Giant Word

Two sessions of the BRCC placement testing will be offered at WHS on Wednesday, May 30 at 8:30 AM and at 12:30 PM in the library.  THERE ARE A LIMITED NUMBER OF SEATS AVAILABLE, so please sign up in the school counseling office.

Seniors who ordered a 2012 cap and gown picture may pick up their order in Mrs. Teeter’s room (239).

If you are interested in running cross country next fall, please see Coach Stevens on Monday afternoon at the cafeteria doors.  She will have summer information to give you.

If you signed up for Relay for Life, please pay your $10 registration fee and pick up your t-shirt in room 203 anytime today or Friday. Talk to Mrs. Ford with any questions.

Monday after school May 21 All track athletes meet in the cafeteria for awards, Ice cream and turn in Uniforms.

All students who receive Attendance Letters and Attendance Appeal Forms must have them filled out and returned to Mr. Gates by today.  This is the last date they can be received in order for the Attendance Appeals Committee to meet and make a decision.

Students….all library items are due back to the library by Friday, May 25th.

Class of 2013:  It is time to begin thinking about having your senior pictures taken.  Gentry Photography offers special prices and deadlines.  See Ms. McNorton for more information.

Waynesboro

Activities and Athletics

Friday, May 18

5:30    Softball @ Broadway 3:45

6:00    Baseball (H) Harrisonburg

6:00    G Soccer (H) RE Lee

7:45    B Soccer (H) Broadway

6:00    Pro Wrestling Show (benefits St. Judes)

Sunday, May 20

3:00    Concert Choir Final Concert

By Sidney Duff    

      It’s becoming more and more popular among teenagers to follow trends. One of the most damaging effects of this is the pressure to smoke and use tobacco. Everyday teens use tobacco on or around school properties.

       Mr. Tim Teachey, the principal of Waynesboro High School, has been part of the school system faculty for 24 years and has seen many situations with teen tobacco use.

      “The most important thing to me is the students’ education and their safety. Smoking, and dress code are just perimeter problems that I have concerns about,” Teachey said.

  Teachey said he sees approximately one student per month caught smoking near school campus. He said he tries to control the issue by punishing all kids caught with tobacco. The punishment, he said, is a length of suspension depending on the severity of the offense.
   

  Though Teachey has no jurisdiction off of school property, he still manages to take care of this problem as well.

    “If students are seen smoking off campus, like in the alley, I ask for their names, call them up, and have them searched,” said Teachey. “Normally I find a lighter; maybe a cigarette or two and those kids are punished as well. If they have nothing, I don’t smell their clothes or check their breath. I just send them to class.”

   Teachey isn’t very concerned on the matter of students quitting smoking but more on the matter of tobacco on school property.
    “I want to help kids and teach them to make better decisions. I don’t want to run a prison ,” said Teachey.

   At least one student says strict rules affected her smoking habits. Chevon Smith, a 14 year old freshman at WHS said she understands why some teens start smoking.

   “I started smoking after my mom died. It helped me when I started stressing out or something. It calmed me down.” Smith said.

   She was 12 when she began smoking cigarettes. Smith said that after she got in trouble for other things, she didn’t want to run the risk of getting into more trouble so she quit smoking.

   She was never warned about the health effects of smoking. She also claims she’s not addicted and never was addicted to nicotine. Also, she says she doesn’t feel any healthier or any difference in her breathing.

Ms. Jennifer Arnold, school nurse at WHS had very much to say on the issue.

  “Smoking in young teens or anyone at all can cause respiratory problems, obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma,” she said.

   These are just a few things that Arnold has continuously posted flyers and posters about. She posts the posters all around WHS in an effort to put an end to students smoking and to potentially scare them into quitting. The next time you happen to see one of Arnold’s posters or flyers, stop and actually take a look at them. They just might make you rethink the dangers of smoking.

 By Sidney Duff

 My bedroom was warm yet breezy. The soft carpet under my feet felt cool. I flicked my on my light switch. It always clanks against the hard plastic plating around it. I briefly glanced at the switch and noticed it was a dingy white color. I started for my faux wooden desk. The tan Kroger bag perched on the desk rustled as I opened it. I struggled to untie the tiny knot in the top of the bag.
  Once I opened it, I carefully reached inside grabbing for the slick clear bottles inside. They were Teal and “Raging Pink” hair dye by the company Beyond the Zone.
  I swiftly shook the pink making sure to keep dye from flying on my crème-colored walls. After making sure the contents were fairly mixed I removed the ridged cap from the bottle.
  My hair was dry and frizzy from bleaching it out. Then, I slowly tilted the bottle upwards over top of my head which was unnaturally white from the bleach. The dye slowly dripped out turning my snowy hair a light pink at first then turning it fuchsia. My white tank top had drops of pink on it from the lack of a towel around my shoulders.
  As the dye spread over my hair the pink paste filled my room with a raspberry scent. I slowly and carefully combed the dye through my hair making sure to cover all the white. The comb gently massaged my scalp. Then I pulled my hair back with a black elastic I chose from a golden metallic container that held other hair accessories. I let the dye dry for one hour and rinsed thoroughly with warm water.

by Chelsea truxell, reporter
Elevations has a lot to do with Waynesboro High school many of the students go in during the week days and weekends. “
Elevations is a place to build character, make friends and learn fundamentals of playing softball and baseball. The local business started offering gymnastics training back in 2008. It is a family business owned by Michelle and Rodney Schartiger.
“We have never had any struggle with our business,” said Michelle Schartiger, who runs the gymnastics side of the business.
“We started it because our daughter was very good at cheerleading and needed a place to practice. Two years later we added in the dugout to help kids learn fundamentals of playing softball and baseball,” said Rodney Schartiger, who runs the dugout. Now elevations sponsors Xplosions, a travel softball team that competes in tournaments in Virginia and out of state.
Sophomore Elizabeth Eutsler says, “I played with the Xplosions from Elevations with Rodney and it helped me a lot and taught me a lot and gave me lots of playing time.”
The Schartigers moved their business in 2011 to Willow Oak shopping center.
Michelle says,“As long as people keep coming the business will never end.”

By Aysha Adrees, Editor-in-Chief

The auditorium’s seats were all empty except for Mr. Teachey who was sitting in the fifth row from the front.

“One, two, one, two, one, two, ready?” said band director Mr. R. Mike Wagner periodically. Wagner has taught at Waynesboro High School for 26 years.

Some of the students chatted in between playing times, and nobody slouched. Sophomore CJ Crawford and some others tapped their feet to the beat, turning pages of their music sheets.

Before the next song began, the drummers and saxophone players played a random beat. Mr. Wagner interrupted, “Okay, shh. Ready?”

They started once again in harmony, but Wagner cut them off, making a funny remark, and then they began again. The music sounded very in-tune, coordinated, and beautiful. The rehearsal was just as informal as any classroom.

Mr. Teachey leaned over, enjoying their practice performance as Wagner waved his conductor’s baton. The song switched several times, each one more pretty than the one before.

Someone in the back clapped, and Wagner dismissed the class after saying that they needed to work on it a little bit. Everyone seemed cheerful and excited for the band concert as they exited the stage.

The concert was on Sunday, May 6, and it was Wagner’s very last concert as he is retiring.

He said, “I have mixed feelings. I’m glad I have time to relax, but I’m sad because I’ll miss the students.”

“I think they’ll do good. It will be enjoyable…The music is very light because it’s mostly pop, movie themes, and classics,” he said.

“Concerts are fun. They are the culmination of everything,” said Wagner.

Wagner said that he will miss interacting with students the most, and went on to say that the faculty has been through some tough times with the economy.

“I hope parts get better. The department has been effected heavily; it upsets me. Melton may have to teach both [KCMS and WHS],” he said, “I wish WHS students and faculty well.”

By Aysha Adrees, Editor-in-Chief

Senior Meredith Figgatt said that choosing a path of post-high school education was “one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life.”

Figgatt applied to UVA, ChristopherNewport University, EMU, and the Coast Guard Academy. Figgatt chose the very selective school Coast Guard Academy, which is in Connecticut, and to major in Marine and Environmental Science.

“I picked it based on money, prestige of the school, and long term benefits – completely free and a guaranteed job for five years, and I get to travel around the world,” she said.

“Like all other colleges, you have to write essays, but you also have to do a physical exam including one and a half miles, pushups and sit-ups for a certain time. The physical was actually not as rigorous as I expected,” she said.

She said it was not that difficult compared to the described seven-week summer boot camp. At the Coast Guard, there are also required physical and mental tests to place people in classes.

Figgatt said, “After boot camp, there is regular college, but every semester there is a physical exam.”

She said that she was most excited for “going somewhere new and meeting new people. It will be an adventure.”

Both seniors Colton McDaniel and Tyler Norman will attend BRCC because it is cheap. McDaniel wants to major in graphic design and Norman wants to go into marine biology. Both students said that their guidance counselors encouraged them to take this route.

McDaniel thought that the decision process was not very difficult, and in the next 10 years he sees himself with “a house, family, and not living in the street.”

Hannah Dillard has not yet made a decision about college. She applied to Virginia Wesleyan and EMU.

So far, Dillard said the process is “kind of hard…I’m mostly looking at the area where I’ll live.”

Mrs. Schurz said that college decisions are hard because there are so many options. She said, “Be realistic. If you have all D’s, UVA is not a good option.”

By Faith Ailsworth, Reporter

Students are going to be building benches, fixing the picnic tables out on the Courtyard, scrubbing the stairwells and repainting the columns in front of the cafeteria purple. These are only few of the things students and teachers will do for Giant Pride day at WHS this year.

Giant Pride day is starting into its third year. Giant Pride Day is a day where the whole school gets together and works on things around the school that would help improve the school environment.  This day wasn’t designed to be a field day; it was designed to help the school.

Mrs. Laura Riggan was one of a group of teachers who started this day thinking about the roles students should take for their school. Riggan said that the objective for the group is for “students to take leadership and ownership for their school.”

Junior Nathan Mead is going to be working on building the Courtyard benches, he said that he’d “rather not have people complaining about how the day sucks, that they should at least try to go and make it more fun with the different projects.”

“Last year me and some others painted Mrs. Rudolph’s class room. It was fun because of the people who were in my group. They actually did some work,” said sophomore Rachel Laurin.

            The first year that Giant Pride day started, the National Honor Society re-did a plan for student parking and painted numbers on the parking spaces. Last year, the SGA worked on the foyer, several teachers painted their rooms, and both years’ art students painted quotes and murals around the school.

            Helping make the school a better-looking place is something WHS can be proud of.

By Alex Graves, reporter

Coming into high school, in the fall off 2008, freshmen were young and naïve about the world around them.  But with graduation only a couple of weeks away, those same freshmen are now seniors and will be walking across the stage at JMU.  They have gone through a lot to get to where they will be on June 2.  They have had many experiences, some good, some bad, but they all helped these students grow to what they have become now.

Students always talks about how they can’t wait for school to be over and to graduate, but now that the time is here some people aren’t as ready as they thought.

“I don’t want it to end.  I’m not ready for life,” said senior Scottie Lafferty, who will be attending Longwood University next year.

“It’s bittersweet because I’m ready to start the next chapter in my life but scared of leaving what I know,” said Brittany Kirkman.

As students go through high school they learn things that they wish they had known before they started.  Most lessons these students value most have nothing to do with SOLs.  Students look back on their time in school and realize what they should have been thinking about before.

“Be more aware and think about career possibilities,” said senior Meredith Sledge whose favorite class was photography.

Students come in thinking that their freshmen year doesn’t matter, but when they get to be seniors they realize that everything they have done up to now matters for their future.

Lafferty said he wished he had understood sooner that “my grades from freshmen year count.”

Kirkman also said that she wished she had known to not procrastinate when she came into high school.

Waynesboro High School has a lot of activities for students and the seniors took full advantage of them for some of their best memories in high school.

Senior Brentley Carter said her favorite time in high school was being on the swim and cross country teams.  Kirkman got involved with the theatre program and said she thrived acting in and directing plays.  Lafferty’s fondest memories were of the homecoming weeks because, he said, the stress of school was gone and he could have fun with his classmates.  Sledge used her photography skills to take the picture for the 2010-2011 yearbook cover.

Not everything through the years has been fun; there has been trouble along the way.

“It has been full of trials, and I have learned to overcome those trials,” said Sledge.

The ASL teacher, Ms. Kristen Werle, signs to her studenst as they take a test.

By Faith Ailsworth, Reporter

Mrs. Kristen Werle is the sign language teacher here at WHS. American Sign Language is a new class that was just added this year. Werle said that her goal for her class is, “that students would learn and use ASL in the real world.”

            Werle taught at the Virginia School for Deaf and Blind. This is her first year teaching ASL though. She also teaches at Robert E. Lee, where 75 students participate in her ASL class.   “I like it a lot,” said Werle.

            Most of the work she gives is hands on. She said that practice is a big part in learning. Her students practice and perform dialogues and skits for their class work, unlike other foreign language classes like Spanish, French, and Latin that have written assignments.  But, just like the other foreign language classes they do work in class and study the background of where it originated from. They learn the basics of the English vocabulary and translate them with their hands.

            In college, Werle took ASL for her foreign language. Through that she started being more involved in the deaf community, by being around deaf people and translating for a local church.

            According to Werle, around 30 students took the ASL class here. Now, more students seem like they want to be more involved and informed about the deaf community.

            “I’m taking sign language next year. I want to know more,” says freshman Whitney Sayre.

            So, the new American Sign Language class seems to be a real success and interest to the students at WHS. Next year, there are expected to be more students taking this class.

By Vinny Armpriester, reporter

In 46 days, the seniors at Waynesboro High School will walk across the stage. Usually, graduation would be on the Waynesboro’s football field. But this year is different. The bleachers have deteriorated over the years to the point where they are not usable.  The school’s insurance company refuses to provide coverage with the bleachers in their current condition.

So, it was up to principal Mr. Tim Teachey to find a new location to hold the ceremonies. The options available were to have it on Waynesboro’s soccer field, to mend the bleachers on the football field, or to have graduation at the Convocation Center at James Madison University.

Teachey, a graduate of Waynesboro, said his original plan was to just fix the bleachers on the football field, but he found out that they wouldn’t be fixed by June 2. Down to two options, Teachey let his seniors vote on where they would like to graduate. The Class of 2012 elected to have their graduation at JMU.

The decision triggered a wide array of responses from the students. Some were very unhappy.

“It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of,” says Scout McDevitt. “I didn’t go to JMU, so why would I graduate from there?”

And others were satisfied.

“I’m excited. I didn’t really want to have it here,” said Desean Dillard. “I wanted something different.”

With a month and a half left until graduation, Teachey is still trying to confirm the speaker. Meanwhile, the senior class is preparing themselves for the commencement of their adult life.