Seniors Sabrina LaFaye, Jake Slipkovich, Cathleen Li, and Lee Anna Chen have been recognized for their works submitted in the 2019 Scholastic Art Competition. LaFaye was named as one of the five American Visions Nominees, which is the top honor, and won six Gold Keys, four Silver Keys, and four honorable mentions; Slipkovich won one Gold Key; and Li and Chen were honorable mentions. 

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are presented by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, and through this competition, nearly 350,000 works of visual art and writing are submitted, with 90,000 being recognized at the regional level. With their Gold and Silver Key awards, LaFaye and Slipkovich will be recognized at Cheekwood's Scholastic Awards Ceremony on February 2 and will have their pieces showcased at Cheekwood's Museum of Art during the Scholastic Art Exhibition.

The varsity girls basketball team has had an outstanding five-day stretch, which includes impressive wins over division foes Zion Christian Academy, Christ Presbyterian Academy, and Providence Christian Academy. The Panthers have used outstanding defense and a balanced offensive attack to win six straight games as they head into the final two weeks of the regular season. 

Fresh off the holiday break and a very solid showing at the prestigious Father Ryan Invitational, the FRA varsity wrestling squad returned home to the friendly confines for the FRA Panther Gymnasium this week to host a three way match versus Division II foes Ensworth and Donelson Christian Academy (DCA). The Panthers swept the meet by defeating Donelson Christian Academy 54-12 and Ensworth by a score of 51-18! 

Congratulations to Alexander Gales, Josh Holtschlag, and Samantha Shafer, who signed letters of intent to play at the collegiate level on Wednesday. Gales will pole vault at High Point University; Holtschlag has signed to play golf at Bucknell University; and Shafer will continue her volleyball career at the University of North Alabama.

Dramatic. Unbelievable. Resilient. Heroic.

When the Panther football players strapped on their gear Friday night, they knew what was ahead of them – a battle, against the tough number one seed from the east Notre Dame team (10-1), away from home, for the opportunity to advance to the TSSAA Division II-A State Semifinals for the first time since 2001.  They couldn’t have imagined, though, the way it would all play out. A slow start. An uphill climb. A comeback win. It was all of those things as the Panthers defeated the Fighting Irish 34-33 in a game that won’t soon be forgotten.

It is hard to believe that the iPhone was introduced just a decade ago, and though drones are now available for purchase as Christmas presents, as recently as 2012, they were on the cutting edge of many technology departments. The past decade has been full of rapid innovation, and with emerging technology around virtual and augmented reality as well as artificial intelligence, predicting the future is increasingly challenging. As parents and educators, this lack of clarity can be intimidating as we work to prepare our children for what awaits them when they graduate. How can we educate students for a world whose future is unclear to us?  

Junior Andrew Cox ran away with the TSSAA Division II-A Cross Country State Championship on Saturday. Cox won the title with a lifetime best time of 16:24 as he ran away from the field, and Ethan Rhoden medaled with a 12th place finish, leading the Panthers to a fifth place overall team finish. 

We recently had Homecoming 2018, and one of the traditions during that week is celebrating our legacy students at the annual Legacy Breakfast. Legacy students are those whose parents are FRA alumni, and we spend the morning with them and their parents, who always seem to find FRA friends, old and new alike. This year, we have a record 87 legacy students.

While the school has grown and changed over the years, the mission and heart of FRA remains the same.

Sloan Kaczynski has always loved to write. So when the annual writing contest for middle school students came around, the then fifth-grader jumped at the chance to put her ideas to paper. “I always thought expressing myself through writing was a great way to deal with whatever I’m going through, whatever my thoughts are,” she said. Now, two years later, seventh grader Kaczynski is a published writer of The Gold Rush, A Story Filled with Family Love & Personal Perseverance.