Glenbrook North's Peter Bazianos: 'I don't feel like I missed out on a senior year'

Peter Bazianos' disappointment came through the phone - "Oh, really?" - when I told the Glenbrook North senior he had enough material.

Talking with GBN's Student Association Executive Board president for 2020-21, one realizes Bazianos could expertly expound on any number of subjects.

Even the tricky ones. Similar to his two-year Advanced Honors research project on renewable energy, he'll enter the University of Pennsylvania's Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research in the fall. "VIPER" is a dual-degree program in which Bazianos plans on attaining a physics degree through Penn's college of arts and sciences, and either an electrical or materials engineering degree through its college of engineering.

This guy has got it going on.

"I'd like to think they're very proud," he said of his parents, Perry and Patrice.

Why not? Bazianos earned Glenbrook North's 2021 "Outstanding Boy" award, he was executive sports editor of the Torch student newspaper, he was a mentor with the school's DECA business club, and he's an altar boy and board member for the high school youth group at Saints Peter & Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Glenview.

A National Honor Society scholar and a participant with Glenbrook North's championship-caliber math team, Bazianos is an Illinois state scholar, a Glenbrook Scholar, and earned a $2,500 scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. He was nominated for the 57th U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.

In his spare time, which includes homework, he starts for the Spartans volleyball team that plays in the state quarterfinals on Friday.

"I don't feel like I missed out on a senior year," said Bazianos, who also was involved with student government all four years at Glenbrook North. Kate Rassin will follow him as Executive Board president.

He wasn't feeling peachy about things back in the fall, though.

"I didn't expect it all to progress so quickly by the end of the year, and I expected this year to just kind of drag on," he said.

"As president, also I was looking to a year where we had nothing to go off. We had no precedent beforehand, and I was like, OK, this is going to be very difficult to come up with new ideas. But what we found was once we got into a rhythm there was a certain sort of familiarity, even when we were in the Zoom learning. It wasn't as terrible as I thought. And when we came back to in-person learning it got even better.

"So it really wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be just because of everyone being in the same situation. It kind of gives you a sense of we're all in this together, and there's not really a sense of craziness or crisis to it whenever everyone's in it together," Bazianos said.

The students were in it together, for better or worse. And they did face a crisis. Senior classmate Dylan Buckner's death by suicide in January shook not just students but teachers, administrators and the District 225 board.

"That was really tough, and it still is tough," Bazianos said.

Positives emerged even from that tragedy.

Bazianos and Executive Board vice presidents Lindsay Berkowitz, Jett Greene, Erin Nibeck and Shayna Seiler - "They've been incredible," Bazianos said - heard their fellow students' concerns about mental health. The board sent those concerns up the ladder and, in March, the District 225 board devoted much of the regular meeting to mental health and wellness.

"When Dylan passed away, overall the senior class really came together," Bazianos said. "I felt a lot more support from classmates than I ever did in high school."

The pandemic may have forced certain realities upon these students even a little earlier.

"I think that the resiliency we've had to learn through the pandemic will undoubtedly serve us throughout our lives," Bazianos said. "I think what we learned when we emerged from this, we need to cope with change and uncertainty."

Reflecting on the year, Bazianos got a kick out of the drive-through light show that supplanted a homecoming in the fall. He was enthused by the "huge, huge morale booster" when students were allowed back in the building. A saliva test program, activities and sports returning, eventually vaccinations ...

"Not only were we coming out of it," Bazianos said, "we're having what we thought we would miss."

The first highlight he spoke of, though, was this spring's "March Madness" Glenbrook North Food Drive.

"More and more people were using the (Northbrook Township) Food Pantry. We just knew we couldn't mess this up. Not that we couldn't mess it up - we needed to put full effort into the food drive. And it was incredible," he said.

Stoked by interest from online video game tournaments, Bazianos said it was "a great year" for donations.

"It was really a time of spirit and a time of giving back. The school went above and beyond. The generosity was ridiculous," Bazianos said.

Despite everything students have been through during the pandemic, an enterprising student like Bazianos will be stronger because of it.

"Now, as we're emerging out of it (the pandemic), looking back I think I made the most of it," he said.