Windsock

Warriors Incinerated

EMHS Flames: 67 Grace Christian Warriors: 39

Last night, Wednesday January 29 at 7:20, the EMHS varsity boy’s basketball started their path of destruction against the Grace Christian Warriors.

EMHS started with an early lead against the warriors, pulling ahead 20-8 by the end of the first quarter.  They seemed unstoppable with the score at 25-10, but the Warriors came back, scoring 10 points in a row. 

The Flames realized they couldn’t let Grace Christian, who they’d beat by 25 points last time, get this close to victory, so they scored 13 points in a row, bringing the score to 38-20 at the half. 

Mitchell Leap was on fire during the 3rd quarter, scoring 17 points in a row.  Lucas Schrock-Hurst finished up the scoring in the fourth quarter with two 3-point shots and a 2-pointer at the end. 

EMHS had an advantage early on, after the other team had fouled 7 times, and Mark Ferguson and Mitchell Leap both took advantage of the extra free throw.

It was a very satisfying game for the Flames, who hope to continue their victory against Fishburne on Thursday.

- Eric Broderson

Why Were Exams Cancelled?

Exams. Just thinking about them is enough to make some people’s blood pressure rise. The stress that goes with that twice yearly event is enough to make men weep. However, this year, EMHS managed to catch a break. A large amount of snow closed the school for two days, the Thursday and Friday of exams. For some, this was news for rejoicing, for others, cursing. One thing about exams; although they can be extremely difficult, they are also very useful for raising one’s grade. Some teachers even curve them to create a greater boost for students who need it. With two of the exam days lost, some are left without this needed boost. However, for the administration, the need to move on into second semester outweighed the need for exams. According to Mr. Martin, the second semester is significantly shorter than the first, which means that the school would try to avoid losing any days. Still, exams are an important part of certain class grades, and if the little extra was needed, some students are feeling abandoned.

Questions or Thoughts? Post a comment. I will endeavor to answer to the best of my ability.

- Joe Phillips

This is What Happens...

When you don't go to Pack the Gym Night. Rocks. Big rocks.

Doused by Luray

A large crowd gathered at EMS to watch the girls’ basketball game and participate in “Pack the Gym”. Many students at EMS had been waiting anxiously for this game. The SCO went on a campaign to get students to attend the game and cheer on their schoolmates. They even created an ad for the game in chapel. Afterwards students were encouraged to watch Cool Running with their friends. According to Katy Bergey, a sophomore, it was one of the largest crowds that she has ever seen at a girls’ game. Many were drawn to the school to see their friends play and show school spirit, while others went to avoid getting rocks packed into their lockers. Large rocks mind you.

It was a disappointing night for the Girls’ varsity basketball team. They played against Luray, which was a fairly strong team, according to Katy Bergey. The game was fairly close due to the strong defense on the part of both teams. Senior Erica Lehman ran into some foul trouble, which was detrimental to the team. The game was full of emotion as the girls played and their friends cheered for them. In the end the score was 43 to 31 in Luray’s favor. If EMHS had won they would have gone up in ranking, but it was a tough game.

Before the varsity team played, the JV team also played against a Luray team. Olivia Deputy, a freshman, said that the game started with confidence, but that confidence was hard to maintain when Luray went on a 12 to nothing run. They had played Luray before and were hoping to have a better foothold this time in the struggle. Olivia said that the team could have been more aggressive, because as the rest of the game proved, that 12 to nothing run cost them the game. In the end the score was 11 to 26 in Luray’s favor. It was disappointing, but taught lessons that could be used for future games.

- Freeman Bendfeldt

Flames Dismantle Fishburne

Mitchell Leap.

I could stop the article right there and you would know everything necessary about Thursday's game. The senior guard posted a possibly-record breaking (If not amazing) 39 points in EMHS's blowout win over Fishburne Military School. In fact, halfway through the game, he and senior Travis Nyce had outscored the entire Fishburne team.

In the game's opening minutes, the Flames jumped to an early 9-4 lead over their guests, establishing a dominance they would continue to show throughout the duration of the contest. Fishburne had one substantial big man who recorded several blocks, but other than that no one seemed capable of shutting EMHS down. On offense, Fishburne's star was forward Michael Barrett, who scored 22 points.

One reason the Flames were so easily (85-57) able to beat Fishburne was because of a relentless defense. Leap had many fast break opportunities due to picked off passes. More than a few times frustrated opponents would throw wild passes out of bounds, a tribute to our defensive efforts.

Travis Nyce scored 17 points, Ryan Eshleman 11, and Austin Townsend 10 in one of EMHS basketball's finest moments of the season thus far.

- Mikey Cranston

Looking Forward to Discovery Trips

As students and faculty at EMHS know, mini-terms, a chance for students to explore learning outside the classroom, have been reformatted into a new Discovery curriculum.  This change came about in response to a desire to better the mini-term program in light of dialogue with teachers, parents, and churches. 

In the new Discovery curriculum, students receive credit for Discovery activities, whereas before, a mini-term was simply required every other year.  Because Discovery terms will be offered each year during the week after exams and before graduation, (another change) students can choose when they wish to attend a Discovery trip, making the system more flexible. 

These Discovery trips and activities will essentially be the same as the week-long mini-term activities.  Now, however, students can count church service or convention trips, choir trips, the month long out-west Discovery trips or other acceptable activities towards this Discovery credit.  Two such credits are required to graduate, one earned sometime in 9th or 10th grade, one in 11th or 12th.  One of these two credits must be earned through a school trip.

The only substantive change from the Mini-terms to the Discovery trips is the requirement that students journal briefly about their experience.

This change from mini-term to Discovery came about in response to feedback from churches and families.  Oftentimes church trips and school mini-terms became competing interests, especially when such trips each cost a large amount of money. “Congregations welcomed more cooperation with the school,” said Steve Yoder, a Bible teacher at EMHS who is heading up the transition from mini-term to Discovery curriculum.

According to a survey earlier this year, 42 high school students plan on counting a church trip for Discovery credit, demonstrating that such cooperation is indeed happening. Others were dissatisfied with mini-term because it was simply seen as another cost in the student’s education which did not include any credit.

But the new Discovery curriculum is not set in stone.  Said Mr. Yoder, “While I wouldn’t say it’s a test run, it is open for evaluation …we will be listening to feedback from students, faculty, churches and others.”

- Nathan Hershberger

7th Grade Report: Week 17

Weekly Report
By Madeline Hostetler

This has been an eventful week, involving sports, projects, and lots of fun. The big deadline of the end of 2nd quarter was on Friday. Some interesting projects were turned in, and they consisted of bottles. The bottle project consisted of creating a working ecosystem inside a bottle. There were some very creative turnouts, and you can see a few in the media center. Another project coming up is the Roman Market Fair. This is a time when students can set up a booth and sell products and services to other 7th graders and also the 6th graders. Also coming up are exams, so study up! This week was the start of the basketball season for the middle school girl’s team and the 6th and 7th grade boys team. So far the boys have 1 win, 3 losses. The girls have 6 wins, 0 losses. Be there to cheer us on! Now that you know about what went on this week, have a great day and may God bless you!

EMHS Whiteboards

They say you can tell a lot about a person by looking at the whiteboard on their locker. Unlike many other area schools, EMHS has whiteboards on the outside of each locker in the hall. These whiteboards serve many purposes for the student body.

One purpose is for notes of encouragement. When scanning the hall, I found one locker that simply stated, "Just giving your blank locker some love." Down the hall a ways, another locker stated "You are my banquet date!" Other lockers have homework assignments and old pictures from when the "owner" was little plastered on the front. Some lockers are covered in wrapping paper, a  tradition at EMHS to celebrate a friend's birthday. Others had newspaper clippings about someone's favorite football team victory (The Green Bay Packers being a popular choice). One locker in particular that caught my attention said, "If the U.S. spent zero dollars on 'defense' for one year it could double the income of 13,000,000 five-member families at or below the poverty line."

The whiteboards on the lockers symbolize to me the compassionate nature of our school. When I was observing the whiteboards, I did not find a single negative comment on a locker. Instead, the lockers were covered with bits of encouragement and acts of kindness. Though the locker comments are a wonderful thing to see, I think what encourages me the most is the persons behind the written thoughts. The lockers serve as a small symbol of our caring student body. Today, I encourage us to continue to remember each other throughout our days. I end this article with quote by Harold Kushner, "When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel."

- Rose Jantzi

Facebook "Censorship" Justified?

Do students have the right to say whatever they want about the school outside of it? This very question became a topic of debate recently, as a result of some controversial Facebook behavior. (I personally don’t have a Facebook account, so whether or not I even have a right to talk about it is at the discretion of the reader). As I understand it, some EMHS students created a few Facebook groups, some attacking teachers and some attacking the entire school. Once the administration found out, those who created the groups were told, by the school, to remove them, only to have a “We Have Opinions” group started in the aftermath.

I feel that the school was entirely justified in requesting the removal of the offending groups. Before you go pulling the First Amendment card, think for a second about what’s at stake. In a few years, when students are applying to colleges and getting jobs, the people looking over their resumes will, I promise you, Google their names. The price of all their offending comments back in their Facebooking days will become immediately obvious. I don’t think that the school should be so harshly criticized for making students remove something that will probably become a bane for them in the future.

For another, I personally don’t think that “freedom of speech” vindicates overtly publishing something that is offensive or hurtful, especially when the publishers are high school students. (As I pointed out already, just because we have the right to do something, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea or that we should be allowed to do it – in the same way that a parent should stop a little child about to stick his finger in a light socket, even if the child knows what he’s doing). The school hasn’t stopped any students from forming or joining “Just War” groups or any other groups which may disagree with the school’s policy, so they can hardly be accused of infringing free speech or beating down those with differing opinions. Rather, the school stepped in when insensitive and immature things were being said.

Some of you may also scream “Public relations!” and accuse the school of only wanting the offending groups removed because they could hurt the school’s reputation. That’s one point I’ll give you – and “I Hate EMHS” group started by the students doesn’t say a lot in favor of our school. However, EMHS, more so than maybe most public schools, relies on its reputation to get funding, students, and a lot of what it needs to stay open. While requesting the removal of the Facebook groups for the sake of reputation might not have been the “right” thing to do, I doubt that it was the school’s only reason, and I’m willing to let it go.

In short, I’m not about to blame the school for its censoring. If the removal of an offensive Facebook group could indeed be considered a First Amendment violation, then perhaps I am a poor patriot. I certainly wouldn’t support the school if it decided to edit the Windsock before it was published or control what went into Eclectia. However, in the case of an “I Hate EMHS” Facebook group, I’m willing to give the administration some grace. –Whitney Showalter, Co-Editor

Facebook Controversy

Many teenagers have occasional issues with their educators, but it’s not very often that EMHS’ administration is seriously accused by dozens of students of violating centuries old constitutional rights.  When this happened, it understandably caused quite a stir.

According to students, within the past few months, three groups on the popular social networking site Facebook have been deleted by their creators at the request of school officials who deemed the groups inappropriate.  One of the groups was jokingly dedicated to destroying the Peace Pole in front of the school, one was for people who “hated” a certain teacher, and the third was called simply, “EMHS Sucks.”  In response to the deletions, another group, “Guess what EMHS? we have opinons- stop making us delete groups…” was made to protest what the creator perceived as students being forced “to delete a group they made because it goes against EMHS.”

The group sparked intense debate, with students divided over whether the school was justified in asking the groups’ creators to delete them.  “As long as our school continues to spy on us and tell us what to do, we have the right to complain about it and have an strong opinion about it,” one student, a supporter of the protest group, wrote.  Another supporter wrote that she was, “Tired of not being able to speak my mind at emhs cause everyone will give me crap about it and try to explain to me that my standards are WRONG.”

Other students were more ambivalent.  One wrote that, “Emhs has no right to tell us what to do outside of school,” but agreed that, “some of the groups were hurtful.”  Though she had initially joined the anti-teacher group, she said she had since had a change of heart.  “The groups were quite inappropriate,” she wrote, “and shouldnt have been created in the first place.”

Still other students wholeheartedly agreed with the school’s actions.  “The creators of these groups,” a student wrote, “as members of the EMHS community, have every right to express their opinion, so long as they do so in a civil manner, and so long as the opinion itself is deemed valid by the community, i.e. not what we call hate speech. (so far, I would argue that the three groups I know of fall into those two categories) Once more, we all signed onto this when we wrote our name on the on the handbook card, we all sign on to this whenever we join a community or institution. This is not unique to EMHS. It is a part of living together in any community.”

The controversy even attracted external attention, as several former students and at least one person who, as far as the author can tell, has no direct connection to the school, joined the Facebook debate.  These posters were also divided in their positions regarding the school’s actions.

Principal Paul Leaman says he was only personally made aware of one of the groups, the one for people who hated a certain teacher.  He was informed by Dean of Students Sherman Eberly; Mr. Eberly heard of the group from a faculty member, who had in turn learned of it from a student.  Because of what Mr. Leaman called the “hurtful nature” of the group, the two agreed to take action.  After Mr. Eberly discussed the matter with the group’s creator, the group was deleted.

Mr. Eberly says he feels that some of the statements made on the group dedicated to hating a teacher were “almost slanderous,” and that some might even be considered “threatening.”  He feels that the group went against the code of conduct by which all EMHS students agree to abide, and that the administration was therefore entirely justified in asking for it to be deleted. 

“People say, well, it wasn’t meant for teachers and parents,” Eberly added, “and yeah, maybe you didn’t intend for them to see it, but still, you posted it in a public forum.”  Mr. Eberly says that it isn’t uncommon for schools and businesses to utilize information found on Facebook and other sites.  For instance, he says that at JMU, if a picture on Facebook shows a student violating the behavior code (e.g., by drug use,) then disciplinary action can be taken just as if the student was caught in the act.

- Dustin Crummett