Student Recognition

August 2009	Adrienne Clark was named the 2009 MaliVai Washington Kids Foundation (MWKF) Player of the Year. Adrienne has been with MWKF since the 3rd grade and will be entering the 7th grade at Darnell Cookman, excelling both on and off the court. She will be recognized along with other award winners during The Kossak Companies Golf & Tennis Gala, the year-end MWKF awards gala, in September.
May 2009	Congratulations to Kristen Farinas, Jomaly Cantu, Zoë Sieber, Abbi White, Deja McCray, and Chanel Andrews for being awarded the University of Florida College of Medicine at Shands Jacksonville Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research (CSESaR) internships for the Summer of 2009.
May 2009	Congratulations to District History Fair winners: Sarah Ratliff and Courtney Pugh won first place in group documentary for "Marie Curie: Dedication and Determination to Medicine"; Brendan Martin won second place in historical paper for "Christian Bernard: The Legacy of the Heart Transplant"; Dorrion Finley won first place in individual documentary for "Leonardo da Vinci"; and Emmanuel Brown won second place in individual documentary for "Ben Carson". All of these students represented the school at the state fair, and Dorrion placed in the top six at the state level.
May 2009	Congratulations to Jacob Goodpasture, Ryan Shih and Kevin Shih for all receiving Fourth Place finishes in the State Science Fair Competition. Jacob won a Junior Division Fourth Place in Medicine and Health; Ryan won a Junior Division Fourth Place in Medicine and Health and a Special Award from the American Heart Association for Cardiovascular Research; and Kevin won a Junior Division Fourth Place in BioChemistry. Congratulations gentlemen for a job well done.
April 2009	Congratulations to Rory Peterson for placing 2nd in the Bookmark Design Contest for Celebrating National Library Week. Judging was based on three criteria: originality, design, and work that reflected the importance of a library card to you with the theme: My Ticket to Discover.
April 2009	Future Doctor to Present Research Alongside Real MD’s The University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville will host Medical Education Week April 20-24, but this year will be different. For the first time, a 9^th grader will present his research alongside experienced MD’s and PhD’s decades older than the student. *Tony Hansberry* is attending Darnell Cookman’s School of the Medical Arts located across the street from Shands Jacksonville. University of Florida physicians have partnered with the school to add special events to the medical education curriculum and serve as guest speakers. It is believed the program at Darnell Cookman will be the first medical magnet in the country to develop an integrated medical curriculum for grades 6-12. Click here to read the rest of the story Click here to listen to the WJCT NPR Interview with Tony Click here to read the Florida Times Union news article from April 23, 2009 Tony named Student of the Week by Channel 12 News, click here to read article
March 2009	Darnell-Cookman Student Participates in the U.S. House of Representative Page Program Elayna Darby, an academically talented sixth grade student at Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School has the wonderful privilege of working in the Page Program at The House of Representatives in Tallahassee this week. The Page Program allows young people to serve as support staff for the U.S. House of Representatives. Elayna has had the opportunity to speak and pose for a picture with Governor Crist, participate in a committee meeting, and attend the House Session meeting. The Jacksonville Daily News interviewed Elayna today and indicated that she was one out of only two Pages selected from Jacksonville. Elayna’s goal is to become a member of our government and looks forward to continuing her serve in the Page Program next year. Elayna was also named student of the week for the Channel 12 First Coast News....Read Online Article and see Video
March 2009	Congratulations to the following students for placing in the Darnell-Cookman History Fair. Students in 1st & 2nd Place in each event will represent Darnell-Cookman at the District History Fair on Saturday, March 21. Click here to see complete list of winners and their projects. Historical Paper: 1^st Place: Franco Bautista, 2^nd Place: Brendan Martin, 3^rd Place: Ian Smith Individual Documentary: 1^st Place: Dorrion Finley, 2^nd Place: Terriana Gotch, 3^rd Place: Emmanuel Brown Group Documentary: 1^st Place: Sam Stark, Daysia Davis, and Jane Ann Howerton, 2^nd Place: Sarah Ratliff, Courtney Pugh, and Tyler Dobson, 3^rd Place: Taylor Jett and Camille Robinson Individual Exhibit: 1^st Place: Alex Reyes, 2^nd Place: Bailey Rider, 3^rd Place: Alandri Appleby Group Exhibit: 1st Place: Jessi Pressley and Alex Janotta 2^nd Place: Sarah Gebretsadik, Sheridyn Younge, Ebony Love, and Tierra Jenkins 3^rd Place: Amelia Ulmer and Quinn Michelson
March 2009	Congratulations to Arjun Luke, a 6th grader on the Valiant Team, for being named the ESOL Student of the Year for Darnell-Cookman. Arjun will be recognized at a special awards ceremony at Sandalwood High School at the end of April. In 2004, Arjun moved from India where he learned to speak and read Malayalam. Arjun uses a translation site on the internet to look up English words that are unfamiliar. His proud parents are Mr. Thankachan Kalamattathil and Mrs. Elizabeth Pullukala.
February 2009	The Phoenix Team (7th grade) celebrated Black History month with various activities for the month of February in addition to the moment of history during the morning announcements. At the end of the month they had a Notable African American Book Activity Contest and the 1st place winners were Miriam McNeill, Nia Henley, Marleesia Sapp, Autumn Wright, and Kymyra Boston. The Phoenix Team would like to recognize not just the students listed above, but all the students, faculty, adminstrators, and staff who participated to make this Black History celebration a success at Darnell-Cookman.
February 2009	Math Counts Thirty-one middle school teams from Northeast Florida competed in the Math Counts Competition on Friday, February 20. Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School won second place in the overall team competition with first place going to Orange Park Junior High School and third place going to Episcopal. Darnell-Cookman's team was comprised of Arun Ponshunmugam (8th grade), Sam Stark (8th grade), Dustin Parker (8th grade), and Franco Bautista (7th grade). They also won 1st place in the ciphering round, which is a fun round and does not count towards the team or individual scores. In addition, Franco Bautista, 7^th grader, placed 2^nd in the individual competition and will represent Darnell-Cookman in the State Competition. The Darnell-Cookman team will be honored by an expense paid trip to the State Competition in Orlando March 26-27.
February 2009	Regional Science Fair Winners Congratulations goes out to the following Darnell-Cookman students who placed at the Regional Science Fair Competition: High School Winner: Tony Hansberry, 2nd Place in Senior Medicine & Health; Alternate to State Team Middle School Winners: Nadia Al-Rubaee, 1st Place in Mathematics; UNF Recognition for Math & Science Award; American Mensa Jacksonville Chapter Recognition; Creative Application of Applied Science Franco Bautista, 3rd Place Chemistry Edwin Bodge, Merit in Environmental Science Alex Clingan, Merit in Engineering Steven Cotter, Merit in Engineering Emily Davis, American Civil Engineers $50 cash award V. Henry Ephrem, Merit in Physics Jacob Goodpasture, 2nd Place in Medicine & Health; Named to State Team; Special USA Public Health Association Certificate Kristen Morga, Merit Award in Botany Karthik Rajan, Merit Award in Physics Gabriel Rocha, 2nd Place in Biochemistry Kevin Shih, 1st Place in Biochemistry; Named to State Team; UNF Team Recognition for Excellence in Biochemistry Ryan Shih, 1st Place in Medicine & Health; Named to State Team Samual Stark, 2nd Place in Engineering; Named to State Team Katherine Thames, 2nd Place in Mathematics
December 2008	Congratulations to Darnell-Cookman's School-wide Science Fair winners. The following students will be representing Darnell-Cookman at the Regional Science Fair in February 2009. High School Winners: Jurgen Comberg, Hyaientya Inglis, Adam Olson and Zoe Sieber. Middle School Winners: Nadia Al-Rubaee, Franco Bautista, Edwin Bodge, Emanuel Brown, Kaitlyn Carroll, Alex Clingan, Steven Cotter, Emily Davis, Jessica DeAngelis, V. Henry Ephrem, Jacob Goodpasture, Ebony Love, Kristen Morga, Breck Peterson, Christina Porter, Jessi Pressley, Karthik Rajan, Gabriel Rocha, Kevin Shih, Ryan Shih, Ian Smith, Kali Stables, Samual Stark, Adam Tate, Katherine Thames, Chase Whittle and Hunter Wilson. Alternates are: Emma Hignett and Layla So. Click here to see the complete list of winners.
November 2008	Darnell-Cookman's school-wide spelling bee took place on Thursday, November 13. We had a total of 18 students participating in this event. Mrs. Gaylor was the caller along with Mr. Betancourt and Dr. Greer who were our judges. We went up to Round 8 so some of the words were extremely hard at the end. We are proud of all of our students for trying their best. Spelling words orally is an extremely difficult task. Finally, we had two students remaining. The last word was "instantaneous". Kayla Thomas, from the seventh grade Phoenix team, was our first place winner. Caitlyn Harris, also a member of the Phoenix team, came in second place. We congratulate both of these students. We wish Kayla all the success as she goes on to represent our school in the district finals.
September 2008	Darnell Cookman Middle/High School of the Medical Arts is proud to announce that Franco Bautista has been selected as a semifinalist for the 2008 Society for Science & Public Middle School Program. Franco was selected from over 7,500 students who were nominated for this competition through 253 affiliated National Science and Engineering Fairs representing 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Franco was one of 300 semi-finalists selected. His selection was based on his sixth grade science fair entry entitled, The Effect of pH on Magnetic Strength. He is being considered for one of thirty (30) finalists positions from this pool. These final 30 students will travel to Washington D.C. in October to receive recognition. Congratulations, Franco, we do wish you the best in the final selection process!!! We will be cheering for you!! Click here to read article.