The Herald-area student news for July 14
Shady Side Academy graduate Aliyah Roberts was among 32 area high school student-athletes honored at the 2020 Western Pennsylvania Positive Athlete Awards.
One student-athlete was honored from each sport, and Roberts was the winner for girls track & field. The 2020 winners were announced July 6 on YouTube.
Positive Athlete has awarded more than $400,000 in college scholarships to high school student-athletes based more on their character than their athletic performance, according to the website.
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Four members of the Shady Side Academy Senior School Speech and Debate Team competed in the 2020 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, which was held online due to covid-19.
Seniors Akshay Amesur (Informative Speaking), Max Minard (Humorous Interpretation) and Giri Viswanathan (Congress), and junior Qingqing Zhao (Congress) all competed in the NSDA preliminary rounds at nationals.
Amesur and Minard submitted pre-recorded videos of their speeches to the online competition, while Viswanathan and Zhao competed in live Zoom sessions.
Minard was recognized as the NSDA District Student of the Year for the Pittsburgh District.
Viswanathan also qualified to compete at the National Catholic Forensics League (NCFL) Grand National Tournament, which was later canceled because of the pandemic.
Tawnya Panizzi is a TribLive reporter. She joined the Trib in 1997. She can be reached at tpanizzi@triblive.com.
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