Clubs

Drama Club entertains students and staff with

Murder on the 518

By Avianah Sanchez

Staff Writer

The Drama Club performed The Murder on the 518, a horror and comedy stage play, for parents, staff, and students at the end of February.

The play took place on a train called The 518 starting from Salt Lake City, Utah to Los Angeles, California. One mystery murderer mixed with different groups of people—a sports recruiter, a professor, a couple ,an inspiring musician, a journalist, and more—but one was out for blood and revenge. Two had died.

The audience interacted with the performance throughout the show when the inspiring musician arrived to cheer the honeymoon couple. Laughter was heard from the crowd as he used his instrument to cheer them up.

“I liked how you couldn’t guess what was going to happen and it was like an actual murder mystery. That and how they all did small things to make it more funny. At the end when the song started playing, the guy used his instrument acting like he was playing. That was funny,” said Elizabeth Shupert.

At the beginning of the play, everything seemed to be going smoothly, but ended when all of a sudden the train had stopped in its tracks due to a giant rock slide causing people to panic and take their eyes away for a moment. The moment when everyone had a disaster stroke and a death happened made everyone point their fingers at others. Soon after another death occurred on the train, people were worried and tried to solve the case of the murder.

Everyone had to calm down in order to solve this murder mystery. A group of passengers came up with a plan when the train had made it to its destination. That's when they put their plan into action to find the murder when everyone got off the train. Luckily their plan worked and they caught the culprit of this case.

It took practice for the drama students to perfect their parts, with practicing the movements and memorizing the lines. They had to learn not to have stage fright and know their cues for everything even taking in the little details to make it more better and funny for the audience.

“Directing this year’s cast was one of the best experiences that I’ve had here at Concord Junior High School. Everyone put their all into their roles and really brought their characters to life. Their initiative and hard work made this such a fantastic show that they should all be proud of, “ said Richard Connors.

After all the practices these students stayed after school everyday for an hour or more. They had brought in Mr. Connors' wife and Ms. Deaton to ask for advice on the show. In the end they worked as hard as they could to put on a fantastic show for parents and for school.

Academic teams focus on Ireland for competition

Melina Serrano

Staff Writer

On May 3, the ELA academic team earned second place and the social studies team placed 5th at Bremen High School during the Academic Competition.

The topic that was assigned to the teams was the 20th century of Ireland. ELA studied tales and songs that were connected or inspired by events like the battles between Ireland and Britain, while social studies studied papers and documents, and political leaders that impacted the history of Ireland.

“Oh, this team was amazing, I don't think we could've gotten so far without them," said Layla Bennett.

On May 3, the two teams were prepared for the Academic Super Bowl. Each round took about 30 minutes. First came science, next was social studies, then math, last was ELA. During the competition two to four students from different schools would sit at a table to discuss their answers for each question.

The questions that were asked ranged from the meaning of lyrics from ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday,’ to questions about political leaders. At the end of each question, if students got the question correct, they would raise their hand.

Since there were no math or science teams, the ELA and social studies teams had to work together to answer those types of questions. The competition ended at 12:00, and the judges started to distribute awards for the top 3 schools in each category.

“I had a lot of fun with my team this year. They learned so much and made me very proud,” said Mrs. Isenbarger, captain of the ELA team.

Since February 10, the ELA team would meet up nearly every Monday and Thursday, and study till 4:15. The ELA team and Social studies team both studied poems, songs, stories about or related to Ireland.

“I think a special moment was all the great talks we had during practice. We sometimes got off track but I felt we had great conversations that were worth it, ” said Mrs. Mast.

Robotics Club wins semi state

By Benjermin Rininger

Staff Writer

Updated 12/19/24

The Robotics team won the semi state on Dec. 9 at Purdue University in Fort Wayne competing against 36 other teams thereby advancing to the state competition.

At the first competition which took place at Concord Intermediate School in Indiana, the robotics team placed 9th in the robot games and earned 210 points. The Robotics team split into two groups to win the first competition; the two groups are robots and research. While the research team worked on their slides and making sure everything was working and was the way they wanted, the robot team was making sure the missions were being completed each time they tested.

Adrian Ramirez said, “My favorite part of the competition was the competitiveness of the robot games and the research project.”

Concord Jr High earned 240 points on the robot games and their placement is unknown, but in all their categories they were exceeding or meeting what they wanted. The Robotics team received the motivation award at the semi state competition.

The Concord Jr High Robotics team was the only Concord team that made it to state this year. The hardest part of it all was the length of the competition.

Drama Club performs Are We Scared Yet for students and staff

By Zuri Gonzalez

Staff Writer

Updated 5/10/24

This year's cast of Are We Scared Yet performed for students, staff, and families at Concord Junior High School on Feb. 22 and 23.

The performance was about two campers being lost in the woods who eventually were discovered by a camp counselor who acted suspicious. While waiting for the other campers to go back to the campsite, they passed time telling scary stories which included, Taily-Po, Backseat Driver, and Whimsical Wendy.

A scene that made all students, staff, and families laugh was Whimsical Wendy. Whimsical Wendy is full of humor and eerie scenes which in turn made the crowd laugh. Wendy had funny comebacks and a creepy demeanor that elicited a lot of laughter from the audience. An Example was when during the scene Whimsical Wendy, Wendy says to the little girl,”Your Mommy doesn’t love you!” which made everyone laugh.

‘’I liked the part where the killer was going to stab them and didn’t and fell back. And when Wendy was looking at me, Scary. Overall it was really funny,’’ said Azarah Munoz.

Rehearsals with the drama cast were fun and full of energy. The cast put all their energy into their lines and parts. Whenever there was someone missing, someone would always offer to read the lines. The directors always helped the cast whenever they needed to improve something or helped the cast with props.

“One of the biggest challenges we faced this year was illness. Influenza A hit us hard this winter and we had so many cast and crew members who were out for a week or more. When even one cast member is absent it makes rehearsal extremely difficult,” said Mrs. Kristen Weatherholt, one of the drama directors.

Academic teams compete at Wawasee

By Katie Tucker

Staff Writer

The CJHS language arts, social studies, and science academic teams competed at Wawasee on April 27 for the Academic Super Bowl.

At the competition, three students were seated at a table and answered 25 questions. One of the three students was chosen to be captain; they stayed in the whole round. The two other students replaced them after the 12 questions. Aryani Ramos Rodriguez was the captain for language arts, Isobel Shannon for social studies, and Brody Forester for science.

The language arts team studied the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. They also studied ten poems from Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris.

The language arts team met every Monday and Wednesday. The practices were very relaxing with pretzels and hot chocolate. At the very last practice, they competed against teachers with practice questions. The team practiced for twenty days and got 37th place overall in the state.

“The competition for the Language Arts category was really fierce this year because so many people already knew a lot about the Harry Potter series. I think that familiarity forced the questions to be highly detailed and, therefore, quite difficult,” said Mrs. Kelly Isenbarger, the coach of the language arts team.

The social studies team studied American Presidents from the 80s and 90s. They did not have much time to study, as they only had four practices, each an hour long. The team practiced every Wednesday and Thursday and in each practice they had cookies and candy.

Before their competition, the students studied in a room assigned to them. The team studied hard and placed 29th overall in state.

“We were all pretty nervous but we did well for the time we had, and Mrs. Mast was a big help in letting us know the information that we needed,” said Haleigh Streetman.

Concord's student cast brings fairytales to life

By Mylah Bryant

Staff Writer

The cast of this year's play, The Witch's Trial, performed at Concord Junior High for family members, students, and staff.

The play itself was initially written by Craig Sodaro and is about the infamous Wicked Witch finally being put on trial for her numerous crimes. The characters in Once Upon A Time took a stand and either defended or refuted her claims. Heroes and Villains played by student actors entertained the audience with their witty remarks and belligerent actions–a petty princess fight took place in the middle of the performance–that had the audience howling with laughter.

Based on the crowd’s reaction, a favorite scene in the comedy was an argument between all the princesses of Once Upon A Time. The princesses pulled and tugged at one another and fought over the disloyal prince who had captured all of their hearts. This significant distraction in court gave the Wicked Witch enough time to make a daring escape.

“I loved the princess fight because of the fake slap," said Gabriella Villasmil Lizardo, a student actor who played the role of Cinderella.

The cast and crew spent long hours perfecting every detail of this show, with practices starting in November 2022 before their first performance in early March. The directors, Mrs. Kristen Weatherholt, Mrs. Heather Schoenherr, and Mr. Richard Conners all worked diligently to prepare the cast for their performances.

“The students had a great commitment to trying new things,” said Mr. Conners.

This was Mrs. Schoenherr's last year working with middle school performers. She has been the drama director at CJHS for the past 25 years and is continuing to work with the CHS drama performers.

Concord Boys of Summer Baseball Team experiences 8-1 record in regular season

By Bryce Outlaw

Staff Writer

The Concord Boys of Summer baseball team grabbed the lead in the eighth inning to defeat Northwood Junior High School.

In a close game against Northwood on Saturday, May 20, Concord BOS stole the lead late in the game in a 9-7 victory over Northwood. The game started with Bryce Outlaw getting a catcher's interference call, which he ended up scoring the first run. The game was tied at seven with Concord batting in the top of the eighth inning when an error scored two runs for Concord.

Concord earned the victory despite allowing Northwood to score five runs in the second inning.

One of Concord's players, Cooper Carrington, stated, “We had a great defensive and offensive game but errors on the defensive end is what led them to score most of their runs. Northwood had many great hits but we did too."

The offensive firepower by Northwood was led by Blackford, Cook, and Gongwer, all driving in runs in the inning. Concord to an early lead in the second inning. Concord scored one run when Jackson Fizer tripled.

In the top of the third inning, Concord tied things up at seven when Byron Morelock singled on a 2-2 count, scoring one run. Concord put up three runs in the third inning. The offensive onslaught by Concord was led by Cooper Carrington and Morelock, who each had RBIs in the inning.

Trent Deaton pitched Concord to victory. Deaton allowed one hit and zero runs over four innings, striking out eight batters. Blackford was on the hill for Northwood.

Blackford allowed three hits and seven runs over four innings, striking out seven. Young threw four innings in relief out of the bullpen.

Jimmy Thews started the game for Concord. Thews went four innings, allowing seven runs on two hits and striking out three. Fizer led Concord with two hits in four at bats.

Concord had many errors that caused Northwood to score more runs. The Concord Boys of Summer baseball team did not have many practices and this is their first season together as a team. Many players on the team do home training to get better and help the team win games.

The Concord Boys of Summer baseball team is 8-1 and remains steadfast. Concord BOS has wins against Westview, Fairfield Gold, Fairfield Navy, Goshen White, Bethany, Elkhart, Northwood, and Goshen Red while a loss against Plymouth. The team has 7 regular season games left with a 4 game tournament at the end of the season.

Coach Ryan Bailey said, "Although we've only lost one game, if I had to describe our season so far in one word, it would be "Rollercoaster." We've experienced some amazing highs, but also some frustrating lows. We've seen a lot of progress so far but I think as a team we are still trying to find our identity. This team has a ton of talent and unlimited potential, we just need to keep working to become more consistent. They're a great group and a joy to coach and I'm excited to see where they can go in the future.

Students program robots and use partnership to communicate

By Guadalupe Salvador

Staff Writer

Updated 11/15/21

After 26 days coding for the Driving Base Robot, students successfully programmed all the codes that were assigned to the three tasks for the robot on November 1, 2021.

The assignments were called Training Camp 1,2 and 3, where the participants used their creativity and partnership. Each student had one partner; one student had steps to build the robot and the other one had to construct codes to make the robot move a certain way in order to get to the next task. There were three assignments to do in total but each task had subtasks in it.

“My experience with teaching the students coding tasks were fun,but we had some few bumps here and there, sometimes I couldn’t even help them with these tasks because of other problems with other students like there were missing robots;however, at the end of the day it was very enjoyable being able to spend time with the student on their tasks,” said Kristen Weatherholt.

After the students were done with the first task, they had to get checked by Mrs.Weatherholt to see if the robot can perform certain moves that the subtasks want it to do in order to get to the second task which is the second assignment. Students only had two days to complete each subtask, but for each task, it took about one week to finish it all; therefore, if they didn’t finish it on time, then they would get a grade based on how much they got done on the assignment. However, participants still had to do the task to move on and had only three weeks to complete all the assignments.

“Yes, it was by far the hardest assignment I have ever done because you have to do these tasks within a certain amount of time, and if you don’t finish it then you will get a grade on how you did on the assignment,” said Lurbin Mancia.

Before these assignments, students had learned how to do other codes from the past assignments. There were videos in these three tasks to guide the students how to do the right moves.

Epic dancers compete in Illinois

By Maria Pachano Villasmil

Staff Writer

Updated 5/10/21

Epic Crew dancers went to an all Hip Hop Competition and Convention in Illinois on April 23 to experience some new opportunities with new choreography.

At Monsters Dance Convention, the dancers took classes, each being about an hour, and performed them in front of choreographers all weekend. Because of the unsettling riots that were carried through 2020 from 2021, this dance was performed as a Riot, and it showed what people were feeling and how scary it might have been. However, since it was Epic Dance Studios’ first time going, this piece was performed more than competed.

“The Epic dance company, epic crew hip hop team had such a wonderful weekend spent at the Monsters Dance Convention. We spent the weekend dancing for countless hours, made new friends, bonded with our team, and got to meet such amazing professional dance teachers,” said Madison Thews, a member of Epic Crew.

During the weekend of the 23, the dancers arrived on Friday at noon and got ready as a team to perform at around 2:00 P.M. After they got to choose what they wanted to with their team, they took classes all day on Saturday and Sunday where they trained and learned new dance moves from different movie choreographers like Ian Eastwood, Laura Edwards, and Nick Demoura in a convention room with hundreds of students six feet apart around each other. These dancers were excited to be surrounded in such a positive space and with many talented people from all across the United States.

“Going to monsters was nerve-racking for me. I took the kids who have never been to a dance convention let alone a dance competition and told them to take 5 hip hop classes that were each an hour long. I saw every single one of those kids go out on the dance floor and try their absolute best and even though I could see their fatigue on their faces; they didn't let it show with their bodies. Each and every single one of the members of the crew pushed through every class and they looked amazing doing it. I am one proud coach,” said Sandra, the choreographer for the team.

Even with all of the obstacles of the COVID pandemic, these dancers went out there and gave it their absolute best. They gave it all they had and they tried their hardest which paid off when they came back home. They trained once a week for an hour with extra rehearsals in between with masks the whole time, and when they got there, they had to keep them on their faces the whole time.

Leadership Team learns about serving others

By Tavarius Morris

Staff Writer

Updated 5/1/21

For Teacher's Appreciation Week, the Concord Junior High School leadership team distributed 186 flowers to teachers and paraprofessionals to show their appreciation and gratitude.

Students from the leadership team went around to different classrooms beginning May 3 during homeroom, informing students about giving flowers to teachers for Teacher's Appreciation Week. They showed each classroom a Google slide with information on how they could express their gratitude to their teachers.

Student Amber Islas said, “It’s important that we honor our teachers during Teacher’s Appreciation Week because they help shape the future for students and help them grow into young adults.”

Students could come to the concession stand before school started in the morning and buy flowers for their teachers for one dollar. For Teacher Appreciation Week, students could also write a note to their teachers or paraprofessionals, which would be distributed alongside the flowers. Students could purchase more than one flower for a teacher or flowers for other teachers they knew.

Mrs. Shannon Sheely said, “There is something very special about being honored, no matter how young or old you are. As a teacher, we take on many roles each and every day. The most important of those roles for me is being their biggest "cheerleader," so that no matter what, they KNOW I am in their corner and a permanent fixture of stability; not just for the short amount of time I have them as students.”

In addition to Teacher Appreciation Week, the Leadership Team also assisted in sorting donated books. After school, the leadership team gathered and sorted books according to age group. The leadership team labeled each box of books with the name of the school to which it was going, and each box was stacked in a designated space to be delivered to schools so that the books could be distributed alongside the food supplies given to students for the summer.

This year competition between homeroom classes was introduced by the leadership team. The competition was between homeroom classes to see who could have the highest average percentage of virtual attendance. The leadership team wanted to encourage students to submit their attendance while they were at home and reward the class with the highest attendance percentage with a prize.

The leadership team has made a difference in the community and at our school. Throughout the year, they planned and organized events to make the school a more enjoyable and pleasant place.

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