As a senior, participating in the musicals are a huge part of my high school career. With our amazing performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma” in our first year in the new building to the sold out weekend of “Grease”, I could not be more excited to inform the Beaver Local community that we are taking on the challenge of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” this year! Mrs. Hamilton, the director of both the chloral department and the musical, made the announcement to her students on Monday and said “it is going to be tough, but we can do it.”

In case you aren’t familiar with the classic tale, here’s a brief synopsis:

In the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera house dwells a mysterious masked man, the Phantom, who is drawn to the beautiful voice of Christine Daaè, a chorus girl at the Opera. As a result, he falls in love with her, but a young man from Christine’s childhood reunites with her when she transcends from chorus girl to the leading soprano star. Now that Christine’s other suitor is in the mix, the Phantom vows to make her his own and terrorizes the opera house and its inhabitants.

At this time, there haven’t been many other details disclosed about this year’s musical. If you are interested in joining the cast, auditions are on December 13th and 14th until further notice.

This week in Art Appreciation, we are covering Leonardo Da Vinci. Da Vinci attended medical school just so he could draw anatomy more realistically and study proportions. Our project this week was to delve into the world of anatomy, drawing the skeletal/ muscle systems with an artistic flare.

I chose to recreate a piece that was both beautiful and eerie. It is a skeleton that is dressed in a tuxedo and holding a rose(as if sniffing it).The purpose of this project was to learn more about Da Vinci and why/how he learned to draw the human form as well as he did. All of the drawings done by our students are pretty impressive. We were given a minimum amount of rules, such as the shading and subject of the piece, but other than that we were free. We used varying mediums, like acrylic paint, watercolor, and charcoal to name a few.

Our students all took their own path with the project, creating pieces that were their own,even if they originally were not. Many looked at similar pictures for motivation and reference, but we all made original works of art with what we were given. The grades are not based on artistic ability, but the ability to understand the assignment and carry it out relatively efficiently.

Personally, I really enjoyed this project. I enjoy drawing anatomy and figures and admire Leonardo Da Vinci for his ability to draw them so realistically. I am pleased with the way my final product came out and it only added to my love of art. The name Art Appreciation really comes to life when we students find ourselves being able to appreciate art more by the assignments we complete.

A spooky delight during this season of fright, the Beaver Local AP History and Government Club is sponsoring a K-12 candy gram sale during the week of October 23-27. For $2, you can arrange to have a bag of Poison Apple Popcorn sent to the receiving student of your choice to be delivered on Tuesday, October 31. A haunting way to start the Halloween festivities, the little witches and goblins will be sure to cackle with joy upon receiving their delicious treat. Order forms are available during C lunch, with papers sent home with the elementary and middle school students as well.

The fundraiser will benefit the AP US History and Government’s upcoming trip to Boston, Massachusetts that is scheduled for spring of 2018. A great opportunity, the trip will bring history to life for the students, as well as provide them a visual to experience for themselves what has only been images in history books. From Plymouth to Salem, a wide variety of history will be introduced to spark the interest of the students, as well as create memories that will establish a bond that will go beyond the week of the historical journey.

This week, I conducted an interview with a fellow student who is in the YSU College Writing course here at Beaver Local. Here was what she had to say.

Why did you sign up for this class?

I wanted to get a head start on my college classes

Is this class difficult?

Sort of. It is more based on you. Your teacher isn’t breathing down your neck to get your paper done. Also, it’s a lot of writing. A lot.

What is the best part about taking a college class in high school?

It’s free, plus, if you pass, you get a college credit, so you don’t have to take that class in college.

Would you do it again?

Most definitely.

Do you have any advice for students who are thinking of taking the class?

I would definitely say to do it. Challenge yourself. This class is more self reliant than normal high school classes. It will only help you to get used to that for when college comes.

As a student in YSU classes, I believe it is not for everyone. It is a challenge and will push you to do more on your own. You also might find that you do not do that great. That’s okay. College is more difficult than high school and will take some getting used to. Putting your foot in the door really allows you to get prepared for how your future schooling will go. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try. I believe that everyone should sign up for college classes, take AP classes, even academic classes and push yourself to be the best you can be.

While it may be sad to say the time we have at high school is limited. I have learned many things in my time as a student here, but none more important than what it takes to get your GPA up. I have had to work especially hard to achieve the academic standing I have, while much of that work could have been avoided. Here are the things I have learned throughout the journey of academics in high school.

The first mistake I made most likely can be traced back to freshman year. I never asked for help or took my school work seriously, this led to being almost failing my math class and doing poorly in several others. It is important that the second you enter high school you take the courses you can handle and do the best you possibly can. Do not just copy your assignments and allow several at a time to go missing. Staying on top of these things will help to make sure that your transcripts look as bright as you are. I recently began applying to colleges and seeing the effect that my freshman and sophomore year have had on my GPA makes me so frustrated. Since I had decided to take things as a joke and worry about them later I now had to push myself to achieve straight A’s and take stressful AP courses to boost my GPA. While all of this could have been avoided had I simply just taken my school work seriously and realized that high school will pass by much quicker than expected.

However, this does not mean do not challenge yourself. Taking courses slightly out of your comfort zone can also help make you a better student, so if you are advanced in English don’t be afraid to take those AP courses. While you may have to push yourself it won’t be on a topic you struggle with, just something you will have to apply yourself to. For example, I do well when it comes to History and consider it one of my stronger subjects. So my junior year I took an AP history class but only a general math because I knew that was something I would struggle in. I knew taking the AP score would help raise the GPA that I had so carelessly forgotten the importance of and the math would be a challenge but I could at least pull out a low A when I applied myself. It is all about finding the healthy balance between the courses that will make you a better student but also will not set you up for failure.

When you achieve a high GPA combined with varying act scores (which those challenging classes can help you learn the study habits that help you) it can open the door to many types of scholarships and benefits come college time. So go out, apply yourself, be the best student you can be, and do the amazing things you are capable of.

Hello again, Beavers! In today’s post, I’ll be sharing some information with you about the Wildlife Conservation class.

Wildlife Conservation is a class that students can take in the high school here at Beaver Local. We study and touch on many subjects such as how to conserve our wildlife and the local animals we have in this area. As well as studying in the classroom, we also do many things around the outside of the school. Behind the new baseball and softball fields, there is a small and shallow pond. This is where we do most of our outdoor studies and observations.

So far this school year, we’ve studied whitetail deer, black bear, and coyotes in the classroom. Recently, we began to read a book called Half-Earth, Our Planet’s Fight For Life by Edward O. Wilson. This book talks about the biodiversity on our planet and the things we need to do in order to keep animals and plants thriving. In addition, every Monday we watch Wild America videos with Marty Stouffer. We call these “Marty Monday’s.” Usually, each video we watch is related to the topic we are studying at the time.

Outside, we’ve accomplished many things. When the school year began, we focused our attention on our milkweed garden for monarch butterflies located inside the fence surrounding the pond. We began by pulling the weeds that grew inside the garden and weed whacking along the bricks on the perimeter. We then painted the bricks tan, placed new soil inside the garden, and planted the milkweed seeds. Hopefully, the milkweed will begin to grow next spring, and we will have a nice home for monarch’s.

Even though the pond was created for the water running off of the school’s parking lot, we still want to keep the water as clean as possible to make a nice home for many species to live. Our class purchased an algae rake to keep the algae off the top of the water. We take turns as classmates, putting on waders and marching into the shallow water. Two students wear waders in the pond, while one other student stands along the shore to pull the algae out of the water.

Furthermore, around the pond are many homes that we have made for animals. For example, we have a bat house, a mallard duck house, and a home for solitary bees. We as students have worked on those projects, as well as our teacher Mrs. Berger.

This class is not only to teach growing, young adults about the wildlife in our area, but also to teach about the need to conserve as much wildlife as possible. We hope our efforts are making a difference, and we hope that you’ll consider trying some of these tactics in order to keep our town and community full of life!

So I had a little kid walk up to me yesterday night. She asked me,” Why do parents take her candy and look through it?” I didn’t know what to say, was I supposed to tell her it is to make sure none of it was open because they were scared of someone putting something in it, or was I supposed to say they wanted to see if it was expired? I didn’t know what to say at first but after I thought about it I wasn’t going to lie to her. So I told her my parents took it to make sure none of was open. I asked her ,” do you know the word drugs and what in means?” She explained to me, “ ya I know what that is, they can hurt people.” I said,” Okay, so they take it to make sure you will be ok.” She smiled and said,” Oh okay.” I just looked at my mom and asked her what has this world come to? At school teachers tell us not to do drugs but they don’t see what goes on behind there backs. I know of people who come to school with a high. But know one sees it. I feel the school should random drug test us because it isn’t ok to have that kind of thing in school.

Thank you!

This blog post is a huge “thank you” to everyone who has walked into my life academically and athletically. By saying this I would like to thank my coaches, teachers, and friends who have pushed me to become a better person in all these events. Thank you to the teachers who have helped me through the years. Thank you Mrs. Ash for pushing me to take the jump into my first AP course and thank you Mrs. Jones for being such an amazing teacher through that first course. Thank you to the friends who cried with me and pulled “all-nighters” throughout those hard courses.
Thank you to the coaches who have made me fall in love with my sports. Thank you for pushing me to want to better myself as much as I possibly could. Thank you Kristen for being the most amazing cheer coach I could’ve asked for in my four years. Thank you for not only being such a great coach to us but for also being a great friend and even mothering us when we needed it. Thank you Mr. Carr for making me not completely hate my life when we had to run. Thank you for picking me up when I thought I couldn’t take another step and pushing me to run more than I thought would ever be able to. Thank you for always being able to take a joke and helping me make fun of dad (Coach Ward) at practices.
Finally, thank you to my closest friend. Thank you Sammi, for being there for me always. I will never forget the memories we have shared since 8th grade and I’m sure we won’t stop making them any time soon. Thank you for staying up with me and crying with me while I wrote essays or finished other assignments for our AP classes. Thank you for always being there when guys were dumb. Lastly, thank you for always being there to read over my essays until they’re perfect, especially my awful college ones! Thank you to everyone to who has pushed me through these fours years. I’ll forever be grateful for all of those who have walked into my life and brought out the best in me.

It’s basketball season again and that means try-outs are back. Try-outs this year will take place this Friday and Saturday. Coach Pac is looking to fill some key roles in his lineup after three of his starters graduated last year. The beavers finished with a 10-11 record and are looking to beat that this year. They kick off away at crestview this December.