Elected officials and state education leaders from California State University, Fresno and the central San Joaquin Valley will honor some new national champions today. Not the Fresno State baseball team this time, but rather the McCabe Junior High School MESA team from Mendota
that won a national engineering design competition in Baltimore, Md., last month.

McCabe students Adelmo Alvarado, Edgar Juarez, Francisco Torres and Angel Hernandez represented California at the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) National Finals at the University of Maryland on June 20-21. They beat other teams from across the country to win the junior high school division competition.

On Thursday, the Fresno State MESA Schools Program will join the Mendota Unified School Board in honoring the national champs, their advisers and families at a 5 p.m. banquet at Mendota High School.

The McCabe students participated in California MESA, a statewide program that supports 850 educationally disadvantaged students so they can go to college and major in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
fields. McCabe is one of 11 high schools and 11 middle schools near Fresno served by the MESA center headquartered at Fresno State. There are 60 centers in California.

Expected to join Mendota officials honoring the McCabe team are state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, Deputy Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Anthony Monreal, Fresno County Office of Education Superintendent Larry Powell, Fresno State MESA Joint Advisory Board President Dr. Jerry Valadez, California MESA Executive Director/MESA USA President Dr. Oscar Porter and Dr. Michael Jenkins, dean of the College of Engineering at Fresno State.

Mendota officials include Mayor Robert Silva, Mendota Unified Board President Miguel Arias, and Superintendent Gilbert Rossette.

David Sackrison, McCabe’s industrial technology teacher and MESA adviser, and Fresno State MESA director Louie Lopez, who traveled to Baltimore with the team, also will be honored.

The competition called for students to build a trebuchet, a siege engine similar to a catapult. The junior high entries were evaluated for distance and accuracy and teams had to submit papers, develop an exhibit and provide oral presentations to demonstrate their knowledge of the
principles behind their machines.

The Mendota students earned the right to represent California in a series of competitions that culminated with state finals in May at Fresno State. They began work on their project in November, putting in more than 200 hours of personal time to test and refine their trebuchet.

Related links:

Fresno State MESA <http://mesa.csufresno.edu/>