Photo Credit: Catherine Atkinson[/caption]Latin Club students from Orange High School and Cedar Ridge High School participated in the 2014 North Carolina Junior Classical League (NCJCL) convention from April 11 to 12 at UNC Chapel Hill. Members competed in a wide variety of contests, including graphic arts competitions, academic tests, and Certamen finals.
Individual OHS students placed in multiple contests, and the Orange County Junior Classical League (OCJCL) team won second place in the spirit competition. The results for many contests have not been announced yet.
OCJCL members made tie-dyed T-shirts to wear to the convention Tuesday, April 8. They left school early April 11 and arrived at UNC Chapel Hill in time for the opening ceremony in the Fetzer Gym, where NCJCL president Brittany Burns introduced the convention. Afterwards, some contests, including the skit contest and essay contest, took place. From 8 pm to 10 pm, a dance was held in the gym.
The next day, all OCJCL members took academic tests and two teams competed in Certamen finals. Professors and students hosted seminars about the Vindolanda tablets, animal sacrifices, Greek and Roman comedy, and Greek and Roman women. Atkinson, who watched the animal sacrifice seminar, “Blood for the Gods: Animal Sacrifices in the Greek and Roman World,” said it was “very interesting and the speaker was very knowledgeable on the subject, which made it even more enjoyable.” The seminar was taught by James Rives, a professor.
Nicholas Mauriello, an OCJCL sponsor and OHS Latin teacher, said, “[The convention] was good. We always have hiccups [because we’re] such a small group.” He wished the parking lot for the bus was bigger because he had to do “bus acrobatics” to exit it, but he liked the overall location of the convention, stating, “I always enjoy Chapel Hill.” He said that one benefit of holding the convention at Wake Forest, where it was last year, is that it is “not open” so there is “some safety.”
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
Riley has loved sports since he was young and when he grows up he wants to pursue a career in sports journalism. He wants to go to UNC Chapel Hill to receive his degree. He would like to go into a sports reporting job where he gets to use his outspoken opinion to educate the world about his stance on teams. This summer he is attending a camp at UNC for sports journalism to help him enhance his knowledge of sports writing and reporting.
His favorite teams include the Yankees for baseball, the Panthers for football, and the Hurricanes for Hockey. He loves all sports and would watch just about anything dealing with sports.
When he is not watching or writing about sports, he has many hobbies. Some of these include watching MTV Reality TV shows, like Awkward and playing video games. His favorite subject in school other than journalism is math he said “I’ve always loved math, I just feel like I can solve any problem and it makes me confident.”
In preparation for this career, she is doubling up in science this school year, doubling up on math in her junior year, and taking college-level classes in math and science her senior year.
For college, Maxwell wants to go to UNC-Chapel Hill because of their fantastic medical program. When asked what kind of mindset is needed to be in the medical field, she said, “I think it takes motivation. It’s a lot of work; you have to have dedication to get anywhere in the working class.”
alism and Yearbook classes headed to UNC Chapel Hill to improve their reporting skills October 18. UNC Chapel Hill hosted its annual Journalism Day. The field trip lasted from 7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. The teacher for both classes, Brooke Smith, arranged for the classes to attend the convention for the second year in a row. Twenty-eight students, wearing matching blue "Keep Calm and Report On" t-shirts, got to experience this event that had student representatives from high schools across North Carolina.
There was an assortment of classes that students could attend. Students went to three sessions and ate lunch at the Lenoir Hall after classes were over.
Monica Hill, director of the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association, greeted the school groups. Journalism Day started with an opening session about covering the current election year led by John Frank from The News & Observer. The session also featured a door prize drawing. The classes were mainly centered in Carroll Hall, with the advertising sales presentation in Gardner Hall. Each session lasted approximately 40 minutes.
After long lines and a delicious lunch, students headed back to Carroll Hall for the closing session. Steven King, former editor and director of video at The Washington Post and current UNC professor, gave a short lecture on what makes a story and why stories are important. A few more door prize winners were announced then students and teachers packed up and returned to their regular learning facilities.
Written by Cheyanne Wilson
October is full of fun field trips, exploring various college campuses across North Carolina.
Journalism teacher Brooke Smith is taking her Newspaper and Yearbook classes to explore the UNC Chapel Hill campus October 18, spending the day inside the classes the students have selected. Such classes include Photojournalism, Editorial Writing, Review Writing, and Online News Writing. The students will go four classes with a lunch break in the UNC Cafeteria. Ms. Smith made the group t-shirts so the group will be easily recognized. The Carolina blue shirts say “Keep Calm and Report On."
Foods teacher Shannon Braxon and the FCCLA members have a district leadership meeting at A & T University. During this meeting, the members will be learning leadership skills and will be trained on how to encourage others. They also will meet other FCCLA members from counties including Person, Chapel Hill, Durham, Alamance, Guilford, Caswell, and Rockingham. The workshops will be taught not only by teachers, but also by students as well. This gives the students a chance to put their leadership skills to test and instill others in similar habits.
October 18, 7 students will take a risk and audition for the choral group at Mars Hill College in the hopes of being apart of a big performance held for the college students and parents. The auditions will be held at Mount Taper High School in Winston Salem. The judges will give the auditioning choral students a list of songs to choose from to preform for the judges, and will critique them accordingly.