Margaret Kijinski and Ethan Jones are the Fredonia Rotary Students of the Month for November.
Kijinski is the daughter of Karen and John Kijinski. She was born in Pocatello, Idaho and moved to Fredonia in eighth grade. Kijinski is a senior at Fredonia High School and will graduate this coming June. Since ninth grade, she has taken an assortment of advanced classes ranging across the subjects from English, history and math. She took AP United States History during her junior year. She is currently taking AP Calculus, AP English and AP Government.
Kijinski is a member of the high school's Key Club. As a member she is able to volunteer and participate in events within the community. She is also a co-managing editor for The Spectator, the school's newspaper. She edits the newspaper before it becomes a finished product and she works with the other editors to make sure everything gets done on time. At meetings, Kijinski is often the person responsible for assigning tasks to all the staff members.
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Margaret Kijinski
During the summer between her junior and senior years, Kijinski attended Empire Girls State in Brockport. She was one of 360 girls chosen to attend this program. While she was there, she learned about government and valuable life skills. During the summer she also attended journalism camp at Syracuse University. During the week that Kijinski was there, she learned new skills that are helpful when she is working on The Spectator.
Outside of school, Kijinski has taken eight years of piano lessons. She is also volunteer for SUNY Fredonia's Campus and Community Children's Center. Every Monday and Wednesday, she volunteers at the center's afterschool program. She works with kindergarten through second grade students and truly enjoys spending time with this age group.
Kijinski has applied Early Decision to Oberlin College in Ohio. She plans on majoring in psychology and minoring in studio art. Kijinski hopes to eventually become a clinical psychologist.
Jones is the son of Wayne Jones and Dr. Susan Royal. Ethan has taken six AP Classes in his high school career. He has taken AP US History, AP US Government, AP Calculus and this year he is enrolled in AP English 12, AP Statistics and AP Physics. Jones earned the Principal's Award every quarter of his high school career and earned an AP Scholar Award for both AP Calculus and AP Government. Jones also takes classes at SUNY Fredonia through the 3-1-3 program and is currently taking Computer Science and Political Science. Next semester Jones plans on taking Science Fiction and Music Theory. He is currently ranked fifth in his high school class and has a GPA of 92.
Jones is a three-sport athlete but spends a lot of his time playing soccer. He has played soccer since he was five and has been involved in the soccer program at the high school since freshman year. He has been on the varsity team since junior year. This year Jones was named a captain and the team went undefeated in league play. He was also named a First Team Western New York All-Star and was selected by the county coaches for the Senior All-Star Game. Jones also participates in the Black Watch elite soccer team at SUNY Fredonia.
Not only does Jones play soccer, but he swims as well. He is the diver on the team. Jones was ranked fifth in the county for the breast stroke and sixth in the county for diving. He has been a member of a sectional qualifying relay and has worked with the divers at SUNY Fredonia in their Blue Devils Diving Club. Jones has recently taken up the sport of tennis and his first year he played second doubles.
Jones also finds time to add music into his life. He plays the alto saxophone in the high school band and jazz band. He was recently awarded the Chautauqua County Music Teachers' Association $400 scholarship award for his saxophone playing. This year, Jones was also selected for the Area All-State Band. For the past four years, Jones has also been involved with the Advanced Music Performance program at Fredonia. This program involves theory tests, concert attendance, essays and a solo performance at the Fredonia Opera House. He has been first chair in the band and jazz band since his sophomore year and has had lessons with Dr. Wildy Zumwalt, professor of saxophone at SUNY Fredonia.
Jones is also a member of the Model United Nations where last year the club won second place for best paper out of 83 competing schools. He has been the class treasurer for the past three years and his freshman year he was a student council advisor. He is also a member of Medical Explorers, Key Club, Debate Club and his church's youth group.
This summer Jones worked with Dr. Wayne Yunghans at SUNY Fredonia on a research project. In this grant-funded project, they worked with aquaporins, which are little cell organs that sit on the cells membrane and tilter out water. They were working to put these aquaporins into nano layer foam. This new polymer would allow water to pass through but not other liquids. This would be extremely helpful in ethyl alcohol production because instead of using heat to separate the liquids, they would be able to do it with this new foam.
Over the summer, Jones also worked as a math tutor and helped a student pass a regents exam. He also worked at both Wendy's and McDonald's.
Jones already applied Early Decision to Colgate University and is also considering John's Hopkins, Bucknell University, Gettysburg and Franklin and Marshall. He plans on going into biochemistry, biomedical engineering or pre-med.
