The unified track team will have its first practice Monday March fifteenth. Make sure you bring your paper work and running shoes. We will meet at two forty-five in Mr. Beans room, 427.

SENIORS: A representative of the Wolfsville Ruritan Club has extended their deadline until Monday, March fifteenth, at eight a.m. for your scholarship application. If you attended Wolfsville Elementary School, you are eligible for this scholarship. This is the absolute deadline to turn your application in to Mrs. King!

Open Improv will be held today from two-thirty until three-thirty in room 210.

The Maryland Reading Challenge continues, but next week we’re adding March Madness in the Media Center. That’s right, come pick up a bracket or download your own, and see how well you can predict the winners and losers of this year’s NCAA tournament. No cash will exchange hands, but if you make the best picks here at MHS you will win a twenty-dollar gift card for Sports Authority. Listen for details next week.

Attention Seniors: The Class of 2010 t-shirt is on sale now during all lunch shifts. Shirts are thirteen dollars for Small through Extra Large and fifteen dollars for one-X and above. Shirts must be paid for at the time of placing your order. Please make checks out to MHS. A sample of the shirt will be on display.

Looking for some offbeat, zany entertainment? Come out tonight to the MHS Radio Show, a live stage production of an original radio-style mystery, written and directed by Eric Looney. It takes place at seven pm in the auditorium… and it’s FREE!

Students at Middletown High School pledged not to say the “r-word” on its awareness day, March 3. Its ongoing effort is by the Special Olympics, and is supported by the organization: Best Buddies International.

When someone pledges to not say the “r-word”, they are pledging to not make fun of another person with a disability.

According to specialolympics.org, the campaign was created by youth to get schools and communities to pledge not to say the “r-word.”

Its goal is to reach 100,000 pledges. So far, that goal was met with a total of 107,492 pledges, and the number is still growing.

 According to the site, celebrity activist John C. McGinley of the hit show “Scrubs” is a spokesperson for the campaign.

There are over 200 organizations from around the world supporting this campaign as well.

Students took the pledge to agree to “support the elimination of the derogatory use of the r-word from everyday speech and promote the acceptance and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities.

“I pledged because I think it’s wrong to say hurtful words like that, that could potentially offend or discriminate against someone who was born with it,” said MHS freshman Roni Giles.

Students could have pledged also for personal reasons; having a family member of friend with a disability or think that it’s just plain wrong to make fun of someone just because they be a little different.

MHS junior Michael McClung said, “it offends me personally because I was named after my uncle, who has down-syndrome, plus I have known some really good people that have been diagnosed with those kind of things, so, it’s just a good thing for me.”

Visit www.r-word.org if you want to “Spread the Word to End the Word.”

Congratulations to the Middletown FFA students who competed in the Regional FFA Career Development Events last night. In the Creed competition, Faith Robertson placed first, Jessica Imler placed fourth and Shannon Drum placed fifth. Heather King participated in the Junior Extemporaneous Public Speaking contest and placed first. In the Senior Extemporaneous Public Speaking contest, Tiffany Stull placed first. Middletown FFA members Jason Burrier, Brandon Kaas and Scotty Keyser were on the Agricultural Mechanics team that placed fourth. Scotty placed eighth individually. Faith, Jessica, Heather and Tiffany will all be representing Middletown at the state FFA contest. Good job everyone!

The Tri-M Music Honor Society had their annual recital last night, which was a benefit for the DC Bilingual Public Charter School’s music program. Students performed classical pieces, show tunes, and ended with a rousing rendition of the Pokemon theme song. They raised over three hundred dollars for the inner-city school’s music program.

SENIORS: Did you attend Wolfsville Elementary School? If so, you are eligible for the Wolfsville Ruritan Club Scholarship. The Ruritan Club awards one MHS student a fifteen-hundred dollar scholarship. The original deadline was yesterday, but if you can get your application to Mrs. King by eight a.m. Friday, it will be accepted!

The monotonous beep of the alarm clock forces itself into your perfect dream world and consciousness slowly returns. The air feels cold compared to your warm cocoon of blankets, and you snuggle in deeper for a few more precious moments of dreamland. Unfortunately, time continues to slip by and reality can’t wait forever. You yawn and arch your back like a cat, reaching your arms above your head in a stretch intended to awaken your still sleepy body. Hair undoubtedly a mess and eyes still puffy with sleep, you prepare to climb down from the top bunk.

Then realization hits. You’re not alone in the shelter of your own bedroom, where the groggy morning look can still be remedied before someone sees you. Instead, the cramped dorm room that’s now called home offers a morning greeting, along with the roommate you barely know that sleeps on the bottom bunk. No hot shower is waiting on the other side of that door, but instead a long hallway full of other freshman getting ready for morning classes.

College life will certainly be a major change in most aspects. Students will find themselves searching for classes across vast campuses, thrown into crowds of completely unfamiliar people, pouring over textbooks into all hours of the night, and most importantly searching for their niche amid everything.

Before long, however, familiarity will creep in. The feeling of being a stray thread tossed onto an enormous patchwork quilt will disappear as students gradually weave their way into the pattern of college life.

I got a brief firsthand experience of what it feels like to be a part of this “college quilt” when I stayed with my cousins at their college for the weekend.

The two sisters attend Messiah, a small Christian school in Grantham, Pennsylvania. The older of the two, Juliann, will graduate this year, and has the luxury of living in an on-campus apartment, where we stayed for the weekend. Amanda is in her first year, and has adjusted to the new lifestyle for the most part. While I was eager to spend the weekend with my cousins, I was also anxious to get a taste for college life.

Horror stories of awful roommates tend to make future-freshman fear for the worst when preparing for their first year of college. Clashing personalities are always a concern, seeing as sharing living quarters for a year with someone completely opposite from oneself would be difficult. Amanda, unfortunately, found herself in this difficult situation.

Upon walking into the tiny dorm room, one could instantly determine which spaces belonged to whom. Photos depicting friends and family covered the left wall, along with a small dresser, its surface strewn with small trinkets and jewelry. The closet door was hanging open, revealing countless clothes and shoes. Sitting haphazardly on the unmade bottom bunk was a laptop, with windows to Facebook and various other sites left unclosed. 

The right side of the room was an entirely different picture. Carefully arranged on the small desk at the foot of the bed were a picture frame, a cup of pencils and pens, and a laptop.  A string of five or so photos hung on the wall above the neatly made top bunk. A paisley scarf, another picture frame, and two small bird ornaments adorned a second dresser identical to the one on the opposite side of the room. Not a hair was left out of place.

Amanda and her roommate are undeniably different from one another. Amanda likes to stay up late, while the other girl prefers to turn in early. Amanda has a unique, artsy style, while her roommate dresses more casual and classy.

Yet despite their dissimilarities, I marveled at the apparent friendship that had blossomed between the two. They had come to accept, and even joke about, one another’s differences (“The only thing we have in common is our love affair with chocolate,” said Amanda.) They had had to work through the conflicts between their personalities, and learned to live comfortably in one another’s presence.  By seeing how they had formed a friendship and avoided a roommate disaster, I feel more confident that most roommate issues will be solvable.

Before I had gone to visit my cousins in the college atmosphere, I had often wondered what college students did in their free time. There are always stories of wild parties, and while there is a nearby street to Messiah with clubs some students like to visit, I knew there had to be more to college fun than that.

Honestly, I had never realized the social convenience to living on campus until this peek into college life. With multiple cafes and lounges on the grounds, it’s simple to merely text a few friends to meet you for a bite to eat or a fun game of Apples to Apples. Forget the need to plan days, even weeks ahead of time for get-togethers; all your college friends are walking distance away, and someone is always up for a spur of the moment hang out.

College life doesn’t mean the end of childish fun, either. In the winter, students use a nearby hill for sledding. The on-campus creek is a great place to go for a swim as days get hotter. Juliann and a group of her friends regularly meet to play a game called “Settlement.”

This is not to say college life won’t have crazy parties and drinking, disastrous roommate conflicts, and hours filled of tedious studying. I am aware these are all parts of the package. However, I was happy to find there is more to college life than that. For the weekend, I was given a chance to see what this rapidly approaching lifestyle will include, and will be anxious to tie myself into this quilt of college life.

Attention Women’s Choir Members. This is a reminder that today’s rehearsal has been rescheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday the tenth at two-thirty pm in Ms. Parsley’s room.

SENIORS: If you are eligible to apply for the Wolfsville Ruritan Scholarship, please be sure to submit your application to Mrs. King by Wednesday, March tenth

JUNIORS AND SOPHOMORES: Delaware Valley College is hosing a Spring House Event on May second. If you are thinking of applying there next year, please plan to attend. RSVP here.

SENIORS: A representative from Hagerstown Community College will be at MHS on March sixteenth, and a rep from Shippensburg University will be here on March thirtieth. If you are interested in meeting with either of these reps, please sign up with Mrs. King. Also, if you have definitely decided where you are going next year, please let Mrs. King know. Thanks!

Attention Child Development Students from the fall or spring semesters: If you wish to order a Knee High Knights Tee-shirt, please see Mrs. Martin for an order form. The form and payment are due Monday, March fifteenth. No late orders will be taken.

Congratulations to Mr. Kirkendall who received a special award last Friday from the Academic Tournament organization for his twenty years of dedication in Academic Team coaching. You can see the MHS Academic team in action on channel thirteen, April third.

Change the life of one child, change the life of a tribe. The Batwa Pygmies of Uganda are a people without a nation, without a voice and without literacy. They do not even have one book for the children. The child development classes are aiding them by collecting used or new small, paperback children’s books. To donate, simply drop your books off in the Child Development room. Every book makes a difference! The deadline to contribute is Wednesday, March thirty-first.

Attention all student drivers: With new students driving to MHS this semester, we are close to the maximum number of permits that will be granted for this school year. Because of this, the student parking areas in front of and beside the school may fill quickly in the morning. There are two designated areas in the Middletown Park which are allotted for overflow parking. Please remember to get a parking spot close to the school – you will need to arrive early. All late arrivals due to parking issues are unexcused late or tardy!

A beautiful turf, 100 yards of manmade grass, painted the perfect shade of green.  Freshly painted yard numbers lead to the bright yellow field goal posts that sit on both ends of the field.  The smooth, clean, black track, covered.  The flawless field, covered. The chance of having a regular start to the spring sports season, demolished by not inches but feet of snow. 

Though the sky is blue and the sun is shining now, Middletown High School was hit by a snow storm just days before the start of the season, leaving the administration, coaches and athletes with no choice but to give up or be creative and start the season in a unique way, different than any other year in the past.

The blizzard of February 2010 was to put the start of spring sports to a halt… until the clever ideas of the MHS students and staff found a way to make it happen.

Because the Frederick County Board of Education banned the use of heavy machinery and even snow blowers to remove the snow, the MHS administration and team coaches were left with almost nothing but their bare hands, but their hands are exactly what they used.

Original and very out of the ordinary, the lacrosse coaches decided the field would be cleaned by having a Snowman building competition. Not only would this provide a team bonding experience between the boys and girls lacrosse team, it would also create a safe (and fun) way to remove the snow from the field without breaking any rules.

Though some schools may have seen the blizzard as a setback to spring sports, girls varsity lacrosse coach Dawn Rothenhoefer believes otherwise.

“I think it’s only negative if you make it negative.  With every disappointment in life, there’s usually an opportunity.  Our job is to find the opportunity.  I see this as not only a girls’ lacrosse team building opportunity, but a multi-sport team building opportunity. What a great way to kick off the season,” said Coach Rothenhoefer.

In reality, not enough snowmen can be built to clear off the entire field and track.  Being aware of this, the teams, coaches, and administration plan to let the sun do the rest of the work. For the first few weeks of practice, snow on the ground can still be expected.

“Practices will not be cancelled, but I think the snow will limit the teams’ ability to run specific plays, but teams will still be able to work on drills and endurance in the parking lots after school,” said assistant principal Mike Watson.

In addition to getting used to having snow on the ground at the start of the spring sports season, the athletes will also be adjusting to a rotating practice schedule. The boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams will share practice times, as well as with the boys’ and girls’ track teams. Because of the dangers of loose lacrosse balls making their way out to the track, the teams cannot practice together.

It would be ideal for the lacrosse teams to run agility drills and practice conditioning in the gym, but because the MHS gym floors have recently been resurfaced, this is not an option. The hard lacrosse sticks can scratch and damage the gym floor.

“Even though getting used to the snow will be weird, I’m excited to see how our new practices will go. We may even get pool time for aerobics,” said MHS junior lacrosse player Kati Rothenhoefer.

By looking at a bad situation through positive eyes, the MHS coaches, athletes, and administration have managed to start a regular spring sports season in a very offbeat way. Many other teams in Frederick County may suffer from the blizzard, but Middletown will reap the benefits.

Middletown High School competed in the Frederick County Academic Tournament against other Frederick County public high schools on March 5 at Linganore at Oakdale.

Each match is between three schools and has five rounds of questions. The topic for questions was 1980’s music. In the first match, Middletown was up against Brunswick and Catoctin.

“Middletown was second place in its first match [against Brunswick and Catoctin] and so [Middletown] did not advance to the championship match,” said junior Drew Kidwell.

The championship match was between Linganore, Brunswick, and Walkersville. Linganore won the Championship.

In the past Middletown has won twice, Catoctin, Brunswick, and Urbana have also won in past years. Linganore has won the competition eight times and Frederick six; Governor Thomas Johnson and Walkersville have both won five times.

Kidwell said, “As a group, we are pretty good because we have people with different interests and so we can cover just about any subject matter.”

The Academic team practices every Wednesday from 2:30 to 3:30.

The Academic team is coached by social studies teacher John Kirkendall, who received a special award on Friday night for his 20 years of dedication.

April 3, WJZ channel 13 will air a taped contest with Middletown.