By Carly Guise
Editor-in-Chief As students filed into the auditorium on Dec. 1, buzzing with excitement for the upcoming weekend, a little boy sat on the steps leading to the stage, eyeing up the crowd. His name is Connor Rowan. He is in first grade at Locust Grove Elementary, and he is a cancer survivor.
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By Brianna Lehr
Staff Writer On Friday Sept. 22, chatter erupted from the Fitzkee Center as excited students got ready for the 2017 Homecoming Pep Rally. And shortly after the final event, the constant chatter quickly ceased as the time came to announce homecoming queen. Marina Foursevitch Staff Writer On April 12, 2016, health teachers Mrs. Hinkle and Mrs. Gillis held CPR Certifications in school for any student who wanted to be certified. These students were certified through the American Heart Association with the HEARTSAVER level of certification. About 130 students get certified each year by Mrs. Gillis and Mrs. Hinkle. “I’ve always wanted to learn CPR to help people in an emergency,” stated Joel Zamora, a senior who became certified on April 12. By Alex Price Staff Writer One place you may not visit as much as your classrooms but remains a great resource for students is the school library. The library provides a quiet working environment with the perfect blend of electronic and print sources for students. “For me the library is a great place to get away from the noise and stress in the classroom,” Library Assistant Quinn Waldrup said. “The library is a great place to clear your mind and get work done.” The library offers online databases for all subjects. These are web based programs such as Aleks and Noodletools. The library staff keeps the library up to date by taking classes and webinars. By doing this the library staff is able to provide a solid background in technology to help students succeed. For the students that enjoy reading, the library is full of books. There is a wide variety of genres, the most popular include young adult, science fiction, and fantasy. “The library is a great place to go to work on the computer, do homework, talk about great books, and learn,” Librarian Allyson Ayres said. “For some, it is a secure, quiet place to gather thoughts. For me, it is a sanctuary, much different than the rest of the building.” What if there is a book a student wants to read but it isn’t available? The library will purchase the book on Amazon and have it ready within three days. The library is open from 7:20 to 3:05 during school days. Students may come in during open periods, which are determined by classes being taught in the library on a particular day. By Benjamin Ostrander Staff Writer Insulation, two-by-fours, windows, and all sorts of power tools are scattered within the shell of the schoolhouse. This time it is not arithmetic, reading or writing that is being taught. This time around it is information about construction and use of power tools that the students are learning. The Neff Schoolhouse project began earlier this spring with a few students in Mr. John Royer’s drafting three class, which involves task of renovating the Neff one room schoolhouse. From tearing out walls to putting in new windows, the students are doing it all. “It was a lot of work in not a lot of time, but we got a lot done...We tore the right half of the front wall down, put it back up and put in all the windows,” said senior Brandon Kinard. “It’s a lot of fun to learn and a lot of fun to help.” Several of Mr. Royer’s students approached him about the project after completing the Habitat for Humanity Project in Windsor during the 2014-15 school year. “If all of these people are getting into it and they think this would be worthwhile and with how old it is, why not keep it around, ” Royer said. Through many day-long field trips, the entire front porch has been redone along with repainted, and almost half of the siding has been ripped down and replaced. “The progress is great. There are a lot of things to be done but for the most part it is well organized,” said project supervisor John Royer. “We’re on track for completion based on this spring (2016)...but if not, a little will be touched up next fall.” The school was built in the 1860s and moved to its current location in the mid-to-late 1970s. The move, which occurred almost 110 years after the schoolhouse was initially built happened because the owners of the house and the land only donated the land. When the borough of Red Lion acquired the house it was on the corner of Country Club Road and Dairyland Drive, which is private property. This move was not major, being only about a half of a mile down Country Club Road. The schoolhouse now resides in the front lawn of the Edgar C. Moore elementary school which is now River Rock Academy. This schoolhouse is one of the few that has not been turned into a business or a residence. By Shawn Gunarich
News & Feature Editor Landon Knepp is a kindergartener at Red Lion, but two years ago, he and hisfamily had their world pulled out from under them, as a 12 centimeter tumor in Landon’s abdomen was found. The tumor would come back to be cancer, a rare and aggressive cancer called Stage Four Neuroblastoma. Since his diagnosis, Landon has undergone six rounds of chemotherapy, stem cell transplants, and immunotherapy. Any child who has to undergo such things should be considered a superhero, and in the Four Diamonds family, Landon is a superhero. The Knepp family has agreed to be the Red Lion Mini-THON family for 2016. This means on April 8, Red Lion students, faculty and Four Diamonds families will dance for twelve hours straight to raise money in honor of the Knepp family. This year is special to the Red Lion Mini-THON family, as it is the tenth birthday of THON at Red Lion. Since Landon’s last round of chemotherapy this past November, his tumor was reduced considerably and completely eradicated. “Its tears you apart to see your son like that,” Mrs. Katie Knepp said after recalling Landon in a weakened state, “but after everything, in the end it pulls you all together.” Landon’s mother was forced to resign as a teacher in Red Lion School District in order to be with Landon in his time of need. Since 1993, Mini-THONs have raised over $17 million to help end a disease that affects millions of families worldwide. In 2015 alone, 188 schools in Pennsylvania raised $4,309,979.60. These feats could not have been reached without the growing family that is the Four Diamonds Fund. The Four Diamonds was founded by Charles and Irma Millard who lost their son, Chris, to pediatric cancer, but not before Chris could write a story called the Four Diamonds. This story, which gave the Four Diamonds its name, also gave them their ideals and principles. In Chris’ story his character, Sir Millard, is sent out to collect four diamonds that symbolize a certain characteristic of the Four Diamonds fund. These characteristics are honesty, courage, wisdom, and strength, each of which is a diamond that makes the symbol of the fund. Because of Charles and Irma Millard we have the Four Diamonds, a fund that is based out of Penn State Hershey Medical Center and has touched over 3,200 families. For those who don’t know, the Four Diamonds helps to raise money to help end childhood cancer, but also allows the parents of the affected children not to have to worry about medical bills. Everything from lodging to food is taken care of by the fund, which allows parents of the children to focus on what really matters, the kids. “Knowing we didn’t have those medical bills was like a ton of bricks lifted off our shoulders,” Mrs. Knepp said. Every three minutes, a child is diagnosed with cancer worldwide. The aim of the Four Diamonds fund is to make that number zero, and with the help of Mini-THONs across the world, we can make it happen. By Carly Guise Staff Writer Despite what their name may suggest, students in the National FFA Organization aren’t just planning on becoming production farmers. With less than five percent actually going into farming, many students instead choose to go into teaching, medicine, engineering, or science, among many others, according to Mrs. Kimberly Dahr, the high school’s agriculture teacher and FFA advisor. Larissa Herbert, a junior, wants to be a veterinarian. “The skills I’m learning now in FFA are really going to help me in the future,” she said. “I was even able to enter a state vet skills competition that I came ninth in out of 68.” “I’m going to be an Ag teacher,” said Jacki Henshaw, also a junior. “So the competitions like Teach Ag really help to gain experience and knowledge.” The organization’s goal is to create a path of achievement through leadership, personal growth, and agriculture education. Lessons such as these are often learned in numerous competitions that members of the Red Lion Area FFA enter and often dominate. Mrs. Dahr calls it the program’s “best year yet,” which can be seen in their record of success so far this year. Starting at the York County Fair in September, Red Lion students Larissa Herbert and Casidee Crowl both won first place in the senior and junior divisions of Dairy Skills, respectively. Allison Macklin took home first places in the senior division of Livestock Judging and Chapter Bundle. Stephanie Gerver’s display, “The Avian Flu and You,” also won a first place prize. From there, students traveled to the National All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg, where Heidi Chapman came in first out of 168 competitors overall. At the Keystone International Livestock Expo, Sam Bacon came in third overall out of 377 other competitors. Out of all of their competitions, the organization’s Fall Skills Day is one of the more recent. The day typically features numerous individual competitions for students to enter; including Apple Judging, in which Larissa Herbert came in fourth; County Agronomy, where Stephanie Gerver won first; and County Tractor Driving, in which Ethan Urey came in third. “You have to have past experience—a lot of it—to drive a tractor,” said senior Ethan Urey. “Especially if you want to do well [in a competition].” The success of Red Lion’s FFA so far this year has shown that these future teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and scientists have been putting the lessons learned through the organization to good use, proving that they’re so much more than their name conveys. By Ian Adler Editor-in-Chief “We have to continue, in all of our communities, to shatter the stigma associated with mental illness, and let people know that it’s an illness, so let’s get help.” Answering the call to help, as the Aevidum spirit represents, around 300 participants showed up to run the Aevidum “Color Blast 5k” on Sunday, October 4. The race began at Manor Middle School and followed the school’s 3.1 mile cross-country course. A color blast is a “friendly” run, in which various colors of powder are thrown on the runners by volunteers throughout the course. The event featured DJ services, post-run snacks, and a finale “color bomb”, where a powder tossing free-for-all coated the runners with all the remaining rainbow dust. The second annual color blast is just one of many events that Aevidum hosts, ranging from community talk events, talent shows, music or poetry nights and anything that schools that host the organization decide to hold. “The whole goal is to promote positive mental health,” said Executive Director of Aevidum Joe Vulopas. “Places where people are accepted, appreciated, acknowledged and cared for.” The color blast was described as “more of a community event” by Vulopas, due to the partnership with Teen Hope, a branch of the Samaritan Counseling Center, that helps middle and high schools to screen teenagers for mental illnesses. The money raised from the event was split in donation to both Teen Hope and the Aevidum organization. “It was a great experience,” said senior and Red Lion Aevidum club member Hayley Althoff. “The atmosphere was amazing, I loved being a part of it. I actually thought that there was going to be 50 people there, but there were like 300 and most of them were teens.” Both the community atmosphere and the warmth and welcoming nature of the both participants and volunteers definitively showed that the Aevidum spirit was alive and well. “I feel like depression and things of that sort are becoming more prevalent,” said Althoff. “I think that it needs to be made aware of, especially when you have kids in your own school committing suicide and you don’t even know that they’re depressed until something like that happens.” Red Lion not only brought student participants, but also adult volunteers, including both club advisors Mrs. Rohrbaugh and Mrs. Persing. “Overall, I thought it was a lot of fun,” said Rohrbaugh, who spent the duration of the event handing water to the runners. “I think the kids enjoyed it, we raised a lot of money and it was a success from an overall standpoint.” “Between our 20 participants, ranging from elementary to high school, we raised $500, which is pretty impressive,” said Rohrbaugh. Overall, the event raised about. “Whenever I speak, I always say that we all have a role in making sure that our children are healthy. What is that role that we have?” said Vulopas. “Today, at this event, there were people from everywhere here, which again just surrounds these kids so they know that they can do the right thing, that we care for them.” By Zachary Rhine News & Feature Editor If someone asked one of their friends if they wanted to go searching for hidden containers in the middle of the wilderness using only a map and/or a GPS, they would most likely be called something along the lines of crazy or insane. However, if they asked their friend if they would like to go geocaching, they would probably receive a better response. The scavenger hunts that would become known as geocaching started in the early 2000’s, when satellites became available to civilians instead of solely the military. Messages boards all over the world began filling with directions to hidden items for people to find. A company known as Groundspeak caught wind of the growing phenomenon and decided to capitalize on it by creating a common website for geocachers to record their adventures and communicate with other geocachers. At the core, geocaching is a real-life treasure hunt. Anyone who owns a GPS and spirit for adventure can participate in the hunt. Hidden containers, also known as geocaches, all have certain latitude and longitude coordinates associated with them, and when plugged into a GPS can be located. Some are as straightforward as that, but others have puzzles and mysteries that need to be solved first in order to locate the caches. The containers all possess a logbook for the geocacher to record that they were there. Some containers also have small trinkets and gift cards in them, placed there by other geocachers. Many of Red Lion’s own teachers and students participate in geocaching. As of the end of September 2015, math teacher Dave Hively has found a total of 3534 geocaches. He’s found a cache in every state from New York to North Carolina, and the furthest he’s gone to find a geocache was Honduras. He jokes that, “I use multimillion dollar technology to search for tupperware in the woods.” Mr. Hively has made geocaching a family event, as his children also enjoy the experience. Hively has also incorporated his love for geocaching into his work. Every year he places a geocache for his AP Calculus classes to solve and find. Mr. Hively also offered some tips for anyone interested in getting involved with geocaching. “Start with the free app on your phone and try to find the easy ones first. There are some standard, basic hides that everyone finds, and they set you up for finding harder hides down the road.” He went on to explain that there are different difficulties and terrain levels that are associated with each of the caches. “It makes for a fun group activity,” continued Hively. By Brianna Lehr
Staff Writer Pride, an acronym that seems to appear everywhere around Red Lion, stands for personable, respectful, integrity, dependable, and engaged. Red Lion is expanding the plan to let Pride be a more student based program in the 2015-2016 school year. Pride is a program in school to educate, encourage, and reward positive, above and beyond behavior involving school expectations. The program started in 2011, but was not prevalent until 2012, which was when one of Red Lion’s well-known teachers, Andrea Rohrbaugh, took over the program. “I like the message,” Rohrbaugh said. “I want to recognize the good in school.” In the 2015-2016 school year, Pride plans to have multiple speakers coming in, such as former NFL Pittsburgh Steeler, Tim Lester, who came in September, and Mrs. Castle. The card making in the winter is to spread joy during the holiday season to the Red Lion Senior Center, the Pediatric Ward, and Manor Care. The pep rallies will be presented to recognize sports in the winter and spring. A lip dub will be created by a certain list of students and teachers. Lastly, a student and staff basketball game is planned for the spring. Pride plans on expanding their student leadership group and getting more students involved in that, and to throw out more ideas to help continue Pride’s success in the high school. “We want to instill a pride in Red Lion, be proud of Red Lion,” Rohrbaugh said. |
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