Student Standouts & Faculty Feature for March 4

Student-Planned Bake Sale Raises over $3,000 to help Ukraine

On Thursday, a total of $3,020 was raised in Upper School to support CARE’s Ukraine Crisis Fund thanks to a student-planned bake sale donation drive. The bake sale was planned by Emily Podgorny ’23, Izzy Tokarczyk ’24, and Mikaela Mikulec ’24, all of whom presented about the Ukraine-Russia conflict and their personal and ancestral connections to Ukraine and Eastern Europe at an Upper School assembly on Tuesday. The community quickly answered the call to bring baked goods, staff the overflowing sale table, and purchase items while donating to this critical cause.

“Although this bake sale was extremely last minute due to our not knowing how we as a school could come together and help those overseas, we are so incredibly grateful for the turnout. We had teachers, staff, students, and parents alike donating to the cause; truly reiterating that, in times of need, this community unites and helps to the best of their ability, together. Thank you,” said Emily. For Izzy, there was a personal connection to the conflict since she has family in Poland. “My family who lives in Poland is helping directly and I’m just happy to be able to help from so far away,” Izzy shared. “I’m still in shock of how quickly our community came together; not only did I experience a huge body of support from my friends, students, parents, and teachers but also neighbors and strangers who heard about it. We couldn’t do it without each and every person.” Mikaela echoed this sentiment: “We are just so grateful for everyone’s donations, and feeling the overwhelming support of the community is so amazing. The way the school came together is incredible and we can’t thank everyone enough for their generosity.”

We are grateful to Emily, Izzy, and Mikaela for coordinating such a successful and needed donation drive and to all of our MICDS Upper School community for answering the call to support the sale efforts!

If interested in donating, here is the link to the CARE Crisis Fund.

Ray Recognized Officially as the Gatorade Missouri Girls Cross Country Player of the Year

Julia Ray ’23 was officially recognized as the Gatorade Missouri Girls Cross Country Player of the Year this week! She was honored during halftime on March 1 at an MICDS Girls Basketball game where she was given her trophy by Athletic Director Josh Smith. Gatorade also sent a banner that we proudly hung in McDonnell Gymnasium. Below are photos of Julia’s recognition with her parents and MICDS coaches from the Girls Cross Country team. Congratulations again, Julia!

For more details on this award, please see Student Standouts from January 28 here.

Sixth Grader Selected for Midwest Zone Water Polo Development Team

Gio Bucci ’28 has been selected among the best 12 players to represent the Midwest Zone Water Polo Development Team at the National Zones Championship in Northern California from March 4-6. The best kids of the tournament will move on to be part of the US National Water Polo Development Team. Go Gio!

Seven Rams Make 2022 Emerson Young Artists' Showcase

Seven MICDS art students were accepted into the 2022 Emerson Young Artists’ Showcase at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild! According to the St. Louis Artists’ Guild website, “Young Artists’ Showcase is a juried, all-media exhibition of artwork created by high school students between 15 and 19 years old residing within 150 miles of the St. Louis Artists’ Guild.”

The show has an opening reception on Friday, March 11 from 5-8 p.m. The showcase continues through Saturday, March 26.

Students artists include:

• Keely O’Connell ’23
• Peter Herzog ’23
• Amani Hendricks ’22
• Raygan McDile ’22
• Journee White ’22
• Zaire Harrell ’22
• Isabel Quiroga ’22

View their work below!

Upper School Dance Team Performs in Concert

The 2022 MICDS Dance In Concert featured 11 dances with styles ranging from ballet, Indian, and K-Pop to contemporary and jazz. Nine of the eleven dances were choreographed by students. The dancers enjoyed being back in the studio, creating and collaborating. This year’s stage lighting was designed by Raina Compton ’23. The season wrapped up with a successful 45-minute performance on the Mary Eliot Chapel stage.

Some of our dancers shared that concert dance has allowed them to destress, learn how to choreograph dances, and more. “Dance has always been a way for me to destress and express myself,” says Paige Naughton ’22. “I’ve danced outside of school for a really long time, but I joined concert dance my sophomore year and it’s been a great experience. I love the creative freedom that dancing at school has given me through the opportunity to choreograph my own pieces. Though my dances may have started out rough, working with Mrs. Beasley and the other dancers over the years really helped to strengthen my choreographing abilities.”

Shelly Bhagat ’22 echos the sentiment about improving choreography skills and shared how it’s been nice being able to perform in person again. “I really enjoyed getting to perform on stage again with a live audience for my last year at MICDS. What I love most about the dance program is how much experience I’ve gotten with choreographing my own pieces and learning so many different styles of dance!”

Way to go, Ram dancers!

Three Math Team Members Qualify for State Math Competition

This past Saturday, Jack Xie ’22, Alan Li ’23, and James Morey ’25 took part in an online Math League qualifying event for an opportunity to go to the state math competition at Mizzou in April. All three students scored well enough to qualify for the state competition with Jack and Alan taking 6th and 7th respectively amongst the 36 competitors. As a team, they also tied for second in the relay round. Congratulations to all three of them on their success this past weekend!

Student Investment Committee Gleans Knowledge from Olin Business School Professor of Finance, Dr. Gopalan

By Shyam Mariappan ’24

Radhakrishan (Radha) Gopalan, a professor of finance at Olin Business School in Washington University, had a virtual visit with the MICDS Student Committee recently to talk about the current world of finance and how students wanting to pursue a career in finance can step into it.

Dr. Gopalan began the meeting as he typically does with his undergrad classes, by opening up The Wall Street Journal. Going to headlines, he encouraged the students to ask questions about how these headlines would affect the market and why? He emphasized the importance of understanding why something is happening and walked the students through the process of responding to news about Ukraine.

After this, Dr. Gopalan encouraged the students to invest using Robinhood as students can begin investing with little money. He discussed the benefits of long-term or value investing as the students have been doing in the club. He then reflected this idea in the current markets, in which he advised the students to step back from their investments during chaotic times like these. He stated that when people see they’re losing a lot of money, their emotions tend to get in the way of their logical and reasonable thinking.

Dr. Gopalan opened the discussion up to questions, and one person asked whether he was worried about the pivots he made and the risks he took during his career. He advised students to be honest with themselves and discover their passions. He stated that by taking risks after reflecting, the students would find themselves in a good position. He showed how, throughout his life, he had acquired human capital or personal attributes that could not be destroyed and how this as well put him in a good position.

Dr. Gopalan was also asked to describe what part of his job as a financial researcher looks like. He talked about how data and statistics played large roles in his job and how he used them to perform financial research. He gave an example of the risk and return research he does and how data allows him to make conclusions.

Lastly, Dr. Gopalan discussed potential careers in the world of finance and how students could step into them. He described how growing up in India, he didn’t know such a thing as finance existed, and how the students were already ahead in finding out what they wanted to do through opportunities like this. He then talked about how careers at Wall Street and big banks like how he initially started are very attractive careers for young people. Students were curious as to how they could position themselves at their age for careers like these. To this, Dr. Gopalan emphasized the importance of a college education and how exploring interests like these and doing well in high school was crucial.

As he gets back to his semester at WashU, we want to say thank you for taking the time to speak with our MICDS Investment Committee about the world of finance. Thank you, Dr. Gopalan!

Basketball Teams Both to Compete for District Championships

The Girls Basketball Team got the semifinal win over Lutheran St. Charles with a score of 58-54. Be sure to check out the recap on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which highlights Zaire Harrell ’22, Binta Fall ’23, Ellie Gira ’22, Genesis Starks ’24, Brianna Desai ’23, and Alden Small ’22. The team will play Whitfield at MICDS on Friday, March 4 at 7 p.m. for the District Championship.

Congratulations to Girls Basketball!

The Boys Basketball Team advances today to the District Finals after its win over Priory, 41-27, on March 2. Here is the quick summary by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The finals will be at 5 p.m. at UCity.

Go Rams!

Boys Squash Competes at Nationals

The MICDS Boys Squash Team competed at Nationals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania over the weekend. They won their Friday match in an epic three-hour battle which came down to the final game of the seventh and final match. The MICDS Rams prevailed against Kingswood Oxford School, 4-3. Later, they played three more matches at Nationals. Way to go Rams!

Girls Squash *Squashes* the Competition at Division III U.S. High School Team Squash Championships

• R16: MICDS (3) vs. Friends Central (14). MICDS won 5-2
• Quarterfinals: MICDS (3) vs. Dana Hall School (11). MICDS won 5-2
• Semifinals: MICDS (3) vs. Loomis Chaffee School (2). MICDS won 4-3
• Finals: MICDS (3) vs. Berkshire School (9). MICDS won 4-3!

Head of School Jay Rainey was even able to attend and cheer on the team. The Squash team posted on their Twitter account, “Thanks to our number one fan, Mr. Rainey, for coming out to cheer on our squash teams today in Philly!”

The final match came down to Rhea Patnana ’23 who clinched the win, 4-3. A huge shoutout to the entire team for securing the first national championship of the MICDS Squash Program!

• Bridget Clennan ’24
• Avery Summers ’24
• Ria Patil ’22
• Charlotte Derdeyn ’24
• Abby Derdeyn ’25
• Annabelle Medler ’24
• Rhea Patnana ’23
• Harper Graves ’22
• Kareena Kanamury ’23

Way to go, Ram champions!

Faculty Feature: Nicole Kovaluk's String Quartet Performance at MICDS

Middle/Upper School Strings Director Nicole Kovaluk is performing at Brauer Hall on Saturday, March 12 with her string quartet, Ophelia String Quartet. Admission is free and the performance is at 7 p.m. with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. Enjoy works by Franz Schubert, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and George Gershwin!