On the eve of the 50th Apollo 11 Anniversary celebrations, we are taking time to highlight Class of 2010 graduate Sadie Holbert. Sadie is a government contractor for Leidos working as a flight controller in mission control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

Sadie, a 2015 graduate of Purdue University,  will be involved in NASA’s upcoming “Explore Moon to Mars” missions that will send humans back to the moon. Sadie is on the Guidance, Navigation, and Control team for the first Orion mission, scheduled to launch in 2020 and will fly the Orion capsule out around the moon and back, testing the vehicle before NASA flies humans on it for the second mission. Sadie tells us she’s been involved in ramping up simulations to practice flying the Orion spacecraft, “While we've had humans continuously occupying the International Space Station for almost 19 years, I'm really excited to send people beyond Earth orbit again. Hopefully it inspires the current generation of students to pursue STEM careers!” says Holbert. Click here to watch a  NASA video about the “Explore Moon to Mars” missions.

Sadie has worked at Johnson Space Center for nearly four years. She currently works in Flight Dynamics as an Attitude and Pointing Officer and support NASA's International Space Station (ISS) program and the Artemis program, which will take humans back to the moon.  Sadie tells us she’s responsible for scheduling communications satellites for the ISS and the different cargo spacecraft, and soon, the spacecraft that will be flying astronauts from the US to the ISS.  

“One of my favorite roles is supporting the science experiments on board ISS,” says Sadie. “My group provides analysis that assists in data collection for many payloads studying solar irradiance, plant respiration, and carbon levels over different cities. The ISS is a great platform for studying the Earth and the effects of climate change.”

Sadie earned a B.S. Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering with a concentration on spacecraft dynamics and controls. She was very active in the Purdue's chapter of  Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (​SEDS) serving in various leadership roles. Through this group, she organized a forum for Purdue students and professors to evaluate the plans of all the commercial companies competing for contracts to take NASA astronauts to the International Space Station and present the evaluations to a NASA administrator. Sadie tells us she also helped design, build, and fly a rocket for a NASA sponsored competition called University Student Launch Initiative (​USLI). 

So where did Sadie get her love for STEM and space exploration? Penn High School of course!

James McPhee was her physics teacher for two years and Sadie credits Mr. McPhee as the first person that convinced her to think of myself as an engineer! Sadie also notes P-H-M teachers Rob Lovett, Jim Sauer, Mrs. Lutkus and Mrs. Watts.

“Rob Lovett was my teacher for first through third grade and really helped shape who I am as a student and person.  I owe my ability to communicate effectively largely to Jim Sauer at Penn and still prescribe to his "Claim Reference Commentary" method. …  I'd be remiss without mentioning ‘mis maestras de espanol,’ [my Spanish teachers] Mrs. Lutkus and Mrs. Watts, who always put a smile on my face.”

Sadie Holbert is just one of many Penn Kingsmen using their #PHMExcellence to make a difference in the world!

Sign-up for the Penn Girls Basketball Leagues will be from Noon – 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 25.

The Junior League is for grades 3-6, and the Senior League is for grades 7-8.

Both the Junior League and Senior League start on Sunday, Sept. 8. The Junior League ends on Sunday, Nov. 10, and the Senior League ends on Sunday, Nov. 17.

• Click here for information on the Junior League.
• Click here for information on the Senior League.

Penn’s Team 2 placed fifth in digital media.

Penn High School students earned two Top 5 placements in the national TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science) held June 28-July 2, 2019, at National Harbor near Washington, D.C.

Penn’s 11/12 Team 1 placed fifth in the nation in design/build. Seunghoon Sun served as captain of the team, and members included Courtney Sharpe, Elisabeth Casetti, Ricky Chapple, Ian Coates, Rajeev Datta, Philipp Roehm and Zach Simon.

Penn’s 11/12 Team 2 placed fifth in the nation in digital media. Rebecca Mattson served as captain of the team, and members included Mia Schwartz, Darby Kwan, Celine Wang, Karen Wang, John Donaruma, Hamid Al-Fadhl and Noah Lang.

“Penn can be very proud of all 46 students that we sent to this national competition,” TEAMS advisor Becky Tagliaferri said. “This is one of the most rigorous engineering competitions in the nation.  It has been my pleasure to coach these amazing students. 

“Penn can be proud that we have placed in the top 10 in at least one category every year since 2013 when this competition was reformulated under the umbrella of the Technology Student Association.”

Penn’s Team 1 faced a rigorous challenge in the design build competition.  The team was given 90 minutes to program an autonomous vehicle to navigate a course and avoid obstacles.

Penn’s Team 2 also faced a rigorous challenge in the digital media competition.  The team had to present a digital media product to promote autonomous vehicles in their hometown.  Here is the video link: https://youtu.be/cMfzGfgoHOc

On Friday, June 7, 868 students graduated from Penn High School in Commencement Ceremonies held at Notre Dame. A partial photo gallery is below, but you can view the entire photo gallery on our Facebook page.

Watch the highlights of Graduation in the video below …

​Penn’s Class of 2019 included 18 Valedictorians, three Salutatorians, eight  National Merit Scholarship Finalists, and the class as a whole earned $11.2 million in scholarships! Click to read more about the Class of 2019’s accomplishments.

Click here to view the program.

This year's Penn High School Class of 2019 has 868 students, everyone of them with their own story.

As part of our Excellence Happens Here series leading up to Commencement on June 7, we introduced a handful of these wonderful, gifted, talented, and dedicated students.

Watch and hear from these amazing group of students sharing their hopes, dreams and future plans after Penn High School. Click to watch all eight Class of 2019 “Excellence Happens Here” graduate profiles on Penn-Harris-Madison’s YouTube channel.

Penn's Early College Academy makes it possible for students to earn an Associate's Degree while also earning their high school diploma.

This opportunity is not one that Jon Aguilar and his family take for granted. Jon will be the first in his family to not only attend college, but also graduate from high school …

Click here to watch all the Class of 2019 Graduate Profiles as part of our “Excellence Happens Here” campaign.

The Penn Boys Lacrosse Team recently competed against Marian.

A Pennant Photo Gallery is posted below.

The Penn Boys Golf Team qualified for the State Finals by placing second at the Plymouth Regional on Thursday, June 6, 2019.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.

Click here to sign-up for the 2019 #KingsmenCookout for Penn High School Student-Athletes.

The #KingsmenCookout will be held from 4-6 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019, at TCU/Freed Field. It will be held in the Main Arena in case of inclement weather.

On Friday, June 7, 868 students will graduate from Penn High School in Commencement Ceremonies at Purcell Pavilion on the University of Notre Dame campus. 

Held earlier in the week (June 4th and 5th), Penn started a new tradition for the graduating class … taking the students back to their P-H-M elementary alma maters for “Senior Parade!”  Click to learn more, see the full photo gallery and watch a video!

Penn’s Class of 2018 features 18 Valedictorians: Ammaar Basher, Amy Bernard, Ella Boardley, Charlotte Chang, Xi (Chelsea) Chen, Siddharth Das, Lucas Jerzak, Aidan Kaczanowski, Hasaan Kazi, Shurun Kim, Sabrina Kurian, Tingyi Lu, Abigail Meckstroth, Zainab Nasser, Sophia Patel, Justin Ralston, Alvin Wang, and Corey Wang. Valedictorian Corey Wang was also selected as a 2019 Indiana Academic All-Star. This year’s valedictorians have an average GPA of 4.38 on a scale of 4.0!

Click to read more about these students and see where they’ll be attending college/university. 

The salutatorians are McKenna Hillsdon-Smith, Christian Marshall, and Zachary Simon. Their average GPA is 4.29 on a scale of 4.0!

Penn’s Class of 2019 has earned $11.2 million in scholarships!

Eight graduating seniors are National Merit Scholarship Finalists:  Amy Bernard, Xi (Chelsea) Chen, Aidan Kaczanowski, Brandon King, Tingyi Lu, Corey Wang, Eric Wood, and Tinale Zhang.

Of the 868 member graduating class:

• 313 are graduating with High Honors
• 430 – Academic Honors
• 87 – Technical Honors

Another highlight of this year’s graduating class is that it includes 100 students of the second cohort of the Early College Academy. The Academy was started in 2014 to offer students, who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to attend college, to earn dual college credit in the supportive environment of Penn High School. These students have been taking classes at Penn and also earning college credit through courses at Ivy Tech Community College. 

At the time of Commencement, 

• 50 are expected to have earned Associate of General Studies degrees
• an additional 34 are expected to have earned Technical Certificates (earning between 32-62 credits, the equivalent of one year of college or more)
• 14 are expected to have earned at least 15 college credits
• 2 are expected to have earned less than 15 college credits

Many students will be attending in-state colleges and universities such as: University of Notre Dame, Purdue University, Indiana University – Bloomington, Ball State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Butler University, University of Indianapolis, Bethel College, Holy Cross College, Indiana University – South Bend, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, and Purdue – Fort Wayne.

A few Kingsmen will also be venturing a little farther from home attending colleges and universities across the country, for example: United States Military Academy West Point, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Miami University of Ohio, University of Virginia, University of Texas, University of Oregon, Nova Southeastern University, Vanderbilt University, Brigham Young University, University of Lorraine (France), and Fontys University (Netherlands).

We take pride in providing a wide array of academics and career learning opportunities to appeal to a wide base of student interests supporting our students for college and career readiness.

Thirteen students have enlisted in the military and armed services to honorably serve our country: one each in the Air Force and the Marines; three each in the Army and Army National Guard; and five in the Navy.

Several members of the Class of 2019 will also pursuing the vocational trades at Ohio Technical College, Tom Savini's Special Makeup Effects School, the Culinary Institute of America, apprenticeship with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, along with various cosmetology programs.

Read more highlights about the Penn’s Class of 2019 and the Student Awards handed out at Senior Recognition Night held Friday, May 10.

Click to watch all eight Class of 2019 “Excellence Happens Here” graduate profiles on Penn-Harris-Madison’s YouTube channel.