The
Tiger HI-LINE
Friday, Oct. 7, 2016
Volume 57 Edition 3
SENIOR STARS Powder Puff game decided in overtime/pages 8-9 Follow us on Twitter at tigerhiline, Facebook at TigerHilineOnline and on our website at www.hiline.cfschools.org
North Cedar student rises above anxieties in Cedar River’s second highest flood ever Standing in my kitchen on the morning of Thursday, Sept. 22, I gingerly set down the peanut butter-covered knife before it could slip from my fingers and crash to the floor. My sack lunch was suddenly the farthest thing from my mind. I must’ve misheard him. My dad couldn’t really be telling me that this was happening. Not again. But I didn’t cry. Before school, I sat in a hallway surrounded by people, zero percent of whom had any idea what was about to happen. I was already drowning inside my head. I frantically downloaded and searched through a dozen weather apps, praying that one of them would tell me I was over reacting, that this wasn’t real life. A friend finally realized something was off. I told him I didn’t want to go to our cross country meet. I wanted to go home. He assumed it was because I was afraid of road closing and joked, “You can just ride a boat home tonight.” I didn’t laugh. I spent my math work day scouring the web for any updates on river levels, predictions, outlooks, past records, anything I could get my hungry eyes on. I got so worked up I left class early because I couldn’t just sit there anymore. I went to the band room and waited for fourth hour to start, never taking my eyes off of the screen in front of me. When the power went out and we lost access to the
Internet that afternoon, everyone went into a bit of an excited tizzy. I didn’t notice. We were in Dubuque at our cross country meet when I found out school had been cancelled. I called my mom. I asked her to come get me. I wanted to go home. I was crying. She told me to breathe, calm down, and that she and Dad were already moving things out of the basement. We would talk more about it when I got home. I didn’t calm down. On the bus ride home, I called my mom again. Tears stung my eyes for the millionth time that day, something all of us non-criers hate. Angry, burning, rageful tears. I couldn’t take the celebrations anymore. My favorite comment of the night was, “Thank God for this flood! I really didn’t feel like doing my algebra homework tonight!” I didn’t really feel like watching my house get destroyed that weekend. I wanted to scream, to yell, to make them all understand. This was not a celebration. Homes, businesses, livelihoods, families and so much more was about to be damaged, potentially beyond repair. How dare you cheer and celebrate. My mom said I had to be the bigger person. I wanted to be small. I wanted them to understand the hurt and suffering and the horrible memories. I wanted,
Haley ???? Photo
As the flooding Cedar River approched it’s second highest crest in recorded history on Sunday, Sept. 25, many iconic landmarks like the Ice House museum and the playground on Island Park surrendered to the rising waters.
See FLOODING
Continued on Page 3
Emily Barth Photo
After years of teaching novel, English teacher performs Lee’s classic The lights dim, the sound of cell phones shutting down echoes through the theater, and English teacher Michelle Rathe takes center stage as director Greg Holt steps off after his curtain speech and lets the show, “To Kill A Mockingbird” speak for itself. Waterloo Community Playhouse recently put on a production of “To Kill A Mockingbird”, based on the book that Rathe teaches every year, usually in the second half of the first semester. The novel, published in 1961 and written by Harper Lee, is set in 1935 in an intolerant spot of Alabama. The book and play adaptation focus mostly on the
“It was a really good experience because it allowed me a deeper sense of character analysis that I’ve never had before ...”
—Michelle Rathe English teacher
injustice and prejudice against African Americans at the time. Since Rathe was cast as the narrator, a reflective older portrayal of Jean Louise Finch (Scout), she felt it only reasonable to bump up teaching the book this fall to her first unit. “I think it made me focus on different things that I brought up
to kids teaching it, or there were different parts of the novel that I had a better grasp on or I felt more strongly connected to than I had in the past,” Rathe said, in the middle of grading “To Kill A Mockingbird” essay outlines. Rathe has taught the novel for many years, but she said teaching it this time around was something incredibly special since she was also revisiting the mind of a young Scout Finch through the play. “It was a really good experience because it allowed me a deeper sense of character analysis that I’ve never had before because I knew the book relatively well. There were so many pieces and emotions I
could bring to it because I knew where they were coming from even if they didn’t appear in the play,” Rathe said. While she said doing the show was a great experience, Rathe definitely had some struggles in the process of creating the show. “In the play, there are certain things that are out of order and in different sequences, so I would struggle with having lines down because of the difference between the script and the novel sequencing,” she said as she smiled, reflecting on the two weeks she spent bringing Jean Louise to life for audiences of the Cedar Valley. “It gave me a different level
of connection both in the classroom and onstage than I’ve had before. I felt it more deeply, almost like it was a part of me, instead of a book I had read so long ago and enjoyed.” At the end of each performance, the cast bowed, sang a beautiful rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and the curtain closed, leaving the audience with a sense of wonder and chills as Rathe and other cast members lined up at the end of the stage to be greeted by the audience members inspired by the active retelling of one of America’s greatest stories. By Staff Writer Albie
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