By Danielle Rehor
Following Friday’s bad weather and the after school activity cancellations, last Friday’s performance of “Seussical” is rescheduled to this weekend. The upcoming weekend’s times are 7:30 on Friday and Saturday, and 2 and 7 pm on Sunday.
In addition to the changed dates, the theater department will be taking donations before and after performances, as well as during the intermission. The donations will be given to Red Cross to help benefit the tornado victims.
“The Highlander Speech Team won the Sectional Championship on Saturday for the first time. Individual champions included Adeline Heitz, Chase Dyer, Clayton Cassady, Paige Settles in two events. Other students who qualified for the state tournament are Michael Clark, Pearce Decker, Kriya Patel, Lauren DeLuca, Sarah Henry, A.J. Adams, Christy Choe, Jill Recchio, Johnathan Sieg, Megan Fifer, Brittany Bowen, and Chelsea Balmer.”
From Speech Team Co-Advisor Wallace Austin.
By Meghan Poff, Claire DeFrancisci, and Chase Gosman
Last night at the intramural dodgeball tournament, the Student Council was able to raise $480 for Saturday’s dance marathon.
Health teacher Julie Hutson, who came up with the concept of a dodgeball tournament, said for the first year of the event, it was very successful.
“I was happy that I was able to give students the opportunity to do something that they want to do and would have fun with,” said Hutson.
In the co-ed division, the teacher team won the championship.
Although math teacher Rebecca Cambron was hit early in the first game, she claims to have carried the team to victory.
“I took one for the team in that first one. But I will have you know that Jason VanBuren was later eliminated due to my throwing expertise,” said Cambron.
In the boys division, the championship went to Team 5 and 3/5, which consisted of seniors Chris Glotzbach, Jordan Thompson, Jacob Glotzbach, Quinton Miller, Shane Missi, and junior Kyle Neafus.
Chris recalls the final moments of the championship game.
“It was the third round and some versatile calls had gotten the teams heated up. It sparked a rivalry and we ended up meeting for the championship game. It was me against three of them, and I started calling people out. Then it was down to me and Mike Springer. I faked a throw and he fell to the ground, cowering in fear. In the fetal position. I hit him right on the head. It was an instant classic,” said Chris.
Two all-girl teams, The Purple Cobras and Average Joe’s, battled it out as The Purple Cobras scored early victories.
“It’s really been a team effort so far,” said sophomore Brooke Hinton.
Cambron suspects that with the popularity of this year’s tournament, the student council will be even more successful next year.
“After a long school day, dodgeball is a fun and good way to take out your aggression on kids that give you evil looks in English class,” said Chris.
By Jared Murray and Paige Thompson
This past fall Franklin Township Community School Corporation in Indiana made a controversial move by outsourcing their busing services in an effort to save money. The real controversy, however, came when the school corporation added that it wanted to charge students for using these services, with the yearly cost being over $400 per child. While the outsourcing of bus services itself is allowed, the act of charging for these newly outsourced services is unconstitutional.
The situation in Franklin Township is being closely watched by many other school districts, but for different reasons. Some districts that have been considering outsourcing their services themselves are watching to see how things work out, while others, like the New Albany-Floyd Country Public School Corporation are watching to ensure that it does not happen in their district. “[We] empathize with them. We constantly monitor our budget,” said chief business officer/ treasurer Fred McWhorter II, who said there are no plans to outsource busing services in NA-FC schools.
McWhorter said school officials are doing everything they can to preserve the busing system as it currently is while being financially responsible. “We’ve instituted GPS technology to optimize our routes to reduce time. We use what is called Versatrans, our transportation routing software. We also have started to buy our diesel fuel in bulk,” said McWhorter.
The school system has also started to become more self sufficient with transportation. “[We] will be able to provide all of our own fuel, [with a new] fuel tank in the lower parking lot behind Galena [Elementary],” said McWhorter. With the building of the proposed fuel tank, the busing fleet will eventually be able to avoid filling up at gas stations completely, therefore saving money on the fuel.
“Because the budget comes from state funds, you have to go where that takes you,” said principal Janie Whaley. Because of this, it is important that the corporation has a self-sufficient transportation system, to prevent a situation like that of Franklin Township. And for those who are worried about the possibility of no more transportation, don’t worry. “Right now we’re going to continue with our own transportation,” added Whaley.
The students and staff at FC show off the moves for this year’s morale dance.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/36994958]
