Watchful eyes have been focused on these five elite Edina preps since before they graduated elementary school. Whether it’s before judges, or fans and spectators, this bunch is used to the spotlight -- and used to thriving in it.
Edina Magazine showcases the highlights in these young lives through narratives about how they got into the limelight. These are short stories of passion, perseverance, application of talent, and in all cases, hard work.
Cavonte Johnson
He has never met his dad. His mom was addicted to drugs and is serving 25 years in jail. He bounced around to other family members in Texas, Oregon and Tennessee before a brief stay in an overcrowded house in Minneapolis. After a scary incident, that house would become the last stop of his transient childhood.
After playing in a youth basketball tournament, the sixth-grade boy returned home to rest up for more games the next morning. The small home was shared by seven, including his sister, aunts and – in particular – one of their boyfriends who had a proclivity to drink. Johnson’s rest was interrupted late at night with the boyfriend’s demands to clean his room … or else.
“He was drunk, came in and said, ‘If you don’t clean up, I … will kill you,” says Johnson of his memory at about age 10.
In the last seven years, his life has twisted 180 degrees. He was adopted by Doug and Sarah Jones of Edina and has been given opportunities to succeed. He plays football, basketball and runs track for the Hornets. With a 3.87 grade-point average, the senior-to-be entertains the prospects of studying math and science in college next year.
But what would life have been like if he stayed at that overcrowded home in Minneapolis?
“I try not to think about it,” he says softly of how much he moved around. “I was always depressed because I never made permanent friends, all temporary. It was sad because I would meet new friends and then I would have to give them up.”
And now, how’s life with the Joneses?
“They’ve given me a chance to be normal,” he says, perking up. “They’ve given me an opportunity to a better education at the top public school in the state. And they’ve given me a chance to play sports.”
At 6-foot, 180 pounds, Johnson has excelled at running back and cornerback in football, as a forward in basketball and as a sprinter in track.
“Sports are everything behind academics,” he says. “It’s what keeps me going. I try to prove right those that believe in me and wrong those that don’t.”
Who is your role model? Sarah Jones
What is your dream job? Playing in the NFL or NBA
What is a source of inspiration? Proving people wrong
Name a unique personal trait? Competitive spirit
What is your biggest fear? Failure and death
Maeve Moynihan
A hectic schedule of multiple theatre roles on top of school and choir suits this 17-year-old just fine.
“I like to be busy,” she says. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have a lot of things going on.”
Her serious affinity for performing brought her to the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists during her sophomore year, but her easy-going appreciation for normalcy brought her back to Edina High School that same year.
“I missed public schools, and the education wasn’t as challenging [at the conservatory],” said the senior-to-be with a GPA above 3.9. “I missed having school spirit and going to sporting events and being around friends.”
Her return to Edina was noticed. For her role in the musical Anything Goes, Moynihan won a SpotLight Award for Outstanding Overall Performance from the Hennepin Theatre Trust.
“It made me feel more included,” said Moynihan, who has also performed as a professional in Violet at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. “I felt blessed, grateful and honored for my work because I enjoy high school theatre. I’m able to meet friends. It’s non-judgmental, and I feel free.”
The noted thespian will pass on her skills and passion for acting to middle school kids as a teaching assistant to Edina’s head of the theatre department this upcoming year.
“The main thing I want to teach is to be confident,” Moynihan said. “You have to embrace what you are good at and also be grounded and secure in what you are doing.”
She began performing at age 8 and gained a belief in the power of acting, a message she hopes resonate with the younger generation.
“I also am inspired by an actor’s ability to affect another individual,” she says in an e-mail. “Theater grants an actor the opportunity to connect with an audience member on an emotional level, hopefully inspiriting or changing that individual in some shape or form.”
Who is your role model? My mom
What is your dream job? Actress
What is a source of inspiration? An actor’s ability to affect someone else
Name a unique personal trait? Being adaptable
What is your biggest fear? Failure
Mimi Sergent-Leventhal
Her worldview includes detailed opinions on such wide-ranging matters as global economic collapse benefiting society and the pros and cons of U.S. military presence in countries such as Japan. The forum in which she cultivates these weighty issues is the Edina varsity debate team.
“It’s interesting to question assumptions based on research and fun to rigorously test if something is true,” Sergent-Leventhal says.
Her friend’s older brother randomly led her to the debate team, but the senior-to-be says she would have found it on her own.
“It seemed challenging and interesting,” says Sergent-Leventhal, who has been on the team for three years. “You get to talk about things you normally didn’t talk about.”
The debate team lost in the semifinals of the state tournament last year, but won local tournaments and placed in national competitions.
“I enjoy the performing aspect,” the 17-year-old says. “It’s a way to see my work pay off when you see [the audience] respond.”
She says her diligent work ethic helps her debate skills. Some nights she will spend a half hour researching and preparing for a debate; other nights it could reach four or five hours.
“I’m obsessive compulsive in the things I enjoy, so it lends itself to doing a lot of research,” says Sergent-Leventhal, who maintains a 3.97 GPA.
The diligence brought Sergent-Leventhal and her debate partner, Erin Sielaff, to a seven-week debate camp at the University of Michigan in June and July.
Where she will go to college, however, hasn’t been fully vetted by her research capabilities just yet.
“It’s too early to say,” she demurs.
One thing is certain; the decision will be well reasoned.
Who is your role model? My mother – she can handle anything.
What is your dream job? Debate coach
What is a source of inspiration? Ty Cobb hitting above .300 for 23 years in a row
Name a unique personal trait? I try to be open-minded
What is your biggest fear? Not letting that go in the magazine :P
Katy Biewen
She is a descendent of hoopheads, a niche clan of incessant basketball players. Her hoops lineage spans three generations. Both her grandfathers coached; her dad and all three siblings played. That ancestry has set up the baby of the Biewen family to be the starting point guard on Edina’s varsity team.
“I don’t know if I’d be playing if we didn’t have it in the background of the family, but I’m sure glad I am,” says Biewen, who had orange ball in her hands at age 5.
Bob Erdman, her grandfather and member of the Minnesota Coaches Hall of Fame, taught her the “quick away,” a creative, fast-release jump shot to beat unsuspecting defenses. With that as her go-to shot, the 5-foot-9, senior-to-be averaged 15 points a game last season, but she will pass on praising her shooting skills as her utmost of talents.
“My unselfishness and I see the floor well,” Biewen says. “I’m able to get the open player the ball.”
Biewen led the Hornets to within one game of the state tournament in March, and her competitive drive will make her hungrier in her final campaign in green and white this coming winter.
“It’s competition; I love it,” the 17-year-old says.
Biewen plays hoops all year – as well as tennis and track and field – but maintains a 3.92 GPA and is entertaining the prospects of playing basketball at Princeton University in New Jersey next year.
“That fact that there are no [athletic] scholarships there gives you a freedom to do other things besides basketball,” says Biewen, who is considering studying psychology. “You can study abroad and have the normal experience of college and not just basketball as a job.”
Who is your role model? My whole family
What is your dream job? Working with under-privileged kids
What is a source of inspiration? A good piece of literature
Name a unique personal trait? I’m not intimidated by pressure situations
What is your biggest fear?I think it’s bugs
Erin Sielaff
She plays the flute because it sounds beautiful. She rides her horse in shows because it’s relaxing. But she engages in debate because – frankly – it’s competitive quarrelling.
“Ever since I was little, I wanted to join debate,” says the two-year member of the Edina debate team. “I thought it would be cool to argue with people.”
The 17-year-old and her partner, Mimi Sergent-Leventhal, enjoy working together to better each other’s arguments.
It makes both of our speeches better,” she adds.
In competition, they enjoy taking a point their competition is using as a positive or negative example and arguing that the opposite is true.
“We will read an argument that takes something they said is bad and say why it’s good,” she says slightly slyly.
Sielaff keeps up a 3.99 GPA, and unwinds from class and rigorous debate by recreationally playing the flute, something she did in the Edina band before practices conflicted with debate.
I think it’s the best sounding instrument and it’s very relaxing, especially because I’m not doing it for a grade anymore,” she says. “I just do it for fun.”
She also relaxes by straddling up Coco, her Selle Francais sport horse.
“Debate is the most rewarding and most exciting, but I also really like riding, so I try not to neglect that either,” Sielaff says.
Sielaff and Coco will leave the Stillwater stable a few times each summer to enter shows in Minnesota and Iowa. Those trips are less frequent because of debate, but that’s all right with her.
She is undecided on her college choice, but wants to go east to either Boston or New York.
“There are good schools there and you can take different classes at different schools which is interesting,” she says.
Sielaff is seeking more knowledge from more sources. Go figure.
Who is your role model? My sister, Claire
What is your dream job? U.S. foreign relations, diplomat or ambassador
What is a source of inspiration? Not one person or thing, just goal-setting
Name a unique personal trait? Been a vegetarian since kindergarten
What is your biggest fear? Heights, but also forgetting something important
