Now is the time to invest in a good pair of snow boots and a warm winter jacket, because this weekend there will be snow.
According to the website, Weather.com, we will be getting two to four inches of snow on Saturday and some more light snow on Sunday. A winter storm is heading in from the Gulf Steam and we have no choice but to welcome it with open arms. Earlier this year, weather experts predicted this: a snowy winter. Maybe this time the weather man will be correct.
Penn Manor students sure hope so. Snow to the average high school student seems to be the greatest winter gift, the gift of a delay or a relaxing day off.
Sophomore, Breezy Rivera, seems excited for the snow this weekend, “It’s beautiful when it’s snowy.”
Sophomore Adam Morris is another student who is looking forward to a snowy weekend, “Snow is boss. I love snowmen.”
However there are the students of Penn Manor who aren’t the biggest fans of the snow to come, and they hope that the weather man will be incorrect in his prediction.
“I don’t think it’s going to snow because when they say it’s going to it never does,” senior Joanna Reyes says, “I hate the snow.”
Sophomore Alyssa Thompson seems to be expecting big snow this weekend and wants to be well prepared, “I feel like I should go get some bread, eggs, lock myself in my house, get my snow stuff ready, and stock my cabinets.”
Principal Doug Eby is accepting the fact that this winter we may be seeing a lot of snow, “I think it would be nice to have some days off, I’m going to go sledding with my kids.”
It seems that the only downside to having those unexpected days off is having to make them up on the expected days off.
“It seems like it will snow a lot and that will push back the snow days,” senior Amanda Sanchez says.
This weekend we are in for some snow, but we’ll all have to sit back and wait to see if it truly does come.
For the first time at Penn Manor according to Todd Mealy, the football team received an honorable mention among football teams in the state of Pennsylvania by the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
Their hard work and dedication was rewarded with a record of 10-3 for the L-L League.
“I am proud, the senior class will be talked about for quite some time by the community,” Mealy said.
The Comets practiced over the summer and throughout the school year for long hard hours. They went 8-2 and got to the district semifinal game before being beaten by a powerhouse team from Bishop McDevitt.
Jeff Roth the athletic director at Penn Manor said, “It’s pretty exciting for Penn Manor and the school district, I am very proud of coach Mealy, the football staff, and the players for what they have accomplished in the 3 years since coach Mealy has started.
“I am looking forward to next year,” Roth said. The Comets will have a high standard set to achieve. They will strive to be just as good as this year, if not better from here on out.
Justin Diffenbaugh, a senior football player at Penn Manor said, “I think it’s pretty cool to be part of the honorable mention because it’s the first time in school history. We put in a lot of time over the summer and deserved this.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a day dedicated to a man who spent his whole life fighting for civil rights, civil liberties and, among other things, the day when people of color to be seen as equals among peers. Fifteen years after his 1968 assassination, Ronald Reagen signed the holiday in to law and three years after that in 1986 it was first observed. Today it is now observed on the third Sunday of the year.
Education on King’s life and works has created awareness among some Penn Manor students.
“Martin Luther King, Jr. day is to celebrate him for equalizing different races,” said Genny Leonards, a Penn Manor junior.
“To celebrate freedom among everybody and for equal rights,” said Lindsey Thomas, reflecting on the holiday.
“It’s a day dedicated to a great man who changed the world,” said Penn Manor junior, Evan Singleton.
Although most people know why there’s a M.L.K. Jr. day, many have no idea how to celebrate it.
“I usually watch B.E.T.” responded Kaylin Madonna.
“Honestly nothing, but I watched a movie about African Americans before,” said Thomas.
“We’ll I am going out to dinner, but I been planning that.” said Lauren Richards.
There are local ways to celebrate the man and his dream. Starting from 7 to 9 a.m. Lancaster County Convention Center will be hosting the 22nd annual Martin Luther King Jr. day breakfast. There also will be a wide range of key speakers thoughout the city of Lancaster. The day is also going to be spent as a day of betterment and service for the community as many volunteers help with cleaning up the streets, repainting buildings and promoting racial tolerance.
August 28 of this year will mark the 37th anniversary of one the most well-known and talked about speeches in all of history, the “I have a Dream Speech.”
Some would ponder on whether or not King’s speech has been fulfilled or has been overfilled, the answer only the King would know.
Throw in some 60-plus yard plays, a chest bump, and spice it up with a little bit of jiggying. That’s the Eagles’ recipe for a probable playoff appearance.
The Giants and Cowboys, on the other hand, might want to read over Philly’s cookbook.
The Eagles seem to have the ingredients for success; but will they use them to cook up a playoff berth, or will they “get an egg shell in the batter” and give Philadelphia another letdown in another sport?
“The Eagles will choke (no pun intended…and okay, enough with the food analogies),” said student, Corey Delmonto.
The Eagles (9-5) have a reputation of being one of the best in the regular season but then blowing it in the playoffs. Some think there’s going to be a change this season, while some can’t help to have the Eagles’ postseason failures stuck in the back of their mind.
Mark Curtin is one of the Eagles’ fans that are feeling pretty optimistic about the Philadelphia’s playoff chances.
“They’re going to make a run deep into the playoffs.” He thought about it some more, then added, “If Desean Jackson can stay healthy.”
English teacher, Holly Astheimer, on the other hand, is one that doesn’t try to get too excited for the postseason so she doesn’t get down if her team blows it.
“It’s difficult to fully believe they’re going (to go all the way [win the Super Bowl]),” Astheimer, a huge Eagles’ fan, said, “The Eagles tend to do well at the end of the season (and then not do so well in the playoffs).”
Yeah, the Eagles are probably set for a NFC East championship, but the Cowboys (8-5) and Giants (7-6) are right on their tail. The Cowboys, though, are known for the December fallout; and right now, they’re in big trouble because they face the undefeated New Orleans Saints in the upcoming week – not to mention the last week of the season where they play the division-leading Eagles again. The Cowboys must have a concerned look on their faces when thinking about Dallas’ future.
Now, about the third place team in the division, the New York football Giants, it’s not looking as bad as the Cowboys’ chances with the Redskins (4-9) and the Panthers (5-8) in two weeks.
But the only team that most of Penn Manor wants to make the playoffs is Philly.
“Anyone but the Cowboys,” Astheimer said about which team she wants to make it to the postseason.
“I don’t really like the Giants because I think their coach is ugly,” said math teacher, Kim Frey, who’s rooting for the ‘Boys to pull it out.
Most of Penn Manor will be in good spirits as long as the Eagles make it through the season without blowing it and will be extra happy if they make it far into the playoffs. Also, with Philadelphia’s mediocre schedule ahead of them, the Eagles and their fans shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
“The Eagles always have had a lot of success at the end of the season,” said Peter Horning, a Philly fan, “I’m feeling good.”
Enter any girls bathroom at our school, and you’re bound to find that you have no choice but to giggle. Until you become the topic of the writing, then the tables turn.
Reading the stalls, you can learn a lot about fellow classmates. Who’s the local “hoe,” when so and so is having a baby, or even who is cheating on whom. And nine chances out of ten, what you’re reading probably isn’t true. Now I know some people love to draw attention to themselves, but seriously… we live in the Twenty-first Century. Can we grow up?
If you have a thought about someone, wouldn’t it be easier just to confront the person? I mean arguing on a bathroom stall? One, it’s immature, and two, it’s vandalizing. If you would get caught you’d be in just as much trouble if not more, than if you got into a fight.
Now if you’re lucky, every once in a while you’ll find a decent writing, for instance someone will draw a peace, love and happiness symbol or even some religious things. Which is nice and all, and everyone has their own right to voice their opinions and beliefs, but not everyone has the same opinions and beliefs. This is also why religion is not allowed in school… it starts too many problems. If you don’t believe it look at the second stall in the downstairs wing.
Photo by: Lyta Ringo
At our school, some things have been done to try and contain the problem. For instance, last year the housing and interiors class repainted one of the girls’ bathrooms in the school and the teacher’s bathroom. This contained the problem for awhile but kids just couldn’t hold back from temptation.
And then they tried black, just paint them black. It’s a good thought-most things won’t show up on black… until kids get smart enough and find that pencil shows up and even crayons show up on black paint. However, some kids have used metallic markers and have just carved into the stalls with a sharp object.
Now as simple as it sounds, I’ve found a solution.
My solution is chalkboard paint, and I’m convinced it would work. Parents paint their homes with it all the time to control little kids’ habits of coloring on the walls. All we’d have to do is paint the stalls in chalkboard paint, and put some chalk in the bathrooms. It almost sounds counterproductive, as if bathroom graffiti is being promoted, but janitors could erase the comments at the end of the day.
Yes, chalkboard paint does cost a little more, but it would make more sense to spend a little more money one time for a solution, rather then a smaller amount of money… every year. I mean let’s be honest, since people decided to be immature and vandalize the school, our bathrooms have been painted at least once every single year. This year, we’re not even halfway through the school year, and at least one bathroom needed painted again.
Which is quite frankly, pathetic.
Either way, positive or negative, helpful or harmful, it’s vandalizing, it’s illegal and it’s stupid.
So and so is a slut. Somebody else is a b****. Inappropriate drawings, Nazi symbols, racial slurs, phone numbers, explicit sexual comments and name-calling are drawn or engraved on nearly all of the stalls or walls of the bathrooms at Penn Manor High School.
Photo by: Lyta Ringo
The administration is frustrated trying to curb and control what many people see as increasingly personal attacks written in the bathroom stalls.
In fact, this week the girls’ bathroom in the English/social studies wing has been repainted to cover the inappropriate writing and etchings.
Already, a handful of students have started marring the freshly painted stalls.
“It got worse,” said high school principal, Phil Gale, referring to graffiti in the girls’ bathroom. He said there might be two more bathrooms in the school that could receive a similar makeover.
English teacher, Lisa May, said “It’s definitely the worst it’s ever been. There is bullying and targeting of specific girls.”
She said she is embarrassed when adult guests come to the school, referring to senior citizens who recently came to see the school play and used bathrooms that were riddled with graffiti.
“This is not a reflection of our school,” she said.
The students have been writing on the stalls and walls using pens and sharpies. They have also been using sharp objects to carve what they have to say on the stalls in black paint.
The custodial staff said they tried covering the stalls this year with black paint so markers and pencil wouldn’t show. But as always, determined kids found a way to deface the surface.
“We’re disappointed,” said assistant high school principal, Jason D’Amico, “As long as there’s been bathrooms, there’s been writing on the walls. But this has been more in the extreme and I think enough is enough.”
Those who have been victims of the graffiti would agree.
Photo by: Lyta Ringo
Junior Taylor Smith, said when she was a freshman someone used her name and called her a “slut” on a bathroom stall.
“Its retarded,” said Smith of the bathroom comments. “People just need to get a life.”
Fellow junior, Allana Herr, agrees, “It’s catty, ignorant and immature. There’s nothing that can be done because you can’t put cameras in the bathrooms and all the speeches they give don’t work.”
In the past, students have gone so far as to burn the toilet roll dispensers with lighters.
Dean of students, Eric Howe, is disappointed with the increasing graffiti. “I think it’s immature and inappropriate,” he said.
The writings in the stalls do not really differentiate by the wing in the school but the writing is different between the girls’ and the boy’s bathrooms in each wing.
The writing in the girls’ bathroom stalls tends to be mostly focused on name-calling and explicit accusations of what some girls have done with others. The boys’ bathrooms have mostly racial and sexual comments, but not as much about specific people.
Even attempts to paint a bathroom in bright artistic scenes, like the ones students painted on the stalls of the bathroom in the language wing have been defaced.
Between the beautiful swirls of paint, some students have written indictments of students they accuse of engaging in specific acts, they link students to drug use and even make desperate comments about themselves such as “I take 3 L’s to the head! Live love life and boom I’m dead.”
Photo by: Lyta Ringo
Although the graffiti is aimed at students, the people that really have to pay for it are the janitors. When a janitor gets a call about offensive writing on the walls, they have to stop what they are doing and clean up the graffiti.
John Wealand, school custodian for 14 years, thinks that when a student sees something on the walls, they should report it immediately. If the graffiti is reported, it can be cleaned and the process can begin to find the student that did it, said Wealand.
Assistant principal Doug Eby agrees there is only one way to stop it.
“It’s important for students to report it,” Eby said.
A lot of words not suitable for a young child’s ears will be flying around Philadelphia and New York on Sunday night.
And what isn’t suitable for a little kid probably isn’t suitable for this website.
“The Giants are going to take a dump on the Eagles,” said Paul Slaugh, a downright cocky Giants’ fan, “and they’re probably not going to lose once next year except for the preseason.”
“It’s huge,” said another of the lonely Giants’ fans in Penn Manor, Cynthia Lonergan, about this Sunday night’s game, where the New York Giants host the Philadelphia Eagles.
Lonergan thinks it’s a big game but has no doubt of her team’s chance of success. “Oh yeah” she said of New York’s ability to pull a win this weekend.
It’s going to be a tough road until the end of the season for the NFC East competitors and most likely two out of three teams will make it through. The two may be playing this Sunday night and it may be the most important game of the Giants’ and Eagles’ seasons.
Britney Clugston (formerly known as Britney Long), an Eagles’ fan, is a little more gracious to her team’s opponent.
“I think they’re a really good team,” she said about the 7-5 Giants. She isn’t making predictions about who is going to win on Sunday but she thinks that the Giants will realistically win the division and that the Eagles will win a ticket to the playoffs by getting a wild card spot.
The Giants and the Eagles aren’t the only teams competing for the NFC East. Do you remember a certain team called the Dallas Cowboys? The team is currently holding on to first place with the Eagles but is known to take a nosedive in December.
After a big loss to the Giants last week, the phrase “bombing the month of December” are ringing again – especially with one of the toughest schedules for the rest of the season.
A Cowboys and Giants fan (don’t ask), Bahir Wahidullah, thinks the Cowboys are going to win the division and the Giants are maybe going to make the playoffs by getting the wild card.
“Ten games should be enough,” said Don Krow.
That is probably the number of wins the Giants, Eagles, and/or Cowboys will have to get to gain entrance into the 2009-10 playoffs.
Penn Manor’s 2009-2010 boys basketball season opens with high hopes for the Comets. With last year’s record 22-6 season, the team hopes to post an even better record this year. Losing key player, Forrest Lovett, to a partially torn ACL, has only been a minor set back in the basketball team’s upcoming season.
Coach Charlie Detz has high expectations for the team, and the players are ready to take over the LL-League.
“You have to be willing to go all out,” says coach Charlie Detz.
Detz believes that it takes intensity to have a successful basketball team, “If you do it hard, it leads to great success.”
Senior point guard, Sam Cornell, believes in the team this year, “We are going to be in contention for section league championships and do some damage in districts and states!”
Along with intensity from the players comes intensity from the crowd. These screaming fans help a great deal for the players on the court.
“It sets a bigger stage [spirit] and gets us more excited when there’s a big crowd. The Hempfield game last year when it was packed, the game was so crazy, it was so much fun,” says senior forward, Patrick Welsh.
With this being Welsh’s last year on the team, he wants to make sure he leaves a legacy for his younger players.
“As a senior I want to teach them how to be leaders so when they are seniors they can teach and prepare the younger players how to lead as well,” says Welsh.
Detz is a ‘play-hard,win-hard’ type of coach, teaching the boys that what they do at practice is what they will do in the game.
“What we’re teaching isn’t a special brand of basketball. You got to work at it,” says Detz.
The game of basketball is not always smooth sailing, but the mistakes made on the court do not stop the boys from achieving success.
“Try to forget about it and move onto the next play, try to do something to counter act that,” says senior shooting guard and small forward, Keith Eshleman.
Having a packed gym for a basketball game can lead to some pressure for the players and the coach as well.
Detz admits to feeling pressure during games when they are in the heat of the moment but doesn’t let his emotions get the best of him, “Have control of your emotions, once emotions take over you’re making rash decisions,” says Detz.
In the gym five nights a week, for three hours a night, the boys are putting in the time they need to become the best.
“We have a winning tradition, we’ve had a lot of success in the last few years,” says Welsh.
Being this good though isn’t just about the skills that the boys have on the court. It’s about who they are as a team.
“Being good friends on and off the court makes it easier to coach,” says Detz. “If you work hard as a group, you worry about what your teammates are doing.”
It’s their call of duty, patriotism, bravery and dedication that keep our future Penn Manor soldiers eager to protect our country by enlisting in large numbers every year.
This year is no different even though President Barack Obama has made the choice to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a surge designed to end the conflict.
Students at Penn Manor who will be enlisting in the military after they finish high school will most likely be impacted by this decision and be some of those 30,000 who are shipped into combat.
“At Thanksgiving my aunt said she thinks joining the military would be suicide because of all the troops getting shipped off to Afghanistan,” said senior David Karabaich. “She also doesn’t believe we will be treated fairly because of the economy. I disagree entirely.”
Karabaich is just one of the many Penn Manor students who will be joining the Army Infantry after their high school graduation. Although some of his family members disagree with his decision to join the military, he is standing his ground.
Karabaich isn’t the only brave student getting ready to serve our country.
When Kenny Weidman, junior, learned of the Afghanistan troop surge he felt up to the challenge anyway.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said, “I just always wanted to do something for my country.”
Weidman is joining the Marine Corps and his way to prepare for fighting is to “stay in shape” and “get ready for basic training.”
But his mom is not as thrilled.
“She doesn’t want me go overseas. She doesn’t want something to happen to me.”
Those two recruits are content with President Barack Obama’s judgment, however another isn’t exactly a fan of the Commander-in-Chief.
Joe Gordon, a junior, who is most likely going into the Navy, isn’t scared of getting injured in the heat of battle; he believes that it “comes with the job,” but what really makes him turn and toss in bed, he said, is the president himself.
He said simply, he just doesn’t trust him.
Gordon’s sole purpose for joining the Navy is to support his college plans. If he gets a scholarship though, he most likely won’t enlist.
No matter what these future troops think of the decision to build up forces in Afghanistan, they will be fighting as one, standing by each other through the perils of war, struggling to keep a high morale, while defending the United States of America.
Most people would expect the school floor hockey tournament to be a friendly get-together. However, this one has become a fierce battle, actually an epic Cinderella story for the average Joes of Penn Manor to overtake the school’s ice hockey team.
On the floorboards of Penn Manor’s west gym, a straggly bunch of intramural floor hockey players will try to defeat the well-organized, well-practiced, well practically professional ice hockey club team.
The clash of the two teams is slated for December 11 and is a fundraiser for the Spring Fling Committee.
“These benders (hockey term for bad players) can’t match up against us pros. This game will be full of danglefests on our part. They have no chance,” said one of Penn Manor’s top ice hockey defensemen, Cree Bleacher.
Everyone is expecting the Penn Manor hockey team to run the table and win the school hockey tournament but the floor hockey players say “not so fast.”
“We are not serious about hockey, but when it comes to this we are serious and we are going to run the table,” said Harrison Manning.
One thing not in doubt, this tournament will come with some intense shots and hard hits.
The tournament will be a six on six format, including goalies.
The tournament costs each player $5 and the winning team will win a prize.
