The Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) announced this week the winners of its top awards for scholastic publications. Of the 1,100 digital, print newspapers, magazines and yearbooks submitted, the Kinkaid Falcon was named as one of 15 Scholastic Gold winners for print news. The newspaper staff submitted five of their six issues from 2016-2017 to be judged by CSPA.

Publications are judged on their excellence as showing by their design, photography, concept , coverage and writing. Co-Editor & Chief of this year's paper, Arman Badrei '18 believes it has been a multi-year process that has led to receiving this recognition.

"I think definitely the impact Ms. Yim left and the style that she started her first year, which was our freshman year, has stuck with us. The mentality of raising the bar of writing and design has been important," Badrei says.

Distributed a few times a year, the Kinkaid Falcon covers a wide range of topics including happenings in and around the school, politics, pop culture and often tackling hot button social issues. Enthusiastically hand delivering copies hot off the press to their fellow students and faculty throughout campus, the staff takes pride in facilitating engaging conversations through their publication.

"Yes we're the voice of the students, but I also think it's bigger than that. We're the voice of Kinkaid," says Co-Editor Allison Favaloro '18. "When people come in and see our school, there's newspapers everywhere that they can pick up and look at...that's one of the first things they see and I think that's really impactful".

With the school year coming to a close, the editors and staff are looking to finish the year strong and hope to continue their new standard of excellence for years to come.

"I think (our goal) would definitely be to win the same awards. I think that bar has been set and we hope to reach it. I think more concretely, I want to see the quality of writing continue to be elevated so that it's more captivating storytelling," says Badrei.

Congratulations team!

Both Upper School's VEX and FIRST Technical Challenge (FTC) robotics teams recently completed their 2017-18 seasons by participating in their respective Southeast Texas Regional Championships. While neither team advanced to the next round of competition, each competed hard in their final matches.

The VEX team achieved early success, winning the Cy-Fair Clawbot Challenge at the end of September, just a few weeks removed from Hurricane Harvey. Competing in three qualifying matches, the team improved their robots capabilities each time. At the VEX Southeast Texas Regional tournament in late February, the team finished 3-5 against the top teams in the region, its strongest showing since the Clawbot Challenge.

The FTC Robotics participated in the West Houston FTC league where they experienced both failures and success throughout the season. The season's high point came at the Reindeer Roundup Qualifying tournament in December, where the team earned second place in the Inspire Award. The Inspire Award is the highest honor given to the team that best embodies the FIRST Tech Challenge Program by being a strong ambassador for FIRST programs, being a top contender in the other judges awards, and acting with Gracious Professionalism.

Julian Meyer '19 was named one of three FIRST Technical Challenge Dean's List finalist at the Southeast Texas

Regionals and is under consideration to become one of ten Dean's List Award winners that will be announced at the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston in mid-April. More information about the FIRST Dean's List can be found here at https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/deans-list.

Congratulate Julian and both teams on another solid season!