What’s Happened?
The sun’s up sooner, out longer, and the Munster High School students are ready to make the best of the light. Spring has bloomed into the MHS hallways with state championships, sports tryouts, musical auditions, and the pressures of AP testing and finals fast approaching.
In early March, MHS Speech and Debate made their way down to Indianapolis for the State competition. The team placed first overall, winning the state trophy once again. The team also had individual successors, taking home first place in their events. The students include Noah Moell in both Humor and Original Oratory, Maya Radjenovich in Drama and Prose, Tara Layous in Poetry, and Ricky Caraharr and Stevie McDunn in Original Performance.
Though controversy often arose about whether or not to let the students stream the well awaited March Madness games, the MHS staff came up with a creative way for everyone to have their ball on the court. Each teacher was assigned a team and instructed to decorate their lockers based off that team. As the games progress, teachers will either mark their doors ‘ELIMINATED’ or keep them as such until the team does not advance. This way everyone was able to stay in the loop during school hours, and students had fun decorating for their favorite teams.
What’s Coming Up?
As the winter season comes to an end, fall sports including baseball, softball, and boys golf head towards the courses and fields for their final bits of training. Academic teams such as Scioly, DECA, and Speech prepare for the upcoming National tournaments.
In early April, the Environmental Science classes will be taking their annual trip to Florida. Here, students must get licensed in either scuba diving or snorkeling along with journeying onto other adventures of nature and wildlife to better their environmental knowledge. A long time coming, the students of Environmental Science are eager and excited to show off the knowledge and aquatic skills they have been working on. The class often volunteers their time down in Florida and are even awarded with a few days at Disney World. Field trips, especially large scale, are not taken often during MHS school hours, so the students are certainly excited to take all the have learned into the wild for a change.
Teacher Spotlight
“Hakuna Fermata!” What a magical slogan for the magical trip the Munster High School Choir’s will embark on. Over a year in the making, Director Andrew Robinson has been planning the choirs Spring Break trip to Los Angeles, California. The choirs normally travel every four years, but since last year was Mr. Robinson’s first, the trip was pushed back to Spring 2018. And as the days have finally counted down to mere hours, the students and Mr. Robinson could not be more excited.
“Having another year has allowed me to really get to know the MHS choir singers,” Mr. Robinson commented as he rounded up his finally duties for the trip. “I feel like we have forged a stronger relationship.”
The MHS choirs will be visiting the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, touring through Hollywood, and for the highlight of the trip, performing in Disneyland!
“Few high school students get to perform on the Disney stage. I am certain it is going to be magical,” Mr. Robinson said.
The choirs have a tight-knit relationship with their director and have worked together over the last two years to form a family above just a choir.
“I am most excited to watch amazing young men and women have a blast! I remember taking trips like this in high school, and these are experiences that will never be forgotten,” said Robinson.
Student Spotlight
As fourth quarter begins, summer scents start to fill the air. Often remarked as the hardest year of high school, Juniors start their crunch time for their first round of AP testing. Kelly Collins has started to feel the strong gusts of these Junior winds.
“Stress is an understatement,” Kelly remarks with a laugh. This is her first year taking an AP course, and along with extracurriculars and the already difficult standard Junior classes, her plate is full. “I can hardly think about summer fun. I am most looking forward to the sleep I can finally get.”
Munster students have commented quite frequently on why they believe Junior year to be the hardest, but no one has quite cracked the case.
“I think it’s like this: you have almost as much responsibility as the seniors, but you don't get to look forward to leaving in two months. You’re still establishing this foundation for yourself. It’s hard to balance so much at once.”
Like most of MHS’s Junior class, Kelly has managed, and there is no doubt she will continue to succeed greatly. After all, in a bustling school, it has payed off much more to remain busy than always on the downlow.