November was filled with great news for Assumption Fine Arts!
Several students attended and participated in judged events at the Iowa Thespian Festival at the University of Northern Iowa the weekend of Nov. 11. Assumption students placed in the top three in three of the 10 judged events.
Congratulations to the cast of “Canaan Days:” Liam Baldwin, Mundo Cadena, Sam Fer, Sam Jones, Jake Hannon, Patrick Kakert, Tanner Konrardy, Caleb Neff, Jacob Neff, Ben Pashon, Andrew Skalak and AJ Skinner on receiving second place and a superior rating. Congratulations to Jacob Neff and Sam Jones who received second place and an excellent rating in duet acting for their piece from Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons.” Congratulations also go to Bailey Hager for winning third place and receiving an excellent rating for her costume design for “The Tempest.” To top off the weekend, Sam Jones is now co-chair of the Iowa State Thespian Student Board.
Assumption’s Art Club also had great success this November at the Festival of Trees in Davenport. Alex Underwood received a blue ribbon for his entrance in the Quad City Area High
School Art Display at the festival. The Art Club created a beautiful designer tree for Quad City Arts Festival of Trees with rolled-up newspapers for branches and ribbons crafted by hand. Their tree was awarded with not one, but two blue ribbons — one for first place in the handmade division and one for best festival theme. Only one tree gets the latter distinction.
Finally, two Assumption band students were chosen to participate in the Nov. 19 All-State Band Festival: Emma Simmons, who sat 13th chair of 21 in the clarinet section, and AJ Skinner, who was given the honor of sitting first chair in the euphonium section. In layman’s terms, that means AJ is the top high school euphonium player in Iowa.
