Category Archives: Community

Community, Feature, Front/Home, News

Homecoming 2019

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Ayla Morris

   Homecoming: the most pivotal point of most high school students’ year. Almost everyone in highschool goes to homecoming every year. A lot of people’s favorite part is dressing up.

     “I like dressing up fancy and seeing everyone else’s fancy dresses too,” junior, Claire Hawes, said. 

      Not only do students get to dress up for the dance, but they get to get excited for the dance by dressing up for spirit days.“I love spirit weeks i always go all out for every day they make school so much more fun,” Hawes said. 

     Student council plans for all the homecoming events leading up to the dance, and the dance itself. 

      “It’s very hectic with all the different committees and planning things other than StuCo stuff, but it’s really cool to see how it all comes together in the end, especially the festival”, Williams Boggs said. 

     Students enjoy taking pictures in their nice clothes and then following that with dinner. Many fancy dinner places are packed on homecoming night. 

      Homecoming also comes with court. On court there is one freshman couple, one sophomore couple, two junior couples, and four senior couples on court. Students run for all kinds of reasons. 

     “We ran because we have been dating since freshman year and have ran for court before but didn’t win. We just kept trying each year and I think it will be really fun and add to the homecoming experience,” Hawes said. 

     Many students opinions differ about the actual dance. Half of the students do not care for the music when the other half love it. It changes every year. 

   “I hope they play good music, I’m really excited to see what the dance committee puts together,” Boggs said. 

     The dance is an exciting time for everyone. Many students are excited for it. 

     “I’m excited about the dance. I am excited about hanging out with my friends,” junior, Joshua Christy, said. 

    The theme of the dance is Old Hollywood. The theme changes every year and students opinions of it always differ. 

     “It’s okay, but I don’t know what old Hollywood even means”, Christy said. 

  The dance is always a good time for many students and is sure to be again this year. 

 

Community, Front/Home

Make the Grade Comes to Stow

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     To highlight hardworking students, Stow has joined Akron Beacon Journal’s recognition program called “Make the Grade”.

     “Make the Grade” is a weekly article that features teenagers of character. It varies from elementary to high school students, teachers and staff. 

     It was launched Sept. 9th, 2019, and all Summit County schools are invited to be a part of the program. The central office of the district made the decision to become a part of it, and the superintendent sent an informational email to all of the schools.

      The program is a great new way for the school to highlight people in the district and county, and the high school principal Dr. Jeffrey Hartmann is excited to be a part of it.

     Hartmann says he thinks it will be good for the students and staff, because “positive recognition is always helpful.”

          The reporter of “Make the Grade” is Jennifer Pignolet. She has been writing for Akron Beacon since April 2019.

     The article contains four categories: Amazing Teachers, Difference Makers, Kids of Character and Teens of Character.

      “Schools submit their nominations a week ahead of publication, we pick two winners and then they answer questions, along with a photo that our photographers take [of the students] at their school,” Pignolet explained.

     The ages of students and schools vary every week. Every school involved will be featured a few times throughout the year.

          Pignolet believes, “It is important for the community to see the success of students and to highlight the work that regular people do in schools everyday. There is so much good happening in schools that people don’t get to hear about enough, and this is a great way to do that.”

    “Make the Grade” welcomes the opportunity to recognize deserving educational members of Summit County. The most recent article can be read here.     

 

Community, Feature, Front/Home

Spirit Week Hallway Decorating

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   On Sunday, Sept. 22, there was a hallway decorating competition among the classes from 1-4pm. Each graduating class was invited to come help decorate their hallway to try and win spirit week points. 

     Each class was assigned a different hallway; therefore, each hallway of the school would be decorated in Stow spirit for homecoming week.

     Student Council provided all the decorations for each of the grades and each class had free range to decorate the hallways as they saw fit with only a few restrictions.

    A few of the restrictions were: tape could not be on any painted surface, no paint on window and no paint on the lockers.

     Each class followed these rules, and made the hallways very unique and different. They added some ideas that some of the other classes did not do.

     Sophomore, Mariah Propst, thought it was a good way to have kids be able to express their creativity if kids didn’t want to dress up; however, the hallways could have been more unique if more of a variety of supplies were provided.

     “It could be a better way for students to express their creativity if we could bring in our own decorations, or if more of a variety was provided,” Propst said. 

     Since all the kids in the high school were invited to come help, there were a variety of unique ideas added to each hallway. Some kids handled different aspects of the hallway; however, they all worked as a team to complete the hallway.

     Hallway decorating is a fun way for all students to be able to come together and try and earn spirit week points. Student Council also ordered pizza and water for the kids to enjoy while they were decorating. 

     A new idea added this year to be more creative was a banner. Each grade had to decorate their own class banner in a unique way place it in their hallway. 

     Although each hallway is decorated with maroon and gold, the theme for homecoming gets incorporated even if it is a small way.

     “We always try and incorporate the theme even if it is small. For example, the sophomores used the streamers to make curtain like designs like they had in Old Hollywood,” said Propst.

     The hallway decorating competition was won by the sophomore class giving them 15 spirit points, putting them in the lead for the class competition. It will also bring them more excitement for the pep rally on Friday.

 

Community, Entertainment, Front/Home, Reviews

Luke Bryan Concert Review

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Ashley Hutchinson

     Saturday, September 14, was a busy day at Blossom Music Center. Country singer Luke Bryan made an Ohio appearance while on his Sunset Repeat tour. 

     The concert was said to start at 7 pm, but Bryan did not make an appearance until around 9:30. Instead, the audience watched the opening acts perform. The two opening acts included Jon Langston and Cole Swindell, both of whom are also country singers. 

     Blossom Music Center was designed to hold about 23,000 people, and every single ticket to this concert was completely sold out. 

     Jon Langston was a decent opening act, but most of the audience was not familiar with his music. Cole Swindell, however, was a big hit among the crowd because his songs seemed to be more well-known. 

     “I enjoyed one of them, Cole Swindell, but not the other one because I did not know his music that well,” junior Hayley Kohler said after attending the concert.

     Overall, the concert was an amazing experience. “I enjoyed it because I knew all of the songs that he performed,” Kohler said.

     Bryan’s set list was around 23 songs long and included crowd favorites such as “Knockin’ Boots”, “That’s my Kind of Night” and “Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset”. 

     My personal favorite was “Knockin’ Boots” because it is his most recent song and it was the most popular among the audience. It was such a cool experience when every single person knew the song and had a blast dancing to it.

     The concert production was done very well and no improvements were needed there. All of the acts ran smoothly and each of the performers did a wonderful job. 

    The only negative, for me personally, is that he did not perform a few of the songs I really like. However, this was balanced out because I discovered new songs that I had never heard before and I came to love them just as much.

     I would definitely attend one of his concerts again. It was so much fun and was a very memorable experience for me. His next concerts will also include new songs, which will be a good change. 

     Luke Bryan’s Sunset Repeat tour was a concert that I will never forget.