smoke signal issue 6, nov. 22, 2011
DESCRIPTION
Stafford High School's student newspaperTRANSCRIPT
smokesignaltheStaff ord High School www.staff ordsmokesignal.comIssue 12, March 23, 2011
1the
SwimmingBoys, Girls teams
start seasonpage 7
Cheerleading
Cheerleaders place sixthSee page 7
smokesignalNov. 22, 2011Volume 67. Issue 6
Staff ord High School 33 Staff ord Indian Lane, Fredericksburg, VA 22405 www.staff ordsmokesignal.com
Hempe signs with Georgia University
Sign the dotted line: Surrounded by family Merritt Hempe offi cially signs to play basketball at the University of Georgia. Both students and faculty attended the signing. Photo By Toni Sorrentino
Calendar
Nov. 23-25 Thanksgiving
BreakDec. 8, 9, 10Mystery of
Edwin Drood
Dec. 22-3 Jan.Winter break
countdown
days until Thanksgiving
days until basketball
days until Winterbreak
days until Christmas
indexEntertainment.......5
Feature......................4
News......................1-2
Opinion....................3
Sports....................6-7
Spotlight................10
Student Life.........8-9
what’s hotThanksgiving
Cold weather
Black Friday
Edwin Drood
Field Hockey
Boys XC
29
72
32
weatherNov. 21-27
High: 58 FLow: 34 F
Nov. 30- Dec.5
High: 53 FLow: 34 F
Dec. 8-16
High: 48 FLow: 29 F
Chasing the Golden Days: Senior Greg Bohmke and junior Ian McCleod lead the pack during the State Championship meet. The boys cross country team were named state champions, the fi rst time since 1996. Photo by Andrew Kicinski
Boys XC wins States
FH second in state, wins regionals, districts, semi-finals
Th e fi eld hockey team’s 2011 season came to an end aft er placing second in the state championship against First Colonial. However going to states is not the only triumph the team has earned.
“Even though we didn’t win, the experience was amazing,” Scruggs said. “Being there was all that mattered.
On Tues., Nov. 12, Staff ord traveled to Vir-ginia Beach to face off against First Colonial for the state championship. 10 minutes into the sec-ond half, Erin Gallivan scored Staff ord’s only goal with an assist from Sam Hefl in.
“We had played First Colonial in August while we were still trying to fi g-
ure out our positions, so it was diffi cult,” sopho-more Natalie Bohmke said. “ It was interesting to see how far we had come aft er playing them at states and how the whole team had bond-ed.”
Staff ord’s defense, led by sophomore Nata-lie Bohmke and junior Mckenzie Bowler held strong against First Co-lonial’s off ensive attacks, clearing multiple shots. Senior Goalie Brooke Scruggs was crucial to the team’s performance, only allowing four of the 25 shots to get passed.
“Finishing shots and going further than we did last year was our goal and I think everyone is hap-py with how the season went,” midfi elder Lyndsey Lysher said.
In order to advance to
the state championship, the girls had to not only
do well in the regular season but also win three other levels of com-petition. Staf-ford reigned victorious in districts, re-gionals and s e m i - f i n a l s . Staff ord was the only team in the district and the region to advance to the state championship.
In region-als, Staff ord beat long time rival Mounta-inview High School, 2-1 in overtime. Th e girls had pre-
viously lost to Mounta-inview making the win a
AAU travel team.“Merritt has been a joy to coach for years and she has put
forth tremendous hard work to be a fantastic athlete,” travel
BY ANA NOSALPage Editor
3.1 miles after the starting gun, the var-sity boys cross country team was named state champions
“It was a total team ef-fort by all seven runners,” said head coach Pete Au-grom. “Th ey defi nitely stepped it up, above and beyond all expectations.”
Th e team was led by Greg Bohmke who placed eleventh out of all Vir-ginia high school run-ners and was followed by Ian Macleod, Joey Abba-tiello, Brandon Hinton, Chapin Baxter, Ryan Ha-zelgren and Tanner Wen-tlandt.
Th e boys scored 87 points with the runner-up team, Albemarle, scoring 102 points.
“It’s really an inde-scribable feeling,” Au-grom said. “It took until I woke up Sunday morning and saw the trophy, that it really sank in. Th at we were state champions.”
As a team this year, the boys ran closer in packs towards the front and that helped them to seal their victory over their rival
and next closest team, Al-bemarle.
“I felt really good when I passed this curly haired kid from Albemarle,” ju-nior Ryan Hazelgren said. “I had been chasing him for a long time and it was really great to fi nally beat him.”
Th e diff erence be-tween the fi rst place run-ner and the fi ft h place runner for Staff ord was a mere 35 seconds, and that was what helped them shut out Albemarle, with solid times from sixth and seventh place runners.
“I was relieved when they said we had won,” sophomore Tanner Wen-tlandt said. “Albemarle was cheering like they had already won, but then when Augrom told us that we won, we were all really, really happy.”
Th e seniors this year had stepped up as lead-ers and raised the morale of the team as a whole, working with the team and defi nitely had an im-pact on how they did this season.
“It was a lot of pres-
BY TAYLOR LISCOStaff Writer
See XC on page 2
Surrounded by friends, team-mates, coaches, teachers, and her family, senior Merritt Hempe signed with the University of Geor-gia to play basketball next year. Her hard work and dedication has al-lowed her the chance to play at a Divison I university.
Sitting at a table next to her parents and sister, speeches were made congratulating Hempe on her achievement.
“Her reputation and play on the court, along with the support from her family, has allowed her to get this far,” athletic director Wes Ber-gazzi said.
Hempe was on the varsity team for all four years at Staff ord, but even before that she played for an
coach Boo Williams said.With her skills and talent,
Hempe has had many off ers in the past few years to play for private high schools in Virginia and Mary-land. However, she chose to stay at Staff ord to stay with her friends and teammates.
“Playing with Staff ord has made become more of a leader,” Hempe said.
Years of preparation have al-lowed Hempe to be able to play at the collegiate level.
“Th e coaches at the University of Georgia are awesome and they have an amazing girls’ basketball program,” Hempe said.
Hempe’s friends wish her the best of luck at the University of Georgia.See HEMPE page 2
BY TONI SORRENTINOEditor
Success! After scoring what turned out to be the only Staff ord goal, senior Erin Gallivan meets her team in a celebration. The girls went on to place second at the state championship. Submitted by Dawn Hooghouse
statement of their deter-mination.
“We have gotten so far and I couldn’t be more proud,” Gallivan said. “My advice to the girls is to go to all the workouts and to keep pushing harder.”
Th e match against First colonial marked Staff ord’s third time in school history of placing second in states. this was an improvement from last year as the team did not advance to semi-fi nals in the 2010 season.
“I am going to miss the defensive line and know-ing that I have their back and that they have mine,” Scruggs said.
while much of the of-fense, along with Scruggs, will be graduating, the team is young but have their eyes set on another state appearance.
smokesignaltheStafford High School www.staffordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
2news
sure on me and the other guys to perform really well at states,” senior Greg Bohmke said. “This was our last year and we want-ed to end it on a good note, and that’s just what we did.”
Earlier this season MacLeod had broken the school record and then he had that record broken by Bohmke soon after.
“I was really proud of the guys overall,” Au-grom said. “They all really pushed themselves and each other to do well and it paid off, definitely.”
During districts, which took place Oct. 27
at Willomere Park, the varsity boys team placed second, coming in behind Albemarle by only one point.
“Districts went well, but we will definitely re-deem ourselves at region-als and hopefully states,” said Augrom.
Regionals came soon after on Nov. 3 and the boys finished in first place and were getting ready to be serious competitors in states.
“All we can re-ally do is run faster and be mentally prepared,” Bohmke said.
Now that they boys
have finished another successful season, the up-coming seniors are look-ing to be role models for the upcoming freshman and sophomores.
“Pretty much, if they do the same thing we did this year, they’ll be good,” junior Ian Ma-cleod said. “Just run a lot in the summer and work together as a team, and I think we can definitely get states next year, too.”
Leaving the cross country team was defi-nitely bittersweet moment for seniors Greg Bohmke, Chapin Baxter, and Bran-don Hinton as they fin-
“She just has to keep working hard,” senior Taysia Gray said. “That way, her dream of the WNBA will come true.”
Hempe;s accomplish-ments have made many at Stafford proud.
“She brings such a positive influence and has accomplished so much for us,” Bergazzi said. “She is definitely going to car-ry out the Stafford High
School name throughout the state.”
Even though Hempe has a lot of work ahead of her, she has all of the sup-port she needs.
“Her journey started with a dream, lots of sac-rifice an hard work, but now it’s all going to pay off for her,” varsity coach Carl Harris said. “This has all helped her to become an official, DI athlete.”
ished their high school cross country career on a high note, as state cham-pions.
“I’m glad we finished it the way we did,” Bax-ter said. “It’s sort of sad to have that be our last year, but it definitely end-ed well. I think the guys stepping up next year as leaders will keep the team together the same.”
Overall everyone seems eager to see what next year’s cross country season will hold and how the boys will do during their winter and spring track seasons.
BOYS XC: state victory is bittersweet for XC seniors
HEMPE: signs with UGA
White Oak Market & Deli316 White Oak Road
WE DELIVER540-70-4385
Elizabeth M Attreed, DDS, PC 2832 Jefferson Davis Highway Stafford, VA 22554 (540)-659-5161
Continued from page 1
BOYS RACE TEAM: Coach Pete Augrom, Ian MacLeod, Ryan Hazelgren, Joey Abbatiello, Chapin Baxter, Greg Bohmke, Brandon Hinton, Tanner Wentlandt, coach Winton Ward and coach Kristen Brady with trophy. Photo provided by Pete Augrum.
2 smokesignaltheStafford High School www.staffordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
3opinion
smoke signal staff2011-2012
Editors-in-ChiefElexxus Brown
Emily Griffin
Photography EditorAssistant Editor-in-Chief
Shannon Cooke
Online Editors Editors Rebekah Kim Leland Brooks Dani Raymond Molly Podlesny Toni Sorrentino
Design Editor Page Editors Bridget Phillips Katie Brandon
Megan Corsano Ana Nosal
Kirstin Whiteside
Copy Editors Business Managers Emily Byers Karri Chestnut Kathryn Lenox Georgia Felopulos
Ashleigh Powell
Staff WritersCatherine Alfaro, Cody Beacorn, Natalie Bohmke,
Luci Braun, Doreen Brindise, Moriah Briscoe, Travis Byram, Megan Corsano, Erin Cunningham, Amber Donald, Megan Ebeling, Bradley Elmore,
Austin Enfinger, Shannon Fenwick, Ryan Ha-zelgren, Hannah Haugen, Billy Howell, Maggie
Howell, Megan Humphrey, Russ Kaus, B.H. Kim, India Kithcart, Taylor Lisco, Courtney Mears, Erin McGraw, Chris McMillen, Caelynn Miller-Keyes,
Kirsten Mitchell, Patrick Oliver, Ellie Pare, Da-vid Pearson, Abbie Pennington, Marta Perrine,
Elizabeth Puckerin, Anthony Romanello, Hannah Rowlette, Tori Santiago-Troutman, Brendan Sher-
man, Cara Skeer, Morgan Silver, Justin Thomas, Ryan Thompson, Jillian Weisbeck, Matt Yelverton,
PhotographersKerstin Felton, Amber Griffith, Muhamad Khalid, Emily Pearce, Austing Pearson, Kaitlin Shacklette,
Eric Stapleton, Keana Young
VideographersAlisa Posey Jordan Reed Taylor Sutherland
Reporters
Claire Adams, Allie Ahlm, Emily Billingslea, Shan-non Cocho, Ridge Dodd, Elizabeth Drash, Ergys Ferruku, Tamara George, Tyler Haley, Alexandria
Hinkle, Patrick Holland, Bonnie Kamei, Eric Kauff-man, Jessica Larson, Theresa Rigby, Isabella Rivas, Julianne Rogers, Alyssa Sims, Bridget Stadelmyer,
Blayne Stine, Marissa Stone, Madison Teaster, Jessica Turner, Chris Vaughn, Taylor White, Brittni Wright, Dillon Baden, Jacob Barber, Kiana Burgos, Jackson Carmichael, Katherine Drumm, Michael
Gordon, Caitlin Green, Taylor Jones, Valerie Lampert, Kirsten Mitchell, Charlotte Potts, Syd-
ney Scott, Louisa Amenitsch, Shawnail Cavender, Mariah Erickson, Jessica Justice, Kyle Mcguire,
Madison Mixon, Chadni Patel, Kelly Pedigo, Palm-ers Oelham, Taia Polluck, Rachel Rolando, Sheldon
Sheinall, Austin Thompson, Chiann Todd, Tyler West, Kirsten Burton, Staria Foosness, Kimberley Hall, Katelynn Halstead, Melissa Mercer, Brittany Nealy, Audrey Perrine, Brynne Reeves, Kayla Seal,
Tyler Sullivan, Elizabeth Walker, Taro White
Advisor Sue Gill, CJE
The Smoke Signal is an open forum for student expres-sion of the student body of Stafford High School. Unsigened editorials reflect the collective opinion of the Smoke Signal staff. Signed editorials represent the opinion of the auther and do not necessarily represent the opinons of Stafford HighSchool, its administration, or staff. Signed letters to the editor not exceeding 250 words may be submitted to room W206. Anonymous letters will not be printed. The Smoke Signal reserves the right to edit letters for grammar and content and to refuse advertisements.
EDITORIAL: Ignore the ignorant There has been a lot
of media attention lately about the negative effects of bullying on students, and as cliché as all the preaching is, it still does affect teenagers, even at Stafford High School.
Many people imagine bullying as shoving kids in lockers and stealing their lunch money, but as any teenager will tell you, that’s definitely not the case.
Bullying has taken on a new name. “Just play-ing around,” “just being honest,” and “no offense,” has now become an ex-cuse to say just about anything people want about anybody.
But just “being fun-ny” can still hurt people, even if it’s unintentional. Ask students if they’ve ever had a rumor spread about them or have been talked about to their face or behind their back and
chances are they’ll say they have.
It’s normal, people say. It’s just a part of high school.
That may be true, but it shouldn’t be, especially not at a school as small as Stafford.
These are supposed to be the best years of a person’s life, so why do teenagers always try to cut each other down?
Drama is this genera-tion’s bullying. Hurtful gossiping has become all too commonplace at Stafford High School.
Even Stafford’s own students admit that Staf-ford, can be far from friendly and sometimes downright mean.
Why is it that people can’t help but talk about each other? Is it be-cause making someone else look worse is a good way of forgetting about personal problems? Do
people hate themselves so much that they need to resort to hating each other to get rid of all that anger?
Regardless of why they act as they do, teen-agers need to start be-ing nicer to one another. They need to think be-fore they tweet, try to have more understand-ing for each other, and if all else fails, stay away from Facebook. The only thing Facebook is even good for is making peo-ple seem more annoying than normal.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said that “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people.” Maybe she just doesn’t under-stand that Sarah totally stole Lisa’s boyfriend or maybe, just maybe, she has a point.
Plenty of pride, spirit just what Stafford needs
As the season of giv-ing approaches, one can’t help but notice that the giving was good this year, as Stafford brought home numerous titles and accomplishments in recent weeks.
From cross country winning the VHSL State Championship, to cheer ranking sixth in states, to field hockey facing run-ner up in the AAA state field championship, the student body has been graced with a flood of achievements.
The list continues, with the Tribe of Pride winning the Mills God-win Invitational, drama being one of two schools who were selected to ad-vance onto the national Southeastern Theater Conference, and Link
Crew filming the Blue and Yellow video, spirit can be found in every crevice of the building.
The Blue and Yellow music video was the first to surface. The idea of a video emerged during the summer in hopes of starting the year off right with tons of spirit. Af-ter months of hard work and creativity by senior Christine Krueger and junior Frederick Lovell, the video created by se-nior Alisa Posey and sophomore Jordan Reed, premiered at the pep rally of spirit week. This video showed every stu-dent at Stafford just how spirited our school could be.
Next a group of dra-ma students attended the Virginia Theater
Association secondary school theatre festival. Here they were chosen to be one of two schools from Virginia who are to proceed to nationals in Chattanooga, Tennessee in early March.
The following day, band students spent the morning of Homecom-ing at the Mills Godwin Invitational in Rich-mond. After hours of playing, the Tribe of Pride placed first in their class, as well as first over-all in the whole competi-tion.
Two weeks later the sport achievements came rolling in. Students wait-ed throughout the day to hear about the results. All in one day, boys cross country won states, field hockey fought their way
to second, and cheer soared into sixth place.
Spirit and pride was displayed at every event, as students filled the stands or finish lines with enthusiasm to watch their fellow class-mates succeed. These ac-complishments should bring pride not only to those involved, but to ev-ery student and faculty member alike.
Hopefully this pas-sion for victory will pro-long throughout the year, as winter sports start and drama remains per-forming. This amount of enthusiasm is just what our school needs to push through the rest of the year.
It’s safe to say, this was definitely a successful season for the Indians.
Making the Grade
A+
A-
DA+ Sports Success
3 Day Week
Thansgiving Break
Daylight Savings Time
With the boys’ cross country team becoming state champions, the varsity field hockey team ending second in the state, and the varsity cheer team taking sixth place at states, these recent successes have added to the studnts’ school pride and unity.
The three day school week two weeks ago gave students an opportunity to catch up on much needed sleep and late work for the end of the quarter. Although it was hard for some students to sleep in, it put everyone in a better mood.
Although students are excited for Thanksgiving and Black Friday, many are upset about how short the break is. With only a few days, most students must miss a few school days in order to travel to their holiday destinations. Others are concerned about the homework assigned over break.
The recent Daylight Savings Time change has made many students unhappy lately. The sun setting so early causes many students to not realize what time it actually is. Instead of getting that extra hur of sleep, the difference in time has left us more confused than well restd.
C Pre-DecoratingSome students are getting annoyed with the Christmas hype starting before Thanksgiving has even happened. Downtown and the mall is full of Christmas trees and decoratons for advertisement and marketing tactics. Is this happening too soon and how will it affect the holiday mood?
smokesignaltheSta� ord High School www.sta� ordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
4features
As the Hugger tradi-tion went on last year, freshman Claire Hug-ger’s brother, sophomore Blaine Hugger, locked the car keys in the trunk of the car while putting the shopping bags away a� er doing some Black Friday shopping at Tyson’s Cor-ner.
Claire went shopping
with her brother, sister, aunt, and mom. � e fam-ily awoke around 2 a.m. and le� for Tyson’s Cor-ner around 3 a.m.
“We stayed up till about 12 a.m. cutting out coupons,” Claire said.
It has been a tradi-tion for the Huggers to go Black Friday shopping at Tyson’s Corner, since Claire’s older sister le� for college.
“Our sister comes up from school to go shop-ping with us,” Claire said. “While we are up at Ty-son’s Corner we meet up with our aunt that lives nearby Tyson’s.”
� e Huggers tried to unlock the car by hav-ing their father call and unlock it. Since the call did not work, their father had to drive out to Tyson’s Corner to pick up the rest
Long lines, crowded stores, tired faces, early mornings and good pric-es are all characteristics of Black Friday. Black Friday occurs on the day a� er � anksgiving and it tra-ditionally marks the be-ginning of the Christmas shopping season. � is year the Black Friday tra-dition continues on Nov. 25.
Black Friday is statis-tically the busiest shop-ping day of the year since 2004. Most stores on this day open early at 4 a.m. or before and o� er promo-tional sales to kick o� the shopping season.
“I know that Black Fri-day originated because it was the start of the shop-ping season,” math teach-
er Clay Shesman said. “Advertisers would send out � iers and then public-ity got it and made it a big deal. I’ve only been out shopping twice but my favorite part is going to watch people.”
� e term Black Friday � rst came from 1929, the day that the stock market crashed. � en people in Philadelphia changed the meaning in 1966 when they used it to describe the heavy and disruptive vehicle tra� c that would leave black tire marks on the road which would occur on the day a� er � anksgiving. � e term was then spread around the United States.
A� er being used to de-scribe the tra� c � ow, the people then transformed the meaning of the word
to indicate the kick o� of the shopping season. An alternative theory to the name is that it indicates the period in which retail-ers are turning a pro� t or “in the black.” � ey gave justi� cation for the name in tying it to account-ing balance sheets where black ink would represent a pro� t.
Many people do not know the origination of Black Friday and how the name came to be. � ey just know that people get up early to go shopping for discounted prices.
“I didn’t know what Black Friday was until we had to go for sociology,” senior Joe Sorrentino said.
During Black Friday shopping, people usually line up outside of stores
of the family. “� ere happened to
be an accident on the interstate which caused major tra� c,” Claire said. “We had to take an exit and wound up lost taking another way back home.”
Besides getting locked out of the car, the Hug-gers ran into other prob-lems while shopping. � e cashiers were sometimes unable to take coupons
and had to tell the shop-pers that they were unable to use the coupons. � is sometimes caused argu-ments between shoppers and cashiers. Claire’s aunt was upset when she was told she was unable to use her coupons.
“I would de� nitely go Black Friday shopping again,” Claire said. “But I would not give Blaine the keys ever again.”
Hugger family enjoys Black Friday By Alexis Bush
Sta� Writer
Black Friday tradition takes off in1966By Karri ChestnutBusiness Manager
Best Buy opens Friday, Nov. 25 at 12 a.m. but deals are available early online only.
Kohl’s opens Friday, Nov. 25 at 4 a.m.
that have good pro� ts until their doors open. People bring their lawn chairs and snacks while they wait for three or more hours.
When the doors open, the store becomes a mad-house. People run around grabbing items that they want and even steal them from other people. � ere has even been instances in the past where work-ers have been trampled to death. In some stores there are lines to wait in for a certain item.
“Black Friday shop-ping is deadly,” freshman Evan Frulla said. “Even though I go I don’t know where the name came from. I thought it was a plague or something.”
Traditionally stores like Wal-Mart are open all night long, but the lines
to start buying the items do not open until around 5 a.m. Other stores such as Kohl’s, Best Buy, and Macy’s don’t open until 4 a.m.
Black Friday is where many people begin their Christmas shopping. � ey save money because of all the good deals that the di� erent stores have. Although Black Friday can get crazy and frustrat-ing, many people contin-ue to go shopping to save money.
“My mom and I al-ways go at 2 a.m. and get in line at Best Buy. It’s re-ally thrilling and I love it,” senior Codie Hammond said. “Even though I don’t know the history behind Black Friday, I still love to go. And if you’ve never been you’re really missing out.”
Target opens Friday, Nov. 25 at 12 a.m. and prices can be previewed online
Walmart opens Thursday, Nov. 24 at 10 p.m. for select items and Friday, Nov. 25 at 12 a.m. for electronics.
Emerson® 40” LCD TV40” class 40.0” diagonal screen size 1080p resolu-
tion 60Hz refresh rate
HP® AMD Dual-Core LaptopAMD E-350 accelerated processor, Webcam, Wire-
less-enabled, 2-in-1 media card reader 15.6” screen 3GB memory 320GB hard drive
8GB iPod touch®Music, games, i Message, HD video recording &
more
$ 188 at Walmart
$ 195 at Walmart
$ 248 at Walmart
Where do you go on Black
Friday?And what
do you buy?
Kohl’s and Target.Flip camera to use at school, a family camera, and any other good deals I can
� nd!Mrs. Lansford, Spanish teacher
Anywhere.Clothes.
Katie Duell, 10
� e mall.Shoes.
Kenly Belman, 9
Walmart.TVs.
Mikala Campbell, 10
Black Friday
Photos, story byNatalie Bohmke, Abby Pennington
smokesignaltheStafford High School www.staffordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22 , 2011
5 Entertainment
“Footloose” remake edgy, sassy
Cheeburger Cheeburger opens in Towne Centre
Customers are sure to take a step into the past when walking into the diner-like setting of Cheeburger Cheeburger.
Cheeburger Chee-burger can be found on the outside of the Spot-sylvania Town Center next to Books- A- Mil-lion.
The restaurant’s inte-rior is designed to look like a fifties diner. Walls are a vibrant shade of pink and have black and white tiles around the perimeter.
Customers can choose to sit at the bar where food is prepared or at tables around the diner.
Prices on the menu
range between five and eleven dollars.
Cheeburger Chee-burger specializes in burgers.
If ordering a burg-er, customers start by choosing the size of the patty they would like. Sizes range between five and 20 ounces.
A choice of cheese and toppings can be cho-sen next.
Cheeburger Chee-burger offers nine differ-ent types of cheese and 25 toppings.
There are also four specialty toppings.
Fries are not served with burgers, wraps, or lunch and dinner meals.
Fries and onion rings can be ordered seperately as a small, medium, or large basket. “The Best of
Both” Basket can also be ordered containing both onion rings and fries.
“One Hit Wonder” sauces can be bought with any meal for only a dollar more.
These sauces are a creamy cheese sauce, zesty horseradish sauce, creamy jalapeno sauce, and garden vegetable sauce. They are also known as “Cheese Lov-er’s Delight”, “Not Too Hot”, “Has a Little Kick”, and “Refreshing”.
The Chicken Finger Basket is one of the many popular meals on the menu. It consists of five large fried chicken fin-gers in a basket.
Chicken fingers can also be bought as a “Cheeplatter”. This is a meal item served with
a choice of cheese and toppings, fries or onion rings, a signature sauce, sauteed onions, and a choice of side salad or coleslaw.
Customers should end their meal with one
of Cheeburger Chee-burger’s 74 signature shakes. There are also over 1,285,000 shake combinations that can be made as well.
Customers should ex-pect a short wait before
eating at Cheeburger Cheeburger due to the restaurant’s small interi-or but should stay for the good food in a blast from the past.
BY ERIN MCGRAWStaff Writer
“Clear as Day” debuts at top of charts, hearts
Photo courtesy of GOMoxie.org
BY MOLLY PODLESNYPage Editor
Clear as Day, Scott McCreery’s first album, was released Oct. 4.
McCreery was the “American Idol” winner for Season 10.
McCreery’s deep bass is reminiscent of country great Josh Turner, whose music he often sings. However, he also has con-siderable range.
There is no deny-ing that his voice sounds more mature than his age - McCreery turned 18 Oct. 9.
The topics of his songs, though, are relevant to his age. In the title track, Mc-Creery reminisces on a high school love that was cut short.
“Out of Summertime,” is similar, with McCreery crooning about a sweet summer fling.
Many of the tracks have lyrics that are so close they could be inter-changeable, though Mc-Creery is definitely trying to appeal to a certain de-
mographic.Although, the demo-
graphic in question would probably be his fans even without his rich voice, due to his baby blue eyes and crooked smile.
Another appeal he has to certain people is his religion. McCreery is a devout Christian, which shows in his music.
Though this is not un-common to many country singers, McCreery’s lyrics are all carefully clean, and “That Old King James,” is particularly religious.
He shows that he is a momma’s boy in “Back on the Ground,” an ode to his mother. This is really the only song that does not match his age – McCre-ery speaks from an older man’s perspective here.
The first single re-leased, “I Love You This Big,” came out in May.
It was received well, debuting at 32 on the US Billboard 100 Hot Coun-try chart. It eventually peaked at number 15.
On the US Billboard Hot 100 Songs it debuted
at and peaked at number 11.
The song went gold Aug. 17.
Clear as Day set re-cords with its debut. It is the first debut country al-bum to make its first ap-pearance at number one on the all-genre Billboard chart. McCreery is also the youngest male to ever debut at number one on that chart.
The album, though overall a good listen, can get repetitive. His slower songs, such as “Write My Number on Your Hand,” can even get a bit boring.
Clear as Day is noth-ing unique or ground-breaking. McCreery’s themes are the usual country ones – God, girls and farmer tans.
No one can blame him however, for wanting to play it safe on his fist al-bum. Obviously, he was more than safe, consider-ing it sold 197,000 copies in its first week.
Footloose, a drama-musical made in 1984, directed by Herbert Ross, made its second coming to theaters Oct. 14.
A smart-aleck city teen named Ren Mac-Cormack (Kenny Wormald) moves to the rural town of Bomont where dancing has been banned. Ren falls for the defiant daugh-ter (Julianne Hough) of a local preacher/city council member (Den-nis Quaid).
With the support of his sidekick Willard (Miles Teller), Ren and
Lori coerce the town into having a prom, but just over the town line. Most jaw-droppingly, Craig Brewer nearly shot-for-shot re-creates the story line of Ross’s film 1981 film, but the dance to “Footloose” is modernized with newer dance moves by Lori and Ren.
“Wormald and Hough aren’t quite ready for the Oscars yet” ABC News said, “but they’re pitch perfect for what they’re asked to do here.”
With just a few changes in the musical changes, the movie was spot on. Most memo-rable scenes from the
2011 film were no dif-ferent than the original, keeping its style, and originality.
“Kenny and Juli-anne, unlike Kevin Ba-con and Lori Singer, can DANCE like crazy,” Ho l l y w o o d l i f e . c om said. “Their dance num-bers are wild, sexy and fun”.
Footloose kept it on the edge with MacCor-mack’s witty attitude and bad-boy style.
The infamous yellow Volkswagen makes its return with a different approach, rather than just inheriting it.
The 2011 film has definitely set a new bar for musical remakes.
BY NICK HUDSONStaff Writer
1984 “Footloose” cover. Photo courtesy of GO-Moxie.org
2011 “Footloose” cover.Photo courtesy of GO-Moxie.org
“Mistletoe” hit or miss
There’s noth-ing like Hallow-een to put you in the Christmas spirit, or at least that’s what Justin Bieber seems to think, releasing his hotly antici-pated Christmas album Un-der the Mistle-toe on Nov. 1.
The album consists of origi-nal songs like “Mistletoe” and “Christmas Love” along with fa-miliar Christ-mas classics, “The Little Drummer Boy” and “Si-lent Night”.
Bieber fans are flock-ing to record stores and iTunes to hear Bieber’s new experiment, incor-porating multiple genres and a much matured voice. The attention grab-ber of Under the Mistle-toe, however, is his eclec-tic set of collaborations with artists The Band Perry, Busta Rhymes, Usher, Boys II Men, and Mariah Carey.
But the question re-mains, is this album re-ally worth all the hype or will Bieber fans find themselves sorely disap-pointed?
For starters, the album shows a very different side of Bieber, who has clearly grown and ma-tured as a singer since his first big hit “Baby.” But listening to Under the Mistletoe is like playing a game of Battleship, since all of the songs featured are either hit or miss.
Some of the direct hits are the title song
“Mistletoe,” a laid back Jason Mraz-esque Bieber original, a remix of the chart topping hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You” featuring a duet with Mariah Carey, and the catchy, festive single “Fa La La,” featuring Boys II Men. These songs show off both Bieber’s newly matured voice and signa-ture catchiness very well and have already reached thousands of views on YouTube.
Not all of the songs on Under the Mistle-toe live up to hype though. Bieber has some misses with singles like the unfocused and head-ache-inducing, “Little Drummer Boy,” which has a less-than-brilliant guest appearance by Bus-ta Rhymes, the entirely forgettable, “Christmas Love,” and the awkward-ly country-sounding sin-gle, “Home For Christ-mas,” featuring The Band Perry.
As a whole, the album is inconsistent as Bieber’s voice - deep and mature in “The Christmas Song,”
mysteriously changing to sounding like a young Michael Jackson in “Someday at Christmas,” and having familiar car-ols interrupted by origi-nal songs no one has ever heard before, ruining the flow.
Which isn’t to say that Under the Mistletoe is a bad album, the biggest issue is just that the ma-jority of the album lacks a Christmas-y feel. And although this album defi-nitely has some flaws, it’s still catchy and has some great collaborations en-suring that true ‘Beli-ebers’ will download the album on iTunes faster than you can say Bieber Fever.
In the spirit of giving, Justin Bieber is donat-ing a portion of the sales of Under the Mistletoe to charities like the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Pencils of Promise.
The album will be available in stores and iTunes Nov. 1, just in time for Black Friday mobbing.
BY DOREEN BRINDISEStaff Writer
Say Chee! Cheeburger Cheeburger is in Spotsylvania Towne Centre next to Firebirds. The res-taurant offers more than just burgers. There are also 74 different kinds of milkshakes. Photo by Erin McGraw
Photo courtesy of GOMoxie.org
smokesignaltheStafford High School www.staffordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
6sportsSpicer says goodbye to basketballBY MEGAN CORSANO
Page Editor
Boys’ team makes splash
BY SHANNON FENWICKStaff Writer
Andrew Holland will be coaching the JV boys’ basketball team this year in place of Ryan Mid-dleton. Middleton has moved up to the varsity boys’ basketball coaching position while Holland has moved up to the JV coaching position.
Holland had previ-ously been coaching the freshmen boys’ basketball team before he moved up to JV.
Tryouts for the team were held on Nov. 7, 8, and 9 from 2:30-5:00 p.m. Cuts were made until 12 players remained, with Dylan Lane and Austin Kerns as the team cap-tains.
“Some I expected to make it from the start, and others surprised me,” coach Holland said after the final tryout.
Holland expects the JV players to be competitive during this year’s season
BY BRENDAN SHERMANStaff Writer
Senior Sammy Krej-dovsky is the only girl that will be on Stafford Gym-nastics team for all four years in the 2012 class.
“The reason why I chose to be apart of the team and stuck to it is because I love the whole team aspect,” Krejdovsky said. “Everyone works for the team, not themselves.”
Krejdovsky has been doing gymnastics ever
BY SARAH SHEARERStaff Writer
since she was two years old.
“I was on the team with her for three years,” senior and former team mem-ber, Madison Ritchey said. “She is such a hard worker and dedicated to the team. I’m excited to see how far they will go this year.”
She has previous ex-perience in Paragon and competed in Royals for years.
“When I did compete, I was on a level eight,”
Kredovsky said. “In to-tal, there are 10 levels and from there you continue on to elite, which is when you can go to Olympics.”
The girls won districts twice- her freshman and junior year. Last year they placed second in region-als and made it to states as a team.
“I have grown up with her in club gymnastics,” junior and team member Jessie Riley said. “And when I came to high school, she influenced me
Sticking the landing: Sammy Krejdovsky works on her gymnast skills during practice. This will be her fourth year competing on Stafford’s team. Photo by Amber Griffth
Krejdovsky displays dedication for gymnasticsto try out for the team. I hope that we make it a good last year for her and win another district title for her.”
Because she doesn’t compete out of school anymore and is on a high school team, she isn’t on a level anymore.
“My advice to pres-ent and upcoming team members is to always give 110 percent and to never give up,” Krejdovsky said.
Girls’ varsity swim-ming needs to overcome the loss of the class of 2011 in order to improve this year.
According to coach Bernadette Pellichero, the team did fairly well last year. They finished fourth at districts and seventh at regionals. Graduate Han-nah Melkun was the only girl to make it to states last year, but graduate Zoe Wuckovich made it to re-gionals.
“We lost a lot of depth last year from our se-niors,” Pellichero said. “However, our freshman group this year seems to be promising.”
Swimmers hope the
JV coaches start season off strong
With the retiring of long time coach Steve Spicer, the varsity boy’s basketball team faces challenges and obstacles, but players are confident in the team’s ability to overcome them.
New coach Danny Tryon brings a new style to Indians basketball, with a fast paced offense and aggressive defense, as opposed to the Spicer style of set plays and half-court defense.
“I’m excited to see how the new system will play out,” said Kameron Man-gin, senior and returning player.
The style of play is dif-ferent, but players who played under Spicer’s sys-tem are excited to try the new, flashier style of play.
“Coach Spicer was about controlling the game, taking our time,” said Jacolby Hawkins, se-nior and returning starter. “Under Tryon, we’ll push the ball.”
Senior leadership will also play a key part in the transfer between the coaches. The Indians re-turn four seniors from last year’s district cham-pionship squad, all with leadership ability and a clear vision for the team this year.
Along with the con-
sistent goal of another consecutive district title, embracing the new coach and new style of play is important to the team.
“Embracing our new coach is important,” said Mangin. ‘If the seniors are on board with new sys-tem, the younger players will be too.”
The Indians have lost parts of the team that was so successful last year, but the additions of coach Tryon and senior AJ West, along with the younger players, will continue the tradition of winning, just in a new fashion.
“We’ve lost some piec-es,” said Da’shawn Har-ris, junior and returning
BY MATT YELVERTONStaff Writer The girls JV basket-
ball coaches have many expectations for the up-coming season.
“Our coaching staff believes in the philoso-phy heart, attitude, and motivation,” said Carl Harris, girls’ basketball coach. “My expectation is that the girls work hard and get better every day.”
Harris has been coaching for 10 years and basketball has al-ways been a love of his. He played basketball before and when he stopped playing he knew that he wanted to con-tinue to teach the game.
Alyssa Guthrie, one
of the returning players, started when she was in middle school and has been playing for two years.
“I like that bas-ketball is a team sport, not individual,” sopho-more Alyssa Guthrie said. “I like all my teammates and my coaches are very supportive.”
Last school year the basketball team fin-ished17-7.
This year the coaches aren’t planning to change anything this season.
“We are not going to have a lot of changes,” Harris said. “Last year ev-erything was new to the young ladies with it being my first year at Stafford. We are going to build on last season.”
BY ELIZABETH PUCKERINStaff Writer
starter to the team. “But we’ve added some new pieces too. We’re going to score more points and work for that district ti-tle.”
But Spicer isn’t out of the picture completely. He’ll stay on as a gym teacher this year and will be present at some games.
“The Blue Wave is spe-cial to me,” said Spicer. “I believe we wouldn’t have won some of the games we did without them.”
This season, the Blue Wave will have some new faces and a new look to support, but the expecta-tion of victory will stay the same.
New coach, new year for varsity
High Hopes for Girls’ JV
Coach Steven Spicer retired from his position as basketball coach, but left a legacy that will be remembered for years to come.
For most of his play-ers, Spicer made an im-pact that will stay with them forever.
“He was always there for you,” senior Travis Epps said. “He was like a father figure to me and he has my upmost respect.”
Spicer not only im-proved the players in bas-ketball, but also enriched their lives.
“He was worried about not only improving us in basketball, but also as a person,” senior Kameron Mangin said.
The members of Spic-er’s team felt the benefits of his coaching with the improvement of their skills. Spicer retiring is giving them reason to
prove the impact he has made and make him proud.
“I’m sad that he’s retir-ing,” Epps said. “I wish he was coaching one more year. However, it makes you want to work harder. It’s motivating to be the best player he wanted you
to be.”Spicer’s years of coach-
ing the team have given him his own sense of ac-complishment.
“I really liked working with the team and work-ing in the weight room,” Spicer said. “You see in-dividuals getting stronger
and gaining confidence, and bringing their new strength to the court. It brought satisfaction to me as their coach.”
When he was coach-ing, Spicer gained respect from his team by his coaching techniques.
“He was very intel-
ligent with his tactics,” Mangin said. “He always made sure we knew what the other team was going to do.”
Spicer started coach-ing
in 1963, and came to Stafford in 1989, where he has been coaching basket-
ball and P.E. for the past 22 years. Luckily, the end of his coaching is not the end of his teaching as a P.E. teacher.
“I will miss being around the players,” Spic-er said. “But Stafford has had the most supportive students I have ever seen in the area.”
The change in coach-ing has created a possi-bility for a change in the team.
“It’s sad that he’s retir-ing,” Mangin said. “But it’s also a good opportu-nity for the program to be put in new hands.”
Spicer is will remain a P.E. coach for Stafford, and will carry his memo-ries from the basketball team with him for the rest of his life.
“I loved and still love Stafford High School,” Spicer said in a recent interview with the Free Lance Star. “I bleed blue and gold.”
Leaving a legacy: Coach Steven Spicer, whom basketball players hold in high esteem, decided to retire from varsity basketball coaching. Spicer isn’t leaving Stafford for good, though. He will remain a P.E. coach. Senior Jacoby Hawkins and junior Ryan Jones will miss Spicer but are looking forward to trying a new coach. Photo by Dani Raymond
Swimming laps: Senior Jordan Marshall works hard to pre-pare for the team’s upcoming meet. Photo by Emily Pearce
team will do well this year.
“I hope the team will win dis-tricts this year,” junior Allison Lloyd said. “We’re really deep and there are lots of new people.
F r e s h m e n who try out for the high school team usually have swum previously. They also try out as a way of mak-ing friends.
“I just moved from Wisconsin, and I real-ly like swimming,” fresh-man Liz Kleveno said. “It’s a good way to meet people who share my in-terests.”
Upperclassmen swim
for other reasons.“Swimming is fun,”
Lloyd said. “I swim year-round, and high school swimming is more team-oriented. It’s also more intense.”
Out of the 72 people who have signed up to try out, 45 swam last year. Tryouts were on Nov. 7, practice started on Nov. 14, and the team’s first meet is on Nov. 29.
6 smokesignaltheStafford High School www.staffordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
7sportsIndoor track prepares with pre-season training
Girls swimming dives into new season
BY DANI RAYMOND Page Editor
AND COURTNEY MEARS
Staff Writer
BY MEGAN HUMPHREY
Staff Writer
Wrestlers hit the mats
Flying past the competition: Junior Destiny Dobbins practices the butterfly stroke in order to be ready for the aproaching season. Photo by Emily Pearce
Varsity wrestling started their season on Nov. 7 with their first practice. Because there isn’t a limited roster, the team usually has 34 to 35 boys on the team, but only a few wrestle on varsity.
“We are looking for boys who are coachable, disciplined, respectful, dedicated, and tough,” wrestling coach Bran-don Gilbert said. “This is not a sport for the weak or pretty. We need boys who come to work every day and want to be great at what they’re doing.”
Brandon and Daniel Gilbert are going into their third year as wres-tling co-coaches. They were both on their high school wrestling team, and always wanted to run a wrestling program together.
“There are several things I love about be-ing a coach,” Brandon Gilbert said. “First and foremost is competing. I’ll speak for Daniel and me both when I say that we love to compete. It’s nice having the oppor-
tunity to live vicariously through the boys. All of their successes and fail-ures are our successes and failures.”
Josh Beacorn, Ryan Bearon, Joe Sorrentino, Marcus Brown, Bill Hoc-tor, Devon Bornschein, Matt Tolley, Logan Jack-son and Tim Giordano are all returning wres-tlers from the varsity lineup. Wrestlers will be cut as the coaches sepa-rate the strong from the weak.
“We won four out of the six tournaments we were entered in, came in second in the district to Forge for the second year in a row,” Brandon Gilbert said. “We were ninth in the region and had the highest state place winner in SHS his-tory—Logan Jackson was third in state at the 189 pound weight class”.
Wrestlers compete in bi-weekly “wrestle-offs,” where they go up against each team member in their weight group. The winner in each weight class wrestles on the varsity team until they lose to the same wrestler twice.
“They’re both stress-ful and fun because it gives you a chance to see
how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve accomplished,” senior Ryan Bearon said.
The first tournament will be a dual tourna-ment at Forest Park High School on Dec. 2 and 3. Daily practices are held which include technique sessions, drill sessions, situational wrestling, live situations, live matches and conditioning.
“I think we’re going to do better than last year,” said senior Logan Jack-son, who placed third at States last year. “The younger kids are good, and can only get better.”
The returning upper-classmen are very en-couraging to the incom-ing team members.
“Don’t give up, new-bies,” Bearon said. “Just keep working and try your hardest.”
Bearon wishes to go to states, as do Devon Bornschien and Tim Giordano.
Giordano has wanted to make it to states for four years now.
“Be prepared to give it all you got, newbies,” Giordano said. “It takes a lot of responsibility and determination. What you put in is what you get out.”
The indoor track and field team is expected to have around 75 run-ners this season officially starting Nov. 7.
New runners are looking forward to the upcoming season.
“I’m nervous but I’m hoping I’ll do good,” sophomore Alicia Coffey said.
Workouts to prepare the runners are done outside at the track and will work on building endurance and muscular strength.
“I feel like the work-
outs have helped,” fresh-man Kendrik Icenhour said. “I have been able to run longer distances without stopping.”
The event the runners chooses will depend on the type workouts they do.
Distance runners run course loops around campus, while sprinters do a variety of sprints on the track to improve their times.
As the weather gets colder, opportunities to run outside will no lon-ger be available. Inside practices will take place “Only if it’s cold out,” coach Pete Augrom said.
Coach Kristen Brady
feels good about the up-coming season.
“They’re hard work-
ers,” Brady said about the runners staying after school for conditioning.
About 10 runners have been staying after school to condition and
some already have sea-son goals in their minds.
Tony Kemp is work-ing hard to achieve his goals.
“I’m hoping to qual-ify for regionals and states,” said Kemp, junior and returning runner. Kemp runs the 55 and 300-meter dash, and the 4x2 relay.
The season will draw to an end sometime in February and will de-pend on the runner. Runners who advance to the regional and state meets after the district meet will have a longer season than those who do not qualify after the district meet.
Racing toward a good season: Ryan Hazelgren, Brad Jones, Ian Macleod, Greg Bohmke, and Brandon Lock run during a pre-season conditioning to prepare for their season. Photo by Eric Stapleton
BY JILLIAN WEISBECKStaff Writer
Girls varsity swim-ming needs to overcome the loss of the graduates this year in order to im-prove this year.
According to coach Bernadette Pellichero, the team did fairly well last year. The team finished fourth at districts and sev-enth at regionals. Gradu-ate Hannah Melkun was the only girl to make it to States last year, but gradu-ate Zoe Wuckovich made it to regionals.
“We lost a lot of depth last year from our seniors. However, our freshman group this year seems to
be promising,” Pellichero said.
Swimmers hope the team will do well this year.
“I hope the team will win districts this year. We’re really deep and there are lots of new peo-ple,” junior Allison Lloyd said.
Freshman who try out for the high school team usually have swum previ-ously. They also try out as a way of making friends.
“I just moved from Wisconsin, and I really like swimming,” fresh-man Liz Kleveno said. “It’s a good way to meet people who share my in-terests.”
Upperclassmen swim for other reasons.
“Swimming is fun,” Lloyd said. “I swim year-round, and high school swimming is more team-oriented. It’s also more intense.”
Seventy-two people have signed up to try out, 45 of who swam last year. Try outs were on Nov. 7, practice starts on Nov. 14, and the team’s first meet is on Nov. 29.
“Despite losing some major swimmers,” senior Tatanna Tonnacliff said. “this year we have gained more year round swim-mers. There’s no doubt that we won’t come back strong this year. We’re ready to set new goals and build our team.”
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Lesson in wrestling• Neutral- both opponents are facing each other with
out either being in control • Post- placing a body part to a mat (usually a head or
a foot).• Position- refers to position in relation to opponent.• Bottom/Down- when a wrestler is under their oppo-
nent, and he is in control of you. • Advantage/top- when a wrestler is on top and is in
control of their opponent• head-to-head- forhead is in the same position as
their opponent’s. • staggered stance- on leg is farther forward than the
other foot. • two on one- gripping an opponent’s hand, wrist, arm
with both hands. • drag- when a wrestler pulls an opponent’s arm to-
wards them. • block- to keep certain parts of an opponent’s body
from moving.
Hold that tiger: Seniors Marcus Brown and Ryan Bearon practice breaking holds in prepara-tion for the new seasson. Brown did quite well last year, so even bigger expections are held for this year. Photo by Toni Sorrentino
smokesignaltheSta� ord High School www.sta� ordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
8
sports
Ironically German-born Jerald Hunsberger has been head of the French Club since his arrival to the school in 2003. � e French Club had their � rst meeting Oct. 26, but late arrivals will still be accepted.
Students might want to join in this year though, if they wish to pay a low an-nual fee.
“We only charge $5, but we’re probably going to raise it next year,” Hun-sberger said. We might double it. We might even quadruple it. I’m really
not sure.” For many, the French
language can be di� cult to understand which is why Hunsberger does not have the French club members actually speak-ing French because things get lost in translation.
“It only slows the group down if we speak nothing but French the entire group meeting and we don’t have time for that,” Hunsberger said.
French Club focuses on the culture rather than the actual speaking of the language.
“Instead of the French language, we embrace the French atmosphere. We play games as well, all French of course,” Huns-berger said.
One of these French games is called Boules.
In late September the club met up and decided who the o� cers were go-ing to be.
“I like the group ef-fort of everyone acting together,” president Jean Wang said.
French Club also al-lows more time to relate to the culture outside of the classroom setting.
“It’s a really good way to work on French,” vice president Maria Snow said. “We play games and activities that we don’t get to do in French class.”
Other activities this year are also being planned.
“Anything members want to do that is within
the French Club budget is � ne,” Hunsberger said. “We’ve had cinema days and cooking days and those two were probably
TRAVIS BYRAMSta� Writer
Key Club is collect-ing food all throughout November to give to the homeless during � anks-giving.
Margaret Bridges, a world history teacher and Key Club’s advisor, is in charge of making sure ev-erything goes as planned.
“We want to make sure everybody has a great � anksgiving,” Bridges said. “Nobody deserves to spend a holiday hungry.”
Key Club will try to � ll three boxes with food. � ey will be giving the boxes to a charity house, that will send it to a home-less shelter.
Some of the foods they will be collecting are: macaroni and cheese, noodles, boxed potatoes, green beans, and canned corn. � ey are focusing on trying to collect boxed and canned goods.
“Everybody is trying their best to get the food in,” senior president El-exxus Brown said.
Every member that is in the club will be help-ing in gathering food from their houses and the other people who wish to donate. � ose who wish to donate have to give the food to Mrs. Bridges in Room S205.
“� e food we are col-lecting is for a good cause,” said Amy Quant-rille, Key Club senior vice president.
� e Key Club has also done other donations in the past.
“We donated food to
CATHERINE ALFAROSta� Writer
� e International Club has their meetings the � rst Friday of every month to discuss new ideas and events. � ey also spend time covering a certain featured country for each month.
“We were planning on covering Mexico this month but we decided not to feature and dis-cuss that country until December,” president Mi-chelle Amezquita said.
Even though they are not featuring Mexico this month, they still have a bunch of ideas and events planned to do until De-cember.
“We are working hard with the new ideas that
we have come up with and I am excited to get started on them,” advisor Myriam Lorenzo said.
Stu� ng shoeboxes for an organization called Operation Shoebox is one of their events that they talked about doing at their meeting this month.
“Operation Shoebox is an organization where we donate shoeboxes that are � lled with Christmas things to the troops out in Iraq,” Amezquita said. “It’s almost like a stock-ing that we � ll and use for Christmas.”
At the meeting they had also talked about helping out Conway Ele-mentary School and their annual Christmas shop.
“Conway Elementary does a Christmas shop ev-ery year that everyone is
welcome to come and buy Christmas decorations,” Amezquita said.
Not only is the Interna-tional Club helping other people, but they also have some ideas planned to do for themselves this month as well.
“We are starting to make our t-shirts for the club this year,” vice presi-dent Alexis Tinsley said. “One of the members of the club is going to design the shirt to make them look unique and fun.”
For more information please see Mrs. Loren-zo or attend their next meeting which is held on the � rst Friday of every month.
Quote Box Informa-tion: www.opperation-shoebox.com
TAYLOR SUTHER-LAND
Sta� Writer
French Club places importance on culture
Key Club collects food for hungry for Thanksgiving
Several Indians will be travelling to Hylton High School in Woodbridge this year to participate in Sta� ord’s � rst high school Model United Nations (MUN) Conference. � is December, high school students from all over the Virginia will be meeting to debate real world issues as if they were members of the real UN.
Students attending the conference will each be
assigned a country and will have to research that country’s viewpoints on a few speci� c issues. � ey will then debate against high school students rep-resenting other countries.
“It’s a great opportu-nity for young people to have a voice,” club spon-sor Helga Purnell said.
Even though no one has competed yet, the MUNers are excited to be a part of Sta� ord’s � rst conference.
“I’m expecting an op-portunity to learn more about MUN and how it
works,” club o� cer Ra-chel Haynes said.
Right now the repre-sentatives from Sta� ord are learning about basic conference procedures and what to expect at the conference. � e students have not been assigned a country yet but are very excited to get started.
“Once we do get the assignments, we are going to dive right into it and start researching our po-sitions,” MUN co-founder Rebekah Kim said.
In order to accurately represent their country
BILLY HOWELLSta� Writer
the students are required to know their country’s current situation and its concerns and goals.
“I’m really looking for-ward to representing a na-tion and debating world issues with people from other schools,” club o� -cer Justin White said.
Model UN meets ev-ery Monday in the CGS room. � ey are currently accepting new members and the more people that join, the lower the cost will be for future confer-ences.
Model UN prepares members for conference
International Club gives to troops
the poor over Christmas as well,” Bridges said. “If you look outside my door, you can see the certi� cate we got because of what we did.”
If everything goes ac-cording as planned, the Key Club will continue to collect food for a certain holiday each year.
“It feels good to help others,” said Chloe Karlo-vich, Key Club Treasurer. “I really like how Key Club is helping the home-less have a better holiday.”
NHS members will be on the other end of the holiday shopping experi-ence this December. On December 3, members will be assisting with Ferry Farm Elementary School’s annual pancake breakfast and holiday store. Later in the month,
members will be wrap-ping gi¤ s at the Target in Central Park.
� e pancake breakfast and holiday store will last from 8-11 a.m., but those working the breakfast have to be at Ferry Farm at 7:45 a.m.
Members will be put to work all morning cook-ing pancakes, sausage and bacon or helping Ferry Farm PTA members with
the holiday store. “� e pancake break-
fast is a lot of fun for us,” NHS president Danny Strock said. “Although we dread waking up early on a Saturday, the elemen-tary school kids are so ex-cited and really put us in the holiday mood.”
Already in the holiday mood, some members will travel to Target and wrap gi¤ s for customers
from 10a.m. to 2p.m. Customers will re-
ceive this service free of charge , but donations are welcome.
“I think it works for us year a¤ er year because it’s a service everyone needs and is willing to donate,” senior Amy Quantrille said. “I actually like wrap-ping gi¤ s, it’s interesting seeing what people buy.”
NHS plans Ferry Farm pancake breakfastKATIE BRANDON
Sta� Writer
the most fun.”In recent years, the
big money is in the candy grams.
“Candy grams get us
a lot of revenue,” Hunts-berger said.
� e next French Club meeting will be an-nounced shortly.
It’s the giving season!: International Club member places canned goods in donation box to later send o� to the troops. By Ana Nosal
Bon Voyage!: French Club begins focusing on the culture of France rather than learning the language. By Leland Brooks
Let the debate begin!: Model UN prepares for their rst conference. By Austin Pearson
Turkey time!: Key Club is collecting cans, pasta and turkeys for the food drive and for two Thanksgiving families. Members signed up to bring in food for the baskets. By Kaitlin Shacklette
Stack them up! Eat them up at Ferry Farms pancake breakfast.
student life
8 smokesignaltheSta� ord High School www.sta� ordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
9student life
SCA is planning for another Mix It Up Day this year. It is held dur-ing all of the lunch shi¤ s throughout the school day.
Students sign up be-forehand and get assigned to a random lunch table with a few other students. Students from all di� er-ent grade levels will be seated together.
“It’s just a way to get people from di� erent grades to talk and unite the school,” vice president Amy Quantrille said.
SCA’s goal for this ac-tivity is to get more stu-dents to interact with people they are not nor-mally familiar with. Mix It Up Day has been car-ried out every year for over seven years now.
“It’s a spirit building activity,” advisor Margaret Bridges said.
Students who are will-
ing to sit with new people for a day will sign up. SCA is hoping for people to want to do it and encour-age friends to do it as well.
“Usually there is a good turn out with all four lunch shi¤ s,” secre-tary Will Janney said. “My favorite part about Mix It Up Day is getting to eat lunch with new people and meet new friends.”
SCA would like to have even more people than last year to do it, and have high hopes for the event.
“We plan on handing out « yers and hanging up posters promoting the event to gain more partic-ipants,” Janney said.
Mix It Up Day will be held on � ursday, Nov. 17 during all lunch shi¤ s.
In this event students are able to make new friends by breaking the habit of sitting with the same friends everyday. � ose who participate re-ceive a Key Club point.
MEGAN EBELINGSta� Writer
Mix It Up Day creates new friendships within SCA
Every new school year means a fresh start for all of the school clubs, and SADD is no di� erent. SADD, which stands for Students Against De-structive Decisions, is starting out fresh this year with two new advi-sors, Madeline Booth and Rachel Sherman as well as a bunch of new faces looking to help prevent fellow students and oth-ers from doing harm to themselves by participat-ing in dangerous activities that could involve alcohol and drugs.
“I’ve really enjoyed the enthusiasm of the stu-dents who have decided to join the club,” Booth said. “� e students really sound like they want to have an active program this year and have already brought up many ideas that we’d like to try this year.” Booth and Sherman are taking over as advisors for Margaret Bridges who had been running the program for the past few years. Having just started, the members of SADD are still putting together ideas for events throughout the year. Members such as
senior SADD president Morgan Brooks are al-ready excited for what they have in store. “I can’t wait to do Grim Reaper Day again,” Brooks said. “I think it really sends a message throughout the school.” SADD performed Grim Reaper Day last year around prom season which is where they have participating members go silent for a day and pull a certain amount of stu-dents out of class to show the number of deaths that occur from drunk driv-ing in a certain period of time. Along with this event, SADD is planning
another major event that should catch the attention of students.
“We’re planning on doing a mock car accident scene in the parking lot,” Booth said. “We’re going to try and give students a visual of what drunk driv-ing can really do and how it can a� ect everyone.”
SADD also plans on showing the school how alcohol and drugs can harm everyone with vari-ous other mini events such as wearing shirts that display the percentages of drunk driving deaths and putting up informational posters across the school.
REID MURPHYSta� Writer
New Advisor hopes program will be active
� e Sta� ord NJROTC unit went on a � eld trip to Norfolk on Friday Sept. 14.� e unit went to the Nauticus Naval Museum and toured the battleship USS WISCONSIN then ate lunch at the galley on Naval station Norfolk fol-lowed by a tour of the nu-clear aircra¤ carrier USS ENTERPRISE.
� e cadets arrived at the school at 6:30 a.m. and le¤ for Norfolk. � e busses went straight to the Nauticus Museum.
“We went for a guided tour of the USS Wiscon-sin BB-64, one of the last battleships a« oat,” Master Chief Michael Preston said. “We then went to an interactive teaching ses-sion in Nauticus. Explod-ing balloons of hydrogen, ping pong ball guns, tidal basins and a shark to pet.”
A¤ er touring the Nau-ticus Museum, the cadets moved on to the base gal-ley for lunch.
“We went on the NORFOLK NAVAL STA-TION and went over to the Base Galley, where the cadets were able to eat lunch,” said LCDR Felix A. Martinez, Senior Naval Science Instructor. “A¤ er lunch, we traveled over to the Carrier Piers,”
At the carrier piers, the cadets were able to view several ships as well as tour the USS ENTER-PRISE.
“My favorite part of the trip was standing on the « ight deck of an air-cra¤ carrier, looking at the water,” Cadet Caro-lyn Gale said. “It felt so awesome being on such a large ship.”
A¤ er boarding the
ship, the cadets split into two groups and went up 11 decks to the bridge, then down to the « ight deck for a walk, then be-low to the Anchor Room and the Hangar Deck Control Station.
“It’s easy to say you understand how to swim but until you try it, you have no idea exactly what it takes,” Preston said. “In the same vein, you can say you understand the Navy but until you see it � rst hand, your frame of refer-ence is incomplete.”
A¤ er the long day in Norfolk, the cadets boarded the busses and made a stop at a static display of some Cold War era aircra¤ .
BY RYAN THOMPSONSta� Writer
NJROTC explores real battleships in Norfolk
Anchors away!:The NJROTC unit went to the Nauticus Naval Museum in Norfolk to tour and view the gallery. By Ryan Thompson
Club kick-o� !: SADD is kicking o� it’s year with new adviors, Madeline Booth and Rachel Sherman. By Ana Nosal
Spicing things up in the cafeteria!: Mix It Up Day on Nov. 17 was fun for those who signed up. Instead of eating lunch with friends, students chose to meet someone new at lunch. Kids signed up and then were assigmed a table at lunch where kids from all grades were scattered around. It’s another way for kids to meet each other in a large school. Photos by Austin Pearson
smokesignaltheStafford High School www.staffordsmokesignal.comIssue 6, Nov. 22, 2011
10spotlight
‘Awkward Pause’ Improv
Take down the villain: Eric Rhodes, Ragon Dickard and Kendall Khan act in a skit where they are superheroes. Photo by Shannon Cooke
Happy Birthday!: The show was on junior Grace Mick’s birthday, so the team suprised her with a pie in the face. Photo by Shannon Cooke
Strike a pose: The cast plays a game in which they have to freeze. Photo by Shannon Cooke
The dating game: Analisa Wall, Grace Mick and Erin Lottes participate in the first game of the night. Photo by Shannon Cooke
Dont flinch: The cast sometimes had trouble keeping a straight face. Photo by Shannon Cooke
Taking center stage: Erin Lottes and Sarah Rochte try to keep a steady pose during one of the games. There were several skits in which every cast member participated. This year, the Improv team is much larger than it usually is. The team took advantage of their large cast. Photo by Shannon Cooke
Hosting the show: Several members had the opprotunity to introduce and explain the games. Photo by Shannon Cooke
The Dickard sisters in the spotlight: Kenna, Lane and Ragon Dickard stole the show with the game in which all of them participated. Photo by Shannon Cooke
Going all out: Michael Mussatow and Kendall Kahn act out a turkey getting slaughtered for aThanksgiving feast. Photo by Shannon Cooke