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While the new year has already arrived, we can still take a look back on the year now past and look ahead into this new one. In 2024, we saw numerous sports events such as the Super Bowl in February and the Summer Olympics. This athletic festival, held in France, represented 206 different countries. The winner of the Olympics last year was the United States, prevailing with 126 total metals. The 2024 Super Bowl, the 58th Super Bowl, saw the victory of the Chiefs against the 49ers, with a score of 25-22. During September, Hurricane Helene—the deadliest hurricane of 2024—hit some southeastern states in the US, such as Florida and Virginia, along with some Caribbean countries like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. This windstorm caused over 230 deaths and widespread injuries. Over $63 billion worth of damages was incurred.

 On June 13, former President Donald Trump got shot in the ear by Thomas Matthew Crooks. Crooks, a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park Pennsylvania, used an AR-15 style rifle to injure Trump. As a Kamala Harris supporter, he disliked Trump and believed that he and his actions would pose a threat to the country. This was widely understood to be his motive for the attack. Along with hitting Trump in the ear, the shooter injured two audience members and killed one. Because of this, he was shot and killed by the US Secret Service's Counter Sniper Team seconds after the attack. Although many were frightened by this incident, Trump's injury did not stop him from debating with President Joe Biden on June 27th and winning the presidential race in November. 

The first presidential debate of 2024, on June 27th, 2024, featured President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump debating with each other. CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash asked questions on immigration, economic policy, and foreign affairs, and the debaters had two minutes to answer, followed by open discussions. The second presidential debate, which was on September 10th, had Kamala Harris and Trump debate. It followed a similar format and talked about abortion, foreign policy, immigration, and economic policy.  

Additionally, 2024 was the year Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed outside of the New York Milton Midtown Hotel in Manhattan on December 4th. The assailant, Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old former Ivy League valedictorian, used a suppressed ghost gun in the attack. His rationale for this shooting might be linked to Mangione's psychological decline after a failed surgery. Thompson, a 50-year-old man, was known for his kindness and leadership in the healthcare sector. He joined UnitedHealth in 2004 and became CEO in 2021. His death sparked debates over the American healthcare system and formed mixed reactions from the public. 

Last year also saw the death of former US president Jimmy Carter. In February, the president was diagnosed with melanoma that metastasized to his brain and liver. Despite his declining health conditions, he made his last public appearance to celebrate his 100th birthday on the first of October. Then, sadly, Carter passed away on December 29th, at his home in Plains, Georgia. After the former president's death, his remains were transported to the Carter Center in Atlanta and the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia for public ceremonies, military tributes, and a private funeral. The cause of death still isn't public, but it's speculated that he died from the diseases he was diagnosed with.

Written by Patrick Huang and Edited by Fritz Smith

As you may or may not know, you have electives which will be at the start of the day assuming you're in 8th grade and at a different point if you're not. Nonetheless, you're guaranteed to have at least one elective, with so many people having electives, which do they think is the best (and worst)? We recently polled a small selection of students and of the few who were asked, only nine actually responded. 

Regardless, the results from this super large sample of nine has made it abundantly clear that the majority of students (incorrectly) chose band as their favorite elective. The second most popular elective was Technology with a total of 22.2% of students claiming it as their favorite elective class. There was also a tie for third place between Choir and Spanish with each of them getting a single vote or 11.1% of the total vote share.

In turn, the least popular elective kindly referred to as "The Most Hated Elective" by a member of the student body, is Drama. Unlike the most favored elective, this was not a majority decision and only 4 out 9 people or 44.4% of the vote went this way. The second .. least favorable? Most hated, elective according to an improper vote of the recipients who responded was Choir with 22.2% of voters stating that it was their least favorite. Band, Art, and Avid all tied for 3rd place in the most hated elective competition, however, I believe many more people would have chosen avid should it have been a listed option.

All in all, the results of the study are not very reliable, the small number of respondents combined with the bias of those who would have responded, and this study was about as useless as a cat with a checking account. If you are further interested in the polling of the general public, I would encourage you to contact people in-person as it would be far more likely to receive a response.

Written and Edited by Fritz Smith

*Recent events may have made this article less relevant

This school year, the district has decided to implement a new bell schedule- with days being split between a and b days- and replace advisory with W.I.N. for all of the BSD middle schools.  In this article, we will discuss the following question: Is W.I.N. a win?  We will dig into the facts and opinions of other people (interviews included).

Firstly, people believe that W.I.N is truly not a win. As Fritz Smith states "In W.I.N all you do is math and nothing else that matters". Also as another student states "I believe that it is a full waste of time". Most students seem to believe that W.I.N is either bad or "mid".

On the other side of the table, some students believe there is still some room for hope. As Patrick Huang states "W.I.N is good because of the time that you get to do Lexia and Aleks." But other students think this is incorrect. They believe that the time for Lexia and Alexs is short, and even if so they think that the time during this is boring and slow. Other students report that they already finished their Alexs lessons for the week so they are just pushing around buttons when they could be reading.

Students believe that W.I.N. needs to be changed. "We can only hope".

Written and Edited by Parker Casteel

Three years ago the Whitford Weekly published its first articles on October 4th; It continued to publish many issues on a variety of subjects throughout the 2021-2022 school year. This, however, would be the only year that the Whitford Weekly would operate as the last edition of the paper was on June 9th, 2022. The Whitford Weekly was largely a student project that was managed by the school, this is why it hasn't operated given the lack of students who wanted to get involved.

Now that you know the beginning, let's talk about the future. The Whitford Post is designed to be a student-run and student-directed newspaper, the Post is meant to focus on issues that impact our school and our community. The Post is also meant to show news stories from new perspectives and to shine some light on unreported stories.

To conclude,  Its been several years since this school has had a newspaper and certainly a long time since someones read it. It is my hope that we can do our small part to get people involved in the issues they care about and to give just one more thing that people can look forward to each week.

Written and Edited by Fritz Smith