What are the past winners doing today?

Winning kids have the right chemistry

Milwaukee Journal, The,  Mar 26, 1995  by MARIE ROHDE

Ari Lukoff patiently explained his entry in the 41st annual Southeastern Wisconsin Science & Engineering Fair. In simple terms, it's a chemistry project in which he studied the speed of a chemical reaction.

Lukoff, a sophomore at Nicolet High School in Glendale, was the overall first-place winner in the fair, but didn't know it when he spoke with a reporter.

Although the complexity of his project and the ease of his explanation were impressive, the most amazing thing is that he has never taken a chemistry course.

"I studied chemistry for four weeks in a course I took last year," he explained. "But I haven't taken a chemistry class yet."

The idea for the project came to Lukoff while he was breezing through the Journal of the American Chemical Society and came across an article that intrigued him. It was about a project that had a similar focus using a different chemical.

To do his experiment, he had to create a chemical called arrehenius, commonly used 60 years ago, but no longer commercially available. He did his research in September, worked in a lab from October through December and has been working out the math and writing reports since then.

He knows his project is good. It already won an award at the Science and Engineering Symposium at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The award he won Saturday means he will be able to compete in an international science fair in Canada later this year. He also received a Hewlett Packard computer and accessories.

The Southeastern Wisconsin Science & Engineering Fair is sponsored by Marquette University and Marquette Electronics, and is the only regional competition in the state. Some 250 participants from 85 schools participated with projects in nine science categories. The youngest entries were from students in the 6th grade, the oldest from high school seniors.

In addition to the top winners, dozens of other awards and certificates were given out Saturday. And the Winners Are

The second-place overall fair winner was Matthew Fine, a junior at Nicolet High School, for a physics entry.

The winners in the junior division, who because of their age were not eligible to compete in the international fair, were Scott Meyer, an 8th grader from Germantown's Kennedy Middle School, and Caroline Kopplin, a 6th grader from St. Matthias in Milwaukee, who tied for overall winner; Stephanie Greenquist, a 7th grader from Pewaukee Middle School, in second place; and, in third place, a tie between Nicolae Slamar an 8th grader from Racine's Paris Consolidated School and Frannie Ollman, an 8th grader from Bayside Middle School.

Two colleges also selected winners for two scholarships. Don Vo, a senior at Marquette University High School, won a four-year scholarship to Marquette University, and Jill Schwister, a junior at Divine Savior Holy Angels High School, won a half-tuition, renewable scholarship to Mount Mary College.

Copyright 1995
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

Clinic hires 6 bilingual doctors

By GEORGIA PABST ( gpabst@journalsentinel.com)

Posted: Dec. 27, 2007

As part of a major expansion, the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center and its Parkway clinic hired six bilingual doctors in recent months to provide care to the largely Latino and low-income clientele.

Five are new to Milwaukee, but for the sixth, the job is a proud return to his roots.

Marcos De La Cruz, 29, grew up on the city's south side, the son of migrant farm workers. His father, Olegario, went to school through only the third grade because his Mexican family needed him to work picking fruits and vegetables in Texas and the Midwest. In the fields he met and later married Florinda, who was from a border town in Texas.

The couple settled in Milwaukee and eventually bought a home at S. 4th and W. Mineral streets, where Marcos and his five brothers and sisters were raised and his parents still live.

"He's always been gifted by being very smart," said his mother. "We're very proud of him because he's accomplished a lot in a few years."

Sitting in the employee lunchroom at Parkway clinic, 2906 S. 20th St., De La Cruz said that though he was never a patient there, he used to read about the Sixteenth Street clinic and discuss it with his parents.

"I knew it was an important source of health care to the community and that it continued to grow and grow," said the soft-spoken doctor.

The clinic has long been at 1032 S. Cesar E. Chavez Drive (formerly called 16th St.), but expanded to a second location at Parkway 1½ years ago. With the six new hires, all of whom speak Spanish and English, Parkway has a staff of 12 physicians. A nurse midwife and a nurse practitioner will soon join the staff, as well.

De La Cruz attended Vieau Elementary School, then Pulaski High School, where he recalls getting one B among his A grades. Math and science were his favorite subjects.

During summers and after school, he flipped burgers at McDonald's. But he also worked at the Blood Center in a program to get minority students interested in the health fields. He learned to do lab work and began his school science project on techniques for storing and activating blood platelets. It won second place at the Southeastern Wisconsin Science and Engineering Fair and earned him a four-year scholarship to Marquette University.

But De La Cruz applied and won another four-year scholarship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he enrolled. Originally interested in chemistry, he changed his mind. "I realized I could contribute more by becoming a physician because I could interact with people," he said.

After UW-Madison, he went on to medical school at the University of Michigan. A clinical rotation in pediatrics and having children of his own turned him toward pediatrics.

"I knew it was for me because I was actually happy to wake up in the morning," he said. "Time flew at work, and before I knew it the day was over. Plus, with two children at the time, I felt an emotional connection. I could relate to the parents. It made me feel this is what I was meant to do."

He and his wife, Dawnsie, met as undergrads. And while most students would find it hard juggling school and a family, De La Cruz said it made him feel grounded and supported.

After completing his residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital, he applied for positions elsewhere but quickly selected the Sixteenth Street clinic. "I always thought if I went back to Milwaukee, this is the place I wanted to be and the population I wanted to serve," he said.

"There's a definite need on the south side and throughout the city for good health care, especially with the closing of the Madre Angela Medical Clinic and the Johnston Community Health Center. There are not many options for state-insured and uninsured residents in the city."

At the clinic he sees an array of children, many of whom suffer from asthma and obesity, two major health problems among children.

For him and his wife, who now have four children ages 15 months to 6 years, the decision to return home was easy, he said. "Our families are here. There's something about Milwaukee that's unequal. It's not too big and not too small. There is enough to do and enough sports teams. It's not overwhelming on a day-to-day basis."

De La Cruz is one of three pediatricians newly hired for the Sixteenth Street Parkway clinic. In addition, there's an internal medicine doctor and two family practice physicians.

It's all part of the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center expansion that began when the center took over the Parkway clinic with financial assistance from Aurora Health Care, Columbia St. Mary's and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

The center on Cesar E. Chavez Drive had outgrown that location, said John Bartkowski, president of the Sixteenth Street Center. "We were closed to new patients for two years because of space limitations."

The Parkway clinic has doubled the size and capacity of the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, he said.

"Those 12 doctors will probably see (20,000) to 24,000 new patients, which will have a huge impact on the primary care capacity," said Bartkowski. "There's been a dearth of primary care capacity in the city as a whole, not just on the south side."

The expansion is also expected to reduce emergency room visits for primary care by about 60%, he said, which is one of the reasons Aurora agreed to help Sixteenth Street expand.

Nationally, many federally funded community health centers have a problem recruiting doctors, said Bartkowski, but that's not been the case at Sixteenth Street, which opened in 1969 and has developed a good reputation and financial stability. It serves a diverse population in five languages - Spanish, Hmong, Laotian, English and Arabic - and doctors' salaries average a competitive $150,000, he said.

"In my 20 years here, we've never had a problem recruiting physicians," he said.

Well, there's one drawback, said Bartkowski. "We're in the Snowbelt, and that's not as appealing as, say, Florida, California or Texas. They have better weather. But we've been pretty lucky."