Tasso Anastasiades is on the flight path to success.

The 17-year-old has accumulated more than 185 volunteer hours at Howland High School, and the senior has a GPA above 4.0, taking honors and AP classes where available.

He is active with the school’s robotics team, has a dan black belt in Taekwondo and starred as Percy Jackson in its production of the musical “The Lightning Thief.”

That diverse resume earned

Anastasiades a spot on the Tribune Chroncle’s Twenty Under 20 for 2024. The program is co-sponsored by Akron Children’s Mahoning Valley and AVI Foodsystems.

Tasso as Salvation Army bell ringer

His mother, Koula Anastasiades, nominated him for the honor.

“Tasso’s leadership style is not something that can be seen in a list of activities or accomplishments, but is such an important component of what makes Tasso a leader. He is a leader that sets an example by his actions and helps others rise to their maximum potential,” she wrote in her nomination

letter.

Over the summer, Anastasiades

was invited to attend the National Student Leadership Conference for Aerospace Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he proved to be a leader among leaders. One of the tasks during the conference was to plan a mission to Mars, with each team being responsible for a different component of the mission.

Tasso volunteered at Wings and Wheels for EAA

“I was the liaison between all of the different groups,” he said. “We had six or seven group chats, trying to solve problems together … I was responsible for coordinating with all of the other groups on how we were going to do things and make sure all of the information was straight.”

Anastasiades described the experience as invaluable.

“It helped me grow as a leader and has given me valuable information and experience with conflicts and different scenarios of what can go wrong and how to deal with setbacks,” he said. “It was a wonderful experience, and I would love to do it again, if I had the opportunity. It’s also given me back- ground information on aerospace.”

Flight was an interest for Anastasiades long before he went to Johns Hopkins. Among his different volunteering efforts, his work with the Experimental Aircraft Association is his favorite.

At a recent Young Eagles Flight Day, “I helped introduce young kids to aviation,” he said. “We had a simulator for RC (radio-controlled) aircraft, and I taught them how to use the simulator. I think their interest in aviation

was sparked from that. We also gave out rides in the airplanes for free. They signed up earlier, and I volunteered by teaching the adults and kids things about the planes — the technical things, the instruments, how to control it, the basics.”

Anastasiades’ interest doesn’t stop at how airplanes fly. He’s also interest- ed in making T-shirts soar. One of his side projects since joining Howland’s robotics team in its first year when he was in 9th grade is designing a T-shirt cannon that will be mounted on an ATV and used at the school’s sporting events.

“It’s not complete yet, but that’s our plan, and there’s been steady progress with that,” he said. “It’s been a great experience.”

With all of those STEM-based inter- ests like robotics and athletics, musical theater seems like an outlier, but Anastasiades said he’s benefited from both (and those two worlds came together when the robotics team helped make some of the effects possible for theater productions.)

“Drama club helps with public speaking and confidence and being able to communicate effectively,” he

said. “It also helps with memorization. You also have to memorize things in engineer- ing, specifications and design constraints.

“Also both are very fun to participate in.”

111824...R 20U20 ANASTASIADIS 3...Howland...11-18-24...20U20 Tasso Anastasiadis of Howland HS...by R. Michael Semple

Tasso at Trumbull County fairgrounds volunteer for EAA

Tasso at OH Wow! Silly Science Sunday for Robotics Club