The orchestra had an exciting end to a great school year.

On Sat., May 23 the orchestra attended the Music in the Parks Competition at Perkins High School.

The middle school orchestra previously attended the competition, but this was the first year that the high school went.

Music in the Parks is a month long event at Cedar Point and has competitors from several states where bands, choirs and string orchestras compete.

The competition has two classes, class A and class AA at the middle school and high school levels. Class A consists of schools which have 700 or less students and Class AA has more than 700.

The Directors pick two songs which demonstrates the groups’ strengths. One song typically has a faster tempo than the other. The high school director, Sarah Behal, chose “Declarations” and “Odessa” for the orchestra.

After the orchestra performed at Perkins High School they went to Cedar Point for the rest of the day. At Cedar Point, the orchestra attended an awards ceremony. The orchestra received first place with a superior rating in class AA. The orchestra also received the overall trophy for the string orchestras at the event. The overall trophy means they were the best scoring orchestra of the day.

Earlier in the year, the orchestra attending the state contest received a superior rating. That was the first superior at a state contest in five years. This school year, the orchestra received two superior ratings. The orchestra is looking forward to continuing working to better the performance of the group and receive more superior ratings at competitions.

After this year, Chris DiMauro will no longer be the principal of the high school. DiMauro will be taking the job of the director of Human Resources for Stow-Munroe Falls city schools.

Although DiMauro is sad to be leaving the high school, he is excited for his new position in the school district.

As the director of Human Resources, he will be a major component of the hiring process in the school district. This includes teachers, administrators, custodians, and secretaries. He will also be responsible for federal and state accountability for things such as insurance, time cards, school calendars and hours for the staff members.

District-wide programming and terms of staff development also include some of DiMauro’s new duties.

“It is very much a comprehensive job,” DiMauro said.

DiMauro will miss many things when he leaves the high school to pursue his new position. The thing he will miss most is interaction with students and staff. His new role is more centralized away from schools and he will spend more time in an office than in a classroom.

“I’ll still be in buildings, but not nearly as much as I am now,” DiMauro said.

He will also miss the pep rallies the high school hosts and big events he will not be as involved with now. Although he will not be as involved, he will still enjoy coming to football games and other fun events the school puts on. Through these events, he plans to stayed involved in student culture.

DiMauro is looking forward to many new opportunities in his new position and he is excited he will be able to institute change in all schools now instead of just at the high school. He will be working with all 700 employees in the Stow-Munroe Falls school district. He will have many relationships with many different people with his new job.

It is still not known who will be replacing DiMauro. The interviewing process for the principal of the high school will begin sometime next week.

DiMauro said, “My first major task as Human Resources Director is to replace myself.”

Recently this week many students have discovered the iPhone text messaging “bug.” Many students have found a way for iPhone users’ phones to be shut down by sending an encrypted message containing Chinese characters and the phrase “effective. Power.”

According to CNN.com, “A text consisting of a particular string of characters, revealed on Reddit late Tuesday, exploits an inability of the messaging app’s preview feature to correctly render the characters, which are not the standard alphanumerics or emoticons one typically texts.”

Where this hack was found is unclear, but Apple is doing their best to try and resolve the issue.

CNN.com also states, “Apple wrote on its support site, under the heading ‘If Messages quits unexpectedly after you get a text with a specific string of characters,’ that the company ‘is aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters.’ The post said Apple will make a fix available in a software update.”

Until the problem is solved by Apple, there are a few things one can do to prevent the problems from arising and not have to block any contacts. First thing to try is asking Siri to “read unread messages.”

Also, use Siri to reply to the message. After the reply, the phone will be able to open Messages again. Lastly, in Messages, swipe left to delete the entire conversation, or tap and hold the message, tap “more,” and delete the message from the conversation.

If all fails and the phone continues to have problems, the last thing to do is block the people who send the messages and do a quick reset of the phone.

Lastly, hold the home button with the power button as if one was taking a screenshot. Hold them in for a few seconds and an apple should appear. This signals that the phone has closed down all the apps and refreshed its system. All the contacts, photos, and apps will remain on the phone.