Fall Athlete Awards
On November 4, the athletic department at Chesterton High School held an awards program to honor the athletes that participated in fall sports.
The program was held at 7 pm in the auditorium and refreshments were held in the cafeteria subsequently to the event. The sports honored included girls’ golf, cross country, soccer, and volleyball and boys’ cross country, soccer, tennis, and football.
Cross Country runner freshman Kara Krol attended the awards night. During the season, Krol broke the CHS girls’ cross country school record with a time of 19:10.
“I felt so accomplished,” Krol said, “and all I was thinking was what my next goal was going to be.”
Krol has been in cross country since she was in kindergarten. In her first season of high school cross country, she ran ten races in just a two month period.
“My biggest challenge was achieving the goals I set for myself,” she said.
Barnes and Noble Book Fair
On November 2, CHS along with the One School, One Book program at CHS, hosted their annual book fair at Barnes & Noble in Valparaiso.
The event was held from 11 am to 6 pm and consisted of healthy eating with registered nutritionist Gia DeMartinis, ‘Name the Album Cover’ contest, American Girl Doll Book Club, chamber music in the café by CHS Advanced Orchestra students, ‘Create Your Own Coloring Book Pages’ led by One Book, One School student leaders, and much more.
Part of the profits from the book fair go towards bringing the author Paige Rawl to CHS in April. The One Book, One School program chooses one book each year to focus on. This year the book was Positive by Paige Rawl. To help cut the cost, CHS will receive 10% of the profits to bring Rawl to the school.
Student Spotlight - Megan Green
The 43rd annual Madrigal Dinner hosted by the CHS music Department will be held December 4-6 in the cafeteria.
The cafeteria will be furnished in Elizabethan décor to transition it into a 16th Century “Greate Hall.” Around 100 costumed music students will participate in the event to help celebrate Christmas customs.
Tickets cost $30 each and can be purchased at the Music Office in the school after November 23. There are several times for the dinner: Dec. 4 at 8:00 p.m.; Dec. 5 at 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.; and Dec. 6 at 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. The dinner is made by the cafeteria staff and includes chicken breast, mashed potatoes, dessert, and more.
Senior Megan Green will be participating in Madrigal as part of the choral ensemble, the Sandpipers. This is her second year in Sandpipers, but her fourth year in show choir. Additionally Green will be a part of the Camerata concert group second semester. She has participated in the Madrigal Dinner all four years of her high school career.
“[My favorite part of Madrigal] is the overall atmosphere that we create,” Green said. “You literally cannot tell that you are in a high school cafeteria. You just feel this sense that you are in medieval England, with the candelabras all around the room, candles on the table, and we speak very formally, we don’t use slang. Just the overall atmosphere that every aspect of the event creates, takes you to a whole other world that I’ve honestly loved since my very first one.”
Teacher Spotlight - Janna Carney Moran
CHS Library Media Specialist and One Book, One School Chair Janna Carney
Moran helped bring the One Book, One School program to CHS, which in turn supports student involvement in the Barnes and Noble Book Fair.
“The book fair has existed before I ever started working here,” Carney said. “But without a reason to do them and without student involvement, [the book fairs] weren’t very successful. We stopped doing the book fairs for a year or two, but when we started the One Book, One School program it made more sense to start [the book fairs] back up again. However, this time we had students create and lead the events.”
This is the third year for One Book, One School at CHS. The students and staff voted between several nominees for this year’s book. Positive by Paige Rawl won with 165 votes. The book fair not only helps fund the author’s trip to CHS but also supports On Book, One School in other ways.
“The benefit [of the book fair] to One Book, One School is that it gets attention to the program,” Carney said.
Her favorite part of the book fair is the scavenger hunt because it allows her to interact with students in a different environment.
“It's is just a neat experience because I’m used to seeing the students in our [school] library. I get to see them in a different context, but they’re stilling walking around and doing the same thing: looking for particular books.”
Carney has been a library media specialist for nine years, six of which she spent at CHS. After being an English teacher, she went back to school but ended up taking a different career path than she initially thought.
“When I went to library school I was specializing in archival science and I somehow realized that I only needed to take two classes to also get a media license. I thought that since I’m already here, why not. The classes that I took, I guess because I never had a good librarian in high school or even when I was an English teacher, never appealed to me. But when I took those classes, I thought that it was actually really cool and that I would love to do it.”