M the MENTOR
Feb. 5, 2013
Manhattan High School, Manhattan, Kan.
Counseling office compiles local scholarship list Julianne Harkness Staff Writer
With graduation around the corner, Manhattan High School’s counseling department has compiled a list of area scholarships local students might qualify for. There are 50 different scholarships on the complete list; 17 of those are from the Manhattan-Ogden Public Schools Foundation. “The Manhattan-Ogden scholarships are all applied for at the same time,” counselor Dustin Duntz said. “You fill out one application and it applies
to all 17. The applications for that are due in March of 2013. The application is on the USD 383 website under the counseling department, subsection Post Secondary Planning.” When choosing a scholarship to apply for there are always things to consider: requirements, cut off dates, the amounts that the scholarship covers and what school they can be used for. Some scholarships that are on the list provided by the counseling departments are strict about what school recipients can attend with the scholarship. Others
Inducted
can be used anywhere in the state of Kansas. Thirty three of the 50 scholarships work at Kansas State University. With every scholarship there is an amount that is covered with it. The scholarships on the list vary anywhere between ‘to be determined’ and $50,000 per year. However, high-amount scholarships come with high expectations. The University of Nebraska Ruth Leverton Scholarship covers up to $8,500 per year. However, with this applicants
The Brown Bag Lunch Series met again on Jan 30; this time Dean Youngers was speaking about teamwork. Youngers was the construction manager for the three-year construction project at MHS. Youngers gave each student a list of the steps he uses
to undertake the task of working as a team. “A group of participants, trained and organized to perform the action or labor required to accomplish the task at hand,” Youngers said as he defined teamwork. Youngers is in a unique position to describe teamwork. “There’s a difference between construction and manufactur-
See Scholarship on page 3
ing,” Youngers said. “We only build one model.” Because of the teamwork Youngers’ construction group demonstrated, the project was completed far ahead of schedule and the project was done right, he said. They only had one chance to complete their job successfully, and they comSee Leadership on page 3
IPS narrows down next year’s class through interviews Maddie Ross Trending Co-Editor Interviews for Manhattan High School’s 2013-2014 Interpersonal Skills Class begin this week. The IPS class is designed to improve the social skills of special needs students by interaction with other students. The curriculum addresses areas such as self-esteem, friendship and volunteerism. In addition to interacting with each other, students also take field trips and participate throughout the community. In recent years, the class has gained great popularity amongst seniors. The increasing popularity results in a large amount of interest and applications. “Recently we sent out about 81 invitations for interviews,
and around 40 were returned,” special educat i o n t eacher K i m Schnee s a i d . “ W e will int er view those 40 and hopefully come out with about 25 to be in the class.” The interv i e w process is described to be similar to a job interview, with both spe-
cial educators and current IPS members present to screen candidates. “I look for students who are involved,” Schnee said. “We also look at grades and tardies. We are interested and ask about their knowledge about the class as well as what they can bring to the class. It is very similar to an job interview in the sense that we look at posture and presence. We want people who want to be there. I also really value the opinions of our current
“We are interested and ask about their knowledge about the class as well as what they can bring to the class.” -Schnee
See IPS on page 3
Shannon explains snow day plan Seth Runyan Staff Writer Students who hoped for a day out of class were disappointed about the school day after a snowstorm last week. Most students aren’t aware of the many factors and plans that go into preparing for a snowstorm, but plans are exactly what keeps things together as USD 383 Superintendent Bob Shannon tries to assure the roads safe for school to
take place. Shannon also knows that they need flexibility when snowstorms begin at night. “It is very rare when we make the call the night before the storm,” Shannon said. Preparation begins at 3 a.m. when the maintenance crew gets their equipment out. It is then where they go out to area assignments throughout the district stretching out as far as Pottawatomie County. After an hour of cleaning the roads,
Clu b Notes GSA
Anime
Gay-Straight Alliance is no longer on the active club list. Due to the lack of a sponsor, GSA had to close up shop and become a group instead. GSA is attempting to get their feet in the club door and become active again by next year. The only reason they lost all their sponsor offers was because of the fact students were taking advantage of the activity time and skipping meetings. “It is the students’ job to find GSA a sponsor,” athletic director Mike Marsh said. “Or the sponsor can come to me and volunteer to be a GSA sponsor. We advertised for GSA sponsors through emails during the summer and fall, and no one has showed interest in being a sponsor.” “We are looking for members and a sponsor trying to get things back up and running,” sophomore Aireauna King said. -Nastajja Rivera
Anime Club is hosting a cosplay tea party tomorrow right after school in club sponsor Regina Harden’s room, A-116. Cosplay is the anime term for the subculture they create by dressing as their favorite anime characters. The tea party, like all anime events, will focus on Japanese traditions (in this case, food) in addition to the anime characters. The theme is Twisted Wonderland, based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice.” “I’m going as the caterpillar,” senior Riley Scherff said. “It’s a simple character to go as and I’ve always like the caterpillar in the original.” The party is open to anyone. Tickets are $2 and can be purchased from Harden. -Ben Shields
Debate As the Debate season ends, the Forensics season begins.
the Director of Transportation is on the road in “risk” areas in rural roads, highways, parks and downtown. Half an hour later, Shannon and his associate superintendent meet to make the call. “There are three factors that we go through before we make our decision -- what the weather has done, what the weather is currently doing and what it will do,” Shannon See Snow Day on page 3 Many students are pleased that debate is over. They’re ready for new topics, acting and public speaking. Forensics coach Shawn Rafferty says he excited for the change and is ready for the upcoming Forensics season. “With about 70 students total involved, 85 percent being made up of freshmen and sophomores, defending the State championship with them will be a fun process,” Rafferty said. The team went to their first competition on Jan. 25 and 26. Overall, the team took second place and came home with a total of 36 medals. “For our standards and how we like to do at competitions we didn’t do our best,” Rafferty said. Junior Robert Kobza broke in three of his events. He placed third, fourth and sixth. “Personally I didn’t do good,” Kobza said. Though he did not personally do his best, this will not slow him down for the rest of the Forensics season. “My goal is to nationally qualify. To do that I will just have to practice, and practice,” he said. The team competed again Saturday. Overall they got sec-
Volume 100 issue 17
Scholars Bowl ties second at Regional championship Julith Perry Staff Writer
Leadership in the bag John Riforgiate Staff Writer
News
Junior Liz Logback holds her candle lit from the “candle of truth” during her Quill and Scroll initition. Held Jan.31, the induction confirmed the members of the newspaper and yearbook staff into the chapter of the international honorary. Kaitlin Wichmann, photographer
FCCLA workshop hopes to encourage creativity skills Kaitlin Wichmann Photo Editor After winning a gold level award at nationals last year, the Students Taking Action with Recognition event team of sophomores Sierra Haug, Shaylyn Hubbel and Kristen Fraley are hoping to wow the judges once again. The team is a part of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. They have created a community service project that, if qualified, they will present at district, state and national levels. For their STAR event this year, the team did a creativity workshop for third graders from Amanda Arnold and Manhattan Catholic School. “We got the idea after doing a health and nutrition workshop with second graders last year for our STAR event and we made it all the way to nationals and got gold,” Haug said. “We found we really ond place, and placed a total of 32 times. -Maddy Sparks
Club Dodgeball Nine teams entered Club Dodgeball on Jan 29. One team left with the trophy -Spanish Club. The South Gym slowly filled with people in anticipation of the event, each team representing their club of choice. The gym buzzed with excitement. Some clubs decided to have a team uniform; Students Against Drunk Driving wore blue club shirts, Spanish club wore black and Thespians wore pajamas. “It’s casual. It makes a statement,” sophomore Trevor Bashaw of Thespians said. “We wore pajamas because we’re the dream team.” The pairings for the first game were handed out on yellow sticky notes, so students were excited to begin the competition between the clubs. The games slowly whittled down who was going to go on to the finals and who would be spectators of the conclusive game.
liked working with kids, and Shay came up with the idea of doing a creativity workshop.” Haug, Hubbel and Fraley plan to do workshops for three other elementary schools before the end of February. “We had a lot of fun and were originally just planning to do two schools,” Haug said. “But we had so much fun, we are doing as many as possible now.” The workshop wasn’t just about giving the kids something to do, it was about encouraging the kids to grow and expand their creativity skills. “We touched on aspects of creativity such as writing, drawing and problem solving,” Haug said. “We helped the kids realize that creativity is more than just the arts and that is more a mindset.” The team will present their project tomorrow at the district competition.
Many students were enthusiastic, even if they were eliminated before the last game. “We did pretty good, we made it to the semifinals,” Derek Wood of Black Student Union said. After many rounds of dodgeball, Spanish Club beat Key club in a close win. They cheered as they hoisted their trophy for a club picture. -John Riforgiate
Key Club In past years, Key Club has tried collecting recycling throughout the Manhattan High School campuses. Although they have tried many ways, none have been perfect solutions. Picking up recycling is time consuming, and additionally because the students pick up the recycling after school most of the rooms are locked with no way of opening them. Due to the cons in their current recycling schedule, the club has come up with new plans. “We have tried many different ways for recycling but none are efficient,” Key Club secretary Siera Haug said. Starting tomorrow, teachers
“This will be a hard group to say goodbye to. They are a fun group of guys to be around and they are good kids on top of that,” Scholars Bowl coach Ted Dawdy said about saying goodbye to the seniors on the team. Last Thursday, the Varsity team competed in Regionals at Lawrence Free State where the team tied for second place. There were two pools to start, the top three teams of each pool advanced to the championship pool. The team went 3-1 in the first two pools, then went 3-2 and ended tying for second in the championship pool. “ [I am] pretty proud of how we did, we had pretty good moments when we answered questions we didn’t think we knew the answer to,” Varsity team member Jack Hubler-Dayton said. Olathe South won the Regional competition with a 4-1 record, beating MHS with 80-70 on the two tie breaker questions. The top four teams qualified for the State tournament. The last time MHS won a state championship in Scholars Bowl was 1993. For the Varsity team members, last Thursday was the last time they will compete in a high school Regionals for Scholars Bowl, “[It was] a little bit of a realization that I wouldn’t be able to do [Scholars Bowl] for the remaining of senior year,” Varsity team member Nicholas Donohue said. “You have big shoes to fill, step it up if you want to live up to our reputation,” Varsity team member Logan Sutton said as advice to next year’s team. With a competition almost every week, the team has practices twice a week.“Practice every week, [it] pays off,” Varsity team member Austin Canady said. Practice helps the team improve but there is no telling what the outcome will be. “Go with your gut, there are a lot of questions to answer,” Hubler- Dayton said. With the seniors leaving there are spots open to join Scholars Bowl. “Don’t be afraid that Scholars Bowl is a nerd or geek event,” Dawdy said. “It is low pressure and I only ask for what time you have [available].” “[Dawdy] is an excellent coach, we are a handful and he knows how to work with us,” Donohue said. The seniors and Dawdy still have one more competition together as a team. On Saturday they will be competing in the State tournament for Scholars Bowl. “Hopefully the highlight of the season is yet to come on Saturday at the State tournament,” Dawdy said. who participate will have their own boxes for their classrooms. It will be up to the teachers to empty their box in the yellow Howie’s bin in the copy rooms around the schools. Then, Key Club members will empty the bins and take the recycling to Howie’s. “I really hope this works for the teachers and also the members of Key Club,” president Sophie Wang said. In their last meeting, Key Club watched a movie promoting Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and have decided to do Pennies for Patients as one of their spring service projects. However, some things still need to be finalized. “I think its a great way to raise money for a great cause,” Haug said. A large amount of Key Club members are interested in going to the District Convention in Wichita on March 15-17. In addition to the cost of lodging, food and transportation, Kiwanis has generously donated $400 to raise money for the students to attend. -Dheepthi Perumal