“Check Please!” PM Fall Play Takes the Stage

This year Penn Manor’s trying something they haven’t done in two years, putting on a non-musical play. “Check Please” is described as a romantic-comedy by assistant director, Melissa Mintzer.

“We saw the first act at our state conference.” said Carole Shellenberger, the experienced director and former long-time Penn Manor English teacher.

The play was originally written by Johnathan Rand and was meant to be a one-act play but now, under the direction of Shellenberger,has been stretched into three acts.

Cast Members of "Check Please" get made up, during dress rehearsal.
Cast Members of "Check Please" get made up, during dress rehearsal.

Assisting Shellenberger and Mintzer is Mark Dennis, the tech director, and Rebecca Cotich, the costume coordinator.

The students involved with the play on and off the stage have been attending rehearsals usually four nights a week

The three-act play circles around the story of two single people, “Guy” played by veteran high school actor, Nate Lussier, and “Girl” played by the experienced high school actress, Dessie Jackson. The couple go on a series of blind dates to find the right person, but instead they find an array of strange characters.

“It’s funny, because I usually play the crazy one.” said Jackson

“Unique show, these are the blind dates you would never want to be on.” Lussier says.

Dana Landis, the stage manger and her assistant Traci Harkins, are two key characters behind the scenes.

“I think for some of them their biggest problem was being eccentric enough,” explained Landis “for some of them being that eccentric is like..really weird.”

But one thing they didn’t have a problem with was the comedy.

“I wouldn’t say there’s one or two funny characters,” said Landis, referring to the natural comedic abilities of the entire cast.

“The acting was all natural reactions for me,” told Jackson.

The Man, the Myth, the Legend: Kyle Troup

You think of a legend as someone famous or even a prodigy, but what you may not know is there is a hidden legend in our school.

Kyle Troup is a national-caliber ice hockey player but is not well known because the ice hockey team here at Penn Manor is, well pretty much under the radar to most people except the vivacious players and fans of the sport.

Although in high demand by many Travel teams, Troup will soon decide if playing travel hockey is worth giving up his senior year.

Troup started playing for Penn Manor varsity in ninth grade, although he was capable of playing in eighth grade, he was not allowed because he was too young.

“Skill wise I was able to but I could not play because of my age,” said Troup.

Troup started playing ice hockey at age 7 on the Lancaster Firebirds, a travel team, where he said that it was easy skating in the start.

His mother started him on his hockey dream when he watched her play in an adult league, while his father, Rob, was all about him playing hockey because he saw the real potential in him.

Troup showed his potential when he made the Central Penn Panthers, a midget AAA 16U team. He originally played Bantam A at the Firebirds, but this jump in levels in hockey is unheard of.

“Playing at this new level was scary at first because it was a whole new bunch of kids with legit dangles (crazy puck maneuvers). I wasn’t in a bender (someone who can barely skate) league anymore,” said Troup, referring to his initial experiences in a higher level hockey.

When he got up to playing with Central Penn, his coach didn’t allow him to play for Penn Manor because he didn’t want him getting hurt, Troup recalled.

He played for Central Penn as a sophomore and junior, but when he moved in his senior year to a new team, the Junior Flyers, he came back to his home ice.

Troup is known as a good and physical player. He plays rough.

He made his Penn Manor debut on Friday November 6 where he saw the penalty box more then he saw the ice.

“I felt like the refs tried to handle me through penalties,” Troup said referring to the game on November 6. He received five penalties, three of which, he thought were unnecessary.

But Troup shrugs off those kind of experiences for the love of the game.

“I’m really excited; I really want more people to come out to games to see what high school hockey’s all about.”

After many years of continuous travel hockey, Kyle Troup suited up for the last time when he decided to be a senior and “have a life.”

He choose to do this one day out of the blue while he was getting ready for practice.

Troup got all his equipment on except for his worn out skates and decided he was done with his life being all hockey, all the time. He just got up and left that day without letting his coach or fellow teammates know.

One of the major reasons that swayed his decision, along with wanting a life, was that most of the kids on his team that were worse than him, yet were moving up to junior A hockey teams.

By: Alex Geiger

FFA Convention

Each year there is a national FFA convention, in which FFA members from all over the country come together, so they can mingle with each other, and increase their knowledge about careers and colleges in which they are interested.

Penn Manor senior FFA members are able to go on this trip, as long as all the requirements are met.

Chris Cook, Jen Drumm, Brian Groff, Joe Herr, and Jeremy Kreider are the seniors who attended this year’s trip from Monday October 19, 2009 through Saturday October 24, 2009, located in Indianapolis, Indiana.

At the opening session, the national officers spoke to all 55,000 attendees.

Drumm said, “It’s an assembly of students from all over the United States, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.”

At Lucas Oil Stadium, where it was located, everyone got to walk around, looking at the different colleges and businesses that were there, exploring their personal interests.

Cook explained, “It was like a giant mall.”

There were college stands, bull riding, off road experience, and even Mike Rowe from “Dirty Jobs” at the stadium.

Kreider said his favorite part of the trip was “going to the convention, seeing all the career booths.”

The group visited the Flight 93 crash site and memorial, the Corvette Assembly Plan, the Mammoth Cave Historic tour, the Louisville Slugger Museum and Manufacturing Facility, Fair Oaks Farm, and Carley Elk Farm, along with camping out at Bowling Green KOA in Louisville, Kentucky.

The competition was held in Indianapolis, Indiana, located in the Indiana Convention Center.  About 50,000 people were in attendance.

“I had a blast.  We had luxury dinners, like steak, every night,” Cook said.

The Penn Manor FFA students learned new things about the careers they’re interested in, along with some other interesting and useful information.

By Brittany Burke

Failing Math and Excelling in Art

In high school most kids may be passionate about Facebook or school sports; Matt Blaisdell’s passion? Art.

Blaisdell got into art when he was in sixth grade, and he filled his class time with drawing landscapes in Mr. Walton’s class.

“I did that…when I was failing math,” Blaisdell confesses.

Blaisdell has started composing a portfolio of many different pieces of art with different mediums and definitely different styles.

Although it’s hard for him to pin point his favorite medium, Blaisdell says that he likes using a mix between paint and colored pencils. He loves to focus his art on things pertaining to nature or anything urban. Right now his favorite artist is Jackson Pollock, and some of his art models the style this artist uses.

Blaisdell is still undecided on the school that he would like to attend next year, but he’s thinking about the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design.

Within the past three years Blaisdell has really started to get into art.

“…before it was more of a hobby to me. Now it’s a passion,” Blaisdell says.

By: Abby Wilson

Penn Points Celebrates Their First Milestone

After three weeks at a new school, they have ten thousand friends, and as of now, you’re one of them. Now that’s something to celebrate.

The Penn Points newspaper staff, who launched one of the first-ever, totally web-based school newspapers in the state, celebrated their 10,000 hit this past week and is fast approaching the 13,000 visit.

Penn Points staff recently celebrated the 10,000 hit on their new website
Penn Points staff recently celebrated the 10,000 hit on their new website

“I feel that we’re hitting record setting numbers faster than I would have expected,” said Rob Henry, Penn Points Editor-in-Chief.

Although the newspaper was launched only three weeks ago, the newspaper and its staff is receiving public recognition for the effort.

There was an article in the Lancaster Newspapers, the staff was interviewed by WGAL (which aired on T.V. Wednesday morning), and a video about the paper was posted as the video of the day on the worldwide educational video site,  www.schooltube.com.

It’s safe to say that the Penn Points staff’s expectations of their high school online newspaper have been exceeded.

By: Abby Wilson

Rocket Club Members Walking on Air

Launching a rocket, designed and built by you and your team mates, hundreds of feet into the air, with nothing but a streamer to ease it’s fall back down, without breaking the fragile egg inside can be a difficult trial and error process that many rocket club students enjoy.

Rocket team has been open to Penn Manor students for eight years now. The students in rocket club get together, usually in teams of three, and design a rocket on the computer, and then test it in a simulation. After designing the rocket, the students then begin to construct, launch and make adjustments to their rockets. Before qualifying, the teams practice 25-35 times at Manor Middle School field.

To qualify for nationals, a team’s rocket must launch at least 825 feet high, and land within 40-45 seconds. Although this can be a challenge to meet these requirements, many of the students, from freshmen to seniors, find this a fun experience.

“Once they join, most of them stay in it as long as they can” said Brian Osmolinski, the rocket club advisor and science teacher here at Penn Manor. “They love the challenge.”

Osmolinski has been the rocket club advisor for almost four years now, and he has seen a wide-range of students learn and enjoy this club.

“The most beautiful thing about it is that anyone can do it, everyone gets something out of it,” said Osmolinski.

Jordan Franssen and Ivan Puskavoic
Jordan Franssen and Ivan Puskavoic show off one of the models they constructed for rocket club.

Jordon Franssen, a senior who has been in rocket club since 8th grade, said, “It’s a good experience and it’s fun. We definitely do repairing, because rockets like to crash and break into millions of pieces.”

Rocket club raises about $6000 from the Thursday snack carts. They also receive some of their funding from some of the Raven’s home games, and they apply for grants.

“It’s a good time,” said Ivan Puskovic, also a senior who has just joined rocket club this year. “It’s hard, but it’s definitely worth it”

By: Mike Stokes

From Quiz Kids to Champions

From bones to geography, optics to archeology, the quiz bowl team at Penn Manor knows it all.

Mark Twain once said, “It is wiser to find out than to suppose.”

That is exactly what Penn Manor’s first-place quiz bowl team is doing.

The Quiz Bowl team at their practice on Monday
The Quiz Bowl team at their practice on Monday

This Penn Manor team is first in the league, out of a total of 24 teams.  With a record of six wins and zero losses, and a total cumulative score of 1110.  They average about 185 points per match.

The team gets their practice questions out of quiz books in the library.  They practice every Monday 3-4:30 unless they have a competition.

Captain Grant Elledge, a senior said, “I’m a firm believer that quiz bowl should be a combination of questions and dodge ball.”

Though their practices are laid back and fun, they can get competitive when need be.

“Other teams get really frustrated, and you can see that.  We’re not like that.  That’s our strength,” said  junior Lars Andersen.

At their latest practice on Monday, they had a lot of inside jokes and everyone got along and laughed together.

Hmm, what is the term for the study of light, the team fell silent.

The answer: optics.

A synchronized “DUH!” filled the library.

The most entertaining event at practice was when a senior reprimanded his buzzer because it would not work.

The best part about quiz bowl, senior  Christine Sharp, said, “It’s cool to see how much useless trivia I have stuffed in my brain over the years.”

The rest of the team includes Brendan Stoekyl, Henry Stewart, Morgan Flood, Corey Delmonto, Georgina Waldman and Helen Hutchins, though the practices include others.

The greatest part of the whole quiz bowl experience said Elledge, “I like traveling, we went to the capital, had a competition inside the capital building, D.C., and even went to Chicago.”

They continue to work toward a state competition this year.

By: Alyssa Funk

“2012”

2012 is an apocalyptic movie directed by Roland Emmerich and played by an ensemble cast starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson.

2012 is a combination of the “Titanic” meets “War of the Worlds” meets “Day After Tomorrow” all tied into one 2-hour and 38-minute action-packed movie. The movie starts off with a American scientist (Oliver Platt) traveling to India to meet his friend (Jimi Mistry), and not soon after he discoverers the startling secret that the world may be coming to an end.

The other half of the story focuses on a divorcee (John Cusack) and his family who face an uncanny chain of events similar to the events in the movies listed in the previous category.

The way this film captures the many diversities and perspectives on life is what gives it that “this could happen to me” feel, but at the same time, it loosens the mood with an array of comical moments.

The movie has so far made more than $23 million at the  box office and is seated in second out of this week’s movie premiers (Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” is #1).

This movie to me put out what it promised in the theatrical trailer, two thumbs up.

By: Robert Henry

Rockin’ at the Hop Raises Cash for Chorus

The smell of hamburgers filled the room as girls in poodle skirts and boys in leather jackets danced in and out of tables.

The chorus’ second annual “Night at the Hop” took place in the cafeteria Nov.6, raising more than $8,000 for the group’s future gig in Hawaii.

Decorated in checkered tablecloths, pink and green streamers, and old records, the entire event was designed around a 50’s diner  theme.

Preparations begin hours ahead of "Night at the Hop"
Preparations begin hours ahead of "Night at the Hop"

Hannah Tucker, chorus president, said, “We used classic colors from that time to add some fun to the black and white checkers. A lot of the stuff was donated to us, except for a few things like ketchup which we made panic runs for at the last minute.”

Chorus member, Estefania Perdomo, explained that students got their jacket and skirts off of Ebay, at Good Will stores and said to help out, she made her own skirt along with six others.

After a few hours of set-up, the guests arrived and the singing began. Performers included the chorus members, a school band called Manhunt, and even Melissa Telesco, the chorus teacher.

M Telesco

The song list covered many classic 50’s hits to match the décor, and ranged from artists Johnny Cash to the Ronnettes.

Entertainment also included swing dance. According to Dakota Jordan, he and other students in the chorus were taught by Corina Connelly and Jill Wiley.

Jordan stated, “We practiced after school for four weeks” to prepare for the festivities.

Students took turns serving their tables so that while one of them was singing, the other was taking orders and making runs to the kitchen for food.

They served hamburgers and cheese burgers, soda, French fries, baked beans, and cole slaw. For dessert there was apple cobbler and banana pudding, and milk shakes to wash it all down.

Poodle skirts and saddle shoes were in vogue during "A Night at the Hop"
Poodle skirts and saddle shoes were in vogue during "A Night at the Hop"

The students also hosted a raffle, the largest and final prize being a handmade wooden cabinet. The raffle also included smaller prizes such as gift cards and framed photos.

Tucker said, “Everyone’s doing a great job helping out” and at the end of the night she said she felt the event was a great success.

Good food and 50s music highlighted the Chorus fundraiser
Good food and 50s music highlighted the Chorus fundraiser

The event was planned in order to help minimize the cost of a trip scheduled to take place in 2011. The chorus will be traveling to Hawaii to perform at the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Telesco said the event was a huge success that they would be continuing the tradition next year.

By Stephanie Carroll

Comets Headed to Second round of playoffs

Comets will face South Western Mustangs who are 10 and 1 overall and have beaten 4 out of 5 of the play-off teams this season.

In the first round of district playoffs the Comets went up against Chambersburg High School and won the game 35 to 14.

The game will be played this Friday,  November 20,  at South Western, near Hanover.

” We’re going to concentrate on what we do best,”  said coach Todd Mealy, who thinks the coaches will be the key to victory in Friday night’s game.

South Western will not be a team the Comets will roll over.

” They have a very good offense, averaging 34 points a game,” Mealy explained.

It should be a physical game, also with a mixture of running and passing plays from both teams, Mealy said.

The Comets can add another historical moment to their recent list of accomplishments with a win this Friday sending them to the 3rd round of playoffs for the first time in Comet history.

By: Damien Oswald and Cassandra Graeff