Higley High School students find success in various fields

Higley High School percussion (Submitted photo)

Several Higley High School students performed at the Winter Guard Arizona Championships recently and several other students earned recognition in a national language competition.

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Higley High School students find success in various fields

Posted Monday, April 8, 2019 6:10 pm

Several Higley High School students performed at the Winter Guard Arizona Championships recently and several other students earned recognition in a national language competition.

Higley High School is one of two high schools in the Higley Unified School District. Part of its school boundaries dip into the Town of Queen Creek.

Higley color guard wins WGAZ title

The Higley Knights participated in the Winter Guard Arizona Championships in March at the Arizona State University downtown campus, according to a press release.

Competing from the school was the Higley Indoor Percussion Ensemble and both the Silver and Navy Winter Guards.

“A lot of hard work and practice was put in by the students to get ready for finals,” Ches Sharp, Higley band director, said in a prepared statement.

Percussion finished in fifth place in their division after being moved up to the higher division just the week before. Navy color guard finished in fourth place.

Silver color guard finished with the championship banner in the Scholastic Regional A Mirage Division.

“Congratulations to all the students and staff for their successes this season,” Mr. Sharp said.

In addition, senior Kaelee Brewer from the Navy guard was named one of five Winter Guard Arizona scholarship recipients.

Higley High students earn language honors

Higley students Dane Shillingburg, Ashley Nichols and Kevan Beckstead. (Submitted photo)

Three students from Higley will represent their school this summer during foreign language studies camps aboard.

Dane Shillingburg, Ashley Nichols and Kevan Beckstead earned the honors in the National Security Language Initiative for Youth national competition.

Nearly 6,000 students nationwide this year submitted written applications for the first round of the selection process. Semifinalists were chosen to go through a interview process prior to the final selection of students chosen to represent the U.S.

The three students are all taught by Higley’s Mandarin teacher Panna Leatherby. Ms. Nichols and Mr. Beckstead will travel to China to study Mandarin while Mr. Shillingburg will travel to South Korea for Korean studies.