t the beginning of January, Honors Orchestra performed a spectacular show.  Honors Orchestra is where a group of more advanced students from the junior high schools in the Nebo School District come together and perform a concert.  They played all types of music; this last time they played classical songs, a lullaby, a fiddle song, and even a rock song. 

Honors Orchestra isn’t only for the best musicians; this time it was who wanted to.  “The music in Honors Orchestra was a little bit harder then normal orchestra, but it was hard because you had to learn the music at home.  And we only had two practices with the whole orchestra, and then a performance,” said Michelle Welch, ninth grader.  

Trumpets? Flutes? Drums? OH MY! Students at Springville Junior High School that are involved in eight or ninth-grade band have the opportunity to participate in a band festival, held at UVU. And, for the ninth-graders, another festival will be at Salem Hills High School. The festival at Salem Hills High School will be held April 28th from 9:00am to 1:30pm. The UVU festival will be held at the beginning of May.

The band students in eight and ninth grade are humming the songs they are learning in the hall and are tapping various rhythms on desks with pencils and pens. Their enthusiasm is shared by Mr. Booth, the band teacher at Springville Junior High School.

After school near Mrs. Rice’s room there is some noise, some arguing, then the arguing becomes very, very loud. This arguing is Mock Trial. Mock Trial is a student court process, where students have the privilege to compete against other schools. Mrs. Rice, an English teacher at SJHS, said, “In order to participate, students need a little bit of stage presence. They also need to be able to think quickly and carefully in response to what goes on in the trial. Finally, they need to be able to take criticism from their peers and adults to improve their performance.” Mrs. Rice is in charge of SJHS’s mock trial team.

On Thursday, February tenth students gathered to celebrate Valentine’s Day by holding a best dress dance. The dance started at 7pm and ended at 9pm, and it was held in the boys' gym.

One of the newest things about the Valentines Dance was that students could use a photo both to take pictures with friends and keep them.  “The photo both was way cool because it was just like the ones at malls,” said Bailey Davis, eighth grader at SJHS.

Students were given the opportunity to buy Val-e-grams at the dance. Val-e-grams are Valentines. Val-e-grams included flowers or candy.

If there is one phrase that can change someone’s day, it is thank you. There are people every day that help us and make sure that we are ok. Moms, dads, teachers, friends, they all help and are thanked every day, but have we ever given much thanks to our custodians?

Springville Junior High has Quest Time right after third period everyday other than Wednesday. If students don’t have any deficient grades they can go to enrichment. If students have deficient grades they go to intervention to fix the problem. 

Mrs. Maughan, a math teacher here at Springville Junior High, teaches math intervention Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in her class room( #61). “I think Quest Time is a very positive thing for our school,” said Mrs. Maughan, “It gives students the chance to get caught up in classes, or go to a reward activity. Students benefit by getting a reward (enrichment) so they feel appreciated and students with deficient grades may work with teachers to get assignments done.”

Musicals, some people like them, some don’t. In Mrs. Breakwell’s English class the students recently watched a famous musical, West Side Story. Mrs. Breakwell found very positive response from her classes.

Ninth graders in Mrs. Breakwell’s class were learning about Romeo and Juliet. Mrs. Breakwell knew about the musical West Side Story and how it ties into Romeo and Juliet, so she decided to let the students watch it. “Because the eighth grade will be reading it next year I decided to play it for them too,” said Mrs. Breakwell.

Everyone knows of Mr. Cudney’s toilet seat hall pass. But no one really knows where it came from or why he has it. Mr. Cudney, the art teacher here at SJHS, said, “I got the idea from an old gas station bathroom key holder. I thought it was kind of funny and that it was a good idea for a hall pass.”  Students say that it is very awkward and gross to carry it around; well that was the main point. Sarah Cheney, an eighth grader at SJHS, said, “I never used the hall pass, I thought it was awkward to carry around and extremely disgusting.”

tudents in the Service Learning class are out to help the planet.  Mrs. Diane Bird, Service Learning teacher, said, “We didn’t really start it. It was more of the community.” The recycling program was started a couple years ago by the city; they helped start the program by putting out giant dumpsters for paper, plastic, and glass.

“Reading is the process of constructing meaning,” said Mrs. Mary Rice, an English teacher at SJHS.  Oftentimes, students feel they are able to get more meaning out of a book when they are able to read books within a group. This is one reason why Mrs. Rice’s ninth grade English classes are reading Dracula and Ivanhoe in groups.  The classes have studied the basic themes of both books, and will soon be splitting in to two groups, (with one group reading Dracula, and another reading Ivanhoe).  Although the students are only picking one book to finish with the class, many of them are going to finish the other book on their own.