Santa Rosa students excel at Science Fair, Spelling Bee

Editor's note: This news article is an updated version of a previous story about awards won by Santa Rosa Academy students.

Santa Rosa Academy students won four medals at the recent Riverside County Science and Engineering Fair, while another student performed very well in the annual County Spelling Bee.

In the Science and Engineering Fair, seventh grader Divy Nallamothu won a gold medal, while sixth graders Isabelle Lumamba and Coral Noonam won silver medals. Siblings Benjamin (sixth grade) and Jake (eighth grade) Kirby combined on a project to win a silver medal.

In all, 65 students won gold medals in the competition, which was held online March 15-16. A total of 326 students from 30 affiliate fairs represented public, charter and private schools. They competed in 19 categories, including biochemistry, behavioral and social sciences, microbiology, and robotics and intelligent machines.

"We publicly share a special thank you to our competition Coordinator, Mrs. Wood, and our fabulous support teaching team, Mr. Montoya, Mrs. Alvarado, and Mrs. Gideon," said Robert Hennings, executive director of Santa Rosa Academy. "They were a wonderful source of support for our students with materials, ideas, feedback, and encouragement."

By placing in the top 10 percent of all projects for the county, the students were nominated to apply for the Broadcom Masters National Competition, Hennings said. They will compete against 1,200 of the country's top middle school students who were also nominated. The competition awards 30 students with an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to attend a STEM Camp that involves huge names/companies in the STEM industry. It also pays for one parent to chaperone.

The students will be working with Santa Rosa Academy's Coordinating Teacher, Mrs. Wood, after school hours through June, to further polish their projects as this competition is focused more on the research. Winners will be announced in the fall.

Also recently, in the first virtual version of the annual Riverside County Spelling Bee, eighth grader Ben Josh Del Rio finished second among a field of the top 21 spellers from county schools.

Del Rio finished second to seventh grader Lara Randhawa from Auburndale Intermediate School in the Corona-Norco Unified School District. She correctly spelled "lavation" in the 19th round. In the 18th round, she correctly spelled the word "interrerlate" while Del Rio missed on the spelling of "grudgingness."

Gene Trevor Garcia, a seventh grader at Bell Mountain Middle School, placed fifth in the competition.