Anna Magavern ’15 is a 2015 National Merit Scholarship semifinalist. She is one of only 84 in the Western NY and Rochester area. In October 2013, an estimated 3.5 million high school students took the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and 1.5 million qualified to enter the competition. There are 16,000 semifinalists.
Marivi Howell-Arza ’15 won the Charles E. Webber Award for Outstanding Community Service for her essay, What Community Service Means to Me, at the 2014 Miss Thousand Islands pageant, where she was second runner-up overall. Marivi competed in three pageants this past summer, and is currently USA National Miss New York Teen.
“Pageantry allows women to become more confident, learn and practice interview and public speaking skills at a much younger age than usual, and make so many friends and connections in places never before imaginable," Marivi said. "I attribute my life's success and my success at Buffalo Seminary to the values instilled in me by pageantry. While many call pageants sexist, I call them empowering.”
Eliza Hopkins ’13 won the 2013 Cum Laude Society, District III award for her paper, The Name is the Thing: Comparing Naming and Linguistic Construction in the Fantasy Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkein and Ursula K. Le Guin." Her passion for the topic and the depth of her research was far beyond most students,” said Carey Miller, who urged Eliza to submit the essay which had been written in Ms. Miller's class, The Hero in Fantasy Literature. District III of the Cum Laude Society comprises New York and Connecticut.
“I found naming fascinating, noticed that Tolkien and Le Guin employed naming ceremonies and interestingly created names in their novels to enhance notions of the self and of magic,” Eliza said.
Virginia Horvath ’75 is a Buffalo Business First “Woman of Influence” 2014 honoree for Nonprofit Leadership. Ms. Horvath is president of the State University of New York at Fredonia. Nonprofit Leadership honors women who display high energy and skill in a leadership role at a nonprofit institution or organization.
