Category Archives: Sidney Reynolds

Christian DiMartino, News, Peter Hyle, Sidney Reynolds

Winter Fantasia preforms despite recent cancellations

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By Peter Hyle and Christian DiMartino and Sidney Reynolds

For the past eleven years, the choir, orchestra, and band departments at FC have hosted Winter Fantasia. A musical showcase that preforms Christmas carols and tunes, each department puts a lot of time and preparation into their part of the show. Although the preparations are hectic every year, the recent cancellations due to snow have made this year especially stressful.

Each department faces their own specific obstacles in planning their part of the concert.

“A main challenge is that it is very close to the end of our marching band season. We have to get all of our concert bands ready to learn the music, while things like Pep Band, Winter Guard and Winter Percussion are still going on. So it’s a very busy time for us, especially with Winter Fantasia mixed in,” said band director Harold Yankee.

Aside from the demanding schedules, there are more stressful problems that the students and teachers are faced with.

“Our biggest obstacle has been preparing the freshmen and bringing them up to the standards. The music in Winter Fantasia is always very challenging for the freshmen, but they’re fighting harder than most to learn this year’s music,” said orchestra director Doug Elmore.

After over a decade, the directors have adjusted to each other’s eventful schedules.

“We’ve got it down to a system where it works very smoothly. The first few years we had some troublesome details to figure out, but now we basically follow the same pattern each year. We typically always change the pieces of music performed, but we each know what we’re going to do and when,” said choir director Angela Hampton.

There are many songs that will be performed during Winter Fantasia, but there are certain highlights for each director.

“My favorite part in the whole concert is the last song at the very end, where everyone plays and sings together. There are so many students on stage enjoying the same song at the same time. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is just a pleasant piece of music. It’s always been one of my favorite pieces,” said Yankee.

Winter Fantasia is held on Tuesday, Dec. 10 and Thursday, Dec. 12 at 7pm. The box office is opened each night at 6:15pm. The recent snow days have made things more stressful for the students and teachers performing, but everything is still on schedule. There is a silent auction all throughout both nights of Winter Fantasia, and the directors are encouraging people to come early to participate in the final auction. This event is described as FC’s biggest music event of the year.

News, Peter Hyle, Sidney Reynolds

Dance Marathon committees plan out the year ahead

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By Peter Hyle and Sidney Reynolds

FC will be hosting the Dance Marathon this February for the fourth consecutive year. This event provides games and activities in an effort to raise money for Riley Children’s Hospital. To conduct an event like this requires well thought out planning and dedication. In order to make the fundraiser as successful as possible, the planning and preparations are divided into four different committees.

“We have the fundraising committee, which is in charge of fundraising money prior to the event itself to try and get the total up each year. We also have recruitment, which works on getting people to the event itself and spreading the word about what Dance Marathon is and what we’re trying to accomplish. The entertainment committee is in charge of planning the night, which involves creating a schedule and planning out all of the activities. And then of course there’s catering that provides us with all of the food and beverages,” said FCDM coordinator and English teacher Tiffany Stansbury.

Creating each committee and giving them a purpose was a large task to take on. But even more in depth was deciding how each group would be constructed. For the fourth annual Dance Marathon, there were 170 students who volunteered to be on staff. Unfortunately, not everyone could be accepted.

“It was certainly a nice problem to have,” said Stansbury, “But we had to have a certain amount of guys and girls, a certain amount from each grade, and then we tried to get an even amount of people who have been involved in previous years and people who are new to the staff.”

Each year the event is hosted, more students learn about the fundraiser and it’s success seems to build from previous years.

“I had so much fun at last year’s Dance Marathon, and I thought it would be an even better experience this year to contribute,” said sophomore Kristen Burger, new to the FCDM staff this year.

Even though the main event is not until the second semester, the committees are dedicating their time and efforts in advance to make as large an impact as possible.

“We sold Yankee Candles at the end of August as our first fundraiser, and we have so much more planned. The yard sale is on Sept. 28, and we have a Halloween Party coming soon in October,” said Burger.

For the other volunteers, the overall experience of being on staff is also a main reason they choose to dedicate themselves to the cause.

“I volunteered for Dance Marathon again this year because last year it had a big impact on my life. It felt good to be a part of something so huge and worthwhile. I was a small part in it but it was still a great opportunity,” said junior Lexie Byrd.

For the past three years, the FCDM committee has gone past their own expectations and raised more than their actual goal. To make this possible for a fourth year in a row, their new goal is to “Strive for Forty-Seven Five”, which is a couple thousand more than what they collected at last year’s event. On top of that, they are constantly thinking of how they can improve and give more back to Riley’s Hospital.

“We’re trying to get the word out earlier and take part in more activities throughout the school year. For us, Dance Marathon is a year-long process and we want to bring that to the school as well,” said Stansbury.

Editor’s Note: For more details on this year’s Dance Marathon activities, check out the Oct. 4 issue of The Bagpiper.

A&E, Sidney Reynolds

Iron Man 3 excites columnist

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By Sidney Reynolds

Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 is incredibly refreshing and thrilling. This time Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is back with his same arrogant, brilliant, and humorous self with a slightly more humanized effect that makes it easier to connect with the audience.

Throughout the movie it shows Stark having anxiety attacks from his time in New York working with The Avengers. During this time it also shows that there are a string of terrorist attacks committed by the main villain, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley).  In response to his actions, Stark publicly insults and threatens the Mandarin. This results in his house is bombed while he and his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), are inside. Stark goes to find him but results in getting captured by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). This leads to a full out battle between Stark and the Mandarin.

It was very nice to see this movie pick up after The Avengers instead of just ignoring it as if it never happened. Drew Pearce and Black also did an outstanding job writing the script making each scene exciting, intriguing, and hilarious to kept the audience’s attention. They also did a good job with character development. Stark seems a little more human and less like the perfect man due to his post-traumatic stress disorder. Robert Downey Jr. did an excellent job as he has done in the past two movies. He managed to get every emotion, thought, and word to touch the audience.

In the movie, Potts really transforms from just a love interest in the first movie into a bit of a hero all her own even though she is not necessarily the main hero in this movie. In this movie she really shows more of her independence which is different than most superhero movies that typically just have a damsel in distress. She is an inspirational role model for young women showing that she does not need to wait around for Stark to save her and that she can be her own hero. Paltrow does an amazing job portraying Potts and makes it very easy to see the chemistry between her and Stark.

This movie was definitely worth seeing again and again. It is an all around exceptional movie.

A&E, Sidney Reynolds

Rick Riordan’s The Mark of Athena excites columnist

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By Sidney Reynolds

Rick Riordan’s latest book The Mark of Athena, the third book in the The Heroes of Olympus series, is full of action and plot twists that will keep readers on the edge of their seats throughout the entire book. During the story, there is never a dull moment whether it is monsters attacking, a god or goddess going on a rampage, or another prophecy being shelled out to our heroes. The plot of the story also has the minds of the readers constantly trying to figure out the prophecy and wanting more.

The story begins with Percy Jackson at Camp Roman. Recovering from his amnesia that goddess Hera gave to him and Jason Grace, he is reunited with Annabeth and the young heroes she brings along. Together, Percy and Annabeth combine their groups of three Roman heroes: Jason Grace the son of Jupiter, Hazel Levesque daughter of Pluto, and Frank Zhang son of Mars. The two other Greek heroes — Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite, and Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus — make up the seven heroes from the Prophecy of  Seven.

The seven must go rescue Hazel’s half brother Nico di Angelo from giants while dealing with other monsters, Roman soldiers, and gods/goddess that have it out for them. Annabeth, in her own quest given to her by her mother Athena, strives to learn more about the Mark of Athena. She wants to know what it has to do with her, and what she needs to do in order to fulfill the prophecy.

Because Percy was one of main reasons for the popularity of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, it was really nice to have this new story being told from his point of view. It reminds readers of how much Percy has developed from the first time we read about him in the book The Lighting Thief. It gives readers the nostalgic feeling they experienced with him in his first series.

The book is also told from the point of views of Leo, Annabeth and Piper. While I feel like this could have easily gone wrong and would have made the book hard for readers to understand, Riordan did an amazing job making sure all of the points in the plot lined up with the side stories in the book. This allows readers to see what is happening with the other six members of the group and to get a more complex story.

I could not put this book down for a moment and I cannot wait for the fourth book, House of Hades, to come out next fall. If you have not read this series or the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, I highly suggest starting. Reading the books in chronological order will keep things from getting complicated. The overall plot is thrilling and the characters themselves are deep and complex. This book is worth reading over and over again.