ASTORIA – It may have taken a while for spring to finally peak this year, but students at Saint Demetrios High School in Astoria had a spring in their step beginning in early March.

Mila Lyssikatos of the 7th grade represented her school at the New York City Scholars Spelling Bee of the nationally known as the Scripps competition, at Hunter School- one of only 38 New York City public, private/parochial, and charter school students in the area to participate.

Victor Sabarianov of the 10th grade won an Honors Award for his project Solar System Simulator Using C++ at the Central New York Science and Engineering Fair. Victor began attending Saint Demetrios High School earlier this year as part of the school’s synchronized remote learning program and his talents in all subject areas are evident to all his teachers and administrators.

Gregory Exarhouleas also of the 10th grade earned a full scholarship to the Summer STEM program at Cooper Union. This is in addition to the fact that he along with Andrew Bolanos and Yianni Garatziotis of the 11th grade participated in the National Grid Saint Francis College Science program from February through April where they were introduced to the dynamics of various Biochemistry and Environmental Sciences by college professors and experts in their respective fields.

Finally and most impressively, the Senior Class of 2022 have made the community extremely proud with their acceptances to some of the finest universities in the nation if not the world. For the first time in the history of the school, a student was admitted to Princeton University; Cora Louise Fleming Benite has chosen to attend this prestigious institution after also being accepted to Bard Berlin (another first for our school) and the University of Vermont.

In addition, Evgenia Katehis, a QuestBridge finalist, was accepted with a full scholarship to Boston College; the young lady was also accepted to Fordham, St. John’s University College of Pharmacy, and SUNY Old Westbury College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Antigoni Aidonis and Nicole Katherine Tiliakos were accepted to New York University with lucrative academic merit scholarships while other seniors will be attending Stony Brook, Pace University, St. John’s University, New York Institute of Technology, Post/LIU, Manhattan College, Hunter, City, Queens, and SUNY Old Westbury.

The administration, faculty, and the community of Saint Demetrios are proud of all their students who despite the challenges of COVID-19 have excelled not only academically but also in extracurricular pursuits including staging productions featuring poetry, music, the arts, and literature and raising funds for worthwhile charities such as Ukrainian Refugee Relief and the Ronald McDonald House New York. It is expected that as the academic year 2021-2022 comes to an end, more student accomplishments will be promoted to the public.