Perfect Score

Seven students from William Penn Middle School in Lower Makefield performed to perfection last month at the world finals of the Odyssey of the Mind problem-solving competition. Their team was the only one to earn a perfect score at the contest, held at the University of Colorado. The event drew about 700 teams from elementary through post-secondary schools. The students also won a special creativity award and first-place honors for their division, which was composed of more than 40 middle school teams.

WE'VE ALL read depressing newspaper stories about underachieving local high school students. This, I'm happy to say, isn't that kind of column. No, I've set aside this space to give a well-deserved thumbs-up to Cameron Clarke, a senior at Germantown Academy who scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT. That's right. A perfect score. That hardly ever happens. Although more than 1.66 million students took the SAT in 2012, only 360 test takers nationwide achieved a spotless 2400, according to SAT officials.

Christie Brandt of Malvern and Max Young of Wynnewood are members of an elite club. Brandt, a junior at Great Valley High School, and Young, a junior at Episcopal Academy, are the only students in the state who scored a perfect 2,400 on the new SAT, the most dreaded and sweeping of standardized tests. Both have more than their flawless scores in common. Their coach was Matt Joseph, who wrote his doctoral dissertation at Temple University on coaching for the SAT. Joseph, 46, of Newtown Square, charges $180 an hour and has prepped high school students for the College Board test for the last 18 years.

It's something teen-agers want almost as much as a winning lottery ticket or a date with Brad Pitt. It's a perfect score on the SAT - a 1600 - and the odds of getting it are just about as long: about 1/500th of 1 percent, says Tom Ewing, a spokesman for Educational Testing Services, the organization that administers the SAT. More than 2 million students will take the test this year, and ETS estimates that only 550 will get every question right....

Donald C. Carroll, 67, a former dean who guided the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School through 11 years of dynamic growth, died of cancer at his home in Center City on Feb. 24. Mr. Carroll, the ninth dean of Wharton and the first chosen from outside the institution, headed the school from 1972 until 1983, when he resigned to return to private business. In recent years, he had been a member of several corporate boards and was a consultant to SEI Corp., a computer software company in Wayne.

Ten-year-old Andrew Fair is the kind of person you'd like to have around when you're studying for the Scholastic Aptitude Test. A student at Lower Southampton Elementary School, Andrew is one of only three fourth graders in the country to get a perfect score on a series of WordMasters vocabulary tests. WordMasters is an annual national competition that tests students' vocabulary knowledge and verbal reasoning skills. The tests were given through Andrew's mentally gifted class at Lower Southampton.

No, the Philadelphian who led Union troops at Gettysburg was not Thacher Longstreth. It wasn't Ulysses S. Grant, either. These were only two of the imaginative answers to what we thought was a pretty easy question. It was Gen. George G. Meade. Callowhill Street was not named in honor of "Wild Bill Callowhill" or "Benny Hill, a callow fellow," as readers suggested. It honored the family of William Penn's second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn. Our first Poor Ronald's Philadelphia History and Trivia Quiz, published May 17, proved again that nobody is perfect.

When Doug Koenig, 23, of Pipersville, returns to Barry, Ill., next month to defend his title in the seventh annual Masters International Shooting Championship, he will bring along both his custom-made 9mm pistol and his secret weapon: his chiropractor. Last year Koenig edged out his closest competitor in the nation's premier professional pistol shooting tournament by 0.99 of a point to capture the Grand Master's crown. For his performance, Koenig won the tournament's top prize of $25,000.

And the Dancing With the Stars winner is race-car driver Helio Castroneves, who can now add a Mirrorball trophy to his collection of Indy 500 brass. "We've been really working hard. I thank all the fans and all of America and my team that lets me do this," Castroneves said right after he won. Although I loved his fancy footwork and his radiant smile, and he deserved the perfect score of 30 for his final performance of The Quickstep, I have to admit, I'm a little salty he won. Yes, he looked great in yellow, but Melanie Brown, aka Mel B. aka Scary Spice, had the highest scores each consecutive week.

W. Roy Kolb of Buckingham Township has been re-elected chairman of the Bucks County Historical Society. He is a vice president at Butcher & Singer Inc. in Doylestown. Also elected to one-year terms by the society's board of trustees were: Thomas McK. Thomas of Buckingham Township, first vice chairman. He is president of Thomas Travel Service in Doylestown. Francis J. Bruzda of Doylestown Township, second vice chairman. He is chairman of Fairfield Groups Inc. in Horsham.

WE'VE ALL read depressing newspaper stories about underachieving local high school students. This, I'm happy to say, isn't that kind of column. No, I've set aside this space to give a well-deserved thumbs-up to Cameron Clarke, a senior at Germantown Academy who scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT. That's right. A perfect score. That hardly ever happens. Although more than 1.66 million students took the SAT in 2012, only 360 test takers nationwide achieved a spotless 2400, according to SAT officials.

These are excerpts from a commencement speech given on May 12 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania's journalism department, of which Susan Snyder is a 1985 graduate.   Susan Snyder   is an Inquirer staff writer and winner of a 2012 Pulitzer Prize   The theme of my speech is simple: Anything is possible if you care enough, if you work very hard, and if you persist.   I don't come from an affluent family. I was the first person in my family — and, ultimately, the only person — to graduate from college.

WASHINGTON - Clad in white pants and a pink shirt, Lori Anne Madison wiped her hands and walked briskly to the microphone Wednesday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor. She announced her presence to the world. "Hi," she said. Lori Anne's first time on stage at the National Spelling Bee likely couldn't have come soon enough for the bubbly 6-year-old who sometimes can't sit still. She's the youngest competitor in the event's history, but it didn't seem that way on Wednesday.

The results of New Jersey's new local-government efficiency test are in, and the municipalities that received poor grades are getting their allowances docked this month, so to speak. To penalize the 161 towns and boroughs with the lowest scores, the Christie administration is withholding a portion of their previously approved state aid. The tiniest boroughs will be penalized a few hundred dollars, while the larger ones will lose as much as $6,500, or up to 3 percent of their final aid payment.

SO, WHEN Roy Halladay stepped to the podium and donned a uniform bearing No. 34 just a few short months after Cliff Lee performed so well in that number, we got to thinking about all the other prominent (and not-so prominent) Phillies who have worn those digits. And, what the heck, we're always up for a good, old-fashioned quiz. So, with a lot of help from the people at baseball-almanac.com . . . 1. Before Lee had it last season, he had been the most recent Phillie to wear No. 34. (4 points)

Bela Karolyi remembers 1976 when his star pupil, Nadia Comaneci, scored gymnastics' first perfect 10. Not only was it, he said, an accurate assessment of the Romanian teenager's performance, but the score was also understandable even to those who couldn't distinguish a pike position from a pirouette. But the perfect 10, like the sport's old vaulting horses, has been mothballed. Here at this weekend's 2008 U.S. Olympic gymnastics team trials, and in August for a first time in an Olympic Games, gymnastics' complex scoring system, its revised Code of Points, will be in effect.

And the Dancing With the Stars winner is race-car driver Helio Castroneves, who can now add a Mirrorball trophy to his collection of Indy 500 brass. "We've been really working hard. I thank all the fans and all of America and my team that lets me do this," Castroneves said right after he won. Although I loved his fancy footwork and his radiant smile, and he deserved the perfect score of 30 for his final performance of The Quickstep, I have to admit, I'm a little salty he won. Yes, he looked great in yellow, but Melanie Brown, aka Mel B. aka Scary Spice, had the highest scores each consecutive week.

Christie Brandt of Malvern and Max Young of Wynnewood are members of an elite club. Brandt, a junior at Great Valley High School, and Young, a junior at Episcopal Academy, are the only students in the state who scored a perfect 2,400 on the new SAT, the most dreaded and sweeping of standardized tests. Both have more than their flawless scores in common. Their coach was Matt Joseph, who wrote his doctoral dissertation at Temple University on coaching for the SAT. Joseph, 46, of Newtown Square, charges $180 an hour and has prepped high school students for the College Board test for the last 18 years.

Seven students from William Penn Middle School in Lower Makefield performed to perfection last month at the world finals of the Odyssey of the Mind problem-solving competition. Their team was the only one to earn a perfect score at the contest, held at the University of Colorado. The event drew about 700 teams from elementary through post-secondary schools. The students also won a special creativity award and first-place honors for their division, which was composed of more than 40 middle school teams.

IT'S ENOUGH to make you want to give up your membership in the NRA. Or throw out your Monty Python tapes. Or both. The American military has gone practically gourmet with its war food. Once upon a time our soldiers got Spam. And beans. For a special treat, they got Spam, Spam, Spam, beans and Spam. Now they get pasta primavera. And seafood jambalaya. And jalapeno cheese spread with crackers. What the hell is war coming to? The packets are now called MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat. Isn't that special?