The past few months have brought great success for Syosset High School student Aimee DeShayes. Some students are involved in many activities and excel at only one - DeShayes, who is involved in many activities, has excelled at all of them.

At the Nassau District PTA Reflections contest annual awards ceremony, held on May 9, DeShayes, who has just completed her junior year and will be a Syosset senior in September, was honored with the Amelie A. Wallace Arts-In-Education Award for her short story Sumo Wrestling and Cancer - the Lessons of My Life. This special award, established to commemorate the life of a past district director, was given to only one student from the 1,633 entries submitted to the contest on the theme "Anything is Possible."

After DeShayes' English teacher mentioned the contest to her, she decided to write a story. "Her teacher told her that she had a good chance of doing well and then she thought of the idea for the essay herself," said DeShayes mother Kathryn Kahne "It was a little bit of reality mixed with her imagination. Her inspiration came from a family history of cancer." DeShayes was unavailable to answer questions as she is currently studying drama at a pre-college summer program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

DeShayes was also recently involved in a Forensics Contest in upstate New York. Syosset students Richard Rothblatt, DeShayes and Jonathan Lovett advanced to the top 24 in Extemporaneous Speaking, Dramatic Performance and Original Oratory, respectively. DeShayes and Rothblatt were also named state champions in Dramatic Performance and Debate, respectively. DeShayes, David Kahne, Andrew Korn, Rothblatt, Ethan Hova and Ari Stern won the right to represent New York by placing first or second in their events at a qualifying tournament that included schools from the entire New York metropolitan area. These six competitors, the largest contingent of any school in the New York City District, will join high school speakers, actors and debaters from every state in the union and several United States territories.

"Aimee was also involved in a few different national tournaments and National Catholic Tournaments also," said Kahne. "She goes to Harvard University and Yale University to compete in all of the different competitions as well. She is always traveling."

DeShayes was introduced to the delegates at the Nassau District Spring Conference on May 23 in recognition of her Amelie A. Wallace Arts-In-Education Award. She also appeared in a lead role in this spring's Syosset High School production of A Midsummer's Night Dream, playing Tatiana.

DeShayes has quite a few schools that she is interested in attending in the fall of 2001. "She is not a big bragger and she gets upset with me when I tell people the schools that she is interested in," said Kahne. "There is quite a varied and exceptional list - which Carnegie Mellon is now on the top of. She is having a great time there this summer."

Depending on which college program DeShayes is accepted into, she will either major in drama or English. "Most of the drama courses are hard to get into and they do not take many people so she is keeping her options open," said Kahne. "She has high goals and hopefully high expectations too."