The jazz band is coming to SJHS after Christmas break. The jazz band is made up of ninth graders that are in Mr. David Booth's band class. Mr. Booth, the jazz band conductor, said, “Jazz band is a fun way to give ninth graders more performing opportunities.”

Ninth graders that are in band have to try out to be able to get in, but this year the jazz band has an orchestra student playing the piano.  The jazz band will start meeting once or twice a week for one hour after school in the band room. Instruments that are played the jazz band are trumpet, trombone, saxophone, bass guitar, piano and drums. 

Springville Junior High just finished a food and clothing drive.  Natalie Shaw, Liz White, Taylor Martin, Shawnee Henderson, and Thalia Berriel, members of the service learning class, were in charge of the drive.

The drive went from Monday November 29 through Monday December 7.  The winning class gets a donut party from Reams in Springville.  According to Natalie Shaw, the party is used to encourage students to donate. 

Mrs. Bird, service learning teacher, said, “The purpose of the drive is to help people less fortunate than us.”  Tyler Ercanbrack, a first period student in Mrs. Rebecca Murdock’s class, said “It helps other people.”

Winter Guard tryouts took place in mid-November, and two ninth graders from SJHS made it in. Kara Dunn and Makaiah Williams worked hard to learn the routines and dances, and they were excited to make it into Winter Guard.

The girls had to go to the high school and learn an eight count flag routine and a dance. Then they had to go perform it for girls that were in Winter Guard but are now graduated and came back to help.
 
Winter Guard does many things. They do flag and rifle spinning and dances. They have competitions where they get to show off their dance and routines to the other schools. Their first competition is January 30th at Orem High School. They also do the salute at the basketball games.

Out of all the different genres in reading, science fiction is one of the largest. Stories from this genre can contain anything from time travel and stories about the future to alien invaders.  Many of these stories were inspired by the writings of H. G. Wells. Mrs. Mary Rice’s eight-grade English class is reading War of the Worlds, which is a book about invaders from Mars by H.G. Wells. According to Mrs. Rice, the class will be reading and analyzing the many different facts and philosophies used by the author, along with studying its interesting and exciting narrative.
   

One of the mandatory, but maybe the most fun, classes at Springville Junior High is Mr. David Hansen’s Utah History class. Seventh-grade students are required to take this class, and many of them enjoy it a lot.

I love the “interesting things we study,” said Trista Linder, a seventh grader at Springville Junior High. Mr. Hansen’s Utah History class covers everything from the Constitution to the physical attributes of Utah.

Mr. Hansen’s teaching method “helps me a lot,” said Madissyn Kiggins, another seventh grader at Springville Junior High. Mr. Hansen’s teaching method consists mainly of hard study and notes. Students do very well on his tests and quizzes.

Twelve people made the boys basketball team this year, and two of those twelve were voted team captain. One of those captains is Derek Boyer. Derek has been playing basketball since he was born and has always loved it. This year he made the junior high basketball team by using his amazing shooting, dribbling, and passing skills.

On the day of the third practice before the team started practicing, Coach Shaun Blakey called everyone over and had them vote on team captains. He said “I want you to vote for someone who you think would be a good leader, be able to push you to your limits, and make us better as a team.” The vote was unanimous; Derek would be one of the captains.

The creativity at Springville Junior High is booming as 17 students from SJHS become reflection winners.  According to the PTA Reflections website, Reflections is a program where the PTA challenges students to create art inspired by a specific theme. Themes are selected from hundreds of ideas submitted by students to the PTA Reflections Program Theme Search. This year’s theme is “Beauty is …” Reflections started in October.

Mrs. Leslie Walker teaches choir part-time at Springville Junior High.  She teaches for the seventh-grade Apprentice Singers, eighth and ninth-grade Knightingales and Journeymen, and last, but not least, the ninth-grade Master Singers. 

Mrs. Walker has worked at Springville Junior for seven years. Besides teaching choir at Springville Junior High, Mrs. Walker sings in the LDS Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  She also leads a local children’s choir called the Hobble Creek Singers.

Mrs. Monica Linton is one of the eighth-grade counselors at Springville Junior High. Mrs. Linton has been a counselor at Springville Junior High for two years. “I first met the administrators and counselors here and thought it would be a great place to work.  I’m sure that this is the best place to be,” said Mrs. Linton

Mrs. Corrin Gleave is the Geometry and Algebra 1A teacher at Springville Junior High School. She has been teaching at SJHS for three years. “Over the last 25 years, I’ve taught mostly by request, and not as a classroom teacher in other schools,” she said.

She’s also taught math at Le Jordan Academy in Kailua, Hawaii, dance for BYU Children’s Program, at BYU Hawaii as a quest artist and substitute teacher, and for the state of Hawaii as an “Artist in the School”