e g h iin Ti er l THE
DEC. 8, 2009
Volume 50 Issue 11
1015 Division St. Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613
Dance teams post strong showings at State Alex Entz Senior Writer
Three Cedar Falls High School dance teams went down to the State competition last Friday, finishing no lower than third in any of their four events. The women’s team finished second in its pom competition and third in the hip-hop competition; the all-male team finished third as well, as did the co-ed team. Head coach Gayle Bruene was impressed with this year’s team. “A big part of that was the senior leadership — both guys and girls — that stepped up to move this team forward,” Bruene said. “Our work ethic (impressed me the most).” Senior captain Megan Pattee agreed. “We busted our butts,”
Pattee said. “It’s really an endurance-building process; not only is it physically hard to do while smiling, but we have to run our routines a number of times to fix little things.” The atmosphere at the state competition is an intense phenomenon, as Pattee pointed out. “It’s a really charged atmosphere, and you know that everyone there wants to win; to a lot of them, dance is their life,” Pattee said. “It’s really neat to look around and see people in witch’s hats and in colored shoes; it’s not like everyone does the same dance, because there are so many things teams can do that most people wouldn’t even think about.” Brianna Glenn, another senior captain for the women’s competition team,
found the atmosphere difficult to describe, especially since a day and a half of that atmosphere left her without a voice. “I can’t even tell you how amazing it all is to take in,” Glenn rasped. “It’s a lot like the movie Bring It On, every girl is in it to win it.” The team finished second in the hip-hop division behind Linn-Mar, who took first place again. Nevertheless, the team is very excited about their performance and particularly about the creativity shown in their hip-hop routine. “Right after our hip-hop routine, college representatives came over and gave our coaches scholarship info,” Glenn said. “It was really cool to be part of such an impressive routine.” Pattee emphasized the reaction that the hip-hop
performance elicited from the crowd. “We had a better audience response than the first place team, and I think that part of that came from how much we incorporated our costumes into our dance. We did some cool stuff with our bandanas. We had stuff on our arms, and we used what we were wearing,” she said. The team even used colorful Nike shoes to fill out their repertoire as “gangster dancers.” Taken as a whole, the women’s competition team was exuberant with its highly-rated finish. “We held our own this year,” Glenn said. “We hadn’t placed in pom since the 1980s, but now we’ve done it two years in a row.” Pattee was especially upbeat about the team facing some difficult competition.
“We were up against some really hard competition, and to do this well I’m floored,” Pattee said. “It worked out really, really well in the end.” The all-male team, in its first year of performance, was still decidedly optimistic about its third-place finish. “For the first year that CF had an all-male team, we did really well,” senior Colin Ashwood said. “We needed to be manly men, and we were.” Though the co-ed team was slightly more disappointed with its finish, Glenn brushed it aside. “The judges were looking more for clean routines than for hard ones,” she said. Ashwood agreed, adding, “I think that we did better than our final result shows, but we’ll take it.”
Civics class applies unit, collects toys Sara Gabriele Staff Writer
For a different twist to his citizenship unit this year, social studies teacher Bob Schmidt is having his sophomore government class run a toy drive. The class will be running the drive as a class project in time for the holidays. “It’s one thing to talk about citizenship and another to do it,” Schmidt said. Every student in the class has an active role in planning and running the drive. Jobs include helping with publicity, contacting
churches and other organizations, collecting toys at sporting events, and delivering and counting the toys. “It’s more fun and exciting than just a standard assignment. You get better feedback; it’s not just a written grade, it’s actual accomplishment,” sophomore Briana Gulbranson said. “You get a good feeling about what you’re doing.” The class will be collecting toys at basketball games, local churches and at the high school in room 256. Both new and used toys will be accepted. Student Senate is also endorsing the drive
and will contribute $500 for the class to buy toys at Walmart. All the toys collected will be donated to the Toys for Tots foundation and distributed to underprivileged children. “There’s no motivation other than doing the right thing — no pizza party or any other reward. [I’m] trying to teach the fact that citizenship usually happens when no one’s looking,” Schmidt said. “There’s no downside to it. It’s all good. Whatever we collect we’re going to Sara Gabriele Photo be happy with.” The class will be accept- Sophomore Kaitlin Izer recently collected and packing toys until Dec. 14. aged toy donations as part of her government class.