City’s best, brightest students

Before graduating, top seniors honored for high school excellence and potential

Maria Begay has big plans — and she’s about to set them in motion. After graduating from Santa Fe Indian School this month, she’ll attend Arizona State University to study architecture.

The area of study piqued her interest while completing her senior honors project. Throughout her last year of high school, Begay, who is Navajo, studied the revitalization of traditional architecture in her community.

One day, she said, she hopes to combine her forthcoming degree in architecture with traditional building and cultural practices to improve housing conditions on the Navajo Nation.

“In my culture, homes are a place where we share stories and pass down traditions and knowledge. It’s a place where you’re comfortable, you’re home,” Begay said.

“If we’re comfortable in our homes and we feel connected to our culture, that’ll continue to make our traditions thrive.”

Begay was one of dozens of impressive high school seniors at La Fonda on the Plaza on Wednesday night, there to celebrate their accomplishments at the annual Super Scholars Awards Banquet.

The ceremony honors students with exceptional academic records and high test scores in addition to recognizing the teacher or mentor who made the biggest difference in their educational career, said Randy Moreno, assistant vice president of marketing at Century Bank, which sponsors the event in

conjunction with The New Mexican.

“We just want them to be honored,” Moreno said. “And they honor us by telling us, ‘Hey, this is what I want to be.’ ”

The students’ range of interests — from

sustainable agriculture to video game design, international relations to explosives — made one thing clear: There is no one way to be a super scholar.

Julian Rodriguez and Natalia Sabato, both of whom will graduate from the Academy for Technology and the Classics later this month, are going from New Mexico to the Ivy League — and then, perhaps, back to New Mexico.

In the fall, Rodriguez will head to Columbia University to study biochemistry while Sabato will pursue a degree in international relations at Stanford University.

Though Sabato anticipates her field of study will take her abroad first, she can imagine returning to New Mexico later in her career. And Rodriguez plans to use his expertise in biochemistry to push for water conservation and sustainable agricultural practices in his home state.

“I want to come back to New Mexico for sure and use my degree to help the field of agriculture here. I want to work directly with farmers,” Rodriguez said.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe High School seniors Gabbi Herbert and Ada Zoe Zgela hope to strike the right balance between the creative and technical.

Zgela plans to major in history and minor in political science or art at the University of New Mexico, a mix she said she hopes will “combine creativity with intellectualism.”

Herbert will pursue a degree in video game design at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

“It’s really creative, which I need, and it’s also really technical — getting into the programming and the design and animation,” Herbert said.

Zgela even used Super Scholars as an opportunity to honor her first educator: Jakob Zgela, her father and a teacher at Early College Opportunities High School.

Perhaps Gabriella Armijo, who will graduate from Monte del Sol Charter School later this month, best exemplifies the Super Scholars’ varied interest — all in one person.

“She’s a scientist, an artist, a literary genius — you name it,” said Dayni Staddon, a history teacher and Armijo’s chosen guest for the evening.

In her four years at Monte del Sol, Armijo participated in various science and engineering programs while registering new voters and completing mentorships in tattoo artistry, metal fabrication and American Sign Language.

Next year, she’ll attend New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology to study mechanical engineering, with hopes of taking advantage of the school’s program in energetic materials to learn more about explosives.

As she reflected on her time in high school, Armijo wondered, “What haven’t I done?”

PHOTOS BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN Houda Tarrab, left, enjoys the moment with her daughter Hajer Maaz, a senior in The MASTERS Program, after she received her Super Scholar award Wednesday at a banquet at La Fonda on the Plaza.

Maria Begay, a senior at the Santa Fe Indian School, is hugged by her mother, Phoebe Begay, after she received her Super Scholar award. Begay plans to attend Arizona State University to study architecture. She hopes to combine her degree in architecture with traditional building and cultural practices to improve housing on the Navajo Nation.

Ada Zoe Zgela, a senior at Santa Fe High School, applauds her Super Scholar classmates after she collected her award Wednesday during a banquet at La Fonda on the Plaza. Zgela plans to major in history and minor in political science or art at the University of New Mexico, a mix she said she hopes will “combine creativity with intellectualism.”

PHOTOS BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN People applaud in sign language for Adrien Ercolino, a senior at New Mexico School for the Deaf, while he collected his Super Scholar award Wednesday at a banquet at La Fonda on the Plaza.