Honors Student

A former Woodrow Wilson High School track coach was convicted yesterday of sexually assaulting a female student from 1985 through 1988. John Hovington, 40, of Clementon, was convicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault, each of which carries a potential sentence of 10 to 20 years. He was acquitted on a single count of endangering the welfare of a child. Camden County Superior Court Judge John Mariano allowed Hovington, who has been free on a $25,000 recognizance bond, 24 hours to raise $7,500 cash bail.

The man on trial in the death of a 13-year-old honors student from West Philadelphia disrupted the courtroom again yesterday by tackling his attorney - despite being handcuffed and manacled at the waist. Peter Cook, 32, accused of killing Jasmine McDonald in 2003, lowered his shoulder and lunged into his lead counsel, Thomas McGill Jr., just before the Common Pleas Court proceedings recessed for lunch. He was immediately restrained by a throng of sheriff's deputies and law enforcement authorities.

Jason Jackson, a student at Aldan Elementary School in the William Penn School District, is a first-prize winner in the Delaware County Columbus Quincentennial Foundation Essay Contest. District students who earned honorable mention are: Quincy Jones, Mario Faillace, Kathryn Rohrbach, Hilary Groswith and Mia Martin from Aldan; and Jared Dickerson, Erin McGuire, Shannon Worley, Beth Lenahan, Kurt Shaffer and Emily Schmick of East Lansdowne Basics School. Jackson received a $300 savings bond and the honorable-mention winners received a cap and a watch during ceremonies held recently at Widener University.

H ERE'S WHAT will be making news in Philly this week: NEIGHBORHOODS Anti-violence walk Local City Year volunteers will unite with residents of three neighborhoods on Saturday for the third annual Walk for PEACE. (Promoting Education and Community Empowerment). The aim is to promote awareness about city violence and provide the community with tools to foster peace in their neighborhoods. The walk will begin at three sites throughout the city: the recently renovated West Philadelphia High School; Tustin Recreation Center in Overbrook, and Piccoli Park in Juniata Park.

Philadelphia police said yesterday that they had unmasked an honors student at St. Joseph's University as the gunman who wore a ghoul mask while stealing $150,000 from a Northeast Philadelphia savings and loan on Halloween. Philadelphia police detectives and FBI agents arrested the student and four other people yesterday and Saturday in connection with the Oct. 31 holdup of the Commonwealth Federal Savings & Loan Association branch in the 7100 block of Frankford Avenue in the city's Holmesburg section.

Last Halloween, police say, Gilbert Caulk was the lookout and Charles Wagner the mastermind of a heist in which a college honors student wearing a black cape and a ghoul mask robbed a bank of $150,000. Last week, police say, Caulk and a man who police believe may have been Wagner drove a truck through the front window of a bank, grabbed $20,000 in money bags and sped away in a stolen Lincoln Town Car. The robbery last Monday of the Fidelity Bank branch on Cottman Avenue near Large Street was so bold that one investigator said the bandits should get a "star for ingenuity.

Kirsten Brendel arrived at the University of Pennsylvania four years ago as an honors student and an average basketball player. Shy and uncertain of her ability, she didn't think she'd make the Penn team. Most of her shots came from no closer to the basket than the foul line. Brendel is still an honors student, majoring in economics, with a 3.0 grade-point average. Reluctantly, she has become a basketball star. Not only does Brendel lead the Ivy League in scoring and rebounding, her average of 24.5 points per game is the ninth best in the nation.

Last Halloween, police say, Gilbert Caulk was the lookout and Charles Wagner the mastermind of a holdup in which a college honors student wearing a black cape and a ghoul mask robbed a bank of $150,000. Last week, police say, Caulk and a man who police believe may have been Wagner drove a truck through the front window of a bank, grabbed $20,000 in money bags and sped away in a stolen Lincoln Town Car. The robbery last Monday of the Fidelity Bank branch on Cottman Avenue near Large Street was so bold that one investigator said the bandits should get a "star for ingenuity.

A wash, cut and blow-dry was the request of Regina Grace as she settled into a chair and placed her hair in Monica Saunders' hands. It was just another day at the hairdressers for Grace, but instead of visiting her neighborhood salon, she was receiving a professional styling at the Marple Vocational Technical School in Broomall. Her hairdresser - Saunders, 18, an honors student from Archbishop Prendergast in Drexel Hill - was one of several vo-tech cosmetology students who put their classroom skills to the test on real customers like Grace every Thursday.

Coatesville's boys, Wissahickon's girls, Karl Dusen and Paige Miller were golden at the Steel City Invitational. The annual cross-country spectacular - widely regarded as the state's largest regular-season event and a precursor for the upcoming district and state meets - was even bigger than usual. A record 65 boys' teams and 417 finishers and 63 girls' teams and 347 finishers competed on Coatesville's famed 3.1-mile course, known for its three-quarter-mile-long hill that begins at the one-mile mark.