Kamiak High School recently won 5th Avenue Theatre’s top honor for high schools for Outstanding Overall Musical Production for “The Pajama Game.” With their performance of the 1954 musical “The Pajama Game,” a romantic comedy about workers in a pajama factory seeking a pay raise, Kamiak beat 64 other Washington state high schools during the awards ceremony held June 7 at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre.

Before joining the Orca Company Navy Jr. ROTC at Mariner High School, Cadet Theresa Hofford was shy. She’d much rather be alone with a book than socializing with her peers. But now, thanks to the NJROTC program, she said she’s outgoing and makes friends.

Fourth-grader Johnny Lovick rolled out of bed in the early morning cold in his grandmother’s ramshackle home in the middle of a Louisiana cotton field. School wouldn’t start for hours, but in the dirt-poor South, everyone had a job to do, no matter how old or young. Cotton had to be picked and chopped, chores had to be done. No matter how cold or hot it was, no matter how miserable the boy felt, the work never stopped. With sparse food, no running water, no electricity, and an outhouse 100 feet away from the tiny sharecropper’s shack Lovick called home, life looked bleak.

Sno-Isle Tech’s fashion show was a success, with students modeling a variety of designer clothing, of their own inventions created throughout the school year.

Discovery second grader Pierce McVey thought it would be cool if he and his fellow students answered 1,000,000 math problems in just a few weeks’ time. Never mind that that works out to about 1,689 problems per student among him and his 591 classmates. “I got the idea from a book I read,” he said. “The kid in the book challenged his school, so I knew I could do it here, that we could do this.”

When Jack Kniseley started his teaching career, they handed him a roster and some textbooks, showed him his room and essentially said, “Have at it, buddy!” With no experience, or even specialized training, he walked into that Los Angeles classroom where 40 boys sat staring at him expectantly, waiting to be taught.

This year Kamiak’s debate team has done tremendously well. We won 171 trophies, sent 20 students to state, won seven state trophies (including Student of the Year), and qualified five students to Nationals and had four more as first alternates.

The students at Explorer Middle School know how to party. About 300 sixth, seventh and eighth graders celebrated the end of the trimester...

When a blue tarp covering two wrecked cars was lifted, Kamiak seniors saw a horrifying scene: One student lay strewn through a windshield, while other victims sat flailing in their seats, covered in blood and shattered glass. Another car drove up to the wreck, and students in their prom dresses and tuxedos jumped out to check on the victims and call 911. Within a minute, Mukilteo firefighters and police officers, and Snohomish Country Sheriff’s Deputies arrived on scene at the crash that left one dead, four injured and one in handcuffs. The class of 2010 saw the devastating consequences of drinking and driving Thursday when students staged the mock car crash in the school’s parking lot.

First grader Cole Ripke wasn’t tired after running eight laps in to the annual Fun’d Run fundraiser at Olivia Park Elementary, but by lap 15 he was ready to stop. “Fifteen laps was my goal,” he said. “But it wasn’t easy. I almost ran out of energy.” Olivia Park students ran or walked laps around the school’s sandlot Saturday to support their PTA. They received about $2,200 in sponsorships from family and friends for the laps they ran. In its second year, the annual Fun’d Run started as a PTA-fundraiser alternative to selling cookie dough,PTA President Marcie Hagan said.

Challenger Elementary teacher Keith Linington always knew he would spend his career in the classroom. Both parents are in education and his grandmother teaches as well. “I guess you could say it’s in the blood,” he said. Linington grew up with the old school methods, so to speak, but also kept up with the rapid pace of technology as it’s changed the educational field the past several years. There were no computers in the classroom at all when he was in elementary school, he said. Next year, he’ll be able to incorporate even more technology into his classroom. Linington recently earned a $7,600 tech grant, which he will use on the latest in interactive teaching devices.

The Endeavour Elementary marimba band had so much fun performing for a school play in March that they were thrilled when music director Linda Wooding set up their first concert. The band – made up of all fifth graders – performed at a Hilltoppers luncheon on Tuesday, Apr. 27, at the Mukilteo Presbyterian Church for about 60 seniors. The concert was the band’s second performance.

Elise Yi, a sixth grader at Olympic View Middle School, admits she was nervous for her first solo and ensemble festival. Really nervous. “It felt like I was in a dream,” she said. “Everything was sort of blurry, like a dream, because I was so nervous and excited and unsure.”

With recycled pop bottles, tennis-ball cases, a coffee can, a frosting container, some googly eyes and lots and lots of masking tape, third grader Huntter Benson made a robot at Olivia Park Elementary on Recycled Art Night. Benson saw an example robot set out amid tubs and tubs of recyclables in the school gym on Earth Day and had to try making his own.

The Kamiak Debate Team has broken all of its previous records. Competing at the National Qualifying Tournament at Snohomish High School, the team qualified seven students to the National tournament in Kansas City this June: Kate Lawrenz and Ariel Freda in public forum debate; Jacob Landsberg and Alice Huang in cross-examination debate; Sam Jeong in dramatic interpretation; and Vivian Zhu and Yvana Tran in dual dramatic interpretation.

Families shared the traditions, clothing, food and art of their heritages at Odyssey Elementary on Thursday during the school’s Art and Heritage Fair. Students and their families visited booths Apr. 15 showcasing different heritages and cultures of the world, including Irish, Filipino, Mexican, Jamaican, Russian, Japanese, Greek and Dutch. The booths, set up in the school’s multipurpose room, invited families to color Celtic knotwork patterns, fold origami, watch an American quilter at work, view African-inspired art and learn about the cookery of traditional Mexican dishes, among other multicultural displays.

The Pen Pal Club at Voyager Middle School is watching the mail. Last week, the club sent their first letters to students in Moscow. Inside a large envelope were 17 small envelopes with letters and Washington state post cards addressed to each of their Russian pen pals.

The district-wide spelling bee, sponsored by the Mukilteo PTSA Council, was held Wednesday night at Explorer Middle School. “We were bee-dazzled by the turnout — hundreds of people there to cheer on the spellers!” Mukilteo PTSA Council co-president Rick Simon said.

Congratulations to Serene Lake Elementary’s grade level winners of the district spelling bee. Our apologies for leaving this out of our original story. Ed.

The fifth graders at Horizon Elementary didn’t win hockey game vs. the staff April 8, but they should still be proud. Horizon won’t be forgetting Thursday’s game for a while. The staff hasn’t lost once since Horizon’s annual hockey games started in 1990, but students put the pressure on this year in a tight 22-29 game