WJ Debate

The WJ Debate team won 30 debates and lost 12 on Dec. 7. The following seniors on the debate team won at least one of their two debates: Omar Agha, Megi Belegu, Girard Bucello, Zach Doyle, Leah Kraft, Max Lerner, Catherine Liu, Bea Owens, Chad Price, Maxine Rich and Josh Shields.

WJ Forensics

Walter Johnson’s team won the countywide Dec. 10 event with 80 team points, 33 more than the second place team.

Here are WJ’s individual standouts:

Leah Kraft  1st Place in Extemporaneous Speaking
Rebecca Lerner  1st Place in Informative Speaking
Danielle Markowitz 1st Place in Humor
Sam Cummins  2nd Place (tied with Bea Owens) in Poetry, 5th Place in Children’s Literature
Bea Owens  2nd Place (tied with Sam) in Poetry, 6th Place in Humor
Madison Chase  2nd Place in Informative Speaking
Defne Dilsiz  3rd Place in Children’s Lit, 3rd Place in Humor
Maya Bowman  3rd Place in Prose

In Reader’s Theater, the ensembles of Bea Owens, Eddie Simon and Orlan Wilhite (in “Love is a Fallacy”) and Defne Dilsiz and Iliana Papanicolaou (“My Quiet Neighbor”) each took first place in their respective sections.

WJ Jazz Ensemble

The Walter Johnson High School Jazz Ensemble received 4 straight superior ratings at the MCPS Jazz Festival hosted at Sherwood High School on Dec. 10.  Following the festival the jazz combo travelled to Annapolis, MD to play for Governor O’Malley’s holiday open house.