Homer Gives Back

Homer Gives Back

Skyler Powers

The holiday season is upon us and, once again, charities and fundraisers are asking for your help to give back. The Homer Central School District has done their part throughout the holiday season with fundraisers, charity drop-off boxes, and sales to help folks in need this year.  

Before Thanksgiving came and went, the Homer Intermediate School held a canned food drive to help people put together their Thanksgiving feasts.  The drive collected more than canned goods; any nonperishable item was also eligible for the drive. The HTA (Homer Teachers Association) also held a canned food/nonperishable item drive.  This drive was not open for student contribution, but the teachers built up a generous pile of items for the Scott Food Pantry.  

The Intermediate is once again giving back to the community by holding a toy drive.  The toys collected will be picked up by the Toys for Tots Foundation, which will then be distributed to children in need this holiday season.  The items or donations can be toys, cards, board games, and so on.  The toys must be new and unwrapped or the foundation will not accept them.  So break out those dusty, unused, and unopened Christmas presents from last year and take them down to the Homer Intermediate School.  Homer also participated in a Holiday Card Drive this year. This drive collected cards to brighten holiday spirits and was present throughout Homer from the eighth to the sixteenth of December.

Last of all, SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), a club in the Homer Senior High School, is holding a fundraiser which sells Red Ribbon t-shirts.  The money raised will be used for research and support for people living with HIV/AIDS.  If you buy a Red Ribbon t-shirt, then you can  also contribute further by participating in the Homer High School’s annual human Red Ribbon at 7:45 in the morning on December 23rd.  Make this the club’s biggest Red Ribbon yet!    

New Guidelines on School Food

New Guidelines on School Food

Tighe Gugerty

As many of us know, obesity and being overweight are problems currently plaguing America. Being either overweight or obese leads to a flurry of health woes such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. With the alarming rates at which America’s waistline is expanding, the government is attempting to set the tone for a healthy lifestyle at a young age. The USDA has issued a new set of guidelines for public school food, trying to make the school meals more healthy. These guidelines delineate specific nutrient contents that foods require and sets calorie limits for school sold ediblies. The rules state that any school food must be rich in whole-grains, fruits, vegetables, or protein and it must contain 10% of the daily value of specific nutrients: potassium, vitamin D, or dietary fiber. In addition to the nutritional requirements, the food sold in schools now must meet stringent calorie guidelines; a main entree must be less than or equal to 350 calories and snacks must be 200 calories or less. There are also limits on the amount of sodium (less than 250 mg), sugar (less than 35% of total food weight), and fat (less than 35% of calories) in items. The guidelines extend to beverages, stipulating that beverages sold must be water, milk, or 100% fruit juice. Finally, these guidelines are also required to be followed with school fundraisers; these fundraisers may break the rule if the items are sold infrequently, during non-school hours, or off school grounds.

Despite their grand intentions, these guidelines have some shortcomings. For example, the requirements of beverages do not prevent excess sugar consumption because they still allow fruit juices and flavored milks that can be loaded with unneeded sugar. These guidelines also don't take into account that students may buy multiple snacks, entrees, etc. which would effectively defeat the purpose of calorie limits.  This is also stifling to the attempts of clubs for raising money. Fundraisers involving desserts tend to be successful and these guidelines make it harder for clubs to hold them, potentially affecting their financial well being. It also does not allow students to learn how to control what they eat upon their own volition and does not teach them that it is ok to have unhealthy foods in moderation; it creates a notion that all unhealthy foods should be feared and that it is not fine to even enjoy these on occasion. Lastly, it does not let students choose for themselves, which is an ideal that built this nation and will carry it into the future.

If you would like to see the guidelines yourself, go to theses links:

USDA: http://www.fns.usda.gov/healthierschoolday/tools-schools-focusing-smart-snacks

Nutrition Standards for All Foods Sold in School (pdf):

http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/allfoods_summarychart.pdf

Too much homework?

Too much homework?

Tighe Gugerty

Whatever your academic standing is in high school, what all students love to hate is one thing: homework. No matter who you ask, homework is often the bane of a student’s weeknights or maybe even  their weekends. Students from all levels of the academic ladder feel as though they are strained by their amount of homework; they feel as though it interferes with their ability to participate in sports, enjoy their hobbies, participate in clubs, or just be a kid. These dilemmas plagued Kristen Rahner, a sophomore in our school. She herself has felt the strain of homework and has attempted formulating a solution to alleviate this problem.

Kristen’s original idea was to extend the school day by one hour, adding roughly eight minutes to each period of the day. She believed the extra time would warrant teachers to give more work in class that would otherwise be assigned as homework. This initial plan was released to the masses of Homer High via a document on Google Drive. She had shared it with a few people, and she encouraged them to share it amongst their peers. The document got twenty comments on it the first day and is now shared with over one hundred and fifty people. All students were welcome to comment their opinions on the subject and a few teachers also chimed in. Initially, the idea was received with resounding approval. Students said they also felt bogged down by their workload and openly accepted the idea of lightening their burden. As the document remained up, other types of comments started to appear. Many of these comments said that no homework would be nice, but there could possibly be some burden in that benefit. Time management was a particular worry among those who commented, but they were still open minded to a  possible lessening of the amount of homework.

After hearing the initial wave of responses, Kristen retracted her one hour addition plan and replaced it with the idea of block scheduling. In this plan, students would not have all their subjects in one day. They would take each class for a longer period of time but only have each class every other day. Kristen believed that this would better solve the homework problem since teachers could now teach their lesson and then have the students work on what would be homework in class. This system, she believed, would get rid of the typical day to day homework (math problems, worksheets, etc.) and would allow students more time for long term assignments.

After all of these revisions, the document had been up long enough for comments to deviate away from constructive criticism to more harsh opinions. These naysayers dismissed the plans saying it could be solved in other ways, feeling the issue was a moot point.  A common argument against the plans was that it is primarily the student’s fault for their homework woes. These, who commented, felt that a student’s procrastination and general laziness was to blame for their troubles. They felt that if one better divided up their work and did not push it off, then one would not have troubles with homework. These opinions may hold some weight, but Kristen was aware of the effect that procrastination has on homework. She believes procrastination does cause some of the stress, but that with other activities added into the weekly schedule, homework is at times overwhelming. Some who commented went further than just lessening the load of homework with the idea of creating a teacher “blacklist”. This “blacklist” would be a list of teachers who students thought gave out too much of the scourge that plagues high schoolers. Once a teacher was identified as a rampant homework assigner, students planned on confronting the teacher and using collective bargaining to bring the level of homework down. Kristen felt this idea may have been too far over the line and that this may turn into a modern day witch hunt. With these dissenting opinions, Kristen was able to get a better idea of what the school thought and if her idea would be accepted or not.

Annual Holiday Light Show

Annual Holiday Light Show

Tyler Ponticello

The Seiberts’ annual holiday light show is up and ready to go for the fifth year in a row. The Seiberts live on Cosmos Hill Road and their light show is a mixture of popular Christmas carols and choreographed lights.  Chet Seibert is really excited for his show this year because he has more lights and more songs to include in the display. He has been working on the lights for this year for six weeks and hopes that people will come out and enjoy them. He said he got  the idea of doing the light show six years ago while on his computer.  He had found a video online of a light show in the midwest and thought,  “I could do that”. He bought all the lights and bought a special light programmer. He put up the lights and used the programmer to make the lights go to the music.  Chet Seibert said that the light shows are something that he does by himself because it’s fun and he loves to see everyone come out and enjoy his work. His show starts at 5:30 pm and runs continuously until 10:00 pm and he invites everyone to come and see it. Also he said not to forget to tune into 107.7 Fm to enjoy the holiday music. If you have any questions feel free to come see Mrs.Seibert in room 223.

Meet Juan!

Meet Juan!

Ana Shore

A few weeks ago I interviewed Juan Carlos Kern, Homer High School’s newest exchange student. After looking at my list of questions, I decided to start by asking him where in Mexico he was from. He told me he was from Puebla, a large city in the southern part of Mexico. I then asked what sport he played, which I might have guessed as soccer is very popular in Mexico. He also informed me of the differences between the school systems in the United States and Mexico.  Unlike our system, the schools in Mexico have the teachers switch classrooms instead of the students. Juan said that he likes this because it is fun to stay with his friends all year. I then came to questions about food. When asked for a comparison between food in the U.S. and food in Mexico, Juan said, “Oh, this is a hard question! In Mexico, when you go in the supermarket and get tomatoes, they are fresh. In America, the tomatoes come in a can or bottle. The healthy foods here are more expensive.” He also told me his favorite American foods were hamburgers and hot dogs. Lastly, I asked why he decided to come to the U.S. He replied by telling me, “In Mexico young guys become exchange students to learn the culture of different countries and to improve their other languages. I wanted to improve my English, its not very good.” Make sure you say hello to the newest member of our school!

Homer Comes Out On Top, Fall 2014

Homer Comes Out On Top, Fall 2014

Joe Settineri

Homer High School had an overall winning record for 2014 fall sports. The fall sports included: golf, girl’s tennis, girl’s soccer, boy’s soccer, field hockey, football, boy’s cross country, girl’s cross country, volleyball, and all  junior varsity sports. The Trojans (in varsity sports) won 58 and lost 45 games/matches/meets resulting in an overall 56% winning rate for The Trojans, not bad for the Homer kids.

In varsity golf, Brody Urban took the spot of MVP leading his team to a 7-8 overall record. Urban earned first team all-league status, with Baylie Goddard and Brent Mcneil earning second team honors. The boy’s and girl’s cross country teams also ended up with high overall standings, earning 4-4 and 6-2 records respectively. The MVP recipient for the boys was Evan Ulrich and Arielle Moheimani for the girls, with each posting impressive times. Second team all-league status was earned by Evan Ulrich and Grant Stokoe for the boys. For the girls, second team all-league status was earned by Zoey Fish and Erica Stevens, and first team honors was awarded to Arielle Moheimani and Mckayla Crawford. Girl’s tennis ended up with a winning record as well as coming out with 9 wins and 4 losses. MVP and first team all-league statuses were awarded to Marissa Sacket and Rachel Crompton. The girl’s soccer team, even with a new coach, managed to produce a winning record of 9-7 with one tie. The MVP’s included Lucy Connery and Kim Dieroff. For the girl’s soccer team, first team all-league honors were awarded to Kim Dieroff and Caroline Yonta. Second team all-league statuses were awarded to Nina Armideo and Stephanie Kristof. Boy’s soccer had a winning record of 9-8. The MVP award was earned by Anthony Levitskiy and first team all-league players included Anthony Levitskiy, Nick Yarnell, and Marton Tozer. Second team all-league players included Brad Sovocool, Mark Harris, and Nick Sahm. Varsity volleyball came out with a winning record of 12-7. The team benefited from powerful performances from the team's MVP, Emily Cottrell . First team all-league players were Emily Cottrell and Molly Urich, no second team members were selected. Unfortunately, the girl’s field hockey team didn't fare so well with a 3-13 record. Erica Barhite was selected as the MVP for girl’s field hockey and also a member of the second team with Maddie Mallory. Last, but definitely not least, the boy’s football team came out on top with percent of games won. An impressive 10-1 record was earned by the team, and their standout MVP and running back, Alex Bush, led the team in points. First team all-league statuses were awarded to Anthony Basile, Jayden Gavidia, Drew Cottrell, Alec Bush, Joel Christopher, Jake Hayes, Gage Root, and Matt Suits. Second team all-league awards went to Dylan Hotchkiss, Luke Sears, Zach Clark, Dean Riley, Drew Becker, Chris Birchenough, Adam Raymond, and Dylan Williams-Bachman. Overall, Homer Central High School had a winning record, with seven out of nine teams having  greater than a 50% winning rate.

 

Percent of games/matches/meets won

Golf: 42%

Girl’s tennis: 69%

Girl’s soccer: 56%

Boy’s soccer: 53%

Field hockey: 19%

Boy’s cross country: 50%

Girl’s cross country: 75%

Volleyball: 63%

Football: 91%

Understanding Aviculture

Understanding Aviculture

Alex Levitskiy

The newspaper advisors recently suggested to write about what is going on in the lives of the student writers.  I am going to take this opportunity to write about one of my passions: birds.  I raise all sorts of species of birds in my backyard. While I do have birds for personal enjoyment, I have a greater purpose in that I’m conserving various bird species from extinction.  This is referred to as aviculture, which is defined as the raising and care of birds, especially of wild birds, in captivity. The reason why I am able to acquire the species available to me is due to the endless efforts of previous aviculturists that maintained the captive populations of rare and endangered birds.  With very few people of the younger generations interested in this hobby, the task of conserving a growing number of endangered species gets increasingly harder.  However, there has been vast amounts of hybridization, posing another difficulty.  My goal is to maintain a pure stock which will contribute to a limited gene pool of some species.  Of course, aviculture is not for everyone. But each week I plan on doing a species spotlight that will present a species to increase the school’s awareness of some of the birds I raise as well as more rare birds in other private collections.  Some may choose to keep a backyard flock of the domestic birds like chickens, descendants of junglefowl.  Perhaps these articles will spark the interest in someone who will pursue the path of raising ornamental birds that may face extinction in either the near or far future.  

All pictures accompanying these articles will be of birds in my private collection, unless otherwise noted.

Lady Amherst Pheasant male

Bronze Spalding split Blackshoulder Peahen

Smew Duck male    

(Photos taken by Alex Levitskiy)

Bradley Keith Hits the 95th Percentile

Bradley Keith Hits the 95th Percentile

Joe Settineri

Recently Bradley Keith, a senior at Homer, received recognition for placing in the 95th percentile for the PSAT/NMSQT. Keith, an honor student, plans to attend college in the fall of 2015. Since he has parking spot number two, he is also currently second in his class.

Q: So, did you actually receive one of the PSAT scholarships?

A: No, just recognition.

Q: Did you prepare for the PSAT to get such a good score?

A: No, not really. I did take it twice though, once in ninth grade and again in tenth grade.

Q: Walking out of the test how did you feel?

A: I really felt fine, not spectacular or anything.

Q: If you could take it again, what would you differently?

A: I would probably actually study.

Q: How does it feel to be in the 95th percentile of the people who took the test?

A: It feels like I'm better than 95 percent of the people that took the test.

Q: Do you think that getting such a good grade on the PSAT made you study more or less for the actual SAT?

A: It didn’t affect my study habits for the SAT.

The Origins of Cotillion

The Origins of Cotillion

Ana Shore and Mel Videto

This Saturday, November 29th, is the annual Cotillion. The theme of this year’s dance is “A Winter’s Evening in Paris”. The Cotillion is an event thrown for Cortland and Homer High School’s junior and senior girls, who are all permitted to bring a date with them. The tradition of cotillions has been around for a long time, it originated in France in the 1700s. Originally, it consisted of four couples dancing in the formation of a square. This is similar to square dancing in the U.S. where the directions are called out loud by a caller. The name cotillon, which is French for "petticoat", reflected the use of the women’s petticoats by the men in the dance. Cotillions were often used to present a young woman, or some other prominent figure, to society for the first time. By the 1800s, the cotillion had evolved to include many complex dance figures with more couples. The tradition of the cotillion was introduced to Britain around 1763 and from Britain it came to America around 1772. However, the tradition really caught in the western hemisphere with its reintroduction into American culture through a costume ball hosted in New York in 1854. The costume ball was a German Cotillion with the theme of Louis XV and was hosted by Mr. William Colford Schermerhorn. This was where the roots of the cotillion were planted in the U.S. and the dance started to become more widely practiced. In Britain, the tradition of cotillion widely disappeared, except for French or historical contexts. Although the Cotillion that our community practices today has strayed from many aspects of its French roots, it’s still a fun filled night.

“Cotillion.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22nd October

2014. Web. 28th November 2014 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotillion>.

Movie Review: Interstellar

Movie Review: Interstellar

Skyler Powers

Interstellar is the latest and greatest from the renowned director, Christopher Nolan, who is known for his cinematic masterpieces including Inception and The Dark Knight trilogy.  Interstellar follows a team of explorers who use a newly discovered wormhole to travel from galaxy to galaxy in search of a new home for the human race before the dying Earth becomes uninhabitable.  

This movie was great; Christopher Nolan didn’t disappoint.  The movie also have a very complex plot and, like Inception, requires deep thinking to fully understand and enjoy the film.  The acting was also spectacular; Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway were superb in their roles. Matt Damon and Michael Caine also brought their best acting to the table.  

The film had amazing visuals.  The design of the wormhole and the different galaxies seemed so realistic even though we have never seen another galaxy for ourselves.  The planets were even more breathtaking in visuals and they had some interesting characteristics.  On the Earth, the feeling of peril is quickly established with the constant dust storms and the dying plants and animals.  It is even more shocking because we know that our Earth could look like that in the future if we don’t change our ways.  

The movie clocks in at almost three hours in runtime which may seem long, but the movie does a good job at keeping you interested.  There is also good balance with family bonding, peril and disaster sequences, and even love.  There is something for everyone to enjoy in this film.  I loved Interstellar and I think that it beat Gravity in storyline and visuals by a long shot.  Critics are comparing it to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I think is a fair and debatable argument.  Whether or not Interstellar is the next 2001: A Space Odyssey is based on opinion, but it cannot be argued against that Interstellar is an amazing, heart-warming, and breathtaking film of intergalactic proportion     

Are You too Old to Trick or Treat?

Are You too Old to Trick or Treat?

As Today is Halloween, we are going to bring you an update to an age old debate; what age is too old to go trick or treating? The opinion on this differs vastly from age group to age group and from person to person. So in order to better grasp what age people view as acceptable, we conducted a poll. We asked random students and teachers during and between classes what age, they believed, marked the end to Trick or Treating. Without further ado, here are the results.

As you can see, the age groups of 18-19, 20+, and Never are the largest age groups for the student voters. It seems that the age groups of 12-13, 18-19, and Never seem to be most popular among older voters. Many voters seem to agree that death is the only barrier stopping them from celebrating Halloween, with Never being the most popular answer for both teachers and students. Roughly 1 out of every 5 students believes that they will be Trick or Treating after the age of 20, showing their optimistic, yet possibly naive, view of the future. Another 20% said that 18-19 is the end of the holiday for them, which makes sense. Those ages are typically right after the last years of high school, which were the last true times to spend with your high school buddies, and at this period friends are moving away and making it harder to celebrate. According to this data, it seems that many students plan to partake in Trick or Treating this year. Whether your are participating for the sweets or just to socialize, make sure to stay safe and courteous this holiday season.

Learning about Dairy

Learning About Dairy

Julia Fouts

As school presses forward, it is important for students to stay healthy. Between homework, sports practices, and club meetings, nutritious meals are vital. Dairy products have enormous benefits when included in one's diet; every serving is packed full of nine essential nutrients. During the school day, protein found in dairy products helps students to stay focused in the classroom. Milk, cheese, and yogurt also provide energy, powering kids through their extracurricular activities. After sports practices, the best refueling drink is chocolate milk; it has great nutritional value, and less sugar than power drinks. Even beyond high school, dairy products allow for a healthy life by strengthening bones, preventing diseases, and contributing to a stronger heart. Three servings of dairy products is the daily recommendation, and there are so many delicious options to choose from. One cup of lowfat milk, whole milk, and even lactose-free milk are a few varieties; they each have their own, unique taste. Cheese, yogurt, ice-cream, and butter are also great sources of dairy with a variety of options. As students’ minds grow from their education, their bodies will grow, strengthen, and refuel from dairy products.