Island youth is tennis writer, player

Zack Elliot, an eighth-grader at Islander Middle School, won the USTA Arthur Ashe essay contest in August by writing for the United States Tennis Association Pacific NW Web site (“Over the Net”). As the winner, Elliott was flown with his family to the U.S. Open for a week. His article, “Game, Set, Match,” was published in Johns Hopkins University’s Imagine magazine.

Elliott, whose two passions are tennis and writing, is enrolled in all of the gifted classes at IMS and Honors Algebra II at MIHS. He is also a member of several national gifted societies. He is currently a championship-level tennis player, practicing two to three hours each day.

Milburn at the Gorilla Summit

Lakeridge second-grader Riley Milburn participated in the first Kids Gorilla Summit on Sept. 26 in New York City. The summit hosted 180 students from the New York City area — all fifth- and sixth-graders. The purpose of the summit was to enlist young people throughout the world to help the endangered mountain gorillas and the people of Africa. The event and the gorilla conservation campaign were born out of a commitment to action made at last year’s Clinton Global Initiative, shortly after 10 of the world’s remaining 720 mountain gorillas — of which 380 live in the jungle between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo — were killed.

Milburn’s participation in the campaign began earlier this year, after watching a news story on CBS “60 Minutes.” Milburn came up with an idea to help save the gorillas and drew a picture of it. He suggested building 300-yard open-roof homes, with 30-foot-high bulletproof walls in the jungle. His mother, Melissa Milburn, sent the picture to CBS. The Clinton Global Initiative campaign organizers were told about the 7-year-old’s idea and invited him to share his idea with children worldwide during the Gorilla Summit in NYC last week, which was also webcast live on the Internet.

During the week, Milburn was also invited to meet former President Bill Clinton during a photo session with students from Rwanda — all of whom signed a commitment to finding ways to help the people of the region and the endangered mountain gorillas. Scholastic Books hosted the summit and is also offering a curriculum about the issue for students online. The new curriculum and online portal will be distributed to a million students to teach them about the gorillas, their habitat and the Mountain Rangers. It is intended to empower youth to become advocates for change.

More information on the mountain gorilla campaign can be found at www.scholastic.com/miza.