MHS Mentor Issue 8

NewsMENTORtheMOct. 30, 2012 Manhattan High School, Manhattan, Kan. Volume 100 issue 8

C l u b N o t e s

Naomi McClendonEntertainment Editor

Beginning next year, lunch will be open only for juniors and seniors. The measure passed with a 5-2 vote by the school board at the Oct. 17 Board of Education meeting.

Since the school’s recent renovations, the school board has been faced with the ques-tion whether or not closed lunch should be implemented. Because of the school’s en-larged cafeteria and enhanced safety measures, many com-munity members and mem-bers of the school board felt that closed lunch was finally a possibility.

At the open hearing on Oct. 3, Doug Messer, trans-portation director, proposed the idea of a partially-closed lunch. The idea was accepted and discussed by the school board. Messer’s proposal was based on the driving limita-tions that many sophomores have because of the restricted driver’s license.

The two members who vot-ed against the proposed idea were Walt Pesaresi and Pete Paukstelis. Pesaresi and Pauk-stelis were concerned that in regards to safety, the pro-posed idea was not enough. Both members supported a fully-closed lunch at the high school. The majority of the meeting was spent discussing safety issues.

According to evidence pre-sented by superintendent Bob Shannon, the Riley County Police Department does not have a problem with open lunch. Pesaresi acknowledged the fact, but argued that there was still a risk of death. Pesare-si made reference to a recent car accident and suggested that it shouldn’t take “pools of blood” for the BOE to make a decision, a comment that board member Leah Fliter questioned as inappropriate.

Pesaresi was also concerned about the risk of leaving the doors unlocked for two hours. He questioned the mean-ing of security cameras if the doors were “just going to be opened.”

Paukstelis concurred with Pesaresi. He asked board members to imagine a situ-ation where a high school student had been killed at open lunch. Paukstelis said he wouldn’t be able to explain to the parents of the imaginary dead child why they decided to keep lunch open. “It’s not worth the risk,” Paukstelis concluded.

Despite lengthy, heated discussion, the board voted to close lunch for sophomores only. The board suggested the possibility of gradually closing lunch entirely. They will evalu-ate the effectiveness of a par-tially closed lunch by March of 2014 and make further de-cisions on closed lunch based on their findings.

Not surprisingly, several Manhattan High students dis-agree with the school board’s decision. Senior Emma Trapp deemed the decision unfair.

“You wait all year looking forward to going out to lunch, and then when you finally get up here, they close it,” Trapp said. “That’s not fair.”

Junior Aaron Erickson con-siders open lunch a benefit and a necessity. “It’s a chance to get out,” Erickson said.

Junior Brendan Peterson explained that a closed lunch may cause problems that it aims to fix. “It’s not going to solve any problems,” Peterson said. “Kids are going to do what they want. Closed lunch is actually going to encourage skipping, because kids won’t have a chance to get out.”

The next major topic the BOE will discuss is the exist-ing senior early release op-tions, on the agenda for the regular meeting on Nov. 7.

BOE closes lunch for sophomores next year

On Thursday, Oct. 18, students volunteered to donate blood to the Red Cross. A total of 93 students donated blood and a total of 73 pints was collected. Maddie Ross, Photographer

Maddie RossTrending C0-Editor

Although the annual Stu-dent Council blood drive didn’t hit the goal of 80 pints of blood, StuCo members still feel this year’s event was a suc-cess.

“I feel it went really smooth, there are always a few cases of people not feeling well af-terwards, but overall it went well,” senior StuCo represen-tative Sophie Wang said.

Manhattan High School students participated in the blood drive on Oct. 18. The drive was sponsored with help from the Red Cross.

Over the course of the day, 96 students attempted to donate and a total of 73 pints were collected. Organizers were in awe of the students willing to donate.

“I was impressed by the at-titude of the students towards donating,” StuCo sponsor Leslie Campbell said. “I also appreciated the cooperation of the teachers in letting them do it.“

In addition to the pints of blood, 12 students also do-nated red blood cells. This process differed slightly -- separating the red blood cells from other components, then returning those components back into the body. This pro-cess takes around 30 minutes more than the standard whole blood donation but results in a collection of twice the red blood cells.

“I wanted to donate be-cause I’m lucky enough to be healthy and others aren’t. So if I can help someone else even if it causes me a few minutes of discomfort I want to do that,”

junior Sam Grey said. The main drawback to the

day was the long wait for stu-dents who had appointments. “We tried to keep the wait un-der an hour for students, but that didn’t always happen. In the end it is out of our con-trol,” Wang said.

Solutions to this problem have been discussed and will be executed in future drives.

“Next time we want to try electronic submissions the day before, to speed up the pro-cess, but in the end it is up to Red Cross,” Campbell said.

StuCo will be holding a sec-ond blood drive in the spring.

Video Announcements

The Student Council re-leased the first installment in a series of video announcements

on Tuesday, Oct. 23. The goal of the announcements is to reach students once a week and present information in a more entertaining way.

“ My class seemed to like them a lot. They were more attentive than they are dur-ing regular announcements,” math teacher Chanelle Dieck-mann said.

The announcements are filmed by student body offi-cers with assistance from vid-eo production teacher Kathy Ricketts. Although the film-ing process was completed with little difficultly, the acces-sibility to teachers is still up in the air. An email was sent to teaches containing the file, but only some were able to open it. StuCo hopes to resolve the problems before the next edi-

tion.

Scholars Bowl

Scholars Bowl, Manhattan High’s academic decathlon team, has started exercising their brains and preparing for competitions. Practices are on Mondays and Tuesdays right after school in B-102. Aca-demic coach Ted Dawdy usu-ally conducts practices but the new assistant coach, Regina Harden, has been working with the team on their lan-guage arts skills.

“Our weakest area by far has been language arts and English, so I think she will help positively and maybe we will do better,” senior Logan Sutton said. “We usually get destroyed in those areas. She will help us a lot.”

Harden countered on a more positive note, saying she is “amazed on how knowl-edgeable the kids are.”

Harden may not be the only new helpful attribution to Scholar’s Bowl.

“I know social studies,” se-nior Jack Hubler-Dayton said

about what he is bringing to the team. “I’m really into history, and some fine arts, and probably some language arts.”

With new helpful additions, the team hopes to do better than they did last year. “This year I hope we do really well. We have a stronger team,” Sut-ton said.

The team is composed of people who are all strong in different subjects. “I wouldn’t say there is someone who is the best at everything,” Sut-ton said. “It’s all broken down into different subjects and we definitely have people stron-ger in certain subjects, but the

Julianne HarknessStaff Writer

With 44 colleges, six mili-tary recruiters and around 100 students from surround-

ing schools, Manhattan High School was buzzing with activ-ity during the two-hour college fair Oct. 18.

College FairFor more of this article,

visit mhsmentor.com.

Alan Brown andAbby GithensStaff Writers

Service is the key to suc-cess, according to Lee Over-ley, general manager of the Manhattan Staples store.

Overley spoke to Manhat-tan High students on Oct. 16 in the first of the Brownbag se-ries of lectures. He presented tips on how to be successful in the business world. Some of the topics stressed included customer service, good atti-tude, ways to get oneself hired and how to prepare for the future. Even some bashing to-ward K-Mart made it onto the agenda, the likely highlight of the lecture for the students.

“Customer service is the only thing that makes [Staples] different from others,” Over-ley pointed out. “You’ve got to give great customers service to

get people to come back.”Overley gave a firsthand

experience why this concept is so important to him. After be-ing treated as though he was stealing CDs while returning items at K-Mart, he plans nev-er to return to that store. In fact, he uses his experience at K-Mart as an example of what he is not to do at Staples.

“I don’t want people to think they need to give a DNA sample to return something,” he proclaimed to the audi-ence. During the lecture, Overley put emphasis on meeting the customer’s needs. To him, loyal customers are important to a business, and earning them involves cater-ing to their needs.

“Sales are 80 percent lis-tening and 20 percent talking,” he said. “It’s very important to know the customers.”

Having dealt with hiring and firing employees, Overley

could also give the students advice about how to get them-selves hired. Selling yourself for employment is important in this day and age, he argues, and having good common sense is another positive trait. Even resume paper and pro-fessional clothing can make a difference.

“Come in dressed for suc-cess,” he advised.

Though employment seems like the distant future to most high school students, Overley, having worked since age 15,

says that there are still things that teenagers can do to pre-pare themselves to be a good employee.

“Practice your due dili-gence now, do your assign-ments,” he urged.

Junior Hannah Nelson went to the speech during her lunch period for personal reasons. “I really liked the part where he said it is more important to stay at one job than to hop from job to job. I had thought about leaving my job and he really inspired me and gave me a reason to stay,” Nelson said.

Employers look for people who can hold steady job, not many jobs in a short period of time. Many others in the room seemed to respond very well to the advice Overley came to give.

Brown Bag SeriesFore more of this article,

visit mhsmentor.com.

Overley gives advice on how to be success in business

seniors this year are probably going to be the best in their subjects.”

Being in Scholars Bowl is a fun way for students to show off their knowledge. “It’s like an outlet for knowledge that we have,” Hubler-Dayton said.

Sutton agreed. “It’s a differ-ent side of competitiveness on who can answer more ques-tions. It’s sort of just fun,” he said.

The team competes for the first time in November. “I feel great about the upcoming competition,” Harden said.

-Julith Perry

“I don’t want peo-ple to think they need to give a DNA sample to return something.”

-Overley

NMSQT Semi Final-ist

Seniors Sophia Harms and Austin Canady from Manhat-tan High School have been an-nounced as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship program.

The National Merit Schol-arship is based on the PSAT test that is taken sophomore and junior years. The test that counts is the one from the junior year. The National Merit Scholarship Corpora-tion recently announced that both Harms and Canady were among approximately 16,000

semifinalists in the 58th an-nual NMS program across the United States. High school seniors that are academically talented have an opportunity to continue the competition for 8,300 scholarships that are worth $34 million.

In the spring of 2013, the semifinalists must fulfill also say whether they are in AP classes.

Harms is currently taking AP Chemistry, Calculus and Literature.

For more of NMSQT article and brief of football

senior night, visit mhsmentor.com

MHS holds College Fair

Colleges from Kansas speak to students about their future opportunities.Julianne Harkness, Photographer

Red Cross in awe of willingness to donate blood

Oct. 30, 2012 OpinionsMENTORthe2

Question of the Week

editor in chief/opinions -- Ben Shields

news editor -- Sarah Shi

entertainment editor -- Naomi McClendonsports editor --

Nick Bandyfeatures editor --

Liz Logbacktrending co-editors -- Connor Bliss Maddie Rossphoto editor --

Kaitlin Wichmanncopy editor --

Kayla Diekermultimedia editor -- Dheepthi Perumalbusiness manager -- Jerry Sextroadviser --

Kristy Nypcartoonist -- Halsey Camera

the Mentor

The Mentor is published each Tuesday that school is in ses-sion at Manhattan High School, 2100 Poyntz Ave. Manhattan, Kan. Telephone (785) 587-2114. More than 1,500 Mentors are printed each week and distributed free of charge to all faculty members and students. MHS journalists are members of the Scholastic Press Association. The Mentor is an open forum that accepts contributions from the public. E-mail us at [email protected].

writers/photographers -- Alan Brown Tre Fuentes Abby Githens Julianne Harkness Tristan Knott Julith Perry Nastajja Rivera John Rockey Seth Runyan Derrek Williams Jordan Morriscontributing writer -- Eli Redekercirculation -- Kristyn Baker Leonard Castilow David Clinkinbeard Patrick Falcone Caorey Garrison Sam LeFleur Kasey Morris Mallory Morris Kendall Oatney Emma Rowley Austin Tatum Seth Wagner

Want to contribute a guest column to The Mentor? Contact Editor-in-Chief Ben Shields at [email protected]. Students and faculty are welcome.

The Mentor welcomes letters to the editor from students, faculty mem-bers or staff members from Man-hattan High School. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words in length and must include your sig-nature. Letters may be edited for length, grammar and AP Style and must meet standards of appropri-ateness generally accepted by the MHS audience. Email it to mhsmen-toropinions@gmail .com or deliver a hard copy to C-107.

Kane DavisGuest Writer

Two weeks ago I went to Hutchinson to celebrate an incredibly important event in my life. Ten years ago one of my friends, while trying to remove a limb that had fallen across a driveway during a thunderstorm, accidentally grabbed a live power line. The thousands of volts that shot through his body caused his heart to go into ventricu-lar fibrillation -- essentially, his heart discontinued its nor-mal contracting and instead was simply quivering. Several of my friends who were with him at the time performed CPR until the ambulance ar-rived. As the EMTs raced my friend to the hospital, they continued to attempt to re-vive him to no avail. For over five minutes his heart did not beat. After several attempts at

defibrillation, they managed to get his heart beating by the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital. However, now a second and equally frighten-ing reality emerged. Not only was my friend in a coma, but because he had been without blood flow to his brain for an extended amount of time it was likely that he would suf-fer from extensive and per-manent brain damage. For all of us who had gathered at the hospital to be with him, we thought that we had lost one of our best friends.

Miraculously, that was not to be the case. A few days after arriving in the hospital, my friend came out of his coma. Within a day after that, he was talking to us. By the end of the week, he had been released from the hospital. Today, my friend is alive and well with-out any permanent debilitat-ing effects from his experi-ence. And so, 10 years later,

friends and family gathered in Hutchinson to celebrate what we termed the “rebirth” of our friend.

The point of this story was not to share this particular and personal event without cause. Every so often, I think about what it would have meant for all of us had things for my friend turned out dif-ferently. The reality of life is that, at any moment, an infi-nite number of possibilities exist for each of us. Some pos-sibilities are good, some bad, and some seemingly mundane and inconsequential. And yet, for my friend, the simple ac-tion of removing a downed tree branch very nearly meant that he was no more. Obvi-ously, to live our lives with the uncertainty and fear of the unknown constantly hanging over our heads is impossible. But I would ask that, on occa-sion, you take the time to step back and appreciate yourself

and those around you. Cer-tainly, we all have our mo-ments of triumph and tragedy, of joy and sadness. However, those moments collectively are what make life so incred-ible. The stories that make up our lives are woven of the experiences we live through. Therefore, I encourage you to take a moment to show fully your appreciation for those that you care about, to enjoy the wonderments of experi-ence, to do something kind for someone that you do not know. When we never know with any certainty what page is the last, we should strive to make the story a good one. Af-ter all, that is what makes life such a wonderful thing.

Kane Davis teaches World History and AP US Government and Poli-tics at Manhattan High School

Any day could be your last

First quarter has quickly come to a close, which means we only have 22 weeks, six days… and an entire lifetime ahead of us.

Usually, when people men-tion “an entire lifetime ahead of you,” they go on to tell you that your behavior this year is going to determine the rest of your life, that doing well on every test determines your character or that you need to

start planning now if you want a bright future.

But you’ve heard those things enough. What I’d like to tell you is something that we hardly ever hear in today‘s world: don’t worry. I can al-ready see people rolling their eyes, hear honor students flip-ping the page and see their teachers’ blood boiling at the idea of not worrying -- and I don’t blame them.

We’ve warped the true meaning of “don’t worry” and associated it with things like “it doesn’t matter,” or “don’t care.” And that’s where we went wrong.

I’m not suggesting that we stop caring, or that what we do now doesn’t matter -- be-cause it does. But instead of

really caring about what we do (let’s be honest, who really cares about the quadratic for-mula or what year some old English queen was born?), we end up worrying about it, which results in a lack of pro-ductivity and a whole lot of unnecessary stress. In fact, we spend so much time worrying, that it’s virtually impossible to actually care! If we want to be successful and happy as individuals, as a school and even as a society as a whole, we need to calm down and step up.

I don’t want you to think I’m telling you it’s okay to skip class, neglect studying for tomorrow’s test or to stop ap-plying for colleges. I know it’s hard to do, because the only

thing we’ve been taught to do is to worry, but we’ve got to stop. And I know it’s hard to accept, but sometimes things aren’t perfect, and contrary to popular belief, that’s okay!

Whether you’re worried about an essay, or if a certain boy is going to say “hi” or even bigger outside-of-school problems, the only thing that you can do is find a solution to the problem -- which is a heck of a lot easier if you’re not worried about it.

So let’s begin this fantas-tic, productive, educational second quarter with the wise words of Bobby McFerrin -- “don’t worry, be happy.”

- Naomi McClendon, Stu-dent Body President

Fireside chat with Naomi

How do you think MHS could bet-ter prepare students for college?

“Mr. Jordan as principal.”- Joe Haug, junior

“Have college speakers.”- Madi Monaco, sophomore

“Actually, I think MHS is already doing a good job helping student for college.”- Sophia Harms, senior

“We can make the PSAT available for all freshman.”- Sakif Hossain, freshman

“Make every class as ri-diculous and ludicrous as Mr. Lamb’s and Mr. Thies’ . And I mean that in the best way possible.”- Gianna Peabody, junior

“We could have more job-related classes.”- Mitchell Toetz, freshman

“There should be more AP classes and no late work ac-ceptance.”- Justin Coleman, sophomore

“I think we are doing a good job of preparing students. The students need to be responsible for learning the material.”- Paige McCarthy, teacher

Halsey Camera, cartoonist

The notorious education system that brought China up in the ranks may now be holding it back. The coun-try, which builds its next generation’s education on the gaokao exam – a test designed to produce rote engineers or mathemati-cians -- won’t get what it desperately needs: inven-tors and entrepreneurs.

The gaokao is like taking six SATs during a continu-ous three-day period. Each day, Chinese high school seniors take two two- or three-hour tests, one in the morning and then the other during the afternoon, testing over material from Chinese and math to geography and government. In preparation for this intense, memoriza-tion-heavy exam, each high school student dedicates at least a year to prepare for the broad range of materi-al. This annual, nationwide college entrance exam will not only play a big role in determining where they go to college, but what career they’ll do for the rest of

their life. Because Chinese colleges often feed directly into certain industries and fields, scoring low can have hindering effects on future career choices.

In many ways, the gaokao-style education sys-tem has become a symbol of how far China still has to go. China’s economy is heavily export-dependent, but as the world’s most populous country, it should be looking toward more do-mestic consumption -- less assembling products and more of designing them. If the country wants to keep growing, they should un-derstand that making more mathematicians and expert engineers aren’t going to help. China’s economists know they need to encour-age entrepreneurship and creativity, yet neither are tested on this career-deter-mining exam.

In late 2010, students across the globe took the Program for International Student Assessment and the results showed that Shang-hai high school students beat U.S. students by a large margin as well as the rest of world in math, science and reading. Countries in the West, especially the U.S., said it was a “wake up call” to their own decline, but for other countries like China,

it showed their amazing growth in education. The gaokao was the reason why China began to prosper af-ter the decade-long Cultur-al Revolution that ended in 1976. According to Bobby Jan in his article “A Brief History of China’s Emerg-ing Market (www.gaebler.com/A-Br ief -History-of -China-As-An-Emerging-Market.htm), it boosted the country’s literacy rate from 70 percent (1979) to 93 per-cent (2009) and prepared millions of eligible young people for the rapidly ex-panding workforce. But as the economy begins to cool off, Chinese leaders are trying to create revenue at home. The question is, are they really trying?

During my visit to China last year, I was baffled by the fact that both of my cousins were spending all their time at school. Liter-ally. They would wake up at six, come back for lunch, and then study at their school until nine or 10 at night. I said it was ridicu-lous. However, my aunts and uncles were already beyond my stage of disbe-lief and went on to call my cousins’ “excessive hours of studying” necessary to score well on their gaokao. It wasn’t just the fact that I barely had time to talk to

them on my short vacation there that made me rethink their education system, but that the hours they spent at school weren’t for learning anything new but for mem-orizing things like equa-tions, essay formats, (I think useless) statistics and maps for the exam.

If China hopes to see a workforce that founds their own businesses or brands that will sell to domestic as well as international buyers like the venerable Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, the country should start by rewriting their definition of achieve-ment. Instead of measur-ing it solely on a student’s gaokao scores, it should be about a student’s ability to think analytically, creatively and most importantly, inno-vatively. So China, why are you still telling your students that having creative outlets are a waste of time and that they should instead be do-ing more math problems? Am I the only one who sees the irony in that?

China system lacks creative outlets, emphasizes too much memorization

Student Body President advises students not to worry

Sarah Shi

news editor

NaomiMcclendon

entertainment editor

“They should give us more freedom.”- Tianna Kelson, senior

“Removing the P.E. require-ment.”- Jordan DeLoach, senior

“Instead of focusing on activites, do presentations on colleges during Tribe Time.”- Kyle Curtis, junior

“More classes to choose from to have a different idea of what you want to do for a job.”- Kailee Martin, freshman

“Eliminate subjects in the cur-riculum that are not benefi-cial to our futures. In a way, I believe that school limits one’s creativity in the way it provides too many strict guidelines.”- Mai Mizuno, sophomore

“For one day have a college professor teach a college class.”- Evan Heger, freshman

“More college visit time.”- Mary Gevok, senior

Entertainment MENTORthe3

Ben ShieldsEditor-in-Chief

Advanced Rep Theatre class make their debut

Linda Uthoff’s Advanced Repertory Theater class per-formed a series of mono-logues and songs in a free public show on Thursday, Oct. 18, in the Little Theatre. The young performers acted and sang to a small, intimate crowd and served cheese-cake and coffee to the audi-ence. Many of the actors and actresses performed mono-

logues by Richard Broadhurst, who just completed his third residency at Manhattan High School working with Uthoff’s drama classes. It was the first time the group has performed this year, launching a series of dates around the commu-nity scheduled periodically for the rest of the school calendar year.

The students all performed pieces they had selected them-selves, meaning each of them had a real fondness and per-sonal investment in the work. Senior Ilana Budenosky did

a scene from the play “Rab-bit Hole” and found it to be a very genuine, human piece of writing.

“I really like the raw emo-tion,” she said. “You can make it overdone, but I tried not to. It feels like you had a sneak peak into what real-life griev-ing is like. There is nothing contrived about it. It’s just life on display.”

Budenosky spoke with deep admiration for David Lindsay-Abaire, the author of “Rabbit Hole.”

“The film [version] shows

Sarah ShiNews Editor

"I thought they did a great job performing," junior Lau-ren Wankum said. "They did a good job of making us more aware of our military."

That was exactly the point marching band director Joel Gittle was trying to convey at the home football game Oct. 19.

"The theme of the perfor-mance shows that we are a military community, and the kids in the band are proud of that," Gittle said. "We have fac-

ulty here that are veterans and students who have parents in there as well. We just wanted to honor that."

The theme of the routine, Home of the Brave, was start-ed in January this year, giving them a few months to get ac-quainted with the songs and the routine, but the band still isn't done perfecting the whole performance and continued to work on it through yesterday’s competition at Fort Hays State University’s Marching Band Festival.

"The directors write the mu-

Ben ShieldsEditor-in-chief

Hunger is a scary thing: 46 million Americans currently live below the poverty line and often don’t have enough money for the food they need. Each year, close to 300 high school Thespian troupes par-ticipate in a fundraiser to help feed the needy called Trick-

or-Treat-So-Kids-Can-Eat. The 2011 fundraiser collected 304,000 pounds of food dona-tions, and this year, Thespians decided they wanted to top that, setting a goal of 350,000.

Friday night at 6 p.m., MHS Thespians met in front of the school prior to trick or treat-ing. Fifteen to 20 Thespians participated, mostly freshman, and the students were divided

The marching band: that musical halftime extravaganza where pride and discipline are shaped into a fantastic show filled with art and music. That 10 percent of the school you hear every early morning out on the practice fields behind the school. That one person in your group of friends that

you just can’t understand why they would get up so early to march around a muddy field.

It may seem like it’s all fun and games, but that is hardly the case.

Marching band is filled with all physical strains, and although it may not look like it, we are using many different muscles in what we do, so it is important to be at least a tad fit for marching. And believe it or not, marching, in itself, is actually quite difficult. Keeping in mind that we have to know our sets and make it there in the correct number of steps, we also need to make sure we are hitting with the right foot, all while playing music where

our lungs and arms are being put to the test.

The music part can be even more difficult to work through. Memorizing pages and pages of music, learning every single note and every beat, making sure dynamics and rhythm are correct (which is very straining on the lungs). Then, on top of that, we have to incorporate the two together, marching and playing, the full result. Incorporating marching style and musical dynamics all at the same time while looking stunning in our forms does take skill.

Having moved here last March and being a member of three very different march-

Marching band not properly credited for physical , mental demands

Oct. 30, 2012

ing bands, I’ve gotten a share of what aspects are needed in order to make a marching band look great, sound great and most importantly, enter-taining to our audience. In my personal opinion, to be a good band, it’s all about being good as an individual and pushing yourself to your own limits. It’s not just about the moment of performance, it’s all about the practice and how hard you re-hearse.

However, I have also dis-covered the important differ-ences between actual sports like football and things like marching band. To me per-sonally, sports can simply be defined as team A versus team

B and the feud in between that leaves us with entertainment. In marching band, you can’t physically fight another band or tackle them and therefore receive a higher rating.

The two activities in relativ-ity are quite similar. However, in my opinion, marching band isn’t a sport, but something of just the same caliber. It is a physical art, something in which an individual has the power to either make or break the full image.

Don’t get me wrong, march-ing band is just as intense as any sport, but when it comes to goals the two hope to ac-complish, they are very differ-ent.

sic and then students practice music drills during the sum-mer and band camp. Then we spend all fall semester learn-ing it. This week we are fixing all the little details before our festival in Fort Hays,” Gittle said.

"The hardest part for me was learning the heart forma-tion," junior Lane Sorrell said.

Twirler Taylor Smith had a hard time with the routine. “It was hard to not hit any drum-mers,” she said. “It's hard be-cause I'm really close to them while I’m moving on the field.

Sarah ShiNews Editor

The Manhattan High School Marching Band trav-eled to Fort Hays ye s t e rday to compete in the Fort Hays Band F e s t i v a l . Performing last week's f o o t b a l l game's rou-tine, Home of the Brave, the MHS Marching Band received Superior rating for every cate-gory given as well as the over-all rating.

"I was extremely proud," senior drum major Andrew Schulz said. "I was kind of ner-vous before we went on the field but the MC for the com-petition was telling jokes and that really helped me. I think we all came together and per-formed really well."The marching band received a plaque of certification of their participation in the Fort Hays Festival and certificates of their achievement in each category. In the upcoming weeks, the band will receive a copy of comments from judg-

es on their performance and specific things they will need to work on.

"I was really excited," senior drum major Anna Brokesh

said. "I was really surprised at how calm I was. I was very proud. To-day was all about pride. I am super excited that we got the superior rating and I feel like we really de-served them. We worked hard and practiced a lot."

M a r c h i n g band director

Joel Gittle had all the nerves. "I was trying to take the nervous-ness off the kids and keeping it on me," Gittle said. "Coming into the competition, I thought we would do well. We've had really good practices."

Because Gittle was only al-lowed to sit on the sidelines, he couldn't view the performance as well as he wanted to. "They put directors in the worst possible spot but the parents that were watching said it was good. We also got a standing ovation again. It was the only standing ovation of the whole competition," Gittle said. "I'm really proud of them."

But it’s really nice to get to perform in front of people."

"Performing is a rewarding activity," Gittle said. "Last Fri-day, we got a standing ovation, and for football fans, that's a big thing."

"We practice a lot," he said. "We just keep repeating it until they get it."

Yesterday the Manhattan Marching band traveled to Fort Hays to compete in the High Plains Marching Band Competition and perform their Home of the Brave rou-tine.

Band performs full show

The marching band performed its entire show at the last home game against Washburn Rural on Oct. 20.Julith Perry, Photographer

Marching band competes at Fort Hays Band Festival ,receives superior rating

some of the things that they script just implies. I like each of them in their own, I think. Lindsay-Abaire wrote both, and he knew the correct way to make it for the stage and the silver screen. I wouldn’t change any of it.”

In addition to the “Rabbit Hole” monologue, Budenosky also sang a song from the mu-sical “Oliver” entitled “It’s a Fine Life,” composed by Lio-nel Bart.

“It’s a fun and has good melody with lots of variety,” she said. “It has a lot of per-

sonality and is very different from ‘Rabbit Hole.’”

Senior Ashlynn Kleinbeck performed two contrasting pieces as well, the first entitled “Serpent’s Tale” and the sec-ond a monologue from “Bride and Beach.”

“‘Serpent’s Tale’ is more dramatic, and I usually do light pieces,” Kleinbeck said. “‘Bride and Beach’ is about a mother who everyone has al-ways been mean to. It comes out about how frustrating it has been since her husband died.”

into groups. Each group chose a neighborhood to canvas door to door for canned goods and non-perishable items.

“A lot of drama kids are in the musical, which means they don’t get to go trick-or-treating [on Halloween],” sophomore Abby Sachnik said. “Trick-or-Treat-So-Kids-Can-Eat gives them the opportunity to go.”

“Seeing people’s generosity

Kleinbeck believes the un-familiar subject matters made the execution of the mono-logues more difficult.

“I’ve never been a snake or a mother,” she said. “You have to take other emotions and turn them into something else.”

Budenosky, who is Thes-pian Club president, was very pleased with the show and looks forward to more in the future.

Advance Rep classes perform monologues

Thespians trick or treat for a good cause

is very rewarding,” sophomore Audrey Reever said. “Some people give, like, 20 cans and say ‘is this enough?’”

It won’t be known if the Thespians met their goal of 350,000 pounds until a later date. However, the MHS troupe gathered 280 pounds alone, making 2012 a very strong year for the fundraiser in Manhattan. “I think we all

came together and performed

really well.”

- Andrew Schulz

ClassifiedsFor Sale: Fender Squire guitar with tuner and stand, $100 obo. Visit C107 to inquire.

For Sale: Intous Wacaom 4 medium tablet , $250 nego-tiable. 785.425.8363.

For Sale: T ickets to Zombie Toxin haunted house in Junction City, open Hal-loween night. Price reduced to $10. See staff members from The Mentor and Blue M or visit C107.

Want to see your ad in The Mentor? Bring information to C107 or email mhsmentorbusiness@gmail .com. Special rates apply for school organiza-tions.

swim using it. Shanteau has swam since

he was a child. He competed for Auburn University and was an 11-time All-American. He first tried out for the Olym-pic trials in 2004. In 2008, he was diagnosed with testicular

cancer a week before placing in the 2008 Olympic trials, where he would compete in the 200-meter breaststroke. He competed in the London Olympics and won a gold medal in the 4x100 medley.

He also told the swimmers about the personal experi-ences from the Olympics, like

SportsMENTORthe4

Oct. 30, 2012

Soccer stats - goals scored (Top 5)

Eric Gray-13

Johnathan

Turnley-11

Jacob

Stutheit-9

evan Williams-7

Peter Maier-6

JC wins the battle, Manhattan wins the warTre Fuentesstaff writer

MHS took on their biggest rival, a very desperate Junc-tion City team who needed to win by more than 13 points to make playoffs. Junction City did win in a 34-33 thriller over the Indians, but the close game allowed Manhattan to make the playoffs for the fifth straight year.

Friday night marked the 98th meeting between the In-dians and Blue Jays (their first was 1913). Junction City got off to a great start, leading 21-6 early in the first half. Recog-

nizing their season was on the line, the Indians rallied and scored 28 consecutive points. Quarterback Jacob Holloway launched a 17-yard throw to junior Devin Cossman late in the second quarter to make the score 21-14 at the half in favor of the Blue Jays.

The Indians began the third quarter with authority, scoring on a six-yard run by Holloway. Following a 15-yard touchdown run from Dar-ian Taylor and another touch-down run from Holloway the Indians were in the drivers seat heading into fourth quar-ter with a 33-21 lead over the

Blue Jays. Just like that the Tribe went from being down by 15 to go ahead by 12. The fourth quarter was probably one of the most frantic fin-ishes the Indians have seen in a while. With 6:40 left in the game, an interception gave Junction City some life, and at the 4:49 mark in the fourth, the Blue Jays scored from 10 yards out to make the score 33-27 still in Manhattan’s fa-vor. The Indians wanted to be conservative and run out the time to seal the victory.

Just as the Indians were getting into a rhythm on of-fense, they fumbled up the

Seth Runyanstaff writer

The Manhattan High School Boy’s Varsity Soccer team saw the end to one of the their most successful seasons last Thursday with a loss in the Regional Finals against Lawrence with a final score of 2-1.

The team finished this year off with a regular season re-cord of 11 wins, four losses and one draw. This season proved to be the most positive since the 2003 season with a record of 14-4-1 and opens up for yet another strong team for next year. This year, the team finds it hard to swallow how they were not able to get far-ther into the playoffs after the loss against Lawrence.

“I don’t look at this season as a failure. It should propel next year’s team to build from the success that we accom-plished,” senior captain Jona-thon Taylor said.

This year could not have been so successful without strong leaders, which was ex-actly what team captains Tay-lor and seniors Killian Gor-man and Joe Coonrod were.

“As a captain, I need to be a better example on and off the field,” Gorman said. “I had every intention to go to State, which is why the captains have to be the coach’s extension on the field and make sure every-one is playing their best.”

The team continues to look forward to next year to build on the success that were accomplished this season. Ju-niors Jonathon Turnley, Eric Gray and Peter Maier look

Soccer ends season in second roundto take the role of being next year’s captains.

“I would love to be a cap-tain, but I would expect others around me to push me to my limits as well,” Maier said. “It all starts in the offseason mak-ing sure everyone is commit-ted to becoming better every day.”

Gray and Turnley, who both lead the team in goals, have some of the greatest statistics in the team and also have a great possibility of be-ing All-State team members.

“JT will easily be one of the top five players in his position next season. His talent is as-tounding,” Taylor said.

While these three definitely stand out from everyone else, it’s not just good statistics that make a great captain.

“I think we have a bunch of guys that are gonna step up and make sure our team is working hard and getting bet-ter before next season,” Turn-ley said. “I’ll do my best to be one of those guys.”

While the tears of disap-

Olympian Eric Shanteay helps two girls improve their starting form at the Manhattan Marlins workshop Saturday. Shanteau was part of the gold medal 4x100 meter medley relay in London.

John Rockey, photographer

Athlete of the WeekTre Fuentesstaff writer

Alaina SchroederSchroeder is cross country runner, she placed third at the State meet. At the In-dians 6A regional in Junc-tion City, she ran a time of 1:45.90 to win the indi-vidual regional title and led MHS to a second place fin-ish. This saturday at the 6A state regionals, she placed third at state and finished with a time of 15:10. She has won first place in all but three races this season and is decorated with gold met-als at Manhattan, Emporia and Junction City Invita-tionals.

Q: What motivated you to start running for cross coun-try?

A: It was my friends. They all ran and all the runners are really close and like a family so I decided to start running too.

Q: Who inspires you to be the best you can be?

A: Definitely my dad. He is a runner as well and he real-ly motivates me throughout the season.

Q: How do you prepare during the summer?

A: A lot of summer condi-tioning. We all practice in the mornings, and it help us prepare for the season.

Q: How pleased are you with your 3rd place finish at State this past Saturday?

A: I was not that far from second place, but I ran hard and don’t have any regrets.

Q: Do you plan on partici-pating in Cross Country af-ter highschool?

A: I think it would be really cool, but I haven’t decided whether I really want to do that or not.

Q: Who is your favorite athlete?

A: Amy Mortimer. She is from Manhattan and took part in the Olympic trials.

Cross Country finishes 6thKayla Diekercopy editor

After securing the Centen-nial League title and quali-fying at the Junction City Regionals on Oct. 20, the Manhattan High Cross Coun-try team traveled to Lawrence Saturday to compete at State. Leaving early Saturday morn-ing, the team was excited to get racing.

“We were excited and we were motivated and really confident. All of our training had worked to this and we were ready,” junior Alaina Schroeder said.

Both the Boys and Girls teams placed sixth, jumping four places from last year.

“[We] had several kids at or under their personal record. Both guys and girls competed tough,” head coach Susan Melgares said. “[It’s] good to be moving up in the stand-ings. Both teams were 10th last year.”

Schroeder, who got first at the Centennial meet, took third overall in the girl’s 4k race, running 15:10.80. She was only .6 seconds away from overtaking junior Alex Miller from Garden City and placing second. “I ran my hardest so I have no regrets,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder has performed consistently well this season and is looking forward to competing at the 2013 State meet. “Next year I’m going to train as hard as I can and do

the best that I can,” she said.The next highest placing

runner for MHS was fresh-man Christina Wankum, who ran 15:16.50, finishing eighth.

In the boys 5k race, junior Chris Melgares, who also got

first at the Centennial meet, placed 10th overall, running 16:13.10.

“Boys averaged 16:50, which is the fastest team aver-age at Rimrock of any teams I have coached,” Susan said.

John Rockeystaff writer

The opportunity to meet one of the best athletes in the world seems like an uncom-mon experience for many. To hear their story and learn the different techniques of that sport is unforget-table. Man-h a t t a n ’ s swim club, the Manhat-tan Mar-lins, got to do just that when they received a sports clinic from Olym-pic gold-m e d a l i s t Eric Shan-teau, a tal-ented swim-mer with experiences that define who he is today as a competitor and as a man.

Shanteau came to teach the Marlins different swimming techniques and give his story about his time competing in the Olympics in Beijing and London. He demonstrated techniques and then had them

Olympian visits Marlinsmeeting new people from all different cultures of the world, and stressed the importance of doing what they enjoy in life and spoke to the Marlins about how he loved what he did.

“I think the biggest thing they should take from this is that you should have fun,” Shanteau said. “Whether a real world job, a sport, a competi-tion, you need to have fun.”

Going to the Olympics twice and surviving cancer forever changed Shan-teau.

“We’re all going through tough things in our lives, but dedication and hard work can

overcome those obstacles you cross. He was able to over-come an obstacle like cancer and that’s big to overcome,” Marlins swim coach Robert Putnam said. “It’s great to see they are seeing new tech-niques and practices from someone that’s at the top of his sport.”

football, and Junction City took possession of the football with less than three minutes.The Bluejays methodically drove the ball down the field, but the Indians defense played stout. With just 25 seconds on the clock at the 3 yard line, they used their final timeout with the game on the line. On the next down, they scored a touchdown to make the score 34-33 and 20 seconds later they were the winners of the silver cup for their win over Manhattan.

Despite the devastation from losing to their rivals in such a close game, their is still

good news for the Indians. Their great play in the previ-ous two games allowed them to enter district play. While Junction City’s season is over, Manhattan advances to the playoffs as district cham-pions. Jacob Holloway and Darian Taylor had a great game on offense as they had a combined 290 total yards of offense. “Darian runs super hard. He’s a great athlete and a big presence of the field,” Holloway said. With regards to his own improvements, Holloway says “ I just need to make sure we keep the turn-overs to a minimum and ex-

ecute whatever game-plan our coaches have in store for us. If we do that, I think we will be in good shape.”

The defense is also a key factor. “As a whole, I think our defense should have and could have played better,” said Chris Hudgins, one of the Senior defensive players on this team.

They will face Dodge City in the first round of the 6A State Playoffs Friday night at Bishop Stadium. This will be the third straight year that Manhattan has faced Dodge City in the playoffs. Manhat-tan won 55-0 last season.

Volleyball eliminated in Sub-state

Nick Bandysports editor

When the dust settled after three dramatic sets between Junction City and Manhattan High’s volleyball teams, Man-hattan was heading home.

MHS defeated JC in a match earlier in the week, but could not pull out a win Oct. 20 in the Sub-state tourna-ment. JC went on to win the Sub-state group and advance to the State meet.

Both teams were very evenly matched, as Manhat-tan won two sets to one earlier that week but lost one set to two in the Sub-State match. The Sub-state tournament took place at Junction City, allowing the JC team to play in front of their friends and family.

“They had several advan-tages, definitely the home court advantage,” head coach Lisa Kinderknecht said.

JC came out strong and won the first set, but then Manhattan rallied to domi-nate in the second.

“We put them on their heels in the second set, we dug up all their hits, and we were up 24-13 before we had some unforced errors. We ended up

winning 25-17,” Kinderknecht said.

Then the momentum swung back in the favor of JC in the crucial third set. MHS had had excellent serving in the other sets but missed sev-eral crucial serves in the third, while JC had almost a flawless third set to win the match.

“They dug up everything while we struggled to get it go-ing. Even their blockers were digging up balls, as well as their defenders,” Kinderknecht said.

Despite the loss Kinderknecht was proud of her team’s hard work.

“They left it all out there, I’m not disappointed in our effort at all,” Kinderknecht said.

MHS only had one return-ing starter from last year, and a large number of sophomores and juniors. These players will return year and the memory of this loss can teach them a lot, and be applied when next year’s Sub-state tournament rolls around.

“Finishing it, that’s going to be our whole theme for next year,” Kinderknecht said.

The volleyball finished the year with a total record of 21 wins and 15 losses.

pointment rolled off each player’s cheeks in the huddle after the loss to Lawrence, se-nior Evan Williams gave his last piece of advice to next year’s team.

“You guys have got to want it. You have to want it so bad that you’ll fight for it.”

Features MENTORthe5

Liz LogbackFeautures Editor

“It scared the hell out of me.”

Ron Roedel thought he had a handle on his daughter’s headaches, but after she had a stroke and was air-evacuated to Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, he realized that junior Harley Rodel’s head pain was more than something an Advil could cure.

The morning of Oct. 7, Harley was rushed by ambulance to Mercy Regional Health Center after a seizure in her home. A CT scan later revealed a large blood clot that had been growing in Harley’s brain and blocking her blood flow, causing there to be pressure and some internal bleeding. After the finding, she was was taken to Children’s Mercy. It was later decided she needed more specialized care, so Harley was taken to KU Medical Center where she is staying now.

On Oct. 8, Harley underwent a procedure that basically “sucked out” the blood clot, which relieved the pressure in her brain and returned the blood flow to a more normal rate. Only 75 percent of the clot could be removed, but doctors placed Harley on a blood thinner

called Coumadin to insure more clots won’t form.

The next morning, Harley woke up for the first time and began to say her first words. Although her memory at that point seemed to be doing okay, things like simple math and higher thought processes became much harder for her. For a few days after the procedure, Harley was unable to move anything on her right side and her speech was slow.

Harley was placed on an anti-seizure medicine to ensure that any minor bleeding still going on wouldn’t cause another seizure. She has also been undergoing therapy to help “get the wheels turning again.” During therapy, Harley is assisted in walking the empty hospital hallways and bending over to pick things up. The next step in therapy will be having Harley walk around objects and people in the hallway to be sure she can navigate in busy surroundings.

“The most time is spent working my brain, trying to ‘reconnect’ or ‘relearn’ some things we all take for granted. My brain is still healing itself, and some things are just beyond my ability right now,” Harley said.

While in the hospital,

Roedel has had four CT Scans, an MRI and a chest X-ray.

“[I’ve had] about 400 blood tests too. Not really, but they do take a lot of blood here,”

Roedel said. This week Harley will

swallow Barium for another X-ray to insure the throat pain she is experiencing is nothing serious.

For most people, a long term stay in the hospital is very stressful, not only on the

patient but also on extended family and friends.

“To realize now what is really wrong, and if I had only asked the right questions, or requested the right test, is

hard to take. But I’ve been able to put that in a box for another day,” Ron Roedel said of his daughter.

In addition to the high stress of the hospital stay, Harley and Ron are both still grieving from the recent loss of their mom/wife on

Sept. 6. Originally when Harley was experiencing her headaches and nausea, doctors attributed it to grief over the loss of her mother and they worked out a plan to walk her through her grief, thinking it would solve the headaches.

“We were just beginning to learn to get through our days without Mom, who was a very big part of her life. The loss of a parent at any age is hard to take, but a young girl losing her mom so soon is an extra hard pill to

swallow,” Ron said. Although the situation is

not ideal, Harley and her dad have been able to find some moments of laughter during their stay in the hospital.

When Harley was transfered last minute to KU Medical Center, she didn’t go through the normal admission process, so the staff handling her paperwork assumed Harley is a boy name and marked Harley’s ID bracelet with an M for male. The next evening someone came by to try to correct the mistake but Harley didn’t have an ID to prove she was a female so her dad resorted to telling the doctor, “I can prove she’s a girl if we have to.” Visitors and a party for Harley’s birthday last Sunday have also helped lighten the mood.

A date for returning home hasn’t been set yet, but doctors are certain it won’t be within the next week. Harley will try to return to school as soon as she is released from the hospital, as she is missing all of her friends, but it all depends on her condition. Long term she will have to be cautious as it is much easier for her to bleed now. She will also remain on blood thinner medicine for the next three months, and after evaluating her after that time period, possibly the rest of her life. Right now though, Ron and Harley are just focusing on healing and improving her condition a little each day.

Stroke admits student to hospital

Seth RunyanStaff Writer

Most students just know Breckin Cubie as the boy in the wheelchair with a service dog, but they don’t know his true story.

Students walk past this sophomore in the hallways daily and think of him as different, which he is, physically, but he is also just as normal as the next kid. Cubie has muscular dystrophy, which is a disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and the death of muscle cells and tissue. MD also inhibits the patient’s ability to walk, which is why Cubie is in a wheelchair.

“I was diagnosed when I was about seven or eight. I was playing baseball and my coach said I was walking different and I should go to the doctor,” Cubie said.

MD sufferers often have a service dog to assist them. Cubie’s dog, Twister, first helped him maintain his balance. Twister had a handle attached to a harness that would provide stability for Cubie when he needed something to grab on to.

“A lot of people come up

to me and pet [Twister], and they’re not supposed to,” Cubie said. “People can only pet her when her harness is off, which a bunch of people already know that, but it really doesn’t help that much.”

Since this disease eventually inhibits the patient’s ability to walk, Cubie eventually needed to use a wheelchair. He first had to use his it during fifth and sixth grade. Being in a wheelchair embarrassed Cubie at first but he eventually got over it and accepted his new way of life.

Although he may not look the same as everyone, he’s

just the same in many other factors. His favorite things include all vegetables and fruits, hunting, fishing, hanging out with his friends, singing and watching anything on the Discovery Channel.

Cubie was able to share his interests and relate to others that have the same disease as him at a Muscular Dystrophy Association camp. Every summer, Cubie and others gather in the Kansas

City area to meet people who have the same issues.

“There are kids and adults like me in wheelchairs and then you have others that are walking fine or are struggling walking. Every person that is there has a counselor that stays with them and helps them out and talks to them,” Cubie said.

Even with such a destructive disease, Cubie continues to look on the bright side of life. He has a love for music and takes part in choir. He plans to continue his love for music after high school by majoring in music.

MDS makes Cubie stronger

Coming To America!Foreign exchange student spotlight

IPS hosts tailgate

Liz LogbackFeatures Editor

From the small village in Germany where a bike can be ridden everywhere, to the cow-filled fields of Kansas, junior Louisa Friedrich has entered a whole new lifestyle and culture. She left her village of 5,000 people and chilly weather to live in Manhattan with the Deeds family. Simba, Friedrich’s cat, saw her off from Germany along with an older sister and Friedrich’s parents.

“Leaving your family for such a long time is hard, but you write, and get used to it,” Friedrich said.

Before coming to America, Friedrich dreamed of having her own locker in the school halls and going to high school football games with friends. She admitted that a lot of the things she was excited

for in the U.S. came from the Disney movie “High School Musical.” Considering not many students at Manhattan High sing and dance on tables, there are quite a few differences between the movie and real high school.

Friedrich is finding that her school at home is very different than MHS. Not getting home until almost 4 p.m. is Friedrich’s least favorite part of America thus far. In Germany, school was let out around 1:30, except for two days of the week when classes go a little longer.

Friedrich also finds the school musical something she really enjoys. She is impressed with how professional everyone is. Although she doesn’t have a main role, Friedrich loves being with all of the people.

In Germany, she was on a soccer team. Friedrich is most looking forward to spring and trying out for the MHS team.

“[I like] the real team spirit feeling,” she said.

In addition to soccer, Friedrich participated on the MHS Cross Country team and Tennis team, neither of which she played back home.

As it is for most foreign exchange students, the overwhelming amount of fast food in America is a new experience. Spangles and Dairy Queen have come to be Friedrich’s favorites. However, the healthy bread from her small village is a food she misses. The white bread here, she says, just doesn’t compare to the sunflower seed wheat bread from her home village.

Overall, Friedrich is adjusting well to American life. By the end of the year, when this experience is over, Friedrich hopes “to be really close to my host family and feel like a member. And I want people at the end of the year that are important to

Julie HarknessStaff Writer

Most people these days don’t have the hundred dollars to shell out on a costume they would be wearing once for a few hours on Halloween. Budgets in mind, how can students have a rockin’ costume without the dough?

A Google search of “Halloween costumes under $20” or “Cheap Halloween costumes” reveals endless sites that claim to have cheap costumes. In reality, their costumes are just as expensive as anyone else’s when you add shipping and handling. It is just as simple to create a costume with the things you have in your wardrobe as it is to go out and buy one.

Almost everyone these days

has a V-neck T-shirt, a flannel overshirt, skinny jeans and moccasins. Now go out and spend maybe $12 on a pair of big fake glasses and students can have a stereotypical hipster costume. A costume like this to go out and buy would run for about $50 in the average store.

If students want something more creative for a costume, try cutting up an old colorful T-shirt as well as a pair of shorts or sweats (depending on how warm you want to be for this Trick-or-treating season), throw in a pair of funky shoes (like pink converse) and use simple makeup from around the house to create a clown affect. A clown costume can run anywhere between $24-$70 online or in a Halloween store.

A cheap costume for the males is just as simple. Most guys here at Manhattan High have camo somewhere in their closet. Throw that on with a pair of combat boots or cowboy boots and BAM, instant hunter. To jack up the look and make it look more real, try taking a cork from a wine bottle, lighting the end on fire, and melting the cork to create a non-oil based, scent free “makeup.” A costume like this on average is around $25, maybe more.

These are just simple, creative and cheap ideas that anyone can do. All you have to do is look in your closet or around the house and see things with a different eye to figure out what to be. The options are endless.

Cheap Halloween costumes

Junior Harley Rodel with friends (left to right) junior Kelsey Crawfor, senior Kristen Queen, junior Liz Logback, junior Kennedy Feliz, and junior Bryce Rincon at the hospital.

Courtesy photo

The Interpersonal Skills and adaptive P.E. classes held their first annual tailgate at Bramlage Oct. 22. The tailgate provided students an opportunity to get together, eat and play common tailgate games.

Kayla Dieker, photographer

Cubie is always accompied by his service dog, Twister.

Oct. 30, 2012

TrendingMENTORThe6

Oct. 30, 2012

Hit- Staying up until midnight to download Taylor Swift’s new album “Red” was totally worth it.

Hit- It is acceptable now to drink pumpkin spice lattes and wear oversize sweaters.

Hit- Spoiler Alert: “Pretty Lit-tle Liars” Halloween special -- that was one crazy episode. Toby is A, Mona is A, Gar-rett is dead, Aria almost died, Aria’s dad might have killed Alison and in the end Alison might still be alive.

Hit- What is better than scary mov-ies, chocolate and haunted houses? It’s Halloween.

Miss- Sitting for four hours in one place for the PSAT and PLAN test is not fun.

Miss/Hit- Indians gave it their all at the JC game but in the end we lost by one point. At least JC gets to sit home and watch us in the play offs.

Dheepthi’s Hits and Misses

Best ever storyline on Rob Corddry’s Childrens Hospi-tal: after getting fed up with too many emails every day, Dr.. Lola Spratt fakes her own death. It only takes a few days for her to see the drawbacks of this plan, so she shows back up to work at the hospital. Each time she enters a room, all the inhabitants scream and panic, crying, “GHOST! GHOST!” But another doctor, Glenn Richie, is determined to sleep with her even if it means do-ing so in the spirit world. He uses electroshock to die for 10 minutes, but somehow is acci-dentally sent back in time to the FDR administration.

Like most “Childrens Hos-pital” plotlines, this classic episode follows an improvi-sational, slapstick style that

reaches a new peak of weird and comic genius every week, 15 minutes at a time. It really is the heir to “Monty Python’s Flying Circus;” humor so in-credibly dumb it’s some of the smartest on cable. Rob Cord-dry isn’t Louis C.K. or Lena Dunham, who use their self-loathing as a gag. Nor is he do-ing the Larry David crassness-as-comedy routine. Instead, “Childrens Hospital” is in the ancient clown tradition; a will-ingness to do anything for a laugh, no matter how silly. It parodies medical dramas like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Pri-vate Practice” (Chief, played hilariously by Megan Mul-lally, uses crutches or a walk-er like Dr. Kerry Weaver on “ER”), but it’s more than just that. It’s comedic revelation, an updated back-to-basics.

Speaking of Chief, the fin-est episode this season is easily “Chief’s Origin.” A Hulu sum-marization reading, “Chief tells the story of how she came to be crippled and annoying. The doctors are not interest-ed,” describes an episode that has to be a masterpiece, and it is: Chief recalls being born

with a disease in which she sang involuntarily all hours of the day. She nearly destroys her body in med school at-tempting to cure it and per-forms brain surgery on herself numerous times. Naturally, she is determined to conduct surgery on a patient suffering the same disease, saying she was “born” to do the opera-tion. I’ll say no more, but she does make one grave mistake by drinking something called Parkinson’s Juice prior to operating, exactly the sort of twisted humor that makes this show so great.

“Childrens Hospital” is the best kept secret on television, maybe because it airs at mid-night on Adult Swim. Though it has aired since 2010, I only just got onboard myself. But this is comedy gold on par with “Louie,” “Girls,” “Parks and Rec” and all the other hippest sitcoms on TV. Rob Corddry’s greatest achieve-ment -- saying something for his stellar work -- is a laughfest road to paradise, paved with glorious d*ck and fart jokes the whole way there.

Rob Corddry ’s Flying Circus

Horror. Complete and ut-ter horror.

This is what season two of “American Horror Story” tries to instill inside you as you watch each episode.

After having such a suc-

cessful season last year and winning Emmy after Emmy, “American Horror Story: Asylum” had some serious ex-pectations to fulfill. Instead of continuing such a tremendous storyline from the first season, “Asylum” introduces us to a completely new one. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, espe-cially since a good number of the cast from last year have re-turned but in different roles.

This season has a list of some interesting characters -- Kit Walker (Evan Peters), Sis-ter Jude (Jessica Lange) and the disturbing Dr. Arthur Ar-den (James Cromwell). “Asy-

lum’s” characters are certain-ly the show’s biggest strength and are played by some great actors, with a good major-ity from last season. This can also be one of its great-est weaknesses because view-ers must transition to seeing Tate, Constance, Chad War-wick and Nora Montgomery as completely different char-acters. At least the majority of the actors have characters that have a similarity to last year’s season, especially Jes-sica Lange reprising her role as that evil, crazy lady, which she does so convincingly.

What makes “American

Horror Story” so addicting is the story and the great cliff-hanger each episode contains. Season one had a great consis-tent story that never ceased to impress and delivered every episode. This season is not ex-actly the same story because it throws so much at you, it’s overwhelming. “Asylum” has implemented horror flicks from many genres including slasher, supernatural, psycho-logical thriller, exorcism and alien abductions. Yes, you read that right, aliens. Keep in mind that this is all in the first two episodes, which only shows just how “Asylum” is

trying to be too much at one time. This could be the game-plan for this season, though; all of these could weave to-gether for a mind-blowing fi-nale. It is still early in the sea-son and anything is possible in “American Horror Story.”

This does not make “Asy-lum” a terrible show. In fact it still is one of the highest qual-ity shows on television. With so much to take in and com-prehend, you’ll be left begging for more just because it is done so well. All of the char-acters have such a fascinating and interesting past, it’s lovely to see the flashbacks for their

back story. Evan Peters does yet another fantastic job of depicting a character fighting to show his sanity followed be-hind the always wonderful Jes-sica Lange and her full of atti-tude and judgement character. “Asylum” is also proving to be much more of a mature sto-ryline, which is welcomed but it does seem a bit disturbing with some of the most vulgar sex scenes on television. But hey, everyone has their own reason for watching “Ameri-can Horror Story.”

American Horror Story

A family becomes a hotel’s care-takers, despite being warned that the previous caretaker died. Their curiosity of room 237 takes the best of them, weird things start to happen and their own father turns on them and kills them. Scare factor: Room 237 and the hotel itself.

Twelve-year-old Reagan begins to exhibit strange behavior. At first puberty seems to be the answer but we soon learn that a demonic spirit possesses her. The creepiest part is perhaps when Reagan does the de-monic head rolling; her appearance doesn’t help things either (still can’t get over that). Scare factor: Reagan looks demonic and she keeps calling herself the devil.

Inexplicable murders begin to take place at Camp Crystal Lake, fear begins to set into the camps cur-rent occupants. At the end, there is only one survivor, Alice. At the end, she is relieved to have survived but is scared when she finds out that no corpse was found of Jason (the mur-derer). Scare factor: Jason popping from underwater in the end when Alice is escaping in the boat.

A couple return to their home af-ter being away to find three masked strangers in their house. The ‘strang-ers’ take them hostage and the couple have to retract to violent measures to have a chance at survival. Scare fac-tor: the three masked strangers.

A group of tourist and their tour guide set out to travel through an abandoned nuclear plant town which has been deserted due to a tragedy that happened 25 years earlier. As they travel throughout the town they soon start to see strange creatures and attacks against them begin. Scare factor: The strange creatures lurking throughout the town.

A mysterious box seems to be the source of demonic occurrences; first, a grandma is seen being severely in-jured when she attempts to destroy it. Later a kid, Em, begs her father to buy her the box and she soon begins to exhibit demonic behavior. The box is really a Jewish demon box, that within holds a demon that takes over the life of the box owner. Scare factor: The box.

Best Horror Films Friday the 13th (1980)The Exorcist (1973) The Shining (1980)

The Possession (2012)Chernobyl Diaries (2012)The Strangers (2008)

Julith Perry Staff Writer

The following are some of the scariest horror films of all time. I feel all these films have that “I won’t be able to sleep tonight” feeling. Warning: there are major spoilers throughout.

Photo courtesy of taylors-wift.com

Eli RedekerGuest Writer

Today:

High in the mid ‘80s. Which is also what you had to be to enjoy the song “Every Rose has its Thorn.” Think about it.

Wednesday:

The type of snow grandpap-py told you about. However, there will never be a winter as bad as ’54! NO SIRREE!

Thursday:

Local Reporters Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Report: If it keeps on raining, the levee’s

gonna break. Johnny Cash Reports: Flood-water already five feet high and a’ risin’.

Friday:

Cloudy, with a chance of meatballs.

Saturday:

A HurriKLEIN is coming to face Oklahoma State! Go Cats!

Sunday:

New Consecutive-Sunrise Record set!

W e a t h e r F o r e c a s t Monday:

Either hotter than the hubs of hell, or colder than an Alaskan well-diggers hind-quarters.

Graphic by Dheepthi Perumal