the crimson sun - Morristown

THE CRIMSON SUN
Vol. 13, No. 5
The Student Newspaper of Morristown-Beard School
May 2012
70 Whippany Road, Morristown, NJ 07960
CMW concert rocks
Founders Hall
Middle School
Houses
Girls’ Lacrosse Features
School’s Leading Scorer
Page 8
Page 11
Page 14
New SGA honcho
Koslov names cabinet
By Jessica Small
Mike Koslov, known
in the MBS community for
his talent in filmmaking and
digital story telling, claimed
victory in the race for the position of student body president for the 2012-2013 school
year.
He will be leading
the student body along with
his cabinet, which includes
Alex Ranger, Vice President; Eliza Kagan, Treasurer; Gina Finelli, Secretary;
and Mitch Green, Historian.
At 3:15 the afternoon of the SGA election,
the candidates met in the
office of Headmaster Peter
Caldwell to hear the results. When Koslov heard
he had won, he was surprised by his reaction.
He felt relieved that
it was all over, but at the
same time, he felt he could
not rejoice because there
were three other candidates
in the room who had just
lost—Allie Aiello, Tommy
Strada and Breyton Croom.
Three hours later, on his
way home, Koslov finally
felt the joy of winning. It
hit him all at once, he said:
“I was going to
be the next president. I
literally shouted at the
top of my lungs in joy.”
All
of
Koslov’s
goals as president focus on
one single goal: to make
this school a better place.
He believes that this starts
with getting the SGA reorganized. By doing this, the
SGA can accomplish more.
Koslov also has ideas to improve Homecoming weekend.
Overall,
Koslov
says he wants “to knit
this school even tighter
and try and put a smile
Photo: Jessica Greene
Outgoing SGA president John Pisano conditions incoming president Mike Koslov so he is ready to take on the job.
on every student’s face.”
Koslov also has the
Middle School on his mind.
“I am going to be pushing real hard to get the middle
school officially involved in
the SGA,” he says. “If I can’t,
they will definitely be in-
Homework: a routine or benefit?
By Zach Gray
Student Will Taggart pulls his hair because of his work load.
Adolescents in this
country are becoming increasingly stressed. According to Youth Suicides Origins
Inc., suicide rates for teenagers between 14 and 19
have risen by 600 percent
over the last 25 years. In a
USA Today survey, 43 percent of 8-12 year olds said
that doing well in school was
a source of their stress, and
44 percent of kids between
the ages of 13 and 17 said
the same. Twenty five years
ago, kids wanted to do just as
well in school as children do
now, so what has changed?
Getting into a “good”
school is becoming more
competitive and students
are starting the college
search and resume build up
earlier than ever. Activi-
ties are no longer just activities, but a means to an
end. Children attend college
camps and programs with
hopes that it will help them
get into a “better college.”
It is only fair to
ask, how much of this
stress is homework related, and what good, if any,
is homework doing for the
children in this country?
Clearly,
American
educators are pondering the
same issue. More elementary schools are easing up
on homework, such as The
Brooklyn School of Inquiry
in New York and Mango
Elementary School in Fontana, California.
Some
high schools are granting
homework-free
vacations,
such as Morristown-Beard.
Photo: Benjamin Leigh
“No
homework
should be given just to take
up time,” said Eddie Franz,
Wellness Director at MBS.
Phil Lyons, a history
teacher at Gunn High School
in Palo Alto, California refuses to assign homework,
according to an article in
the San Francisco Chronicle.
Every year at back to school
night, parents can’t seem to
grasp the concept. Lyons is
bombarded with questions
about how these children
will get the same education without any homework.
One year, he decided
to open up back to school
night with “an explanation
of why homework is a failed
approach, and why their
kids will actually learn more
without it,” according to the
volved
unofficially”
by
making sure there will
be opportunities for the
middle school students to
go to meetings next year.
“They will have
a
voice,”
Koslov
says.
Koslov
is
confi
dent that next year will
be a productive one for the
SGA. John Pisano, current SGA president, says he
believes in Koslov’s ability.
“Mike has been dedicated to the SGA for the past three
years and is definitely deserving of the position,” he said.
Chronicle story. Lyons pointed out that 94 percent of his
students passed the AP Test,
which placed as one of the
highest scores in the country,
all without any homework.
How is this possible? Lyons did not return numerous phone calls for comment.
Most schools seemed
to have reached a point
where homework has become a habit that teachers cannot seem to break.
“All students should
do homework, but the
amount and type of home-
work should be different depending on the student,” said
Harris Cooper, a professor
of psychology and director
of the Program in Education at Duke University, in
Durham, North Carolina.
Many
elementary
schools are making homework optional or are letting
kids complete it at their own
pace, such as California’s
Mango Elementary School.
Morristown-Beard’s Middle
School has a twenty-minute
Continued
on
Inside This Edition
page
NEWS:
-Homework Survey Charts (5)
-Public Enemies author Bryan Burrough visits (6)
-Star Ledger photo journalist Tony Kurdzuk speaks (6)
-Computer programming class coming (7)
-Dr. Cooper and Mrs. Hansbury retire (7)
FEATURES:
-Travel: Katie in Uganda & Tom in Santiago (9)
-How to ask a girl to Prom (10)
-Middle School houses compete (11)
-Seniors venture out for projects (13)
REVIEWS:
-The Art of Cruelty & Sometimes There is a Void (12)
-Middle School play preview (12)
OPINIONS:
-Dining hall rush & Invisible environments (3)
-Hoodies & Celebrity culture (4)
SPORTS:
-Profile of Halia Rosemond (16)
5.
Editorials
2
The Crimson Sun
70 Whippany Road
Morristown, New jersey 07960
973-539-3032
Editor-in-Chief:
Zach Gray
Managing/Layout/
Design Editors:
Benjamin Leigh
Ashley Young
Photo/Art Editor:
Jess Greene
Sports Editor:
Jackson Kramer
News Editor:
Will Drucker
Culture Editor:
Harry Okun
Staff Photographer:
Rob Stone
Chelsea Leeds
Advertising:
Mitch Green
Nick Ferry
Kaitlyn Tatulli
Maria Sapozhnikova
Faculty Adviser:
Ida Picker
Thanks to: Darren Lovelock, Darren Burns,
Bruce Adams, Chris Byrne, Chris Finn, Caitlin
Trought, Jen DeAngelis, Steve Patchett,
Dr. Mascaro and Barbara Napholtz.
The Crimson Sun corrects its factual errors
and accepts corrections and letters to the editor. To contact the paper, send an e-mail to
either [email protected] or [email protected]
The Crimson Sun is a 4-16 page newspaper,
available in print and online through the mbs.net
website. It is written primarily for the approximately 544 students attending MBS and the approximately 100 faculty and staff members, and
is distributed free of charge to all members of the
school community. The Crimson Sun provides information and entertainment in addition to various viewpoints on debatable issues. It will not
print anything that is deemed libelous, obscene
or in poor taste. We reserve the right to edit or
withhold anything submitted and correct spelling, grammar and punctuation when necessary.
The dangers of plagiarism
By C.J. Postighone
In June 2011, Johann Hari was accused
of unattributed quotations from interviews he
had done.
This accusation was first brought to
the public in 2003 by a
magazine called The Private Eye. Hari’s defense
was that he was not using anyone else’s quotes as
his own words, but later
on, as the investigation
went further in depth, he
eventually admitted to being guilty of plagiarism.
I was asked to
write a story for the school
newspaper
on
Kipp’s
mule, which I was ecstatic about, but due to a
lack of time I made a big
mistake. Part of my assignment was to interview
Ms. Hartman which I said
I did, but actually did not
do. I put in false quotes of
what I thought she would
say.
It was a big mistake on my part, which I
greatly regret, but I am
glad it happened to me at
this point in my life so it
will never happen to me
again. I want to extend
my sincerest apologies to
Ms.Hartman, Ms.Picker,
the editors of The Crimson Sun and anyone else
I might have offended.
Hari
was
fired
from his job and the Orwell prize that was won
by him in 2008 was withdrawn. Before they took
it away, he gave it back to
them “as an act of contrition for the errors I made
elsewhere, in my interviews.” The Orwell prize
is given once a year to a
book, a journalistic piece
and an award for blogging.
Hari was a student who attended Cambridge University and won
Times student journalist
of year award for his work
on the Cambridge student
newspaper, the Varsity.
There
was
certainly a bright future
ahead for Johann Hari,but
now he is jobless, awardless and has plagiarism
on his job application.
May 2012
Homework needs a facelift
It is fair to say that 25
years ago, the world was a
very different place. There
were not as many extra curricular activities, the college
process started later, and the
pressure on kids was not as
great. Homework back then,
therefore, should not be compared to homework now.
Every day, the world invites a new technological advance or creation, whether it
is Facebook, the iPad, or some
new app. Sports also appear
to be much more demanding
than ever before. To play a
college sport, one needs to
put in countless hours for
practice. Kids are starting to
specialize in sports at the age
of 5, going to college camps
to get noticed, and playing
sports all year round. Times
are changing, so it does not
make sense that homework
expectations stay the same.
It is no easy task allotting time for sports, school,
any other hobbies, and a social life with the expectations
school puts on adolescents
today.
Childhood should
not be about being stressed,
pressured,
and
overwhelmed to a breaking point.
One of the biggest reasons that homework is a
failed approach, at least in
its current state, is that it
takes the passion to learn
out of kids. Learning should
be something students look
forward to, not something
that burns them out by the
time they reach high school.
If there were less homework, students would have
more interest in learning in
school. Too much homework
is like getting burned out
from sports. Sometimes you
need a break. If you never
get that break, it becomes
a job. Learning should not
be a job, but an interest.
Homework should be
creative and intriguing. It
should not beat a dead horse.
Too much homework is unnecessary and non-essential.
It is unrealistic to say
that homework should be
banned because not all
homework
is
pointless.
However, homework should
be refined. Teachers should
resist assigning it just because they feel they should.
The best homework is
homework that enforces or
teaches students a lesson
while making it enjoyable
for them at the same time.
The goal that all schools
should strive for is to change
with the times and with
the people in those times,
and assign better homework, not more homework.
Homework: a necessary evil?
-The Editors
By Jackson Kramer
You go to high school,
you have classes. In your
classes, you learn. On the
topic that you learned, you
are given homework. You
do the homework, you get
good grades. You get good
grades, you go to a good college. You go to a good college, you get a good job.
You get a good job... One
day you will rule the world.
Homework is an obvious and vital component
to this chain, and hey, who
wouldn’t want to rule the
world? As much as we students may complain about
an overwhelming workload,
too much homework coupled with obligations from
sports and clubs, we really
need it. And as much as we
would love to deny it, without homework, a minuscule
percentage of what we learn
in class would be retained.
Christian
Rabin,
an English teacher, sees
homework as “absolutely
necessary. It teaches skills
that are necessary for frontal
cortex
development,
discipline, and planning.”
“Homework is essentially just practice,” he
adds. “If you are a baseball
player, you need practice
to work on your game. This
is what homework is for.”
He’s right. If you
don’t use it, you lose it, and
that saying holds true for
learning. Given the way that
the brain works, if something
is taught, and then not repeatedly practiced, odds are
that you will shortly forget it.
Ryan Casey, a fantastic student and a senior,
says, “Homework is awesome. I really look forward
to going home after a great
class and doing the assigned homework. I find
it exhilarating to cement
knowledge in my brain
through homework.”
Students, including
myself, often complain about
an overwhelming workload.
However, I believe that all of
us, deep down, understand
that homework is a necessary
evil. If a professional athlete
never practiced their sport,
how would they get better?
If a student isn’t assigned
homework, how are they supposed to retain knowledge?
They won’t.
Although most students do not
enjoy homework as much as
Ryan Casey does, it is a tool
for teachers and students
alike. In order for students to
get the most out of their education, homework is an indispensable component of school.
Ruling the world
is only possible if one does
homework. So students,
don’t be foolish, do your
homework, and one day, all
of those people who never
did theirs will work for you.
A student runs away from the monsters of homework, a goblin iPad and History ghoul.
May 2012
Hot like dimes
Op-Ed
3
By Griffin Giordano
“Environments are invisible. Their ground rules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns elude easy perception.”1
Do fish know that
they are wet? They have
never seen anything that
is not wet; they have never
been in a dry environment.
Interviewing a fish to get an
impression of what wetness
is like is pointless, because
it would be incredibly difficult for a fish to describe
their wet environment.
People thoroughly
immersed in their own environments have no reference for describing them.
Their minds are too narrow. They see their environment only in the way
they are used to seeing it.
Ironically,
with
smart phones, laptops,
and tablets, people don’t
understand communica1.
tion. They have too many
forms of it available to
understand its values.
Teens, thoroughly immersed in it, use countless
forms of communication.
Yet, it is Herculean
for us to fully understand
true conversation. Kids
send transmissions that
merely transfer information as opposed to articulating expressions while
in a state of communion.
Marshal McLuhan
discusses a similar parable in “The Emperor’s New
Clothes.” While some cannot see the Emperor’s nonexistent new clothes, many
actually can see them. The
Emperor and his “‘welladjusted’ courtiers, having
vested interests, saw the
emperor as beautifully ap-
“We need
to stop
interviewing fish.”
pointed”
(The
Medium Is the Massage 88).
The message McLuhan conveys is that the
ability to see clothes is
not necessarily conscious;
the courier’s vested inter-
ests can change his perception without his knowledge.
Meanwhile, a boy
from a different environment is able to see through
this courtly environment. It
is not invisible to him because he has insight from
his own, different environment. McLuhan argues that
people can only see environments through contrast.
As an example, every day I use gallons upon
gallons of water. Every moment of my life I have access to it wherever I go. My
environment is such that I
would never even think to
ask if somebody has running
water. Yet, a jaunt to Panama widened my perspective.
On a remote island
there, natives gathered water through water catchment systems. I realized
that they were only able to
get water during the rainy
season. For them, water
was a scarce commodity.
It was only when I looked
at this situation that I
began to consider what
other resources I might
be taking for granted.
As a journalist,
this message is important because it affects
our objectivity. To describe an environment,
we need the commentary
of people who are not
from
the
environment.
To better understand
our environments, we need
to stop interviewing fish.
The Medium is the Message, by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
Indigestion congestion
Photo: Benjamin Leigh
Students struggle to get their daily lunch in the dining hall
By Clayton Ritzdorf
The mob of students
swarm the lunch counters
as if they were a pack of
wolves ready to eat. Underclassmen step aside while
the seniors grab the first
round of food. The tables
are quickly cluttered with
students sharing as many
seats as possible in order
to cram down a meal before
their next class starts. At the
Morristown-Beard
School
lunchroom, twelve o’clock
noon is when the empty
lunchroom becomes a site
of indigestion congestion.
The lunch system
in place is designed to
split the number of students between two lunch
periods, but the lunchroom
is filled with students
that have late lunch trying to fit in a quick snack
before they have to go to
class. This results in extensive lines, overcrowded tables, and an overwhelmed cafeteria staff.
Many seniors feel
they have the right to skip
the lines and take food as
they please, but line cutting only adds more mayhem to the lunchroom.
Other students find their
lunch in the sandwich line,
which usually is so jammed
that it interferes with the
hot lunch and dessert lines.
The combination of
these three lines creates a
horde of students trying to
eat. The lines also make it
tough to walk from one side
of the cafeteria to the other.
The best way is to
push your way through the
mob of people and hope not
to spill another person’s
lunch all over the place.
Because of the migration of students to the
cafeteria at twelve o’clock
every day, students find
themselves
forced
to
change their eating habits because it is so difficult
to get the food.
Although the lunchroom is packed and the disorder is crazy, the spillage
is minimal. This is because
easily spill-able foods such
as soup and drinks, are
placed away from the chaos of the hot lunch, dessert, and sandwich lines.
If the students decided to follow the designated lunch schedule,
lunch could be a much
more enjoyable time of
the day. However, the indigestion congestion will
continue until students
decide to wait for their
appropriate time to eat.
4
Op-Ed
The hoodie: merely apparel
By Griffin Giordano
What would happen if everybody thought
that wearing a hoodie
was a symbol of guilt?
On February 26 in
Sanford, Florida, 17-yearold Travon Martin’s shooting sparked a controversy
about the shooter, a “white”
Hispanic man, and the
victim, a black teenager.
“I think the hoodie is
as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as much
as George Zimmerman was,”
Geraldo Rivera, a Fox News
host, said on Friday March
23, on “Fox and Friends.”
Logically, this statement is absurd. Clearly, a
hoodie did not pull the trigger.
There are lots of
hoodies in America; if the
majority of people in America wear hoodies, does it
make sense to view that
many people as guilty?
If hoodies are dangerous to the wearer and millions of Americans are going
to be subjecting themselves to
the lethal danger of wearing
hoodies, then clearly we need
a line of bulletproof hoodies.
Obviously, these are
not magical bullet attracting garments. How many
times have you worn a
hoodie and not been shot at?
It
is
completely
normal for anyone to wear
a hoodie. Rivera even acknowledged how normal
hoodies can be, while maintaining that they are responsible, noting at the end
of the Fox News segment:
“Unless you’re going to a
track meet or its raining
leave the hoodie at home.”
Rivera was offering this
advice to non-white young
men, including his own son.
There are so many
other possible discussions
to be made on this matter that include: gun ownership laws, Stand-yourGround Law, racial profiling,
and civic responsibilities
with respect to community
watch organizations and local police force. Out of all of
these things, Rivera focused
his argument on apparel.
It is similar to holding
a debate on Health Care Reform
and focusing on the argument
that stethoscopes are too cold.
The issues at hand do not matter,
and it is almost unethical to place
guilt upon a piece of clothing.
Ethically, death by
hoodie is absurd; predetermined impressions of how
to treat supposed intruders
May 2012
forced this dreadful outcome
– the tragic death of Trayvon Martin. Many conservative states have two laws
pertaining to gun use. The
Castle Doctrine, enacted in
2005 in Florida, states that if
someone is on your property
illegally you have the right to
use deadly force against him.
The Stand-your-Ground law,
also passed in 2005, allows
homeowners to use deadly force if felt threatened.
Ever since Florida
has enacted Stand-yourGround, the number of homicides has tripled.1
By
contrast, in states that don’t
have
Stand-your-Ground
there is a legal obligation
to not escalate the argument and retreat or withdraw. These laws are of
major relevance, and perhaps sole contributors to
whether somebody will shoot
to kill a supposed intruder.
The legally lax attitude towards discharging a firearm in the state of
Florida and precursors on
racial tendencies shown in
the media caused Trayvon
Martin’s death; to argue the
hoodie sparked George Zimmerman’s fear is, simply
put, reckless journalism.
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/03/20/deaths-nearly-triple-since-stand-your-ground-enacted/
“After ‘Stand your Ground’ was passed in 2005, the number of ‘justifiable’ deaths has almost tripled to
an average of 35 a year, an increase of 283% from 2005-2010.”
1.
Reality television has gone too far
By Matt Hensley
Photos: Google Images
Pauly D and the Kardashian sisters show they key to their fame.
Reality
television
shows are turning people’s
brains into mush.
They
started as unscripted dramatic or humorous situations featuring ordinary people rather than actors. Now
these programs have turned
into a circus with participants and producers sensationalizing the situations.
Producers
create
anything but average scenarios to entertain. When
the situations begin to bore
viewers, producers push
the limits and create even
more outrageous circumstances to increase their
ratings. While the behavior in these situations is
usually frowned upon, the
shows make the producers
lots of money. And that’s all
that really matters--or is it?
On the set of Jersey Shore, life is full of partying and craziness.
The
show sets a bad example and
encourages foul behavior.
“While
semi-entertaining, it shouldn’t be
on TV...it is a misrepresentation of our society,”
said Beck Tabor, a junior.
The show contains
outlandish behavior that
gives a false representation of most New Jersey
residents. Jill Raia, a senior,
said that the show is a “disgrace to NJ but some people can’t help but watch it.”
Even Governor Chris
Christie believes that Jersey
Shore is negative for New
Jersey because it creates the
illusion that everyone from
New Jersey is like the characters. In fact, only two of
them are even from New Jersey. When I found out that I
was moving to New Jersey a
couple years ago, I watched
the show and instantly began
to wonder about the people
I would be surrounded by.
Many reality shows
are popular because they
depict the characters doing outrageous, stupid, or
absurd feats that average
people don’t do.
Jersey
Shore ‘s characters often
get drunk and do deplorable acts as a result. Maybe people like to watch it
because they believe it is
funny to see others fail or
make fools of themselves.
Taylor Silvestri, a
senior, said that people probably watch the show because
“It’s like watching someone fall down the stairs...
that is why it is entertaining.” Should people really be
laughing and enjoying this?
Watching someone fall down
the stairs should be anything
but funny and yet, some people can’t help but watch and
laugh at other people’s mistakes…..And yet, we all do it.
The actors on some
reality TV shows do not
seem to care how silly they
look because they are famous. The fact that the
actors on Jersey Shore are
being viewed as pathetic is
not what matters to them
because tens of thousands
of people are watching. The
characters on the show immerse themselves in money
and fame and do not care
how they get it. Viewers
can watch the show and
think that maybe one day,
they will have their own
TV show and be a celebrity.
There will always
be people willing to make
fools of themselves in their
search for fame and fortune. Will people ever stop
watching shows like Jersey
Shore because they have
gone too far?
Perhaps.
“The
amount
of
people watching the show
has definitely decreased,”
said Emily Segal, a junior.
This is a hopeful sign. Maybe some people may have
stopped watching the show
because they do not support the idiocy portrayed.
May 2012
Homework (continued)
Continued
from
page
1.
per class per night homework
policy. MBS also has introduced homework-free vacations, along with Ridgewood
High School in New Jersey.
“There is a value in
homework, but too much of
it is given uncritically and
automatically,” said Dr. John
Mascaro, MBS Dean of Faculty and AP English teacher.
Professor Cooper sup-
News
ports homework to a certain
extent. In his studies using a
method called Meta Analysis,
he looked at data about how
much homework students
did, how much they said they
did, and how well those students performed in school.
“I never want to
generalize homework. but
the basic guideline is the 10
minute rule,” said Cooper.
This rule works by multiplying the grade level of a stu-
dent by 10 to determine how
much homework the student
should do any given night.
A Duke study led
by Cooper found a link between homework and student achievement, which
is much stronger with high
school and junior high school
students rather than elementary school students.
Alfie Kohn, author of
The Homework Myth: Why
Our Students Get Too Much
5
of a Bad Thing, falls in Lyons’ anti-homework camp.
In an article in the Seattle
Pi, Kohn was quoted saying, “Homework generally is
worthless. It’s all pain and
no gain. No study has ever
demonstrated any academic benefit to doing homework before high school.”
MBS’s Franz disagrees. “Homework should
be given to support a thesis or something that you
are doing in class.
It’s
just like practice,” he said.
There are homework
assignments that prepare
students for a discussion that
will take place the next class,
or assignments to give students practice on what was
done in class, but then there
are also assignments referred
to as “busy work,” which just
take up time but do not actually accomplish anything.
MBS homework survey shows most homework for 10 and 11
By Megan Reiling
Graphs: Meghan Merriman and Zach Gray based on Journalism class survey.
During the first
week of April, Upper
School Students took a
written survey of the number of hours they spend
on homework each night
and whether they are on
the honor roll or headmaster’s list. The survey was
designed by Megan Reiling and the journalism
class, with graphs done
by Meghan Merriman and
Zack Gray. The following
conclusions are based upon
the results (see charts).
The
time
each
student spends on homework each night ranges
from one to five hours in
each grade. The majority of ninth and twelfth
grade students spend two
hours on average, while
most tenth and eleventh
grade
students
spend
three hours on average.
Ashley Young,
a
tenth grade student on the
headmaster’s list, says, “I
can see why assigned homework is necessary, but I
think there’s a lot of ‘busy
work’ that doesn’t really
benefit anyone.”
Students who spend
more than two hours on
homework per night are also
honor students, on the honor roll or headmaster’s list,
earning at least A’s and B’s.
The number of hours varies
by each grade. Ninth grade
honor students spend between two and three hours;
tenth and eleventh grade
honor students spend three
hours; and twelfth grade
honor students spend between one and two hours.
Allison
Reiling,
a ninth grade honor student, says, “It is apparent that those who do
not put sufficient effort
into homework are not
as productive in class.”
Students in ninth,
tenth, and eleventh grade
who spend several hours
or more time each night
doing
homework
earn
higher grades. There is a
visible decline in the number of hours twelfth graders spend on homework.
As a result, there are proportionally fewer students
on the honor roll or headmaster ’s list senior year.
News
6
May 2012
Catching the perfect shot: photojournalist Kurdzuk tells all
By Meghan Merriman, Emily Kellogg, and Zach Gray
As he scrambles to
press his camera to the roof
of the National Guard’s truck
while flood waters from Hurricane Irene leave only about
a foot of air to breathe, Tony
Kurdzuk is only thinking of
one thing: the perfect shot.
Kurdzuk was surrounded by water, stuck in
a coast guard vehicle in the
middle of Hurricane Irene,
which struck the town of
Manville, New Jersey, especially hard. When he finally
reached land, his camera had
been left on the truck. Even
under such conditions, the
first thought on his mind was
his camera, which contained
evidence of how poorly the
situation was handled by
the coast guard. Moments
later, he spotted a soldier,
still on the truck, sneaking
the film out of his camera.
Award-winning StarLedger photographer Kurdzuk is often able to block
out the distress of some
stories he covers, ranging
from funerals to sports stories. “The camera can often
act as a shield for me, but
sometimes I get choked up,”
he said, reflecting on a time
when he photographed a funeral, overcome by sadness.
Kurdzuk said he often finds
himself right on the field of
a major Monday night football game, but for him, it was
stressful. The game did not
start until 9 o’clock and he
had to have his picture in by
9:15 that same night. All he
could was worry about capturing the perfect shot, rather
than whether his home team
scored the first touchdown.
When Kurdzuk is assigned
stories such as a heat wave,
he has to find out ways to
show how hot it is without getting a boring picture of people just sitting
by the pool. Instead, one
summer he snapped a pic-
ture of a man jumping into
a swimming pool, capturing humidity and the man’s
cannon ball underwater.
He spoke about what
he does to best capture a
story, which can be difficult.
When photographing a film
director who would not allow
any New Jersey newspaper to
show his face, Kurdzuk was
faced with figuring out how
he could take the picture. The
solution: covering the film
director’s face with a piece of
paper that read “censored.”
Kurdzuk was a member of the team of Star-Ledger
reporters and photographers
who won the 2005 Pulitzer
Prize for Breaking News Reporting for coverage of the
resignation of New Jersey
Governor James McGreevey.
He was named the New Jersey Press Photographer’s
Association Photographer of
the Year in 2003, 2004 and
2006, among other awards.
Photo: Steve Patchett
Tony Kurdzuk, an award-winning Star Ledger photographer says, “The
camera can often act as a shield for me.”
Bryan Burrough reveals ups and
downs of his writing life
By Emily Kellogg and Jessica Small with additional reporting by Megan Reiling and Clayton Ritzdorf
Photo: Steve Patchett
Photo: Steve Patchett
Bryan Burrough author of “Barbarians at the Gate” and “Public Enemies” tells students that each new story he
begins is like climbing straight up a wall.
She was rich, had
a red Ferrari, lived in L.A.
and was “close friends” with
Billy Joel, Michael Jackson and other celebrities,
sweet-talking them over the
phone regularly. She called
herself Miranda Grosvenor, but who really was she?
After hiring a detective,
Bryan Burrough, a best-selling author and writer at Vanity Fair magazine, suddenly
found the 300-pound woman
dressed all in pink, with a
mole on her face, teaching at
an elementary school. Burrough was shocked but he
knew he had to publish this
far-fetched story, regardless of her saying she would
sue. He knew it was true.
He told MBS Journalism
students, Crimson Sun reporters and several teachers
that it was the most interesting story he has ever written.
Over the course of an hour,
Burrough sat around a large
conference table in Wilkie
Hall and told true tales.
Right out of college, he was
hired to work at The Wall
Street Journal, which he said
was very lucky and rare for
someone who had just graduated. His first book, Barbarians at the Gate, about a
corporate takeover, was a
number one best-seller but
his second book did not sell.
“It was the first time I
had ever really failed anything,” Burrough said. “It
was a great, humbling ex-
perience. That book made
me a better writer,” he
said. “I grew up after that.”
Burrough, a celebrated
journalist and author of the
best selling books, Barbarians at the Gate, The Big
Rich and Public Enemies—
made into a movie with
Johnny Depp--told students
that no career path is ever
failure free, that setbacks are
always going to happen but
they can only help you grow.
Raised in the small town
of Temple, Texas, he took a
Journalism class in ninth
grade because he thought it
would be “cool” to have his
name in the paper. While in
high school, he spent all his
extra time working at the
local paper in his town. He
graduated from the University of Missouri School of
Journalism in 1983 and began his career as a reporter
at The Wall Street Jour-
nal only four days after his
graduation. He worked there
for almost ten years until
he started his current job
as a special correspondent
at Vanity Fair magazine.
During his career, he has
written five books Barbarians at the Gate in 1990,
Vendetta: American Express
and the Smearing of Edmond Safra in 1992, Dragonfly in 1998, Public Enemies
in 2004 and The Big Rich
in 2009. After Barbarians
at the Gate became a New
York Times number one best
seller, the public reaction
to Vendetta: American Express and the Smearing of
Edmond Safra was a humbling experience for Burroughs because it “tanked.”
As the hour drew
to a close, Burrough was
asked why he chose journalism, and he replied, “It’s a
hilarious amount of fun.”
News
May 2012
Sharon Hansbury, longtime librarian, retires
Dr. Alan Cooper advises a student in one of his last classes at MBS.
Photo: Jessica Greene
Doc Cooper retires after 29 years
By Mariah Beck
Since the age of six,
Dr. Alan Cooper has been
kindling his love for the ancient world. As a very young
child, his parents bought
the World Book Encyclopedia as a gift for him to enjoy
and learn from.
Reading
the entries about the ancient world in those books
kept him up for hours as
he became more and more
passionate about the subject through his childhood.
“Since that all happened before I had any
conscious thought about
it, I would say that the ancient world, history, classics and archeology were
part of me from the beginning,” Dr. Cooper said.
As an adult, Dr. Cooper is now a teacher and
experienced
archaeologist.
The excitement of reading
about an ancient historical
event, then actually discovering pieces from that time
period have inspired him
to lead archaeological digs
across the globe, including
Greece, Cyprus and Italy.
In addition, he has
been teaching others how
to experience the excitement of discovery locally in
New Jersey for many years
at Lord Stirling Manor and
the Lenape Meadow excavations. As he leaves MBS, he
will work on publishing his
archaeological findings over
the past 30 years. The driving force behind these digs is
the sheer excitement of discovering new things and that
propelling force carries over
to his career as a teacher.
The story of Dr. Alan
Cooper as a teacher began
in a first period study hall
classroom located in West
Virginia. It has been forty
years since that day which
marked the start of his career as a teacher. Since then,
he has taught in both private
and public schools at the college and high school level,
including a stint at West Virginia University and a Fulbright Scholarship in India.
Twenty-nine of those
forty years have been spent
teaching in multiple departments at the MorristownBeard School, but whether
found in the foreign language
or history department Dr.
Cooper is consistently recognized as a stellar teacher.
Most of his classes
are discussion-based, allowing every student the opportunity to voice his or her
thoughts in a very open and
comfortable setting.
This
format has allowed students
to form special bonds with
Dr. Cooper and in doing that,
he has taught so many of
them much more than what
can be outlined in a simple
curriculum. For forty years,
Dr. Cooper has come to work
everyday as a teacher looking forward to his interactions with students. He loves
nothing more than watching
his students grow as they
develop skills, discover passions, and find their path
in life. It is the excitement
of something new every day
that has drawn this man
to both his archaeological
and educational careers.
It is true that Dr.
Cooper has taught in a wide
range of topics at several
schools located in different
states, but the most important measure of his career
is the number of hearts and
minds that he has touched
over the years. Speaking
from personal experience as
a former student in Dr. Cooper’s classes, I know his many
students and I will remember the lessons he has taught
me for the rest of our lives.
News Brief:
Computer programming class coming
By Kaitlyn Tatulli
Next school year, a
new iOS programming elective will be offered by Barbara Napholtz,who ran the
very popular iOS Programming Winter Workshop. Because of the new class’s popularity, qualified students
were chosen by lottery.
The elective, called
iOS Programming 1 and 2,
evolved after several students who attended the
Workshop class asked for
an Independent Study. By teaching a class,
Ms. Napholtz said she
could teach “at least a doz-
7
en students at one time.”
Ms. Napholtz, who
is the First Class Email
Administrator and the Web
Software Developer for the
School, says the elective
will teach students basic
programming skills, how to
create simple apps, including ones that respond to
touches, as well as introduce
students to the methods
that will allow their apps
to interact with the iPhone
/ IPad’s camera, GPS.
She said she hopes
students can learn to use
Apple’s documentation ef-
fectively, so that they will
be able to create apps not
only with the current set
of tools offered by Apple,
but “with any future incarnations.”
This is important because, she says,
the iOS platform has been
evolving, and continues
to evolve, at a rapid pace.
Students will also
learn application design,
which
involves
graphical layout as well as application workflow, such
as how the app “works.”
By Kaitlyn Tatulli
Sharon
Hansbury
started
her
Morristown
Beard career as a librarian in 1988 when the library
was located in Beard Hall
in the area now occupied by
the offices of Headmaster
Peter Caldwell and Dean of
Faculty Dr. Mascaro. The
school was much smaller
with less than 400 students.
“Beard Hall was
old and creaky,” she recalls,
“and it was a constant struggle to keep numerous leaks
from rain storms drowning us or having chipmunks
and squirrels running in.”
When heavy rain
fell, the headmaster, Dr.
Bill Mules, would have to
strategically place buckets
in the building to prevent
the library being flooded.
Still, the library was always
popular and always packed.
In 1997, Sharon
Hansbury became the director of the library where she
helped move MBS through
this difficult time by helping design the new Library.
In 2000, Ms. Hansbury was
assigned to pack up 14,000
books and 6 computers from
Beard Hall and moving everything to two trailers on
the tennis court while a new
library was being constructed. In 2001 when the new
Anderson Library was built,
Mrs. Hansbury says, “we repacked those 14, 000 books
and moved to the new Anderson Library where we had
new computers and a great
facility.” The library now had
an array of online databases
to meet the growing community at MBS. Mrs. Hansbury
says, ”There was never a dull
or quiet day in the library
and it is the interaction with
students on a daily basis that
I’ve treasured over the years.”
Five years ago, Mrs.
Hansbury left the library to
work in the Admission Office
and to organize special events
that take place at MBS, like
Mr. Caldwell’s installation
and Graduation. Mrs. Hansbury says, “While it’s challenging and rewarding to
meet new families and bring
them into the school, I certainly miss seeing students
every day and working with
them and their teachers.”
Now being a part of
the MBS community for 24
years, Mrs. Hansbury has
seen the community grow and
develop. She says, “While the
physical changes have been
many, some things never
changed. Teacher/student relationships were strong and
remain so today. We have a
close community of caring,
where you can walk down
the hall and everyone knows
your name.” Sadly, she is retiring, but students will remember the help she gave.
“My best memories of
MBS will always be the wonderful students, faculty and
staff I’ve known and worked
with over the years,” she said.
Photo: Caroline Szuch
Sharon Hansbury opens a new door in her life as she retires after 24 years.
Photo: Chelsea Leeds
Barbara Napholtz, MBS web developer, will teach the school’s first IOS
programming course.
8
Features
CMW awes students
By Benjamin Leigh
The stage was lit, the
guitars were tuned, and the
pinatas were purchased.
Shortly after seven o’clock,
Chris DeBono, Peter Hoeller,
Will Taggart, Charlie Hill
and Sai Doriswami opened
the 2012 Spring CMW show
with one of the Beastie Boys’’
most infamous songs, “Fight
for your Right (To Party).”
“It takes a serious amount
of courage to go up on that
stage and perform with confidence. I have respect for anyone that does it,” said Sophomore Benjamin O’Connell
who performed a rap song
of his own that night.
What made this particular Contemporary Music
Workshop so unique was the
variety of music. It’s very
rare that genres like rock,
rap, blues, and country can
be heard at one concert.
Students were thrilled to
see returning graduate (MBS
’06) Benjamin Joelson, now
a U.S. Air Force officer, perform that night, as he had
many CMW’s ago when he
attended. Joelson’s cover of
“My My, Hey Hey” by Neil
Young was one for the books.
Looking back, this was one
of the foremost CMWs of all
time. One of the most moving
songs of the night was performed by science department
teacher Scott McCormick,
who performed the song,
“Welcome,” that reminded
him of his newborn baby girl.
Students rave about being able to see their teachers
go up on stage and perform.
“It allows you to see a different side of the teachers
that you wouldn’t have expected. It’s super cool,” said
freshman Jeremy Westaway.
Other highlights included a spot-on cover of the
classic David Bowie song,
“Space Oddity,” performed
by Peter Hoeller, Chris
DeBono, Chris Finn, and
Mitch Green. Even more
special, Hoeller had a lightning bolt painted on his face,
just as Bowie did when he
would perform the song live.
Another act that was truly
jaw-dropping and unusual: a
tap dance number performed
by Hassiem Bey who awed
the audience with the precision of his feet. His number approached perfection.
Mitch Green got the entire crowd moving and
dancing with his “Drum
Remix,” which combined
popular songs together. He
played over them on the
drum kit for what turned
into an all out dance party.
The emerging band, The
Dapper Dandles, made their
first live performance that
Friday. Led by college councilor Dan Sarmiento and accompanied by Mitch Green,
Will Taggart and this reporter, the band performed
“Creep” by Radiohead. Even
though they were dressed
up in collar shirts and bow
ties, they had no problem rocking the audience.
Finally, there was the
school’s own rap group,
made up of Doran McManus,
Jackson Kramer, Michael
Magner, and “Big Red,” Ben
O’Connell. In anticipation
of this performance, a very
different crowd turned up.
Typically, CMW is a
unique venue to play at
since everyone in the room
is sitting down. It is more
of a show than a concert.
However, when the rap
crew came on stage, it got
the entire auditorium out
of their seats and moving.
This was rapper Big
Red’s first live show and he
truly solidified his status
as a rapper. It was a stellar performance but like all
performances, they must
come to an end. And as the
song ended and rolled over
to the next, half the room
suddenly
went
missing.
It is a shame that
half the kids that showed
up left after the rap performance. Not only did they
miss some amazingly talented musicians perform
their songs, but they missed
an experience that may not
come again for a long time.
May 2012
Photos: Rob Stone
(Clockwise from top) Scott McCormick; Grace Fleming and Casey Miller;
Benjamin O’Connell; Rachel Donahue; Ben Joelson; and Marissa Cohen
and Mitch Green.
Features
May 2012
Teaching English in Uganda
9
By Katie Sidlowski
Photo: Kelly Rigney
Katie Sidlowski plays games with her students in Uganda.
Meeting a prince in
Santiago
By Tom Vurno
Santiago, Chile, is situated
in a valley surrounded by
brown and purple mountains. The brown ones are
closer to the city. On a clear
day you can see their molarshaped tops from street level,
and sometimes the snowcaps
of the purple mountains,
the Andes, are visible too.
Before the tour began
we paid a heavy local wearing a one-size-fits all suit to
drive us around Santiago and
give us incorrect information
about the city. He was funny
and foreign and we all liked
him very much. He took us
to a park on a hill in the city.
At the top was a restaurant, which used to be the
home of a dead general. The
green slope that slides from
the top of the house to the
bottom of the hill was littered
with couples young and old,
dripping with orange light.
I remember walking
on a street, the buildings and
houses weren’t much to look
at so I looked at the people
instead. To the left of me,
behind a bus stop advertisement, were two pairs of feet,
a man’s workboots spread far
apart, his toes pointing to the
curb, and a girl’s high heels
nestled together in between
the man’s feet. Her toes
were pointed towards me.
Love is a public affair
in Santiago. If they could
wrap it up in a dress and put
it on a float, there would be a
parade every afternoon--but
not until 12 noon, because
everyone is asleep until then
and the streets are empty.
I met an Arab prince
at a lounge in a hotel later.
Everything was painted
white, except the red eyes
from the unicorn heads
placed along all four sides of
the walls. The prince flicked
bar nuts at the unicorn
heads. He told me to try. I
missed the first shot, but at
the second shot, I hit the unicorn’s eye and got the nut into
a girl’s drink, which splashed
some red wine on her dress.
She smiled and sauntered over from her table to
us. The prince smiled back.
She asked the bartender for
a pen and a napkin. The
prince gave me a good look as
she scribbled a few digits in
blue ink and sauntered away.
He was a sloppy
prince. His beard was unkempt and twisted into thin
dreds and under the designer clothing that hung from
his body like gossamer was
a Fruit of The Loom undershirt, yellowed from dried
sweat.
He was the first
prince I met so, regardless,
he could have been Aladdin.
A pair of dogs walked
into the lounge, followed
by another pair of dogs and
then another and then another and another. Pretty
soon, a dusty cloud of wagging tails and panting open
mouths filled the room.
Imagine, a clean
white room that someone
must have spent whole
nights scrubbing to clean,
now rampant with a herd
When my cousin
Kelly asked me at if I wanted to tag along with her to
Uganda, Africa, to check
on the non-profit she works
with, I thought she was kidding. My cousin is the U.S.
volunteer coordinator of a
small NGO called the Hope
for Children and Women,
or as it is referred to over
there, the HOCW. The organization teaches English
and Swahili to refugees from
the Congo. In Uganda, the Congolese native Bantu language,
Lingala, isn’t recognized and
so when these people come
over, they have difficulty
finding work and becoming self-sufficient because
they don’t share a common
language. The classes are
open to children and adults
alike, offering classes from
beginner level to advanced.
We stayed with a
family of three, friends of my
cousin, plus two boarders, in
a two house, fenced-in compound. The two ‘classrooms’
were tacked on to the houses.
I use the term ‘classroom’
loosely, as our definition is
slightly different from theirs.
The classrooms consisted of
of strays: fighting, peeing in
the corner, gnawing on the
table legs, and more just
kept coming. The door would
always be blocked on its way
to closing by another dog.
The lower end of
the walls discolored when
the dogs rubbed their filthy
sides all over them. People
began to leave. The smell of
wet dog permeated through
the room. Everyone besides
the prince and I were gone.
The prince kept trying to use
whatever dog was near him
as a leg rest. He was still
shooting bar nuts into the
dirty mass to see them all
lurch in for a snack. I wondered where was the bartender or the bus boy or anyone for that matter.
“Hey Fido, want a
peanut?” he said.
pew-like seats and a standard
chalk board. The roofs were
tin, supported by logs. Only
one classroom has electricity, and even that depends on
whether the compound has
power or not(we usually had
power for about twelve hours
and water for fourteen sporadically). A women’s collective is also held on the premises, an outlet for women in
the area to come and learn
a skill set. Their current favorite is the necklace each
is making out of paper, but
making printed bags and pajama pants also engage them.
Everyday, we would
wake up around 9 o’clock for
breakfast; bananas, occasionally egg and some form of
brown bread. Ovens are hard
to come by in Uganda, as everything is cooked over a tiny
charcoal pot of a stove, even
the grains. It’s a good thing
I like bananas because they
were served with every meal.
Our motto was ‘If you can’t
peel it, boil it, or cook it, don’t
eat it!’ which left meat completely out of the equation.
Brushing my teeth
with bottled water took some
getting used to, and my cousin was constantly reminding
me to shower with my mouth
closed. Their water filtration system isn’t effective
in all places and all ‘mzungus’, that’s ‘white person’ in
Swahili, drink bottled water
to be on the safe side. We
would buy our water in the
little shop across from our
compound; again, shop is a
term I use loosely. It’s a stall,
probably six feet by six feet,
filled floor to ceiling with
bottled water, Omo (laundry soap, used by hand),
dusty sodas and toilet paper.
The best part was
being in the classrooms.
I loved the enthusiasm of
the students, even as they
crammed in their notes with
tiny writing as to not waste
paper. Women brought their
children with them when
they went to class and the
compound at times was
like a preschool at recess.
atmosphere
The
was unique, the HOCW
more like a community center, everyone watching out
for everyone and attempting to better themselves.
I’m lucky to have
gone for ten days, though
I wish I had more time
in this amazing place.
Photo: Tom Vurno
Reporter Tom Vurno visited this artistic district in north Buenos Aires,
Argentina, on his trip.
10
Features
How to ask a girl to prom
May 2012
By Tom Vurno
You are driving to
Ali Smith’s house with the
intention of asking her out
to prom. You’re nervous so
you focus on what’s outside:
the trees lining the street
that form a sort of green
hallway that blocks out
the sun, the chatty housewives power-walking on
the left, wearing ridiculous
skin tight clothing and the
bored dogs lagging behind.
Just don’t think about
her answer, don’t think about
the possible rejection, her
laughing in your face. Maybe
some linebacker will come
out from her house and break
your nose. He’ll take her into
his car and drive off, leaving you alone to watch your
blood stream onto the pavement. Loser. He should have
driven back to run you over.
There’s a basketballsized boulder in the back of
your trunk. A “NO” is spraypainted in purple on the top.
Take your answer to school.”
In your pocket is a
pebble that says Yes. If you
crash the car, that boulder is
going to hurtle at you like a
compact mini-van and take
the upper half of your body
onto her front lawn (surprise!)
You park in front
of her place, set up the
poster on top of her front
step with the “no” boulder on the right of it and
the “yes” pebble on the left.
Wait. If you ring the
doorbell, run into the car
and drive off, she can’t reject
you. What is she going to do-bring that crater to school?
You only heaved it from your
trunk to her front door and
you’re already purple in the
face. That thing must weigh
more than she does. After
class, you picture finding
the “No” boulder sitting on
your dashboard through
your windshield, the spider
web glass spreading from
It rolls at each turn the car
makes. Under the bolder is
a poster that says: “Prom?
the rock like roots from a
tree. Maybe it will rain too.
Just ring the door-
bell and run. Jeez, what if
her mom opens the door
first? Hey Mrs. Smith. . . You
ring the doorbell, then get
mid way through her lawn,
when she opens the door.
“Tom?” She hates it.
Run. Tell her some excuse
later, you couldn’t hear her,
something, just don’t give
her the chance to tell you
that she isn’t going to the
prom this year. Yup, that’s
right, she isn’t going to the
prom this year, not with you.
“Oh too cute. Yes,
I would love to go to prom
with you. Hah, can you help
me move this rock? Tom,
where are you going?” Success? Stop. That actually
worked? Of course it did.
Go back and help her move
the rock, look away and
try not to pop a blood vessel when you lift that thing.
Another approach.
It was a typical morning
meeting on a Friday. We had
the normal announcements
and sports information.
Right after, Taylor announces that a guest speaker will
present the quote of the day.
The whole audience, even
the kids in the back that
fall asleep, are now on their
edge of their seats, wondering who the speaker can be.
Next to walk on stage is Joshua Shramm. Everyone was
confused. A quote appears
off the projector onto the
screen with the nine-word
phrase, “Jillian Griffith, will
you go to prom with me?”
Each one of the heads
in the audience turns to find
Jillian and see her reaction.
All you see is three hundred
heads in search. As Josh-
ua repeated the phrase on
the projection, Jillian stood
up and said the only word
she could think of, “yes.”
This was definitely
the most courageous prom
proposal, so far. Jillian was
overwhelmed with happiness
and appeared a little embarrassed. Neither she nor anyone else present will ever forget the morning meeting that
Joshua asked Jillian to prom.
Yet another approach: a puzzle was made
out of foamboard by Ben
Leigh to give to Elaina Aquila. Ben wrote out the four
letters to spell “prom” on a
piece of foamboard. Then
he cut it up to make it look
like a puzzle so the pieces
would connect. There were
four jumbled puzzle pieces.
Each piece was cut in a way
so that it could not be understood unless completed.
Each letter was not
separate, but cut into sec-
tions instead. On Monday
April 16, Ben put his plan
into action. He strategically placed each piece in
her first three classes, first
coordinating with Elaina’s
schedule and her teachers so this could all be possible. As she moved that
morning from class to class,
she received a piece in her
first period class, her second period class, and advisory. As advisory neared its
end and she was leaving,
Ben was waiting outside.
He held the missing
and final piece of the puzzle. He was there to hand
her the last puzzle piece.
She still had to put the pieces together and solve the
puzzle. She was overjoyed
by the cute proposal once
she realized that it combined to write out “PROM?”
and, of course, said “yes.”
How could she say no to
such an entertaining idea?
The travels of bananas, oranges, and strawberries and
why the Sustainability Club thinks you should care
By Taylor Vessa
Bananas travel 2,704
miles to get to the Dining Hall.
Oranges travel 4,220 miles.
And strawberries travel the
farthest: 4,480 miles. The
availability of these fruits is
heavily dependent on fossil
fuels, whether they are traveling on planes or ships. This
system is unstable because
as fuel prices increase, in a
couple of years, certain foods
that travel a long distance
will become too expensive.
A Locaware is someone who wants to eat more
foods that are local and close
by. Last week in the dining
hall, chicken, eggs, pork, and
other produce were available that came from Ambra
Farms in Wyckoff, just 25.6
miles away from MBS. “ Eating these locally grown foods
makes us all Locowares,”
said Scott McCormick, facul-
ty adviser of the Sustainability Club and science teacher.
“When the whole
community contributes it
really helps improve our
sustainability,”
he
said.
On Earth Day, all 20
students in the Sustainability Club worked together to
figure out the food mileage.
“It is very important
to participate so future generations learn from our mistakes,” said Tati Johnson,
a senior and club member.
The Club is constantly searching for ways to
raise environmental awareness. As Jillian Griffith, a
sophomore and member of
the club, said, “It is very important to be environmentally aware so people make
better choices in the future.”
This year the Sustainability Club has been
involved in projects directed
to save the school energy.
In January, they took part
in a nationwide inter-school
competition aimed at reducing energy use called
the Green Cup Challenge.
For this competition, students had to think about
their use of electricity and
turn things off lights and
machines when not in use
as well as shut windows
when it was cold outside.
Every week the club
calculated the amount saved.
In total, the school saved
$930 dollars in one month,
equivalent to a 5.3 percent
decrease in energy usage. The
competition not only helped
save money but also educated students to be cautious
of how much electricity they
use, at school and at home.
“Solar panels have
been discussed, but are
viewed as too expensive,
though they could cut energy
costs drastically in the long
run,” said Jilllian Griffith,
another
club
member.
The
Sustainability Club was largely responsible
for
getting
sensitive light switches installed that turn off when
no one is present.
Cartoon: Brian Andrzejewski
Strawberries may have fun travelling long distances to get to the East coast
but their long journey goes against the locaware idea of eating local foods.
May 2012
Features
11
Photo: Benjamin Leigh
Members of the Whippanies, Shongums, Athenians, and Spartans display their shields proudly.
Back to where it all began: Middle School houses
By Harry Okun
Ah, Hogwarts. Everyone remembers that fictional
Harry Potter school, where
students were divided into
four houses and were punished or praised with points.
As long-term students of
MBS know, we have a house
system in the middle school
where students compete to
win the coveted House Cup.
These competitions
and the point system guarantee that every year is an
exciting, nail-biting fight to
the finish for the 8th graders.
These oldest middle schoolers are divided
into four houses, known
as Athenians, Shongums,
Spartans, and Whippanies,
led by Bill Lamson, Holly
Darby, Susan Glover, and
Cynthia Hamilton, respectively. This year, Ms. Glover invited current seniors
who were once part of the
houses to join in or attend
the activities, offering an
opportunity to connect the
middle and upper schools.
The
competition
takes place throughout the
year. Points can be earned
by class participation and
through a new method introduced a few years ago, by
reading one of several select
books and filling out a form.
Minor infractions such as
lateness or dress code violations cause the house to
lose points, and this punishment often takes the place
of a warning or detention.
This
particular aspect is effective
at encouraging good behavior, Ms. Glover said.
“It creates accountability because students feel
responsible for their house,”
she said. In addition, there
are two special events each
quarter (sorry, no Quidditch) that can earn a house
anywhere between 30 points
for first place or 5 points for
last. So far, there has been
a dodge ball tournament
and a drawing contest in
the first quarter, and then a
general knowledge competition and dodge ball rematch
in the second quarter.
The official event for
the fourth quarter was the
House Shield competition,
where each house designed
a special shield and competed in a middle school vote for
the winner. This replaced
the design-a-house competition that many seniors
may remember, and is going
to be a very intense event.
There was also a
game of Jeopardy, and then
the
unique,
mysterious
Quest for the Cup competition rounded it all out. The
Quest is always a different
event and house leaders
keep it a deeply guarded secret up to the day it occurs.
The houses rise and
fall based on the enthusi-
asm and strength of their
students. This year, the
Shongums were in the lead
and have won both official
challenges. They might even
go on to win the entire competition, a first for their house.
“The competition is
really between the Athenians
and the Shongums right now,”
says Ryan Fisher, a Spartan.
Meanwhile, the Spartans
and the Whippanies are trying to get ahead of each other. “Most of the points this
year were gained by reading, and the Shongums do
a lot of that,” Fisher said.
Students
also
earn
benefits
from
these
competitions.
Lauren
Conway, an Athenian, says
her favorite part is “getting rewards like dress
down days for winning.”
Ms. Glover’s favorite aspect of the competition
is watching the excitement
it generates in the students.
They try hard and constantly check the scoreboards,
she said.
Ms. Glover
decided to ask the seniors
to participate as a way of
highlighting the legacy of
former MBS 8th graders.
“Once
you’re
in
a house, you’re always
in that house, even if
you don’t do anything
about it,” she explained.
As a former house
member myself (Go Spartans!), I am excited about
the opportunity to revisit
one of my favorite aspects of
MBS. Although the difference in schedules has prevented any real contributions from the senior class,
the offer is still open. I’m
sure all of the house veterans would like to return to
that “magic” time, with its
fierce competition and overwhelming sense of pride.
a cheese, beef or chicken filling and baked. Picadillo is a
classical Cuban dish that consists of shredded hamburger
beef marinated in a red sauce,
with potatoes and raisins.
Ropa vieja, is similar to picadillo, but not in a sauce, and
not with the extra foods. The
interesting part about ropa
vieja is that it literally translates to ‘dirty clothes,’ but that
is not at all what it tastes like.
“Cuban Pete’s was a
great choice for a class trip,”
Señora De la Torre said,
“because it was local, and it
gave the students an honest
replication of a real Cuban
resturaunt.” One thing not
noticed every day is that Señora has 100 percent Cuban
blood. She was born in Fort
Lee, New Jersey, but while
growing up, she was told stories about her family’s past.
Soon after getting married in
Cuba in 1946, Señora’s parents had a son named Roger.
By the time he turned 16, the
Cuban revolution was underway. In order to prevent their
son from being drafted into
the army, Señora’s parents
sent him to live at a camp in
Miami, along with many others as a part of “Operation
Pedro Pan,” an under cover
program that helped teenagers leave Cuba for America. Señora’s
parents
would
later meet Roger and settle
in America for a better life.
“It was hard because these
children, like Roger, left
their homeland, not knowing if they were going back
or if they would ever see
the family they left behind,”
Señora de la Torre said.
Luckily, a year later, Roger’s
parents and his three sisters
arrived in Miami to pick him
up and move north to Fort
Lee, New Jersey. Unfortunately, Señora De la Torre
has never seen Cuba herself,
because once her family left,
they were not allowed back in.
The MBS Cuba connection
By Brian Andrzejewski
Photo: Olivia Schreiber
Spanish 2 honors students tasted empanados at Cuban Pete’s in Montclair.
While
walking
through the gardens leading to the entrance of Cuban
Pete’s, a restaurant in Montclair, the Spanish 2 Honors
students caught the smell
of freshly cooked croquettes
and picadillo.
When the
students entered with Spanish teachers Senora de la
Torre and Senor Rusnack,
the scene astonished them.
It began with colorful paintings of a Cuban
beach setting on the walls
behind live palm trees that
towered to the ceiling. A
Spanish-speaking
waiter
wearing a classical guayabera, an everyday Cuban
men’s shirt, greeted them.
From the menu, some
students ordered empanadas or croquettas, and others
ordered picadillo or ropa vieja. Empanados comes from
the Spanish verb empanar,
which means ‘to wrap.’ This
sums up how an empanada is
made: dough wrapped around
Reviews
12
May 2012
The Art of Cruelty: okay book,
important message
By Mitch Green
Think of the term ‘rubbernecking’ for a moment.
Wikipedia describes the
term as “drivers trying to
view the carnage resulting
from a traffic accident.” This
is a common act, one that
I’m guilty of myself. But is
the nonchalance concerning? Is it okay that people
want to see car accidents?
Violence is all around
us—in movies and video
games, on the road in car
accidents, in ongoing wars.
But how much is too much?
Where is the line? The Art
of Cruelty by Maggie Nelson asks these questions and
tries to examine the inner
workings of the human mind,
and why we crave violence.
The best word to describe
Maggie Nelson as a person is
creator; she is a poet, artist,
lyric essayist, and non-fiction
writer. As an artist, Nelson
connects the natural acts of
violence all around us and
the way human beings have
adapted to it, and in some
cases, are inspired by it.
Let me cut to the chase; the
book is just okay. It is inconsistent, scattered, and sometimes even hypocritical. But
this book is always engaging
because it drags the reader
into the darkest corners of
the human mind and exposes
humans for what they really
are; animals. It brings up an
excellent point despite being
a less than excellent book.
The book brings up
many surprising (note, scary)
points. Human beings naturally seek violence, but at
the same time we are a species that actively tries to
hide it. This shows our primitive nature, but also shows
our
social
conditioning.
Nelson brings up many
movies, video games, rap
artists, and cartoons that
get criticized for their violent nature, while the bloodshed in Shakespeare and
the Bible is considered okay.
The movie Saw features a man cutting off his
own foot, while the Bible
features a man disemboweling himself. Children weren’t
allowed to see one, but are
allowed to praise the other.
Part of what is so fascinating,
yet frightening, about violence
is that human beings psychologically thirst for violence, but
try to not think that way. Nelson
writes about Yoko Ono, “I long
to see Ono’s clothes fall, to see
her breasts bared. Yet I also feel
a mounting sense of alarm, empathy and injustice in watching
her body be made vulnerable.”
We have canine teeth
for a reason; hunting is in
our DNA, and these characteristics can still come out.
Always an optimist, Nelson
points out we all have “wily
reserves of malice, powermongering,
self-centeredness, fear, sadism or simple
meanness of spirit.” Ouch.
That passage is an example of why this book is
so effective. While absorbing those lines, I was not
reading anything I did not
already know, and that is
when this book really hit
me. Looking at our history,
I can’t help concluding: human beings don’t look good.
Genocides, war, the
list of bad things we have
done to each other could go
on for a long time. But maybe
this is why we long to see violence lived out in art. Nelson
says it is better “out there”
than “in here,” meaning
violence is better found in a
painting than in our hearts.
Again, getting through
this book can be a challenge. There were times
when I almost threw in
the towel because it got
too boggled, but I didn’t
and I am thankful for that.
If you can look past
the clutter, what you will find
is a dark, twisted, and truthful book that stays with you
a long time after reading it
because you learn something
about yourself. Isn’t that
what we look for in all books?
Middle School Play Preview:
Once on This Island
By Emily Kellogg
Middle School students prepping for their big performance.
Immediately after returning from spring break, 23
middle school students have
been gathering in Founders
Hall from 3:30 to 5:30 every
afternoon, working on their
acting, dancing and singing
to put together the production of Once on this Island,
directed by Susie Speidel, the
Performing Arts chair for performance at the end of May.
“This play is more
mature than previous middle
school plays, which is shown
through the challenges of acting out the romantic scenes,”
says Hailey Winterbottom,
an 8th grader in the play.
“There is more singing and dancing than acting
so we have to act through
expressions
more
than
words,” Winterbottom said.
Once on this Island
takes place on a Caribbean
island that is separated
into two parts, a rich side
Photo: Jessica Greene
and a poor side. A girl from
the poor side, played by
6th grader Natalie Pruitt,
falls in love with a rich boy,
8th grader Dylan Henry.
Supporting
roles
include four storytellers-Arielle Moss, Jessica Babb,
Annabel Pruitt and Lucy
Thoromon--who
all
narrate what is going on during the play. Other supporting roles include the four
gods, played by, Will Segal,
Photo: Google Images
Sometimes There is a
Void: Zakes Mda remembers life during exile
By Megan Reiling
In
his
memoir,
Sometimes There is a Void,
Zakes Mda explores the
good times and bad times
of his struggles against racial discrimination through
a collection of tragic stories
of his childhood in Basutoland. The stories about his
distant relationship with his
father and experiences with
alcoholism and abuse in Basutoland create a sad memoir with an uplifting spirit.
Mda tells stories of
his drinking problems and
his later struggles to find
his identity as a writer and
teacher in America while
still coping with his sad
childhood. Mda provides a
complex yet moving portrait
of his father as he tells of his
mistreatment by him, but
his father’s impact on his
life during exile and after
moving to America is clear.
Unfortunately,
the
three most interesting parts
- Mda’s relationship with
his father, political awakening, and intellectual growth
- lose effectiveness with the
length of the memoir. Still,
Mda’s story gives the audience much to think about.
For the first half of the 576
pages of the book, Mda’s
buoyant sensibility keeps
the story afloat, but the
second half loses intensity.
Mda probably regrets the distant father-son
relationship he portrayed
even though we know his
father wanted him to move
to America and make a successful career in teaching. In
addition, Mda should have
explored his experiences and
growth in America after the
difficult times in Basutoland.
Although the brilliant detailed descriptions
make the story come alive,
various asides such as “but
I digress” or “remind me
later to tell you,” often interrupt the stories themselves.
If Mda had crafted the stories more carefully instead
of digressing often, the narrative of his life in Basutoland would be a compelling
story of his successful career.
Mda is currently a
professor of creative writing at Ohio University and
a visiting teacher at Yale
University and the University of Vermont, as well as
a South African poet, playwright, and author of several
books. He has earned several
awards in South Africa for
his novels and playwriting.
Jadyn Lawrence, Rihie Carchia and Hannah Benton.
The ensemble is
made up of ten students who
act as gossipers, villagers,
and guests at the ball. There
is not much scenery or background sets in the play but
the costumes are colorful.
“Working with the
middle school, it is hard to
rehearse as often or with the
whole cast because everyone
is involved in so many other
activities like sports, but it
is a very dedicated group of
kids so I know it will be a
great show,” says Ms. Speidel.
Senior Projects
May 2012
13
Mariah Beck:
“I want to be a vet and do research
with large and exotic animals.”
-Shadowing a conservation tour guide in
Tanzania and Kenya.
Adrianna Aquayo:
Jess Greene:
“I’m interested in bilingual educa-
tion and how it’s used in the classroom, so I’m excited.”
“My mom encouraged me to become
a lawyer... She claims that I cannot
stand to lose an argument.”
-Researching bilingual education with a Columbia
University professor.
-Intern at law office of Richard Klein, NYC
Jake Lessick:
John Horowicz:
“I’m excited to possibly be doing
captions for a sweet magazine.”
“It’s a cool job, plus I get to meet
Willie Nelson.”
-Intern at Sports Illustrated, NYC
-Intern at Wellmont Theatre, Montclair
Photos: Benjamin Leigh
Seniors venture out into the “real world”
By Jessica Small, Taylor Vessa, Emily Kellogg, Griffin Giordano, Clayton Ritzdorf, Mitch Green, Meghan Merriman, Matt Henesley, Max Tabak, and Zach Gray
From right around
the corner in Morristown all
the way to Africa, seniors
are on a mission to complete
their projects as they transition from high school into the
real world of getting a job.
Seniors may be asking themselves, “Am I really
ready for this or will I collapse under the pressure?”
Senior Projects are
almost as diverse as the
class themselves, with some
students shadowing doctors, lawyers, or mechanics,
some learning the business
of yoga studios, while others are taking responsibility for helping plan events
for celebrities like legendary
country singer Willie Nelson.
Business, Law,
Government
Quite a few students decided to venture
into the field of business or
law. Rubana Islam plans
to intern at Weichert Relators in Mountain Lakes.
Jaynie Segal will be
busy working at J.P. Morgan
in New York City with a financial advisor who specializes
in private wealth management “ I originally wanted to
pursue an occupation in busi-
ness,” Segal said, “but then
I decided I was really into
journalism. So now I’m doing
analyses of the stock market
on a daily basis, which combines both of those areas.”
Rob Stone is working in the IT (information
technology) department of
Flaherty & Crumrine Inc.
in Pasadena, California.
Rob says, “I’m nervous, to
be honest. I hope at least
some of it makes sense and
that I enjoy it—since it’s
what I’m going to school for.”
Jessica Greene is interning at the law office of
Richard Klein, a real estate
lawyer in New York. “I am
hoping to learn if the legal field
interests me,” Greene said.
“My mom has encouraged me to become a lawyer
as she feels I would be a great
litigator. She claims that I
cannot stand to lose an argument and will fight to the end.”
Finally, Jill Raia will
be interning at the State Senate House in Trenton. Jill
is really looking forward to
this and says, “I’m excited
to see how the legislation
works, even though it will
probably get dull at times.”
Musical, Artistic
Journeys
Some students are
interested in pursuing their
artistic side, and decided to
work in media, entertainment, and music, some venturing beyond the U.S. Jonas
Herchsen is working for a television studio in Bremen, Germany. Kyle Fisher will work
with one of the co-lighting
designers at the 2012 Tony
Awards in New York City.
“I was able to land the
internship because the man
I am interning with is an old
family friend,” Fisher said.
John Horowicz will be
working at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair. Unlike many
other students, he got this internship completely on his own
by driving to the Theatre and
asking the owner. Through
his project, he will get to meet
country singer Willie Nelson,
who is performing that week.
Chris DeBono, a familiar figure on the MBS
stage, landed a project interning with the Pushcart Players in Verona.
Charlie Hill chose to
work at the Millburn Music
Center, giving music lessons,
instrument repairs and selling equipment.
Similarly,
Spencer Zubrow is working
at Architekt Music Studio
in Butler. Jake Lessik is interning at Sports Illustrated
in NYC. He will be working
with the online staff, and
may be doing some caption
writing, photo shopping,
and possibly some editing.
Medical
Other students will venture into their field of dreams
in the medical world. Harrison Rosemond will be shadowing a orthopedic surgeon
at St. Barnabas in Livingston
and Milburn Surgical Center.
“I’m anxious because
I want to know if I will be
a doctor,” Rosemond says.
Griffin Giordano will
be spending time at Morristown Memorial Hospital in
the neonatal intensive care
unit (for babies) and also in
the trauma center emergency room. Giordano says he
anticipates that “this will be
a riveting experience” that
will provide “valuable memories of the medical world.”
Health, Fitness,
Skilled Labor
Some MBS seniors
have chosen to volunteer in
wellness by doing health,
exercise or in skilled labor.
Alex Bruno says, “I am excited to give back to my community” and is volunteering at the Florham Park
Recreational
Department.
Gabby Daidone will
be volunteering at POE yoga,
a hot yoga studio in Far
Hills. Dylan Krouse is also
volunteering in a yoga studio
called Onyx Mind and Body
Yoga, located in Warren.
Meghan
Merriman and Nina Zwarycz
are both working at Belmora Spa in Basking Ridge,
where Merriman is helping promote “spa week.”
Tiana
Santiago will be working as office secretary for a sports
league named the North
Ward Center in Newark.
“Although I am excited,” Santiago says, “I
am also a bit nervous to
handle all these responsibilities on my own, but I’m
sure I can make it work.”
Ryan Martin will
be interning at Sportscare,
a physical therapy place in
Morristown. John Olcese will
be volunteering as a mechanic at Cassidy Transportation
Inc. Garage in Budd Lake.
Sports
14
May 2012
Rubana Islam runs to make it to the next base (left) as Jaynie Siegel slides into third during a tough game against St. Elizabeth’s Acadamy on May 9. MBS won 8-6.
Photo: Jessica Small
Softball:
Rebuilding the team
By Ben Schreiber
The girls’ softball
team found themselves on
the wrong side of a 4-0 deficit in the fifth inning, while
facing Kinnelon High School
on April 18.
There was
little hope of a comeback,
when Freshman Christina
D’Alessandra belted the
team’s first home run. The
Crimson went on to lose
the game 6-16, but they
have not lost their spirit.
“No matter what the outcome of the game. Everyone cheers on each
other and shows great attitudes,” said D’Alessandra.
This season’s captains, Jayne Siegel, Jill Raia,
Taylor Silvestri, and Rubana
Islam had big shoes to fill after the team lost pitcher Emily Vnencak and outfielder
Cerea Steficek to graduation.
Silvestri said, “Our huge loss
this year was Emily Vnencak. She was an outstanding
player and we are struggling
to make up the impact she
had on the team.” Trying to
make up for the huge loss
at pitcher is Freshman Sarina Morales. When Morales
is not pitching, less-experienced pitchers such as Se-
nior Jayne Siegel and Sophomore Dana Riback fill in.
The team’s biggest strength
this year is offensive aggressiveness.
Their approach
at the plate is to string together consecutive hits so
they stay consistent and
unified. Senior Jayne Siegel, one of the team’s best
hitters, was named to the
All-tournament Team at the
Dover Softball Tournament.
The team’s record is 0-8.
Though their record is
not where they want it
to be, they are working
tirelessly to get better.
“Each player has their
own positive outlook on how
to make the season a success,” said Siegel. She emphasized the new, younger
players. “Our record is incongruent with our abilities both as individuals
and as a team,” she said.
With eight freshmen on the
team there is no doubt they
will improve and become
a dominating force within
the next few years. The
team has many underclassmen with talent, including
Freshman
third-baseman
Lindsay Reeth, Freshman
right- fielder Hannah Guenther and Sophomore firstbaseman Jessica Wright.
With this young core of starters, the Crimson looks forward to a brighter future.
Each player shows excellent attitudes and supports each other no matter what the score is.
“We are working hard to improve, and we hope to have a
better record next year with
two good freshmen pitchers
that will be joining the team,”
says Coach Jennifer Geary.
Track and Field:
Setting personal records
By Maria Sapozhnikova
Rex Dyer reconsidering his decision to join Track.
Photo: Steve Patchett
This season was expected to be difficult for the
track and field team, after
losing top athletes Lauren
Capo, Jeff Maser and Zaki
Williams to graduation. The
team overall is 0-3 so far for
the boys’ and girls’ teams.
Still, the team has been
training hard, and many
athletes have been improving individually, breaking
school records and performing well in competition.
“Mainly, we just want everyone to improve as the
year goes on,” said Coach
Scott McCormick. “At every
meet, we have had about
15 to 30 personal records
set by people on the team.”
“At the Morris County
Freshman-Sophomore Relays, the sprint medley
team of Micaela Reilly ’14,
Eva Rago ’15, Kelsey Dowlney’ 15, and Sam Siragusa
’15 won third place, which
was “a big accomplishment,” says Coach McCormick. In addtion, the discus
and shot put team both won
gold at the Madison Relays.
“ I’m happy with our team,”
says captain Tatiana Johnson, a senior. “The entire
team is constantly improving
which is all you can ask for.”
So far, the track team athletes have been improv-
ing with every race. Micaela Riley, a sophomore,
holds the school record for
800 meters at 2:29.8 and
improved her own school
records in the 1600m at
5:23 and 3200m at 12:17.
“It felt really good when I
broke the record because I
knew how I worked to get
to that point, says Riley
Halia Rosemund, a freshman, set the school record
in discus throwing 115’10.
On the boys’ side, Kyle Larsson has had a fine season,
running 4:45 in the 1600m.
May 2012
Sports
Girls’ Lacrosse:
15
Turning the corner
By Max Tabak
The Girls’ Varsity
Lacrosse team has seen a
variety of successes this
year that cannot be quantified in wins and losses. At
the beginning of the season,
the girls knew they would
be overcoming the loss of
talented players such as
Sarah Bayersdofer and Hilary Smith to graduation.
Despite the team’s disappointing (1-12) scores so
far, records have been set,
lessons have been learned,
and stepping-stones for
the future of the program
have been put in place.
“We
firmly
believe that we can turn
this around and string
together some wins at
the end of the year,” said
Lizzie O’Neill, a captain.
Girls’ Lacrosse has
a mixture of girls from all
grades, which has both
positives and negatives.
Freshman
and
sophomore girls, Devon Flinn,
Delaney Flinn, Caroline
Chambers, Kathleen McNamara
and
Chelsey
Howarth, have followed
the leads of captains Lizzy
Pellicane, Nina Zwary-
cz, and Lizzie O’Neill
and seniors Mia Geswelli and Dylan Krouse.
Regarding
the
team’s struggles, O’Neill
said, “It’s been difficult to
adjust to a new coach. Plus
having so many young players has presented a challenge of its own.” O’Neill
also went on to say, “I
could not think of a better
group of girls to cap off my
playing career.”
Despite a less than
desirable record, the entire season has not been
bleak. On Tuesday, May 1
in a game against Colombia
High School senior forward
Lizzy Pellicane cemented
herself as one of the best
players in MBS girls’ lacrosse. Pellicane notched
her 205th career goal to
make her the all time leading scorer in school history.
“It is truly an
honor to hold this record
and I know I would not be
here without all my teammates and coaches over
the past four years,” Pellicane said. All her teammates have admired what
she has done this year.
“Lizzy has not only
been our best player all year
but has been a great team
captain and a great role
model for the younger girls,”
said Emily Kellogg, a junior.
Kellogg mentioned
Pellicane’s positive style
of leadership, her aggressiveness on the field, and
her blazing speed as attributes that make her
the player that she is.
With only a few weeks left in
the season, the girls are looking to finish on a strong note.
Photos: Chelsea Leeds
(Clockwise from top) The Girls’ Lacrosse team battles Governor of Livingston High School and lost in overtime 14-15. Cara Geswellli leaps to gain posession. Lizzy Pellicane runs for a goal.
Boys’ Lacrosse:
Shooting for the state tournament
By Meghan Merriman
The Boys’ Lacrosse
team came into the season
with guns blazing, crushing
Sparta’s Pope John XXIII
High School 14-7 in their
season opener. Unfortunately, as the team began to face
more difficult teams, their
record slipped to 4-12, leaving players wanting nothing more than to show the
Morristown-Beard community what they are capable
of accomplishing.
Led by Coach Bill
Rentiers, the team has the
potential to bring themselves
back to a 500 record. With lead-
ing goal scorers being freshman, Teddy Hatfield and Chris
Glancy, it is safe to say the
roster is predominately young.
The youth pull a lot of weight
for the team, including Goalie
Matt Sefcik, also a freshman,
who has saved an impressive
78 out of 146 shots this season.
“It’s a tough to start
six freshman on a varsity
team, and we will need them
to step up come tournament time,” says Doran McManus, captain.
Returning
players
Andrew Callahan and Ryan
Martin are also off to an im-
pressive start. Callahan, attack, has tossed up respectable 12 goals, and leads the
team with 13 assists. Midfielder Martin has gone 70
percent with his face offs this
season, looking to make second team all-conference, as he
did the previous year.
Because the starting
line-up consists of five freshmen, the biggest problem the
team faces is inexperience. The
change in pace from Middle
School games to competing at a
varsity level becomes difficult to
grasp for the younger players.
“After coming out
of middle school lacrosse,
it’s hard to adjust to seeing 180 pound kids, shooting the ball at 90 mph. It’s
a completely new level of
competition,” says attack
Thomas Rago, freshman.
In their second
game, they held a 7 to 6
lead in the third quarter
against top-ranked Millburn, but their youth and
inexperience were exposed
in the fourth quarter. They
ended up losing the game
with a final score of 14 to 9.
Undaunted, captain
McManus notes the team’s
steady improvement each
game. “A positive for the
season so far has been how
much our freshman have
grown up,” says McManus.
The question now
is whether the team be able
to pull it together before
tournament time.
“I have only one thing
on my mind,” says Michael
Magner, captain, “The State
Tournament.” After not qualifying for states last season,
the team wants nothing more
than to see MBS in the North
Non-Public B state bracket.
Sports
May 2012
16
Photo: Steve Patchett
Travis Nardin winds up for a big pitch. Matt Sauder trys to get a hit.
Baseball:
How far can the team go?
By Brian Andrzejewski
C o n f e r e n c e
Champs? State Champs? All
of these are serious possibilities for the Crimson Boys’
Baseball Team. Behind two
of the team-leading seniors,
Zach Gray and Jackson
Kramer, MBS is off to a solid start in the 2012 season.
It’s not a question about whether the
team has the talent to go
far or not, it’s the question
about whether they have
the heart to do it.
Last
season they fell one game
short of the county finals
despite all this talent and
the same coach. This gives
the team more of a reason
to want to win this season.
“Our team is very
determined. The entire
team shows up to practice every day and gives it
their all,” said Travis Nardin, sophomore pitcher.
“Coach
Shep
tells us every day that
the harder we practice,
the easier the games
will come,” Nardin said.
That is the truth and
it shows, because this season
the team advanced to the
County semi-finals for the
second year in a row and the
third time in school history.
On April 4th, Head
Coach John Sheppard set
a milestone that all coaches dream of doing one day.
The Crimson secured Coach
Sheppard’s 300th Career
win with a whopping 14-0
win over Boonton. The next
day, freshman pitcher, Jeremy Westaway took the
mound against powerhouse
Millburn, which was ranked
7th in the state at the time.
Westaway not only pulled
out the 3-2 win, but he
gave up only three hits. He
was also awarded NJ.com’s
Top Player of the Week, a
good sign for the season.
Besides great leaders, young talent, and experienced coaching, MBS
also has a strong pitching rotation. The rotation includes sophomore
Nardin, freshman Jeremy
Westaway, sophomore Ben
O’Connell and junior Nick
Ferry. All four pitchers are
capable of striking out batters, keeping opposing runs
off the scoreboard, and
most importantly winning
games. O’Connell has also
provided quality innings
in relief for the Crimson.
The impressive talent on the mound is guided
by pitching coach, Michael
Sturgeon. Coach Sturge
pitched at Seton Hall University and holds a singleseason record for most relief appearances with 23.
Another
coach,
Kevin McDonald, also has
a prestigious baseball past.
Out of high school, Coach
“Mac” went on to play college
ball at University of Maryland, and was also drafted
by the Detroit Tigers to play
Major League Baseball.
In his fourth season being coached by “Mac”,
“Sturge”, and “Shep,” under
his belt, shortstop Jackson Kramer is ready for
his senior season. Kramer
is known for his outstanding
defensive
talents.
In addition to Kramer,
Ryan Casey, Will Drucker, and John Olcese get
noticed for their speedy
coverage of the outfield.
Offensively,
Zach
Gray is known for slugging
the ball deep and consistently getting on base. Along
with Gray, many others,
such as Travis Nardin, Jackson Kramer, Shane Carpenter, Nick Naples and John
Olcese can drive the ball
into the gaps and produce
runs for the Crimson.
Both
Gray
and
Jackson are committed to
play Division I baseball
in college, Gray at Lehigh
and Kramer at Lafayette.
The
team
will
graduate 8 seniors, so
next year so next year the
team will have to rebuild
around their younger talent.
As for determination, the team proved to the
baseball community and
the state that they do have
the heart with a huge upset over Milburn. The MBS
baseball team has a stacked
roster and a coaching staff
that couldn’t get much better. Along with these great
attributes and a successful
13-5-1 start to the season,
the Crimson are aiming for
a championship this year.
Halia Rosemond:
Track’s Ballerina
By Mitch Green
Photo: Chelsea Leeds
Halia Rosemond prepares her spin for the discus throw.
April 27. It had just
finished raining, leaving the
throwing field a damp and
gloomy battlefield. There was
a slight drizzle and the sky
was gray as Halia Rosemond
stepped into the discus pit.
She gets into stance, gives
a deep breath, and then does
something best described as
a ballet spin before the disc
leaves her hand, hurtling
across the field. One-hundred and sixteen feet and ten
inches, a new school record.
With only two throwers, the
girls team of Halia and Tati
Johnson beat both opposing
teams, Gill St. Bernard’s and
Newark Academy, that day.
Rosemond, a freshman,
has been a powerful asset to
this year’s track team. Beating the school’s discus record
early in the season, it seems
every week she continues to
throw further and continue
to beat the record she calls
her own. Not too shabby
for someone who has been
throwing for only two years.
“At first I hated throwing disc,” says Rosemond,
previously a shot put throw-
er. “Throwing came very
naturally to me, but I didn’t
know how to spin. Once I
learned and started succeeding, I started liking it more.”
Perhaps the happiest person to have Halia on the team
is throwing coach Stephanie Puchalski. “She’s a lot
of fun,” says Puchalski, who
said she is excited thinking
about her potential over the
next three years. “Watching
her throw the disc is beautiful,” Coach Puchalski said.