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Community, Front/Home

HAPPY’s New Student Breakfast

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Lauren Rayman

      HAPPY recently hosted a breakfast to help welcome new students in the district to Stow-Munroe Falls High School.

     On Tuesday, October 29, HAPPY’s breakfast mixer was held for the 75 high school students that are new to the district. The mixer was held during 2nd and 3rd periods in the library.

     Students that attended participated in lots of activities to get to know not only other new students, but to also get to know HAPPY members.

     “We did an “I Like People Who…” game which is like musical chairs and a speed dating game to get people to know each other better,” senior HAPPY member Meghan Koch said.

     While HAPPY was planning the mixer, they divided club members to help ensure that all of their bases would be covered for the event.

     Once they had chosen a date, people were assigned to deciding what food they wanted to have for the breakfast portion of the mixer, and others were assigned to coming up with games and activities that they would do at the mixer.

     Junior Tony Madjerich attended Chippewa during his sophomore year of high school, but had gone to Stow previously. He felt that the breakfast mixer was a great opportunity to reconnect with people he knew before transferring to Chippewa.

     “It also allowed me to meet more people I had not known from being at Stow before,” Madjerich said.

     HAPPY’s breakfast mixer provided students that were new to the district a chance to meet other students in the same situation as them.

     Ryan Hinman, an English teacher and HAPPY advisor, feels that it is very important to make those connections with other students as soon as possible, especially in high school.

     “Everyone needs support groups, and when you come to a new school you don’t always have the support groups you need. You might not have the people surrounding you that can help you out, which makes you prone to, unfortunately, maybe bullying or feeling left out of the general culture of the school. So, this is a chance for other students who may not have those support groups to come together, find them, have a great time and a wonderful breakfast, and feel like Stow cares about them as much as we really do,” Hinman said.

     Koch and Hinman both feel that the overall, the event was a great success in helping new students befriend each other and HAPPY members. It also gave new students the opportunity to connect with HAPPY’s advisors.

     Students interested in joining HAPPY can visit Hinman’s room, room 108, for more information. HAPPY meets during 5th and 7th period lunches on Wednesday’s.

 

Community, Front/Home

Veterans Beating the Stereotype

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Morgan Vincent

     For years veterans have had many events held in their honor as well as many corporations honoring them with promotions. There are people think that label them with stereotypes, thinking they take advantage of these services, but many see them as a well deserved reward for all their contributions.

     Here in Stow, we offer a veterans day breakfast celebration at most schools in the district. The breakfast allows the veterans to spend time with their loved ones as well as feast on their favorite breakfast goodies during the school day.

     Senior, Gabby Hawk addressed how she felt about veterans and how the services they receive can impact them greatly.    

   “My uncle is actually a Marine Veteran so I have a good idea of how he feels. When I think of veterans, I think of them as brave, resilient, and courageous people,” Hawk said. 

     Most people feel that the veterans cherish all the events held for them and that they have worked so hard that they have earned it. 

    “I feel that all the benefits for them are rightfully deserved and that most veterans appreciate all of them,” Hawk said.

    Although there are numerous services already available for veterans, many feel that there should be more and that there should be easier access to them as well. 

    There is a wide variety of things that veterans could benefit from that go far beyond freebies and luncheons. Services such as counseling and support groups can be implemented as well for an easier transition out of the service.

    “I think more rehab and therapy should be offered for them because many veterans who have been in combat suffer from severe mental illnesses,” Hawk said.

     In the future it is likely there will be more support offered for Veterans, but as for now, the services we have will continue to be offered for them.

 

Front/Home, News

Robotic Spam Calls

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Sascha Aleksich

   An automated robotic voice can be heard all over America, and now it seems the IRS is cracking down on the entire population for not turning in their tax money. Robotic spam callers have become something of an issue for America and do not ever seem to let up. 

     There is not much that can be done to stop the calls, but there are a few apps that can help limit the amount. 

     First of all, a robocall is an automated message. According to Federal Trade Commission the messages that try to sell something are illegal but political messages are legal. Many of these messages come from overseas, so it is harder to crack down on the main offender for these calls. 

     Robocalls work by either buying numbers illegally to call or they dial at random. This is one of the reasons why signing up for the National do not call list does not work because robocallers often work with illegal methods. Scammers will also use spoofing technology to route fake caller ID information, and they will use this to match someone’s area code number.

      Then they will pre record a robotic message, because it is cheaper than an actual person, Robokiller said, an app made specifically to stopping robocallers. 

     There are various different types of robocalls says “New York Post” these types of robocall scams includes neighbor spoofing where a number imitates numbers from someones area code. There is also a chinese constitute scam where a caller calls in mandarin asking for the victim to help pick up a package, usually the trick is to get someone to reveal their credit card number and bank info. 

     A SEO scam posing as a small time business owner that needs help from being listed as “close” on google and are hoping to get money to keep themselves open. There is also a health insurance scam that will trick people into sending them money, and also the infamous IRS scam that misleads people into sending them money by saying they owe them a huge amount of dollars. 

     “I get them once a week,” sophomore Haleigh Harris said. 

     There is really no way to prevent getting these calls, but having a number up on social media can leave someone more susceptible to spam calls, according to Robokiller.

     However, there are still some ways to help stop the amount that comes in, and this is dependent on the type of service someone has. Usually a phone will come with these apps pre installed.

     “I usually just delete them or do not answer them,” freshman CallieDiatrich said. “I usually get a lot of credit card ones or sometimes I just get random ones from companies, like insurance.” 

      AT&T, has a post-paid service that provides fraud warning, spam call screening and blocking for free. Sprint also has a similar service but costs 2.99 dollars a month. T-mobile will tell when a call is fishy, or by dialing #662, there is a free ScamBlock app TechCrunch said.

     Verizon has a preinstalled spam blocker for free that detects spam calls, but paying for premium gives more info on the caller. Which does not help much considering the robocallers spoof their number, and the premium might filter important callers too. For third party spam blockers, there is Nomorobo and Robokill.

     It is best just to block or ignore the number as well. Answering a call will cause more spam, and spam filters will not cover everything according to TechCrunch.

    Robocallers have been a huge issue nowadays, and although there are measures to take against them, they are not always effective, so it is  better to try and ignore the calls all together.