Gallery • 3 Photos

Photo by: Mena Ayazi

Mena Ayazi poses with the county favorite, Mr. Wayde Byard. The picture was taken during the Loudoun Business Partnership Breakfast where she received the Loudoun Times Future Leader Award.

Winning is a thrilling experience. The suspense leading up to the outcome is palpable as each contestant itches to know the results. Months of hard work, careful planning, and a great deal of creativity culminate into one moment, when you either hear your name or don’t. Fortunately for a few students, their names were spoken. They walked across stages, met important figures, saw their accomplishments all listed out, and then they were handed their accolade, a symbol of all the hard work, effort, and struggle that they experienced.

For senior Mena Ayazi, the accomplishment is unique as well as rewarding. Ayazi is the only recipient of the Loudoun Times Future Leader Award from Potomac Falls. This award gives a $1500 scholarship to 15 Loudoun County students who were nominated by two teachers and wrote a personal statement on what makes them unique. Ayazi was bestowed the honor at the Loudoun Business Partnership Breakfast about two weeks ago.

“It was pretty cool to go up onstage and have my accomplishments listed out and to be recognized for everything I do,” said Ayazi.

Ayazi was not only honored to accept the award for her accomplishments, but the hard work and efforts of family members before her, “I would thank my parents and my grandfather, they all value education very highly, and they didn’t have the opportunity for education for themselves, so I would just thank them for being my motivation. I always do everything for them, because I know that I’m not only fulfilling my dreams but theirs as well,” said Ayazi.

The support from her family is also supplemented by that of her classmates. “Thanks Potomac Falls for supporting me, I couldn’t have done it without you all,” she said with a laugh.

On March 20, junior Justin Trainor was also representing Potomac Falls, but instead at Loudoun Regional Science and Engineering Competition (RSEF). Trainor was selected out of a mass of students comprised of different schools, many coming from  AOS, to be at the regional science fair where he presented his project in front of several judges all day. At the end of the event he was awarded not only second place at the fair, but also the Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) awards.

“For the second place award, its a monetary award, and for the Yale award I get a certificate and a plaque, plus my name gets sent to their admissions office. For the MIT award I got a year subscription to a scientific journal and a monetary award,” said Trainor.

Trainor had been working on this project all year, and finally his months of hard work had been acknowledged. “It’s really nice to be recognized for a year’s hard work. Plus, getting awards from such prestigious universities is a really great experience,” said Trainor.

He plans to take his project even further, submitting it to the VA Biogeneius competition, a biotechnology competition, and hopes to be back at RSEF next year. He also anticipates doing the same sort of experimentation in the future. “Doing research and potentially contributing to society has been a rewarding experience. I would love to do research like this in college,” said Trainor.

Just as keys unlock buried treasure, the same goes for senior Jasmyn Moore, a national art award recipient. Moore was awarded a silver key at the Scholastic Art and Writing Contest, out of 250,000 entries. She entered a picture she had taken a few years ago, her own form of buried treasure, not at all expecting to win.

“I took this picture of a scene in Miami, where there was a group of women in cultural clothing who had pulled out some food and suddenly there was a swarm of seagulls around them, so it kind of made for the perfect picture,” said Moore about her photo.

Moore, in AP Art, never expected to be awarded such a high honor, being that her photo was about three years old. She also had doubts about her artistic abilities, as many often do, and was greeted with a pleasant surprise when she won a gold key at the regional level, taking her to the national competition. Winning such a prestigious honor helped Moore appreciate her artistic gift once more. “I thought it was really great to win an award at this level and rejuvenate my faith in my artistic abilities,” said Moore.

Parents are often our biggest fans as well as support staff, bank, and even motivation; something Moore knows very well. “I would thank my mom for being so helpful with this, she’s spent a lot of money on my camera and equipment, and she has been really supportive of all of this, along with my grandma,” said Moore, “But primarily, I’d like to thank God for giving me this artistic talent. I’ve met a lot of awesome people and had so many amazing experiences solely because of this talent.”