What’s Coming Up? Winter Break
All of the students of Hobart High School are eagerly awaiting the approaching, joyous two-week break from learning. For as long as students can remember, winter break has been the halfway point of the school year, which also means students are a semester closer to summer and eventually graduation.
With the anticipation for winter break also comes the worry for final exams. Finals are happening before break, but that means that the last day before break cannot be spent as a holiday celebration like it used to be in elementary and middle school. Now, it is being spent stressing over grades and writing college essays. Most students have at least three final exams, and some even have seven. Some teachers are a little more understanding and let students use notes for exams or replace the exam with a final project, which helps to alleviate some stress and angst.
After all the hard work finally comes break. To be able to spend time away from school and not worry about projects or assignments is a great reset button. Hopefully, students get the chance to do classic winter things such as ice skate, drink hot chocolate, and play in the snow.
What’s Happened - Choir/Band Concert
Last Thursday, Dec. 12 was this year’s Christmas concert for the middle school band and choir as well as the high school band and orchestra.
The choir teacher for the middle and high school recently fell ill, so the only way these students would be able to perform would be if they combined the band concert with the choir one, and so they did.
The band director happily agreed to help out fellow artists and combine the concert to make for more music to share. The students have been working on this concert for months. They spent every second in class either singing or playing their instruments to prepare for their winter concert. Hobart decided that it would be nice if they combined the high school and middle school bands, as well, making for a truly magical experience for the audience members and all involved.
The concert opened with the orchestra, who played the first few songs, followed by the choir. This concert was a combination of four different orchestras playing beautifully-sounding instruments to make the public happy. These four different groups were high school band, high school orchestra, middle school band, and middle school orchestra. The choir was strictly seventh and eighth grade choir, however. This year’s holiday concert was truly one to remember.
Teacher Spotlight- Mr. Dean Wolff
Mr. Dean Wolff has been a choir teacher for Hobart for many years and has loved every second of it. He enjoys it so much that he teachers choir at both the middle and high school. Wolff also teaches guitar at the high school.
Wolff loves inspiring young musicians to work on their vocals and to pursue their dreams. So much so that he started an elite singing group many years back called Wolffgang.
Wolffgang is a group of a few high school singers who have proved themselves to work above and beyond. The group performs at many events in Northwest Indiana.
Recently, Wolff has been on a medical leave. His students worked hard to perform this holiday and make Wolff proud.
Student Spotlight - Chris Logan
When it comes to amazing band students, Chris Logan is definitely one of the best. Chris has been involved with band for seven years now and plays the trumpet.
When Logan was in Elementary school, he found his love for music and decided to start learning how to play the trumpet. He pursued this passion and became part of his middle school’s band. With being involved with band for so long, Logan has just about seen everything –from huge band concerts to being in marching band. However, nothing could have prepared him for the chaos that surrounded the holiday concert. There were around nine different groups performing, and Logan felt lucky to be involved.
Besides school band, Logan was involved in jazz and marching band since his freshman year. He loves music so much that he spends most of his time after school playing his trumpet.
Logan was involved in his first school production this fall and played the role of fake Santa in Elf. Besides theatre and band, Logan is involved in bowling and is very serious about it—he is on the HHS varsity bowling team. In the future, Logan hopes to keep playing his trumpet and enjoying his high school years.