Graduation for the Penn High School Class of 2018 will be on Friday, May 25, at the University of Notre Dame’s Purcell Pavilion.

The Graduation Ceremony is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

Composure was the key word in helping the Kingsmen punch their ticket to Baseball’s Class 4-A Final Four.

Penn High’s Baseball Team captured its third consecutive Regional Championship and 10th in program history by defeating Andrean, 9-4, in the Class 4-A Regional Championship game at LaPorte on Saturday, June 3, 2017. Penn defeated Lake Central, 6-2, in the first regional game on Saturday.

Penn (26-6) takes on Zionsville (22-11) in Class 4-A Semi-state action on Saturday, June 10. The IHSAA will announce on Tuesday the time and location (Kokomo or Plymouth) of the game. Last season, Zionsville defeated Penn, 8-5, in the Semi-state.

Coach Greg Dikos’ Kingsmen displayed remarkable composure as Penn rallied from deficits in each game, and by knocking off Andrean and Lake Central, the Kingsmen avenged two previous losses.

Andrean beat Penn 14-11 on April 8, and were defeated by Lake Central 20-8 on April 22. The Kingsmen beat Lake Central 9-4 in the first game of the doubleheader on April 22.

Senior Niko Kavadas blasted three hits and drove in four runs to power the Kingsmen attack against Andrean. Matt Kominkiewicz had three hits. Nolan Metcalf and Ryan Lynch had two hits each, and Ryan Lau drove in two runs.

Penn took a 2-0 lead in the second inning of the Championship game, cashing in on an error by Andrean

The 59ers took a 4-2 lead in the third inning, but the Kingsmen struck back in the fourth inning for five runs and a 7-4 lead.

Trevor Waite ignited the Kingsmen uprising in the fourth inning with a sacrifice fly.

Kavadas then lashed a two-run single for a 5-4 Kingsmen lead. Nolan Metcalf and Nathan Lovisa drove in runs for the 7-4 lead.

Kavadas ripped a two-run double in the fifth inning for the Kingsmen to expand the lead to 9-4.

Lynch earned the victory, pitching 5.1 innings. Chase McKenzie pitched 1.2 innings to seal the deal.

Penn also rallied from a deficit against Lake Central in the first Regional Game.

Lake Central led 2-0 after three innings when the Kingsmen offense kicked into high gear.

Lynch lined a two-run single, and Lovisa and Lau contributed RBI singles for a 4-2 Kingsmen lead in the fourth inning.

Waite hammered an RBI triple in the fifth, and scored on a single by Kominkiewicz.

Metcalf and Lynch ended up with two hits each. Pinch-runner Brock Boynton scored two runs.

Kameron Koch pitched a complete-game to earn the victory. Koch’s quality start limited Lake Central to two runs on seven hits. He struck out one and gave up no walks.

Penn High’s Baseball Team erupted for five runs in the fourth inning and nine runs in the sixth inning, defeating Elkhart Central, 16-3, to capture the Class 4-A Sectional Championship on Monday, May 29.

Coach Greg Dikos celebrated victory No. 700 with the Sectional Championship.

Penn earned its fourth consecutive Sectional Championship, and won its 15th Sectional in the past 17 seasons. Penn owns 21 Sectional Championships overall.

Trevor Waite hammered a home run to spearhead the Kingsmen assault.

Matt Kominkiewicz and Ryan Lynch had three hits each.

Trevor Waite and Payton Kerr had two hits each.

Ryan Lynch drove in four runs, Niko Kavadas drove in three runs, and Trevor Waite, Nolan Metcalf and

Payton Kerr drove in two runs each.

Next up for the Kingsmen is the LaPorte Regional on Saturday, June 3.

LaPorte Regional pairings

LaPorte (20-8) vs. Andrean (25-6), 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time

PENN (23-5) vs. Lake Central (23-8), 2 p.m., Eastern Time

Regional Championship, 8 p.m., Eastern Time

After last week’s (Tuesday, May 23) announcement that Penn Principal Steve Hope is leaving to become Goshen Community School’s new Assistant Superintendent Penn-Harris-Madison’s Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker announced today the following administrative change for the upcoming 2017-18 school year: 
 

• Schmucker Principal Sean Galiher will Penn’s new principal
• Meadow’s Edge Principal Jayson Snyder will become Schmucker’s new principal
• Schmucker Assistant Principal Kent Mikel will become Meadow’s Edge new principal

Sean Galiher will carry on Penn’s great academic and athletic tradition. Before being named principal at Schmucker in 2013, Mr. Galiher served as Associate Principal at Penn for three years. From 2006-2009, he was Dean of Students and before that taught Algebra at Penn for four years, while also serving as assistant varsity baseball coach. Under Mr. Galiher’s leadership,  Schmucker, along with Penn, was recently named a “Four Star School,” and has received an “A” rating four consecutive years. Schmucker students have won state and national competitions in performing arts, Academic Superbowls and TEAMS. He also implemented a successful community building and character development program that was incorporated into the start of the students’ day.  In 2015, Mr. Galiher was a member of the “Forty under 40” class.

“The P-H-M Board of School Trustees and I are confident that Sean will carry on Penn’s great academic and athletic tradition as the new principal,” said Dr. Thacker.

The Administrative changes will take effect July 1, 2017.

Penn’s Kingsmen beat Northridge 13-0 on Tuesday, May 30, to win their fourth consecutive Regional Championship and eighth in program history.

Penn advances to the North Semi-state at Harrison High School in West Lafayette on Saturday, June 3.  Penn (27-1) plays Crown Point (27-2) at 11 a.m. Hamilton Southeastern (17-8) plays Homestead (21-6) at 1 p.m. The winners return to play at 7 p.m. for a berth to the State Championship.

Danielle Watson pitched a complete-game shutout, striking out 15 in her five innings of work. 

Katie Quinlan led the Kingsmen offense with a grand-slam home run.

Maddy Newman had three hits.

Penn High School Principal Steve Hope, along with P-H-M Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker, members of the Board of School of Trustees, along with P-H-M and Penn administrators honored and awarded the diplomas of approximately 900 students last night (Friday, May 26, 2017). The 2-hour commencement ceremony was held at Purcell Pavilion on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. (Click here to see browse the photo gallery below; you can right click to save & download high res images for printing 4×6 or 5×7 pictures. For official graduation pictures taken by HR Imaging, please click here.)

Click below to watch the graduation video.

As a whole, Penn’s Class of 2017 has earned nearly $8.5 million in scholarships to date! The graduating class includes 12 National Merit Scholarship Finalists, 275 students who are set to earn a High Honors Diploma, 413 students who are in line to earn an Academic Honors Diploma, and 85 students who will earn a Technical Honors Diploma.

This year’s graduating class has 19 valedictorians and three salutatorians! The valedictorians’ GPAs range from 4.4904 – 4.3846.

The valedictorians are: Muqsit Buchh, Balajimonesh Devireddy, Alex Dobbins, Will Gruber, Keegan Hurst, David Kim, Sanjana Kulkarni, Julia Kwak, Mason Lee, Hannah McGinness, Logan McGuire, Baker Nasser, Cole Pollyea, Peter Rutkowski, Hannah Selis, Matthew Shan, Emma Schultz, Evan Shreiner and Kacey Wood.

Collectively the valedictorians gave a speech at the start of the ceremony; the theme … “Unforgettable Characters!” Each student explained who his or her favorite character or person is and why. Using examples like Mike Wazowski from Monster’s Inc. to NBA and Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook, the students explained how their character inspired them and exemplified how to overcome adversity and succeed. Click here to  watch a video of all  19 of the  valedictorian speeches.

The salutatorians are Sam Battalio, Annaliza Canda and Michelle Tapp.

This was Principal Hope’s 11th and last graduation as principal of Penn High School. Hope recently announced that he is moving to Goshen Community Schools as their new Assistant Superintendent effective July 1st. Dr. Thacker thanked Principal Hope for his years of service; students and parents showed their appreciation with a standing ovation.

The Indiana Department of Education announced on Friday, May 26, 2017 the 2015-16 list of Four Star Schools and Penn HiIgh School, along with eight other P-H-M schools, have earned that distinction–the most the District has ever had!

P-H-M's other Four Star Schools are Discovery, Horizon, Madison, Mary Frank, Meadow's Edge, Northpoint, Prairie Vista and Schmucker. Meadow's Edge made the list for the first time; Meadow’s Edge is one of  P-H-M’s five Title 1 schools.

The Indiana Department of Education has named Penn a 4-Star School from 2012-2015.  Click here for more information on Penn High School’s “Points of Pride.”

To qualify as a Four Star School, a school must have received an “A” rating for the 2015-16 school year, tested at least 95% of students on ISTEP English/Language Arts and Math, and be in the top 25th percentile on ISTEP and ECA participation and passing rates. This list is based on 2015-16 school data. Click here to see the full list of criteria.

Penn-Harris Madison Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker announced this morning that after 22 years with the District, 11 as principal of Penn High School … Steve Hope will be taking over as Goshen Community School’s new Assistant Superintendent July 1, 2017.

“As a superintendent, I’ve admired Steve and enjoyed watching him develop into one of the finest principals and administrators I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with,” said Dr. Thacker in an email to staff.

Hope started at Penn in 1995 as an art teacher and within three years was named Dean of Students. He went on to serve in a number of leadership positions at Penn before becoming Principal: Director of Counseling, Assistant Principal and Associate Principal. During his tenure as Principal, he established Penn's academy structure through a Smaller Learning Community grant, which could arguably be one of the most prevailing reasons why Penn has emerged as one of the country’s most premier high schools. Penn now has a remarkable 97% graduation rate–the highest in the state among high schools with more than 500 students. In 2008, it was just 79%. These are just some of the reasons why Steve was named 2015-16 Indiana High School Principal of the Year. 

The list of championship titles and awards of both Penn students and staff is endless! Penn students outperform their peers on a regional, state, national and world level from STEM to fine arts, to academics to athletics on a regular basis!

“We all know what a fantastic leader Steve is,” Dr. Thacker went on to say. “He is a part of the P-H-M family and always will be. We take joy when one of our own succeeds. Please join me in congratulating him on a job well done, and thanking him for all he’s done to make Penn and our school district better. He’ll always be a Kingsman!”

Six teams of STEM Academy students and one team from Mishawaka High School competed in the final stage of the ADEC Penn Innovation Challenge yesterday (Tuesday, May 22) at ADEC Industries in Elkhart for the chance at winning a summer paid internship!

Penn Robotics and Engineering students were challenged to use their skills and knowledge to give back to the community. ADEC proudly advocates for and serves people with developmental and intellectual disabilities so they live lives full of choice and possibility. Along with a variety of services, ADEC also offers employment to its clients.

This unique challenge goes back to late April when 77 teams from both high schools presented their ideas and concepts. Teams were asked to focus on and find solutions to help ADEC client employees perform their jobs more efficiently, and thus hopefully increase their pay. ADEC asked the students to focus on these three core business areas to help their clients increase efficiency : Bake (Bow Wow Dog Biscuit production); Build (building sturdy furniture like benches or chests); or Balance (making custom wood signs with a CNC machine). ADEC then narrowed down the field to 10 finalists, one from Mishawaka and nine from Penn. 

Last week (May 15),  the Penn teams held their “build day” and devoted the entire school day to building their prototypes of tools. Six teams completed the task. On May 22,  all of the hard work over the last several weeks culminated for these remaining teams when the students presented their final projects to the ADEC panel of judges. 

Penn’s participants gave it their best as five of the teams chose the “Build” category to focus on. The other team focused on a simple solution to help workers count washers. Each team showcased their creative skills and ideas as the panel of judges intently listened and then asked questions of the participants. Click here for a more detailed description of all six Penn projects. 
(*Adobe Acrobat Reader will be required to view this pdf. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, please visit Adobe’s website, or click here, to download your free version. Or you can stop by the Education Resources Center at  55900 Bittersweet Rd., Mishawaka to pick up a copy.)

Judges deliberated for about half an hour while they made their decisions to award the top three teams. At the end of the day, P-H-M claimed first and third place, with Mishawaka taking second place.

First place winning team members are Ryan Doenges and Eddie Null. As first place winners, Ryan and Eddie will have an internship this summer at Sibley Machine, one of Penn’s Community Partners, who will host them and pay for their internship as they work on their project.

Third place Penn student team members: Jeff Pawlik, Caroline Tiebout, Collin Mott, Michael Feeley and Hayden Carnine.

By COLE POLLYEA

Many families here at Penn High School have rich legacies at universities like Indiana University, Purdue, Ball State, or even schools such as Notre Dame and Michigan.

What is more uncommon is for families at Penn to have rich legacies at The Naval Academy, an East Coast Military Academy where admission is based on competitive applications as well as congressional appointment.

This is exactly what Penn has in the high-achieving McGuire family.

Logan McGuire will be the third of the McGuire boys to attend the Naval Academy after graduating from Penn. Without doubt, he has had a strong impact on Penn’s student body and has played a critical role in elevating the reputation of the school in his four years. Logan has four years of lacrosse under his belt, and this year, he hopes to lead the team to a successful state run as one of the team’s captains.

He has also been a part of Penn’s National Honor Society, DECA, Freshman Mentoring, Dream Commission Society, Key Club, and in late March of this year, was recognized as one of Penn’s 19 valedictorians, an incredible feat when it is taken into account that the 112th-ranked student in the class has a perfect 4.0. His GPA is a jaw-dropping 4.4286.

Logan acknowledges that Penn has played an integral role in his success along the way: “Penn provided me with many opportunities through classes and extracurriculars to explore my passions and subjects that I was curious about.”

Logan found out that he had been admitted to Naval Academy while first semester was still in session. Needless to say, Navy is an extremely selective institution with an acceptance rate of nine percent and an abundance of difficult tasks to complete in order to achieve acceptance.

Aside from having to present an overall compelling academic and extracurricular application, one of these tasks include interviewing with a former military officer as well as completing a physical fitness test under his/her supervision — “push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, shuttle run, one-mile run, and basketball throw,”  Logan recalled.

Yet what is even more intimidating about the application process is that, in order to be admitted, one must earn a nomination from one of the state’s congresspeople. “(Your) applications are reviewed by their own boards and this board then chooses candidates to interview from that initial pool. After interviews, each congressperson can nominate 10 people to USNA,” Logan said. Without the nomination, it is impossible to be accepted.

Logan has two older brothers and both of them are attending the Naval Academy.

Kyle, the oldest, is a current sophomore and is majoring in Quantitative Economics. He is passionate about a number of roles within the Marine Corps, including pilot, Ground Intelligence, and Infantry. USNA graduates are required to serve a minimum of five years after graduating, and Kyle commented that “I'll need to get some time in my actual job before I can decide if I want to continue serving beyond my service obligation.”

As far as this actual job goes, Kyle attended the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington for two years before transferring to the Naval Academy. There, he developed a keen interest in consulting and he indicates that “The Naval Academy hasn't really changed those aspirations.”

Connor, the next oldest brother, is a junior and also plans to major in Quantitative Economics, though he’s not sure that his civilian life will consist of a job relating to his major. Right now, he is not eliminating any options for his future, one of which could be using his GI bill to earn an MBA. Like Kyle, Connor is also very passionate about pursuing a career in the military. Here, he eloquently explains the position that he is serious about pursuing after the Naval Academy, a Marine Corps infantry officer:

“In its simplest form they're the ones on the front lines leading men into combat, but an infantry officer has to be capable of leading men in the three-block war — particularly in today's day and age. The first block is full-on combat. The second block is peacekeeping operations. The third block is humanitarian aid. As a Marine Corps infantry officer you are called upon to lead your men through all of these blocks, and sometimes you'll be working through all three blocks in a matter of hours. That's an immense leadership challenge and a high calling, and I'm looking forward to being a part of it all.”

It is clear that the McGuire brothers have had a profound influence on each other’s life choices up until this point. But the influence did not just stem from the brothers’ choices.

Logan’s parents also have a strong military background: “My father served for 12 years in the Marine Corps and was decommissioned as a Captain. My mother was in Air Force reserves for 3 1/2 years (medical school) and active duty for six years. She was decommissioned as a Major. Both of my half-sisters also served in the Air Force. Now, both of my brothers are at USNA.” He is soon to join them.

"We have always been proud of all of our sons because each of them have always been great young men.  As far as their Appointment to the Naval Academy, we would have to say we are more happy for them than proud, because they each set a goal of getting that Appointment and they each achieved that goal through their own hard work, dedication and discipline. We're also proud of their drive to serve their country and defend freedom for future generations," stated Mr. and Mrs. McGuire.  

When asked about how he feels about serving in the military, Logan responded with insight, gratitude, and maturity. He indicated that his motivation to serve is multi-layered. On one hand, he values his future military service because of the values it instilled in his parents, who he admires. And on the other hand, he views service as the appropriate way to pay back his country for providing him with all that it has, which he is grateful for.