High School TMEA Region 23 Orchestra Auditions were held October 14th at Kerr High School. After competing among some of the most talented students from public and private schools in the Houston area, two Kinkaid freshman placed in the Honor Orchestras.

Ethan Fang '21 was sleected for the top symphony orchestra, while Justin Li '21 was selected for the philharmonic string orchestra.

Justin plans to compete once again in the Orchestra Area Auditions taking place October 27th and 28th at Mayde Creek High School. Congratulations to these students and Orchestra Director Steve Kastner and good luck going forward!

Over the weekend, members of the MS and US Kinkaid Band program auditioned at Sealy HS for the ATSSB All-Region Band. Please congratulate the following students for their successful auditions!

MS All Region:

Nick Kyriakides-Crowe '22- 10th chair flute

Stephanie Han '23- 1st chair flute

Jacob Newell '22- 4th chair horn

HS All-Region:

Christopher Gardner '21- 4th chair, advances to all-area

Eliot Gottsegen '21- 4th chair bass clarinet, advances to all-area

Tommy Holstead '21- 4th chair, advances to all-area

Rorye Jones '19- 2nd chair clarinet, advances to all-area

Seb Seager '19- 1st chair flute, advance to all-area

Evan Wu '21- 4th chair alto sax

Students will perform in concert with their respective all-region band Saturday, November 11th at 6:00 p.m. in the Brown Theater. Congratulations to these student musicians and to their Director, Mr. Vogt!

The fall sports season has officially come to an end. The Varsity Falcon teams had a strong finish winning two SPC Titles while the Middle School had three teams compete in HJPC Championship games and two win the HJPC Title. Thank you to all of the fans, families, faculty, staff, coaches and student-athletes for all of your support, dedication and hard-work this season. Below is a recap of each tournament finish.

SPC Team Finishes

Our Varsity teams competed three weeks ago in the Southwest Preparatory Conference Championships. The SPC is comprised of 16 schools from Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and Oklahoma. The top six teams from each zone have the ability to compete in the tournament with the #1 and #2 seeds getting a bye in the first round. All of the Kinkaid Fall Varsity teams earned a spot in the tournament. The Varsity Field Hockey and Varsity Football teams both won 1st place trophies while the Girls Cross Country team brought home 2nd place. Girls Volleyball, Boys Volleyball and Boys Cross Country all finished in the top half of the conference earning 6th, 7th and 8th place respectively.

Here is an article by Jack Marrion of the Houston Chronicle recapping the championship weekend:

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/memorial/sports/article/Kinkaid-leads-local-schools-with-20-SPC-picks-12384585.php

SPC CHAMPIONS – VARSITY FIELD HOCKEY

The Varsity Field Hockey team had an impressive season capped off with an exciting and dramatic SPC Tournament weekend. The Falcons entered the tournament as the number one seed from the South Zone by going undefeated in conference play and outscoring the opponents 28 to 3. They continued their dominance once they arrived in Fort Worth for the championship tournament. They first faced a tough and physical Episcopal School of Dallas team who was not going to go down easy but Kinkaid prevailed with a 2-1 victory. Next they matched up against cross town rival St. John's and were able to win 1-0; a result that sent the team to the Championship game. The Falcons met the number one seed from the North Zone, the Trinity Valley Trojans who were also hosting the tournament on their home field. Kinkaid got on the board first but then TVS answered back to make the score 1-1. It was a back and forth game for the remainder of regulation and two overtime periods. The winner of the game was then to be decided by penalty strokes where each team has the opportunity to send one shooter against the goalie with the best of five winning. Kinkaid was ready for the challenge and was named SPC Champions by dominating 3-1 in strokes. This is the first SPC Title for the Field Hockey program since 1999. Congratulations Falcons!

SPC Finish: 1st Place

South Zone Finish: 1st Place

Conference Record: 5-0

Overall Record: 12-3

SPC Tournament Results

Game 1 – won 2-1 over Episcopal School of Dallas

Game 2 – won 1-0 over St. John's (semi-final)

Game 3 – won 2-1 over Trinity Valley in penalty strokes (Championship)

All SPC: Caroline Hanan, Ellie Bolin, Belle Martire, Annabel Skubisz, Farise Cravens

All South Zone: Caroline Hanan, Annabel Skubisz, Olivia Marrus, Farise Cravens, Laine Jacobe

SPC CHAMPIONS – VARSITY FOOTBALL

The Varsity Football team once again was able to take care of business and bring home the SPC 4A Championship Title. Over the last 9 years, the Falcons have found themselves in the title game 8 times with 5 of those games being played against Episcopal High School. This year was unique and exciting for all, as the game was played right here in our backyard at University of Houston's TDECU Stadium. During their regular season match up, the Falcons lost 37-27 to EHS but used that loss as the motivation to come out prepared and ready to take care of business in the championship game. Entering the contest, the Falcons were on a three game winning streak outscoring their competition 105 to 33. They used that momentum along with the energy from the spirited fans who filled the stadium to defeat the Knights 38-21 and brought home the SPC Championship Title. This is the fifth SPC Championship win for the Kinkaid Varsity Football Team in eight years. Keep on soaring, Falcons!

SPC Finish: 1st Place

South Zone Finish: 2nd Place

Conference Record: 4-1

Overall Record: 7-3

SPC Tournament Result

Won 38-21 over Episcopal High School (championship)

All SPC: Johnathon Thomas, Josh Williams, Ameer Mustafa, Adam Harter, Kamal Nader, Hayden Rome

All South Zone: Malcolm Hedgepeth, Michael Horne, Victor Garza, Wyatt Young, Jack Nevil

2nd Place - Girls Cross Country

The weather was perfect and the course was stunning as the Girls Cross Country team prepared to defend their title at the picturesque Athletic Performance Ranch in Fort Worth. The team had a sensational season winning either first or second place in every meet they attended this season with many team members breaking personal records week after week. Prior to the championship weekend, the Falcons won first place at the South Zone meet in Austin with six girls earning All-South Zone honors based on their times. Then at the SPC Championship meet, the team accumulated 67 points and had four girls finish in the top 20 to earn the second place trophy for the entire conference. Way to go, Falcons!

SPC Finish: 2nd Place

South Zone Finish: 1st Place

All SPC: Camila Vicens, Alexandra Blake, Ali Ammons, Alison Zhang

All South Zone: Camila Vicens (Champion), Alexandra Blake, Ali Ammons, Alison Zhang, Lindsey Ho, Ellie Lucke

6th Place - Varsity Girls Volleyball

The Girls Varsity Volleyball team improved their record this year to 12-10-1 going 10-3-1 in non-conference play. The Falcons qualified as one of the top twelve teams in the conference to participate in the SPC Tournament. They entered the weekend as the sixth seed from the South Zone and matched up against a strong Greenhill team from the North. The game was close and could have gone either way, however the Falcons dug deep and refused to give in. They fought to the very end and won 3-2 to make it to the quarterfinal round of the tournament. They ended their run finishing in the top half of the conference and earned sixth place for the weekend. Good work, ladies!

SPC Finish: 6th Place

South Zone Finish: 6th Place

Overall Record: 12-10-1

Conference Record: 1-4

SPC Tournament Results

Game 1 – won 3-2 over Greenhill

Game 2 – lost 3-1 to Houston Christian (quarter-final)

Game 3 – lost 3-0 to St. John's

All SPC: Onuchi Ndee, Julia Lasater

All South Zone: Onuchi Ndee

7th Place - Varsity Boys Volleyball

The Boys Volleyball team fought hard all season long in many close and tight games. They qualified for the SPC Tournament as the number three seed from the South Zone. They faced an impressive Casady team from Oklahoma who went on to play in the Championship game. The Falcons closed out their season with an exciting 3-1 win over the Knights of Episcopal High School and finished in seventh place. Good job, Falcons!

SPC Finish: 7th Place

South Zone Finish: 3rd Place

Overall Record: 6-14

Conference Record: 1-5

SPC Tournament Results

Game 1 – lost 3-0 to Casady

Game 2 – lost 3-1 to St. John's

Game 3 – won 3-1 over Episcopal High School

All SPC: Alex Frumovitz

All South Zone: Brian Xu, Scott Morey

8th Place - Boys Cross Country

Kinkaid's Boy Harriers (aka cross country runners) approached this year's SPC Championship meet with another solid season under their belts. The team entered the race coming off a forth place South Zone finish with three athletes garnering All South Zone honors. At the Championship Meet a number of Falcons ran their best race of the season on the challenging course at the Athletic Performance Ranch in Fort Worth. With a team finish of eighth place, the boys' team boasted two runners in the top 20 to earn All SPC honors. Great job, Falcons!

SPC Finish: 8th Place

South Zone Finish: 4th Place

All SPC: DZ Zavitsanos, Socs Zavitsanos

All South Zone: DZ Zavitsanos (3rd Place), Socs Zavitsanos, Andres Melendez

Varsity Cheerleading

The Varsity Cheerleading team started their summer off by heading up to the Gaylord in Grapevine, Texas where their trained and competed for several days at the Universal Cheer Association camp. At the conclusion of the camp, the Falcons were named the 1st place winners in Game Day Routine, 2nd place in Extreme Routine and had four girls named as All-Americans. They then spent the fall cheering on our Falcons and training for the UCA Regional Competition at Texas State University in San Marcos where the Falcons earned 5th place overall. Congratulations and thank you for all of your support this season!

UCA Summer Camp Competition:

Game Day Routine = 1st Place

Extreme Routine = 2nd Place

UCA Regional Competition: 5th Place

All-American: Julia Burpeau, Katelyn Gamble, Kennedy Gamble, Caroline Petersen

HJPC Team Finishes

The Houston Junior Preparatory Conference is made up of twelve private middle schools in the greater Houston area. Only the top eight teams at the end of the regular season have the opportunity to compete in the final tournament. Field Hockey, Football and Boys Volleyball all made it to the championship games. Congratulations to all of the teams who represented Kinkaid and a special shout out goes to the Boys 8th Grade Volleyball and 8th Grade Football teams who won the championship titles.

Boys 8th Grade Volleyball – 1st Place

Overall Record: 6 - 3

Conference Record: 3-3 #2 seed

HJPC Tournament Results

Game 1 – Won 2-1 over ROBS (semi-final)

Game 2 – Won 2-0 over AOS (Championship)

8th Football – 1st Place

Overall Record: 5-1

Conference Record: 4-1 #2 Seed

HJPC Tournament Results

Game 1 – Won 27-8 over St. John's (Championship)

8th Field Hockey – 2nd place

Overall Record: 5-6-3

Conference Record: 3-4-3 #4 seed

HJPC Tournament Results

Game 1 – Won 1-0 over ROBS

Game 2 – Won 2-0 over St. Francis (semi-final)

Game 3 – Lost 3-0 to St. John's (Championship)

MS Cross Country

HJPC Tournament Results

Girls - 5th Place

Boys - 7th Place

Top 10 Finisher

Sydney Smith - 6th Place

8th Girls Volleyball

Overall Record: 2-9

Conference Record: 2-9

9th Place

MS Cheerleading

Universal Cheer Association Camp

Extreme Routine - 1st Place

Best Cheer - 2nd Place

Game Day Competition - Superior Trophy

Last weekend, 20 Kinkaid Model UN students participated in the 17th annual Columbia Model United Nations Conference and Exposition. After competing against 69 schools and nearly 700 students, we are excited to announce Kinkaid took home three awards!

Anna Thomas '18 was awarded Honorable Mention for playing the role of Maurice Sugar in the The Driver's Seat: United Auto Workers committee. Nicholas Cox '19 was awarded Verbal Commendation for playing the role of

Over the weekend, Kinkaid had two wrestlers place at the state level. Both four-year varsity wrestlers, Colin Lawler '18 took first in the heavyweight class at 285 and Noah Chan '18 placed second in his weight class at 160.

Coming to the end of their Kinkaid careers, Colin is now a four-time state champion while Noah is a three-time champion, narrowly losing in the finals this year. Both hope to continue their success at the upcoming SPC tournament and at the Prep National tournament in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania happening February 23-24.

Following this season, both students are moving on to compete at the next level. Colin will be wrestling at NC State while Noah plans to compete at Franklin and Marshall College. The next opportunity to watch the wrestling team compete will be at the SPC tournament at St. John's on February 17. Good luck!

Congratulations to the entire wrestling team and coaches for their hard work this season! Check out some of the photos from the tournament below.

The Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) announced this week the winners of its top awards for scholastic publications. Of the 1,100 digital, print newspapers, magazines and yearbooks submitted, the Kinkaid Falcon was named as one of 15 Scholastic Gold winners for print news. The newspaper staff submitted five of their six issues from 2016-2017 to be judged by CSPA.

Publications are judged on their excellence as showing by their design, photography, concept , coverage and writing. Co-Editor & Chief of this year's paper, Arman Badrei '18 believes it has been a multi-year process that has led to receiving this recognition.

"I think definitely the impact Ms. Yim left and the style that she started her first year, which was our freshman year, has stuck with us. The mentality of raising the bar of writing and design has been important," Badrei says.

Distributed a few times a year, the Kinkaid Falcon covers a wide range of topics including happenings in and around the school, politics, pop culture and often tackling hot button social issues. Enthusiastically hand delivering copies hot off the press to their fellow students and faculty throughout campus, the staff takes pride in facilitating engaging conversations through their publication.

"Yes we're the voice of the students, but I also think it's bigger than that. We're the voice of Kinkaid," says Co-Editor Allison Favaloro '18. "When people come in and see our school, there's newspapers everywhere that they can pick up and look at...that's one of the first things they see and I think that's really impactful".

With the school year coming to a close, the editors and staff are looking to finish the year strong and hope to continue their new standard of excellence for years to come.

"I think (our goal) would definitely be to win the same awards. I think that bar has been set and we hope to reach it. I think more concretely, I want to see the quality of writing continue to be elevated so that it's more captivating storytelling," says Badrei.

Congratulations team!

Both Upper School's VEX and FIRST Technical Challenge (FTC) robotics teams recently completed their 2017-18 seasons by participating in their respective Southeast Texas Regional Championships. While neither team advanced to the next round of competition, each competed hard in their final matches.

The VEX team achieved early success, winning the Cy-Fair Clawbot Challenge at the end of September, just a few weeks removed from Hurricane Harvey. Competing in three qualifying matches, the team improved their robots capabilities each time. At the VEX Southeast Texas Regional tournament in late February, the team finished 3-5 against the top teams in the region, its strongest showing since the Clawbot Challenge.

The FTC Robotics participated in the West Houston FTC league where they experienced both failures and success throughout the season. The season's high point came at the Reindeer Roundup Qualifying tournament in December, where the team earned second place in the Inspire Award. The Inspire Award is the highest honor given to the team that best embodies the FIRST Tech Challenge Program by being a strong ambassador for FIRST programs, being a top contender in the other judges awards, and acting with Gracious Professionalism.

Julian Meyer '19 was named one of three FIRST Technical Challenge Dean's List finalist at the Southeast Texas

Regionals and is under consideration to become one of ten Dean's List Award winners that will be announced at the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston in mid-April. More information about the FIRST Dean's List can be found here at https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/deans-list.

Congratulate Julian and both teams on another solid season!

After an extensive search that resulted in an impressive pool of candidates, we are pleased to announce Torrence Botts has been selected to lead our Boys Basketball Program. Botts will serve as the Varsity Head Coach and oversee the development of the sub-varsity and middle school basketball teams.

Botts began his coaching career at St. Francis Episcopal Day School before serving as the Head JV and Varsity Basketball Assistant Coach at Kinkaid. After his first season at Kinkaid, Botts was hired as a Varsity Assistant Basketball Coach and Physical Education Teacher at Stafford High School in Stafford, Texas. Botts was promoted to Head Varsity Basketball coach at Stafford in 2010. As the Head Coach, Botts led the Spartans to multiple District Championships and playoff appearances. His 2017 squad finished the year as Regional Quarterfinalists in the State Playoffs. Additionally, Coach Botts was named District Coach of the Year in 2011, 2014, and 2017.

The Houston native graduated from the University of Houston where he earned his B.A. in Kinesiology. While at the University of Houston, Botts was a two-sport Division I student-athlete earning multiple varsity letters in both basketball and football for the Cougars. As a high school student, the Clear Brook graduate was a three-sport athlete. As a basketball player, Botts earned two First Team All Region and All District honors as well as being a McDonalds All American Nominee.

In addition to his basketball coaching responsibilities, Coach Botts will teach physical education, serve as an assistant football coach in the fall and coach a sport in the spring.

Torrence's tireless work ethic, his experience and success as a Head Basketball Coach and Physical Education Teacher, along with his familiarity of Kinkaid and Houston-area youth sports make him an excellent fit to lead our program. Torrence embodies the positive qualities to serve as a teacher, coach and mentor in our community. Please join us in welcoming Torrence Botts back to Kinkaid.

Great job Post Oak! Kinkaid is so proud of you Ethan, Andy, Richie, and Carter!

We hope you enjoyed Mo Ranch!

Sophia Solé will be attending Stanford University where she will be one of 6 freshman on the Varsity Co-ed Sailing Team.   She is a member of the Texas Corinthian Yacht Club and sails with the Gulf Coast Youth Sailing Association.  She sails the Laser and also crews for her sister, AnaClare in the i420 (pictured here).  

For the past two summers, Sophia and AnaClare have competed in the i420 World Championships in Karatsu, Japan and San Remo, Italy with top finishes for the US women team. This summer Sophia plans to compete in Laser Under-21 Worlds in Nieuwpoort, Belgium.  Sophia was captain of the varsity girls cross country team at Kinkaid for the past two years and believes that in both sports focus and discipline are vital to success. 

Lower School Innovation Coordinator Krissy Venosdale has been selected as one of 52 educators from across the country selected for the fifth annual PBS Digital Innovators Program. The program recognizes classroom changemakers: educators who skillfully approach education with a bold and fresh perspective and who integrate digital media and resources into their classrooms in a way that sparks a love of learning for their students.

Mrs. Venosdale is being recognized for her tremendous work and development of our Lower School Launch Pad, familiar to many our youngest falcons.

The PBS Digital Innovators will participate in ongoing professional development; share their ideas on PBS platforms; have access to exclusive resources from PBS LearningMedia; receive a free PBS Teacherline professional development course; and are invited to special events, including the 2017 PBS Digital Summit. This year's summit, in San Antonio, Texas, takes place directly before the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference.

Click here to read the full story from Houston Public Media. Congratulations Mrs. Venosdale and best of luck going forward!

Junior Jae LeDee has been named the Large Private School Player of the Year by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches. The TABC is comprised of over 5,000 coaches across the state. This season LeDee averaged 20.0 points and 12.0 rebounds per game. He was named to the All SPC and All South Zone teams, the Lee College All Tournament team as well as the Aldine and Le La Rocca Sand Dune Tournament teams this season. To see the full list of players selected, click here.

Additionally, with a record of 22-12, the Kinkaid Boys Varsity team earned a 5th place overall ranking in the TAPPS 6A/SPC Boys Team final standings.

Congratulations to Jae and the entire Falcon Basketball team!

Congratulations to Tanmay Srinivasan '20 and Ayush Krishnamoorti '20 for being two finalists in The Genes in Space^TM science contest. Among the top five finalists in the annual U.S. competition, 375 teams from grades seven through 12 proposed DNA analysis experiments to address real-life space exploration challenges. The winning experiment will be performed aboard the International Space Station (ISS).