Photo Credit: Joyce Cory. License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en. Piles of toys are waiting to be given away.[/caption]Juniors and seniors from Beta Club, led by Tina Walker, volunteered at the Orange County Social Services center for the Toy Chest from December 11-15. The Toy Chest is an annual event which helps provide families in need with toys for Christmas. Ages 0-18 are covered, so even teenagers and infants have gift options.
Wednesday through Friday, volunteers stocked toys in rooms to make sure everything was set up properly for the weekend event. Saturday and Sunday is when the event was opened to parents to pick up toys. In order to be able to escort parents around, one must be 18 or older, but since most high schoolers are under that age they just continue to stock rooms or help carry toys to parents’ cars. Haley Moser, Beta Club Vice President, said, “I got to interact with people in the [Toy Chest event] which was cool. I love volunteering for it. I think it’s fun and I got to meet a lot of interesting people.”
When the doors opened on Saturday, even in the bone-chilling weather, parents stood in a line that stretched around the whole side of the building. The Toy Chest is the most busy from 10 am to 2 pm since this is the beginning times for the event and in turn people have the biggest selection of toys to choose from. Parents are allowed to pick a certain amount of toys (usually about two or three), a book, and a stocking stuffer for each child.
Nick Gentile, a Beta Club member, said, “[The Toy Chest] put into perspective how many people are in need in Orange County and made me feel thankful for what I had.”
Toys for Tots provides toys to the OCSS along with first hand donations to the center. Beta Club members helped bring in toys the entire week before the Toy Chest event. The club itself has been taking advantage of many volunteer opportunities lately. They donated bags of rice and cans of chicken to school so they could pack 50 Christmas meals to give to families in need. They also are collecting items for two kids off of the Angel Tree located in the front office.
Photo Credit: Maddie Norwood[/caption]The first pep rally of the year instilled cheer in students’ hearts, Friday, October 4. All the sports teams for the fall were recognized and seniors on each team were recognized individually. Clubs showed off some of the things they had prepared during the pep rally such as the famous Kiss the Goat event. Chase Austin, a senior, was the emcee for the pep rally.
The OHS women’s tennis team was the first to go out during the pep rally. They were followed by cross country in which only two people were there to represent the team since a majority of them had left earlier to go to a meet. Varsity volleyball and varsity soccer were third and fourth to come out. Lastly, the football team and cheerleaders came out with much enthusiasm.
After the teams came out, Interact Club announced that Summer Anderson and Matthew Crabtree had won the Kiss the Goat competition. Both of them proudly took the honor and kissed a goat the ag members had chosen. SGA also showed off the spirit links that they had been selling. Each link was a quarter to buy and different colors represented the different classes. The seniors won overwhelmingly by having many more links.
Sankwon Reams performed a mixed martial arts sequence to music. He did flips, kicks, and other challenging moves. Julia Treis, a senior, said, “I thought what Sankwon did was good and really interesting.”
After Mr. Watters, the “Panther Boogie” singer, left OHS, a new song was necessary for the pep rallies. This song was created by Mr. Curry and it was a big hit. The pep rally concluded with people running onto the gym floor to participate in the Wobble.
The 45-minute pep rally was packed with excitement and it got people pumped up for the Homecoming game later that night. Haley Moser, a senior, said, “The pep rally was good, I thought it went better than past years. People seemed really into it.” Skylar Crabtree, also a senior, said, “The pep rally was different than usual and fun!”
Photo Credit: Nan-Cheng Tsai[/caption]The yearly college fair held at the Dean Smith Center on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus hosts about 100 colleges from all around the country. The fair lasted from 6:30 to 8:30 pm on Tuesday, September 17 and was organized by Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Private universities, public universities, community colleges, and even vocational schools gave out information about themselves. Seniors and juniors make up most of the people who attended but even middle school students came to find out more about post-secondary school options.
The setup of the college fair was in a circle and schools were in alphabetical order. Representatives from each school were eager to answer students’ questions about anything from minimum SAT scores to popular majors. Popular schools to get information from were Elon, ECU, and schools that were a part of the UNC system. Even Ivy League schools such as Harvard were there to talk to hopeful future students.
Haley Moser, a senior, said, “I thought [the college fair] was very informative and provided information about schools that are far away that students would not have access to otherwise.” The schools she was interested in getting information from were Wake Forest, NC State, and UNC-CH.
A list of all the schools that attended can be found at this website: http://chccs-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/2013-college-fair.html
Written by Devin Johnson, Brianna Hales, and Maddie Norwood
During the festival, people can go to local cafes and restaurants. Last Friday brings in a lot of business to places such as the Wooden Nickel and Radius Pizzeria. Often the Wooden Nickel is so packed one can barely make it through the door. Cup-A-Joe holds a pie contest and sells all of the entries after winners have been chosen. The Hillsborough Arts Council runs an Art Walk. Art museums provide information about sculptures located around Hillsborough to residents. April 26 kicked off the first Last Friday of this year. Numerous vendors sold food and drinks while clubs and businesses tried to recruit new members and buyers. The Brand New Life, an indie rock and jazz band, played music on the steps of the Orange County Courthouse to entertain festival goers.
Haley Moser, an OHS junior, thinks that Last Fridays are “great” because “they’re a special occasion that's looked forward to by people of all ages. They’re an important tradition in Hillsborough because they allow people to “show off goods they make or to just socialize with people they might not see very often.”
The next Last Friday will take place on May 31. The Galactic Cowboy Orchestra, a bluegrass band, will perform.
Burgner welcomed students and parents to the ceremony, then Wimberly, the guest speaker, talked about why students should try their best in school.
“You are in a pivotal position in your life... Life doesn’t just happen to us if we are paying attention,” she said. Wimberly is not involved in Beta Club, but she was chosen as a speaker for multiple reasons.
“[First,] I teach most of the students inducted into Beta Club at some point and some of the senior Beta Club members suggested me. Second, I am the 2012-2013 Orange County Schools Teacher of the Year.” She believes that Beta Club is important because “it recognizes outstanding effort and because it gives those outstanding students a chance to be a part of service projects. We hope that getting involved in serving others will continue throughout their lifetime.”
Reid-Shaw, a senior and the current Beta Club president, described Beta Club. “[Beta Club is] an academic society that students are invited to join by being in the top ten percent of their class GPA-wise.” She said that students should join Beta Club because “it’s pretty inspiring to be part of something this large.” Beta Club does volunteer work, which is important because “volunteer hours are critical for your resume and getting into college.” Reid-Shaw also said that Bill Clinton and Diane Sawyer were Beta Club members.
Madison Chandler and Haley Moser read the names of the inductees. Each new member walked to the front of the room and shook club adviser Tina Walker’s hand, then accepted their pin and bumper sticker. Once every member was recognized, the inductees read the Beta Club pledge.
Megan Joyner, a sophomore who was inducted at the ceremony, said that she was excited to join because it will “look good on my college application and [it is a] good achievement.”
Rachel Shinnick, another sophomore inductee, stated that “[becoming a member is a] really big honor and I’m excited to be a part of [Beta Club].”
Anastasia Zitko, a junior who joined Beta Club last year, said that Beta Club is “great. [You] go out in the community and help people.”
Walker said that Beta Club members are “academically motivated and they are the future leaders in our community and society.” She will not know Beta Club’s plans for the 2013-14 school year until the year begins. “We will make decisions about next year at the beginning of the school year. Sometimes we do the same activities as the previous year and sometimes we take on something new. It is completely up to the members as to what we participate in.”
She thought that the ceremony went well. “The speakers did a fabulous job. The only thing is I wish there were more parents that would have attended, but this is out of my control.”