Month: March 2025

The Community Gardens at the City of Hope Outreach in Conway serve multiple purposes. They are a source of nutritious fruits and vegetables for the organization’s nutrition program, including its Small Market that provides food and other supplies for food-insecure, homeless and low-income individuals and families.

It is a classroom gardening experience for students who participate in CoHO Academy, the organization’s after-school program. Participants help grow food in the gardens from seed to harvest to table as part of the academy’s STEM, nutrition and personal development curriculum.

The gardens are home to various wildlife, including birds, bees, butterflies, frogs and toads. Students in the program crafted toad houses to encourage the amphibians to settle in the gardens to help control pests.

In July 2024, the National Wildlife Federation announced that it had designated the gardens as a Certified Wildlife Habitat through its Garden for Wildlife movement.

The designation was thanks in part to the work of Lana Thurman, who graduated from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in 2017. Thurman joined CoHO as nutrition director in February 2023. In August 2023, she became an academy instructor, teaching STEM concepts through gardening and nutrition to kindergarten through eighth-graders in the academy.

Three Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts choir ensembles have earned eligibility to compete at the Arkansas Choral Directors Association Class 3A State Festival.

The ensembles competed at the Region 3 Choral Performance Assessment held at Hot Springs Lakeside on March 7. Sonar Sounds, ASMSA’s tenor/bass ensemble, earned Division I Superior scores for both its stage and sight reading performances. Echo Sounds, the mixed chorus, earned a Division 2R Excellent grade for its stage performance and Division 1 Superior for sight reading. Aqua Harmonia, the soprano/alto treble ensemble, earned a Division 2R Superior rating for its stage performance and a Division 2 Excellent score for sight reading.

All groups who score a 2R or Superior rating for their stage performance are eligible for State Festival, where they will compete for the Class 3A “Best in Class” title. Aqua Harmonia will be defending its 2024 state title as “Best in Class Small Treble Chorus 3A” and “Overall Best in Class 3A Chorus” title.

The Class 3A state competition will be held on Monday, April 7, at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

Twenty-three Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts students have been selected as Arts Across Arkansas 2025 finalists, including one student who qualified in three separate categories.

Arts Across Arkansas is a program that aims to encourage, enhance and expand students’ original thoughts, processes, personal experiences and artistic abilities, according to the program’s website. It is sponsored by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Division of Arkansas Heritage.

The competition features competition in six categories: Visual Arts, Dance Choreography, Film, Music Composition, Literary Arts and Photography. ASMSA students were selected as finalists in the Visual Arts, Film, Music Composition, Literary Arts and Photography. Senior Jaime Hernandez is a finalist in the Visual Arts, Film and Literary Arts categories.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts Quiz Bowl team took first place in the Arkansas Governor’s Quiz Bowl Association Class 7A West Regional Tournament.

The team went undefeated in the regional tournament, which was held March 15 on the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith campus. ASMSA qualified for the Class 7A State Tournament, which will be held April 12.

Junior Jacob Lewis of Clinton was the second-highest scorer in the regional tournament followed by junior Ridgely Bond of Marion who was third. Both qualified for the State All-Star Tournament that will be held in April.

For more information about the tournaments, visit the association’s website at https://arquizbowl.org/.

Several Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts students earned recognition at the 2025 Arkansas High School Model Arab League Conference.

Model Arab League is the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ flagship youth leadership development program. It is similar to the Model United Nations program. This year’s Arkansas high school conference was held March 7-8 at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Twenty-nine ASMSA students participated in the conference. Five students earned recognition for their participation, including:

• Tristan Henson, a junior from Maumelle, Outstanding Delegation Award, representing Libya on the Special Council on Technology and Development;
  • Nathan Harbut, a junior from Hot Springs, Distinguished Delegation Award, representing Libya on the Economic Affairs Council;
  • Maddox Jessup, a senior from Stuttgart, Distinguished Delegation Award, for representing Syria on the Special Council on Technology and Development;
  • Lycci Pan, a senior from Jonesboro, Distinguished Delegation Award, for representing Syria on the Political Affairs Council; and
  • Nakoa Beattie, a junior from Eureka Springs, Honorable Mention Award, for representing Libya on the Political Affairs Council.

Twenty-four Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students earned recognition at the 2025 District IV Spring Conference competition, and a record number of 36 students will be eligible to compete at the state competition.

The District IV conference was held Feb. 5 at the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope/Texarkana in Hope. The students participated in competitive events that were either an objective subject test, performance or presentation, or a combination of an objective test and a performance component.

Students who placed in the top six in objective test competitions or top five in a performance or presentation event at the district qualified to compete in the state competition, which will be held April 7-8 in Little Rock. In addition to the 24 students who qualified at the district competition, 12 students also are set to compete in the state competition in categories that are only held at the state conference.

Students who earned recognition at the District IV competition and are eligible to compete at the state competition include:

Twenty-two Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts students earned recognition in the 2025 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards regional competitions.

Micaela Collver, Priya James, Lola Tate, Andy Kneebone and Preston Lowe each earned Gold Keys and advanced to the national competition for their writing and art awards. National key winners will be announced in March. Four students earned Silver Keys for their submissions.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is sponsored by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. It is among the nation’s most prestigious program for creative teens. Previous award-winners during the competition’s history include Andy Warhol, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Tschabalala Self and others.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts recognized winners of the 2025 West Central Regional Science Fair during an awards ceremony on Feb. 28.

The team of senior Kolten Shook of North Little Rock and Lukas Bowler of Hot Springs won first place overall for their project in the Animal Science category. Senior Carmella Lewis of Alma won second place for her Cellular and Molecular Biology project. Senior Avagail Christine Dunning of Clarksville won third for her project in the Microbiology category.

The three overall winners were awarded a trip to participate in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, which will be held May 10-16 in Columbus, Ohio. The event is the world’s largest pre-college STEM competition. Students from around the world are expected to compete for awards, prizes and scholarships.

Individual awards were also announced in various categories. The top three projects and some high-placing honorable mentions in each category earned entry into the Arkansas State Science and Engineering Fair that will be held at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway on April 4-5.

The 97th Academy Awards will have an ASMSA connection at this year’s ceremony. A film produced by Class of 2009 alumna Tara Sheffer is nominated for Best Live Action Short Film.

Sheffer is the producer of “A Lien,” a short film about a family that finds itself in a dire situation that develops when a couple along with their daughter arrives at a federal immigration office for an American woman’s husband to begin the interview process to obtain a green card. The film is directed by brothers Sam and David Cutler-Kreutz.

Sheffer has served as producer for 29 short films and written and directed four other films. Films she has been associated have been nominated for awards or selected to appear in the SXSW, Clermont Ferrand, New Orleans Film Festival, Rhode Island International Flickers Film Festival and NYU Tisch King festivals and competitions. Sheffer served as a line producer for the 2020 film “The Letter Room,” which was also nominated for an Academy Award.

She began seriously thinking about filmmaking in a documentary film class taught by James Katowich, a Humanities Instructor of Excellence at ASMSA. Her family was also in the filmmaking business. She later took classes at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., and then earned a master’s in fine arts from the New York University School of the Arts.

The Oscars will be shown live beginning at 6 p.m. Central time on Sunday, March 2, on ABC and streaming on Hulu.