Arman Najafian

The MIHS Islander State Winners at the WJEA State Journalism Convention

MIHS clubs and extracurriculars are experiencing success in their various competitions. DECA, HOSA and Mock Trial have competed in their respective state competitions, Science Club is preparing to compete in the Science Olympiad, Robotics is soon to compete in the district Robotics competition, and Journalism has picked up various awards at the most recent WJEA conference. Model United Nations has an upcoming International event, and Destination Imagination has an upcoming state competition. 

Mock Trial and HOSA both had fairly eventful state competitions. Mock Trial placed 9th overall in the Washington State Mock Trial Championship, as well as winning many individual achievements. Eliot Geer won Best Attorney, and Brielle Gradek, Geoffery Goffman and Alden Hey all received nominations in the category. Gracie Hennessy, Brandon Bienstock and Divya Krishnaswamy received nominations in the Best Witness category. 

HOSA had multiple students competing and placing in the virtual state competition from the 7th to the 11th. In HOSA competitions, if you place in the top three of any category, you move on to the national competition, called the International Leadership Conference, held in Nashville from the 22nd to the 25th of June. Thus, two students are being sent to the national HOSA competition- Divya Krishnaswamy, who placed 1st in Health Informatics, and Mia Donald-Paladino, who placed 3rd place in Medical Math.

Robotics and Science Club both have district and state competitions upcoming. The two district competitions for Robotics include all of the Pacific Northwest, which will take place on March 26 and 27 and April 2 and 3, and the team will move on to the next competition in Cheney on April 9 and 10th. The world competition in Houston on the weekend of April 13-14 if they perform well. 

Science Club will be competing in the virtual Science Olympiad tournament on April 9th, where they will be competing against 36 other schools in the state. For the first time in the five years that Science Club has been competing in the Science Olympiad, both the Maroon and White teams will be competing in the competition.

DECA sent 283 students to the recent local DECA competition, and proceeded to have 143 students qualify for the state competition that will take place on May 4. 25 students have also qualified for the international competition in Atlanta, from April 22-26.

Model United Nations has an upcoming international competition on April 3-6, which will take place online, in a Canadian league. Model UN consists of 12 students, across a mix of grades.

Destination Imagination has an upcoming state competition in Kennewick, on April 2nd. Roughly 35 MIHS students will be participating, but there will also be multiple middle schoolers and elementary schoolers. The global competition will feature 17 countries, and take place in Kansas City in May.

Journalism class also had a strong showing at the Washington Journalism Education Association (WJEA) Convention. Along with 10 individual awards, the MIHS Islander website won an overall Award of Excellence. In terms of independent awards, there were four awarded Superiors, one Award of Excellence, and four Honorable Mentions, and editor-in-Chief Alex Levin was also awarded the WJEA Journalist of the Year award. There were also two awards given to MIHS Yearbook staff.

Overall, MIHS clubs and classes have had high levels of success in their various cumulative competitions. If you are interested in joining any of these clubs in the upcoming school year, you can find the information for the respective club on Schoology.