A group of NJROTC cadets, broken down into two teams of five contestants each, competed in an Area 7 Academic Competition called the “Brain Brawl” on Saturday, September 24, at Gaither High in Tampa. There were 24 schools in attendance, including the defending Brain Brawl national champion from Boca Raton High School. Read more
On Wednesday, 21 students from Mrs. Reilly’s drama class spent the morning in the rough-and-tumble section of South Boston’s Lower End and the early afternoon in the well-to-do area of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts as they observed Margie, Mike, Kate, Jean, Dottie, and Stevie try to be good people — or at least, that’s what it felt like. Read more
Many fun Lower School events took place this last week to celebrate the end of another wonderful school year. Students were given awards for the outstanding performance and behavior in class, enjoyed a beach party, a field day, and more. Read more
“She is a million faces crowded into one.
She is sunbaked eyes, pitied picture and smoke skin.
She is thick African roots tumbling down to the center of the earth.”
— an excerpt from the poem, “Boxes,” by Sasha DeSilva, Class of 2016
Putting words together in a poetic way has been a lesson learned by Sasha DeSilva ever since first taking an English class in eighth grade taught by Heather Ewing. She admits to have “forever loved how reading can take you into a whole other world,” but the passion for writing blossomed under Ewing’s wing — taking classes taught by the long-time instructor at Farragut in 9th grade and then again in 12th grade. Read more
Upper School Spanish instructor Cesar Robalino, who typically serves as the lead chaperone on the European trip during spring break, took five students abroad to Italy. Over the 10 days, the group — Maximillian Kostyashkin, Luke Markus, Gage Sears, Dominic Mazzone, and Matthew Hajek, along with Mr. Mazzone — visited Venice, Florence and Rome.
Mr. Robalino was kind enough to act both as a chaperone and historian, detailing the trip in a blog. Read more
Rob Ewing, Jose Hercher and Jim Christopher took a group of 18 students to Park City, Utah for an annual ski trip. This is the 11th year in a row for the ski trip, the first 9 years were at Squaw Valley, the past 2 have been at Park City, Utah. Read more
Over the weekend the Admiral Farragut Academy Scuba Dive Club ventured to North Florida and dove six springs which included Ginnie Springs, Devil’s Eye, Devil’s Ear, Little Devils, Orange Grove Sink, and Peacock Springs. Some students did open water diving, some did cavern, and two did some cave diving. Read more
Over the Valentine’s Day weekend, eight students went dry caving in the Withlacoochee Forest located about two hours north of Admiral Farragut Academy. They explored up to five caves that were big enough to crawl into and this year Dylan Lee ’19 found a new passageway.
Watch video of their trip by Patrick Hales ’17
“Some you are on your belly crawling the whole way and some you can stand up and walk around,” said Mr. Davenport , who is the scuba instructor at Farragut and has been doing dry cave trips for many years.
The students spent the morning caving and during the afternoon they checked out two springs found in the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area.
“The first spring, Buford Spring, requires walking 300 yards into the forest and then another 100 yards through a swamp where you sink up to your thighs in mud,” said Mr. Davenport. “Then you come to a completely natural spring that goes to depths around 160′. The second spring we visited was Eagle’s Nest. It is considered the Mount Everest of cave diving due to its depths (300’+) and remoteness.”
For Jack Seabrook ’16, who has been twice now, it’s one of his favorite trips.
“All we have to see are our headlamps,” said Jack. “Although Mr. Davenport has been there a ton of times, he still makes it exciting and fun. There’s a lot of holes that you could never imagine being able to fit in and without telling you whether you can or not, he will let you test it. Being pulled out of a tight spot is half the fun.”
The following students attended the trip:
Over the Winter Break, Farragut soccer coach Cesar Robalino took six students to Munich, Germany for an eight-day trip to participate in the GFL Soccer Enterprises team camp. The players who went included Joey Ambrefe ‘18, Josh Biggins ‘17, Alex Fiorillo ‘19, Kaan Gezen ‘17, Dylan Miksch ‘19, Alex Oi Moreno ‘19, and Ivan Volkov ‘17. Read more
Max Kostyashkin ’17, a 5-day boarder from Miami Beach, and Josh Biggins ’17, a 7-day boarder from Palm Beach Gardens, completed their sidemount certifications at Blue Grotto this past weekend. Scuba student Patrick Hales ’17, a 7-day boarder from the United Kingdom who is currently working on his Intro to Cave certification, also joined them on the dive for fun.
