This year the Girls Varsity Basketball team at Division Avenue High School returned to the Nassau County Playoffs after a one year absence. The girls were led by senior captain Kathryn Taraci. Taraci averaged nine points, seven rebounds, and three steals for the Blue Dragons this season. These numbers were good enough to get Taraci selected to the All-Class team chosen by the Girls Basketball Coaches Association. Taraci was also chosen to the Nassau County Scholar Athlete Team. "Kat" as she is affectionately called by her teammates, qualified for this award by attaining a 92 percent grade point average and a 1130 SAT score.

Aside from playing four years of basketball, Taraci has also been a valuable member of the volleyball team for three years, and a four year member of the lacrosse team. Taraci was selected to the All-Conference team in lacrosse as a sophomore and a junior and is setting her sites even higher this year as a senior.

In addition to being a fine athlete and a dedicated student, Taraci is also a committed and involved member of the community. She is involved with various fund raisers through the Maurer Foundation to help raise money for breast cancer research. She is also concerned with the plight of the homeless and volunteers with Long Island Cares, an organization that tries to provide food and shelter to the less fortunate. Taraci was able to start a "One Ton Club" at Division Avenue which collects and distributes food for the homeless.

Taraci is researching colleges such as Loyola, Boston University and Villanova. All her teachers and coaches at Division agree that whatever future endeavor she may pursue she will be highly successful. Kathryn Taraci truly is in a class by herself.

Jennifer Kost is MacArthur High School's choice for the Athletic Spotlight for this week.

Kost has been a member of MacArthur's Girls Volleyball team since her freshman year, making her most important contribution this past season as a middle position starter and helping the Girls Volleyball team get into the playoffs. This spring Kost takes her talents to the softball field, where for the second year in a row she will be the starting centerfielder. Last year as a junior, Kost helped the softball team not only qualify for the playoffs but she helped them go all the way to the county finals before losing to Mineola. Kost is hoping she and the team will be even more successful and not only get to the finals again but win the county championship. Anything less than the championship will be a disappointment for Kost and her teammates so the school wishes Kost and the softball team well as they get ready to start their season.

During the winter season Kost gives her athletic talents a break and taps into her dramatic talents which she has displayed on stage since the ninth grade participating in such productions as Sweet Charity (9th grade), Anything Goes (10th grade), Pal Joey (11th grade), and has participated in Levittown's 50th anniversary celebration by writing several short plays saluting Levittown through its 50 years of existence.

In addition to being heavily involved in athletics and drama, Kost also finds the time to participate in the Newsday Stockmarket Club, she gets involved in the Model Congress, worked on the Junior Banquet Committee as an 11th grader and was an AIDS Peer Educator in the 11th grade.

Busy people are the ones who get things done and always manage to make the time to get involved with a variety of activities. They do all of the activities well and never lose focus on their most important goal and that goal is getting a good education. Kost is one of those special students who is involved in so much and yet still manages to excel in the classroom.

Even with the busy schedule that she keeps, Kost has been a member of the National Honor Society since the 10h grade, was a volunteer at the Cerebral Palsy Festival of Trees in the 11th and 12th grades, has been a Renaissance Gold card holder since the ninth grade and an elite Platinum card holder in the 11th and 12th grades. Platinum is awarded to those students in the National Honor Society who maintain a certain average.

Kost scored a 600 on the verbal and 650 in math on her SAT's and ranks number 21 in a class of 258 with a 99.5 average.

Jennifer Kost certainly deserves and has certainly earned the right and the privilege to be placed in the MacArthur High School's Athletic Spotlight. Jennifer has had an outstanding high school career and should be very proud of her accomplishments. We all wish her well for the remainder of her high school career and next year as well when she moves on to her college career.