth grader Ellie Chong (pictured with principal Kevin Hunt) as a Top 300 Broadcom Master based on her seventh-grade project, which advanced to the second round of state competition. The Broadcom Masters science and engineering fair annually recognizes the top 10% of middle school science fair projects from across the U.S. 

4. Smile, you’re a semifinalist

Most of Highland Park High’s 2023 National Merit semifinalists posed for a celebratory photograph after the announcement of their selection. Read more about the program on page 41.