All they do is win, win, win at Merrimack High School

Yahoo

28-05-2025

There's nothing trivial about Merrimack High School's success, students, teachers and parents say.
And it's not just the Tomahawks' tenacious trivia team that triumphed for the first-ever three-peat in the New Hampshire high school TV quiz show 'Granite State Challenge' and dynastic fifth title in six years. The dominant big brains and talented students fan out over multiple avocations and disciplines.
The Music Department had 19 All-State musicians and singers this year. The FIRST Robotics team recently made it to the World Championships, their third time in four years. The Science Olympiad team placed third in the state for its STEM expertise.
Excellence is clearly not mutually exclusive at MHS. There's plenty of crossover and cross-pollination. Success begets success for kids in multiple specialties.
Take for example, Erin Murray, a senior who captained the Granite State Challenge team this year and was on the team that won the title last year. Murray has also been selected for the New Hampshire Music Educators Association All-State Festival two years running as a vocalist.
'Honestly, at this point, I think we've created a culture around winning. Every year that excitement, that winning excitement rubs off on everyone else,' Murray said last week after the watch party for the Granite State Challenge championship on New Hampshire PBS.
Tim Bevis, a senior captain of the FIRST Robotics team, known as Chop Shop 166, could've been on the Granite State Challenge team or perhaps even an all-state soloist as well, but there's only so much time in the day, he said. For him, the secret to Merrimack's success is dedicated teachers and an it-takes-a-village mentality that empowers students.
'The thing that it comes down to, from my perspective, is the teachers and mentors in those positions,' Bevis said. 'Dr. (Sara) Campbell, who runs the Granite State Challenge team, is incredibly dedicated to that and she passes that down to her students. Mr. (RJ) Beck and Mr. (Brendan) McWalter in the chorus and band department are incredibly dedicated to their job. And the students and the mentors here are incredibly dedicated to us (on FIRST Robotics).'
Chop Shop 166 has a network of alumni, friends, parents, teachers and former coaches that continue to come back year after year.
For the music department, this year has been especially rewarding with nine students making the All-State Festival for concert band, three students being selected for the orchestra, two students making the treble choir and five students making it onto the mixed choir after auditioning.
'A big part of our success is how strong our middle and elementary school programs are, especially our middle school band director, Holly Levine,' said Beck, the chorus director and music teacher.
Last week, Merrimack Middle School's Levine was named the Outstanding Band Director of the Year by the New Hampshire Band Directors Association.
McWalter, the high school band director, credited flexibility in the teachers' schedules to provide opportunities for real, one-on-one instruction and deeper individual lessons. He also praised the painstaking work of their predecessors, Patricia Cunningham and Ken Dugal.
'This program didn't just all of a sudden get here. We had teachers before us that really worked hard to build this program to where it is today,' said McWalter, who is in his second year at MHS. 'It was a long build.'
School Board recognition
The FIRST Robotics team was honored at last week's Merrimack School Board meeting, and Everett Olsen, the district's chief educational officer (superintendent) summed up the success of those students and other groups in the public school system.
'Sometimes taxpayers will use the terminology 'return on investment' and tonight was a prime example of the investment paying off in terms of some of the most outstanding students in the country right here,' Olsen said.
School Board members said they will continue to honor the achievements of other student groups at upcoming meetings, but the list is long.
Musical chops
The All-State musicians at Merrimack High School include: Caoimhe Boyle Latzko, Rachael Cirillo, Ian Desilets, Jamie Halvorson, Leah Jobin, Paige Mason, Hikari McDowell, Colin Plumb and Dave Sharma. Plumb was also accepted as a tenor vocalist. McDowell and Sharma achieved the top scores for the tenor and baritone saxophones, respectively.
Sean Jalbert, Ben Ricks and Owen Sabens made the All-State orchestra.
Among the singers, Ava Lanier and Erin Murray were selected for the treble choir. Adelina Camerlin, Emmy Hartwell, Ben Pittman, Tristan Plumb and Simon Yasevich were part of the All-State mixed choir.
Scientific swagger
This was one of the most successful years in Chop Shop history with the team earning four medals and one blue banner. This year they won the Impact Award, the Engineering Inspiration Award, and finished as Event Finalist, twice.
The team set new records, and were part of the winning alliance at the World Championships.
Junior Laura Bevill of the FIRST Robotics team said the 'secret sauce' in Merrimack comes from the students pushing each other and being able to showcase their many different talents. FIRST Robotics has something for just about everybody from STEM skills to project management, communications and marketing.
'It's really about the ambition of the students,' she said. 'It takes a team to make something this good. It takes the efforts of every single person on this team to make something work.'
Bevill said the best part of FIRST Robotics is the diversity of what students can learn.
'It's really all the opportunities you get, that fulfillment of just working and seeing what you put in can be put out right back to you like a boomerang, and being able to see the progression of people growing and gaining skills,' Bevill said. 'Being able to go from anywhere, from marketing standpoint to learning how a robot works.'
For upcoming events or to learn more about Chop Shop 166, visit chopshop166.com.
Unchallenged champs
Led by teachers Campbell and Liz Dumais, the Granite State Challenge team doesn't rebuild, it reloads. Merrimack holds the GSC records for most championships (five) and most appearances (24) in the tournament.
The Tomahawks easily dispatched the Tilton Rams, 570-310, in the championship, which aired May 15 on NHPBS but was taped in January. It was a tough task for students and parents not to let the news out until the final show. But that's become part of the routine and a running gag by Campbell, senior Maeve LaRock said.
Every year Campbell has to hide her trophies for a while behind a poster with a different saying each year. This year, it read, 'Not a Trophy 5: Merrimack Strikes Back.'
'Everybody said, oh it was a rebuilding year for us. Yeah, it was a completely new team and I was completely new. I was excited to just go and do it all. Of course, there was a lot of pressure, but I was like, 'I'm going to do this. Let's go win,'' LaRock said.
A senior, LaRock is also vice president of the Student Council and a former field hockey and lacrosse player. She plans to play rugby at the University of New Hampshire next year.
Her best friend, Erin Murray, also had a little pressure on her shoulders in her second year on the team and as captain, and not just from her peers, from her own family.
'I have an older brother who was on the team for two years before me, and I have a younger brother who will hopefully be on the team next year. So, we have a little bit of a legacy going on,' Murray said.
Campbell credited the kids' commitment to putting in the work, even one things like making sure they can buzz in faster than other teams to answer questions. Virtually no detail is too small for MHS to practice.
'It's the kids. I don't know if you noticed, but two of my kids who we were just celebrating, they're cleaning up now,' Campbell said after the team's championship watch party at the school. 'They asked where the broom was so they could clean up. That is entirely them and their parents. I have a little bit to do with it, but they're pretty much fully formed when they get to me.'
Overall excellence
Campbell said she's regularly amazed at how dedicated the kids are at MHS, and not just for Granite State Challenge.
'The students who have that work ethic tend to get involved in more than one thing, because they have a lot of passions. So they find those things that they love, and they get super-involved in all the things that they love,' Campbell said.
'I had a student one year who had the Science Olympiad, FIRST Robotics and a Quiz Bowl thing, all in one weekend. It was state-level competitions for all three. By the end, he was a little fried, but he was that involved and invested in all three of those things.'
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