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Wantagh Herald 04-06-2023

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_________________ WANTAGH ________________

April 6, 2023

HERALD Higher Education

Empowering a brighter future

HERALD CoMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS WINNER of

Inside

Vol. 71 No. 15

High-quality thrift shopping

9

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AWARDS APRIl 6 - 12, 2023

$1.00

‘Warriors for a Cure’ still going strong By MICHAEl MAlASZCZYK mmalaszczyk@liherald.com

Michael Malaszczyk/Herald

WANtAgH HIgH SCHool’S Warriors for a Cure raised $15,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society this year, winning the 2023 Mission Award for Policy and Advocacy. From left were Alex Bonanno, Damien Crowley, Luke Perfetti, Matthew Riley, Caitlin Wiffler, Gianna Paccione, Sean Browne, Abigail Conway, Natasha Meagher and Assistant Principal Christopher Widmann.

Wantagh High School is doing its part to knock out cancer, with two groups of students raising more than $45,000 combined for cancer research. Warriors for a Cure is the high school’s chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a New York-based charity that raises money to find cures for leukemia, lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Continued on page 10

WHS senior Natasha Meagher is a National Merit finalist By MICHAEl MAlASZCZYK mmalaszczyk@liherald.com

Wantagh High School senior Natasha Meagher found out that she was in competition for a National Merit Scholarship in a most unusual — and surprising — manner. Principal Paul Guzzone, Meagher said, told her while she was in her calculus classroom, catching her totally off-guard. “Dr. Guzzone walked in and said, ‘Congratulations.’ And I was like, ‘What?’” she recounted. The Illinois-based National Merit Scholarship program is a nationwide competition for both recognition and college scholar-

ships. Students can qualify as semifinalists by taking the Preliminary SAT and scoring in the top 1 percent in their state. They then must submit a detailed application, which includes personal essays and information about their extracurricular activities, any awards they have received and leadership positions they have held. In addition, they must have an endorsement from a school official, and their SAT score must align with their PSAT score, as a confirmation of their qualification. Once they are finalists, they receive Merit scholarships. “Some of them are corporate

scholarships,” Meagher said. “Some of them are from the actual Merit Corporation, and some of them are from individual colleges.” Meagher took the PSAT during her junior year, and found out that she was a semifinalist in September — the start of her senior year. In February, after the application process was completed, she learned that she was a finalist. She said she wasn’t necessarily in search of a Merit scholarship. One day in September, she was sitting in Kali Psihos’s calculus class when the principal walked in and wished her congratulations.

“It’s kind of a funny story, both times,” Meagher said of finding out about her status as both a semifinalist and finalist. “The first time, Dr. Guzzone walked in and said, ‘Congratulations,’ and I was like, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Congratulations on your award.’ And then I was supposed to get a letter saying that I was a finalist, but I never got one. I

checked the status of my application in February in that same class, and saw that I made it. So I found out both of the big updates in that classroom.” Meagher is a lifelong Wantagh student — prior to attending the high School, she went to Wantagh Elementary. Always having a knack for science, she Continued on page 5


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