November 11, 2004

SCHOOL SCENEin Almaden Valley

Almaden’s Ryen Rahbar wins Hispanic Heritage art contest

By Julie Davis Berry
Executive Editor

Ryen Rahbar displays his winning drawing with Castillero art teacher Gwen Anderson.

Castillero Middle School eighth grader Ryen Rahbar has been named the top winner in the state of California in the San Francisco Chronicle in Education’s Bay Area 2004 Ford Hispanic Heritage Art and Essay Contest. Rahbar and his family traveled to Modesto on Oct. 23 thinking that Ryen was going to be named the northern California winner, but were happily surprised when judges named his drawing of artist Diego Rivera the top winner in the entire state.

“They gave me a framed certificate and a $2,500 savings bond!” said the eighth grader.

Ryen has always loved art and has been taking art classes from the San Jose Museum of Art since he was in kindergarten, according to his mother Suzanne Rahbar.

Ryen chose Diego Rivera because he has always been one of his favorite artists. “Rivera’s one of my favorite muralists because his paintings look so realistic and alive. My dad got me books on him so I’ve studied his art for a while.”

Castillero art teacher Gwen Anderson gives Ryen all the credit for entering the contest. “He did it all on his own.

We get a lot of contest ideas sent to Castillero and I offer them to the students but it is up to them to enter.”

Ryen has set his sites on becoming an architect someday and, of course, keeping up his portrait painting. “We told him that in a few years he may need to come back and speak to the class about his career,” said Anderson.

“We encourage students who have success in the arts to come back and share their experiences with our aspiring artists.”

Simonds says…thanks for the pumpkins!

Simonds Elementary School Principal Linda Kakes presents Kiwanis President Mike Montanari with a framed poster of some of the pumpkins used during the recent Harvest Festival. Almaden Ki-wanis is the school’s Adopt a School partner and generously supports school activities both financially and on work days. This year, they purchased pump-kins for the students to decorate during the day’s festivities.

Valley Christian High School named Blue Ribbon School

The U.S. Department of Education recently awarded Valley Christian High School its 2004 No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools Program Award. In qualifying for this award, Valley Christian students achieved scores in the top 10 percent of all high schools in the nation. Valley Christian is the first private high school in the state to be awarded this honor.

Chancellor Claude Fletcher was very proud of the award. “We have been very fortunate in achieving a good amount of public recognition for this school in many areas: sports, theater, dance studio, band and now it’s nice to have this concrete evidence that our academics are also of the highest quality possible in the nation.”

At right: Dr. Martha Wilson, representative of U.S. Department of Education