New Hyde Park Memorial High School senior Nicholas Viviano was recently recognized by the Sewanhaka Central High School District for service as a distinguished lieutenant governor of the Key Club .
But his Key Club role was just one of many achievements in Viviano’s very active senior year.
As lieutenant governor of the high school counterpart of the Kiwanis, Viviano oversaw the 15 Key Clubs in Nassau County high schools and helped start new clubs at Westbury High School and in St. Dominic’s High School in Oyster Bay.
In his final year at New Hyde Park Memorial, Viviano was also editor-in-chief of the yearbook, vice president of the Model U.N. Club, president of the high school orchestra (he plays violin), treasurer of Students Putting an End to Cancer and treasurer of the National Honor Society. He’s also a member of the Tri-M Honor Society and the World Language Society.
He also was a man in motion as a middle distance runner on the track team.
Viviano admits he found his roster of activities a bit overwhelming at times.
“With all my leadership roles coming into senior year, I didn’t know how much I was taking on,” Viviano said. “Being in all these clubs gives me a chance to interact with people I wouldn’t otherwise interact with.”
Viviano said he didn’t always have the profile of an overachiever.
Before playing volleyball team and running track in eighth grade, he said, he never got involved in any extracurricular activities
“Just being on a team and working with other people got me involved,” he said.
Viviano acknowledges that his decision to join the Key Club in his sophomore year was prompted more by romance than public service.
“I had a crush on a girl in the Key Club,” he said.
But, he said, once he started attending Key Club events and became more involved in the activities his desire to help grew.
He soon took on the role of publicity coordinator. And when faculty advisor Lisa Bocchino asked him if he’d be interested in the lieutenant governor job, he readily accepted it.
“He worked very hard. It’s a big responsibility and he’s involved is a lot of things,” Bocchino said. “He stepped up. I’m very proud of him. He did a great job this year.”
Viviano acknowledges his achievement with the Key Club and said he has been well rewarded for his work.
“I’m certainly proud, but I’m more envious of what they’re going to do,” he said of the clubs he helped start. “To see how eager everybody was inspired me more than I could inspire them,. To give them the opportunity to help their schools and communities is an honor.”
His involvement in the yearbook grew out of the satisfaction he got out of doing interviews as a writer in his junior year.
“I love interviewing somebody and getting into every aspect of what they have to say,” Viviano said.
Viviano said he’s aware that some of his schoolmates think he’s involved in all the activities he’s joined in for the sake of compiling an impressive resume. But he insists that has nothing to do with it.
“I do it to make an impact,” he said, adding that he wanted to give the school a yearbook like nothing that had been produced before. “A line on a resume is nothing compared to the work you put into the position.”
Viviano said his yearbook experience has given him an appreciation for meeting deadlines. Through attending the Key Club international convention in Phoenix last summer and several Model U.N. conferences around the country, he said he’s met people from around the world who have given him “different perspectives on how to approach issues.”
But more than anything else, he said, “It’s given me confidence. If I can do so many things, I can do anything if I set my mind to it,” he said.
Next year, Viviano will be setting his mind to a new set of challenges as a pre-med major with a minor in psychology at Northeastern University.
Reach reporter Richard Tedesco by e-mail at rtedesco@theislandnow.com or by phone at 516.307.1045 x204
