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Marple Newtown School Board honors FBLA national champion, National Merit semifinalists and student space experiment
Summary
At its Oct. 28 meeting, the Marple Newtown School Board recognized a national FBLA champion, named two National Merit semifinalists and commended four students, and heard from high‑school students whose NASA TechRise experiment flew on a Blue Origin New Shepard flight but experienced a mechanical issue in transit.
Marple Newtown School Board members on Oct. 28 recognized student achievements across academics, career-technical clubs and STEM after a student representative highlighted recent school activities.
The board honored Diljit Singh for winning first place in the networking infrastructure event at the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) National Leadership Conference in Anaheim, held June 29–July 2, 2025. "First, I'd like to thank the board and Doctor Kane for giving us time, to do a few recognitions," said Beltrante, who introduced the presentation. Beltrante noted the district now fields more than 50 FBLA students and that 26 advanced to state competition in Hershey, Pennsylvania, before Singh qualified for nationals.
Beltrante also announced two National Merit Scholarship Program semifinalists from Marple Newtown High School: Ayla Lam and Tristan Lowe. "These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,930 National Merit Scholarships," Beltrante said while explaining the semifinalist-to-finalist timeline. The board additionally recognized four commended students: Emily Kwan, Haley Kwan, Paige Robinson and Diljit Singh.
District staff presented a TechRise-to-space project developed by students in a seventh‑grade program that later continued at the high school. According to staff remarks, the students' experiment was selected for NASA TechRise and ultimately included in a Blue Origin New Shepard payload launched Sept. 18, 2025. Students Carrie Hodkinson, Denali Davenport, Britney Hyun, Cassidy Smith, Kohar Baronean and Riley Carmichael were cited; Denali Davenport and Kohar Baronean came forward to describe the experiment in the meeting.
"In our original proposal, our proposal was to find out what painting in space would be like," Davenport said. She described a mechanism intended to deploy paint in microgravity using a syringe and cart-driven roller. Davenport told the board the device did not fully operate as intended because "the cart had been pushed off the track in shipping," though some paint was visible on the returned hardware.
Student representatives also summarized October events across the district, noting Bandorama, PSAT testing, senior project scheduling, trunk-or-treats, fall festivals, a speech-team competition and fundraising efforts. Staff highlighted that a Paxton Hollow eighth-grade visit and a successful PTO Boosterathon — which set a $10,000 goal and raised more than $21,000 — were recent district items of note.
The recognitions and reports were presented during the meeting’s commendations and student-report portions and did not include board action items beyond the awards themselves.
District officials said semifinalist names were announced by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation on Sept. 10, 2025, and that semifinalists must meet additional requirements to advance to finalist standing.
