What’s recently happened?
Lake Central High School (LCHS) held the senior banquet on April 22 at the Halls of St. George. The theme of the night was the 1920s. Students dressed up in frills and suspenders.
“Overall, I thought it was really fun. It was a good opportunity to spend time with all of my friends before we graduate,” Senior Maggie Grudzien said.
Students were also allowed to compete in a costume contest. Students dressed up in anything from bananas to Oompa Loompas outfits.
“Some of my favorite costumes were the group dressed as presidents and the Willy Wonka group,” Senior Noelle Quiroga said.
Dinner was served during the event, and awards for things such as “worst senior driver” were given out. Afterwards, students danced for the rest of the night.
“They were all accurate for the people who received them,” Senior Evan Duerst said.
What’s coming up?
LCHS will be holding prom on May 7 for junior and senior students. It will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. The theme will be disco night with food and music throughout the night. Tickets have already sold out.
As AP testing and finals week arrive, students have been studying for the tests which start the first week of May. Many are excited for the near graduation and end of the school year.
Staff spotlight
LCHS art teacher Liz Cowan is in her 16th year of teaching. She currently teaches ceramics one through four while organizing art shows to display her student’s work.
“Of the 16 years, 13 of them were spent teaching at Kahler Middle School. I’m currently in my third and a half year teaching at the high school,” said Cowan.
Due to teaching middle school most of her career, it was quite a transition into teaching high schoolers.
“At the middle school, I was really the only art teacher in the building. There was a fifth grade teacher who also taught a section of fifth grade art. But in the middle school, I was able to teach drawing, painting, paper mache, and ceramics, so I was able to teach everything," said Cowan. "Coming to the high school has been a difference, because now I’m just strictly teaching ceramics, which is great because I’ve been able to really put more effort into one area of my art."
Cowan plans art shows throughout the school year for her students to participate in and gain recognition.
“Right now we are in the midst of planning a couple of shows. Currently on display there’s artwork at the Munster Performing Arts Center. It’s kind of a tradition for Lake Central to put artwork in the show. It’s a great way to show student art to the community and a way for the students to be recognized and also win awards,” said Cowan.
Student spotlight
Karsten Palm is a senior at LCHS and has been highly involved with the activities within his school. He is involved both in extracurriculars and academic success.
“I’m going to college to get a computer science degree and then I intend to do programming of whatever kind that is needed. I don’t have a particular application of programming that I’m wanting to go into. I just want to type stuff on a keyboard all day,” said Palm.
Palm is planning on going to Purdue Honors University after working hard on his GPA. Palm will be graduating LCHS with summa cum laude, which means he achieved his degree with a GPA of 4.5 or higher.
“I’ve been doing well academically for my entire career. I mean, it’s not hard to do well academically in elementary school. So I wasn’t sure if the challenge of the classes they offered in high school would be enough to reduce my grades but they haven’t been. I was optimistic but cautiously,” Palm said.
Even more so, Palm is a National Merit Scholarship finalist. Being a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist is determined on one’s last Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) score. The top 0.5% of PSAT scores in the nation are automatically made semifinalists. Then Palm had to write an essay and conduct an application to become a finalist.
“I feel kind of bad because my brother didn’t get it despite having a better PSAT score than me because his year was more competitive. It’s an incredible honor to have gotten. I'm so proud of it,” Palm said.
As successful as he is academically, Palm likes to keep busy with things he enjoys. He has done marching band, pep band, robotics, and National Honor Society (NHS).
“I’ve done marching band for four years, robotics for three years and NHS for two years. In the case of marching band, it taught me a lot about confidence and responsibility, which I’ve found invaluable in every other field. Robotics I’ve applied to band as well. I’ve met a lot of good people who have become close friends,” Palm said.
Having gone to LCHS for a total of four years, Palm greatly enjoyed the wide variety of classes he was given the option to take.
“Course variety is by far its most appealing attribute. I doubt that there are many high schools to be able to give as many options. The computer science courses they offer here were great in particular,” Palm said.