The Rider Chronicle » Feature

Wichita Falls Optimist Clubs work to support underpriveleged children around holidays

EmmaWhite — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:56:51 +0000

While most people may recognize the name of the Sunrise Optimist Club, very few people know exactly what it is they do. Even fewer realize that there are actually three different optimist clubs in Wichita Falls alone. The three clubs are all affiliated with one another through Optimist International, but they have different goals and focuses.
“[The Sunrise Optimist Club meets] at 6 o’clock in the morning. That’s why its called sunrise, and some people don’t like that because they don’t want to get up that early. So it’s mainly for working people that couldn’t go to a noon meeting. And the other ones have different distinctions like that also, but we all work for the same thing and oftentimes we work together,” Sunrise Optimist Club secretary and treasurer James Price said.
Many people can hear the phrase ‘Optimist Club’ had have no idea what it entails. Perhaps it is a group of really happy people? While that may be true, the clubs don’t have anything to to with themselves. It is all for others.
“Our motto is, ‘friend of youth,’ and our whole job of what we try to do is help kids in a higher local area as much as possible,” Price said.
Price is also a sixth grade science teacher at Zundy Junior High. He works with kids every day, and continues to involve himself in this community service for the underprivileged and the extraordinary.
“This is a different type of community service than [my wife and I have] done before and we just love it,” Price said. “It’s really a lot of fun to give to others and to see the joy that it brings, to see the girls play softball.”
Price is referring both to his club’s annual Christmas party that supports kids from the Boy’s and Girl’s Club and the Sunrise Optimist Softball park complex, just across the parking lot from memorial stadium.
“We have a Christmas party each year where we bring underprivileged kids in, and we have Santa Claus there, and a magician. They all get presents, and things like that,” Price said.
The Optimist Club of Wichita Falls, which is a different club than the Sunrise Optimist’s, takes a different approach to Christmas.
“Their primary fundraiser is they sell Christmas trees,” Price said. His own club takes part in a different fundraiser, which many thrill seekers are likely to recognize.
“We just did our biggest fundraiser of the year for the 12th year in a row. We were the sponsors for the Sunrise Optimist haunted house,” Price said. “We had six different booster clubs working with us, and we brought in about $17,000. The booster club gets 75 percent of the money, we receive 25 percent.”
Of course, the money doesn’t actually end up in the hands of the Club members. It goes out to scholarships, notably the Young Texan/Tex-Anne program.
“Once a month we have students join our Young Texan/Tex-Anne program where they compete for college scholarships,” the Sunrise Optimist Club webpage states.
Applicants must be 16-18 years of age, preferably be a junior in high school, and must write out a resume of their scholastic, extracurricular, community and religious service, employment, hobbies and talents, and future plans. In short, applicants must be extremely well rounded.
“We have a contest every month, and of the winners at state last year 5 out of 24 came from our club,” Price said. “And there’s hundreds of optimist clubs in Texas. All of [our winners] received college scholarships for going through that program.”
The Red River Optimist Club sponsors two $500 scholarships to seniors committed to attending Vernon College or Midwestern State University to study either nursing or education.
The Sunrise Optimist Club has not been much affected by the economic recession. Their problems in the past few years have been of a different sort.
“We’re an aging club,” said Price. “The average age is probably 60 years old. So as we get older there’s things that we’re having to hire people to do that we used to do at the softball field.”
Despite hardships the Optimist Clubs in Wichita Falls are determined to continue serving kids.
“Our club is 52 years old,” Price said. “My wife and I have been members for five, almost six, years now. It’s a very good feeling.”

Purposes of the Optimist Cub:

“To develop optimism as a philosophy of life;
To promote an active interest in good government and civic affairs;
To inspire respect for law;
To promote patriotism and work for international accord and friendship among all people;
To aid and encourage the development of youth;
We do this in the belief that the giving of one’s self in service to others will advance our well-being, our community, and the world.”

Teacher overcomes struggles to become what she is today

Kayla Holcomb — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:55:42 +0000

She could see it in their faces as she walked through the door and introduced herself as their new teacher, ‘Well, no one else has stayed very long, so you’re not either.’ Whispers spread around the room. They were saying if they acted bad enough maybe she would leave just like all the others, and then they could keep bringing in new teachers. It was January when she accepted a job teaching a class who had gone through four substitutes during the entire first semester. “It was a huge adjustment for them to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere,” math teacher Mrs. Lydia Coyle said. “Once they realized that, I was able to build a rapport with them, but there were some discipline issues at first.”
Coyle had to face many challenges and learned from that first class to become the teacher she is today.
High school was rough for her. She came to Rider as the new girl, and found it lonely and difficult to make friends at first, making her sympathetic to students now who are facing hard times or just need someone to talk to.
“It was real cliquish. I was a newcomer, so there really wasn’t any opening for me because people had already created the friendships they wanted,” Coyle said. “It was a school that was not very accepting of new people.”
Once she graduated, Coyle went straight to college, but she didn’t always want to be a teacher. In fact, her mother advised her not to go into the profession. She decided to pursue mathematics, because it had always been her strong suit.
“When I was in college, I started out getting my degree in accounting,” Coyle said. “After two years in that program, I came to the conclusion that it was one of the most boring fields that existed. I thought I seriously couldn’t wake up every day and crunch the same numbers over and over again.”
Having her son changed her mind on teaching, and Coyle began to substitute until she could get her teacher’s certificate.
“When I had my first child I realized I wanted a job that would allow me to spend as much time with him as I possibly could,” Coyle said. “The only job that really allowed me to do that was teaching.”
But her first job wasn’t as easy as she expected. According to Coyle, teaching is very different than substituting. That, combined with starting in the middle of the year teaching a class who had only had substitutes all first semester, made her first experience teaching full time difficult.
However, the hardest obstacle Coyle had to face was overcoming the gap between her high school generation and today’s students.
“When I was in school, I led a very sheltered life,” Coyle said. “I was in all AP classes, so where I was coming from, everybody was respectful to their teacher, everybody did their homework, and everybody followed the rules. I wasn’t really exposed to anything else. In the AP classes especially back then, there were no discipline issues. There was nobody that had an F in turning in homework. It wasn’t until I started teaching all levels that I realized there was such a range in the years that passed and how much students have changed, for the good and the bad.”
Dealing with these differences, she has developed her own style of teaching and way of understanding where the students come from. Junior Celeste Hernandez believes Coyle’s way of teaching is helpful and easy to understand because she is willing to explain concepts multiple times to her students.
“She’s patient, and if you don’t really understand it, she’ll show you, and show you what you did wrong,” Hernandez said. “She’s funny, which helps keep you awake in class, she’s willing to help you if you’re willing to help yourself, and she’s just a great teacher.”
Coyle says the aspects that she thinks make the best teachers are “strong discipline, but in the same regard flexibility, the ability to recognize when something’s not working and to change, organization, knowing your subject, and knowing what motivates the kids.” She hopes that she exhibits these characteristics and that her passion for math comes out in her teaching.
“I think a really successful teacher is truly happy when all of her students are successful,” Coyle said.

Former Rider student fulfills dreams thanks to ASP program

adviser — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:54:49 +0000

“This was my last chance.” The final package was here. She had applied to eight schools and received seven financial aid packages, but still couldn’t afford any of them. Five months later, the eighth showed up. It contained the information that could either make or break her hopes of going to her dream school. She was already prepared to be disappointed and to have to settle in applying to cheaper colleges if this package didn’t offer enough in scholarships. Nervous fingers opened the package. “It was huge, with a whole bunch of scholarships, and it all seemed unreal.” She started crying and knew it was fate, that she was supposed to go to that college.
Logan Nevonen, a former Rider student who currently attends St. Mary’s college, realized that, with help from ASP (Academic Success Program), she would be able to achieve her dreams.
She first learned about the program in junior high and began to meet with ASP sponsor Ms. Jaclyn Muensterman for aid in preparing for college. She knew she would need all the help she could get, because inside she carried high expectations for her future.
Nevonen had faced her fair share of struggles early on in life. She battled with dyslexia and dysgraphia from the time she was diagnosed in second grade until junior high. The experience motivated her to want to give back to others in tough situations.
“In high school, I tutored kids that also had dyslexia and dysgraphia,” Nevonen said. “It was a way that I was able to help them.”
But she didn’t stop there. Nevonen also presented a documentary presentation in the Rider auditorium to raise awareness for Invisible Children and the war in Uganda. She raised money, and led a caravan to Dallas with a friend for the cause.
“There are lots of injustices in the world that make me very passionate to step up and make a difference,” Nevonen said. “I’m going to become a human rights activist, and my dream goal is to become a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council.”
With these goals in mind, Nevonen worked with Muensterman to find colleges that not only offered classes for her major, but also best fit her beliefs.
“St. Mary’s offers the liberal arts education I wanted, but the main reason I wanted to go there was because of their mission statement: empowering women to make a difference in the world after graduation,” Nevonen said. “Their classes are based around that idea.”
However one obstacle stood in her way: the price for her education. From her freshman year at Old High to her senior year at Rider, Nevonen studied hard each day and attended multiple workshops to improve her SAT scores hoping to receive scholarships.
“Both [Muensterman and the ASP counselor at Old High] stressed the importance of studying and pushed me when I didn’t want to do it,” Nevonen said. “They kept telling me, ‘Even if you don’t want to, it’s going to get you successful one day.’”
Nevonen credits Ms. Muensterman and ASP with teaching her the essential elements that got her in the position she is now, from showing her how to prepare her application to how and what to study for the SAT, and says she wouldn’t have received her academic scholarships without the program.
“ASP helped prepare me,” Nevonen said. “If I didn’t get a lot of help from them, I wouldn’t have this opportunity.”
With the opening of that financial aid package, all of the hard work paid off and Nevonen took one step closer to achieving her dreams.

Online drama negatively affects students lives, drawing some to emotional problems, suicide

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:24:47 +0000

“I felt upset, scared and lonely,” Sally* said. “It felt like everyone was against me.”
“I posted a status on Facebook about me and my boyfriend breaking up,” Sally said. “A bunch of girls said it was because I was ugly and fat, and that I deserved it. No one cared how I felt.” All of Sally’s depression and harassment came from one simple Facebook status.
“I became really depressed. I let it get to me a lot which only made it worse,” she said. “They could see it breaking me which only seemed to make them do it even more.”
Bullying has lead people to as much as suicide from cyberbullying. In this case, it lead to depression and insecurities rather then their life.
“It continued for about a week or two, then I realized I needed to do something,” she said. “I talked to my mom about it. She reassured me that I didn’t deserve it and called their parents.
Though “it may seem like you’re being being childish and telling on someone,” it was the smartest thing Sally did.
“If I saw someone being cyber bullied today, I would tell them to tell an adult immediately,” she said. “It’s the smartest decision you can make to handle. It’s the most mature choice you could make to stop all the hurtful things people say to you. People realize it’s wrong once they see what it’s really doing to you.”
In cases of bullying, many students choose to go to the office to alert them.
“We have people come to us almost every day,” Ms. Hitchcock said. “At least two people per week.”
The office can take action against cyberbullying.
“Things that people post on Facebook, can get brought to the school and we can get involved with it,” Hitchcock said. “If it does get to the school, we can give D-Hall, Denver, or as much as press assault charges against the person causing the bullying.”

At least 300 in district without homes, school supplies

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:24:17 +0000

She is pretty and kind. She has big dreams, but she’s tired. Jane* is homeless, and she could be sitting right next to you.
One in three homeless people are under the age of 18. According to the WFISD Public Information officer Renae Murphy, there are at least 300 registered homeless students in the district this year, and last year there was a breathtaking 500 students without a home. Sadly, there are even more that just haven’t told anyone about their condition unlike Jane.
“I don’t live in a house,” Jane said. “My mom says we’re homeless on documents and insurance papers.”
Jane said the situation is stressful for her entire family including her siblings. That stress has led to family fights.
“I want to live in a house away from my parents,” she said. “They argue a lot.”
Even in her current situation, Jane has managed to keep her dreams big.
“I want to move to California and attend an academy for the dramatic arts,” she said.
Jane is only one of many students in a situation like this. The school district has a social worker that helps organize ways to provide for the students in Jane’s situation. These students receive clothes, food and many personal items that benefit the whole family.
Where do these supplies come from? They come from the student body and faculty members. When clothes are donated to the school, they are given to a student that couldn’t afford those clothes on their own. The same goes for books and other school supplies.
Imagine not having the necessary supplies needed in class on a daily basis. That is a stress on homeless students every single day. Without donations, homeless students could be sitting next to you empty-handed, wanting to learn and being incapable.
Guidance counselor Alice Rogers said students can help the situation.
She said students should look through their closets, and on the next trip to the store ask mom or dad if they can grab an extra spiral or package of pencils. That help might just be the one way for Jane to pass her classes, sending her to California to achieve her dreams.

Coppage competes in high profile race after No Bummer Summer leads to new life experiences

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:23:32 +0000

He reached the hardest part of the race. The mud was thick, sticking to his knees to the point where they could barely be lifted. One by one, he had to pull his legs out of the goop with his hands each time he wanted to move. The mud ate his socks, but fortunately, he’d taken his shoes off before he jumped in.
Communication Applications teacher Scotty Coppage glanced at his wrist watch, sighed, then wondered “When will this be over?”
Coppage was participating in one of the country’s most excruciating races, the Tough Mudder. A race that takes hours to complete, Coppage finished in six.
It’s a heart pumping, oath signing race that takes teamwork and strength, both physical and mental, that participants have to start training for months ahead.
Coppage said he wanted to give up so bad sometimes. Especially whenever he had to do the running parts of the race. But he said when he would do the obstacles that’s all he would be focusing on. Nothing else ran through his head. Just finishing that dreadful obstacle. And that’s what he did.
“What was cool about this was that I never thought that I would do anything like this. Ever,” Coppage said. “It’s something that I’m going to have to tell my grandchildren about.”
The race is a culmination of a life change Coppage started last summer. That change was symbolized in his No Bummer Summer. Every day he did something that was out of the ordinary for him.
Also, he bought a guitar and started taking salsa lessons and saw some friends that he hasn’t seen in 10 years.
Coppage said he learned lessons about himself that he hopes to pass on to his students.
“It’s not an adventure unless there is a possibility you can fail,” he said. “I really wanted to quit sometimes. But I didn’t.”

She’s met more than her fair share of stars

adviser — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:57:57 +0000

Sophomore Kayli Myracle is an expert on meeting celebrities. To name a few: Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Bruno Mars, Nick Jonas, Ariana Grande, Iyaz, Sean Kingston, Mario Lopez, Perez Hilton, Demi Lovato, Jasmine Villegas, Cody Simpson and plenty more.
She’s definitely not a stalker. Most of the celebrities she met at concerts, movie premieres and other different events. Kayli has been to L.A. three times, and during those times she took some chances and got lucky.
“I met a few just by running into them at random places in L.A.,” she said. “Nothing planned, just random encounters.”
Talk about being in the right place at the right time.
Kayli’s favorite celebrities she met were Jasmine Villegas and Ariana Grande “because they’re both so down to earth and such sweethearts.”
The first celebrity she met though was the teen idol Justin Bieber.
“I also loved meeting Justin Bieber because he was really sweet and funny,” she said.
Kayli enjoys singing and acting and aspires to be like them one day.
“I look up to a lot of them,” she said. “It’s such a high for me to see what they’re like in person and how they treat people around them.”
She has already made her “debut” in the Justin Bieber Movie, “Never Say Never.” One of Kayli’s close friends owns a popular Bieber fan site. Paramount contacted her, asked her to find a few girls who would be good that they could email, and Kayli was one of them.
“Paramount Pictures contacted me,” she said. “I signed the legal waivers and recorded my part to the audio clip that they sent to me, and sent in my video.”
Upon meeting these celebrities, she realized that some weren’t who she thought they were.
“A few were really rude, and I don’t support them anymore,” she said. “My thoughts have completely changed for a few celebrities because of how they treated me and my friends or my sister who was with me.”
Other encounters that were more pleasant helped her realize first hand that celebrities are every day people just world renowned.
“I learned that they’re normal,” she said. “I know that sounds dumb, because of course they’re normal, but some can get really materialistic and act like a diva and act like they’re better, but most don’t. It’s nice to know that you’re supporting someone who deserves it.”

Extreme heat causes pre-AP biology teachers to cancel annual freshman insect project

EmmaWhite — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:54:50 +0000

Sneaking stealthily through the underbrush, the fearless freshman spotted a creature of rare beauty and excellence. Not waiting for it to escape, the freshman pounced on it with net and jar.
“Aw man, another cricket,” the freshman sighed.
Fortunately, this is the sort of situation that was prevented by pre-AP Biology teachers Shara Humpert and Robert Novak this year. That’s right. No you didn’t read incorrectly, the freshman are not doing an insect project this year.
“[We're not doing it] primarily because of the drought,” Novak said.
And indeed the drought this year has been tough. (See ‘OUT OF THE FRYING PAN…’, p. 7)
“The weather service tells us we’re in the worst drought since 1921, and we’ve had 5.8 inches of rain since October 2010. There just aren’t many insects,” Humpert said.
It is very true. People who usually get eaten alive by mosquitoes, for one, will have noticed the considerable lack of the species.
“I was seeing maybe five or six orders in my yard, compared to what I used see. [I would] laugh at the kids and say, ‘Yeah I saw 10 orders on the way to school today,’” Humpert said.
Novak was concerned about the difficulty of the project because there are so few insects to find.
“You’d have to go out looking really hard to find anything that is the least bit unusual,” Novak said. “The insect collections are hard enough as it is, but then when you factor in that you’ve only got a quarter of the insects that you normally have, it just makes it doubly hard.”
Freshman all across the board are relieved that they don’t have projects of their own to do.
“My friend who goes to Old High and is in pre-AP Biology there says they still have to do it. He came over to my house, and I had to help him look for some bugs,” freshman Austin Laughlin said.
Humpert says the environmental scare was as much a factor as the new found difficulty of completing the project.
“What we were hearing from Wild Bird Rescue, was that some of the migratory birds and even our indigenous species were having trouble finding food for their young,” Humpert said. “They were kicking their babies out of the nest. They had probably 40 [baby birds] turned in during one month’s time, which is what they usually have over a whole summer season.”
Novak’s concern was not as much for the birds as it was for the students.
“I don’t think it wasn’t as much an environmental issue as it was that I didn’t want my students to have to struggle to find those last 20 or 30 insects. I really didn’t want to put them through that,” Novak said.
Although they may have had different reasons, both teachers ultimately agreed that it was best to abstain from having the insect project this year.
Fall semester is off the hook. However, both teachers hinted at some sort of project for the spring semester. Freshmen, happy hunting!

Students search for new ways to pay for college without going into debt

adviser — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:53:42 +0000

Because of the rising cost of college, seniors need to be prepared to face their financial situation in a serious way by taking advantage of scholarships, loans, and financial aid, but not biting off more than they can chew.
In the next few weeks, seniors will be busy writing essays and applying to universities, trying to cut the cost of their college education. Most students will apply for scholarships (local and national money given to a student who takes the time to apply and meets requirements) and grants (federal, state, and local money given to students based on FASFA applications).
“Financial aid is easy to apply for, but harder to qualify for,” College Counselor Julie Johnson said. “Universities are given a pot of money, so it’s first come first serve. When it’s gone it’s gone.”
Loans are another option for students who don’t qualify for grants or didn’t get enough scholarships to pay the price they wanted for college. But seniors should be wary. According to a National Post Secondary Student Aid (NPSSA) study in 2007-2008, 86.3 percent of four-year undergraduates had student loan debts of about $24,651.
“Graduates spend 15-30 years paying off student loans,” Kim Snodgrass, a Geometry teacher who recently taught a seminar for personal finance, said. “They don’t think that will affect them in buying cars and homes after college, but it does.”
Loans may be great for paying for college cost at the moment, but seniors shouldn’t forget that loans have to be paid off after college, with interest. The current interest rate for a student direct PLUS loan as of July 2010 is 7.9 percent which means if you take out a two year $5,000 loan, approximately $422 is added on annually to the price of the loan you took out. The longer you wait, the more money you pay.
“You shouldn’t have to take out your whole tuition in loans,” college advisor and Academic Success Program (ASP) director Jaclyn Muensterman said. “If you have no other option, that’s something you have to weigh. Take out a small amount, but be smart about it. Don’t take out more than feasible to pay back.”
There are also ways to stay on top of paying back your student loans by making monthly payments after or even during college depending on what payment plan you decide to use. With a standard plan, students have a minimum of five years to pay back their loan after college but not more than ten.
“Students can pay on interest while in college to whittle down the cost of loans but don’t pay until after college,” Snodgrass said. “Most graduates only make minimum payments and don’t realize that their interest keeps growing.”
There’s also a way, if students have multiple student loans, to combine them and have only one interest rate to pay. It’s called “loan consolidation” and undergraduate students are able to apply for them after they graduate college or when they drop below half-time enrollment.
“The more money you contribute to the cost of education, the less you have to borrow,” Snodgrass said.
Keeping options open can also open doors to a lower cost of college. Depending on the schools students apply to, the schools can decide to give the student money to attend and cut the cost of college in a financial aid reward packet.
“They need to prepare themselves to apply to a wide variety and few different types of schools,” Muensterman said. “You don’t know how much college will cost until you see the financial aid reward packet from each school.”
Scholarships are the most essential in decreasing the price of college. They don’t have to be paid back, and students can apply for them year after year.
“Organization is critical,” Snodgrass said. “You can re-apply for scholarships every year, so keep a binder with essays and deadlines and reuse essays. It’s a lot of work but it can ease the pain in your wallet.”
If students wait too long however, scholarships can disappear fast and are hard to find out about. Students need to be on the ball to get the price they want to pay for college.
“Scholarships are hard to come by, but if students sit down one weekend and fill out scholarships, they’re more likely to get a $10,000 scholarship for their first semester of college,” Johnson said.
Don’t fall victim to payments on student loans. Make sure to take care of monthly payments on time and pay off loans as soon as possible.

Unnatural heatwave swarms North Texas, burdens WFISD summer activities all around

EmmaWhite — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:29:26 +0000

You survived the summer of 2011. It was a summer of miserable heat that the Weather Channel proclaimed as the Number One worst summer all over the U.S.
It was a summer that mentally transported people to deserts, the parched places of the world, gasping for a drop of water.
It was a summer that kept people inside where the unbearable rays of sun couldn’t touch them. It kept everyone inside except summer athletics, the marching band, and the colorguard.
Football two-a-days had to be rescheduled to the mornings rather than afternoons.
“We got [practice] done before it started getting majorly hot,” Coach Bill Davison said. “With the mandate that came down from the school district, we had to shut down practice once it got above a certain temperature.”
The policy for 100 degree weather to end outside practice for all WFISD activities was put into place as Wichita Falls set triple digit heat records and student health came into question. The marching band, too, kept practices to the morning because of the new rule.
“We made sure we were not outside past about 10:30 because that’s when the temperature would sky-rocket from 90 to 100 degrees,” assistant band director Michael Walta said.
Each student had a different way to deal with the record setting triple digit temperature.
“I drank a ton of water and ate healthy food, like lots of fruit,” colorguard member Jennifer Patton said.
Football was also very aware of getting the athletes enough to drink.
“We had water breaks every 15 minutes and our trainers Coach Brown and Coach Winkles did a great job of making sure everybody stayed hydrated,” Davison said.
As the months turned into the fall, things seem to be cooling off a bit. Rain has come back to Texas at least twice, and outside activities are beginning to feel the effects of welcome relief.
“It’s easier to breathe because the humidity’s not as bad.” Patton said. “When it’s cooler, [practice] is a lot easier.”
Also, because of that small bit of rain, a football player who gets sacked may get a helmet full of mud rather than a face-plant into short yellow-ish spikes of dead grass.