NEWS: First Story Slam at NAHS

by Abigail LeDonne

      The first ever Story Slam competition took place at the NAHS Library Media Center on Thursday, April 26th during 4th block and Eagle Block. The Story Slam was presented in conjunction with Lehigh Valley Story Slam, an organization that includes competitions at Nazareth High School, Moravian Academy, and Lehigh Valley Charter Arts.

     In a Story Slam, students can sign up to participate in advance or on the spot, names are drawn out of a hat, and students get on stage to tell a story about a particular theme. The competition is evaluated by two judges who pick four students from each school who will advance to the final competition tonight, Thursday May 3rd at 7:00 at Moravian Academy.

     The theme at Nazareth last week was "Rising Above" and each student's story had to revolve around that idea. Twelve students competed at Nazareth and were judged according to their story presentation and its connection to the theme. The four Nazareth students who advanced to the final round at Moravian are junior Collin Disbrow, sophomore Alex Lynch, sophomore Carson Pieper, and senior Josiah Snyder. They will compete with eight students from the other schools.

    Read Collin Disbrow's winning story below:

     To think about rising above, there is probably one minuscule moment in my life that I can think of that epitomizes that idea. Every year for the past couple of years, I’ve been partaking in this event that is very dear to my heart. It’s through Boy Scouts. It’s known as National Youth Leadership Training, and through that it gives the youth the ability to teach to the youth of tomorrow the ability to lead.  

Photo Credit: Sandy Jameson

     Now, I love this program with all my heart, and I decided that I was going to partake in it after participating in it my first year, and when I first joined, they gave me the position of troop guide. Now, troop guide means that you’re in charge of 6 kids, and those kids are your little lambs to follow you for two weekends in April, and I can remember that one of the most difficult things about it was the fact that we had to give presentations all of the time. Troop guides are in charge of three half hour presentations on anything from solving problems to leading in general.

  

     And then, my senior patrol leader, which is kind of like the head honcho of boy scouts, he tells me, “Oh, by the way, you know how great you are at presenting? I’m going to give you a bonus presentation. This one is an hour long.” So I had about two weeks to put this thing together, and I finally had it down. I had some great pictures for it, some great visual aids, and I have this great dialogue ready, and I had a video, and it was fantastic. I put it all in a powerpoint, and I emailed it to my senior patrol leader, Chris. 

     Now Chris, when we got to camp that day, was like “Alright, are you ready for your presentation?” I said, “Yeah, I can’t wait, this is going to be great!” So, we sat down, and I connected the computer to the monitor, and I connected that to the projector, and I started to go through his email. I started scrolling through, searching in my email. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing in my name at all. I was like “Chris, hey, do you remember when I sent you my presentation?” He goes, “No, I don’t think I got it,” and that’s when my heart started to race, and I probably shed a couple tears.  

     At that point, I knew I was going to have to wing a presentation for an hour. So in the ten minutes that I had to prepare and hold off these rabid groups of children ready to hear me speak, I gave it a shot. I had this massive notepad in front of me, and I started scribbling random thoughts on it. It was a presentation on valuing people so I said, “Um, um, valuing people...” (that was a good starter), and then I started going down the line, and I thought, “Don’t judge people? Be nice to people?”  

    And I managed to pull that off for an hour, but as I was going through it, my voice started to get more and more clear. I started to understand that if I had known that I knew the information in my head, I wouldn’t have stressed so much, and at that moment, I knew that that was my time to rise up. Thank you.

NEWS: Special Olympics Come to Nazareth

by Kayleigh Vo

           The annual Special Olympics held at Nazareth Area High School took place on April 19, 2018. 144 student athletes have been preparing for the whole year to compete in activities, such as javelin throw, scooter races, long jump. Students earned colorful ribbons as a symbol of their hard work.

           Ms. Megan O’Brien who is a social studies teacher and the advisor for the Special Olympic Committee. She tells us the Committee started preparing for the event in September. The members scheduled to meet every D day during Eagle Block, but most “students [came] in on other days to help complete the decorations” because there was “so much to be done.” However, that’s not the end of it. Ms. O’Brien also “put in time after school running errands to get the supplies [they] need to make everything.”

         This year’s theme was Disney’s The Little Mermaid. The high school’s gym lobby was completely under the sea, covered wall to wall with hand-painted items and characters from the movie. While most people can admire the beautiful artwork, they don’t know about how everything came to be.

The theme of the event is chosen on the first meeting of the year. They often pick a theme that “revolves around a movie [they] can show and have the athletes view when they are not competing.” Most of the athletes are younger in age, so the movie theme must be appropriate for that age range. Of course, some of the most kid-friendly movies are Disney or Pixar.

        This year’s movie was chosen because it is Ms. O’Brien’s favorite movie and this is her last year as advisor, after 7 successful years running the event. She says, “the process itself can be very time consuming, creating the decorations.” In the past, it took the Committee one day to set up the gym lobby. However, this year, it took them two days.

Besides the competitions held throughout the gym, the lobby holds activities that athletes could participate in between their events. The stations—coloring, ball toss, crafts, face-painting, and the movie—are chosen and created by the Committee. According to Ms. O’Brien, the athletic events “are chosen by the Intermediate Unit, but the committee helps to set them up.” The Intermediate Unit also signs up the athletes and schedules their individual events.

While it has been getting harder and harder to get students to volunteer, Ms. O’Brien “received many emails from parents and the IU about how amazing [the] school volunteers (Huggers) were” this year.