M the MENTOR
April 9, 2013
Manhattan High School, Manhattan, Kan.
Science Olympiad places second at State Dheepthi Perumal Multimedia Editor Working hard all year, the Manhattan High Science Olympiad team competed at State against 30 other schools. Fifteen students along with sponsors Pat Lamb and Dick Nelson travelled to Wichita for a twoday trip. MHS placed second in larger schools and third overall with five gold medals, four silver medals and two bronze medals. The results were very positive for the team, moving up from last year’s third place. “I think we did really well this year,” senior Amy Fan said. “I think this year w e have a really strong, hard working group which I am very honored to be a part of.” “It was wonderful,” Nelson said. “It takes a lot for our
school size to place so high at State.” The students went through a lot preparing for State, with Saturdays sacrificed for experiments and improving models. With over many categories to compete the students tried to improve their experiments from past competitions to put their best for State. “It is my first year, and I got second in elastic launched glider which I am pretty happy about,” jun i o r Sriramana Sankar said. “I did my best and I guess it paid off.” “Austin and I got gold for designer genes,” junior Christine Shiau said. “Although, in Anatomy it was more competi-
1
Culinary team gets professional experience at Four Olives
“I think this year we have a really strong, hard working group which I am very honored to be a part of.” - Fan
“During these few days, we all bonded as a team and had a great time.”
The culinary team practices its skills at Manhattan’s local restaurant, Four Olives, under the owner, executive chef and mentor, Scott Benjamin. The team prepped and cooked the dishes they created at the culinary competition for the public last Saturday and Sunday. Kelsey Crawford, photographer
Choir auditions make another round Sarah Shi News Editor
Senior David Garcia, winces as the first drop of blood flows through the tube at the StuCo blood drive. Julianne Harkness, photographer made sure that the Red Cross ones much familiar to the orMaddie Ross and StuCo worked cohesive- ganizers. Co-Trending Editor ly.” “We have had this issue this “Before the blood drive year where it seems to take an Even though spring sports and full calendars usually chal- we always have the woman awful long time before the first lenge the scheduling of Stu- come out from the Red Cross blood sample, but that is not dent Council’s spring blood to come talk to the Student really on us. It is just how long drive, 62 Manhattan High Council,” StuCo sponsor Les- it takes the Red Cross to set students donated during the lie Campbell said. “Then we up,” Campbell said. But these minor glitches drive in the south gym last have everyone sign up for jobs, because there is just so did not faze volunteers as they Wednesday. The event was sponsored much volunteering that we took an optimistic outlook. “We only ran into a couple by StuCo with help from the need to have it run properly. Red Cross. StuCo has made A lot of it is just managing the problems scheduling-wise, and making sure people were in this event a priority in recent manpower, the volunteers.” Many looked to the event and out in a timely manner, years and says their experias another success for the but there weren’t any big caence helps in the effort. “In preparation I had to or- circumstances. “I think what tastrophes this semester,” Nelganize all of StuCo and make went well was that we got a son said. The final totals for the day sure all the people were bring- lot of people in despite spring ing the food that we needed,” sports and it was a pretty ef- included 73 attempted donacoordinator and StuCo mem- fective system since most of us tions, 30 first-time donations, ber Hannah Nelson said. “I working it have been doing it and seven deferrals. “It sure seemed like we got also had to make sure all the for a while,” Nelson said. Despite the successes the an awful lot of people through tables were set up and coordinate appointments. I also problems that occurred are to donate,” Campbell said.
Forensics Forensics meets are usually made up of separate events for individuals or partner groups, but on Friday the Manhattan High forensics team attended an entirely different kind of event, and it resulted in one team member qualifying for Nationals. The National Forensics League Congress was conducted at a church in Topeka. NFL congress is when the group of students and judges
meet in one large room to talk about the different bills that the school has submitted. They usually pass about 10 bills in the eight hours and they are usually about current events. The MHS team members were divided into four groups and had two sessions that were approximately three hours each. There was a final round that the top seven people from each section go to finals. Eight members of the MHS team got into finals and senior Jake Seaton qualified for Nationals
Volume 100 issue 22
tive since a lot more schools offer it.” With State being their last competition, seniors are saying their goodbyes. “State was an unforgettable experience,” Fan said.
Red Cross joins with StuCo for year’s second blood drive
Clu b Notes
News
in June in Birmingham, Ala. “I usually enjoy congress because you get to see other kids from different schools and you have to use teamwork,” sophomore Jina Ok said. - Nastajja Rivera
Tribe Tribe’s current fundraiser, Student in Need Fund, is aimed at helping students who can’t afford to participate in school activities, such as senior graduation or prom. “This was really started to show awareness that we really do have students that can’t afford a cap and gown for graduation or a dress or tux for
Choir auditions have arrived for the 2013-2014 school year and approximately 150 to 200 students will have gone through the audition process by the end. These auditions are coordinated by Choir Director Chad Pape, who continues to use to the two-part system to select future choir students. The first part has the auditionee go to Pape’s website to find sheet music of an until-then-unknown song, then record his or her voice and upload it to the website. The second part, which Pape admits is the hardest of the two, requires the students to read music on-site. “It’s the hardest of the two because they have to read onsite and independently,” Pape said. “It also doesn’t help that the music they’re reading is one that they haven’t seen before.” “It wasn’t too bad,” junior Jaylen Condra said. “What we did was just like board work where we just make the rhythm and draw the notes.” Although Pape holds these auditions annually, he continues to be excited by the incoming students’ singing talents. “The most enjoyable thing about auditions is that it makes me excited for next year,” he said. “This is such a big program and you’re worried that once everyone graduates, you won’t have anyone good left. But I’m always surprised by how good they are.” “I was pretty nervous,” junior Megan Knudsen said.
prom,” Tribe sponsor Cindi Nivert said. However, the Student in Need Fund is not something new. The fund previously had money but was depleted when a student approached Nivert telling her that she couldn’t participate as an honorary for homecoming because she couldn’t afford a dress. “I talked to the [Tribe] officers about it,” Nivert said. “There was only about $40 in there and we used it all for that situation.” The fundraiser started April 1and will run everyday for the whole month. Students must donate at least $1 to enter their name into the raffle drawing in hopes for getting a
“But I just got over it. It’s was my third time auditioning so it wasn’t that bad. We did something different this year, though. We had time to write in the rhythms and stuff before we did our music reading.” However, for transfer students who are auditioning to be on one or more of the four audition choirs, Pape occasionally does run into a few bumps in the road pertaining to the
“It’s the hardest of the two because they have to read onsite and independently.” - Pape student’s lack of sight reading or music skills. “We usually have transfer students who come and audition for the choirs and sometimes when I put the sheet music in front of them they just stand there and stare because they haven’t done something like that before, or by themselves,” Pape said. “I expect different things from newcomers or transfer students than my repeat ones. If a student doesn’t know how to sight read, I just talk to them about what we can do to fix that.”
$100 gift card from Tribe. For Tribe participants, the fundraiser has gotten a positive response. “I think it’s a good idea to raise money for those in need,” 2013-2014 secretary Kennedy Felice said. “I hope we can raise enough money for all student on our list.” Junior and next year’s Tribe Vice President Madison Long agrees. “The best part of this is knowing that it goes to a good cause.” - Sarah Shi
StuCo Student Council is holding a jean drive for their second semester service project.
Students help run elections, gain important insight Kaitlin Wichmann Photo Editor Last Tuesday, senior Diana Palomino was given the opportunity to not only miss a day of school, but also to earn up to $120. Palomino, along with several other select students from Manhattan High, served as election judges in last week’s election. The judges did tasks such as directing the voters to the polling booths, checking identification and having the voters sign their names. The overall experience seemed to be very valuable to the students who took part. “I benefited from the experience by getting to see how everything works,” Palomino said. “I thought it would be interesting to find out what the election process was like.” For junior Jerry Sextro it was his third time taking part in the elections as a helper. “I’ve had quite a bit of fun doing it the other two times, and it’s pretty good money,” Sextro said. The students worked nearly 14 hours (starting at 5:45 a.m. and ending at 7:30 p.m.) in order to make the election day run smoothly. Even after a long day of work, Palomino still the thought the day was well worth it. “I would definitely do it again, and I would recommend others to do it,” Palomino said. “I think if you understand what happens on the inside, then you will be more interested in voting.” Organizing the effort are sophomores Megan Ochoa and Dheepthi Perumal. “We have done a coat drive before and we wanted to do something different. That’s how we got the idea to make it more specific and collect jeans,” Perumal said. Collection boxes will be placed in the main offices of both east and west campuses. “We will have boxes for each grade to put their jeans in and whoever has the most donations will win a prize,” Perumal said. Donations will be collected through the end of this week. - Maddie Ross