Bright and early on the first day of school, HHS students poured into the building for the start of the new year. At the ring of the first bell, as students com-pared schedules, it quickly became evident that several issues were at hand.

“At least 25 schedule change forms were submitted per counselor the first week,” Veronica Ortiz, the guidance secretary, said. For the first few days, students were assigned to the auditorium for the blocks during which they didn’t have an actual class scheduled.

“There were no fewer than 60 kids left in the auditorium at the end of first block, Tuesday, Aug 21,” Ortiz said, “There must have been over 120 to begin with.”

Ortiz believes the problems this year are more extensive than in past years. “There

were a only couple new classes added to the curriculum. The issues probably arose from the large number of new students,” Ortiz said.

“Over 100 arrived from outside the Harrisonburg area, coming in from all over the U.S. and different countries, Ortiz said.

The combination of both full year and semester courses this year makes matters confusing when it comes to putting stu-dents into the classes they need.

“Upperclassmen tend to be more picky

with their schedules,” Ortiz admitted, “usually because of all the APs they try to fit in.”

There are a few exceptions, though. Christina Sellers, a senior, received a ‘vir-tually perfect’ schedule at registration, consisting of all five APs she signed up for as well as her electives.

On the other hand, junior Lillian Poirot wasn’t quite so lucky.

“I was signed up for English, but it didn’t fit in, so I ended up having three fourth blocks and no second block next semester. It’s probably going to have to be online,” Poirot said.

“It’s never an easy time of year. Stu-dents tend to get frustrated about not getting the classes they want, and anxious that they’re missing instruction time. I do my best to explain the process, but some-times I’ve just got to say, ‘sorry, this block is full,’” Ortiz said.

where every person has a storyTheNewsstreak

Paul Ryan visits Shenandoah ValleyHarrisonburg High School • 1001 Garbers Church Road • Harrisonburg, VA 22801 • 540.433.2651 • Volume XIC • Issue 2• September 28, 2012

HHS wins Wells Fargo Cup second year running

See WELLS FARGO on Page A2

Scheduling problems leave students without classes

Celia EhrenpreisEditor-in-Chief

PHOTO BY PAUL HAIRSTON

See RYAN on Page A2

B10: Paul Ryan rallyA10: Drama dept. newsB6: The Red Sea, tailgating, and football

Coming Up Updated sports scores for all seasonal sports an intramurals

Feature package stories and extended coverage of print packages

Advertising forms and information Breaking news from school community Video footage of sports Variety of reviews and blogs Poll of the week Picture of the day

One Act and musical exclusives Fall sports coverage: football, volleyball, and more

Homecoming dance reviews Presidential election preview International festival hits the ‘Burg Debate team trying to defend state championship

VHSL fall championship workshop results for all media

Scan this with your mobile phone to go to www.newsstreak.com

On the Web

WATCH YOUR FINGERS. Freshman Abner Johnson and A.k. Koyee work on their boat design for STEM Academy

At your fingertips

Gina MuanNews editor

From his administrative work at other Virginia schools, principal Tracy Shaver knows that winning the Wells Fargo cup comes with a good deal of recognition. So, the spring before he came to HHS, he was excited to hear that his new school had won the award. He was even happier when HHS won the cup for the second year in a row this past spring.

“We have a lot of things to be really proud of,” Shaver said. The cup is a joint ef-fort of many programs in the school.

Two Wells Fargo Cups- one for academ-ics and one for athletics- are awarded to the top scoring high school in the A, AA, and AAA divisions.They are awarded by the Virginia High School League (VHSL) and sponsored by the Wells Fargo bank. HHS received the academic Wells Fargo Cup for the AA division, after scoring a total of 220 points. These points came from the News-streak, yearbook, and literary magazine (which all received Trophy Class rankings), the one-act play (which was state runner-up), the creative writing program, and the debate team (which won the state champi-onship.) The total was 25 points above the nearest competitor.

“Our extracurricular programs have

Mia KarrManaging Editor

-Scholastic Bowl-Creative Writing

-Theatre-Forensics

-Debate-Newsspaper

-Yearbook-Literary Magazine

Components of the Wells Fargo Cup

PHOTO BY SUKRITI ADHIKARI

Debate over Presidential candidates intensifiesWhat do the candidates stand for? What do students think? We explore the pros and cons. A6 Paul Ryan generates excitement for all agesRecent rally at Rockingham County Fairgrounds attracted Republican fans. Check out their reactions to Ryan. B10

See STEM on Page A2

“At least 25 schedule change forms were submitted per counselor the first week,”Veronica Ortiz, Guidance Secretary

ELECTION 2012. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, visited the Shenandoah Valley on September 14 at the Rockingham Country Fairgrounds. He spoke mainly about the economy and the EPA as he presented the Republican platform.

For 24 eager freshman, their high school experi-ence will be like no other graduated class. These new students are members in the STEM academy (acro-nym for Science, Technolo-gy, Engineering and Math-ematics). The program was introduced this year at HHS for interested science students.

The ninth graders were chosen after a long applica-tion process, that included an extensive essay,multiple problem solving questions, as well as teacher recom-mendations.

Once the students were selected, they attended a two day orientation be-fore school started, that focused mainly on team

building exercises. All stu-dents received personal laptops during orientation that they are to keep for the school year.

The necessity of the computers arises from the engineering portion of the curriculum, taught by Seth Stratford. They are vital be-cause the majority of that class is online. Although STEM is Math and Science geared, English, taught by Sheila Antonnicola, is in-cluded in the four classes to help develop students’ writing, reading, and com-munication skills.

“I joined STEM because of my interests in science. I wanted to learn more at a higher level. STEM classes have more integration[than regular freshmen classes]. In our science class, we’ll

Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, made a quick pitstop in the val-ley Friday, Sept. 14. Supporters from all over the western part of Virginia attended Ryan’s speech. Even some republican supporters from Pennsylvania made the long journey to Harrisonburg. After the crowd waited for two hours, the campaign bus finally drove into the fairgrounds.

Karen Kwiatkoski, a former sixth congres-sional district GOP hopeful, led the prayer at the beginning of the rally. Kwiatkoski believes that the rally won’t have as much of an impact as the Obama appearance in 2008 had.

“We were in a much smaller area, so the number of people who came was smaller,” Kwiatkoski said. Despite this prediction, sev-eral arrived at the Rockingham County Fair-grounds in time for the start of the rally.

Mary McMahanNews Editor

“[One purpose is] to get the [republican voters] base excited and get out there.”

The pledge of allegiance was led by Sen-ator Mark Obenshain’s daughter, Tucker Obenshain, a student at JMU. One goal for Romney and Ryan, in the 2012 election is to attract younger voters.

U.S. Congressman Bob Goodlatte in-troduced the crowd to Paul Ryan in the sweltering heat. The rally was not only important for Ryan; Goodlatte is also cam-paigning to maintain his seat in the House of Representatives.

Ryan’s speech focused on the impor-tance of electing Governor Mitt Romney as the next president of the U.S. during the rally. Some of key points for Romney’s election, highlighted by Ryan, included the deficit, Obama care, the EPA (Environ-mental Protection Agency) and it’s affect on agriculture. The current state of the

economy and the current size of the U.S. government are Romney and Ryan’s main focuses.

“[Paul Ryan] was a good speaker [who] allowed me to see both sides of the spec-trum,” senior Trevor Cockburn said.

The event was even a hot spot for new correspondents from major news stations like FOX News. Conservative FOX news contributor, Kate Obenshain, sister of state senator Mark Obenshain attended the event.

The Paul Ryan rally was expected to be important for the Valley this fall since Vir-ginia has been named a “swing state” for this election after Virginia “went blue” in the 2008 presidential race.

“Republicans are going to take back ev-ery single inch of the valley,” Kate Obens-hain said.

“[One main purpose of the event] is for those independents who haven’t made up their mind,” said Kate Obenshain.

Dress Code IssuesStudents must follow the dress code this year. Clothing regulations can be found in the student handbook sec-tion of the HHS planars. Students who violate the dress code will be asked to change into a school pro-vided outfit.

Schedule ChangesScheduling problems have been fig-ured out by the guidance department. The deadline to change a schedule has already ended. Guidance will not ac-cept any requests.

Football Season Kicks OffHHS opens up the football season with a win against TA. The next scheduled home game will be Septem-ber 21 at 7:00 p.m.

Prudential Spirit of Community AwardApplications for the Prudential Spirit of Community Award are due Novem-ber 6, 2012. Applicants are required to have taken part in community ser-vice after September 1. Applications should be turned into a school prin-cipal.

PROMISE ScholarshipThe proimse scholarship will be due March 1, 2013. The applicant must be 50% latino to qualify for the scholar-ship. The winners of the scholarship will attend a celebration at the Mar-tin Chapel at Eastern Mennonite University from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. on June 1, 2013.

PARKING PASSES AVAILABLE IN ATHLETIC OFFICE

Students must purchase a parking pass. Warnings have already been issued by the athletic department. Tickets will be given out if the stu-dent doesn’t have a parking pass.

FAFSAStudents who need more information about financial aid for college should sign up to meet with their guidance counselor.

Red Sea Shirts Students who wish to purchase a red sea t-shirt should visit room 444. Shirts are $10 and sweatshirts are $20.

Chicago TripThe Fine Arts department will be tak-ing a trip to Chicago this spring. More information for fine art students will be available within the month.

Most Valuable Blue Streak

Alex Hunter-Nichols was named “Most Valuable Bluestreak” at the

Academic Excellence Ceremony. Ka-trina Sokolyuk and Robby Ross were

runner-ups.

Red Sea TailgateTailgating takes place every home football game in the parking lot. Come out and support your streak! Bring $1 to cover the cost of food. See Robby Ross for more Red Sea details.

News Briefs

RYAN from A1

NEWS- A2NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

Brenna CowardinStyle Editor

Dinapoli revamps class wars competition

Q: What were you teaching before you got your new position?A: “Eighth grade English at Thomas Har-rison Middle School.”Q: Do you miss teaching?A: “Yes, I miss connecting with students.”Q: What are the pros and cons of your job?A: “A pro is I get to work with wonderful teachers and share and learn about effec-tive instruction. A con is I have a different role and so far I have no classroom. Also, I don’t get to have that same connection with students.”Q: Do you have to work more than before?A: “No, about the same. Then again I thought I worked a lot at my old job.”Q: What is the purpose of your position?A: “I partner with teachers to help find the resources and strategies to the most effec-tive teaching so all the students can be suc-cessful. I hope to help teachers help their students become better writers and read-ers.”Q: Do you like being a instructional coach?A: “I LOVE it.”Q: Do you still teach some students?A: “Not directly, but I can co-teach and help teachers with students so I would say sometimes.”Q: What advice would you give to new stu-dents?A: “I would say to teach to enjoy it, have a long-range plan at least five years, and to build relationships with students.”Q: What do you miss about teaching?A: “So far, what I miss about teaching is the opportunity to work directly with stu-dents, but it’s great to see so many former students here at HHS.”

Curriculum coaches ready to help teachers growMargot Zahner- English Tricia Cummings - Math

Q: What are the pros and cons of you new job?A: “Number one pro is that I get to be in a lot of different classes, and I’ve already met a good many students. Also, it’s just really fun to see teachers who are eager to get all the information they can get, and I love the people in the math department. So, the fact that I get to work side by side with them it’s just enriching for me. [The] con is I’m not in the classroom with my own students all day long. Really, that’s the only con for me. I miss being in the class-room all day, but I’m really lucky I get to be the the classroom one block a day.”Q: What do you do in your new job? A: “I can help write a les-son plans for teachers, and help them teach models. I can video tape teachers. I can help them write their goals for the year. I can go in and observe another teacher and other teachers can observe me in my classroom. I’ve helped write pacing guides. So, any-thing that teachers need support with I’m willing to do it.”Q: What advice would you give a new teacher?A: “I would say number one, make the students feel welcomed and cared for and respected. Everything else can be learned. You can content and teaching strategies but number one is for the students to feel safe and trusted. Talk to other teachers if you’re struggling. If you’re feeling like you’re overwhelmed. I don’t know about other departments but in the math de-partment everyone is there to support new teacher and other teacher.”

Felicia TranStaff Reporter

Ana Hunter-NickelsPhotography Editor

What is it? A competition between the se-niors, juniors, sophomores, and freshman to raise the most spirit.Who’s running it? Our own SCA president, Ben Di-Napoli, has recreated Class Wars.Why should you participate?If your grade wins you will receive some awesome prizes, like catered lunch from Outback Steakhouse, a movie in the auditorium, and a class trophie!When Class Wars end?Class Wars will end near the end of the school year, so hurry and raise some spirit!Where can we raise spirit?You can raise spirit at school dur-ing Homecoming week OR at a school related event.How can you “raise spirit”?All students can raise spirit by go-ing to any school related event, pick up a token, then head to room 444 to drop them into a bin with your grade on it. This is how we count spirit.

Ben DiNapoli, SCA president, is reviving the idea of Class Wars, an intramural competi-tion, his sister, Emma DiNapoli, began two years ago. Class Wars is a full year of competition where students can earn points at a multitude school-related events. Senior Alexis Grahan has been here four years and is excited about Class Wars.

“It’s a good idea,” Grahan said. “It’s a better way to get the school involved.”“Getting the school involved” was exactly DiNapoli’s plan. These activities include student attendance and school-related events.

“Class Wars emphasizes par-ticipation,” DiNapoli said. To get points, students must be pres-ent at school activities and func-tions. Junior Morgan Neary be-

lieves that “we need more people at sporting events so our fellow students can get support from the school.” This means not just showing up to Friday night foot-ball games or the musical this winter; students can earn points by going to band concerts, choir concerts, or even tennis match-es. At these events, students re-ceive chips, or tokens, that they must return to room 444 and put in their grades’ jar.

During Spirit Week before Homecoming, students who dress up to show their school spirit will be awarded points also. The SCA plans to hold three-on-three sports tourna-ments throughout the year as well, with games ranging from basketball to ultimate frisbee.

DiNapoli hopes to soon have a score tracker on the school’s website so students can see their class standings online. He also plans to announce chip counts the school day after an event during morning announce-

ments. At the end of the year, all

the chips will be counted up and the winning grade gets a class trophy, a catered lunch from Outback Steakhouse, and a to-be-announced movie in the auditorium. DiNapoli hopes fu-ture SCAs at HHS will continue Class Wars and make it a tradi-tion by passing the class trophy between winning grades as the years go on.

The SCA hopes the competi-tive nature of high school stu-dents and the tantalizing prize of a steak dinner will boost school spirit. David Loughran also predicts a rise in student participation at school-related events.

“(Class wars) certainly can allow students to get caught up in the excitement and competi-tion.” said Loughran.

DiNapoli is excited to see the outcome of Class Wars. “Dif-ferent grades have different strengths,” DiNapoli said.

Algebra or Algebra 2Instruction coach or TeacherTests or QuizzesExpressions or Equa-tionsMultiple choice or Fill in the blankVariables or Coeffi-cientsStudents or Teachers

Reading or WritingGrammar or Spelling

Poems or Short storiesFree verse or RhymingMondays or SundaysCurriculum coach or

TeacherHomework or

Classwork

Heather Kimberlain - Science

Gina MuanNews Editor

Earth science or Biology

Chemistry or BiologyStudents or Teachers

Astronomy or GeologyHomework or

ClassworkMultiple choice or Fill

in the blanksMornings or EveningsMondays or Sundays

The Skinny on Class Wars

Q:What were you teaching before your promotion? A: I taught fifth grade science and geogra-phy at THMSQ:What are the pros and cons of your new job? A: The pros are: I get to be at three dif-ferent schools. I have gotten to see many former students and catch up with them. I get to meet lots of teachers and be in lots of classrooms. -cons-I don’t have my own class or class-room anymore.Q: Are you helping teach other classes? A: Part of my role is to work collaborative-ly with teach-ers, so I get to help with lots of different things includ-ing teaching classes. Q: What grades are you working with?A: Mostly 9th right now... Q: Do you have to work as much as you did in your old job?A: I had different work in my classroom. I don’t know if I would quantify it as more or less. Q: What do you do in your new job?A: I work collaboratively with teachers to improve instructional practices. Q: What successes are you hoping to see in the first year of your job?A: I hope to work with many different teachers and to facilitate collaboration among teachers in the same content areas. Q: What advice would you give a new teacher?A: Work closely with your mentor. Take advantage of the expertise and support of people around you. Don’t forget to take time for yourself.

been strong. It’s a matter of those pro-grams reaching a peak and performing at the highest level,” Athletic Director Dar-rell Wilson said. Wilson is in charge of the VHSL activities (both athletic and academ-ic) that over 500 students participate in. He and Shaver would both like to see even more students participate.

“I’ve been very impressed with the qual-ity of sponsors we have. The students are phenomenal. I want to see more students continue to get involved,” Shaver said. He believes that students who participate in extracurricular activities are better at time management and organization, and gener-ally have higher grades. Recruiting young-er students is important too for both their personal growth and the growth of the teams.

“[It’s about] building the team from the bottom up,” Wilson said. He wants to have

the upperclassmen continue to be leaders in their respective activities, while training and teaching underclassman who will be-come leaders in the years to come.

Wilson got to watch first hand what goes on with an academic team when he accompanied the debate team to their state competition, and was impressed with the amount of preparation that was required.

“Whenever the community at large gets attention drawn to positive things about our academics... it’s a good thing,” debate coach Peter Norment said. He adds that negative things about the school system are often the issues highlighted in the news.

“It’s nice to be recognized for the achievement. It means a lot to us as a school. It’s something the teams work hard for,” Wilson said, describing his reaction to winning the cup.

Shaver put it more simply, “I was thrilled.”

WELLS FARGO from A1

have Algebra 2 concepts dur-ing the lesson,” freshman STEM member Malcolm McGee said. There has been controversy over whether or not STEM would in-terfere with freshmen’s elective choices. This is partially true, al-though it does not conflict with extracurricular activities.

“I wanted to take the debate elective, but it would not fit with STEM and band. I have not had a problem with [the program] in-tervening with marching band,

but we’ll see,” McGee said. “[I think the best part about

STEM] is it’s collaboration. For example, the students read the novel A Night to Remember which deals with the sinking of the Ti-tanic, we then, in engineering did a boat design to help tie the two together. For the science part of that project students will learn about buoyancy and test their boats in water,” Stratford said.

The STEM Academy was co-founded by Mathematics and Sci-ence teachers Geoffrey Estes and Andrew Jackson.

“[The founding] was really a collaborative effort, no one per-son came up with the idea,” Jack-son said. Once the idea was for-mulated it was refined, and then passed by the school board.

STEM academy is not only run by the HHS faculty, it has an advisory board comprised of community members interested in the success of young students. The board does everything from offering their opinions of the cur-riculum, to evaluating the inner workings of the program, and it’s benefits. Freshman Karan Chal-

ishajar was drawn to the STEM program because of the engineer-ing component.

“I really like the fact that the subjects relate. In elementary and middle school, they never did,” Chalishajar said.

The program is designed for students to build upon their knowledge throughout high school, therefore it is a four-year program. If a student feels they are no longer experiencing suc-cess from the academy, they are allowed to leave at the end of a grade.Classes are considered

honors, although that is sub-ject to change if supervisors feel a class is either too easy or too hard. STEM students are not able to apply to Massanutten Regional Governor’s School due to con-flicting schedules.

“There are definitely things we will tweak for next year, such as the pacing of the classes, and making sure everyone is keeping up. Up until this point, we’ve had very positive feedback [about the program],” Stratford said.

STEM from A1

STEM program beginning this year for HHS freshmen

Ryan presents GOP platform HHS going for three-peat with Wells Fargo Cup

Many monumental events have occurred in the last 89 years. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched a total of 17 Apollo missions from 1963-1972. Although there were only six successful Apollo missions, the United States achieved great accomplishments from around the 1960s and beyond landing on the moon on July 20, 1969.

This success story is similar to that of our eighty-nine year old HHS paper, The Newsstreak. Over the years the Newsstreak has be-come well known, spreading its lit-erary wings not only here in Har-risonburg, but across the nation as well.

Newsstreak is the only nation-ally known paper in our district, although Waynesboro High School does have a newspaper, it hasn’t reached the national acclaim that our newspaper has achieved. All four other schools in the county do not create or publish a newspaper.

Fifteen years ago, Valerie Kibler came on board as adviser to the Newsstreak.

Kibler’s staffs have won numer-ous awards throughout her tenure at HHS, while she was helping the paper reach its fullest potential and pushing students to always do their best.

In 2010, Kibler was recognized for her outstanding work, by win-ning the National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year Award. This award is seen as an “Emmy Award” in high school jour-nalism.This amazing accomplishment launched our paper to an even big-

ger and better award-winning are-na in the 2011-2012 school year.

The Newsstreak won first place with four marks of distinction in the National Scholastic Press As-sociation (NSPA) making it an All-American publication.

Our online edition of News-streak achieved first place with two marks of distinction in the Na-tional Scholastic Press Association (NSPA).

Combined, both the online edi-tion and the print edition earned the Gold medal ranking with All-Colombian honors for essentials from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Newsstreak also received the George H. Gallup award, the high-est honor given by the Quill and Scroll International Journalism Honor Society.

Nineteen students have been named as finalists in the Virginia High School League’s 2012 Writ-ing/Design/Photography competi-tion. They will find out where they ranked in the top five when they attend the regional championship workshop on Oct. 1 in Fredericks-burg, VA.

In order to further their jour-nalism skills, staff members travel to multiple journalism workshops and conventions throughout the course of the year. These include the Virginia High School League fall championship workshop in Fredericksburg, VA, The fall na-tional convention in San Antonio, TX, the spring national conven-tion in San Francisco, CA and the spring regional convention in Co-lumbia, SC.

HHS also hosts the Virginia jDay in April for journalism stu-dents and advisers from around the state.

NEWS- A3NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

Publications receive high rankings

AP scores have been released and HHS has once again performed above average.

Teaching an AP course requires you to teach a college level course to high school students, students who are years younger than the average college student.

Jay Blair is a new AP US history teacher who has just finished his first year teach-ing the subject. Blair has seen the distribu-tion of scores in his class, and though they were not ideal in his eyes, he was pleased regardless. His class average was above the national average, and his class had a higher percentage of four and fives than the na-tional average.

But he believes there is still room for improvement.

“We, had, a bigger number of twos than I would like see,” Blair said. To try to maxi-mize his students’ performance, Blair is making alterations to his curriculum.

“Truth be told, I am always thinking about making alterations in the curricu-lum of every single class I teach.” Altera-tions such as the inclusion of released AP exam questions in chapter tests, to help students familiarize themselves with the format. He will also focus on ensuring ev-ery student participates in independent study, study outside of the classroom.

AP biology teacher Mac Bair is very pleased with the results, and for good rea-son. Bair’s class average was the highest of the science AP programs in HHS. His class performed to his expectations, and he be-lieves the scores represented the class well. Bair believed the rigor of his class ensured students would know the content in order

to get the grade they desired. Then that knowledge would carry over into the exam.

Regardless, Bair will make alterations to his curriculum, but not only to maximize potential. The official AP Biology exam will have additional content for the 2012-2013 school year, and Bair is compensating for the additions.

With 44% of his class getting a five, and a 7.14 percent increase in the mean score from the prior year, AP US Government teacher Kris Vass had one of the best AP showings in the school.

“You have to set the bar high with an AP course, and make students reach for it,” Vass said. Vass ensures his class is pre-pared for the exam by having high expecta-tions for his students.

But Vass concedes there are unique challenges to teaching AP Government.

“It’s hard to motivate seniors some-

times,” Vass said. In response to the se-nioritis, Vass tries to motivate his students by getting them to be politically active. Every nine weeks he demands a project involving government be completed. Vass just wants seniors to get engaged in their government, whether that participation is volunteering at a local political office, reading political documents, or even riding with the police.

All three teachers agreed on one thing. The teachers may have taught the content, but the students were the real stars of the exam. The students were the ones who put in the effort to learn the content, to per-form to the best of their ability.

“The kids in the AP classes are some of the smartest, most motivated, students in the school,” Vass said.

Isaac FalkOp-ed reporter

HHS has very strong scholastic media pro-grams. Imprint is the school’s literary magazine. It got its start in 2008 and has become a very dec-orated program with all of the awards they have won.

Every year since Imprint began in 2008, they have won multiple staff and individual awards.

2008 and 2009 were their least productive years as they only won eight awards combined.

In the following three years, though, they have garnered 37 awards.

The magazine as a whole wins awards when it is evaluated by independent judges from various evaluation services offered by scholastic publica-tion organizations such as the Columbia Scholas-tic Press Association, the National Scholastic Press Association, the Southern Interscholastic Press Association and the Virginia High School League.

Individual students can also win awards. In 2008, 2010, 2011 the magazine won trophy class from the Virginia High School League. In 2009 the magazine won a first place, the ranking just below trophy class.

Some of the individual awards that a student can win are best drawing, painting, 3-D art, prose spread and best cover.

Imprint competes at a state level with the VHSL and at the national level with CSPA and NSPA. Imprint magazine is not free to the students and staff. It usually runs about $3 and is student-made and student-edited.

Richard Morrell is the faculty adviser for Im-print.

“We want the magazine to reflect the student body. We want more people to submit personal writings. With a school this big we should have at least a hundred people submitting work,” Morrell said.

Imprint magazine comes out in the late spring. Submissions can be made to Morrell in room 465.

Sydney KnuppStaff reporter

AP scores once again above average as compared to state, national averages

Sam ImesonStaff reporter

Imprint lit mag continues to earn awards

The Yearbook here at HHS is one of several award winning programs. Aside from being a great program to be part of, it has received multiple distinc-tions.

“The Yearbook has won a gold medal at the Columbia Scholas-tic Press Association,” adviser Mary Strickler said. “This school year, the Yearbook’s theme is Capture, where the goal is to ‘capture’ everyone doing some-thing interesting.”

“Buy the yearbook because it’s really good and there are 60 kids hard at work taking pic-tures and submitting pictures.

[We’re] focusing on putting more people in the yearbook in-stead of the same old. Over the summer the yearbook staff went to two camps,” Strickler said.

“[We] won the same awards as last year but [are] also get-ting the Colonel Savedge Award. That’s for seven years of excel-lence. No one get’s it twice ex-cept for the big Northern Vir-ginia schools so this year we feel special,” Strickler said.

In an age when many publi-cations are ending their tenure, Strickler feels like the yearbook is one of the most important publications a school has.“[If it ended] I would be sad, because the yearbook allows you to really bond with your children and get to know them on a personal lev-

el. Since each class has a differ-ent personality,” Strickler said.

“The cool thing about the yearbook is that we now put vid-eo in it and readers can down-load a free app on their smart-phones or iPads called a QR code reader. There are videos of the halftime show, the marching band, top plays of football, vid-eos of broadcast, and the News-streak app of the day,” Strickler said.

Working with the TAJ staff is rewarding for Strickler.

“Part of the problem with winning is that you don’t get a yearbook the student body wants. It’s more about making a yearbook that the students want than winning awards,” Strickler said.

Yearbook receives gold medal from ColumbiaJohn EarleStaff Reporter

Newsstreak named All-American

One week before summer vacation end-ed, 17 cadets joined Colonel McCutcheon and Command Sergeant Major Wilder for the first ever, two-day leader camp where cadets experienced hours of leadership and rigorous work outs.

The point of the camp was so the cadets could prepare to take on the responsibility of running the Blue Streak Battalion. The cadets were watched and chosen for the right position to successfully run the bat-talion.

C/COL Maxi Medeiros received the po-sition of Battalion Commander. Alongside him is the Command Sergeant Major, C/CSM Fernanda Gonzalez, Executive Of-ficer, C/LTC Cecilia Valdez, Honor Guard Commander, C/LTC Alexis Day, and the S3, C/LTC Maggie Zheng to successfully run the battalion as they are the “Top Five,” the most elite and experienced cadets in the battalion.

The cadets participated in a team build-ing exercise, “The Olympics,” where they were divided into three teams and compet-ed in different events such as one minute max push-ups and curl ups, an individual mile run, tug of war, individual and team sprints and mile runs. The three teams commanded by C/COL Maxi Medeiros, C/CSM Fernanda Gonzalez, and C/LTC Ceci-lia Valdez all ended in a tie with 23 points.

On Sept. 7, 31 cadets departed from HHS for Brethren Woods to participate at Leader Camp where the cadets were trained to be leaders in the Blue Streak Battalion chain-of-command and endure hours of techniques in drill and ceremony.

The cadets were again divided into three squads, each commanded by the C/CSM Fernanda Gonzalez, C/LTC Cecilia Valdez, and C/LTC Alexis Day. The cadets compet-ed in various activities including drill, one minute max pushup and curl ups, team mile runs and sprints.

All the cadets had time to bond with one another and meet the “Top Five” as they competed with one another. In the end, second squad, led by C/LTC Cecilia Valdez took home first place followed by C/

LTC Alexis Day’s squad and lastly, C/CSM Fernanda Gonzalez’s squad.

On Thursday, Sept. 13, the Blue Streak Battalion joined Colonel McCutcheon and Command Sergeant Major Wilder in the first ever JCLC and Leader Camp Awards Ceremony where the cadets were recog-nized for their achievements during the camps they attended.

JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge (JCLC) is a week-long camp during the summer at Fort Pickett, Virginia, where ten HHS cadets joined 500 other cadets to participate in JCLC Eagle.

There, they were split up into three companies: Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie to compete as they were all trying to be the Honor Company.

The cadets had the chance to experience rappelling, water-borne obstacles, drown-proofing, the Leadership Reaction Course and many more activities with their pla-toon and squad. In the end, C/1LT Kevin Orengo and C/1SG Nicholas Dean were members of the Honor Company as Char-lie Company was victorious. C/LTC Cecilia Valdez received the Special Recognition trophy for Bravo Company and medal at the JCLC Awards Ceremony as well as C/LTC Alexis Day. All JCLC participants re-ceived JCLC Arc, Rappelling Arc, Orien-teering Arc, RECONDO Arc, JCLC Eagle Pin, Senior Army Instructor Leadership Ribbon, Proficiency Ribbon, Orienteering Ribbon, Adventure Training Ribbon, Com-mendation Ribbon, JCLC Ribbon, Hiking Ribbon, and Rappelling Ribbon.

Other cadets also got recognized for their achievements at the Leader Camps. For the Team Builder Camp, C/CSM Fer-nanda Gonzalez got the Highest Gradu-ate Medal and C/LTC Maggie Zheng took home the “Guts and Glory” medal for her attitude at the “Olympics.”

For the Leader Camp, the Highest Grad-uate Medal went to C/SGT Abby Westfall with the runner ups, C/SGT Karla Gon-zalez and C/SGT Maria Medeiros. C/SGT Anna Zheng also got the “Guts and Glory” Medal for her attitude at the “Olympics” as well.

All the cadets that participated in the Leader Camps received Leadership Arcs and Hiking Ribbons for their participation.

Colonel Roy McCutcheonGuest reporter

JROTC members grow leadership skills

PHOTO BY PAYWAND SOFY

PHOTO BY JOSE ELLEDGE

TOP: JROTC student cadets participate in a team-building exercise of tug-of-war at pre-school leadership camp.

TOP: JROTC cadet squads perform a drill involving carrying a stretcher with a teammate to practice for pos-sible scenarios.

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So now that we’ve begun to hit our full stride, it’s time for you to learn what it means to not be lazy giraffes. Summer break may have ended only a month ago, but that is no excuse for being a procras-tinating beaver. If you want your life to not be a spiral of agony be-tween oases of despair, then stay up to date on your work.

But fear not, for I am here to help guide you, for I am the guru of not procrastinating. Ex-

cept for Newsstreak, this entire piece should’ve been written two weeks ago.

To start off, get started. Do whatever it takes to get yourself motivated to get cracking on your homework. If that means dangling a carrot in front of your head, that will work. The faster you get your homework done, the faster you can get back to watch-ing Hannah Montana or whatev-er your mind comes up with.

If you put your work off until later, you’ll find yourself doing algebra at 12:30 a.m. while all

your friends are out playing hop-scotch.

Don’t be afraid to get ahead. I’ve already finished advanced molecular gastronomy, and that class doesn’t even begin for an-other five years. If you get ahead now you get some flex room to slack off later. The more you do now, the less you have to do later, and the less you have to do later, the more you can do later, unless you have more to do now, which results in having more to do later, unless it’s a blue moon. Got it?

Take time off if you need it,

don’t constantly be working. If you need to take a quick tai chi break, go for it. Constantly work-ing stresses your body and mind, and before you know it, you are running shirtless through down-town screaming about chimpan-zees stealing your iced coffee. Let’s try to avoid that. Don’t overburden yourself and you can retain your sanity, unlike poor Charles.

Whenever you get overbur-den just remember what Sir John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long run we are all dead.” So

NEWS - A5NewsstreakTheAugust 21, 2012

TheHarrisonburg High School

Newsstreak

The Policy

The Newsstreak is pub-lished by the students of Har-risonburg High School every month. Reproduction of any material from the newspa-per is prohibited without the written permission from the editorial board. Advertising rates are available upon re-quest.

It is the policy of the Har-risonburg City Public School Board to comply with all ap-plicable state and federal laws regarding non-discrim-ination in employment and educational programs and services.

The Harrisonburg High School City Public Schools will not discriminate illegally on the basis of sex, race, reli-gion, national origin, disabil-ity or age as to employment or educational programs and activities.

Editorials appearing with-out a byline represent the majority opinion of the staff, but not necessarily the opin-ion of the adviser, school ad-ministration, or the school system.

Signed editorials are ac-cepted from people on the staff, but are subject to edit-ing according to published guidelines and policies. Edi-torials may be edited for spe-cial reasons.

Letters to the editor are encouraged and must be signed and a telephone number must be given. Names may be withheld if the editorial staff feels there is a just cause.

The Newsstreak reserves the right to edit and may re-fuse to publish ads or letters deemed inappropriate, libel-ous, or obscene. Please drop your letter by room 444 or give them to any staff mem-ber.

Letters may also be sent to the high school.

The editors and staff

Editors-in-Chief:Print - Mark Duda, Celia Eh-renpreisOnline - Maggie Siciliano, Ben DiNapoliManaging Editor: Mia KarrAdvertising Managers : Aus-tin Coffey and Bryndal Fulg-initiPhotographers: Ana Hunter Nickels, Sukriti Adhikari

Staff Reporters: Mark Duda, Maggie Siciliano, Ben Di-Napoli, Mia Karr, Katrina Sokolyuk, Anthony Duong, John Earle, Max Johnson, Isabelle Burden, Julexus Cappell, Bryndal Fulginiti, Victoria Giron, Ana Hunter-Nickels, Gypsy Torgerson, Gina Muan, Kerri Hofacker, Kendall Bailey, Josh Byrd, Austin Swift, Valerio Aleman, TJ Kirkland, Jr., Ellie Plass, Felicia Tran, Brenna Cowar-din, Luke Gibson, Isaac Falk, Sukriti Adhikari, Chelsea Ar-nott, Lindsay Plume, Karim Rawls, Josh Storella, Lybeth Vega-Lopez, Anthony Wal-ton, Sydney Knupp, Alexis Dickerson, Nishat Jamil, Mar-ilyn Gallardo, Paul Hairston, Sam Imeson, Anna Wyatt, Faith Runnells and Mary Mc-Mahan.

ProfessionalAffiliations

The Newsstreak participates as a member of several jour-nalistic evaluation services including the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA-2010 Gold Evalua-tion and 2005 & 2009 Silver Crown Winner), Quill&Scroll Journalism Honor Society (2012 Gallup Award), Nation-al Scholastic Press Associa-tion (NSPA) All-American, the Virginia High School League, Inc. Trophy Class Award, and the Southern Interscholastic Press Association All South-ern Ranking and 2010 Scrog-gins Award winner.

newsstreak.com opt out notice:

If you do NOT want to al-low your student’s full name or image to appear on the school newspaper site, please send an email to vkibler@harrisonburg. k12.va.us stating: I understand that the school newspaper, newsstreak.com, now has an online version of the publica-tion. I DO NOT want my son/daughter (place student’s name here) to have his or her name or image published on

Mia KarrThe Mia Perspective

FEELING

Write a letter to the editor!

Let us know what we are doing well,

doing poorly, or not doing at all.

Drop ‘em off in room 444

Isaac FalkOpinion Editor

Are students ready for career choices in eighth grade?

Op/Ed - A5NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

OPINIONATED?We must all be born with procrastination, be-cause we all suffer from it. What is procrastination exactly?

Procrastination is what I call a hidden excuse not to do any homework. We all want to say that we have other things to do, or we are too tired, but real-ly, we are just procrastinating. If there’s something out there that is more entertaining than homework, then we are going to stop working on our calculus homework and go do it.

There are multiple ways to avoid procrastination, but they take a lot of effort, concentration, and ded-ication.

Tip 1: When typing up a paper, don’t have Face-book and Twitter open on different tabs.

Tip 2: Try working in some place that is quiet and away from all distractions like televisions and com-puters.

Tip 3: Put your phone on silent, or just put it somewhere out of reach. Only use it if you need to look up something for your homework, of if you need to ask a friend about a school or homework related topic.

Tip 4: Determine a homework schedule. a.k.a. set aside a certain time of the day that you will work on your homework non-stop. That way, you’ll be more motivated to finish everything, but still have enough time to just relax.

Tip 5: Don’t be a procrastinator. A little is okay sometimes, but eventually you will fall behind, and your stress level will skyrocket. Be a good student and do your work on time.

Tip 6: Reward yourself with something when you complete a task. Create a list of things to do, and as you cross something off your list, go reward your-self. Make sure the time spent on rewards doesn’t add up to more than the time spent on task.

I must say that I do enjoy procrastinating a little. When I get home for school, I don’t like to start homework right away, even though I know that I should dive right into it. However, if we find that perfect balance between school work and leisure, we are sure to ride successfully through our school work.

If you think procrastination is “putting something off” you would be wrong. Well, techni-cally you would be right, but you would be missing a very crucial part of the equation- actively put-ting something off.

Doing something right before it is due because you are ridicu-lously busy is not procrastina-tion. That is called high school.

No, procrastination takes some effort.

I got my learner’s permit at the very end of August and I turn sixteen on Oct 29. Every time I thought about how I should study, I thought about how dreadfully boring it would be and lacked motivation to get started.

Here are the steps that helped me successfully procrastinate this task for four months.

1. Note that given task needs to be completed sometime far in the future. As in, not tomorrow. Console yourself with this fact and try to forget about the as-signment/project/mission.

2. Whenever you find your-self thinking about how much you need to get this thing done, get really busy doing things you would not ever, in any circum-stance, need to do. The Internet

is a helpful tool for this. Actually spending lots of time on the In-ternet is required for procrastina-tion.

3. Try to outsmart yourself with clever reasons why waiting to do this task makes sense. For example, “If I wait until the night before the test to read the whole book it will be fresh in my mind!”

4. Realize that you really have to get this thing done and start freaking out. Go into an intense spiral of guilt where you ques-tion everything from your ability to complete basic tasks to your worth as a human being and have to turn to chocolate for solace. Vow that you will never, ever, ever procrastinate this much again.

5. Repeat. Well, that might just be me.

Honestly I am not that good at this whole procrastination thing

because I am usually too busy. However, when I do make an ef-fort to procrastinate I find myself asking why I am doing it. The ob-vious answer is to avoid some-thing I really do not want to do, so I can be happy at that moment- but I am not really happy at that moment because I am thinking of what I should be doing. Until I finally got my permit, I would have moments of spastic unhap-piness whenever it came up in my mind, and, as you can see, I spent a lot of energy procrastinating that I could have been spending doing things that actually make me happy.

In the end, my opinion is that procrastination is not worth the energy- but if you ever find your-self needing to do it, I hope you will take my helpful how-to guide to heart.

Steps to procrastination help you through school

This year marks the incipient year of the HHS STEM academy, and with it, a marked change in educational philosophy at HHS. The STEM academy is the first subject academy planned, but not the last. A fine arts academy is planned for the future, and others are not out of the question.

Until now, HHS has always encouraged broad-based education for its students, but the planned subject academies threaten to change that. Encouraging the brightest stu-dents to focus on one particular subject area early in high school will limit their exposure to other areas, areas they might not have known they enjoyed, or known to even exist. Many high school kids don’t really know what they are interested in by senior year, let alone the eighth grade. The general trend of colleges and universities is to have students declare a major af-ter their sophomore year, and even then plenty change their minds.

That is not to say, however, that acad-emies will not have their benefits. Every

student in an academy class will actually want to be there, supporting a better learning en-vironment that might not be found in a gen-eral class. In addition, for the students who do actually know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they want to study the subject of their academy, the academies will supply earlier and more exposure than would be available otherwise.

On the other hand, it is unlikely the acad-emies will actually foster better overall school performance in students. According to re-search done on similar subject academies in other high schools by MDRC, the primary benefit of the academies is an increase in graduation rates among enrolled students.

Standardized test scores and grades outside of the acade-mies were not higher among academy stu-dents than the overall student population. Even the graduation rate at HHS is un-likely to show sig-nificant gain, because the academies are all selective, and the stu-dents in them would almost certainly grad-uate anyway.

Tips to avoid procrastination

Wake up slackers! It’s time to get crackin’

WHAT WE THINKThe unsigned staff editorial appears in each issue and reflects the majority opinion of the Newsstreak Staff Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is comprised of all editors-in-chief, page editors, advertising managers, photographers and selected freshman journalism students. In no way does our opinion re-flect that of the school system or the administration.

THE ACTUAL VOTEAfter much discussion about the pros and cons of academic academies, the board voted 15-3 that high school students weren’t really ready to com-mit to a subject area at such a young age.

ART BY GINA MUAN

Mary McMahanNews Editor

OP/ED A6NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

The Future of Voting

Romney key to bright future Obama is making progress

I am ten months too young to ever vote for Barack Obama, and I am livid.

Living in one of the most contested states in a presidential election that, for the first time in my life, genuinely carries weight for me, there is nothing I’d rather do but whine that my vote doesn’t matter, but cast a ballot anyway. Instead, in this situation, I really am voiceless.

But let me explain why this means so much to me and why, given the chance, I would vote without hesitation for Presi-dent Obama.

I will be the among first to admit that Obama is not perfect. But his administra-tion has accomplished some remarkable things during this first term, especially given the hostile political environment they’ve been forced to work in.

Since this is my article, I’m allowed to be a little self-centered. Here’s a little sam-pling of how Obama’s policy has affected my world.

I believe it wrong to deny anyone ac-cess to healthcare, no matter how much it may cost. I think human lives are generally worth a great deal more than money. Un-der the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), some of my previously uninsured family members will now be covered. In addition, I can now stay on my parents’ healthcare plan until I hit 26.

I also believe it’s wrong to continue spending billions of dollars fighting a war with no clear end, one that is killing U.S. soldiers and Afghan citizens alike. Obama has already disposed of Osama Bin Laden, and has a plan to withdraw our soldiers from Afghanistan by 2014. With so many Americans concerned about the deficit, it only makes sense to me to cut back on mil-

itary spending, since that is where most of our debt comes from. Paul Ryan’s plan however calls for cuts to almost everything but the military.

(When it comes to the issue of balanc-ing the budget, I am appalled at the Ryan plan. I don’t see how slashing practically all social services, but not military spend-ing, and lowering taxes for the top few percent helps anyone (except, well, the top few percent...). These are the agencies that help individual Americans who are strug-gling, and generally improve the quality of American life. I believe protecting our own well-being, on an individual level, is more important than trying to pay back a debt that has already been spiralling out of con-trol for years. It’s not going to happen any-time soon. But anyway. I digress.)

I believe that any two people who love each other should have the right to get married, to use the common phrase. I be-lieve that, in a way, it is something of a hu-man right. Obama recently voiced a similar opinion. He has already ended the twisted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, a major step forward for LGBT rights, and I am fairly certain that if he is re-elected, he will fight to make marriage equality a reality in the U.S., a nation that prides itself on having “liberty and justice for all”.

On a somewhat similar note, I believe that no person is “illegal”. This is especially the case for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, and had no say in the matter. Although I’m not a Dreamer, I know kids, hardworking students in my high school, who are, and thus strongly support the Dream Act. Obama has always supported the Act, and I’m convinced that he will continue to fight to see it passed.

I also believe that going to college should not mean that I, or any other stu-dent, should be left bogged down in debt. Obama has been pushing for college loan forgiveness, which would make it easier for thousands of families, like mine, to afford to send their kids to school.

Although these are just a few of the is-sues being considered in the upcoming election, Obama’s positions on them is enough to tell me that I want to see him in office for another four years. If Romney is elected, we risk losing what progress we made during Obama’s first term.

Never in my life have I more desperately wanted to be 18.

This November, voters will decide the future of America forever. The question facing voters is who is best suited to run this great country we call America: Mitt Romney or President Obama. In my opin-ion, Mitt Romney isn’t a good choice. He is the best choice. From his private sector experience to him saving the winter Olym-pics, Mitt Romney has enough experience to qualify him for presidency.

He is a person who understands the economy and knows how to create jobs. We need that now, with or 8.2% unemploy-ment rate and stagnating economy.

Romney has already planned out his first day of presidency. Part of this plan is to repeal Obamacare and allow states to pass healthcare laws that benefit the in-dividual state. Also, he wants to allow the people of the U.S. to purchase health insur-ance across state lines. It is no guarantee that it will lower prices, but if insurance companies want to stay in business, they will lower their prices.

To create jobs, you need to put money in the pockets of the job creators which lowers taxes for everyone. If the job cre-ators have more money in their pockets, they are going to invest it in their busi-nesses. If consumers have more money in their pockets, they will spend more. If businesses see that their products are be-ing bought, they will create more jobs to deal with the demand.

It is one big cycle, but if the U.S. wants to be competitive in global markets, we have to lower our corporate tax rate. Right now, the U.S. has one of the biggest corpo-

rate tax rates in the whole world at 35%. We have no chance in a global market if we punish businesses for being successful. Mitt Romney also has said he will elimi-nate the death tax and so many more taxes like the AMT tax.

Another issue is our presence in the middle east and supporting our allies. Instead of turning our back on Israel, we need to tell Iran that we stand with Israel and will support them in any decision they make. If they get attacked, we need to be there. Just like when we were attacked on 9/11 and all of NATO came to our side.

Due to budget cuts, our military could be shrunk to a military that was about the same as pre-WWII. Ronald Reagan said once we should have peace through strength. Which means have a strong, big military that will intimidate any terrorist group.

To prove the Mitt Romney’s plan works, let look at states within our nation. In Vir-ginia, for example, Governor Bob McDon-nell went into office with a deficit left by Governor Tim Kaine. He cut spending, didn’t raise taxes, and Virginia now has a surplus. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie faced a similar situation when he went into office. Yet he cut taxes, balanced the state budget, and now has over a $500 million surplus. This goes to show Mitt Romney’s plan can work.

In August, Mitt Romney announced his running mate. His pick is the House budget committee chairman and native Wiscon-sinite Paul Ryan. Once Ryan entered the fray, so did Medicare. Ryan has proposed a plan to fix Medicare so it will not bankrupt America. He has gotten criticism from the Democrats, but that is to be expected. I ask this, “Where is the Democrats’ plan to fix Medicare?”

During this election, many things are going to be discussed, but taxes, jobs and the healthcare system are going to be most important. This election is so important, the future of our nation depends on this election.

Who do you want, someone with a prov-en business record or a president whose policies haven’t really helped the nation in the past three years?

Abortion: Democrats believe a woman has the right to choose to abort a fetus.

Marriage: Democrats believe marriage can be be-tween any two people.

Taxes: Democrats believe in middle class tax cuts, and upper class tax increases.

Health care: Democrats are in favor of the indi-vigual mandate.

Immigration: Democrats want to extend citizen-ship to children of illegal immigrants who gone through the American education system.

Gun Regulation: Democrats believe in higher gun regulation.

Regulation: Democrats believe in the regulation of business.

Abortion: Republicans believe life begins at con-ception, therefore abortion is murder.

Marriage: Republicans believe marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Taxes: Republicans believe in a trickle-down economy.

Health care: Republicans are not in favor of the indivigual mandate.

Immigration: Republicans are not in favor of the president’s plan to extend educational aid to the children of illegal immigrants.

Gun Regulation: Republicans do not want greater gun regulation.

Regulation: Republicans believe in the de-regu-lation of business.

Republican Views on... Democratic Views on...

Joshua ByrdStyle Editor

Ellie Pruett-FiederleinStaff Reporter

Good News in the WorldNew Map of Human Genome Released: This is one step forward in understanding human ge-netics and solving genetic conditions.

Paralympics 2012 Held in London: The paralym-pics are a great way to celebrate our extraordi-nary handicapped athletes.

North Korea Accepts South Korean Aid: The North Korean people are in need of aid after a tropical cyclone leaves an estimated 21,000 homeless, and South Korea is willing to aid.

Mars Rover Continues to Collect Data: Weeks af-ter its succesful touchdown, Mars rover Curios-ity continues to send back scientific information like the composition of Mar’s atmosphere.

Bad News in the WorldHurricane Isaac hits Gulf of Mexico: Hurri-cane Isaac hit the south-eastern United States, prompting fears the levees will break again in New Orleans. Luckily New Orleans was spared, but parts of the coast were flooded by Isaac.

Dispute over Okinawa Escalates: Chinese citi-zens landed on the disputed island of Okinawa, provoking Japanese outrage. The island has long been a source of conflict for China and Japan.

US Envoy Killed in Libya: Libyan militamen at-tacked the US consulate, killing a US envoy.

Neil Armstrong Dies: Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, died August 25th. He died from complications after a surgery on his arter-ies.

The Basics: The Republican Platform vs. the Democratic Platform

As the fall elections grow closer, the importance of becoming involved in local, state and national elections is even more prominent. Here, columnists look at the issues on both sides of the aisle to help you in the decision-making process.

STYLE A7NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

Homecoming through the years

Ah, the romance! Students of 1975 enjoy a slow song at homecoming. In the first few years of homecoming celebration, students showed up in the gym after the “big game” and danced without the buffet tables or complimentary gifts. Photo courtesy of the 1975 yearbook.

Sophisticated Royalty. Homecoming Queen of 1963 reigns over the dance floor. Photo courtesy of the 1963 yearbook.

Club 1001. Students pack the dance floor at last year’s homecoming. Neon sunglasses, a complimentary gift, were handed out at the door. Photo courtesy of Mary Strickler.

Oct. 15 marks the start of HHS’s annual spirit week and though from an outside view it might seem bizarre, the stu-dent body is more than excited for what this year may have in store.

“I like to see the whole stu-dent body get involved. It re-ally helps us get hyped for the game [at the end of the week],” senior SCA reporter Sam St. Ours said.

For those unaccustomed to the whole tradition of go-

ing wild in the name of HHS, here’s what to expect: Through-out the whole week of

Oct.15-19, you can expect to see more than several differ-ent ways of students express-ing their spirit, with the fabled homecoming game being the primary focus.

Dress up day themes en-joyed in previous years have included decades day, country day and of course the most spirited of all, blue and white day.

“Just seeing all of the Red Sea t-shirts on one day was really great [last year],” senior

Robby Ross said. Ross is an-other key player in keeping up the school spirit throughout the week.

This year’s themes include crazy hat day, sophistication day and athletic day, but many students already had arrange-ments in mind long before they’d been decided.

“I’ve geared up my Moses costume, and I’m gonna try and tailgate on a random day not even for a game,” Ross said. “You give me anything school related and I’ll be excited about it.”

Whether a student is a re-cent addition to the school or

regular participant, it’s a great way to get involved and become an important part of HHS.

“If you’re a new kid, you might be scared that you’ll be different from the rest of the students, but during [spirit week] everybody can be differ-ent, everybody can be festive. You can get rid of any nerves and just have fun,” St. Ours said, providing some encourag-ing advice for those who may be more hesitant to join in.

“It’s a great way to get in-volved with the school and meet new people. If you have to be in school, why not enjoy it?” Ross said.

Spirit days spark involvement in HHS sudents

Homecoming will be held the week of Oct. 15-20 and the SCA is working hard to prepare for the dance that Saturday night.

Homecoming weekend not only in-cludes the dance, but also the homecom-ing pep rally and the football game against Spotswood.

Junior, Shane Burke is excited about the game. He plays varsity football and is ready for that Friday night.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Burke said. “We get to wear our new jerseys and we are all going to be looking really good. Spotswood’s going to be intimidated.”

The cheerleading squad is in charge of organizing the homecoming pep rally. A lot of exciting activities will have to be packed into that tiny, 30-minute slot. Se-nior, Nancy Carrie Logan is the captain of the cheerleading squad and can’t wait for the pep rally.

“It’s going to be awesome!” Logan said.

Dress for the dance is semi-formal and tickets are $15 per person. Tickets will go on sale in room 444 the first week of Oct.

Out of school guests are allowed to at-tend, but they must fill out a permission form which can also be picked up in room 444. Eighth graders are not permitted at the dance which will run from 8-11:30 p.m.

Hall decorating competition between the classes will also be an activity that will take place during spirit week. All students can be involved with this and should talk to their class officers or sponsors to find out more information.

What a smile! Homecom-ing Queen of 1975 gra-ciously accepts her crown. Photo courtesy of the 1975 yearbook.

Fondest Memories. A gentleman escorted his date onto the dance floor. Photo courtesy of the 1975 yearbook.

Congratulations! A friend congratulates the Queen of homecoming 2004. Photo courtesy of the 2004 yearbook.

Clap your hands! Students of 2004 enjoy a good song. Photos courtesy of the 2004 yearbook.

Luke GibsonStaff Reporter

Isabelle BurdenFeature Editor

SCA prepares for homecomingAre you going to homecoming with a date or friends?

9th grade

10th grade

11th grade

12th grade

6 with dates

24 going with friends

6 with dates

24 going with friends

4 withdates

24 going with friends

4 withdates

8 going with friends

100 people were surveyed for this poll. Infographic by Ellie Plass

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STYLE A8NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

1.) Breaking Dawn 2.) 2016 3.) The Hobbit

No one likes getting one back with a big “F” on top. Also the stress of studying is extremely taxing.

What’s HOT

Fall Movies

What’s NOT

Tests

The milkshakes are so good. The food is delicious. The in-terior is a ski lodge.

Live! with Kellly and Michael

Cookout

Homecoming

After a year of hosting Live! on her own, Kelly Ripa final-ly announced her new host, Michael Strahan.

Apple annouced that they will release a new iPhone. The tech world is going nuts.

A night where you dress up, have an awesome time and party all night.

iPhone 5

Photos of her topless inside her vacation home have led the royal family to file an in-junction to have the pictures removed.

Princess Kate

We get it. You want us to vote for you. Leave us alone!

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She looks like Draco Malfoy

Miley Cyrus’s Haircut

Prince Harry

Questionable photos of him partying in Las Vegas.

New comedy hits air

If you know, indie-rock, you’ll know Bloc Party. Now, the Lon-don based band has finally re-turned from the dead and have even released a new album to prove it. After their self-imposed hiatus starting back in 2009, they’ve come together again to re-lease ‘Four’. As the title suggests, this is their fourth studio album. If you were a fan of their first re-lease ‘Silent Alarm’ then prepare to have mixed emotions, “Four” is quite simply Bloc Party doing what they do best, experiment-ing. They do a great job at it too, but don’t expect anything like a remake of their debut. Despite this, there are definitely a few connections that can be made. On the track Octopus, an ener-getic guitar jitter accompanied by singer Kele Okereke’s unique vocals can only make one think of the band’s raw beginnings.

I couldn’t help but grin while listening to the opening track So He Begins To Lie, its notable rock riff is so familiar but incredibly fresh at the same time. The rise and fall of verse-to-chorus-verse-

to-chorus layout that they’ve be-come so great is still there too. With Four, it’s a new so

und that keeps in mind every-thing we’ve loved about previous albums simultaneously. The fran-tic pace and erupting vocals on the track 3x3 is a great example of this, while another called Real Talk is more mellow, reflective and in complete contrast, but it still has that distinguished Bloc Party style. There seems to be a Rock-influenced sound that is more prominent here than in past releases, however this is still something that most fans will en-joy.

The drawback of having such a variety of styles in a single album is that the track list sounds quite unorganized and jumpy, as op-posed to the steady flow we may be used to. Though this does not affect the feel of the songs them-selves, there is a feeling of incom-pleteness that one can’t help but pick up on. Nonetheless, I found this to be an insightful and fresh-feeling album that the band have not tried to cheat the listener out of. Bloc Party are glad to be back, and the feeling is certainly mu-tual.

Guys With Kids is an upcom-ing NBC comedy premiering on Sep-tember 26, 2012. This show stars Anthony Anderson, Jesse Bradford, and Zach Cregger as three men in their 30’s raising their kids on their own. This show will most likely appeal to adults instead of kids and teenagers.

Guys with Kids is produced and created by Jimmy Fallon, the host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon is an actor, come-dian, and musician. He has ap-peared in several films over the

duration of his acting career, but is best-known for his perfor-mances on Saturday Night Live from 1998-2004. When asked about the show, freshman So-

phia Hartman said, “I’m not sure if I’ll watch it. It’s not re-ally my type but I’m sure it will be good for people who like that kind of show.”

It’s hard to say if this show will actu-ally be as funny as NBC claims. As of now the network has only released

one trailer showing the guys sit-ting in a restaurant with their babies strapped onto their stom-achs and making jokes. I guess we will all just have to see when the big premiere day comes!

Revolution, a new television series on NBC, premiered on Sep-tember 17th. Revolution shows what would happen if a massive EMP, electromagnetic pulse, hit the continent of North Ameri-ca. An EMP is a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy caused by the rapid acceleration of charged particles. If a large enough EMP hit the continent it would send the United States back into the 18th century. This would result in no cars, phones, or internet, making communica-tion difficult.

Revolution is being produced by producer J.J. Abrams and

takes place 15 years after an EMP hits the continent. Many people are skeptical about Revolution because it seems unlikely that an EMP would take out the whole continent. People also think it’s a rip off of The Hunger Games as well as S M Stirling’s Dies the Fire. Producer J.J. Abrams leads the show into a future where mi-litias and warlords rule society. Tracy Spiridakos stars as Charlie Matheson, the main character, who is searching for her little brother in the television series. In 2009 Spiridakos starred as Becky Richards in the Canadian televi-sion series. Spiridakos’s character is headstrong, daring, and curi-ous in the new world J.J. Abrams has created.

Revolution hopes to up NBCs ratings

Bloc Party - “Four” album review

You may know David Archule-ta as former runner-up on the hit show American Idol and from his hit single Crush. Well, now he’s back! His new album Begin covers songs from Christina Auguilera’s Beautiful to True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. His cover of Beautiful was simply stunning and one of my favorite covers of this song. Although I don’t think he or any-one could top Auguilera’s origi-nal. True Colors was probably my favorite cover on the album, just because the way he sang it made my smile and made me a little bit giddy inside.

Angel by Sarah Mclachan an-other cover by him was nice, but it didn’t have as emotion as the original. Now his cover of Some-where Only We know was almost as good as the original and he added his own flare by making it more acoustic. I got to say my fa-vorite song from this album was the song co-written by him, Bro-ken. It had so much passion and soul to it that I couldn’t help but have goosebumps on my arms and fall a little bit in love with

him even more.Here’s a quote from Broken:I still try to love, but I’m in my

placeWhere doing what’s right is so

wrongI think this quote is trying to

say that he still is trying to look for love but in his life right now and he finds that love and to him it seems right but in the end it feels wrong in his gut.

I think the type of people who would like his music is the kind of people who like listen-ing to soul/ pop but I would say to keep an open mind to the cov-ers and try and not to compare as the great singers that had wrote those songs otherwise you will hate the covers and won’t think of him trying to add his own flare to these great songs.

Honestly, I can’t wait to go home and buy this album on Itunes. I give this album 4 out of 5 stars because although he did some great covers and wrote an awesome song I just felt like he was missing that one thing in most of his songs which was emo-tion and he didn’t feel passionate for most of his songs.

America Idol runner-up releases album

Faith RunnellsStaff Reporter

Gypsy TorgersonStaff Reporter

10. The tenth most popu-lar song on iTunes is “Every-body Talks” by Neon Trees. The lyrics are catchy, the rhythm’s upbeat. What more could you want?

9. Next up is Carly Rae Je-psen, with the infamous “Call Me Maybe”. Yea, it’s still on the top ten.

8. Cher Lloyd comes in at number eight with “Want U Back”. What with the grunts every other verse, the song’s a little out there, but still pret-ty fun.

7. Making the list at num-ber seven is a Top Ten new-bie, at least to my knowledge. Phillip Phillips’ “Home” is a refreshing break from all the electronic sounds usually on the top ten. The real guitar and singer’s slight accent make it a little more relatable, at least for me.

6. And, here we are. Jus-tin Bieber. You knew that you couldn’t make it through an article about the top ten with-out seeing his name, didn’t you? What i got from his new-est song “As Long As You Love Me”, was that maybe the Biebs is actually starting to grow up a little. A rap from Big Sean adds to his song’s popularity.

5. “Good Time” is next on the list, and it’s exactly what you would expect from Carly Rae (again!) and Owl city. Syn-

thetic, pop, it’s not for every-one.

4. The next song isn’t ex-actly a favorite of mine. I can’t help but cringe at Flo Rida’s lyrics in his latest, “Whistle”.

3. And now, from those who brought you “We are Young”, “Some Nights”. It’s pretty sim-ilar to their last song, so if you loved Fun. before, i’d recom-mend it .

2. Coming in at number two is the ever-popular Maroon 5’s “One Night”.

1. And finally, the number one song on iTunes is Taylor Swift’s “We are Never Getting Back Together”. The bubbly song is classic Taylor, making this a sure favorite for any of her fans.

There you have it, the iTunes top ten. Whether it’s pop, country, rap, or maybe all three, there’s got to be one song on the list you like. Whether you’d admit it or not.

iTunes top 10 has something for

everyoneEllie PlassStaff Reporter

Luke GibsonStaff Reporter

Felicia TranStaff Reporter

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Fall TV line-upbeginning

The last week of September marks the return of our fa-vorite shows and the advent of some new prospects.

ADS A9NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

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Skyline Middle School and Linda Lane

Sherry Burcham Anderson5K Run and Walk

Entry Fee:$25 for adults

$15 for children 12 and under (includes Fun-Run)

- Entries received before Sept. 28 will receive a race T-shirt. Race t-shirt not

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- Registration will take place at: Skyline Middle School Saturday,

October 13, 2012 7:30-8:30 a.m.

- Packet Pickup/PreRegistration: Pre-

registered participants may pick up their packets on Friday, October 12 at Skyline

Middle School from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. Race registrations will also be taken at

this time.

REGISTER ON-LINE AT:www.harrisonburgeducationfoundation.org

OR

Mail entry form and check to: Harrison-burg Education Foundation One Court

Square Harrisonburg, VA 22801

STYLE - A10NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

PHOTO BY ANA HUNTER-NICKELS

“Last year we came so close, it gave us a little taste of what [winning] could be like. That’s what is putting a fire under-neath everyone to try harder and push to a whole other level this year.”Phil Saunders, Assistant Director

The time of year is approaching once again where HHS’s finest must come to-gether for the fall One Act play. The ques-tion on everyone’s minds: Can they be just as successful as last year?

“I think Mr. Swartz is certainly capa-ble of [topping last year’s success]. He’ll choose a play that’s certainly capable of it-- it’s more a question of having a cast as unified as we did last year,” senior Sam St. Ours said.

Assistant director Phil Saunders has been involved in the One Act process for a year and a half.

“I think we have a really strong group this year. Last year we came so close, it gave us a little taste of what [winning] could be

like. That’s what is putting a fire underneath everyone to try harder and push to a whole other level this year,” Saunders said. “I try to get on the students’ level and figure out where they’re coming from. When it comes to approaching a char-acter, I help the kids personalize theirs, relating to their character in a way someone else might not.”

This year’s play will be Ele-phant’s Graveyard, the true tale of a travelling circus visiting a small town in Tennessee, ultimately end-ing in disaster. Auditions were held on Sept. 5, and after much tension and waiting, everyone turned out to be cast. Many agree that being a part of one act is hard work, but certainly pays off.

“[One act] is a lot of practice, which is really nice. Having rehearsal every day

means you can enhance your skills a lot,” St. Ours said.

HHS will also have home advantage for the first leg of the process, hosting the VHSL AA District Theatre Competition on Oct. 20.

“I don’t think there is any added pressure [from hosting], as long as we stay in the mindset to be the best that we can be,” Saunders said. “We’ve proven before to be one of the top schools in the state, so as long as we keep our heads in the game, we’ll be fine.”

If all goes well, the competition will continue until Oct. 26-28 at the Virginia Theatre Association Annual Conference in Reston, VA.

While the cast may also be feeling the pressure from competing, Saun-ders gave some advice on how to keep calm and controlled.

“The biggest thing is to just have fun. It can be so easy to be overwhelmed and in-timidated by the whole process. Yes, it’s a competition, but you’re there doing some-thing you love, so have fun.”

So far, this school year has been pack-aged with nothing but new. New binders, new textbooks, new classes, and much much more. However, there is nothing that can quite compare to the renewed excite-ment that comes with the release of this year’s spring musical. Having announced the theme for this year’s musical at the an-nual potluck for the drama department, musical director Stan Swartz is prepared for yet another year of performing.

“Each musical has its own flavor, theme or feel. I have never done a musical set in the 1920’s before, which will make the music and choreography a little different than the musicals we have performed in the past,” Swartz said.

Looking back on the previous years, with musicals like How to Succeed in Busi-ness Without Really Trying and Les Mis-erables, Harrisonburg High School has achieved nothing but excellence in their drama and music department. The depart-ment plans on doing nothing differently with this year’s highly anticipated spring play, Thoroughly Modern Millie.

“Thoroughly Modern Millie, is based on a 1964 Julie Andrews film and has been highly rewritten. Its about this fun silly girl going to New York in hopes of achiev-ing her dreams, and the complications she

faces in achieving this dream,” Swartz said.Opening in the Marquis Theatre on

April 18, 2002, Thoroughly Modern Mil-lie was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won six of those nominated including best book of a musical, best choreography, and best orchestration. Featuring upbeat music and a massive amount of dancing, this year’s musical hopes to drastically pull away from Les Miserables’ theme set last year.

“I’m always looking for different styles, and last year had a real serious theme. This year, I was looking for a [more fun], brainless musical... Truthfully, it is pure nonsense, full of totally silly stuff,” Swartz said.

“Singers will enjoy learning the music from Thoroughly Modern Millie. The mel-odies are fun and up-tempo, and the cho-reography will enhance the singers on the stage,” choral director Bethany Houff said.

This being said, Thoroughly Modern Millie is not expected to be the easiest of tasks to consummate. Throughout the years, the expectations for set ideas and designs-- not to mention the amount of higher level choreography needed to sus-tain the performance level of Harrison-burg High School’s drama department-- have steadliy grown.

In addition to designs and technical needs, the students being the actors is a main essential to this musical, and Swartz

is in search of talents that run up and down the scale.

“Ideally, I am looking for a student who has it all: one who can sing, dance and act. Part of what we do on stage is training kids. The musical is very much a learning experience for the students,” Swartz said.

With the many perfected musicals and plays Swartz has put on in the previous years, it is difficult to think of the stage as a place of learning. But in perfecting his plays, Swartz is literally etching out the characters as he sees them, yet all at the same time integrating an overall presence of joy for the students which, according to Swartz, is something that cannot be expe-rienced inside an everyday classroom.

“The show is pure fun and I hope that the students embrace the joy through this musical,” Houff said.

Katrina SokolyukStyle/Entertainment Editor

Luke GibsonStaff Reporter

Austin CoffeyAdvertising Manager

QR MagicScan with your smart phone to view Paul Hairston’s video ‘HHS Drama Potluck’ which provides a look at the musical din-ner, the anouncement, and actors’ expec-tations for the new dramatic year.

SHE’S A MODERN Thoroughly Modern Millie tells the story of a small-town girl who comes to New York City to marry for money instead of love-- a thoroughly modern aim in 1922.

Drama Drama DramaDrama department announces Thoroughly Modern Millie as this year’s musical production

When it comes to putting on a drama production, students work hard to put memorize lines and choreography, and vol-unteers labor over set designs. Each com-ponent is essential to a successful produc-tion, but the real icing on the cake is the costumes.

Harrisonburg’s costume closet harbors thousands of costume and prop pieces, each piece tucked away and extensively organized. With the help of sophomore Phoebe Copeland who has been with him since her freshman year, Drama Mamas, and his classes, drama teacher and musical director Stan Swartz keeps track and takes care of the massive amounts of costume pieces.

“Costumes are organized differently ac-cording to our needs, [and] there are often many subdivisions,” Swartz said. “For ex-ample, shoes are first separated by male/female, then by style or function, then by style or function, then by color or size.” Men’s pants are mostly subdividedby waist size, there are other division that are divid-ed instead by style- such as knickers.

Some costumes are divided by the spe-cific show they were made for, such as Beauty and the Beast, and others by time

era such as the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. “Part of the problem with keeping the costumes is that it takes someone with the knowledge of historical styles and costume experi-ence to know where the item needs [to be stored],” Swartz said.

Each show has unique costume prob-lems that require extensive research, or weeks of work, or hours on the internet to locate whatever is needed. Costumes are found at garage sales, thrift stores and regular stores, and eBay. Many of the cos-tumes seen on stage are made by Drama Mamas.

“Even when I am on vacation, I usually take a quick run through the local thrift shop looking for [items],” Swartz said.

Some of the cheaper costumes only last a show or two. Others can last for ten or more. Swartz is constantly on a slow sort-ing rotation to eliminate items that are un-wearable, no longer needed or are deemed not appropriate. These costumes are taken to one of the local charity thrift shops.

Although Swartz puts massive amounts of time into finding costumes, he does not have any specific favorites.

“I like whatever expresses the charac-ters and works for the show,” Swartz said. “Costumes I’ve specifically designed or ones I both designed and constructed are nice to see again.”

READY TO GO. Costumes hang in the costume room, ready for another year of drama productions.

PHOTO BY ANA HUNTER-NICKELSTRIPPING DOWN MEMORY LANE. Senior Sam St. Ours and freshman Josh Byrd look at pictures from past musi-cals before the musical announcement potluck.

“What are your thoughts on the musical this year?”

“I’ve never heard of it, and although I know a lot of people who are kind of pes-simistic about it, I’m sure Mr. Swartz will do a good job like he has before.”-Andy King, 9

“I’m SUPER excited for a show where we get to tap dance. It’s going to be so much fun.-Rachael Cavoto, 10

“[I] don’t really know much a bout it, but I think it’s going to be fun and upbeat.”-Jack Adamek, 11

“I think it’s really exciting; there’s a lot of dancing, and I’m not very good at dancing... but it sounds fun!””-Kirsten Fergueson, 12

COSTUMES UPON COSTUMES. Racks of costume dresses in one of the many cos-tume closets located throughout the school.

PHOTO BY ANA HUNTER-NICKELSPHOTO BY ANA HUNTER-NICKELSALL EARS. Students and parents anxiously sit and listen while drama teacher and musical director Stan Swartz announces Thoroughly Modern Millie as this year’s musi-cal production.

Swartz takes care to organize, find perfect costume pieces

Actors confident about Elephant’s Graveyard, fall one act

From 395 South High Street to Garbers Church Road, HHS has stood for over 100 years. Many generations of people have walked through the doors of HHS

This school has changed over time. Certain programs have ex-panded and more classes are of-fered. When Senior Nancy Carrie Logan’s mom, Debbie Logan, was on the dance team it was then called the drill team. It was the same concept, just a different title.

Senior Nancy Carrie Logan is following in both of her parent’s and her father’s parent’s footsteps by attending HHS; three genera-tions of Streaks/Blue Demons.

Her father graduated with the class of 1970. Now Nancy Car-rie will be joining her family as an HHS grad of the class of 2013.Her parents, like many others, gave her advice about going into high school. The advice they gave her was to get involved in all you can.

“Get involved in musicals and school spirit,” Nancy Carrie Logan said, agreeing with her parents.

Her mother, Debbie Logan was part of the class of 1973.

“U.S. Government was my favorite class,” Debbie Lo-gan said. “Buhl was [my favor-ite teacher].” (Buhl taught U.S. Government and HIstory.)

As for Nancy Carrie Logan, her favorite class is theater and her favorite teachers are Stan Swartz and Bethany Houff.

FEATURE- B1NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

Leaving a Legacy

Kendall BaileySports Editor

The phrase “It runs in the family” has never been more fitting than in reference to the Morris clan. Senior Akia Mor-ris is following in her mother Colleen Morris’ footsteps not only by attending the same high school as her, but also by being an integral member of the HHS Track and Field program.

“We both love track. [Akia and I] both do the 100 and 200 meter dashes, as well as the 4x4 and 4x2 relays. We also had the same coach, Gary Bugg, who

now coaches part time,” Colleen Morris said.

Although Colleen Morris has not lived in Harrisonburg her whole life, she did in fact attend Spotswood Elementary School, and Thomas Harrison Middle School, while Akia Morris went to Stone Spring and Thomas Harrison Middle School.

After a short stint in Louisa county, Colleen Morris returned to work in the attendance of-fice at Stone Spring Elementary School and then HHS, with for-mer high school friend and blue streak Kathy Grogg.

“She came back for me,” Grogg jokes with a smile. Akia

is not the only daughter who did track in high school, Ashley Morris, Akia’s sister was also a member of the track and field team.

“All three of us did long jump. I loved track and field when I was at HHS and now she’s doing it, Akia is keeping the legacy alive. She has already beat both of my school records, that I had [while attending HHS] in the 100 and the 200 as well as a couple of old relays,” Colleen Morris said.

Akia placed twelfth in the 200 meters with a time of 25.97 at the state meet this past spring.

Mom,daughter share love of track

For some students,teachers, being a Blue Streak is in their blood.

Four generations of family attend HHS

Most students have older sib-lings or a par-ent that went to

HHS, but there is one English teacher who has had four gen-erations of her family attend. Sheila Antonnicola explains her Blue Streak family tree.

“My grandfather, father, and I went to this school, and now my son, [Giancarlo An-tonnicola] is a senior here,” Antonnicola said. The time period of the Antonnicola fam-ily that went to HHS reaches beyond any other alumni.

“My grandfather on my dad’s side graduated in 1930, and my dad graduated in 1956 as a varsity three sport ath-

lete; [football, basketball, and baseball],” Antonnicola said.

Another surprising twist in the family tree is that her-great uncle is Claude Warren. The field house adjacent to our football field was dedicated to Claude Warren in honor of his outstanding contributions to the Athletic Department. Warren coached football, bas-ketball, baseball and track for over 30 years before he earned the title of Athletic Director.

It was obvious that the men in Sheila Antonnicola’s fam-ily had made a name for them-selves throughout this school. Why did she decided to fol-low in their footsteps and be-come an English teacher here?

“After I graduated from James Madison University in 1980, I was offered a temporary

position in the English depart-ment, and when the main teach-er left, I was given the job per-manently,” Antonnicola said.

As she started her sec-ond year as a teacher at HHS, Sheila (known as O’Donnell back then) met her future husband, Maurizio Anton-nicola, back when he was the geography teacher.

The two married after sev-eral years and have continued her family tradition by rais-ing their son in Harrisonburg.

So what are the major changes (besides switching buildings) the high school had undergone since she attended?

“The biggest alterations I no-ticed once I came back to teach were the school dances,” An-tonnicola explains “We didn’t listen to hard-core rap like

the students do now-a-days, we had disco and a lot of rock music at our homecomings and proms,” Antonnicola said.

Other than the two ma-jor dances, winter and spring formals were just as popular as homecoming and prom.

“ We didn’t have as much to entertain us as your generation does, so we planned dances reg-ularly because it was the fun-nest thing to do around town.”

There’s no doubt that the English teacher’s fam-ily roots reach deep into the soil of the HHS foundation. Four generations and over 80 years later, Antonnicola’s family members have had a building on the grounds named after them, numer-ous teachers, and are respon-sible for many star athletes.

1930: HUGH DANIEL O’DONELL. English Teacher’ Shelia Antonnicola’s grandather attended HHS alsmost a century ago.

1956: HUGH “DANNY” O’DONELL II. Danny O’Donnell played varsity football, basketball, and baseball.

IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY. Giancarlo Antonnicola’s par-ents met at HHS, and were later married. Giancarlo is following in his mother’s footsteps by attending HHS.

HOMETOWN PRIDE. Sheila Antonnicola returned to her alma mater after graduat-ing from James Madison University.

Celia EhrenpreisEditor-in-cheif

TWO GENERATIONS OF STREAKS! Danny Logan was class of 1970.

A FAMILY AFFAIR. The Morris family: Rodney, Colin (in front), Coleen, Ashely and Akia, at Ashley’s graduation. Both mom and the two sisters were members of the track and field team.

Logan follows in parent’s footstepsJosh ByrdStyle Editor

SCHOOL SPIRIT! Debbie Logan (right) was on the drill team when she attended HHS.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SHEILA ANTONNICOLA

PHOTO COURTESY OF AKIA MORRIS

HHS Math teacher Bill Turner has taught many parent-child duos over the years. Q: How long have you been teach-ing?A: In total? 43 years.Q: How many of those years were you teaching at HHS?A: It’s 2012 now, so 28 years.Q: How often do you come across a student who is the child of a for-mer student?A: …More times than I’ve realized.Q: What is your initial reaction when you realize this?A: ‘I’ve been doing this a long time!’Q: Do you have any interesting sto-ries about meeting an old student’s child?A: They know more stories about me, than I do about them.Q: Do you ever get to meet the par-ents again?A: Yes. During Parent-Teacher confer-ences, we talk and reminisce.Q: How long does it take to realize you are teaching an old student’s child?A: Before the school year starts, I look over my list of students. I would see their last name and that is when I make the connection. There have been times when I didn’t make the connection. But I can tell who their parents were by the characteristics they show in class.Q: Do any students’ parents come to mind?A: I coached Kerri Hofacker’s dad in football at another school. I coached her brother, too.Q: Would you like to mention any of your past students?A: I’ve actually taught Mrs. Kibler. I’ve also taught Mr. Hook, Mrs. Hook who teaches Spanish, Mr. Long, Mr. Kurtz, and Mr. Rudman.

Interview by Nishat Jamil

PHOTO COURTESY OF NANCY CARRIE LOGAN

FEATURE - B2NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

Designer Consignor at Vivian’s

Designer ClothingAnitiques

European FacialsLots of Vintage Jewelry and Art

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Isaac FalkOp/Ed Editor

FEATURE- B3NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

As students gradu-ate from high school, they have to take life by the

horns and decide what to do with their educational career. More and more stu-dents are considering com-munity colleges as a valid option for their higher learning.

Many students choose community colleges for fi-nancial reasons, but com-munity colleges are also known for not turning stu-dents away. Students take the necessary placement tests and are put into the classes that suit their needs and educational levels.

Two-year degree pro-grams, like the Blue Ridge Police Academy, available at community colleges allow young adults to go straight into the workforce once their education is finished.

Guidance counselor, Tim Meyers advocates for a higher education to help young adults in the work-

force. “Factories are more like-

ly to hire if the workers are already trained,” Meyers said.

Community colleges also partner with local busi-nesses or organizations. For instance, graduates of the radiology program at Blue Ridge learn at Rock-ingham Memorial Hospital to help prepare them for their future careers.

“When students realize that the job market is the way it is, they choose to go to college,” Meyers said.

Students who finish two years at a community col-lege are also guaranteed admissions to more than 30 four-year colleges in the state. That is if they do their work and maintain a specific GPA. These colleges include (but are not lim-ited to) William and Mary, VCU, UVA and Virginia Tech. Many other esteemed universities also appear on that list.

According to the Ameri-can Association of Com-munity Colleges, as of Jan.

2012, a total of 1,132 com-munity colleges are in op-eration in the U.S. and 23 of those are in Virginia.

Assistant Vice Chancel-lor for Public Relations for Virginia’s Community Colleges, Jeffrey Kraus is proud of the community colleges in Virginia.

“The sky’s the limit for Virginia’s community col-leges,” Kraus said. “Reasons for choosing a community college are as numerous and diverse as the students we serve.”

Community college tu-ition is approximately a third the price of an average four-year college. Classes are smaller and many stu-dents enjoy the opportu-nity to stay at home while in college.

Community colleges are connected to federal finan-

cial programs like other four-year colleges. Other scholarships are available onsite at the colleges them-selves as well.

According to the Ameri-can Association of Commu-nity Colleges, 42 percent of students at community colleges are the first gen-eration in their family to attend college.

Many young adults are beginning to understand the importance of a college education. The National Center for Education Sta-tistics has documented a 38 percent increase in en-rollment rates from 1999 to 2009 and predict a nine percent rise in students under 25 in the next seven years. With a college de-gree of any sort, it becomes much easier for young adults to find work.

LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOLCommunity college is one strong option for future education

As Decem-ber looms, many lo-cal seniors

have been prepar-ing for the journey that is college. But this is no ordinary journey, they cannot simply stock up on dried meats and hit the Or-egon trail for a brief stint.

College preparations typically begin years before the applicant becomes a se-nior. Senior Madeline Cul-breth has been preparing for years now, and is ready to begin the final part of her application. She must submit her past four years of high school condensed into a document that will be checked over by a college admissions officer.

But before Madeline can embark, she must decide on a destination. She will have to decide on a place where she will spend the next four years of her life, at the least.

She has a list of criteria the college must meet, cri-teria such as: Whether or not the school was her par-ent’s alma matter, whether the school is state or pri-vate, whether the school supported the major of her choice, and whether the campus was appealing to her.

The list of schools that meet one or more of the criteria are: Georgetown University (her top choice), William and Mary, the Uni-versity of Virginia, Wake Forest University, Mary

Washington, and American.

Another key factor is loca-tion.

“I’d really like to be in DC,” Culbreth said.

As for prep-arations, Madeline has been working for roughly two to three hours a week during the summer on her applications. By now, she has finished her common app, except for tweaks and alterations she makes weekly, and has a rough draft of her essay in the works.

She has enlisted the aid of recent HHS graduate, now Cornell freshman, Howard Zuo to help her in her essay.

“He said just talk about my school experience and made me kind of ramble on,” Culbreth said.

In addition, she has tak-en the SAT’s and plans on retaking them, as well as the SAT subjects tests, this fall.

As for her plans for the far future, Madeline is interested in a politi-cal science major. She is particularly interested in Middle-Eastern policy, in which she hopes to pursue a career. The political sci-ence theme fits well into her selection of colleges, especially those in close vi-cinity of D.C.

Madeline still ex-pects more in the coming months. She will have to submit her application and wait.

With a Grade Point Aver-age of 4.5, Premal Patel

is currently sitting number one atop the HHS class of 2012.

A student at Massanut-ten Regional Governor’s School for Environmental Science, Patel’s main aca-demic interests are math and science. After graduat-ing from HHS, he plans to attend a four-year college, and then go on to medical school. In the end, he says his goal is to become a car-diac surgeon.

Patel has not decided with one hundred percent certainty which university he will most likely be at-tending, but has a pretty good idea.

“Hopefully I will be going

to UVA,” P a t e l said. “But I guess my ideal school is MIT.”

P a t e l , who is cur-

rently taking several AP math and science classes, is not only interested in medicine, but in all areas of science.

“I want to be pre-med, but maybe study physics as well. Basically, I just want to go into science,” Patel said.

With regard to his career goals, Patel says he is par-ticularly drawn to medicine because of his overall life goal.

“My plan in life is to help people out,” Patel said. “Be-ing a doctor and perform-ing heart surgery is one way to do that.”

Hi g h school gradu-a t i o n

is coming up for many of the se-niors here at HHS. Post high school plans, whether it is college, military, or work, help shape their lives into what they eventually would like to do as an adult.

Senior Taylor Grogg, a two-sport athlete and bright student here at HHS who plans on attending college after she graduates. Although she is not sure exactly where she’d like to go, she knows she would prefer a smaller school. She would also like to stay around the area.

Grogg is currently the libero of the HHS volley-ball team. The libero is the player in volleyball with a different colored jersey who can play in any spot on the back row.

G r o g g ’ s plans for the future include possibly play-ing volleyball again in col-lege.

“I think it’d be cool to play

in college, but I’m really not sure yet,” Grogg said.

College is expensive, no matter where you go. Grogg explains that she wants to find work during her time at school to become more independant.

“Not like a career, but just something small so I have some stability,” Grogg said. “Then I’ll look into something more career-like.”

A lot of seniors, includ-ing Grogg are still unsure of their exact plans for af-ter high school, but they have a whole semester to figure it out. They’ll all be more sure of their plans by the time the big graduation day comes!

If you want to be successful in music and theatre, the

best place to be is New York City. After high school, that is exactly where senior Nancy Carrie Logan is planning to go.

She plans to attend the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, a small two-year co-ed training conservatory for actors wanting to act on film, tele-vision or on stage. Annu-ally, NYCA receives about 450 applications and out of these, 70 percent will be ac-cepted. Tuition is between $25,000-$30,000, in-state and out, and 85 percent of students will receive finan-cial aid.

Logan is planning to work at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, a 1950s retro-themed diner with a singing waitstaff, to keep a steady income.

The diner was opened in 1987 after El-len’s Cafe was closed, and be-came the first 1950s themed restaurant in New York. It

is considered to be a breed-ing ground for singers and many of the singing wait-staff have gone on to have thriving careers on Broad-way and American Idol.

While working at the diner, Logan also wants to try out for Broadway every day that she can, which will hopefully get her a singing part of some kind.

The thing with Broadway is that it is a hard business to be successful in. Millions of people are trying to do the same thing as Logan, but that isn’t stopping her at all.

“I have been told I need a back up plan, more than once, but I don’t need one. I’m not stopping until my name is in lights,” Logan said.

Mu s i c i s n ’ t exactly e v e r y -

one’s calling. Only a handful of people are bestowed with musical tal-ents whether it’s singing, composing, or playing an instrument.

Senior Trevor Cockburn has been playing the eu-phonium since sixth grade. He’s been inspired greatly by the performances of professional euphonium players Glenn Van Looy and David Childs.

“My love for music, JMU Brass Band, and playing the euphonium have persuaded me into majoring in music education,” Cockburn said.

Unlike most seniors who are still trying to de-cide on where to apply for college, Cockburn plans

on attending James Madi-son University to study mu-sic education. C o c k b u r n ’ s GPA exceeds the JMU ad-missions re-quirement. He

plans to focus on the high school or college level of music education, but may start out as a middle school band director and work his way up.

In addition to being a music ed major, he is con-sidering joining the March-ing Royal Dukes, one of the largest marching bands in the country.

“I’ve always wanted to be part of a group that size and have a lot of fun play-ing the music,” Cockburn said.

Cockburn believes that James Madison University will be a perfect fit for him and his knack for music.

- Enrollment is 4,983 students

- In-state cost per year is $11,798 - tuition: $3,345 - off campus room and board: $6500 - books: $1,200 - fees: $753

- Out-of-state cost per year is $17,546 - tuition: $8,643 - off campus room and board: $6500 - books: $1,200 - fees: $1,203- Average financial aid per student is $1,385

- Annual Aid given is $1,314,856

- Costs per credit hour - in-state: $112 - out-of state: 288

BRCC Quick Facts

Infographic by Sydney Little

Is college really worth all the money it costs to attend? Ivy League universities like Yale,

Princeton or Harvard are not the only colleges out there.

Smaller and even local schools like Eastern Men-nonite, Bridgewater, or JMU are perfectly accept-able. Community college is also a cost effective option.

Many people can’t af-ford to go to college, so they start working after high school.

“You can save a lot of money by going to a two-year college or community college and then trans-ferring into a four year school,” assistant principal Mike Eye said

Another option for stu-dents is trade school.

Eye tries to explain a trade school to students.

“A trade school is differ-ent from a community col-lege. A trade school is based on a topic like a diesel col-lege,” Eye said.

Trade schools are spe-cifically designed for one particular job, more like job-training than pursuing a higher education.

“(What type of college you go to) depends on what kind of education you want after high school,” Eye said.

“Trade school is a good option for those plan-ning to go straight into the workforce after high school; however, those who wish to further their education should look to community colleges and universities.”

Planning for your future: Five seniors share their journeys

Brenna CowardinStyle Editor

Faith RunnellsStaff Reporter

TAYLOR GROGG

Max JohnsonStaff Reporter

NANCY CARRIE LOGAN

MADELINECULBRETH

Mary McMahanNews Editor

Ellie Pruett-FiederleinStaff Reporter

TREVOR COCKBURN

PREMAL PATEL

John EarleStaff Reporter

Trade schools help prepare kids for careers after school

An athletic perspectiveTAYLOR GROGG

A dramatic perspectiveNANCY CARRIE LOGAN

A musical perspectiveTREVOR COCKBURN

A scientific perspectivePREMAL PATEL

A worldly perspectiveMADELINE CULBRETH

Throughout this year, we will be following select seniors as they prepare to gradu-ate from high school. Each of these people will be featured on www.newsstreak.com as they go through the steps required to enter college, the work force, the military or other post-high school avenues.

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Harrisonburg has a strong quarterback resume which has included the likes of Ben Sarver, Jake Johnson and Jake Durden.

Finishing every regular season with winning records, every quarterback with the exception of Durden won the district title in all their years as quarterback.

All three quarterbacks were over six feet tall and about the average size for a high school quarterback.

This year, the Streaks started their summer practices and had no idea who their starting quarterback would be for the upcoming season. As practices got more heated, Ryan Nixon was showing up with a desire to take over the helm as quarterback and coaches began to see a starting

quarterback in the 5’8’’ junior. Nixon has many different abilities than the former

quarterbacks. Nixon has a strong arm, but compared to all of Harrisonburg’s former quarterbacks, his throwing power isn’t quite as strong as his predecessors. He cannot throw a ball 65+ yards like Durden and Johnson could.

This could be a big part of being a quarterback, but with second year coach Thurman’s killer spread offense, Nixon’s mobility and ability to escape the pocket and de-liver a throw, or get 15 yards on foot, he will keep defenses guessing left and right. He is hoping to lead the Streaks to yet another successful season. It can be a lot of pressure for a junior, but he feels like he can handle it.

“I like to run, but I don’t mind staying in the pocket and taking a hit either. Trust me, if I see a hole and know I can get a gain of yards, I am going to take it, and I am going to take the hit to,” Nixon said.

SPORTS B6NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

Max JohnsonStaff Reporter

Red Sea back in full force this fall

GO BIG RED (SEA)! The HHS student section came out in full force for the first home game against Turner Ashby on August 24. The football team beat their cross town rival 13-7 in the season opener.

PHOTO BY ANA HUNTER-NICKELS

HHS football alumnus Akeem Jor-dan was a successful running-back and linebacker during his high school career. While in high school, Akeem was named the Virginia AA Player of the Year and lead his team to win the state title.

Akeem went on to win a national championship with James Madison University and now plays in the Na-tional Football League for the Phila-

delphia Eagles. Akeem’s nephew Keenan Jordan

played for Harrisonburg’s cross-town rival Turner Ashby, but now suits up as a Blue Streak.

“I’m glad to be a part of Harrison-burg’s football team, it’ll be a good season,” Keenan said.

During the summer, Keenan moved to HHS and immediately started to go to offseason workouts with the football team.

Keenan has also built chemistry between the players and community.

Throughout practices, coaches took notice of Keenan’s ability to run the ball and play in the secondary.

“I’m glad he’s (Keenan) on the team. He fits into the program and helps us win games,” HHS head coach Chris Thurman said.’’

Keenan has become a key player to the HHS football team and is look-ing to make an impact throughout the season. Teammates and coaches have embraced Keenan’s arrival and the HHS football team adds another weapon to their arsenal.

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Nixon gets nod as starting QB

Nephew of NFL player now with StreaksT.J. KirklandStaff Reporter

Austin CoffeyStaff reporter

Along with the thou-sands of other things on your mind as the school season starts up again, there is nothing quite like the chill of excitement that races down your spine on game day.

Before the game, there is nothing but fun and games, from tailgates with family and friends, to corn-hole tournaments in the parking lot. There truly isn’t much that compares to kicking back at school for the evening.

In the stands, your heart keeps time with the march-ing band, while your whole body tenses with anticipa-tion of the collisions of the players on the field.

But through the exciting atmosphere, there is always one thing that stands out beyond the rest: the Red Sea.

Whether it is seen as a large, luminescent red dot from a distance, or a mob of excited and somewhat crazed students showing some school spirit while hyped up on Redbull, it has always been famous and

feared for the excitement it generates.

“The Red Sea is an en-vironment full of tradition and swagger that separates us from the other teams in our district. We are the best student section in the Val-ley District,” junior Travis May said.

The one thing that the Red Sea provides during the course of our football games is a sense of pride within the student body. The pride of not only our school or football team, but the pride of the spirit that lies underneath. This pride energizes students to continue to come to the games, making the games enjoyable for the players, students and fans alike.

“The Red Sea motivates me knowing that my broth-er along with a long list of other people earned their right to be a part of the stu-dent section for one of the best academic and athletic schools in the district, re-gion, and state. And I feel as a student at HHS I need to keep this tradition and family alive and running at the highest level possible for our parents, faculty, fans, and most importantly our players,” May said.

KICK OFF! The Red Sea kicked off the 2012-13 home schedule with a win over T.A. With a unique schedule for this year, the next home contest isn’t until Oct. 5 against Broadway. Kick-off will be at 7:30 p.m.

PHOTO BY ANA HUNTER-NICKELS

Schedule of events:VARSITY FOOTBALL

Oct 5 H vs BroadwayOct 12 A vs Fort DefianceOct 19 H Spotswood (Homecoming)Oct 26 H Liberty (Bedford)Nov 2 H Waynesboro

VARSITY VOLLEYBALLOct 2 A WaynesboroOct 4 H Fort DefianceOct 13 H Roanoke CatholicOct 16 H Turner AshbyOct 18 A BroadwayOct 20 A EMHSOct 23 H R.E. LeeOct 25 A Waynesboro

SPORTS - B7NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

Every new sport season brings new players, new ex-pectations, and sometimes, new coaches. The varsity football team welcomed two new coaches this year; Bryant Vennable and My-ron Haskins.

Each coach has his own story for how they came to join the Harrisonburg fam-ily. For Vennable, it was a reward for his hard work at Catawba College in Salis-bury, North Carolina.

“Thurman was [Haskins] and my football coach in high school, and he prom-ised me that if I succeeded in college, he would help me find a job.” Sure enough, as soon as Vennable spun his graduation hat into the air, Thurman was waiting for him with a position as an assistant football coach.

For Haskins, his story

differs slightly. He played defensive tackle and defen-sive end at the University of Virginia at Wise. Once he graduated, he coached for another high school football team for several years. After his previous high school won the state championship last year, he moved on to join Harrison-burg athletics.

Even though both of the newcomers had little prior experience in coaching, neither was nervous about coming into the job.

“Instead of being anx-ious, I was looking forward to our first game so I could see the players put every-thing I taught them into action,” Vennable said.

These additions to the team are expected to ben-efit the players defensively as well as offensively. Ven-nable has the position of one of the defensive back coaches.

“I played both corner

and safety in college, so I have a lot of experience to teach from,” Vennable said.

Thurman explained why he picked these two men out of the hundreds of players he had coached in his lifetime.

“Because of their expert coaching they received as younger men, they could relate to the kids and [Haskins and Vennable] both have exceptional knowledge of the game,” Thurman said.

Thurman coached both of the men in their high school years at Gretna High school.

Even though Thurman was used to having the two men as his players, he had no problem with them switching positions to stand with him on the sidelines.

“I don’t find it weird that they’re fellow coaches instead of players, I’m just glad that they’ve already

played for me, so they know what to expect and what to pass on,” Thurman said.

The countless number of personalities on the team have already provided Ven-nable and Haskin’s with great memories.

“Getting to know the kids and watching them get better as they grow up is priceless,” Haskins said. For Vennable and Haskins, working with the boys is a reward within itself.

“I want to share my knowledge of the game with everyone to help them all get better,” Vennable says.

These newcomers have several tricks up their sleeves to make our foot-ball team successful this year. Both Haskins and Vennable hope to coach the defensive line and offense to perfection this season.

“My first game as a coach meant a lot to me,” Vennable said.

New coaches join football staffKendall BaileySports Editor

Kerri HofackerSports Editor

Cross country teams enjoy unique coaches

The HHS cross country coaches got into coach-ing because it was a sport they participated in when they were in high school. Instead of coaching a team of the same gender, their roles have switched. David Loughran is now the head coach of the HHS girls’ team, while Lauren Jeffer-son coaches the boys’ team.

Loughran didn’t really make a choice to coach girls instead of boys.

“When I moved up from [Thomas Harrison], it was the only open position. Since then, with the help of Coach Bugg, I’ve made the program my own,” Loughran said.

Coach Jefferson had a similar response. “I moved up from Thomas Harrison and it was the only open spot, and I wanted to coach a team,” Jefferson said.

Some people might view this arrangement as weird, but runners from each team disagreed.

“It’s cool to have [Loughran] as a coach. He listens to really weird mu-sic and blasts it all the time. It’s really fun,” Eberly said.

Senior Amin Kraimeche has similar feelings about

Jefferson. “She’s been my coach

since middle school so I’m used to having her as my coach. She interacts with us really well, too, so that’s helpful as well,” Kraimeche said.

Loughran doesn’t find it difficult to coach girls,

“There are times when I have to step back and let them be girls, but I’ve be-come more sympathetic and nurturing to them,” Loughran said.

Jefferson said she doesn’t see how coaching the boys’ differs.

“There really isn’t a dif-ference in how you coach boys and girls, the differ-ence is in how you present the information,” Jefferson said.

“I enjoy every day with [the girls]. I’m impressed with their ability to care for each other like sisters, maintain good grades, stay drama free, and they’re not afraid to be themselves,” Loughran said.

Coach Jefferson said that her favorite part about coaching is watching the team improve.

“I like to see the boys improve from season to season, and even in a single season, you can see some-one make improvements as well,” Jefferson said.

As the HHS varsity and JV volleyball teams start off their season, several new assistant coaches accompany them. Faculty member Hannah Bowman had immediate interest in the team when she was offered a position as an English 11 teacher.

“Volleyball has always been a huge part of my life, and I missed it. I wanted to get to know students outside of the classroom,” Bowman said.

JV head coach Jessica Life was looking for a partner to act as her aggressive side; someone that would condi-tion the girls on the team to success. Her wish was granted when the Thomas Harrison Middle School sign language interpreter, Laurie Kraus, was willing to take on that role.

“I hadn’t touched a volleyball in years, and since I’d got-ten a new job with the Harrisonburg schools, I thought I’d help out,” Kraus said.

These two new coaches have had plenty of experience in the sport. Bowman played for Prince Edward High School as their setter before getting a scholarship to Colby College in Maine to play as the libero, the main defensive passer who wears a different color jersey and can continu-ally rotate across the back row.

Coach Kraus, or ‘Coach K’, played on the volleyball team for her middle school, high school, and a club team in college.

With the introduction of the newcomer for JV, several changes have been made. Sophomore Krishna Goradia speaks for her team when she says the new workouts are demanding.

“She conditions us until we get a drill right, she makes us work harder and tougher, and is always giving us ad-vice,” Goradia said. Goradia’s claim is no over exaggera-tion. The JV volleyball team can be seen running laps, completing set after set of push-ups, and multiple other exercises throughout their practices.

“I’m good with the basics to help them get better. [The team] has a lot of talent, but it’s just new. That’s why I’m here, to help them improve it,” Kraus said.

For the varsity team, Bowman is the perfect 12th play-er to a team of 11. Her professional-level passing skills and hustle makes her the perfect role model for the team.

“The girl’s are used to having a male coach [Head Coach Andy Thompson], so I think it’s nice to have a coach that

understands them more on a girl-to-girl level. I under-stand the dynamics of a girls’ team, and that helps us,” Bowman said.

Even though both coaches have jobs with Harrisonburg schools, there were other motives that made them want to join the team.

“I’m young at heart, so I love being around kids, and a high school sports team just seemed perfect,” Kraus said.

For Bowman, she wanted to improve her connection with her potential students.

“I wanted to spend time with my students on a more casual level, to get to know them better,” Bowman said.

Kendall BaileySports Editor

Former college players now coaching teams

Darrell Wilson, the HHS Athletic Director, has been working in the athletic department since last year, and has already helped at least 50 students academically. As a director of all athletics, he also has to make sure that the athletes have the required GPA that they need in order to play and practice. Our school only allows athletes to participate in the games and practices if their GPA is 2.0 or above.

Wilson is informed about the students grades through Student Info, a database that has all the necessary information and grades for every stu-dent. After looking over the student information, he starts his process by talking to guidance coun-selors and teachers. He also keeps tabs on students’ daily assignments.

Sophomore Jordan Dove elaborates on how Wil-son has helped him.

“My football coach helped me out, but [Mr. Wil-son] said that if we did not have a better GPA then we could not participate,” Dove said.

Although keeping daily tabs on high schoolers may seem unnecessary and a little over the top, the teachers are doing it for the students’ benefits.

“Some students see it as enforcement, I see it as resource [guidance],” Wilson said.

Even though his job requires him to help strug-gling students, he is still willing to help the stu-dents even if it were not required or mandatory.

“Yes, absolutely, because it is the right thing to do. You are in high school to be a student; that is your first priority. No matter what kind of athlete you are, you have to get a good academic base,” Wil-son said.

Wilson agreed that balancing school and sports can be pretty complicated, but students should al-ways try to make it work. The faculty and staff are always available to answer any questions.

“First priority of students is being a student, if a student is not able to balance their academics and their athletics, then it will not work,” Wilson said.

Wilson pushes for academic

excellenceSukriti AdhikariStaff Reporter

GO TEAM. Coaches Myrons Haskins (front) and Bryant Vennable (back) coach the football team’s defensive squad from the sideline.

PHOTO BY SUKRITI ADHIKARI

WHAT’S NEXT? New assistant varisty volleyball coach Hannah Bowman discusses the rotation with head coach Andy Thompson.

PHOTO BY SUKRITI ADHIKARI

LISTEN UP. Head JV Coach Jessica Life and assistant coach Laurie Kraus show JV players how to play defense.PHOTO BY SUKRITI ADHIKARI

JOIN THE RED SEANEXT HOME GAME OCT 5

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SPORTS - B8NewsstreakTheSeptember 28, 2012

CROSS COUNTRY PLACES IN FIRST MEETThe girls cross country team placed second behind the Spotswood Trail-blazers. The Lady Navy will run again at the Burtner Farm course on Oct. 24.

STREAKS FIGHT HARD IN LOSSThe volleyball team lost to James River Knights again, but the ladies kept it close this time. Both teams were fighting for every point, but the Knights pulled out the victory in the fifth set. Taylor Grogg led with 16 as-sists, and Vickie Hurtado-Cardoso had 24 digs.

RED SEA T-SHIRTS ON SALE NOWJoin the best student pep section in the Valley! Red Sea t-shirts are avail-able now in room 444 for $10 each. Sweatshirts and beanies will be avail-able as cold weather approaches. The SCA has requested that we pack the student section with as many stu-dents as we can possibly get. Start your Friday night fun with Red Sea tailgating prior to the game in the student parking lot. Bring $1 for food.

STREAKS FALL TO FORTThe varsity volleyball team lost, 1-3, to Fort Defiance High School on Sept 11. After going down two sets early, the ladies rallied back to make it 1-2, but they couldn’t push any further. The team was led by Taylor Grogg who had 21 service points with 2 aces. Sarah Rose added six kills for the Streaks’ offense.

LADY STREAKS STRUGGLEThe varsity volleyball team lost to Spotswood on Sept 12, 0-3. Kendall Bailey led the Streaks with 14 ser-vice points and two aces, while Kara Simmons added six kills, and Taylor Grogg added 12 assists.

GOLF TEES OFF NIGHT TOURNAMENTThe golf team is having a glow-in-the-dark golf tournament on Sept 24 at the Heritage Oaks Golf Course. The first round begins at 5, with a din-ner break at 7, then the second round tees off at 8.

FOOTBALL GETS FIRST LOSSThe Streaks traveled to Winchester to take on the Millbrook Pioneers on Sept 14. The Pioneers blocked an extra point by the Streaks, and drove down the field to score a touchdown of their own. The Pioneers clinched the victory, 34-33.

Sports Briefs

By the time most people reach their senior year, they’ve decided what sports teams they want to be on and what other activities they want to do. This isn’t the case with all seniors though. There are a special few who decided they want to try something new for their last year.

When Erin Goodstein start-ed her senior year, she decided that she wanted to try Friday Night Band.

“I really like everyone in band and I realized I wanted to try it before I graduated,” Goodstein said.

It’s not uncommon for peo-ple to switch up their interests in high school. Ambar Gonza-

lez made the decision to try out for the girls cross country team this year.

“I like the adrenaline that running gives me and running is something that I enjoy do-ing,” Gonzalez said.

Senior Bianca Solis wanted to try volleyball for the first time. After talking to a few of the other seniors, she decided to show up on the first day of tryouts.

“I’ve always been inter-ested in volleyball, but I just never went to the tryouts. I like learning how to play bet-ter, and if I would have joined a sport sooner, it would have been volleyball,” Solis said.

All of these seniors agreed that joining something at their age is challenging.

“It’s really hard to come on as a first-year senior. I have to

catch up on a lot. [Marching] moves so fast that it’s hard to get a grip on everything,” Goodstein said.

Gonzalez agreed that it’s dif-ficult, but she has a little help to ease some of that stress.

“It’s kind of hard, but the girls are great. They’re teaching me news things, which helps a lot, and they aren’t leaving me behind which is good,” Gonza-lez said.

Solis also said that playing for the first time as a senior is difficult, but she enjoys it any-way.

“Yeah, it’s difficult. Espe-cially when everyone else has already been on the team and are more experienced than me. I really wish I would’ve started earlier though, because I really like it now,” Solis said.

Even though it might be

hard at times, they all seem to enjoy doing what they’re doing.

“Of course I enjoy it. My fa-vorite part is when we actually play during practice and do fun drills. It’s also a lot of fun just being with the girls,” Solis said.

“I think my favorite part is the meets, and just being with the team. We’re really united, like a family,” Gonzalez said.

“I like encouraging the girls and supporting them. It’s a lot of fun when Coach Thompson lets me play with the team dur-ing practice because I get to hit and stuff,” Chepelyuk said.

It might not be common to see a senior tryout for a new sport in their last year of high school, but it does happen. It might even be a little scary for them, but they all agree that it was worth trying something new.

Kerri HofackerSports Editor

Beginning last year, coaches and their ath-letes can meet and practice whenever they want throughout the year.

Newly hired basketball coach-es, Scott Joyner and Bill Bayer, have taken full advantage of this freedom. Joyner started holding summer workouts in July. He has already worked on some defensive presses (Joyner’s whole coaching scheme focuses on defense) and has even put in some offensive plays.

Bayer started workouts in Sep-tember and has a similar defensive mentality. The extra three to four months will allow the new coaches to get to know their players more quickly.

Former head basketball coach Kevin Tysinger would have loved to have the opportunity to work with his players year round.

“We were always on a time crunch,” Tysinger said. “With the new rule in place, you can now get way ahead.”

Bill Bayer, the new girls basket-ball coach, is very happy about the new rule change that allows him to work with the girls sooner.

“I think the new rule makes a lot of sense. In the past, there was no

way to make sure schools were following the rules. Now the rules are sim-plified and fair to every-one,” Bayer said.

Since Joyner won a state title with his for-mer team at Bruton High

School, there are high expectations for him coming into this season. Joyner begins working with play-ers who were a part of a team that went 4-18 last season.

A lot of people are looking for-ward to seeing how Joyner and the Streaks do this year.

“The kids are very excited to play for [Joyner],” Durmount Perry, the JV coach said.

Perry will be coaching a very skilled JV team that will be led by eight sophomores and five return-ing players.

Joyner and the varsity team have five returning players and two returning starters. The team is go-ing to rely heavily on the seniors and their leadership.

After only graduating one se-nior, the girls team will also be re-lying on senior leadership.

All the buzz about the new coaches has even got teachers and staff excited.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing some great D out there this year,” sports marketing teacher Mallory Cromer said.

Sam ImesonStaff Reporter

Basketball open gyms begin

The EMU League is a turf soccer league, owned by Mark Sweigart which allows lo-cal citizens to create a team and choose players for their specific group. The money collected goes towards the referees and turf field maintenance. Each player must sign an insurance document, which states that the Turf League is not responsible for any injuries. Each team requires a mini-mum of 11 players.

During a game, there are seven players on the field, including the goalie. There

also must be at least three subs waiting on the side lines. Games are held every day from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Each game is about an hour long, with 25 minute halves and a three minute half-time.

The high school’s turf team is a mix between many of Harrisonburg’s soccer members, along with several students who don’t play on the school’s team. Senior Zach Baxter has played on the school’s team for the past several years and recent-ly took up playing turf.

“It’s the funnest thing, to be able to play with friends and enjoy the game,” Baxter said.

The league has three divisions. First division is the most difficult to participate in, second division is the middle ground, and third division is the least demanding of the three. Each team competes to be top eight in their division.

Rules of the turf league are simple; a participant is not allowed to play on more than one team. If so, that team would be removed from the league and that player will also be removed from his/her previous team.

Every game, the team captain is in charge of making sure all players have their current year SVASL t-shirts. If not, players

will not be allowed to participate. Goalies must also wear their SVASL t-shirts under their goalie shirts. The rules are very strict, and there are no exceptions to the rules.

Most importantly, both teams must be even. If the opposing team is down a player or two, either the other team must drop the same amount of players or they will be forced to forfeit. Two forfeits in the season means that team may not compete in the playoffs.

If you are interested in joining the EMU turf league, sign up online at bluesombre-ro.com. Each player must contribute $80 to recieve a jersey and a spot on their team.

EMU turf league attracts off-season soccer athletesSalar HajiStaff Reporter

First year seniors adjust to new teams

Young golfer leads Streaks

Expectations are elevated when it comes to this year’s golf players for HHS. Junior Kyle Templeton started to play golf throughout middle school, al-most instantly golfers around the state started to take notice of his skill. In Templeton’s short high school career, he is already known for his impres-sive talent and work ethic.

As a freshman, Templeton led Harrisonburg to a district title and finished a mere three shots be-hind the winner for the District Player of the Year award. Templeton hopes to lead the Harrisonburg team to more titles this year.

“We’re just going to try to play the best golf our team can,” Templeton said.

Not only is Templeton looking to do great in golf, but strives to step up to the next level.

For college choices, Templeton is already inter-ested in East Carolina University (ECU) or the Uni-versity of Georgia (UGA). This summer, Temple-ton was listed as the 10th best high school golfer in Virginia.

“It’s all about creating memories and having fun at the end,” Templeton said.

Golf had created a friendship between HHS ju-niors Kyle Templeton and Ryan Phillips since el-ementary schools. Both have participated in youth golf tournaments when they were younger and plan to keep competing together throughout high school.

“Team chemistry is a very strong, especially when you have a teammate that’s been with you since elementary school,” Phillips said.

These two members, along with the other play-ers on the team are looking forward to making a name and win another district title this year.

Anthony DuongSports Editor

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EVEN THE FOOD IS REPUBLICAN! All of the vendors at the rally sported these “I built this!” signs, echoing the Republican rallying cry against an out of context quote from President Obama. (below)

Buttons upon buttons. Vendors arrived early to the rally to set out their wares. Buttons were only one of the items being sold. T-shirts were popular, especially anything with an American flag.

HATS OFF TO RYAN. One vendor even wore a base-ball cap with a Mitt Romney doll attached to the top of it. Multiple vendors had all sorts of unique items for Romney/Ryan fans to purchase

SPIRITED ATTIRE. Attendees at the rally sport their loudest clothing for the event. Polos with American (or Confederate) flags were popular.

PICKIN’ AND GRINNIN”. A local bluegrass band was hired to entertain the crowd prior to Ryan’s arrival. Their music was lined with themes of Christianity and love.

BOWING OUR HEADS IN PRAYER. Rally-goers join together in a prayer lead by Commonwealth Attorney Marsha Garst.

Paul RyanShenandoah Valley

visits the

Mark DudaEditor-in-Chief

Paul Ryan visited the Rockingham County Fairgrounds on Sept. 14. The vice presidential candidate, hailed by some as the “ideas man” of the Republican Party, drew a crowd of local residents interested in hearing him talk about the issues per-taining to the upcoming election. How-ever, many didn’t expect the eventful and somewhat bizarre atmosphere of a Republican party rally.

The fairgrounds setting was a far cry from the location of then Presidential nominee Barack Obama’s visit to Harri-sonburg in 2008- the JMU Convocation center. Instead of the arena-like atmo-sphere of the Convo, the fairgrounds fos-tered a more laid-back character. From the crowd’s view, a massive American flag flew (or dangled, it wasn’t very windy) in the background, supported by a very out-of-place looking crane. Behind the flag, a suspiciously conveniently located tractor drove back and forth in the same spot for several hours, adding to the rustic Ameri-can image that the rally attempted to ap-peal to.

If the setting was different from the Obama 2008 rally, the difference between the attendees of the two rallies was like that of two different species. Two pri-mary groups made up the early arrivers at the rally- merchandise sellers and old order Mennonites. The merchants, with stands decorated in patriotic red, white, and blue, lined the only path into the rally leading from the parking lot, forcing attendees to at least take a glance over at the “NObama!” and “Stop Socialism” but-tons. The Mennonites, on the other hand, inexplicably early to the event, stood po-litely and talked in hushed voices to one another.

As the day rolled on, and more and more people rolled into the event, odd clothing choices abounded. For every collared shirt and pair of loafers, a t-shirt with both a Confederate flag and a Constitution quote could be found. One man wore a Mitt Romney doll strapped to his head. Local interest groups passed out baseball hats, sporting pro-coal mes-sages, to members of the crowd.

Lindsay Halling, a HHS senior, at-tended the rally for a number of reasons, including for the experience of seeing a vice presidential nominee in person.

“I wanted to hear more about Paul Ryan, as well as get more involved in poli-tics,” Halling said, with an admission. “I also sort of wanted credit for AP Govern-ment... let’s be honest.”

Fellow senior Gabe Hoak noticed the grandiose decor of the rally.

“It feels kind of manufactured and over the top, the way everything is set up, with the hay barrels and the Ameri-can flags everywhere,” Hoak said.

The event started with an introduc-tion by Delegate Tony Wilt, followed by Tucker Obenshain, 2009 HHS alumnus and daughter of state Senator Mark Obenshain, leading the crowd in the pledge of allegiance.

The Christian undertones of the event were obvious all day long. Lyrics from the bluegrass band that entertained the crowd prior to the event included “Trust Jesus. He’ll guide you. No, he won’t deny you. Trust in the savior every day.” These undertones came to an apex with Com-monwealth Attorney Marsha Garst lead-ing the crowd in a group prayer that lasted several minutes, and was “sort of gratuitous” according to Hoak.

“I think she might have been killing time, Ryan was pretty late,” Hoak said.

Paul Ryan’s bus pulled up to the stage sometime around 3:15, an hour and fif-teen minutes after he was scheduled to appear. Ryan spoke for thirteen minutes on topics ranging from agriculture to business, although he mostly avoided so-cial issues.

ALL PHOTOS BY PAUL HAIRSTON