Central District names valedictorians, salutatorians

The Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District recently named the valedictorians and salutatorians for Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools. The following provides short biographies on each of them:

Jeffrey Caso, Valedictorian

Calhoun High School

Jeffrey Caso pursued the most rigorous academic program available to him at Calhoun and demonstrated mastery of every course he took. He was an Advanced Place Scholar with Honors and a National Merit semifinalist. He was also a member of the Italian, math, science and national honor societies.

Caso was enrolled in Calhoun’s Advanced Science Research Program and had an internship last summer at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Developmental Language Laboratory in New York City. He worked many hours with his mentor, researching childhood speech-language disorders. Caso co-authored an article on his work that will appear in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

Caso, who has a strong love of languages, has mastered Italian, was enrolled in the French honors program and co-founded Calhoun’s Latin club. Caso was also editor-in-chief and webmaster of Calhoun’s literary magazine “Pegasus,” secretary general and webmaster of Model United Nations, and a member of the boys’ varsity badminton team. On top of it all, he was Student Council president for all four years of high school.

Caso will attend Georgetown University in the fall.

Jenny Wu, Salutatorian

Calhoun High School

After much discussion, Jenny Wu was the first Calhoun student allowed to enroll in seven Advanced Placement classes in her senior year. Similar requests have not been granted in the past, but the ease with which Wu organized her work and performed at near-perfect levels, without feeling overly stressed, made the decision to allow this option possible, according to school officials.

She was also a Siemens-Westinghouse and Intel semifinalist for her research into cancer drugs, which she conducted at SUNY Stony Brook.