By Austin Beamer

The shop with a cop program has been going on in Stow for the past few years. Officer Barry Smith has been participating in the program. The cops around Stow work hard to raise money for the children of Stow who are unable to buy gifts for their friends and family.

“It is a great opportunity for the kids who do not have the ability to go out and get gifts for their family,”Smith said.

The children who participate are not chosen at random. Throughout the year, teachers and principals submit the names of children they believe deserve should participate. From that list of names, certain children are chosen. Once selected, they are paired with an officer from Stow. Each child is given between $100 and $120. The money is raised by the cops themselves and then split so each kid has around the same amount.

On the day of shopping, the children all meet at a Stow public school for breakfast. This year, the students will come to the high school to eat all that they want before buying their gifts. After the breakfast, the students ride in the cop cars with their assigned cop and are ready to go. The cops drive them to Walmart. While there, they work with the children to find great gifts for their friends and family. The program is a great way to help those in need and get in contact with the community.

By Austin Beamer

The Turkey Bowl is a two hand touch football tournament held by student council. Each team consisted of four players, and some even had coaches cheering them on from the sideline. The event was organized by Maddie Merlene and Grace Labor.

“It was not all that hard to organize, but the hardest part was just finding enough teams to participate,” said Labor.

This years tournament was definitely colder than last years. The temperature stayed around 32 degrees, but near 23 degrees with the wind. All the players had to dress warm, and everyone watching made sure they were not going to freeze.

Each team had to pay in order to play. The money went to two different things. Part of it went to student council for future events, while 10% of all earnings went to The House of Hope. The student council is partnered with The House of Hope to gain money for the organization. 

Every team battled through the cold to try and win the championship. Team EDTTC came out with the win. Their team consisted of Evan Denholm, Nick O’verko, Vince Cook, and Andrew Cermak. They met Team Barb in the championship. It was a hard fought game but Team Barb came up short, making Team EDTTC the 2016 Turkey Bowl Champions.

Japanese teacher, Kelly Shifflet has been to Japan six times. Every three years she takes a special few students from her class to go with her. Since she has been to Japan many times she can exercise her knowledge through the club. Japanese club is purely cultural based. No prior knowledge of the language is needed to join; however, any student who wants to participate needs to pay $100.Money goes to school fees and activities director, Debbie Husted. Meetings are every other Thursday from 2:30 to 4 in room 114.

Every meeting is different. It is generated based on what the students want to do. Students often watch movies in Japanese with the English subtitles on. Students who are in the club have opportunities to do things that they would not be able to accomplish in the allotted 44 minutes of class.  

Many students are in the club and if a student is interested in joining there are many other peers they can interact with and share Japanese culture with.

“It is for students to get to know other students who are interested in Japanese culture and it gives them time, in the class sometimes we spend a lot more time on the language, and this lets them do some of the cultural things that maybe it’s difficult to do in class, like cooking and things like that. 44 minutes just really isn’t enough time to cook,” Shifflet said.

If interested in Japanese club talk to Shifflet in room 114 for more details regarding the club and their activities.