Winter Wonderland

Dribbling Durham: Athletic Allstar

By: Austin Hedrick

Sarah Durham is a is JV basketball and volleyball player for Southeast. Her passion for sports has not been contained at southeast she has played travel softball, AAU basketball, and spends most of her free time improving her skill. Sarah is a a role model student and frequently scores very high on tests and quizzes. Sarah is sometimes quiet but is a great friend to be around and never fails to impress.


Q:Why do you do sports?

A: it keeps me active and healthy.


Q:What do you gain from sports?

A:I gain teamwork and leadership.


Q:How many sports do you play and why?

A: At Southeast I play soccer, softball, and basketball.


Q:Why should others do sports?

A:Helps them with skills in life


Q:Will you play sports in the future?

A: Yes, I will be doing sports in the future.


Q:Which sport is your favorite and why?

A: Basketball, because it is “better than softball.”


Frozen: The Way It Should Have Been

By: Stormy Cline

Elsa’s POV~

I couldn’t take it anymore. Being the good girl on the outside. The one that hides her secret from everyone. My parents have died, and my sister is left alone. All because I don’t want to hurt them. The inside of my heart is tearing. Fire controls my icy fingers and I can’t take it much more. I need to run, to be free to become what I know I can be. I climbed out of the window and slid down the roof. Making an ice slide to go down. I dropped to the bottom and ran. I didn’t stop. Feeling the icy wind blow through my white hair, I finally felt free. I ran into the snow filled woods. Feeling the strength of power run through my veins. I stop my hands on my knees. Breathing in and out. I slowly fall letting my hands take place on the cold ground. I feel the vibrations through the earth. I close my eyes and picture the place I call home inside me. It rose from the ground spinning in frozen fractures all around. As I saw my finished piece, I heard rustling in the woods. I slowly turned to see about 15 figures coming out of the shadows. They were scruffy and had torn clothes. “We are the people of the trees.” A man spoke, his voice small and frail. “We see your powers and want to share ours.” I nodded feeling skeptical but let them step forward. I opened the doors and stepped in. “I hope the cold never bothered you,” I pause closing the door. “It never bothered me anyway.” They sit in a circle on the floor and one little girl steps forwards. I watch in bewilderment as she makes flowers pop up from the ground. One by one they stepped forward showing me their powers. Stone builder, to water bender. In the end they asked if they could join me in my new home I nodded thankful to have company.


Anna’s POV~

Weeks have passed and my sister is still missing. We have searched and searched and we can’t find her. I stand outside of her room sometimes wondering what went on. Suddenly a guard rushes towards my study, where I’m finding new places to look for her. “Anna, she’s here!”

My mouth dropped and I ran so fast out of the room my paper flew off my desk. I slammed open the gate and stared in horror at the way my sister was tearing down the castle. She saw me and fire raged in her eyes. “That is not my sister.” I say, tears angrily flowing down my face. “That’s not the Elsa I know!” I grab the guard by his collar, “We have to barricade the doors. She can’t get inside!” The guard nodded and barked his orders to the other men to keep the doors closed and I rushed down the hall and into the thrown room. I kneeled at my fathers thrown, calling back his memory. “Please , father she’s changed, she’s different I don’t know what happened…. Please.. I-” I was cut off by the sound of the door slamming open. I looked at my sister. Her icy blue and black dress trailed across the floor covered in dirt and blood. “Oh sister, did you really think you could stop me?” She paused a smile on her face. “I’ve been building an empire, these people have found me, taught me powers beyond my own belief, how to grow and how to let it go.” She placed her hand over my hand, letting beautiful frost designs cover it. I screamed the pain unbearable. “No one understands me but the past is in the past, now I know how to let it go.” She whispered in my ear her breath slow as if nothing’s wrong. She let go and watched me lay on the ground in pain. My hand crumpled and broken. Frozen. She walked to our fathers thrown, her hands grazed the velvet seat, turning it into an icy stone. The once beautiful piece now a spiky, cold, evil piece. She sat down sucking in a deep breath and finally letting it out. A menacing smile spread on her beautiful face. “Winter has come.”


12 Fun Facts About Winter

By Austin Hedrick


  1. It has snowed in the strangest places from the Sahara desert to Hawaii and even the driest place. The Atacama desert got 32 inches of snow from a cold front from Antarctica.
  2. In January the earth is actually closer to the sun than in the summer
  3. We use around 22 million pounds of salt every winter. That’s around 137 pounds per person.
  4. Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere is summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere is summer in the northern hemisphere.
  5. A city in northern Japan is the snowiest city in the world with an average of 26 feet or 312 inches of snow.
  6. Cities with too much snow have a choice to melt snow with warm water. This is very effective but a machine can cost up to 200,000 and burns 60 gallons of fuel an hour

http://mentalfloss.com/article/89881/15-surprising-facts-about-winter-weather



  1. On January, 28th 1887 the largest snowflake fell of 15 wide and 8 inches thick in Fort Keogh, Montana.
  2. Every winter at least 1 septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) ice crystals fall from the sky.
  3. The largest snowman was 113 feet and 7 inches made in Bethel Maine
  4. A single snow storm can drop 39 tons of snow
  5. “The coldest temperature ever recorded was -123° C at Vostok Station in Antarctica in 1983.”
  6. The average snowflake falls around 3 mph

https://www.factretriever.com/winter-facts


Do you love talent?

Enjoy watching others sing, dance, perform magic, or anything else you can dream of in the talent show!




Coming soon on March 16th




Snowball Fundraiser

By Bailee Nester

Winter can be a super fun time! Sledding, snow ball fights, skiing... but you need a coat to do these things. Right? If it's really cold, you wouldn't want to walk around or do anything outside unprotected without the proper winter coat. Would you? Well, that's what some people have to do. These people wake up and are outside in the cold almost all day. They sit in the cold and wait for the homeless shelter to open for the night. They sit and wait and hope that they don't get sick. They sit and wait and hope that someone will be kind enough to spare change for food. The money they get is hardly enough to eat off of, let alone buy a coat.

This is why the students at the Patriot Press have created a fundraiser/contest. All profits go to the Rowan Helping Ministries to buy coats for the homeless. We will have a jar of "snowballs" for you to guess how many are in there. It only costs a dollar! Whoever gets the closest guess will get a lunch pass. A lunch pass is when you will get to pick your lunch from Subway, McDonald's, or Bojangles. Also you can choose two friends to eat with you in the media center. Good luck to all!


Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Brandon Foster

Many know who Martin Luther King Jr was in his late years, a preacher and black rights activist. However, many do not know his childhood, where he grew up, or anything before he came a rights activist.

King Sr.’s grandfather was a sharecropper, and King Sr. was born, He was the 2nd child out of 10 others. King Sr. left his house with nothing but a 6th grade education and a pair of shoes. He left for Georgia, where he became a preacher, that is where he met Alberta Williams, King Jr.’s mother.

King Jr. was born into a middle class family. This allowed him to get a better education than most other children his race and age. In 1941, King’s grandma died from a heart attack. King Jr. was out watching a parade against his parents wishes, and he was ordered home. This took a very big toll on him, and he tried to kill himself by jumping from a window. At 15, King Jr. Entered Morehouse College. He graduated in 1948 with a sociology degree. On the night Rosa Parks was arrested, King and many others in the NAACP chose King to lead the Montgomery bus boycott, and he was elected president of the NAACP.

In his first speech as the group's president, King declared, "We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.”

The bus boycott involved 382 days of walking or riding a bike to work, and violence against the Montgomery African-American community. King and Nixon’s houses were both attacked, which made them and the African-American community sued the City Ordinance. After losing in many small courts, and losing a bunch of money, Montgomery lifted the segregated transport law.

MLK’s fame did not come easy, he was arrested 29 times. The victim of violence, and the victim of assassination by James Earl Ray.

MLK Jr. was a very important man, his protests and speeches motivated many other rights activists, which in the end, allowed them to win the fight.

Book Review: Pottymouth & Stoopid

By Bryan Ramon-Clemente

This book was created by James Patterson and is about two boys who have gone through school together and are known as Pottymouth and Stoopid. During high school, they get their own assembly where they explain their story of how they became known as the famous Pottymouth and Stoopid. They soon talk about how they met one another in preschool. They also talk about Kaya and how she gave them the nicknames Pottymouth and Stoopid. They then explain their daily life and the struggles they have all gone through like how Stoopid’s parents got a divorce which really had a huge impact on his daily life. We also learn of Pottymouth’s childhood and why he says random words in place of bad ones. Then one day everything changes. At first Pottymouth and Stoopid are confused why their school was acting nice to them like they were important because they were usually treated badly. I would really recommend this book as it isn’t too complicated and is just a simple story about two friends and their struggles. Also this might relate to how some students could have experienced school and how they got a nickname because of a certain event that happened.

Motivations by Mariana

By Mariana Martinez

Now that the holidays have passed, I hope you enjoyed spending time with loved ones and making new memories. It’s beautiful to spend time with loved ones and make new memories to cherish because you can always look back at them. Most of us celebrate Christmas, and for many we celebrate it because it’s the day baby Jesus was born. On this day many of us receive gifts and we forget the true meaning of this day and instead we’re so focused on getting presents and it shouldn’t be that way. We should be cherishing new memories and having a great time with loved ones. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas by celebrating baby Jesus’s birth it still shouldn’t be about getting gifts but instead you should also spend time with loved ones. I’m not saying receiving presents is bad on this holiday, we all love to receive presents, don’t we? But let’s not forget about the true meaning of this day.

I personally think that telling a loved one how much they mean to you or something meaningful can be very special. Sometimes we also forget that the smallest things can mean so much more to someone. You can also do something nice for someone which can also mean so much to them. Even though the holidays have passed, it’s never too late to do/say something meaningful. On New Years, many of us like to make resolutions which are goals you have for the new year. If you make a New Year's resolution, I encourage you to make it something positive that will push you to do something great.

The Teacher on Top

By Stormy Cline

Ms. Robinson is an amazing teacher. She has all the greatest qualities for a teacher and a friend. I had the opportunity to interview her and get an insight on her feelings.

1- Who inspired you to become a teacher?

My 7th and and 8th grade math teacher from when I was in school. He inspired me in math and in teaching because he connected with the kids in different areas like sports, school, and personal problems. He had children that were around my age so I was around him more than at school. I also had two high school teachers that would encourage me to teach math because I was good at it. I feel like I can connect to more people through teaching.

2- How has this school changed you for the better or for the worst?

I like the family feeling of this school and I’ve had a lot of good teachers to mentor me. It has been very welcoming. I actually got this job because my cousin worked here and is a close friend of mine. She told me about the job as soon as it opened up. I’m a lateral entry teacher. So I have more of the math background then in the classroom teaching background. I also taught karate for 14 years so I have a little bit of a teaching side just through that experience.

3- What was your biggest fear coming into the teaching field?

I think the lesson planning scared me more than anything. Plus some of the kids here are taller than me and bigger so that sometimes scared me. Making sure that I was actually making a difference not just being in a classroom. I want to actually make the kids feel like they can talk to me and let them know that I’ll be here for their life not just for the time that they are in my classroom. I think and hope that I’m connecting with kids outside of my classroom through coaching and just talking to kids in the halls.

4- How have Southeast students changed you?

My eyes have been opened. I didn’t realize what kids go through, I didn’t realize the heartache that it was going to put on my life too. I don’t just think about what the kids are doing when I’m at school, I think about it when I’m not there as well. Sometimes I’ll be up all night thinking about a specific issue that a kid has talked to me about. Since I don’t have children, I feel like I get to experience a mother role here working with these kids.

5- How do you think that you have helped these children progress and grow and change?

I think I’ve actually taught the kids something. I see them in other classes especially after they have been with me, using what I have taught them. I think that I’m not only teaching them math, I’m also teaching them life skills that they’re actually going to use, like how to talk to one another and how to interact and be a better person themselves. I want them to take me as an example and how I am to my coworkers and to each of the students here.

It was an honor to be able to talk to someone like Ms. Robinson. She is so sweet and beyond caring to each and every one of us. You know her door is always open if you need her and all she wants is for you to feel like you can trust her. You’re amazing Ms. Robinson!


The Picasso of SEMS

By: Mariana Martinez

This quarter, Sarah Rhodes was recognized by the SEMS staff for her artwork and talent. Previously, Sarah had created the drawing on the 8th grade t-shirts, which turned out amazing. For Sarah, the things that inspire her to create the amazing art work she does is that “normally it’s my mood that I’m in or feelings I have.” She started drawing at a young age and started “since about kindergarten.” When Sarah draws “it makes me feel better on a bad day, getting compliments on my artwork raises my spirits so much as well.” When she was asked if creating artwork was something she would consider in the future, she answered “I want to go into architecture and that is a way I will be able to use my talents.” Sarah was asked if talent was her passion, she answered “Yes, art is everything to me. It is one thing that allows me to express myself and it makes me feel better on a tough day.” No one actually taught Sarah how to draw , she has "always learned from art class in school, but other than that no, it came naturally.”

Muffins for Mom/Doughnuts for Dad

By: Mariana Martinez

Each year Southeast Middle School organizes various events, and two of those events are Muffins for Mom and Donuts for Dad. According to Mrs. Lentz, the purpose of these events are “to enjoy breakfast time with your child. The PTA sees it as giving an opportunity to give back to the students, parents, and community who support our school.” These events are important to organize because it lets the parents see the environment that their child is in, and are able to spend quality time together. “It’s an opportunity to welcome our families and community into our school.” According to Mrs. Lentz, “these breakfast moments give others an opportunity to see and talk with the various faces that make up Southeast Middle School. We are the most diverse middle school in the district.”

SEMS Is Above Par

By: Charlie Menius and Bryan Ramon

In November, Southeast Middle School hosted a their first annual golf tournament in order to support the athletic department.

The tournament helped the community come together to play golf and recognize the school, according to Officer Ashby, the SRO at Southeast. Mr. Dunlap said that the tournament was “a good way to engage many partners and we had a lot of community people playing and coming.” Southeast achieved its goal and raised about $5000 for the athletics department. Mr. Boylan, the main leader of the event, states that “next year we wanna go for ten [thousand].”


When asked if the event was a good idea Coach Mitchell replied with an emphatic yes. She said that she thought it “truly encompassed the communal theme we had hoped for!” Coach Mitchell said that “the event was important because it was our first one and we hope to continue with the tradition for SEMS.” Mr Boylan stated that we are “definitely gonna have another golf tournament and especially [because of] how much help we got.” We here at Southeast would like to thank everyone who participated in it.