Issue 1 The Buzz 2012-2013

BuzZThe

September 2012Volume 11, Issue 1

“From the Stinger to...”

Denison High School1901 S. Mirick Ave. Denison, Tx 75020

Hello, readers! It’s another wonderful year here at the Buzz! It’s also my last. It’s hard to believe that I’m already a senior. Freshmen- it goes by quickly. Somewhere between frantic late night studying, nos-talgic football games, and get-ting your license, high school just happens. In twenty years, you won’t remember that bad quiz grade or the fight you had with your best friend. You’ll re-member the way the Party Pit shook with emotion on Friday nights and the pride of being a Yellowjacket come Monday morning. You’ll remember gig-gling in Biology I, or being so busy you forgot to eat lunch, or the wind messing with your hair in your Homecom-ing pictures. It’s the millions of little things that make these fours years so special. Hold the memories close. Sooner than you think, you’ll be fill-ing out college applications and trying not to miss your friends before you even leave. I hope the Buzz can help you chronicle all of your achievements this year.

Kayla RobinsonEditor-in-chief

After years of battling technol-ogy in school, Dr. Cavin Boettger and the Denison ISD administra-tion have changed the rules for DHS, allowing cell phones on campus. This adjustment to the student handbook was met with much enthusiasm from the student body, who were hesitant to transi-tion back to hiding cell phones in backpacks and purses. However, the cell phone allowance comes with plenty of new rules and condi-tions so that cell phones and other technology remain advantageous to the learning process. Teachers have the final word whether or not their students can use their cell phones in class during or after a lesson. “[Having my cell phone at school] is helpful because my mom has to go pick up my brother and my cousins from school and she’s never here at the same time,” freshman Ryanne Odem said. Apart from keeping in touch with family, students are now keeping in touch with teachers, legally. Many teachers on cam-pus are utilizing Remind 101 in their classrooms, a texting ser-vice that acts as an intermediary that keeps both the students’ and teacher’s phone numbers confi-dential. Students that sign up for Remind 101 can receive text mes-sages from their teacher remind-ing them about assignments, tests,

Cell Phones in School? Kayla Robinson

Editor-in-chief

or materials they’ll need for class. “Remind 101 takes a load off your mind and you can concen-trate on other things. You don’t have to worry about forgetting as-signments,” junior Matt Ried said. Cell phones are also allowing stu-dents to accomplish simple tasks in the classroom quickly that before took up valuable teaching time. “I didn’t have a pencil in Pre-Ap Chemistry and didn’t want to write the assignment down, so I took a picture of the board with my cell phone. I had doubts at first; I didn’t want to get my phone taken up,” sophomore Gilberto Sauceda said. Some teachers are using cell phones as a teaching tool. In several classes, teachers are tak-ing the opportunity to conduct class-wide polls about all sub-jects from the presidential elec-tion to study questions. Students text in their answer to a number and watch the results of the poll show up on the SMART board. “It’s cool to see results as a poll is happening, but also there’s peer pressure to answer the way everyone else is answering. If teachers are using [cell phones] for something they assigned a long time ago to remind us that it’s due, that’s nice, because I’ve never really kept a planner before. It’s better than the announce-ments,” senior Maria Hayes said.

Not every student is ex-cited about using cell phones in class. Some students, espe-cially those without data plans, are concerned about racking up costs on their monthly bill. “I’m worried about teachers who want to use cell phones for the In-ternet in class because I don’t have a data plan,” senior Sarah Vogel said. The influx of technology and its opportunities in school has posed a lot of questions to teach-ers, too. Some teachers are stick-ing with a no-phone policy, while others are allowing students to use their phones during free time. “[The technology] is a lit-tle overwhelming,” math teacher Valerie Walters said.

Back to School!

Insi

de

EVENTSCOMINGFrom

the

Edi tor September 28th@Wylie East

Football

Volleyball

October 5thBattle of the Axe

October 19thHomecoming

vs. Lovejoy

September 28th@Wylie East

October 5thAgainst Sherman

TennisSeptember 29th

Against Wakeland and

Lake Highlands

Pages 4-5One Small Landing for

Curiosity, One Great Life for Neil Armstrong

Page 2Bright colors, hard work

and school spirit: Senior Parking Spots

Page 8

Check out the New Principals!

Page 7

Friday Night Football Fans

Students in Mrs. Lynch’s Chemistry class take pictures of their assing-ment on the board.Photo by: Bailey Bridges

2012-2013

2 School LIFE

September 2012 the buzz

The Buzz newspaper is a student-generated publication that is produced, edited, and maintained by the DHS jour-nalism staff of room 105. The Buzz encourages student ex-pression and is designed to be a forum for open discussion.

As part of its mission to serve as a medium for debate, The Buzz supports and accepts letters to the editor. All sub-missions must be signed by the author and delivered to Room 105. The staff reserves the right to edit any material.

Editorials appearing in The Buzz represent the sole views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the administration or those of the DHS Journalism Department.

Although the connotation of the word “tradition” implies an enduring and time-honored event, painting the senior park-ing lot has become a much loved senior ritual in three short years. Supervised by NHS members, seniors painted their own personal parking spots after paying $45, $15 of which will be re-funded if the stu-dent blacks out their spot at the end of the year. Creativ-ity was encouraged, and the class of 2013 did not disap-point with designs that incorporated yellow jackets, tor-nadoes, giraffe and chee-tah print, and national flags.

“It was fun to design some-thing that I can call my own and to see what other people’s designs were,” senior Dalton Johnson said.

Johnson’s de-sign represents his commitment to the DHS golf team with a giant golf ball, an idea that many other students emulated. Members of various sports teams - vol-leyball, basketball, and golf, as well as others - chose to denote their park-ing spot with their sport’s parapher-nalia. Others were more abstract with their designs, and instead drew from their heart, literally.

“Painting my spot was awe-some! I really tried to have fun

with it and make it represent me just like I think everyone did. Looking across the parking lot I think you can see that our senior class definitely has a lot of personality,” NHS Vice Presi-dent senior Syd-ney Muldrew said. Parking spot paint-ing served as the first DHS event of the 2012-13 school year, and many mem-bers were excited to start collecting fall service hours with the organization. “It feels great to be a part of an organization that brings something so fun to the stu-dents. Seeing ev-eryone enjoy painting their spots feels great,” Muldrew said.

Seniors Express Their Creativity Through Parking SpotsKayla Robinson

Editor-in-chief

Although originally painting days were only August 22nd, 23rd and 24th, interest for parking spots spiked as school started. Seniors

who weren’t able to buy spots in the summer were per-mitted to paint their newly bought park-ing places over La-bor Day weekend. “At first, I was upset because I didn’t have enough money in my pay-check to buy a park-ing spot since they are $45. When it turned out we could buy spots later, I was really excited because I got a sec-ond chance to get a parking spot. I really

wanted one; it’s my senior year,” senior Jordan Brown said.

A newfound form of sign-ing up for college contact is being used at Denison Senior High School. It’s a barcode with up-to-date informa-tion such as students’ address, grade, home and cell number, graduation year, planned col-lege starting date, and their particular choice of major. The initial point of the bar-code is to make the process of surfing college fairs quite a bit quicker. The barcode is obtained by going online, or through a counselor for as-sistance, to www.gotocolleg-

efairs.com, clicking “Register Now,” and simply filling out the information. Then the barcode is printed and can be scanned away at the college fair.This barcode is directly con-nected to any college than scans it. All information programmed into the barcode gets sent to the college(s) and they can send out e-mails, text messages, phone calls, reminders, and etcetera to the student. This does not re-place applying to the college(s), it just gives the college(s) con-tact and preference information. Tuesday September 18th,

Colleges “Check” You OutMelody Jarvis

Staff Writer

nearly 75 colleges lined up their booths in the commons and caf-eteria, and patiently waited for the crowd. Students, barcode in hand or not, swam through row after row of potential colleges. Students basically swarmed the Grayson College booth, filling out contact cards on friends’ backs for lack of table space. Tex-as A&M gave students the advice to apply for college ASAP. “Most colleges’ registration deadlines are in the latter part of the year, but they are still ‘first come first serve’, so sooner is better,” the Texas A&M representative said.

Edi tor i a l Pol ic y

OpiniOn 3

The Buzz SepTemBer 2012

Commentary This summer I had the chance to travel to Italy with my best friend. A downside to visiting Europe is that even though your phone does function as a phone, the only way to get on the Internet is through Wi-Fi, which can be hard to come by when you’re only at your hotel to sleep. After ten days of being out of the American loop, I get back home to discover that something had infected teen-agers: “YOLO” and “swag”. Before YOLO really took off, the most I had heard about it was in Drake’s “The Motto”, and I hardly gave that a second thought. Then, for some unexplainable rea-son, Facebook was ablaze with statuses either complaining about

how stupid it was, or using it as an excuse for recklessness. Granted, the term “swag” didn’t appear to be as widely used as YOLO, but the Internet did have a lot to say about it As the Internet fads began to take off and become popular, if that’s how you describe it, I be-came curious as to what they mean. I learned after YOLO be-came popular that it is text speak for “You only mean once”, and started on Twitter. Essentially, it is Carpe Diem for this generation. Swag, meaning to be fashionable, seems like something that society has changed to mean something completely different from what is was meant to be. Whatever the case, the internet is full of sarcastic

Callie KeeseCopy Editor

Clever or Cliché?

Slender is an internet game cre-ated by Mark J. Hadley and was released in June 2012. It is based off of the urban legend of Slender Man, an abnormally tall being with no face, hair or defined fea-tures. The legend originated on a forum titled “Create Paranor-mal Images” where he was first mentioned. “Just hearing about Slender Man isn’t scary; it’s when you watch the videos, read the stuff at three a.m., man,” said senior Taylor Holley The game starts in a dark forest, and the only item the player has is a flashlight with a limited battery. The objective of the game is to collect eight notes that are placed on eight of the ten landmarks in the for-est. The game ends when Slen-

der Man comes too close to the player or when the player looks at him for a prolonged period of time. “It was a definite 32 on an ambiguous scoring system,” said

Devan HolleyStaff Writer

Slender Man:Now in (Creepy) Game Form

The moustache has be-come a popular icon in so-ciety in the past year, with a variety of moustache themed products such as shirts, bracelets and earrings have been sold as a result. “We’re bringing them back because they’re retro and hip,” said sophomore Rayni Norris. The moustache craze expands further than just a fake adhesive ‘stache. It goes on to shirts, advertisements, and there are even mustache themed board games. It has become a comedy icon, be-coming the butt of many jokes. “It depends on the kind

Devan HolleyStaff Writer

M o u s t a c h e

senior Devin Wible. As the player collects more notes, or if the player does not collect a note within a certain time period Slender Man will ap-pear. Several unlockable modes

are available to the player if the game is beaten. If the game is beaten once, daytime mode is unlocked; the only difference being daytime mode does not require a flashlight. Once day-time mode is cleared, twenty dollar mode becomes available. In twenty dollar mode Slender Man shows up and the song Gimme Twenty Dollars by Ron Browz plays, although this was removed in version 0.9.7 due to copyright infringement. “He’s creepy; he will always follow you,” said sophomore Erin Armstrong.

The YOLO and Swag Craze is sweeping the nation and, evidently, Denison High School.

comments such as “Who needs ed-ucation when you’ve got this much swag,” which makes me wonder why swag is even a word. I’ll admit I’ve caught myself saying “Well, you only live once” a few times, because that’s the best way to say “Enjoy the only life you have,” that I could think of at that moment. The only time I will use YOLO the way it was mean to be used, is when I’m being sar-castic, or joking with my friends about staying in and doing my Stats project instead of going to a dance. You can use YOLO all your little heart desires, as for me, I’ll be switching to Carpe Diem and will continue to be happy and swagless for a good while.

of moustache, the curly ones are cool, but the hairy ones are gross,” said senior Olivia Perkins. Out of the many styles of moustaches the curly-q as be-come the most popular and well known moustache. Peo-ple have tried many different styles of moustaches, but the only one that has seemed to stick has been the curly-q. “I think it is nice now, but eventually they will get overrated,” said sophomore Cortney Daniels. Just like every other trend the moustache will come to its inevitable end eventually. For now, though, it seems that will be shaved for later.

Jordan Brown’s wallet makes a “‘stachelicious” appearance in the editor’s office.Photo by: Kaylee Sanders

Fever

1930-2012

On August 25, just three weeks after the Curiosity landing, Neil Arm-strong passed away at the age of 82 in Cincinnati, Ohio due to problems after a cardiovascular procedure. “While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his re-markable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves,” Armstrong’s family said in a press statement. Armstrong became the first American to orbit the Earth on March 16, 1966 as commander of The Gemini VIII, and the first man to step foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 as an estimated 600 million people watched from their homes. “Neil was among the greatest of American heroes. And when Neil stepped foot on the surface of the moon for the first time, he delivered a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten,” President Obama said in a White House press statement. Armstrong made the historic moon landing with Buzz Aldrin, who walked the surface with him, and Michael Collins, the pilot of Apollo 11. “My friend Neil took the small step but giant leap that changed the world and will forever be remembered as a landmark moment in human history. I had truly hoped that in 2019, we would be standing together along with our colleague Mike Collins to commemorate the 50th Anni-versary of our moon landing. Regrettably, this is not to be. Neil will most certainly be there with us in spirit,” Buzz Aldrin said in a press statement. Armstrong’s private funeral was held on August 31, with all the flags in the country at half-staff. His public memorial will be held on September 13, at 10 P.M. ET and will be broadcast live on NASA TV and streamed on the websites of NASA and the National Cathedral.

Remembering Callie KeeseCopy Editor

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” -Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong

2012-?

On August 6th 2012, America held its breath in the early hours of the morning, as the Mars rover, Curiosity, made its final approach and touched down onto the Martian surface after spending almost a year traveling to the red planet. “Curiosity is a much more complex vehicle than earlier Mars rovers. The testing and characterization activities during the initial weeks of the mission lay important groundwork for operating our precious national resource with appropriate care,” Curiosity Proj-ect Manager Pete Theisinger said. After landing in Gale Crater, Curiosity began to slowly move across the surface, only 30 feet at a time until the scientists control-ling the rover begin to get a better feel for the controls. “We have a fully functioning mobility system with lots of amaz-ing exploration ahead,” Curiosity’s lead driver Matt Heverly said. Curiosity will spend one Martian year, or 687 Earth days, ex-ploring and collecting data about the surface. The focus will main-ly be exploring a 96 mile wide crater and climbing up a 3.4 mile high mountain in the crater to find proof of microbial life once and for all. “Basically, this is the ultimate goal, this is where we want to get in the next year and a half or two years, this is the place we want to be. This is 10 kilometers away, and it would take the rover, even if the rover were driving flat out, a hundred days to get there. We’re not going to drive flat out because we have science to do as well. So it’s going to take us a while to get over there,” Camera Designer Mike Malian said.

Callie KeeseCopy Editor

Getting there

is only half the

battle, the rest is up

to you-Unknown

Let Curiosity Come OverRed Rover, Red Rover,

Layne Lions are Now Mayes Mustangs

6 Commun i t y

September 2012

Due to the tight economy, school supply shopping can be a dreaded event for parents and stu-dents alike. This year, many fami-lies relied on coupons and sales, in-cluding tax free weekend events, to save on the annual shopping trip. School supply spending has gravitated in the past years mostly towards discount stores, such as Wal-Mart and Target but accord-ing to the National Retail Fed-eration, school supply spending still increased about $80 from 2011 to 2012, averaging at about $690 for back to school and back to college spending. This is a $130 increase from the $560

School Supplies: Pain in the

PocketbookKayla Robinson

Editor-in-chief

that families paid, on average, for school supplies five years ago. More and more, teenagers and even children are being asked to help out with the cost of their school supplies as parents feel the strain on their wallets. The Na-tional Retail Federation says that 6-12 year olds will spend ten dol-lars more this year on school sup-plies than they did last year. Thir-teen to seventeen year olds will spend about five dollars more on school supplies this year, at a tenu-ous time as they drop their sum-mer jobs to make time for school. Many discount stores stocked their floors with boxes upon boxes

of discounted material that sold out quickly, such as the $0.25 erasers and $0.01 off-brand glue bottles at Office Depot. Shoppers that at-tempted the stores after the initial rush had to hunt through the piles of merchandise strewn across the store to search for their next bargain. The cost of school supplies hasn’t jumped dramatically from one item to the next, instead it’s a sneaky process of nickel-and-dime sales that insist that the av-erage family is partaking in the savings. The solution is to ran-sack the one penny sales and save the “want” purchases for later on to spread out the spending.

the buzz

Devan HolleyStaff writer

Commentary Every day new apps are put into a database for people to download for their entertainment. There are apps for every need. Some play along the lines of strange, but interesting. Those apps can be found by any smart phone, computer, iPod, or iPad available to the public. Many contain graphic material not suitable for children under the age of 17. One of these crazy apps is geared toward the more patient person with a whole lot of time. This app by the name of “Hold on” is liter-ally a button. That’s it, just a but-

ton that one presses and holds for as long as they can hold on. There are no winners. There are no rules. Nobody loses. It is available in the

iTunes store for $0.99. Another app by the name of iDied was add-ed for the more curi-ous being. If you are c u r i o u s about the weird, cra-zy, stupid ways that p e o p l e have died

then this app is for you. When you open it up, there are many different subjects available. When you click on one it gives

Mandi ElrodManaging Editor

The New and Weird Apps of the Season

you a story of somebody who has died in that particular incident. It is available in the app store for $6. Then there are the more typi-cal apps, such as Oldify, Fatify, or Baldify. In these apps, photographs are edited to give the effect of each

title. The photograph will then move, blink, even open its mouth as though talking. It looks so real it’s almost believable. Each of these apps is currently free for a short time, any other time they will be available for $0.99 each. These are just some of the apps that people

around the world have cre-ated, every single one thought out for the general public as a whole. Try some of them today!

Houston Elementary underwent construction before the school year.

In Denison, students feel a strong bond with their elemen-tary school all the way through their senior year. Even as seniors in high school, students can be heard reminiscing about their favorite teachers, their funniest Camp Goddard memories, and the playgrounds that held so many adventures throughout el-ementary school. In their mem-ories, their elementary school can seem static, permanent: a solid monument of childhood. For one group of past students, the phrase is suddenly literal. Layne Elementary closed this year as the DISD bond con-struction project began to take shape. The past Layne Lions became Mayes Mustangs, mak-ing a five minute move to Mayes Elementary. Mayes has added a new wing to accommodate such an influx of students and staff. “We have doubled the number of kids and staff. As teachers we are excited to have more teachers to collaborate with. It brought more diver-sity into our classrooms. Kids have done a great job adjusting to the new school. They made new friends,” Mayes fifth-grade teacher Elena Kinghorn said.

As the bond project moved past its first few steps this sum-mer, the future picture of the DISD schools has become clear-er. Teachers, students, and par-ents alike are looking forward to the finished project, even though schools are feeling the space crunch in these early weeks. “We do feel like we are short on support staff, which makes it more difficult to serve those kids that require extra support. Our cafeteria is crowded during lunch time and we have four or five classes going to the gym at the same time,” Kinghorn said. Some past Layne students are disappointed that they won’t be able to visit the school in the future. Students also wish that their children could’ve attended the same elementary school. “I don’t really like [the change] that much because I’d like to see my school. I’d like to see my kids go there,” ju-nior Brittany Mitchell said. Others believe that the time was right for this project and that now more students can take part in Mayes Mustang pride. “[Layne] needed to be torn down; it was old,” ju-nior Joseph Hendricks said.

Last year many coaches came, saw, and conquered. With the new school year came new opportunities for new coaches here at DHS. With this come new game plans. Coaches agree that this year they will work on, “Be[ing] more aggressive on defense.” Coach Charles Bollinger wants the best for his kids, just as the other coaches do. “Teach-ing the kids to do right on and off the field. Teaching character

Sports 7

The Buzz SepTemBer 2012

The DHS gymnasium roared with newfound hope after head coach Chad Rogers took the floor and pumped up the crowd for the night ahead. All rose and screamed for the man who promised a changed team. Under the lights of the stadium the roar continued in the Party Pit, whose seemingly never ending chants and screams echoed across the entire field as the team took the field. The fans, however, gave the Party Pit a run for their money as they filled the stands with calls of luck, commen-dation, and the occasional air horn.

F o o t b a l l Paul MatsumotoContributing Writer

Melody JarvisStaff Writer

The stadium rocketed to its feet as the Jackets scored their first touch-down of the game, and many fans exchanged chest bumps and high fives in traditional football game fashion. At half-time, the Sting-erettes and the TOG band took the field and gave fantastic perfor-mances, spurring a roar of applause from home and away audiences alike. However, as the game car-ried on, the hearts of fans sank as the opposition broke away in score. Though they may have lost, no scoreboard can take away the team’s jacket pride as they paid their com-

mendations to the opposing team. Many fans stayed to share both their condolences and their praise with the team members, as any Jacket fan would. While the Jackets may be down, they’re far from out, as one player said, “this loss is just a reason to try harder in practice and come back better than before, we’ll be more prepared than ever.” The Party Pit, Stingerettes, band, cheer-leaders, and all other fans will be rooting for the Jackets as they put that preparation to the test.

is a big thing.” This is h o w B o l -l inger plans to change the team for the better and the kids for their best. “We will concentrate on things that will make us better. Working hard and executing assignments on a daily basis is our goal. The winning will t a k e

care of itself,” B o l - l inger

proudly says. The game plan for this year l o o k s

like academ-ics, physical, and life lessons. Coach Sandy Jones has her own barrel of obstacles he has prepared for this year. With new student athletes come new positions and new faces. ”I plan on using dis-cipline, preparing

the team, and hard work,” to bring success to his team. “The teams prepare for games by working on all aspects of the game, serve receive, defense, and offense,” Jones said. While there are new faces he also has his own team leaders that make him proud, “The team has great leader in the three se-niors on the team,” Jones brags. Another coach agrees the leadership is important to success. “Leadership [will bring them to success] it is getting better and better. We are working very hard.”

New Coaches Br ing Hope To Denison High

Down but Not Out

September 2012 the buzz

The

man

who

occ

upies

the f

irst p

lace

seld

om p

lays

the p

rinci

pal p

art.

“If the school principal is strong, m

otivated and a good manager w

ho clearly out-lines expectations for staff and students, then the school tends to m

ake progress.”

Amy Dunn

Greg Wright

Over the summer DHS lost two principals to retirement. This year the DHS family has not only filled those positions with two new principals, they’ve welcomed one more member Amy Dunn, and congratu-lated another, Greg Wright. Mrs. Dunn is a graduate with a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Uni-versity of North Texas. She was in real estate for ten years, before returning to school to obtain her Masters of Educa-tion in Education Leadership from Baptist University. She’s taught middle school math, ele-mentary and middle school spe-cial education, and second and

third grade classes. She plans to spend her time here at DHS making it the best year pos-sible for the students and staff. “My goal is to keep Deni-son High School a safe place, where our students know they are here to learn and gain skills to be productive community members. I hope to estab-lish meaningful relationships with teachers, students, and staff,” Principal Dunn Said. Mr. Wright has moved up from teaching and coaching football at DHS, to his new job alongside the other princi-pals. He encouraged his stu-dents in world history class to listen to the facts and they

would understand better. To him, the class was not just a credit, it was an experience, and he plans to show the rest of the school the same values. “I look forward to help-ing as many students suc-ceed, creating and continu-ing the environment of success for all students we have at DHS,” Principal Wright said. The buzz staff and the school are overjoyed to welcome these two new principals into the school year as the year begins to take off and continue on a path of excellence throughout the years.

Mandi ElrodManaging Editor

Same HallS, New FaceS