Morgan Park Academy Names Class of 2023 Valedictorian And Salutatorian

CHICAGO — Michaela Olimene will be valedictorian and Andrew Cabrera will be salutatorian when Morgan Park Academy celebrates its 150th graduation exercises on June 10. The awards are based on cumulative high school grade-point average. To be eligible, students must have attended MPA for at least three years, including junior and senior years.

“Michaela and Andrew personify our unofficial motto, the MPA Way, which calls students to be kind and do your best,” said Tom Drahozal, Morgan Park Academy’s Upper School principal Tom Drahozal said in a news release. “They are model students who have excelled in the classroom and in activities all over campus. We are proud to have them as students at Morgan Park Academy.”

Olimene, an Olympia Fields resident, is a member of the Cum Laude Society, National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, and International Quill and Scroll Honor Society, as well as the MPA Honor Council. She is an Illinois State Scholar and has shined in tennis, basketball, yearbook, and the math and academic challenge teams. In recent years, she led a fundraising drive that generated $6,500 for breast cancer research.

The daughter of Dr. Lisa Daniel-Olimene and Dr. Michael Olimene, she has attended MPA since kindergarten. After receiving more than $1 million in scholarship offers from top colleges and universities around the country, she chose to enroll at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she will study chemistry and Spanish on a pre-med track.

Morgan Park Academy’s commencement address this year will be given by Olimene’s uncle, Kareem Daniel, a former Walt Disney Company executive who was the school’s 1992 valedictorian.

Cabrera, an MPA “lifer” since he was 3 years old, is the president of Student Council and a member of the Cum Laude Society, the National Honor Society, and the French Honor Society. Recognized as an Illinois State Scholar, he has been a key leader for Model UN, the investment club, and the baseball, soccer, tennis, bowling, and math teams. Last year he won the school’s highest award for juniors, the Jerome A. Thrall ’44 Junior Class Leadership Award.

The son of Dr. Jocelyn and Dr. Ernest Cabrera, he plans to attend the University of Notre Dame next fall to study biological sciences on a pre-med track.

Serving students from prekindergarten through grade 12, Morgan Park Academy is an independent college preparatory school founded in 1873 that annually ranks among the top private schools in the state and first among all schools in Chicago’s Southland area.

As befits an institution celebrating its sesquicentennial, the Academy’s awards for valedictorian and salutatorian have long histories.

The valedictorian receives the Haydn E. Jones Cup, which is named for the lieutenant colonel who helped lead the Academy’s reorganization as a military school a century ago after separation from the University of Chicago. The school’s campus quad also is named in his honor.

The salutatorian receives the Harry D. Abells Award, which is named for the school’s superintendent from 1917-1945.

Morgan Park Academy’s recent valedictorians include Maanav Kaistha ’22, Emmett Campbell ’21, Celeste Kettaneh ’20, Angela Cabrera ’19, Theodore Covello ’18, Berat Gulecyuz ’17, and Madison DeLaney ’16.