Hayes’ Pijanowski sees the law in his future

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

Haye High School’s Adam Pijanowski

Adam Pijanowski is one high school senior who is excited about his first chance to vote in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, which he’ll do in November.

The Hayes High School senior has an inter­est in pol­i­tics that began when he was just in kindergarten.

At that time, he knew the names of the peo­ple run­ning, if maybe not the posi­tions they were run­ning for. By the 2000 elec­tion, Adam was famil­iar with the can­di­dates and their polit­i­cal parties.

In 2004, when Adam was 10, he said he knew more about the process — not just under­stand­ing the pop­u­lar vote but also the elec­toral col­lege. And by 2008, he began to ana­lyze the process and pay atten­tion to the primaries.

He admits his inter­est is mainly in the national process, with a bit of dab­bling at the state level.

“Did you know,” he asked, “that the last time a Demo­c­rat won the county was Woodrow Wilson?”

As it’s still early in the col­lege selec­tion process, Adam is apply­ing to Ohio State Uni­ver­sity, Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity and Wooster Col­lege as well as his favorites; George­town Uni­ver­sity, Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity and Ober­lin Col­lege. Not sur­pris­ingly, Adam hopes to major in polit­i­cal science.

And judg­ing by the 5 (the high­est score pos­si­ble) he received on the advanced place­ment gov­ern­ment exam, Adam has the smarts to succeed.

After he grad­u­ates col­lege, Adam said he intends to attend law school.

“A degree in polit­i­cal sci­ence would diver­sify my back­ground and would help me under­stand more,” he said, adding that his inter­ests are in civil law and in being a plaintiff’s attorney.

He sees his senior year as a tran­si­tional year. While he will be off to col­lege next year and wel­comes his future, there are some things to be done his final year of high school.

He has one more year, he said, to lead Key Club, one more year to par­tic­i­pate in In the Know and one more year to leave his mark on the school.

“I’d like to leave a sig­nif­i­cant project behind,” he said.

Car­olyn McQuat­tie is a past pres­i­dent of The Kiwa­nis Club of Delaware, and Kiwa­nis rep­re­sen­ta­tive adviser to Key Club, a Kiwanis-sponsored ser­vice club at Hayes. Adam, a four-year mem­ber of the club, has been its pres­i­dent for the past two years.

“He has pro­vided excel­lent lead­er­ship, and he has ini­ti­ated a num­ber of worth­while ser­vice activ­i­ties,” McQuat­tie said. “For exam­ple, last year Adam spear­headed the ‘Pen­nies for Patients’ project at Hayes which raised more than $400 for the Leukemia and Lym­phoma Soci­ety. Adam also orga­nizes ser­vice projects which ben­e­fit Wil­low Brook res­i­dents. He orga­nized an evening activ­ity where we served root beer floats to happy res­i­dents, and most recently he arranged for Key Club mem­bers to take hand-made greet­ing cards to Wil­low Brook res­i­dents. Adam has col­lected many dol­lars to help chil­dren world­wide by ‘trick-or-treating’ for UNICEF, he has helped make sleep­ing bags for the home­less, and this year Adam is tak­ing the lead to dec­o­rate one of the high school class­rooms for the ‘Haunted Hall­ways’ event, where Delaware chil­dren ‘trick-or-treat’ at the high school. I am impressed by Adam’s service-minded atti­tude and his will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in all projects ini­ti­ated by Key Club members.”

McQuat­tie said Adam also par­tic­i­pates in Kiwa­nis com­mu­nity ser­vice projects serv­ing as a pan­cake flip­per at the group’s annual Pan­cake Breakfast.

“Adam is a skilled pub­lic speaker and has given two pre­sen­ta­tions to our Kiwa­nis Club, both of which were out­stand­ing in their orga­ni­za­tion, thought­ful­ness and depth of knowl­edge,” McQuat­tie said, adding that Adam is “an enthu­si­as­tic, multi-faceted young man.

“It has cer­tainly been a plea­sure to work with Adam through Key Club. Adam’s ded­i­ca­tion to bet­ter­ing his com­mu­nity through ser­vice to oth­ers is com­mend­able and inspiring.”

Besides Key Club, Adam is also involved with stu­dent coun­cil, Mock Trial and In the Know.

Play­ing on the var­sity team with In the Know, he said the team has won Mind Games, a radio com­pe­ti­tion, for the last three years.

“I would like to make it a fourth,” he said.

Adam Haynes had Adam in AP U.S. Gov­ern­ment and Pol­i­tics last year. Haynes said Adam is “truly one of our shin­ing stars” excelling both in aca­d­e­mics and extracur­ric­u­lar activities.

“Mr. Pijanowski is a hard work­ing, trust­wor­thy and com­pas­sion­ate young man,” Haynes said. “It goes with­out say­ing that Mr. Adam Pijanowski is truly an asset to Ruther­ford B. Hayes High School and the Delaware community.”

Hav­ing par­tic­i­pated in numer­ous lead­er­ship acad­e­mies, Adam spends much of his spare time vol­un­teer­ing, whether it is at the library dur­ing the sum­mers, at Wil­low Brook year round or with polit­i­cal offices or the board of elec­tions dur­ing elec­tion seasons.

In his lim­ited spare time he enjoys vis­it­ing bat­tle­fields, muse­ums and his­tor­i­cal sites.

For­mer Hayes guid­ance coun­selor Wendy Brown said, “I can­not say enough nice things about Adam. He is sim­ply remark­able in so many ways. Adam sees only good in every­thing and every­one and is a true human­i­tar­ian. Adam is always focused and intent on learn­ing. He takes things in, processes them, and use the infor­ma­tion in unique ways. The stu­dents accept Adam for who he is and stands for. In my 35-year career, he tops my list.”

As Adam looks to the future, he offers the fol­low­ing advice to underclassmen.

“One, pay atten­tion. Two, study very hard. And three, get involved,” he said, adding that get­ting involved is the most impor­tant thing to do in high school, either through sports, vol­un­teer­ing or stu­dent government.

“It cre­ates a sense of com­mu­nity,” he said.

Adam is the son of Bruce and Pamela Pijanowski of Delaware.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Oct 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.