Honors Student

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.

Ten students at Archbishop Prendergast Catholic High School for Girls have been named Advanced Placement Scholars for exceptional achievement on college-level AP exams. The following students took three or more AP exams. Jennifer Langley and Elizabeth Murphy were awarded the AP Scholar with Distinction Award for an average score of 3.5 or more on all AP exams. Kelly Boyce, Margaret Kucich and Amanda Muir earned the AP Scholar with Honor Award for an average score of 3.25 or higher on all AP exams.

When David Beiler takes the stage with the Philadelphia Singers Chorale, his father will be close by for the debut performance. Jonathan Beiler is not just a proud father. He is also a first violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and will be onstage, too. The father and son will appear in concert together for the first time tonight in the first of three performances by the chorale and orchestra in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center. "It's just an incredible experience for me," said David Beiler, 18. "It's pretty awesome to be able to sing with him like this.

Lauren McArdle was a gymnast for nine years, one good enough to make it to the state championships in the uneven parallel bars four years ago, when she was a freshman at West Chester East. A number of factors intervened to put an end to her gymnastics career. For one thing, East dropped its program when the PIAA decided to end sponsorship of the state championship meet. Then there was the matter of McArdle's height. She is 5-foot-7, a bit above the norm for a female gymnast.

Andrea Pfeiffer loves being in pressure situations on the field, but the pressure of playing club soccer almost drove her from the sport. The Conestoga senior remembers waking up with knots in her stomach, dreading practice and the chore that soccer had become sometime between her freshman and sophomore years. She despised the internal competition within her team, the feeling that she had to prove herself to college scouts every time she took the field. A consummate team player, Pfeiffer wanted no part of it. But then, she started playing goalie for Conestoga's lacrosse team.

Shawnee's Emily Arnot has been painting pretty pictures with her field hockey stick on South Jersey landscapes natural and artificial over the last four years. The midfielder is an artful dodger and passer who can place the ball on the sticks of forwards in the circle, resulting in scores and prompting Shawnee coach Renee Phelps to call her an "unsung hero. " Arnot has only two assists so far because there have been multiple touches on the ball she sends into the circle before it goes in the net. However, she has a way of finding the back of the net on her own - she has scored five goals in eight games.

Florence catcher Chelsea Kehr remembers the parade fondly. There were fire engines, police cars and a party at someone's house in the township that encompasses 9.65 square miles between Bristol and Bordentown. And they were all there to celebrate the NJSIAA Group 1 state softball championship won by Kehr and her teammates last June. "We rode around the town in a bus with our heads out the windows and cars honking their horns," Kehr said. "There were flashing lights and people on front porches waving at us. The town came out to see us. "Florence is very sports-oriented.

Kelsey Mitchell's 100th career goal was as pretty as a plum dangling from a branch, waiting to be picked. The ball was suspended in midair when Mitchell, Eastern's and South Jersey's top scorer, used the reverse side of her stick to pluck it past Shawnee's goaltender en route to a 4-0 victory that claimed the South Jersey Group 4 field hockey crown Nov. 8. Mitchell closed the season with two more goals, making her the top scorer in the...

Disarming and unexpectedly poignant, An Education contrasts the knowledge learned inx school with that learned from life. The pupil in question is Jenny, a 16-year-old honors student circa 1961 at a girls' prep school in Twickenham, a middle-class London suburb, who is destined for Oxford. One rainy afternoon, a stranger named David offers to give her a ride home in his shiny sports car. After Jenny is introduced to material pleasures, Oxford looks less like a destination than a dead end. As played by the criminally adorable Carey Mulligan - a winsome actress with Audrey Hepburn eyes, Jean Simmons dimples, an Ellen Page mouth, and her own unforced mirth - Jenny is a book-smart girl hungering for life lessons.

Next year when Jill Hanley is asked about what she did during summer vacation, she will be able to give her teacher a detailed presentation on her travels to England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The sixth-grade student at Mullica Hill Friends School and 40 other students from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware plan to travel to Europe from July 6 to 19 as representatives of the People to People Student Ambassador Programs. People to People, founded in 1956 by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, promotes international understanding through education and friendship.