Sound Shore

There’s an interesting exhibit up at the Museum of Arts and Culture at New Rochelle High School. CJ Senerchia, a senior at the school, has been studying sculpture for four years. Now he’s showing his stuff. The exhibit, which he planned and curated, is a collection of his work and his work only. A solo show before graduating from high school? Not bad, Mr. Senerchia. The exhibit is open through the end of the month.

(A sculpture by New Rochelle High School senior CJ Senerchia. Photo provided.)

Last week The Journal News wrote about Karen Tucker and Alexi Brock, a pair of teachers in the New Rochelle school system with a unique bond: a kidney.

Tucker has polycystic disease and is in need of a kidney transplant. Brock offered one of her kidneys and was deemed a perfect match. The operation last May went well, but for reasons still unclear to doctors, Tucker’s body rejected Brock’s kidney. A lifetime of dialysis treatments await Tucker unless she finds another donor.

In the days since the story ran, four people have contacted Tucker and offered to get tested to see if they could be a match. More offers, of course, would be welcome. If you’re interested, write Tucker at kitucker721@aol.com.

“Saving Seatown: The Underwater Musical,” a locally produced tale of undersea superheroism had its overseas debut earlier this month.

(Photo provided)

The show, written by New Rochelle High School ‘06 graduates Paul Rigano and Katie Weiller and performed last spring by the high school theater department, earned itself a spot at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in Scotland. The high school cast made their way across the Atlantic and pulled off a remarkable, outdoor performance, as the photo makes clear. Congratulations.

A heads-up for the New Rochelle High School Class of 1991: your 20th anniversary is here. Almost. On Nov. 26, the class will celebrate the passage of two decades since graduation with a bash at the Globe Bar & Grill, at 1879 Palmer Ave., in Larchmont. Tickets can be purchased in advance online for $80 or at the door for $90, cash only. Click here for more information and to buy tickets.

So what’s happened in 20 years? Well, back in 1991, grunge music ruled the airwaves and, for the first few months of the year, anyway, the U.S. was fighting a war in Iraq. Lo and behold, there’s another war in Iraq and the Stone Temple Pilots have re-formed and are touring again.

But lest you think history’s been on a two-decade loop, consider this: The World Wide Web, which allows you to read this very paragraph, was launched in 1991. That’s something to be proud of.

Anyway, congrats to the NRHS Class of ‘91.

NEW ROCHELLE

A 14-year-old New Rochelle High School student was treated and later released from the Sound Shore Medical Center for a twisted ankle suffered when an older boy tried to rob him, police said.

The boy was going into New Rochelle High School at 265 Clove Road at 12:10 p.m. Monday when he was attacked by an older boy who demanded his belongings and roughed him up. No one was arrested.

On Wednesday, May 25, members of the New Rochelle High School’s music program performed on one of the world’s most famous stages: Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, in New York City. We ran this story in advance of the performance. Below are photos from the big night, snapped by Kiko Restrepo, of The Kiko Group, and provided to The Journal News by the New Rochelle school district.

More pics after the jump…

New Rochelle High School’s art students—scores of them, anyway—spent most of Wednesday outside, painting en plein air around the grounds in front of the high school. The school’s art teachers, one of whom, Scott Seaboldt, is pictured below, say painting outside, rather than from a photograph, is important for artists at all levels, but especially for students. They learn more about depth, color, lighting, composition and perspective than they would indoors, under artificial light. A full story about the school’s en plein air day will appear in next week’s Express. Meantime, enjoy the photos, most of which appear after the jump.

(Scott Seaboldt and a group of freshmen discuss the finer points of landscape painting.)

Leah Goldman, a senior at New Rochelle High School, was one of 35 high school students from New York to participate in the recent Students Inside Albany Conference. The three-day program, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of New York State Education Foundation, introduces students to state government by exposing them to the inner-workings of Albany.

“I want to thank the League for this amazing opportunity,” Goldman said in a news release. “It showed me the way government works, however dysfunctional that may be. It effects so much of our daily lives that it was shocking to me to realize how little I really know about it.”

Goldman is on her way to Harvard in the fall, where she plans to study Near Eastern languages and environmental science and policy. She’s been busy at New Rochelle, serving as president of the school’s GREEN Club, news editor of the Huguenot Herald and captain of the soccer team.

(In the provided photo, that’s Goldman on the left; Assemblywoman Amy Paulin in the center; and Claudia Benitez, a junior from White Plains High School, on the right.)

Way back in the beginning of March, this blog reported on New Rochelle High School’s Sustainability Day, a whole day of workshops and discussions aimed at teaching people how to reduce their impact on the world around them.

The day was a success and caught the eye of RNN TV, which tapped the school to be one of three finalists in its “I on the Environment” competition. RNN filmed a piece about the school and its sustainability efforts that will be available on the RNN website beginning Thursday, May 5.

The winner of the competition, determined by the number of votes cast between May 5 and May 12, will receive $5,000.

Clifford J. Levy, an editor at the New York Times and member of New Rochelle High School’s class of 1985, just won his second Pulitzer Prize. Levy, 43, joined the Times as a news assistant in 1990 and went on to run the paper’s news bureaus in Albany and, later, Moscow, according to his biography on the paper’s website. In 2003 he won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. And on Monday, he and a colleague, Ellen Barry, were awarded a Pulitzer for international reporting for their coverage of Russia’s “faltering justice system,” the award’s citation says.

Levy, who lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their three children, was named deputy managing editor of the Times’ Metro section in March.