Abigail Miller
Managing EditorHelaina Geoffroy
Editor-In-ChiefMarshall Jones
Digital Media Editor
Boston Burdette
Maggie Hall
Emma Pitts
Shaylynn Coffelt
Gavin Moore
Ashlee Derry
Sidnie Nance
Nat Griffin
Shelby Pinaire
Rawley Mydland
Brayden Bowen
Kaylee Layton
Assistant
Nathan Lance
The Homecoming Kick-Off, held on Sunday, October 1, was the start of the 2023 Homecoming festivities at De Kalb. Ms. Cagle, the Student Council sponsor says that “The goal is to start the Homecoming week by introducing candidates.” The event is a way to get everyone together to have a fun time and a set the tone for a great rest of Homecoming week.
At the Kick-Off, in addition to announcing the Homecoming Court, fall sports coaches introduced their teams and the band played two songs from their Decades show.
Students had a chance to begin work on class floats, and there were corn hole boards available The Rushville Elementary PTO sold food and drinks, and there was also a silent jersey auction, the winners of which were announced during the last home Softball game on Monday, October 2
There was great turnout at the event, and as Coach Wildhaber says, “It's a big thing to get everyone involved, including the community,” It's kind of like a big prep rally for everyone. It was very fun and for the people who didn't go you should definitely come next year.
On September 22, De Kalb faced a big rival, the Stewartsville Wildcards The boys were looking for a win, but it was a rough start.
The Wildcards started the scoring, leading with 3 touchdowns before the Tigers got on the board While the first half may have looked like the end for the Tigers, Wardlow's halftime speech gave the Tigers the spirit and drive to come back strong in the second half.
Hayden Black was burning bright, scoring a total of 3 touchdowns, one of them an 80-yard rushing touchdown that made the entire sideline scream with joy. Ryder Hawk and Luke Miller showed promise, too, each scoring a touchdown
The Offense wasn’t the only side of the ball fired up. The Defense stopped the Wildcards for the time being. After one of De Kalb’s players got hurt, though, it looked like the team was done for good. That’s when Nate Bowen stood up and showed his Tiger spirit, getting multiple tackles and an amazing sack. When asked about his performance, Nate said “I was doing a good job I felt like a beast after that sack, and it made me want to tackle more people.” In the end, the Tigers went
on to lose 60-30, a tough loss that will sting for a while
The following Friday night, the boys met with the Mound City Panthers in Mound City With Devin Hall still hurt, Luke Miller was back at QB, ready to improve with every snap
Nate Bowen was on defense again, showing he wasn’t a flash in the pan, getting multiple tackles and sacks once more.
The defense had a surprise to it though, when Junior Rylie Piles Stepped up to play Nose? Rylie stepped up and showed he was not only a capable lineman on offense, but he was also good at defense as well, getting a sack the first play he was in for
Blake and Luke scored for the Tigers, but one player really starred in this game Lathan Goddard was thrust into the running back spot and did not slow down In his first drive, he marched down the field carrying the whole Mound City defense on his back to score a touchdown for the Tigers.
Though they had some bright moments, the Tigers still fell 22-48
7th Grade
“Everyone can be as one and a whole.”
9th Grade
“It matters because you need to be a good person and be kind to everyone.”
Have you ever been bored while doing chores, or homework or having trouble finding songs to listen to while in the shower? Well here are some song suggestions and artists that I would recommend to you. The artist I would recommend is Zach Bryan Zach Bryan is an amazing artist, Doesn’t matter the place or time his songs are always on point. He has many songs out and has recently been dropping more. His music is just so on point and relatable every time. He has an amazing voice and he never misses a beat
The song I would probably most recommend is either “Burn, Burn, Burn” or “I Remember Everything ” Those two songs are just so good. No matter what
songs are just so good. No matter what you're doing or where you're at, those 2 songs will always be a jam. I prefer Zach Bryan and his songs over any other artist or song any day. My favorite album by him is definitely his newest one Fourth Studio Album. This is the best album from anyone I have ever listened to I 10 out of 10 recommend Zach Bryan. Even if you don’t end up liking him, I would still recommend giving him a try.
Three De Kalb student groups went to Crockett Farms to help out and raise money for their groups. It was a fundraiser so all the money went to The Muddy Paw, FBL]A, and NHS.
The Muddy Paw sold coffee, apple cider, and chocolate milk. “I’m not in the Muddy Paw, but for FBLA sometimes you have to help out other groups So I was working the Muddy Paw for a majority of the day”, says Junior Helaina Geoffroy This gives everyone a chance to work together The FBLA had a bake sale at Crockett Farms. The NHS also offered to do face paintings and spooky tattoos.
Lauren Marriott helped Mrs. H with the Muddy Paw. She said, “It went pretty well while I was there.” They all had different times to be there and Lauren was in the morning so she wasn't there the whole day.
This is their first year doing this so it's new for all of them. “New events are always a learning experience but the good thing about it is you get better every time you do them, I know the next two events will be better and more successful than the first one,” says Mrs H They're all going back next October 7 and October 21
This past weekend I had the pleasure of reading my now favorite book Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros Fourth Wing is an adventure, romance, fantasy book all in one. You follow the main character Violet Sorrengail as she has to adjust from wanting to go into the Scribe Quadrant to being forced into the Riders Quadrant by her mother General Sorrengail.
Throughout the book there is suspense, tension, drama, and sadly a whole lot of death. From her first day in the Riders Quadrant, Violet has to adjust to the sudden deaths and all of the death threats coming her way for who she is. Another challenge Violet has to face is trying her best to avoid Xaden Riorson and all the trouble that comes with him.
I would 100% without a doubt recommend this book if you like suspenseful and heart-stopping fantasy with a splash of romance and a dash of dragons. Goodreads Gives this book a 4 65 out of 5 stars, rating it super high, which I can agree with Don't forget to be on the lookout for her second book in the series, Iron Flame, coming out on November 7th.
Sonic Frontier is another one of my favorite games It's really fun and a pretty good game.
You play in 3rd person view and have to upgrade sonic's speed and strength. What it’s about is that you play as sonic fighting titan sized robots that are not made by eggman and you’ll have to fight his AI daughter that controls every ancient robot.
Throughout the game there are mini bosses you have to fight to be able to access cyberspace and move to the next island while fighting the bosses of each island Giganto, Wyvern, Knight, and Supreme but to fight the bosses you must fight other bosses and complete challenges.
I would give it 5 stars but everyone else gives it four stars.
by Gavin MooreA column dedicated to honoring the past.
The longer we continue into the school year, the more we miss the past summer. Every day, most of us struggle to get up early in the morning as we recall waking up as late as we wanted to during the summer. We reminisce about these times as we trudge through the week.
Some may enjoy school though. This may be when they get to see their friends and their favorite teachers. Occasionally, we get to do fun things. For example, we get to dress up for homecoming week, or go visit local colleges like we did recently.
Even though the Summer is temporary and may end sooner than you want, it will always be something to look forward to. There will always be another summer shining on the horizon, a beacon calling you to spend lazy days with your best friends and make fun memories to share with everyone when school inevitably starts back up next fall.
By: Shay Coffelt
Our Middle School Math teacher, Mrs. Baker, runs the concession stand for all sporting events all year long because she is the Junior Class Sponsor. Mrs Baker has had experience with doing concessions, so the school thought it would be good to ask her to help with it.
Mrs. Baker puts a lot of time and effort into running concessions. “Starting out was hard. I had to get everything in order and decide how much to buy,” says Mrs Baker. Everything is going a lot smoother now, according to Baker, because she's had to do it quite a few times. “Next year will be easier since I’ve had a year learning how it works here.”
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The money from the concession stand will be going toward the current Junior class. This money helps with their Senior trips, Prom, and any money they would need for school activities in the future.
Since the money is going towards the Juniors, they help work the concession stand with Mrs. Baker. Junior Helaina Geoffroy enjoys working at the concession stand because “it has been fun. We're offering new food items, and we're all working as a team.”
The next time you attend a De Kalb sporting event, come support our Junior class and buy some refreshments.
By: Maggie Hall
Have you been to the library recently? If not you should definitely check it out because we had 2 very talented students take their time to reorganize the Science Fiction and Fantasy sections of the library Seniors Shelby Pinaire and Nathan Lance were those students.
Mrs. Miller had them organize the books within these different genres, and Shelby and Nate both agreed that “We can actually find things now ” They both feel that it needed a change and that it’s better the way that it is now than the way it was before.
Before, the Fantasy section was split up into many different subgenres, like supernatural, romance, medieval, etc., and now it's split up into just two big groups: Science Fiction and Fantasy. Nathan says “ I feel like it's much more coherent with all of the Fantasy books in one big Fantasy section like it used to be There were a bunch of different little tiny sections but now there's only two big sections, which changes a lot of things.”
Although it’s probably much different than before, Nate and Shelby both agree that it's better now and will probably be a lot more helpful. Be sure to check it out, and if you see Nate, Shelby, or even Mrs. Miller, be sure to tell them thanks for taking their time to make this happen for us
If you like action, adventure, and extraordinary fighting scenes then The One Piece, live action, is something for you. The One Piece, a Netflix original, was recently released on August 31. Throughout this show, you follow Monkey D Luffy on his quest to find the one piece and become the king of the pirates. Luffy has to overcome many obstacles throughout his journey like failure, betrayal, and doubt Luffy meets many new friends and enemies throughout his journey With the marines hot on Luffy's tale can he and his crew find the one piece and will Luffy become the king of the pirates, or will he die trying? I guess you’ll just have to watch and find out.
The Black and Gold news staff may all be in different grades, but they all enjoy putting together a good news story The newspaper class has grown to 15 students from the four students Ms Miller had when she first started in 2021
Junior Helaina Geoffroy has worked for three years on the Newspaper staff. Helaina says “My favorite thing to do is boss people around.” Helaina gets to do a lot as the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, including assigning stories and pictures, editing, and helping with layout.
Rawley Mydland, a Senior in Newspaper for his first year says “my favorite story is my very first story ‘Newspapers Save Lives.’”
Freshman Shay Coffelt is in her first year working for the newspaper. Shay says “I feel very happy that my stories are being published.”
If you see these people in the hallway please give them a high five for their hard work and dedication
This year many new faces have been seen roaming the halls of Dekalb Among those is our new 8th grader, Hayley Burdick. Hayley was born and raised in Wako, Texas. In her free time Hayley enjoys exploring the great outdoors by going on hikes and walking around in many new places. It seems Hayley really enjoys being outside in nature, she even said her favorite color was green.
Some fun facts about Hayley are that she really enjoys Mrs. Taylor's class. She enjoys Mrs. T's class because it's quiet and really relaxing for the most part. Hayley also listens to all types of music, she really enjoys the song Devil Town By Cavetown. She also participates in band and plays the clarinet.
There can always be hard adjustments when it comes to moving to a different town and going to a new school. Hayley has said, “Moving has probably been the hardest adjustment so far” But she has said that Dekalb has welcomed her really well, and she enjoys it here. We are happy to have Hayley here and hope she has a fantastic year. Welcome to the family Hayley
By: Gavin Moore
Ms. Scharff, popularly known as Senorita Scharff here, is our new Spanish teacher. She may seem familiar if you had Ms. Reagan’s class last year. That’s because Ms. Scharff was the student teacher in Ms. Reagan’s Spanish class this year. She says she still remembers some of the students here because she helped teach them last year.
This is her first teaching job so it’s a good thing she gets to teach at a school she is already familiar with. She is still studying at Benedictine college while also having her teaching job here at DeKalb. Since she still has college classes to attend she can’t come every day out of the week. The same goes for Ms. Elifritz so she helps Ms. Scharff on the days she can’t come. Ms. Scharff teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Ms. E teaches on Wednesdays and Fridays.
During her free time, Ms. Scharff says she enjoys spending time with her friends and going to the gym. She found interest in teaching through her high school teacher her freshman and sophomore year. Her teacher introduced her to the language and gave Ms. Scharff an interest in learning it because she loved the way she taught it. This is one of her role models that she has had over her time as a student and helped her want to be a teacher. She says she also took a trip to the Dominican Republic which really made her want to become a Spanish teacher. Senorita Scharff is enjoying DeKalb so far.
She says she’s loving it and she really likes the “small town vibes” that our school has. Since it’s only her first year officially teaching, she says she sees herself teaching for a long time. Her goals as a teacher are to really leave a long term effect on her students and help them learn as well as she can. Her future goal for her personal life is to move to a warm, Spanish speaking country so she can use her knowledge to speak with the community. We hope to continue to give Senorita Scharff a warm welcome to our Tiger family.
Nathan Bowen
10th Grade
Favorite Subject: History
On being a good student: “Just do your work.”
Shyann Nowak
11th Grade
Favorite Subject: History
On being a good student: “Just turn in your homework.”
Gage Hartman
7th Grade
Favorite subject: P.E.
On being a good student: “Stay on task and not goofing off.”