German Day nets awards and great memories

March 13, 2024

Upper St. Clair High School world language students earned a first place and two third place finishes at the 24th annual Three Rivers German Day competition. The event was held on Thursday, March 7, 2024, at Washington and Jefferson College.

Henna Palosuo won first place in the highly-competitive drawing competition. Luis Quiroga-Castaneda won third place in the proverb poster category. Represented by J.D. Tenney, Sal Crawford, Sophie Einfeldt, Kaia Petrick and Nikhita Thakuria the Upper St. Clair culture bowl team placed third among the 10 participating schools. The students were led by Jacob Reis, world language teacher."

“In the culture bowl trivia competition, students were asked questions in German relating to topics of history, culture, geography, language and art,” Mr. Reis said. “Students had 30 seconds to confer, then had to answer out loud, again in German. This is only the second time Upper St. Clair has placed in this competition.”

 

In total, 26 Upper St. Clair High School students attended the annual German Day competition. Every year approximately 400 students from middle and high schools throughout western Pennsylvania and West Virginia compete in linguistic, artistic and performance-based competitions.

Twelve students enrolled in the high school’s International Baccalaureate German 5 course wrote, practiced and performed a dramatic skit titled, “Bibi und Tina: Die späteren Jahre.”

“The skit starred Maya Kashak as the lead character, the witch Bibi, along with her counterpart Tina, played by Henna Palosuo,” Mr. Reis said. “The skit also featured tremendous acting by Max Gresh and Ryan Arya, costumed together to portray Bibi’s horse, Sabrina.”

Eleven members of the USCHS German Club worked together to plan and choreograph an arrangement of “An der schönen blauen Donau” (The Blue Danube) by Johann Strauss.

 

“A string trio composed of Yuzuki Watanabe, Nishma Ghimire and Darcy Vilkner played while other club members – notably featuring Raegan Kuhn as lead choreographer – danced a traditional Viennese Waltz to the delight of the audience and judges,” Mr. Reis said.

Based on feedback from USC students as well as the event organizers, this year’s German Day was an all-around success.

“Even our USC students who did not win an award were thanked by the organizers of the event and the staff of W&J for their participation, polite attention to the staff’s requests, and for cleaning up after other schools who had left things behind,” Mr. Reis said. “German Club officers spent the bus ride home brainstorming ideas for next year and looking forward to mentoring future competitors.”