#1StudentNWI: Whiting’s Last Stop Before the Final Quarter

#1StudentNWI: Whiting’s Last Stop Before the Final Quarter

Through rain, sun, high winds and snow, March has been an eventful month at Whiting High School.

Early in the month, Whiting held its annual money drive for leukemia, called the “Penny Wars”, sponsored by the National Honor Society. In the Penny Wars, each teacher gets a donation box, and each penny donated by student or faculty counts positive to their score, but any coin or dollar above a penny counts against the class. At the end of the fund-raising period, the top classes are rewarded in various ways, with something as simple but enjoyable as a dress down day. It is a well anticipated event in the year and many students and teachers start saving well ahead of time.

Throughout the last few years, the playful competition has led to some memorable times, with kids going to rival teachers and dropping over twenty dollars to send them to near negative forty dollars, to a teacher bringing in twenty-eight dollars’ worth of pennies on the last day to steal first place. This year at the end of the drive, Whiting thought to have raised a little over twelve hundred dollars, which is a great success, but went down from last year’s fourteen-hundred-dollar total.

Whiting-1Student-March-2017_02 Around a week later, a surprise call came in and revealed there was a mistake. There was over four hundred dollars left by accident, so, with matters settled and a second donation made, Whiting closed out the Penny Wars for leukemia with nearly seventeen hundred dollars. This total is nearly three hundred dollars up from last year’s total.

History teacher, Mark Harnew, had done charitable work on his own during the month for the St. Baldrick’s foundation, raising six hundred and five dollars of his original five-hundred-dollar goal. As someone who has had a friend diagnosed with cancer just one year ago, Whiting thanks Mr. Harnew.

The Oiler’s extracurricular teams and participants are working hard and performing strong in their season closings and in their preseasons. Keeping the monthly streak alive, sophomore Tom Davenport went to compete individually at the USPF Illinois State Open on February 27th. He showed exactly what a Whiting athlete can offer, performing a four hundred thirty-five-pound squat, three hundred fourteen-pound bench, and four hundred ninety-six-pound deadlift- no small feat from someone so young.

Whiting-1Student-March-2017_03 Whiting’s baseball and softball teams began their practices last week. With the heavy snow and strong winds, they had to practice and tryout in the gym, however.

Whiting’s Science Olympiad finished out their season at the state tournament hosted at Indiana University Bloomington on March 18th. Out of the mass of teams that had attended, they had placed 7th overall for the entire state. In individual events, the Science Olympiad team received third place in Hovercraft, Forensics, and Mystery Design; fourth place in Microbe Mission and Wi-Fi Lab; and were the state champions in the Game On and Wind Power events. Earlier that month, Academic team went out to compete and they first place twice, second place twice, third place twice, and was 2nd overall in the math section of the competition.

The long-awaited production of Wizard of Oz finally arrived the first and second week of March. Having four performances on the 3rd, 4th, 10th, and the 11th, everyone had the opportunity to see the hardwork put into this show.

Whiting-1Student-March-2017_04 Whiting has put on spring productions for quite a few years now, but there was a special story behind this one. Ten years ago, Scott Allen had just begun his teaching career for Whiting at Nathan Hale Elementary. He had background and experience in drama and acting prior to this and his passion showed in his teaching and still does. One day, he asked his very first 3rd grade class if they would like to put on their own show. With an overwhelmingly positive response, the “Third Grade Theater” was born, and began with a well-known classic, the Wizard of Oz.

Through the years, Mr. Allen became sponsor of the middle and high school drama club and was lead director of the yearly performances that both schools would do. Now, ten years and many shows later, his very first class is about to graduate from Whiting. To bring a close to their acting careers at Whiting, he ended it as it began, and brought the show back all these years later, with several students even returning to their old part from so long ago. Each night the crowd was packed with people who hadn’t seen the show, and even many who had.

It was shared amongst friends and family as the “Five Star Show”, and truly had been what must be Whiting’s grandest spring musical to date. It was hard not to be impressed by the perfected vocal talents of the cast, the movie-accurate custom-made costumes, and the well-executed special effects. It was a beautiful performance. After the show ended each night, Mr. Allen came to the stage to give his thanks to the audience and cast, and surprised everyone by playing the credits to the original show, showing some behind the scenes of the kids having fun and giving their bows. On the final night, revealed a new version, having the cast reenact moments from the first and mixing them with the original as a final send off to the seniors he had worked so long with. With such an emotional and well put together show, everyone is definitely excited for what next year will offer.