School News

The HBHS barbershop quartet ‘Four Reelz’, (formed recently by Joshua Fa’agalu, Takiri Southon, Selu Fotu and Taylor Glassie) won the Waikato Young Men in Harmony Competition yesterday. Each of the singers is new to Barbershop as a musical genre, making the achievement particularly impressive.  Taylor Glassie noted that the day was filled with many great performances that provided the group with tough competition. The intensive practices the boys organized paid off, and they have all enjoyed adding a new style of singing to their repertoires.

The group wants to thank Mr Peters and their coach Lynn Jameson for their help.  They are now preparing for Nationals, which will be held in Hamilton at Founders Theatre.

Please click here to watch Four Reelz's winning performance.

HBHS musician and Year 12 student Sam Francevic won Parachute Festival's talent quest, a competition which culminated in a mainstage performance in front of approximately 5000 eager concert-goers.  Franecivic has previously won 'Search for the Stars', and has placed highly in Super 8 Cultural exchanges over recent years.  He comments on his success:

I won 'Parachute's Got Talent', on the first day they held a trial round, which I turned up late for, but did my best at.  I borrowed someone's guitar and played on the smallest stage inside the Palladium.  The judges gave me four ticks - if you get these, you go to the next round, which was the finals.  There were about fourteen other people, including singers and musicians.  I won that, and was offered an opportunity to play on the mainstage, which was a real highlight.  I played 'Air Tap', which is becoming a bit of a signature piece.

Musically, I'm going to go more into producing electronica and house music this year; I'm interested in that genre at the moment.  In terms of technical skill, l'm working under my own steam at the moment.  The goal at the end of the year might be to achieve a performance standard in guitar, which would give me a classical focus for my playing. 

The BNT V8 SuperTourer and L J Hooker are offering students and family members free tickets to Pukekohe Raceway on the 25th of May.

Click the link to get your free tickets!  http://www.v8st.co.nz/about-3/376.html

Any queries please see Teacher in Charge of Motocross, Mr Nathan Vassella.

The following is the full list of medal winners from the 2014 Maadi Cup Regatta, held last week at Twizel on Lake Ruataniwha. We will acknowledge and celebrate these achievements, along with all of the other success stories of Summer Tournament Week at our full school assembly on Wednesday. A full report on Summer Tournament Week will feature in the Term 1 edition of the High Achiever. Congratulations to everyone involved who worked so hard for our HBHS sports teams last week.

The list of Maadi Cup medallists is as follows (7 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze medals):

Under 18 Novice Double Sculls: Gold

Crew: Jacob Prier and Rhys Bain

Coaches: Don Baron and Ivan Pavich (List cont)

Daniel Bates (Yr 13) has just received a full fees Rowing Sports Scholarship at Lincoln University. The scholarship covers tuition fees for courses at Lincoln University and, in line with the other sports scholarships at New Zealand’s specialist land-based university, there will be access to programmes for strength and conditioning, nutrition, sport psychology and mentoring. The other scholarships cover cricket, golf, hockey, netball, rugby and soccer.

 

The Scholarships are awarded on the basis of examination results of each applicant in the Waikato University Computer Science Scholarship Examinations, held each year in high schools. The examination is made up of two parts: a two-hour written examination and a six-hour practical examination and is

On Friday 15 June a group of students travelled to Auckland to discover what it takes to be a “top 1 percenter” in New Zealand’s Defense Force.  This trip to the NZ Special Air Service (SAS)was organised by Phil Hokianga, Chairman of the Hamilton Boys’ High School Whanau Committee, as an initiative to open our eyes to what it really takes to be accepted into  this elite group.

The students who were keen to participate needed to write a letter to “Nga Mangai Tamatoa”, expressing their interest in the trip.  Nga Mangai Tamatoa is a group of senior Maori leadership students who initiated the selection process and promoted this initiative throughout the school.

In the end, 15 boys were afforded this privilege.  They arrived at the heavily secured compound in Pukekohe.  Two ranking officers showed us around the places that we were allowed to see.   We immediately began to absorb the culture of the regiment, from the minute we entered the inner compound.