Many people love to travel to far-off places for vacation.  People crave vacations because they’re a chance to get away from everyday life and either relax or go sightseeing.  Most people go to see sights that are famous for different reasons; perhaps they go to visit the Seven Wonders of the World including the Pyramids at Giza.  Perhaps what someone else dreams to see is the Eiffel Tower (“Tour de Eiffel” in French) in the City of Lights.  Whatever that special place may be, students, teachers and faculty members at SJHS love to travel. 

The choir students at SJHS are exited for this year’s first choir concert. The choir concert will be December 2nd. The Apprentice Singers (seventh graders) will be performing at 6:45, and the Knightengales and Master Singers (eighth and ninth graders) will be performing at 7:30.

Mrs. Leslie Walker, the choir teacher, said that they have been rehearsing since the start of the year. Most of the songs will tell stories. The choir will even do some dancing in their performances. According to Andrea Dockstader, an eighth grade choir student, the songs are spiritual and Christmas songs.  The entire choir will sing, as well as students in groups, but some will get the spotlight to themselves for a moment.
  

Here at Spingville Junior High we have students with many different talents. And the school’s curriculum offers a couple of classes for those wishing to learn more and practice those talents.
   

Mrs. Janine Murdock is the finance secretary at Springville Junior High.  Mrs. Murdock’s job is to handle the school’s finances and to find substitutes for the teachers.  Mrs. Murdock’s busiest days are getting 900 students registered for school in the fall and collecting end of year fines in May so everyone can get their yearbooks.  Mrs. Brenda Bales, the attendance secretary at SJHS, said another way Mrs. Murdock helps the school is, “She’s a great friend to all the teachers, new and old.”

Mrs. Lise Carpenter has taught science at Springville Junior High School for the last 14 years.  Before she started teaching at SJHS she taught high school for four years in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Mrs. Carpenter said, “There are many things I like about SJHS. I like the students and teachers, I love how the school is always clean and bright, and I like the motivational posters on the walls. I think there is a good energy in our school which helps all of us to succeed.”

The first wish granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation was for Christopher James Greicius in Arizona.  Since that time, Make-A-Wish has grown to become a non-profit organization that has granted wishes all over the world.  Springville Junior High students have helped grant the wish of Jessenia, a seven-year-old girl who has ALL leukemia.  Jessenia wishes to go to Disneyworld and meet all the Disney princesses.

The annual Make-a-Wish Carnival was held at Springville High School on Monday, November 9 from 6 to 8:30. This carnival helped raise money to make Jessenia’s wish come true. Jessenia has ALL Leukemia, and her wish is to go to Disneyworld and meet all of the Disney princesses. 

The first school newspaper was a big hit around the school. But many students school-wide do not know the hard work and dedication it took to write all of the articles and publish it into a newspaper. Read on to learn about the process it took to make the newspaper.

“We had to wait almost the entire first term before we had enough articles to publish into a newspaper,” said Max Schreiner, a journalism student at SJHS. The process of making a single article takes about a week. It starts with journalism students picking an article topic, then they brainstorm ideas for your article like who can be interviewed and what you need to know.

When most students think of English, they think of reading books, writing essays, and doing reports. However, in Ms. Rachel Neeley’s class, poetry is their focus right now.

“I love poetry; it’s like the artistic side to English,” Celeborn Stringham, a seventh grade student in Ms. Neeley’s class, explained.

“I love teaching poetry.” Ms. Neeley explained, “It allows students to be creative, poetry is also lots of fun because it’s a very different type of writing. I hope that students learn how to use figurative language effectively in their writing. I also hope that students gain an appreciation for poetry.”

Imagine if you went to a concert or play, but you couldn’t see or hear the performers.  The lights and sounds crew’s job at SJHS is to make sure this does not happen.  They are in charge of all the lights and sounds in plays, concerts and assemblies.   The seven students on the crew are directed by Mr. Shawn Hatfield, a biology teacher at SJHS.