Michael Bortnyck
Derek Chui
Charuta Gavankar
Stephen Massey
Carolyn Nghe
Roselle Nnaji
Evan Runyon
Catherine Spohnheimer
Elizabeth Travis

Arafel Bruce has recently been honored for being among the top 90th percentile of over 26,000 students who took the National German Examination administered by the American Association of Teachers of German in 2009. Awards for outstanding students are donated by the AATG, the German government, Austrian Cultural Forum and Langenscheidt Publishers.

Wow!!! What an exciting weekend for METSA's FastTrack RC Team this past weekend!! They competed in Concord, North Carolina on May 2, 2009 against 14 other teams nationally and placed third in total points for the year and third place for teamwork. Their trophy is in our case. The RC Lion team members in attendance were: Saleeta Rajwani, Danial Sabzevari, Prentice Goodwin, Jesus Legaspy, and Daniel Chia. Their coaches are Mr. Guerrero and Ms. Sanders.

The Lion Band has just returned from competing at the UIL Region 24 Concert and Sight Reading Contest. The Symphonic Band performed yesterday, and received a 1^st Division (Superior) rating in their concert performance, and a 2^nd Division (Excellent) rating in Sight Reading-this represents a full rating improvement over last years performance for this band!

The Honor Band competed this morning and received 1^st division ratings from all six judges-these ratings, in combination with the 1st division rating the Lion Marching Band received this past fall, awards the Lion Band a UIL Sweepstakes-this has not happened since the year 2001!

Charuta Gavankar has been selected as a semifinalist in the 2009 Presidential Scholars competition. Approximately 3,000 students were identified from nearly 2.8 million graduating high school seniors. Charuta was selected as one of approximately 560 semifinalists to advance to the final round of competition.

The 11th Annual AP® Music Theory Competition sponsored by Advanced Placement Strategies, Inc. and the O'Donnell Foundation boasted an attendance of over 120 students from thirteen area high schools. This year's event was held this past Saturday, March 28, 2009 at Ranchview High School. The annual event gives music theory students an opportunity to take a practice Music Theory exam in preparation for the College Board's National Music Theory AP® Examination in May. Students were tested and graded in the areas of Figured Bass, Harmonic & Melodic Dictation, Melodic Harmonization, Sight-Singing, Listening Skills, and Fundamentals of Theory. We are proud to announce that Turner High School Music Theory are the 2009 Team Champions the by holding the overall highest scoring average based on ALL of the tested areas. Congratulations to Kendall Jones, Kayla Lail, and Caroline Claiborne for this outstanding achievement.

As Winnie the Pooh would say “It was a blustery day (and cold)” but 25 elementary students gathered at MESTA on March 28^th to learn about rocketry, Newton’s laws, and have a great time. METSA students assisted the CFB elementary and middle school kids in building and launching a model rocket. The students additionally learned physics concepts such as Newton’s laws of motion to understand how why their rocket flies. Afterwards the students were treated to snacks and a showing of October Sky. Despite the cold and the wind the kids had tremendous smiles on their faces, and they all said they want to come to METSA when they get to high school!

On February 10, 80 math students participated in the American Mathematics Competition. I now have the results. Our school’s AMC 10 winner is Laura Weyers (from Ms. Mowers’ PreAP Geometry class) with a score of 90. Our school’s AMC 12 top scorers were Joy Lee (from Mr. Rios’ AP Calc BC class) with a score of 91.5, Roman Stolyarov (from Ms. Dillon’s PreAP PreCal class) with a score of 94.5, and Lucas Amman (from Ms. Dillon’s PreAP PreCal class) with a score of 99. Lucas’ score entitles him to advance to the next level of competition, the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination), on April 1^st.

Thus far, the team has won two playoff games. Their next game is against Newman Smith on 3/27.

Charuta Gavankar, a graduating senior at R.L. Turner High School, has been named one of more than 3, 000 candidates in the 2009 Presidential Scholars Program. The candidates were selected from nearly 2.8 million students expected to graduate from U.S. high schools in the year 2009. Full Length Story

The Turner/METSA students went to Botball competition this past weekend and placed 1^st place in seeding, 3^rd place in documentation and second place overall. In addition they received the overall Judges Choice trophy for excellence in engineering and software design which is a prestigious award given to the best overall team. Congratulations METSA students!

The Turner Tennis Team finished 9th overall at the Burleson Varsity Tournament. The team won 1st place consolation in the following events: Girls A Singles(Cindy Nguyen), Girls A Doubles(Anna Woody/Tammy Nguyen), and Girls B Doubles(Jordan Harness/Jocelyn Bonilla). Player of the match was Ivan Johnson who finished 4th in Boys B Singles.

This past Saturday 30 German students competed in the State German competition at the University of Texas Austin. Turner did an excellent job! The scores we have so far are amazing! In Vocal Solo Arafel Bruce was 5^th, Whitney Rogers was 6^th and Kayla Lail 8^th. The Choir took 6^th and the play 9^th. Our Duet of Susi Spradley and Laudis Strahan placed 10^th and our Oompah band led by Juan Sanchez took 6^th! More of the winners will be announced on Wednesday!

RLT students' film was selected for two screenings at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Congratulations to our AMAT students!

This past weekend (Jan 23-25, ) our boy’s soccer teams continued their winning ways. Our JV boys White team remained unbeaten by wining 3 games and tying 1. Our JV Blue team won 3 out of 4 losing their first game of the season. Congratulations to our awesome Boys JV soccer teams who now have a combined record of 20 wins, 1 loss, and 2 ties! Our Varsity Boys competed in the Crowley tournament. They defeated South Hills 3 to 0, Arlington Sam Houston 4 to 2, OD Wyatt 8 to 0 and in the championship game we defeated Crowley High School 1 to 0. Goal scorers included Alejandro Mendoza, Hector Ramirez and Rudy Amaya with 3 goals each. Isai Mireles scored 2, and Jacob Van Compernoll, Edgar Hernandez, Raul Araujo, Luis Esparza, and Nick Ruiz all scored 1 each. Salvador Soto and Gustavo Leon recorded 3 more shutouts in goal.

On January 10th, Lion Band Junior JaRod Hall, Senior Evan Runyon, and Senior Angela Park competed at the Texas Music Educator's Area Band Competition for a spot in the All-State Bands. They competed at the 5A level with band students from the Metroplex to as far west as Abilene and as far north as Wichita Falls

ALL THREE STUDENTS were selected for a spot in the prestigious All-State Bands! Of the thousands of music students who begin the audition process in November, only the top one percent are selected to a spot in an All-State Performing Organization. The students will perform in San Antonio in February in conjunction with the Texas Music Educator's Association In-Service and Conference.

On November 12, Six DECA students went to Northwood University to compete in Marketing. All of them received awards for their individual events. They are:

The Lady Lions Varsity Basketball team picked up another road victory (call them the Road Warriors) and improved to 2-0 with their win over Fort Worth Carter-Riverside 39-24 on Friday night (11/14). The team was led by Melissa Carrillo with her 2nd double-double of the season with 12 points and 15 rebounds and Briseida Escobedo with 12 points and 6 steals. Also, the Lady Lions Freshman A team won the Consolation Bracket Championship of the Garland Lakeview Centennial Tournament this past weekend. The team went 3-1 overall in the tournament and had a come from behind victory over Rowlett High School in the Championship game 34-28. The team also beat South Garland High School 58-30 and Princeton High School 39-26. The Freshman A team now has a record of 4-1 on the season.