Johns Creek Students Excel in Reading Bowl, Spelling Bee Competitions

River Trail Middle School:

• On Jan. 24, River Trail Middle School’s Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl team competed in the Fulton County competition. The team tied for fifth place. Team members read books on the 2014-2015 Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers list and answer questions about the various books. The top two placed teams move forward to compete in the regional competition. River Trail’s team members are Meghana Vadranam, Olivia Kapwadi, Gabriella Bartlett, Sriya Karra, Brian Amaro, Rahul Sreedharan and Arya Vajpayee.

Taylor Road Middle School:

• The Taylor Road Middle School Spelling Bee was on Jan. 13. The students competed against 48 other classroom bee winners. The top students were (left to right) Roy Kim, Nithilan Vincent, and Rajat Sethi. Rajat was the first place winner and competed in the county spelling bee held Saturday Feb. 7.
• The Taylor Road Reading Bowl Team placed third in the county Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl competition on Saturday Jan. 24 at Riverwood International Charter School. Pictured are Saidharshana Dhantu, Jyotsna Rao, Ramya Ramaswamy, Lillian Kantor, Aarushi Tandon, Apurva Sharma, Larry Durham, Roy Kim, Casey Kim and Anastasia Maslova.
• Jerome Perera, a sixth-grade student won the Taylor Road Middle School Geography Bee on January 15th. He competed against all of the classroom bee winners. He also took a qualifying test to see if he will advance to the state bee.
• Two 8th graders at Taylor Road Middle School won an art award in the 2015 Scholastics Art and Writing Awards. Robert Hunter won a Silver Key and two Honorable Mentions for his paintings; Sarah Guan won an Honorable Mention for her painting. The Scholastics Art and Writing Awards is a national art and writing contest which has been recognizing the talents of youth across our country since 1923. Not only is it a prestigious contest, but it is also very difficult to win due to the high quality of the submitted entries.

Photo 1: Taylor Road Middle School student Robert Hunter

Photo 2: River Trail Reading Bowl team students

Photo 3: Taylor Road Middle School Spelling Bee’s top three students

Photo 4: Taylor Road Middle School sixth-grader Jerome Perea

Photo 5: Taylor Road Middle School student Sarah Guan