Locust Valley High School recently hosted Hewlett, Jericho, Manhasset, New Hyde Park, Oyster Bay, Roslyn North Shore, Bay Shore and Syosset High Schools and Friends Academy for the 7th Annual North Shore Young Authors' Conference. A total of 310 students participated.

Paul Vitello, Newsday columnist, was featured as the keynote speaker. Workshops featured accomplished writers such as Daily News reporter and Locust Valley graduate Thomas Hill and Newsday sports writer and LV graduate Romy Haller, in addition to News 12 Long Island morning anchor Carol Silva.

The 7th Annual North Shore Young Authors' Conference allowed students to attend workshops that will begin them on their literary path. Among the 11 workshops were The Thrill of the Chase, On Becoming a Novelist, A Poet's Journey and All the News That's Fit to Speak. At the conclusion of the conference, students were presented with awards in different categories. Junior Katie Russo and senior Pelagia Horgan won first place awards in the "Longer Fiction" and "Personal Narrative" categories, respectively. Other Locust Valley winners included Rudy Scala, Brenna Greenwald, Emily Tweedy, David Kearon, Eric Puleio, Lauren Kurkowski and Kristin Fahlbusch. Ellen Von Novak, director of the writing center and Margaret Stolworthy, English department chair, coordinated the conference.

At the April 28 Board of Education meeting, several students were introduced to and recognized by the board for their achievements.

Locust Valley Elementary Students:

Glen Cove Public Library's contest, Write and Illustrate Your Own Book

5th-grader Phyllis Alario, first place in the Concept Books category.

5th-grader Susan Afshario, Zachary Goodman and Thomas Strand, honorable mention in the realistic fiction category.

5th-graders Emily Nadel, Danielle Vichinsky, Sue San Tsai, Devin Kearon and Katie Mohen; and fourth graders Anne Marie Aulicino, Billy Trauernecht and Oksana Trojanowski, art work exhibited in the sixth annual elementary art exhibit at Schneider Children's Hospital and Chelsea Center's "My Long Island" exhibit.

Bayville Elementary Students:

Stacey Carbone and Lauren Viggiani, semifinalists for Flood Buddies project in the 1998 US Children's Summit competition.

John Mihaltses, Marisa Tenaglia and Michaela Collins earned first, third and honorable mention, respectively, in the New York State Department of Transportation's "Come Go With Me" poster contest.

Kimberly Carrella, winner of Geico's 1997 safety belt poster contest.

LVE's Amy Diaz and Megan Cashman, and Bayville's John Milhaltses and Nicole Nazzareno all had art work exhibited at the New York State Art Teacher's Association Legislative Student Art Exhibition in the legislative office building lobby in Albany.

Congratulations to all the students, their teachers and parents for their achievements!

George Lancer and four of his advanced programming students, Jonah Goodman, Stephen Kelly, Anthony Locurto and Mark Longo have developed a customized software management system that maintains the medical records of the nurses' offices at Locust Valley High School and Locust Valley Middle School. The group submitted their management program to the Long Island Software and Technology Network Contest in January and in April they were nominated as finalists in this contest.

Mr. Lancer and his four students attended the 2nd annual Long Island Software awards ceremony at the Huntington Hilton on Thursday, May 7, where they exhibited their software products. Among other finalists are colleges and companies in the business of developing and marketing software. Brookhaven National Laboratories' director, John Marburger, offered the keynote speech.

The Locust Valley Medical Management Program is designed to maintain and track students' medical histories, immunization records, and visits to the medical office for treatment. It provides the nursing staff with up-to-date student and teacher schedules as well as family or doctor emergency phone numbers. The computer program automatically alerts the medical office of any immediate problem when a student's data is being entered. It has the ability to generate reports such as visitation logs, medical alert lists, immunization histories and a comprehensive mailing system that can generate mailing labels.

According to Mr. Lancer, the students were offered summer jobs while demonstrating their product for "high-powered" businesspeople from across Long Island. He looks forward to participating in the contest for a second time next year. At the board of education meeting Thursday night, District Technology Coordinator Dolores Burton expressed how proud she is of the students' accomplishment. She told the board and attendees that she had been at the Huntington Hilton earlier that night, and was thoroughly impressed with the company the students were keeping while at the thousands-strong event. The program is currently being utilized by the district.

The annual software contest is sponsored by KPMG Peat Marwick, AT&T, Cedar Graphics, Chase Manhattan Bank, LILCO, Computer Associates, SUNY Stony Brook, Symbol Technologies, eShare Technologies, Renaissance Technologies and Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein, Wolf and Schlissel Associates.

On April 23 the Nassau Technology Educator Association held its Annual "Metric 500" CO2 competition at New York Tech. Among the many school districts Locust Valley competed against were: Jericho, Syosset, Uniondale, Harborfields, Rockville Centre, Carey-Sewanhaka, East Rockaway and Levittown. Below are listed the results:

The nine entries began with designs. Pieces of wood were molded into cars, based on the designs. The open and balsa divisions, consisting of over 200 cars, raced with CO2 cartridges inserted, while the design division was judged solely on its design merits.

This annual competition began about 10 years ago at H. Frank Carey High School and now is a yearly event at the New York Institute of Technology. We have been successful in many first, second and third place finishes each year because of the efforts of Robert Schwan, a technology teacher at the school, who has been involved with the students in this competition since its inception.