On January 20th, Springville Junior High’s journalism class gave a presentation to the district PTA board about what goes on in the journalism class and how they write their articles.  “Whenever the district PTA has a meeting, it’s hosted at a different school. The schools are asked to give a presentation for the PTA members, and Mr. Rolfe asked that the journalism class give the presentation at our school,” Ms. Miley, the journalism teacher, explained.

Front row, left to right:  Ashley Crookston (manager), Sarah Patrick(manager),  Courtney Lefevre, Ripley Tew, Maddi Staheli, Mackenzie Morris, Amanda Sly, BreAnna Elzinga (manager),  Ashly Endicott(manager),  and Assistant Coach Murdock.  Back row, left to right: Emily Daybell, Kara Stoddard, Sarah Ripley, Brooke Caswell, Amy Tingey, Cami Sumsion, Mindy Staple, and Coach Kindrick

You always hear about Honor Choirs and Marching Bands, or in other words, extra-curricular activities for band and choir members.  But this year, Nebo School District has put together an Honor Orchestra.  Each school had about ten or twelve students who got to go to Springville High School on Thursday, January 21st to participate in this program.

These students were under the direction of Dr. Dabczynski, a professor at Brigham Young University.  They only had two rehearsals to get their music perfected before their concert: a four-hour rehearsal on the 21st, and an all-day practice on the 26th, and then they returned for a concert that night at 7:00. 
   

SJHS has many amazing teachers. One of them is Mrs. Elizabeth Bass. Mrs. Bass teaches eighth grade English. “I have a passion for ideas, knowledge, and feelings. Words when they are strategically expressed, can make me laugh, bring me to tears, help me see the beauty in the world and the people in it, and help me better understand it,” said Mrs. Bass.

Mrs. Bass has been teaching for eight years now and has taught at Landmark High School as well as SJHS. “She is so nice and she explains everything so well; the assignments are really easy and don’t take up to much time,” said Victoria Ireland, an eighth-grade student. Jace Hartman, a ninth-grade student at SJHS, said, “Mrs. Bass is the coolest teacher at SJHS.”
   

Almost everyone has heard of someone who plays instruments like the violin, flute or trumpet.  There are many junior high students that play these instruments, especially since students can learn how to play them in band and orchestra.  But not that many students play instruments like the mandolin, harp, guitar, djembe, and oboe. SJHS has its fair share of these unique musicians who have all found great ways to express themselves through their music.

There are many unique sports played at Springville Junior High, and one of those sports is lacrosse. In lacrosse, there are ten players on the field at a time. For each team there are two defenders, two mid-fielders, and an attacker. The purpose of lacrosse is to score more goals than the other team.

Lacrosse is played in the spring by many members of Springville Junior High. One of those people is Jesse Martinsen, a defender on his team.  Jesse said, “I would say my favorite part of lacrosse is getting to hit people with a six foot pole!” As some people know, lacrosse is a high impact sport. You have to be in pretty good shape to play this sport, and you also have to be able to take hits from six foot poles.

The Princess and the Frog is a movie about a girl named Tatiana who dreams of having a restaurant, but finds herself as a frog. She ends up going through the bayou and meets a few new friends.

According to Savannah McNitt, an eighth-grade student, she liked the movie because it was cute, funny, and enchanting. She loves Ramon the firefly because he always made her laugh.  “I would totally go see it again! I went with my friends the first time, and I just laughed and had a lot of fun!”

Maddie Joyner, an eighth-grader, said “I love this movie because Tatiana has to work for her dreams. Unlike the rest of the princess it was just handed to them. It has a good story line for kids.”

Mr. Michael Parker, the boys P.E. teacher, and Ms. Carrie Parker, the aerobics teacher, both did snowshoeing for their classes. Snowshoeing is where you walk around in the snow with snowshoes on. Snowshoes are web type shoes that make you walk on snow without sinking in. Mr. Parker tries to do it every year. He said, “If there is enough snow then we do it every year.” 

Mr. Parker did games with snowshoeing. They did relay races and walking backwards. Andrew Sa’u, a seventh-grade student, said, “Walking backwards on snowshoes was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done through my experiences with snowshoeing.”

Every year at Springville Junior High there is always a very special concert, The Winter Choir Concert.  This year the Winter Choir Concert will be held on January 14th.  It is a prestigious honor for the choir students to be in. They have been practicing since the beginning of the year to bring students and staff members a rich and life filled-concert with a variety of musical styles and well known songs.

“The Winter Concert has a lot of variety in the types of songs we sing. I think people coming to see it will enjoy the different styles of music that we sing,” said Mrs. Leslie Walker, choir teacher at Springville Junior High.

In the world today, we are faced with many different challenges and problems that weren’t in the world a hundred years ago, or weren’t as threatening. One of these many dangers is drugs. “I think most people in the world today are affected by drugs, even if it’s not directly,” Mr. Ryan Chambers, the health teacher at Springville Junior High explained. “Even family members participating in drug use can affect a person’s life.”

In health, students are required to learn about the dangers of drugs and ways they can refuse them. Mr. Chamber’s health classes, just recently finished their unit on learning about drugs and the dangerous threat they can be to a persons life.