Batavia HS

This is Batavia High School student Ross Chua busting out with his beatboxing talent at the 2014 "Batavia High School Talent Show" last night, which aimed to raise funds for Thomas Ackley, a former student of the Batavia City School District who is fighting cancer (see April 7 article).

Masters of Ceremony Amanda Schelemanow (member, BHS chapter of the Tri-M Music Honor Society) and Spencer Hubbard (Mr. Batavia 2013) introduced 16 entertaining performances by students and faculty. Here they are (all performances are vocal unless otherwise specified):

Tim Martin and Lauren Dunn, piano/vocal performance of "Little Talks"

Steven O'Brien doing yo-yo tricks (which the event's faculty supervisor, BHS chorus teacher Dan Grillo, called the best he has ever seen in person).

Darneisha Thomas, "Bound to You"

Mason Russ, "Boss of Me" (theme from the TV show "Malcolm in the Middle")

Nephy Williams, "Beautiful"

Kesa Janes, "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" (from "The Phantom of the Opera")

Justin Baiocco, "My My, Hey Hey" (from the Neil Young album Out of the Blue). Baiocco's talent consisted not only of the vocal performance, but also his ability to play the guitar and the harmonica at the same time.

Laura Guiste, "Hallelujah"

Marissa Carbonell, "Oh! Darlin' "

Andrea Gilebarto, "Nightingale" (vocals and piano)

Hannah Bluhm, "If I Die Young"

Dan Grillo, "Good Bye Yellow Brick Road" (piano and vocals)

Rachel Flint and Ashley Williams, "There You'll Be"

McKenna Dziemian, "Set Me Free" (sung in both English and Korean)

And finally, there was the "Faculty Dixieland Band" playing "Down By the Riverside" and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue"

Dan Grillo (drums), Stuart McLean (bass)...

Sean Krauss (clarinet), Brandon Ricci (trumpet) and Jane Haggett (piano)

Batavia Blue Devils Head Coach Brennan Briggs sent along this photo of members of the football team following a 7-on-7 scrimmage last night in Rochester. The team played non-scoring scrimmages against Rush-Henrietta and Churchville-Chili. "The team did a great job competing," Briggs said.

Today, dozens of Batavia High School Z-Club (Zonta) students participated in the Ugandan Water Walk. The walk was a fundraiser to pay for a rainwater collection device at a school in Uganda. James Harrington, the tallest person in the picture, is a Rochester resident and director of the Uganda Water Project. He will travel to Uganda soon to install the water collection device and report back to the BHS students before the end of the school year on its installation. The device will last for 35 years, Harrington. Above, Chelsea Jensen, left, and Marissa Carbonell carry water through the hall of BHS as part of the walk.

In middle school, Spencer Hubbard was bullied. Today, you can call him Mr. Batavia.

The Batavia High School senior won the title Friday night during its second annual Mr. Batavia competition.

When Hubbard's name was announced as the winner, a packed auditorium of high school students, parents and faculty let out a robust cheer and round of applause.

"It shows how far we've come as people that a gay student can become Mr. Batavia," Hubbard said during his acceptance speech.

Hubbard was tops in a field of 10 in a competition that included lip syncing, a talent contest, a Q&A and a tuxedo walk. Five judges from the community awarded points to the contestants and a committee tallied up the points to pick the winner.

More than $2,200 was raised for the winner's charity. In this case, Hubbard picked Habitat for Humanity.

"I feel like it's a basic need, that people need homes," Hubbard said. "A lot of people are homeless who don't deserve to be. They really need that help."

Hubbard is planning to attend the University of Tampa on a $25,000 scholarship. He will major in journalism.

BHS Principle Scott Williams praised Hubbard as a bright student and talented actor.
As part of the competition, Hubbard performed a self-written satire of a Target clerk that had more funny lines than a Saturday Night Live skit. 

Hubbard said he thinks his acting talent and his self confidence, especially during the swimsuit competition and lip syncing, is what helped sway the judges in his favor.

Last year, Lee Johnson won the contest, in its first year, and Johnson returned Friday night to entertain the crowd while the judges' ballots were tallied. It was a regular stand-up routine, but as he began to run out of material, Williams stepped in to help entertain the crown, including setting up an Ellen-like, Academy Awards selfie.

Competing this year were Adam Weaver, Charlie Williams, Blake Carter, Jake Paine, Tim Martin, Mathew Gabriele, Kenny McMaster, Casey Grice and Michael DiBaccco.

During his acceptance speech, Hubbard praised his fellow competitors and thanked them for being so supportive of each other throughout preparations for the show.

The fact that Johnson is so different from Hubbard, Hubbard said, shows the competition is valuable to the community.

"It shows different people can win," Hubbard said. "Last year Lee won, and he's really different from me. He runs in a different crowd. He was straight and I'm gay, and that was probably a really big thing, too. I said that in my speech as well. It shows how far we've come as people."

A lot has changed for Hubbard, he said, from middle school to his senior year.

"The award means a lot because in middle school I was bullied and now, look how far I can come," Hubbard said. "I think the big thing was I was just myself when I got to high school. I didn't really care what people thought. I didn't try hard to impress people."

Hubbard being congradulated by his fellow contestants.

Mike DiBacco sings Frank Sinatra's, "I've Got the World on a String."

Hubbard performing his sketch, a satire of a clerk from Target.

Sydney Loria, Ashlee Yasses and Haley Case were hostesses for the competition.

Matt Gabriele at the front of the stage during the tux walk.

Lee Johnson, last year's winner.

Principal Scott Williams during an Ellen/Oscar-inspired selfie with the cast and crew of the Mr. Batavia competition.

To purchase prints of these photos and the photos in the slide show, click here.

For the second year in a row, students at Batavia High School are putting on a Mr. Batavia contest aimed at building relationships between the high school and the community, particularly local nonprofits.

There are 10 contestants this year representing 10 different charities. Money raised will go to the winner's charity.

"We weren't sure how it was going to go last year and we raised $1,700, so we're hoping to exceed that this year," said Lisa Robinson, one of the faculty advisers for student government.

Along with the 10 boys competing, 15 girls are putting together the show (not everybody participating was available for a picture late this afternoon).

The contestants begin the show with a group dance, followed by a lip-sync contest, a talent contest, a swimsuit portion and then the boys come out in tuxedos donated by Charle's Mens Shop for a question-and-answer period.

Nine of the 10 charities have committed to having displays set up in the cafeteria for the evening.

The show starts at 7 p.m., Friday, March 21. Tickets are $7, $5 for students.

Batavia High School cheerleaders visited the VA Hospital this morning to visit with residents and perform their basketball cheers. One resident told the girls, "this is what he fought for" while thanking them for their visit.

Information and photo submitted by Justine Bonarigo.

The Batavia Boys basketball team beat Williamsville South today in a game scheduled as part of the Niagara Falls Cataract City Classic, an invitational tournament for the top prep teams in WNY.

Jeff Redband led the Blue Devils to a 58-46 win with 18 points. Justice Fagan contributed 13 and Malachi Chenault added 11.

Batavia jumped out to an early 34-18 lead, but the game tightened in the 4th period with Williamsville closing in at 40-35. From there, Batavia pretty much controlled the game and put Williamsville away.

Batavia High School opens its performance of "The Brother's Grimm Spectaculathon: Not your Disney fairy tales" at 7:30 tonight in the high school auditorium.

Tickets are $10 at the door ($8 for students).

There is a second performance at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow.

(submitted photos)

The 2012-13 season was a banner campaign for the Lady Devils. They won the school's first league title in girls basketball and made it to sectional finals for the first time.

But there's also some unfinished business from that championship run, according to first-year Head Coach Marty Hein.

The loss to Waterloo was ugly.

"The girls poured their hearts out in the semifinals two days before," said Hein, who was assistant coach to Bill Wade last year. "They just didn't have it in their eye that night and they know that. The girls know we didn't give 100-percent effort against Waterloo that night and that's the lesson that I hoped they learned -- give 100-percent effort all the time."

With Batavia HS moving to Class A1 and Waterloo staying in Class B, there's no hope for a rematch.

"I'm hoping to line up a scrimmage with Waterloo," Hein said. "I'd like to play Waterloo again because I don't like the taste in my mouth of how we lost in the finals."

Hein thinks with the players returning, the core of that league-leading team will be back on the court this season and they should be able to hold their own at least through the Monroe County schedule and into A2 sectionals.

The attitude is there, he said.

"They've come back with that buring desire to want to focus a little more, work a little bit harder and get back to that same spot and hopefully a little bit better," Hein said.

Senior Liz Myers and sophomores Tiara Filbert and Madison McCulley are third-year varsity players and anchor the starting line-up. Sophomore Sam Cecere, at 5' 9" tall, has made great progress playing post, Hein said.

Hein is going to be looking for a stronger defense from the girls this year.

"I want a lot more communication out of our defense this year," Hein said. "We're turning the pressure up a little bit on defense. Even if we stumble a little on offense, if we can hold our opponents to a lower number then we should still come out victorious in the end."

There will be a few changes in the team from the Wade era, but Hein has a lot of admiration for the local coaching legend.

"When the job came open (four years ago), I applied," Hein said. "Bromley (BHS athletic director) gave me a few clues about who else applied for it, and I told Mike at that point to take my name out of the hat. It was a good learning experience to be sitting behind Bill for the four years. I learned a lot."

To purchase prints of photos, click here.

The Batavia girls swimming team put together a 94-63 win over Wilson at the GCC pool Thursday and the girls were clearly excited about the victory after the meet.

As the second smallest Class B team in the Monroe League, team wins are hard to come by for Batavia, but the program continues to develop promising young swimmers said Co-head Coach Sarah Geitner.

"We have a lot of very young swimmers, but everybody has fantastic attitude and wants to learn," Geitner said.

Because the school doesn't have its own pool, it can't field a modified team so it's a little tougher to build a varsity program, Geitner said.

"At the start of the season, we weren't sure if there would even be enough girls for a team and now that we're up to 14 girls, we're really excited," Geitner said.

Two girls joined the team this week.

At the top of the young roster are freshman Natalie Amico, junior Emily DiBacco, seventh-grader Elle Fulton and sophomore Brooke Leddon, the team's lone diver.

For the 14 girls on the team, team spirit was in strong supply at Thursday's match. Not only did the swimmers cheer their teammates, they cheered the Wilson swimmers as well.

Geitner said she would like to get more of the girls involved in the YMCA swimming programs to take an interest in joining the Batavia High School team.

"In order to grow a better program, we want to encourage more Y swimmers to come in and take the test," Geitner said.

To purchase prints of photos, click here.

Batavia High School hosted its annual Athletic Hall of Fame dinner Saturday night at Terry Hills.

Pictured above are: Brett Wormley, Julie Redband Varland, Mike Rogers, Wayne Fuller, Lance Cayea, Todd Cayea, Katie Barnard (John Barnard's daughter, representing him at the dinner) and Jim Barnard.

Local broadcasting and announcing legend Wayne Fuller with his guests, Jim Owen, Dan and Debbie Fischer (owners of WBTA), Fuller, Martha Bailey and Anita Strollo (both with WBTA).

Tom Hunt sent in this picture of the Batavia HS Class of 1963, which held a 50th Anniversary Reunion dinner at Bohn's this past weekend.

These are the plaques to be presented Saturday at Terry Hills to the Batavia Blue Devils 2013 Athletic Hall of Fame inductees.

Heading home tonight, I came upon these three young ladies out on Ganson Avenue practicing their cheer routine. Tryouts for the JV cheer squad at Batavia High School are this week and they're leaving nothing to chance. Pictured are Taylor Smith, Mikey Lullo and Chloe Rapone.

Today was the first day of official practice for Section V football teams and we stopped in for the practice sessions at Notre Dame and Batavia, both varsity and JV.

Inductees for the 12th Annual Batavia High School Athletic Hall of Fame have been announced.

This years inductees are: Wayne Fuller, Todd Cayea, John Bernard, Brett Wormley, James Bernard, Michael Rogers, Lance Cayea and Julie Redband Varland.

The hall of fame dinner is Sept. 21, with social hour at 5 p.m. and dinner at 6 p.m. Tickets are $30 each.

Tickets are available at the Athletic Directors office located at Batavia High School. For more information please call (585) 343-2480, ext. 2003.

The event is sponsored by the Batavia Coaches Association.

Press release:

Documentary filmmaker Ramona Persaud is exploring how teachers can use brain science to engage students of all ages and academic abilities in her new film “Grey Matters,” which begins production next month at Batavia High School, in Batavia, N.Y.

The film will follow three schools over the course of the 2013-2014 school year—Batavia High School, Batavia, N.Y., Roland Park Elementary in Baltimore, Md., and Westmoreland Community College in Youngwood, Pa., — as they implement the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model, developed by Mariale Hardiman, Ed.D., co-founder and director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Neuro-Education Initiative.

Hardiman’s teaching model, developed in 2003 and currently being practiced by more than 300 educators in schools around the world, promotes critical, divergent thinking that equips students with real-world knowledge and the ability to use it.

Persaud’s film will examine the question “Can neuroscience remake the teaching process, and if yes, what does that look like in practice?” The three teachers featured in Persaud’s documentary will implement Hardiman’s model, which designates six brain targets for the teaching and learning process. 

The film will follow these teachers in their mission to shift the learning process for their students, and transform school into a place where students learn to solve problems that require answers, instead of a place where students solve problems that have pre-determined answers.

Persaud was inspired to create this film after attempting to home-school her preschool daughter. Persaud discovered Hardiman’s Brain-Targeted Teaching Model and believed this model could be beneficial for not just her own daughter, but for all students.

“Like most parents, I want my kids to receive the best education possible,” Persaud says. “This teaching model really clarifies how kids process information. By following three classrooms over one school year, this film will illustrate what brain-based teaching really looks like, and how it can measurably improve academic performance.”

About Ramona Persaud:

Ramona Persaud is an independent documentary filmmaker, writer, and photographer. "Grey Matters" is her second film. Persaud’s first film, "It’s a Different World," explores the world of autism through the eyes of three autistic children. Visit www.greymattersdocumentary.com for more information.

About Mariale Hardiman:

Mariale Hardiman, Ed.D., is the assistant dean for Urban School Partnerships and Clinical Professor of Education at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and the co-founder and director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Neuro-Education Initiative. Before joining Johns Hopkins in 2006, Hardiman served in the Baltimore City Public Schools for more than 30 years. As the principal of Roland Park Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore, Md., she led the school to its designation as a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence.  With the use of the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model that Hardiman developed, the school was recognized by the Kennedy Center as a School of Distinction for arts programming and arts integration. Visit www.braintargetedteaching.org for more information. 

Congratulations to Lee Johnson, who won the first-ever Mr. Batavia contest held at Batavia High School last night.

Nine young men participated in the competition with any proceeds from the event going to the winner's charity of choice.

Johnson's charity was Genesee Cancer Assistance.

The other participants were Trey Abdella, Dennis Alton, Ryan Warner, Mike DiBacco, Matt Gabriele, Casey Grice, Tim Martin and Adam Weaver.

The group competed in dance, lip syncing, talent, swimsuit, tux walk and Q&A.

NOTE: None of the organizers ever contacted us about this event, otherwise we might have had more coverage. Thanks to Tammi Ferringer for telling us about Lee's win and sending in the picture.

The Batavia High School varsity basketball cheerleading squad took second place at the Monroe County Tournament held at Victor HS on Saturday.

Five teams participated in their competition.

Kayla Corp, Jessica Derefinko, Codie Grazioplene and Whitney Athoe received 2nd Team All County nominations.

The team will compete for a Section V title Feb. 23 at RIT.

Information and photo submitted by a reader.