Alumni Class Notes
These Alumni Class Notes were published in the 2024-2025 Evergreen magazine. If you want to be included in future class notes, you can submit class notes by emailing Lindsay Bartlett.
Rose Jacobs '13 will be attending Yale Law School as part of the JD 2028. She just completed three years of working in campaign finance for the Democratic National Committee (including work for Biden and Harris' campaigns). She graduated from Walter Payton in 2017 and Columbia in 2021.
Cade McHugh '19 has joined the Voice Opera program at University of Illinois and they participated in Puccini's La Bohème in October 2024.
Almir Hajdarevic '20 has joined McGill's student-run publication, Bull & Bear, and recently wrote an article about the historic McGill vs. Harvard rugby game that takes place every year — a 150-year-old rivalry! You can read the article here.
Vaughn Collier '21 and his Payton teammates were invited to Nationals for track and field, and finished 5th overall in the nation, which means that Vaughn is an All-American. Earlier this season, he also set a school record for running the indoor mile.
Lillian Pollack '21 is a National Merit Semifinalist from Beacon Academy. She was among 16,000 semifinalists who rose from 1.3 million juniors who took the test last year, putting her in the top 1% of this year's high school seniors.
Kingsley Goldman '22, a junior at St. Ignatius, was named 1st team all-state in field hockey, All-Conference (Catholic League), and Academic All Conference.
Dominique Leroy '22 had the 2nd highest PSAT score in the Mt. Carmel class of '26 and has been referred to as a "Physics All-Star" in his AP Physics class. He has also developed a love of flying and even went on his first flight this year!
Lucia Almeida '23 and the Parker Robotics Team won a 1st place design award at that Chicago League Tournament for their strong engineering portfolio; the first 1st place finish in Parker's school history! This past season, she was lead driver for most of the meets.
Bennett Kemp '23 was accepted into the Ravinia Jazz Scholars program for guitar. The Jazz Scholars is comprised of 25 talented young musicians from the Chicagoland area.
Max Henley '24, a freshman at Cranbrook, completed a 14-day Wall Street Stock Market and Investment Experience in New York City this summer.
Sawyer Jemsek '24 participated in the Dumbach Scholars program, an enrichment program designed to enhance the curriculum of Loyola Academy's most gifted and motivated students. Since its creation in 1984, the program has "helped prepare Loyola graduates for admission to the finest universities in the world."
Avani Nandi '24, a freshman at Northside College Prep, returned to the National History Day competition for the 3rd year in a row. She submitted independently, as Northside did not have a History Fair program. Avani won as a national qualifier with a documentary on the Bracero Program's Legacy of Rights of Non-Citizens.
Drew Gerstung '21 and Leo Gerstung '22, senior and junior at DePaul College Prep, worked on a short film together for Drew's capstone project in Advanced Film Studies class, and it was featured at DePaul Prep's Arts Festival. Drew wrote, directed, and acted in it, and Leo was the cinematographer.