41 Seniors Honored for Earning First Honors Every Semester at NWC

Each semester at Northwest Catholic students who earn First Honors are congratulated with a warm breakfast. On April 4, 2019 over two hundred students gathered to be recognized. A special part of the spring ceremony is when seniors who have earned First Honors every single semester since they began at Northwest Catholic receive a plaque for their remarkable achievement.

Academic Dean Christopher Stuck began the ceremony by congratulating all the students on their academic performance. Then guest speaker and Northwest Catholic alumnus Kenneth Goroshko addressed the audience. Mr. Goroshko of the class of 1973 is now a professor at the University of Hartford and Quinnipiac University.

Groshko began by asking the students, “Do you want to know what I say when people ask me where I went to school?” Goroshko continued, “I don’t answer with the college I attended. I tell them I went to Northwest Catholic.” Goroshko spoke of how influential Northwest Catholic had been on his life, and he stressed to the students how they would soon join the unique NWC alumni community. Goroshko then shared about what he learned at Northwest Catholic, starting with the importance of friendship. Goroshko emphasized how he learned about relationship-building at NWC and encouraged the students to always be asking the fundamental question: "How can I make a difference in another person’s life?”

At the end of his speech, Goroshko delivered powerful advice. He told the students to relax, develop at their own pace and in their own way, let things go, build their resilience and confidence, and always work to be an excellent friend.

Following the breakfast, students received certificates for earning First Honors. The culmination of the ceremony was when the 41 seniors, an impressive number, were given their plaques for earning First Honors every semester.

Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford is a diverse, Catholic, co-ed, college preparatory community, educating the whole person — mind, body, spirit, and imagination since 1961. Learn more at northwestcatholic.org.

41 seniors earned First Honors every semester at Northwest Catholic. Front row: Hope Moustakakis, Alexis Smolenski, Meghan Shea, Meghan O’Shea, Meghan Sisk, Annie Alissi, Hadley Waterbury, Clare Doyle, Riley Doerner, Victoria Panagakos. Middle row: Thura Zaw, Lukasz Burkacki, Matthew Villani, Brendan Chan, James Sabia, Tyler Esposito, Michael Stamm, Joseph DeVito, Michael Foster, William Robinson, Sean Macary, Thomas Miller, Joseph Janaskie. Back row: Megan Ferreira, Sarah Lazor, Madeline Travers, Francesca Discenza, Luke Connal, Christopher Sniffin, Ethan Cheffer, Michael Baldini, Matthew Shea, Jacob Beaudin, Lindsey Voelker, Sophia Argay, Elizabeth Murphy, Joanna Kuziak, Claire Carew. Not pictured: Tianhao Huang, Jackson Ringquist, Tianyi Wang.