January 19, 2016

Hawk News The News of Southwest Middle School

A fun filled event is coming to Southwest next Thursday even-ing. The Winter Carnival is coming up on Thursday, January 28th from 5-7:30 p.m. Seventh grader Koby Hutt said he is looking forward to attending the Winter Carnival again this year. Hutt said, “It’s fun.” The carnival serves as the school’s largest fundraiser. The PTA puts on the event which requires 120 vol-unteers. Those interested in volunteering can sign up via volun-teer spot.

Some activities planned include a football toss, trike races, prize wheel, ice cream walk, toilet paper toss, fingernail painting, and many more. Hutt said his favorite activity is the basketball hoop jump in the gym. In this activity the students jump on a trampoline while trying to make a basket.

Putting on this massive fundraising event needs the support of the entire Southwest community as such the PTA is asking for donations. Each eighth grade student is asked to bring junk food which is individually wrapped. Seventh grade students are asked to bring 2 liter pops. Sixth grade students are asked to bring individually wrapped candy. Donations need to be in by January 27th. Hutt encourages everyone to attend. “It’s fun, and you’d have a really great time,” Hutt said.

Winter Carnival

Band Concert By Maddie Richards, Alex Whitcher, and Anna Willis

On Monday, January 11, 2016 all Southwest band students per-formed at the Stevens High School auditorium. Chan Foresman, SWMS band director, has been preparing for this concert for many weeks. He has many students throughout all three grade levels at Southwest. Foresman teaches fifty-five sixth graders, forty-seven seventh graders, and forty-five eighth graders every day. This concert was com-posed of seventeen songs including For-esman’s favorite “Old Red Mill”. For-esman thinks his students perform the song “E Pluribus Unum” the best out of all. There are many things Foresman loved about the concert but “listening to the eighth grade flutes perform their solo” was his favorite. Foresman has been teaching for thirty-two years total at many different

By Raimi Brickhouse and Delaney Enright

schools including Rapid City Christian, St. Thomas Moore, South Middle School, and Southwest Middle School. He loves teaching at Southwest for many reasons including the staff, stu-dents, and that it’s nearby to his home. He is certified to teach technology, sociology, psychology, music, special education, and vocal/instruments. Foresman plays many unique instruments of all kinds, but he said, “I play the saxophone the most out of the band instruments.” Overall, Foresman thinks the concert was a success.

By Lexi Baier, Caleb Brink, and Sam Marchiando

Wrestling City Champs

Southwest Middle School ended the wrestling season with more city champs than any other RCAS middle school. Seven students from Southwest won city, meaning these students were the best in their weight divisions. The sixth grade city champs were Jaron Martz, Jevon McNabb, and Jack Schoenhard, Seventh grader Ryan Brink, and eighth graders Caleb Brink, Josh Briese-Sengar, and True Synhorst took first in their division as well. A city champ, Jevon McNabb went 11-1 in the season. He had three people in his weight division at the city champion-ship and beat all of them. His closest match was in the champi-onship where he went all three periods and the final score was 4-2. McNabb went on to win city.

Another successful Southwest student is eighth grader Cooper Voorhees. He is wrestling at the varsity level at Stevens High School. Voorhees said the difference in practices are “high school intensity is about 200% more than middle school”. Voor-hees has had to wrestle an 11th grader 4 times in order to keep his varsity spot. Voorhees said, “I have worked very, very hard to get to this point.”

Teacher Spotlight: Kari Abelseth

Kari Abelseth teaches eighth grade math, Math I, and math lab. Her favorite subject grow-ing up was P.E. and her least favorite was math. She said, “When I was young I used to be really good at math! Then I got my mom for a math teacher and that changed things. I started to not like math, and therefore I was not so good at it anymore. In college, I learned new strategies, and now I love it!” She has been teaching for 12 years: Six years here at Southwest Middle School, one year at Rapid Valley Elementary School, and five years at Dakota Middle School. She is quali-fied to teach elementary, K-12 math, and middle school social studies.

She started college pursuing a business degree. After her first semester, she decided she would have a lot more fun teaching than working at a desk all day. She was really good at math as a kid and still is. For college she went to Dickinson, ND (DSU) and Spearfish, SD (BHSU). She wanted to become a teacher because her mom is a teacher, so Abelseth plans to teach until she retires. She was born in Sidney, MT. She has a husband named Jason, 2 daughters, Madysen and Malia. Her favorite thing to do in her free time is laying in the sun.

Page 2

January 19, 2016

By Eri Berry and Rico Sosa

Monday

No School

Tuesday

Belgian Waffle Sticks, Chicken Sau-

sage & Tri-tator

Wednesday

All American Hamburger & Cheesy

Green Beans

Thursday

Hot Turkey Sandwich, Mashed

Potatoes & Gravy OR Gilardi Pep-

peroni Pizza Wedge

Friday

Italian Meatball Sub & French Fries

OR BBQ Rib Sandwich & French

Fries

Everyday

Baked Potato and Breadstick or

Salad

Lunch Is Served

Career Corner: Roy Goben By Lexi Baier, Caleb Brink, and Sam Marchiando

Hawk News is continuing its new series Career Corner with a look at the job of Roy Goben. This Southwest parent is the Operational Manager of ambulance services in Lead/Deadwood and works as a flight paramedic in Pine Ridge. He has worked as a paramedic since 1999 and has been a flight paramedic since 2008. He began his current job as Opera-tional Manager of ambulance services in Lead/Deadwood 3 years ago.

Previous to working as a paramedic, he worked as a career fireman in Rapid City. Goben decided to become a paramedic instead of a fireman because, “You do more and you’re more of a true hero.” Goben is currently in school to add to his experience further. He’s attending Excelsior College’s online program for nursing. Excelsior is located in Ney York.

Goben’s favorite part of being a paramedic is “being the one there that makes the ultimate change in a life”, Goben said. On the other hand, his least favorite part of the job is firing and taking disciplinary actions. On average he said he works about 80 hours a week. As a paramedic, he works 24-hour shifts. When on duty and there are no calls coming in for emergency services, we hang around the station, playing video games, studying, and taking care of other various tasks.

Goben was born in Belle Fourche and grew in Glenham, SD, the town of 99 people, is near Mobridge. He said it influenced his career because the fire department there was very advanced in their protocols.

His advice for young people interested in pursuing his career would be to have self-confidence because in the field you don’t have a team helping you out you usually only have one partner.

Quote of the Week By Katrina Morea

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

-Dr. Seuss

Page 3

January 19, 2016

Did You Know?

By Chelsea Ebel If you lift a kangaroo’s tail off the ground, it

can’t hop.

http://

www.thefactsite.com/20

11/07/top-100-random-

funny-facts.html

Artist Showcase By Eighth Grade Student Ocean Eberlein

Thank you to our editors Chelsea Ebel and Katrina Morea.

Math Counts is a nationwide middle school math organization. The Southwest Math Counts team is lead by Crystal McMachen an Eighth Grade math teacher at Southwest. They solve complex math questions without a calculator. They meet Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons, at the practices they prep for competitions by solving math problems. There are about 15 students who participate in Math Counts here at Southwest. These students benefit from math counts by “becoming better problem solvers” McMachen said. There are many competitions, three of the major ones are, the Chapter Competition in February, the State Competition in Pierre, and Nationals in Washington D.C. This year McMachen is very excited to see how our Southwest team performs at the Chapter Competition. She has very high hopes for the team.

By Sam Marchiando, Caleb Brink, Justin Schulz, and Nash Tackett

Math Counts

Girls’ Basketball

This year eighth grade girls’ basketball had a total of twenty girls go out for the team. Southwest has an A and B team; each team has ten girls playing. Carla Allard-Watson is the coach of the A team. Charles Doolittle is the coach of the B team. To start off the all city tournament, the two teams had games Tuesday, January 5th against North Middle School. The B team played at 5:45 at North, and won 39 to 22. The A team played at 4:15 at East against North, and won 47 to 6. The next game the two teams played West Middle School. Both teams lost their game; A 31 to 26 and B 31 to 25. Doolittle said, “The tournament was always exciting and it’s nice that we played our best during the tournament.” Izzy Hood from the B team said, “It was a good season and I am proud of my team. I wish the season was longer.” Megan Gisi from the A team said, “I enjoyed having Carla as a coach and I really enjoyed my team.” Doolittle added, “The season was a huge success. Girls learned a lot and had fun playing together.”

By Emilee Goldy and Darcy Geersen

Math Teacher Crystal McMachen