The Richboro Reporter March 2016

The Richboro Reporter
March 2016
R I C H B O R O
M I D D L E
S C H O O L
C O U N C I L
R O C K
S C H O O L
D I S T R I C T
FIRST WINTER SKI TRIP
On February 5th, 2016 the 7th and 8th graders
went to Bear Creek Mountain to ski and snowboard.
Originally, the seventh and eighth grade were sup-
posed to go on separate days, but mother nature got the
best of us with a storm forcing the 7th grade to go on
the 8th grade day. Both Richboro and Newtown students went together on one big trip that included charter busses. After the bus rides, the kids separated depending on whether or not they needed to
get ski rentals. When the students got their gear on, they were ready to hit the slopes! The ski
resort had a variation of different slopes big and small to ride on. Lessons started later on in the
day so when it came time to start them, it was already dark. “It was great fun!” says one of the
students. In the end, it was a great trip for the kids of Richboro Middle School.
This was the first ever time that Richboro students have been able to go on such a trip.
Given the amount of students involved and the feedback it seems like a trip that will be back
for many years to come. The trip would not have been possible if it were not for the planning
and organization of Mr. Cunningham and all of the teachers who volunteered to chaperone the
students on a Friday night in the winter. If you didn’t go this year and are a seventh grade student be sure to plan on attending next year. Just ask anyone who went and they will tell you
what a fun a trip it was. -By Samantha Drew
Whether on the slopes or in the lodge the ski trip
provided opportunities for Richboro students to
hang out together outside of the school.
BOYS NIGHT OUT
Boys Night Out, is a night where
the male students of Richboro can
come together for a night of pizza,
wings, games, and hanging out.
The night started with an inspirational video about working
hard. It was also a special moment for one of the boys as Mr.
Hoerger and Mr. Mallalieu got a cake and we all sang a special happy birthday.
After that we got to hang out over tons and tons of pizza and buffalo wings. After dinner the
boys were allowed to involved in activities like floor hockey,
video games, dodgeball, feats of strength, and archery. It
was a great night to hang out and have some fun with the
male staff at Richboro. If you didn’t go this year make sure
you are there next year.
GIRLS NIGHT OUT
Girls Night Out, Richboro’s annual night for girls to socialize with their classmates, was packed with activities including bracelet making, taking photos
in a photo booth, learning about self-defense, yoga, Zumba,
cupcake decorating, tattoos, hair styling, making candy, raffle
baskets, and bowls, AARK animals, and even an obstacle
course. The event lasted from 6pm to 9pm. The activities
started with an anti-bullying seminar followed by dinner.
Then, we were let into the halls to begin all the activities. A
lot of girls showed up and loved it! A lot of teachers were
there too to help with the fun night. Mrs. Parke helped with
the Zumba lessons in the gym. And, Mrs. Gordon participated
in the bracelet making station. We even had girls come in to
do our hair. At the end of the night there even was karaoke. It was a great time for the girls at
Richboro Middle School! The girls hope to do it again next year!
By: Abby Bass and Lexi DeMeester
RMS IDOL
On January 28th, Richboro Middle School hosted its annual
“RMS Idol,” an event that’s been going on for about 6 years.
“RMS Idol is a showcase of student talent,” says Mrs. Mohl.
She states that in the past years she’s seen Broadway duets,
singers/guitarists, ballroom dancers, and many more. All proceeds from this year’s performance went towards the “Make a
Wish” Foundation. Before the event, Mrs. Mohl encouraged
students to participate and show their talent. She also encouraged that students come out and support their friends. When RMS Idol finally arrived, a good amount of students participated and expressed their talents. One of which was Rachel Ratush. Rachel states that her confidence in her talent and abilities and wanting to share it with the school is what motivated her to take part in
RMS Idol. Rachel presented a dance routine and said that the overall
experience was great and that she had a wonderful audience to perform in front of. Rachel said she would do it again next year.
RMS Idol is an awesome event that allows students to express and
showcase their talents, a chance they might not get very often. It was
a great event that goes towards an even greater cause, the “Make a
Wish” Foundation. Be sure to see RMS Idol next year if you missed
it this year. —By Eric Eychis
MATH COUNTS
Every year RMS participates in the math counts competition. Students from 7th and 8th grade can join
the RMS team. This year the math counts team was led by Mr. Chambers, who is the 7th grade team Discovery math teacher. Mr. Chambers has been the coach for math counts for 3 years. The math counts team meets
after school every Tuesday till 4:30.
The competition has four rounds. In each round you have to answer different problem solving questions. The first round is called the sprint round. In this round you have 40 minutes to answer 30 question. No
calculators are allowed in this round. The second round is called the target round. In the target round there are
2 questions and only 6 minutes to answer them. This happens four times and it increases with difficulty each
time. Calculators are allowed for the target round. The next round is the team round. About four people work
together in this round to answer 10 questions in a span of 20 minutes. If you do well enough in the sprint and
target rounds you go on to the final round, the countdown round. In this round 3 people go up to the stage.
The announcer asks a question and who ever hit there buzzer first can answer. Whoever gets three questions
right wins and goes on. No calculators are allowed in the countdown round.
The first competition that RMS had was the district competition. RMS, Holland middle school, and
Newtown middle school are the three schools in this competition. It was held in RMS and happened during
school. Three kids from every school advanced to the countdown round. Those three kids are the three who
did the best in the sprint and target round. The first place finisher for our school was Zach Feldman. He is an
8th grade student. The second place finisher was Oscar Zimmerman. He is also an 8th grade student. The third
place finisher is Dan Albert. He is a 7th grade student. Only Oscar Zimmerman made it to the final round of
countdown round for our school, but he lost. Our school placed in second in the district
The next competition is the county competition. The top four people in the school for the district competition went to the county. The top four people in our school were Zach Feldman, Oscar Zimmerman, Dan
Albert, and Vincent Chiccarine. Dan was unable to attend so in his place Joel Martinasky. In this competition
our school placed 6th, which was very good. No one made it to the countdown round for our school, but Joel
got very close. Be sure to give him a good job if you see him.
If you are a 7th grade who likes math and you missed the chance to do math counts, you should definitely do it in your 8th grade year. You do fun math puzzles and you meet some people who also like math.
And there is also a party at the end. —By Oscar Zimmerman
READING OLYMPICS
Unfortunately reading is not popular among middle schoolers. Yet there are exceptions and these exceptions gather in one place in April. From all corners of Bucks County comes kids ready to read. After meeting once a week in their individual teams for months, the big day approaches.
When the first meeting comes, it’s a hassle to get everything set up. Yet after the chart is up to record,
and all the slips are handed out, the reading begins. This is how it works. Each team is asked to read a full list
of 45 books, then answer questions on them. Most teams have multiple kids on each book so there are more
kids to answer. They meet every week to discuss the book they are reading. Usually, a team has 5 to 9 kids but
this year, our team, The Book Busters, had 5 kids. They are made up of 3 seventh graders, Derek Cleffi, Logan McCurry, and Shane Bell, and 2 eighth graders, Noah Frajerman and Oscar Zimmerman, which means
each kid hadto read 9 books to cover all of them. During the month before the competition, teams are scrambling to get the list read completely. Team Book Busters still has a few books left to bust.
“I got into it because I like to read,” said Logan, a 7th grade Book Buster. After doing it in 5th and 6th
grade, with a blue 1st place ribbon and a red 2nd place ribbon, he is back for more. “I am doing what I love.”
When the big night arrives, the schools’ teams drive to a school that was chosen at random. They meet
up and head to the first classroom for the first round. They explain the rules and begin. One team answers a
question, then the other team answers one. If one team gets it wrong, the other team has a chance to steal it.
This continues until the 50 questions run out, or the time runs out.
So, to sum it up, after a meeting every week for 4 months, a pizza party, and a long bus ride to the
school, the night ends with a bunch of fun with your friends, the Book Busters!.—-By Derek Cleffi
By Wolfy Culleton
Richboro Wrestling had a good year. We won most of our meets and we practiced hard. Coach Gilmore was a funny and good coach that lead the team this year. He would teach us new wrestling moves every
day and we would drill and drill till we had them perfected. And when we drilled we would drill hard. This
gave us a good workout so we would be prepared for the matches. Coach Gilmore knew when to joke around
with us and when to be serious. Something very important for a wrestler, knowing when to be focused and to
be able to turn it on before a match.
We didn’t win our middle school tournaments this year as Richboro has in the past, but we beat our
main rivals Holland and Newtown Middle Schools in dual meets. The wrestling season is one of the longer
ones at Richboro. We had a 3 month season from November to midFebruary. The members of the team
practiced almost every day after school
with only one practice cancelled. Overall we had a good
year for Richboro
and represented the
school with pride on
the mat.
School
SPORTS
7th Grade Girls Basketball
The 7th grade girls’ basketball team was undefeated this year
with a total of 12 won games and 0 lost games. The coach for this successful team was Mrs. Schmidt. The players on this team were Tara
Boyd, Karly Wunder, Brianna Hondros, Aubrey Hondros, Karlie
McCloskey, Rianna Shields, Kayleigh Doak, Julietta Lucci, Ivana
Pellerito, and Katie Rhodos. Our most challenging game was a game
home against rival Newtown. The game was so close that we went in
to double overtime. But we still won and that was one of the hardest
games that we have ever played. Next year I hope that everyone will
come back and hopefully have another successful season.
— By Karlie McCloskey
8th Grade Girls Basketball
The 2015-16 Richboro girls basketball team had a great season. Amazing
defense was provided by Madison Slubowski, Claudia Steinmetz, Olivia
Buonomo, Hannah Binder, and Gianna Hollister. They worked hard at
boxing out and blocking shots. Along with the great defense, the offense
did a good job as well. Allie Jones, Sammy Jones, Isabella Mendes, Kristen Lee, Kylie Woloshyn, Ashley Lackman, Jaina Lukose and Skylar Nowmos kept points on the board by making jump shots and layups. The team’s best game was definitely Richboro
vs Holland. The girls fought hard and never gave up. Mr. Hoerger coached and made the team work hard every day after school, working on their skills. The best part of the season was getting hyped up for the game by
listening to music on the bus. Of course you can’t forget about the two best managers out there Sydney Clark
and Amanda Zimmerman. They never failed to make the team
laugh after a hard loss. Another highlight had to be playing in
front of the entire student body vs. Maple Point. Although the team
went through some challenging games, overall it was a great season with lots of laughs and team bonding.
-By Olivia Buonomo
8th Grade Boys Basketball
By Jake Stoltz
The 8th grade basketball team did not have the best season
winning wise. It didn’t help that they opened the season with
the eventual Upper Bucks Middle School League champions,
the runners-up, and the third and fourth seed of the middle
school tournament. However, they did have great improvement throughout the season. In their game against Klinger
they lost a tough one in the fourth quarter after playing three close quarters. They started
off with no wins until they played Holland Middle School, who they defeated and were one game away from
district champions. The district championship game was a close contest vs. Newtown. They ended up losing
in overtime to Newtown after a great 4th quarter comeback led by
John Burke. It was a great game, and then shortly later they defeated Tamanend Middle School convincingly. In the first round
of the middle school tournament Richboro again faced Newtown,
this time on the road. In another close game Newtown pulled
ahead with a late three with under 5 seconds to go in the game.
The team had an impressive season at the end. With a shaky start
in the first half, but they had a great second half. The team had a
good year, and improved a lot throughout the year.
7th Grade Boys Basketball
By: Sean Wilson and Eric Minsky
My 7th grade basketball experience was amazing. We had a great season and the entire team was
friends. We had a great coach, Mr. Hoerger, who led us to have 7 wins. Everyone on the team contributed in
some way. There was Chris Nowmos and Sean Wilson at point guard. Rohun Jobanputra and Blake Goldberg
played the shooting guard position. Eric Minsky, Jacob Goulet, Avery Rice, and Joe Venuto at the small forward position. Alex Klugler and Damon Andreoli split time at power forward. Lastly, Nick Gordon, Nick
Gerhinger, and Jake Schwartz rotated in at center. We had many tough games in our season, for example the
Holland game we almost lost, but with a great team effort we came back from being down a
lot to win the game. Also when we versed Newtown we had a very tough and close game,
but we pulled through and kept the lead. This win led us to becoming the district champs.
We only had 2 losses in our season against the 2
top teams. Overall the members of the team felt
that this was one of their favorite teams to have
ever played for, and one of our favorite coaches
to play for as well.