CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations to the 2013 Homecoming Queen and her Court. Danielle Baruffi was crowned queen by Dr. Matthew Jamison and the 2012 Homecoming Queen Hope Bromhead on October 18th during half time of the game against Middle. First runner up was April Stein and Lauren Burch was second runner up. The other members of the court were Caroline Bowman, Aimee Ferenz, Whitney Hanna, Marissa Holt, Emma Murphy and Haley Stadler. Special thanks to Senior Class Advisors George and Wendy McNally for coordinating this event. Thank you to Spinning Wheel Flower Shop for their generous donation of flowers for the queen, her court and their escorts. Congratulations to this year’s Pumpkin Patch! Miss Pumpkin and her Pumpkin Court will represent the City at

the annual Halloween parade. Sydney Lagerholm, a student in the Life Skills class, was named Miss Pumpkin. The other candidates chose Sydney and opted to be her court. They surprised Sydney during Community Lunch and gave her a tiara, flowers and small pumpkins. Those students are Lauren Bowersock, Lucia Casaleno, Mercy Griffith, Maggie Grimes, Claire Matera, and Maci Oteri. What a

special group of girls they are

Breast Cancer Awareness month was observed by Ocean City High School’s students at many of the sports events. A “pink out” was held at the Ocean City v. Middle football game. The yard-line numbers at Carey Stadium were painted pink and pink ribbons were painted in the end zone. Football players wore pink socks to show their support and the cheerleaders were dressed as “Breast Cancer Warriors”.

Every fall, Ocean City High School takes one day from its school year to allow approximately 500 of its students and staff to positively interact outside the classroom… we call this day our Freshmen Team Building Day. On Friday, October 20, 2013, the students and faculty of OCHS held this annual event throughout the course of the school day. The entire Ocean City High School freshmen class (approximately 320 students), 125 juniors and

seniors, and 25 members of the staff and

administration participated in a host of team building exercises that foster self-

confidence, personal

interaction, cooperation, and

problem solving, as well as an assembly

that advocates living a healthy and clean lifestyle,

with a particular focus on the state initiative of anti-bullying. The freshman participated in a variety of team building activities operated by the OCHS staff, students, members of the Ocean City Police and Fire Departments and representatives from Olweus, our anti-bullying program. This “team building” day allows the freshmen to not only make connections with their own peers during these team building exercises, but also to establish positive relationships with the upperclassmen at Ocean City High School.

Jen Marra/Ocean City Gazette

RED RIBBON WEEK

Red Ribbon Week sponsored by the Upper Township and Ocean City Municipal Alliance was celebrated. This is a time when the community and school come together to present a united invisible commitment toward to the creation of a drug-free America. Every morning started out with students reading announcements about drug and alcohol awareness and education. Two large banners were hung in the front

entry way to OCHS.

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES AND VISITORS

Miss Norton's Period 7 Ties Class And Mrs. O'Neill's Life Skills Students/School Store Do you know that OCHS has a NEW and IMPROVED school store? Miss Norton's Period 7 TIES (computer) students noticed! They decided that they wanted to investigate what our OCHS school store, RAIDER RETAILERS, was all about!!! On October 3rd, Miss Norton's TIES students visited the G-101 (Raider Retailers) display case and wrote down the items and information that appeared in the display case. They wrote down ideas they had to decorate the store display case as well. Upon their return to their classroom, Miss Norton's Period 7 TIES students sat down and wrote down questions to ask the Raider Retailers employees and their advisor, Mrs. Lisa O'Neill. Each of Miss Norton's students examined the schools store price list and selected one OC Raider item to help create an advertisement. On October 4th, Miss Norton's TIES students returned to the school store and got to meet the school store employees....who are Mrs. O'Neill's Life Skills students!!!! The following school store employees helped show the following TIES student around the school store and helped introduce them to the product they selected to create an advertisement.

Ryan (store employee) helped Thomas learn more about the OC Raiders Gray Sweatpants.

Georgie (store employee) helped Lexi learn more about the OC Raiders Black Hoodie. Victoria (store employee) helped Natiya learn more about the OC Raiders Ladies T-Shirts.

Thomas and Ryan

Georgie & Lexi

Dylan (store employee) helped Killian learn more about

the OC Raiders Unisex

T-Shirts. Sydney (store employee) helped Greg learn more about the OC Raiders Long-Sleeve T-Shirts.

Destiny (store employee) helped Bert (TIES student) learn more about the OC

Raiders Drawstring Bag.

Georgie (store employee) helped Josh (TIES student) learn more about the OC Raiders Red Hoodie. Miss Norton's TIES students and Mrs. O'Neill's Life Skills/School Store Employees enjoyed getting to meet one another and decided that they will be working together throughout the year to create a variety of things for the school store! Miss Norton's TIES students look forward to having Mrs. O'Neill's Life Skills students visit them! They are excited about having the opportunity to show them how to use

Victoria & Natiya

Georgie &

Josh

Dylan & Killian

Sydney & Greg

Destiny & Bert

the computer and assist them with creating documents (gift certificates, awards, advertisements, display items) to be used at their school store!!!

Students in Miss Norton's TIES classes created their own letterhead (using Microsoft Word) and learned how to format and compose Business Letters. To take this one step further, Miss Norton's TIES students researched companies, stores and restaurants they liked and found mailing addresses for each. Each student wrote to two businesses and revealed to them why they liked their products/business/menu items/store. Throughout the year, students will be sharing with their classmates responses they received in the mail. On October 16th, we had a SPECIAL DELIVERY. Kasey Yunghan's father brought in a response that Kasey received in the mail. You might wonder why he needed to deliver an envelope!! Well, Kasey's response from her business, Sheila G's: The Original Brownie Brittle Company, not only included a personalized letter, BUT, CASES OF PRODUCTS AND T-SHIRTS for Kasey's Period 8 TIES class!!!! The students were able to sample the Sheila G's Brownie Brittle flavors and left the classroom proudly wearing the PEACE, LOVE, and BROWNIE BRITTLE t-shirts!!! THANK YOU NANCY EICHLER(VP of MARKETING) and SHEILA G's!

It goes to show you that businesses LOVE TO RECEIVE POSITIVE LETTERS FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS!!!!

Mrs. Masters and Mrs. O’Neill’s Life Skills class and Ms. Dombrosky’s art class are making papier-mâché skeletons. Students are using newspapers to create the form of a skeleton and then covering the forms with papier mache. The skeletons will be decorated and painted.

SPIRIT WEEK ACTIVITIES

Student Council members under the direction of Mr. Matt Purdue were busy organizing the spirit week activities. Tuesday: , Wednesday: Twin Day,

Thursday: Disney Day, Friday: Underclassman Black Out---Seniors Wear Red. There was a hall decorating

contest: 1st place: The Graphics Club, 2nd place: Class of 2015 and 3rd place: Key Club

A Pep Rally was held in the gym on Friday. The OCHS marching band played as the students entered the gym. The fall sport teams were introduced as they walked into the gym. The cheerleaders performed before the competitions begin. Faculty members and students participated in dodge ball. The Homecoming Dance was a success!

Twin Day Cinderella -- Susan

Baumgardner

Haley Stadler, a candidate for Homecoming Queen, had the Life Skills students escort her into the gym for

the Pep Rally. She created shirts for them and

they

practiced for the big event. Joey Parral, Dillon Haskins, Sydney Lagerholm, Victoria Bonino,

Destiny McKeiver, Ryan Prettymn and Georgie Rauner did a fantastic job accompanying Haley.

CLUB ACTIVITIES

French and Spanish clubs got together to play mini golf up on the boardwalk! These groups do many activities together to have fun and meet new friends. Many new freshmen students joined us :)

There was a Volleyball Tournament held at the OC Civic Center on Tuesday, October 22. Spanish, French, Latin and History clubs played one another and in the end it was the Latin Club who prevailed

OCHS Band Members Alexandra Auberzinski – grade 12 and graduates Andrew DeCredico and Rosie Williams travel to Prague, Austria, and Italy with American Music Abroad Gold Tour. July 2-21, 2013.

On September 7, 2013, the Ocean City Red Raider Band participated in a car wash Fundraiser. The day was perfect and our OCHS students were proud to represent their high school.

The month of October has been very busy. This is one of Student Council’s biggest time of the year, reports Rosie Catanoso, Press Secretary for Student Council. The Hero Walk was October 6th. It was beautiful weather for a walk and we had a good turnout. Everybody donated ten dollars to The Hero Campaign which is a great cause, promoting designated driving. Our next big event was Spirit Week. Our themes for this year were Pink Day for breast cancer awareness, Twin Day, Disney Character Day and then blackout for everyone except seniors, who wore red. This time of year is always fun and a good way to get the student body involved. The winners are as followed: Madison Mack for Pink Day, JT Flatley and Jeremy Dilks for twin day, and Maureen Harkins for Disney Character Day. They each received a free ticket to the homecoming dance. Another aspect of Spirit Week was hallway decorating. Each club was designated a hallway and could decorate it anyway they liked. This gets other clubs involved in spirit week and jazzes up the school. We had many creative hallways, from breast cancer awareness to Day of the Dead. The graphic club won for their creative decorations. To conclude Spirit Week, we had our annual Fall Sports Pep Rally. Each sports team got to walk in followed by the homecoming court. We then had our Student-Faculty Dodgeball game and this year we switched it up from Rock-Tree-Bridge to relay races between the Girls Soccer Team and the Field Hockey Team. Girls Soccer was victorious. The Pep Rally got everyone fired up for their games that day. All teams came home with a win. Saturday, October 19th was the Homecoming Dance. The theme this year was Casino Royale. We spent countless hours after school creating decorations and setting up. It was a huge success, selling over 300 tickets and we could not have done it without all of the teacher volunteers and donations from local businesses. Overall, it was a great night for everyone who attended. As you can see, October was a great month for us, full of many activities. As for the month of November, we look forward to participating in many more events, such as the Amazing Race, Food Drive and Scholarship Dinner.

Our school is committed to keeping you safe on the road, and that’s why we’re participating in Celebrate My Drive®, a program that’s all about celebrating the fun of getting your driver’s license while helping you drive safely so you arrive safely. What’s really sweet about participating in this program is you can also help our school win $100,000….and possibly a concert by Grammy Award winner Kelly Clarkson right here in our own town! It’s simple:

Log onto celebratemydrive.com Indicate you want to support Ocean City High School Commit to drive safely!

You can make a safe driving commitment once a day, every day, between October 18 and 26. The more safe driving commitments we make, the better chance we have to win $100,000 and host the concert.

But wait….there’s more!

Your friends and family members who are 14 and older can support Ocean City High School and safe driving, too. Ask them to go to celebratemydrive.com every day between October 18 and 26 and commit to drive safely. Thanks for your support! Remember, 2N2: 2 eyes on the road, 2 hands on the wheel.

Mrs. Ludwig’s honors students engaged in an enriching and enjoyable learning experience during their study of Nathanial Hawthorne’s American classic, The Scarlet Letter. Charged with selecting a chapter of focus they deemed worthy of an in-depth examination and an artistic

lens from which to present, students applied critical thinking skills through an exploration of text to enhance their understanding of a book.

“The reality is,” said Mrs. Ludwig, “no matter how much planning goes into a unit, the students’ interests are what

really make the lessons meaningful and multi-dimensional.” She also shared that, selfishly, her love for the arts often influences her planning and inspires her to charge

students with the task of interpretation, clarification, and evaluation.

Impressively, the presentations went far beyond simple power point recitation and began with one particularly moving

interpretation of text presented by Josh Childs who used instrumental music to artistically illustrate his analysis of the work. In his rationale, Childs explained that, “A person can feel music throughout their bodies unlike anything you could read or see. That is why I thought the unique style of Nathanial Hawthorne could be greatly defined by a piece I heard one day just after the class had begun reading The Scarlet Letter.” He believed Hawthorne employed a “whispering sentence structure that skips delightfully around the pages” and whose tone and voice contain both pride and fear. Josh concluded his presentation with a self-taught rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne No.9 on the keyboard, a perfect complement to his explanation of the author’s style in Chapter two.

The presentations continued in sequential chapter order and included projects such as a “guilty-until-proven-innocent” Hester on trial with a modern day jury of her peers; psychological explorations into the duality of characters; an analysis of glogster images inspired by specific textual evidence; a one-man play illustrated through a collection of stuffed animals as the “reality” of Chillingworth’s complex persona; a sophisticated and well-crafted garment using textiles and colors symbolic of Hester’s sin as well as her evolution (and the envy of every Project Runway designer); a professorial approach to youths’ loss of innocence juxtaposed against Pearl’s inescapable realities and various original pieces of art whose muse incorporated theme, tone, perception, and historical context.

For Mrs. Ludwig, the most rewarding component of the assignment was the assessments students submitted to peers after each presentation. Encouraged to share constructive criticism, students revealed a more complex level of cognitive engagement by offering sound feedback. Additionally, students reflected on various perspectives they gained, as well as a more complex interpretation of Hawthorne’s classic that not only clarified the author’s

language for a modern day audience but addressed the essential question of the course, “What does it mean to be an American?”

Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout

Mexico and around the world in other cultures. Here at O.C.H.S. Rubina Dombrosky's International Arts and Crafts students made upbeat and funny "dancing skeletons" similar to ones made in Mexico!The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. The celebration takes place on October 31, November 1 and November 2, in connection with

the Christian triduum of Hallowmas: All Hallows' Eve, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.[Traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars called ofrendas honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, dancing skeletons and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. They also leave possessions of the deceased.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl. The holiday has spread throughout the world: In Brazil Dia de Finados is a public holiday that many Brazilians celebrate by visiting cemeteries and churches. In Spain there are festivals and parades, and, at the end of the day, people gather at cemeteries and pray for their dead loved ones. Similar observances occur elsewhere in

Europe, and similarly themed celebrations appear in many Asian and African cultures.

National keynote speaker, Jack Renkens of Recruiting Realities brought his unique, no-nonsense presentation on college athletic recruiting to Ocean City High School on Monday, September 30th in the auditorium. “It’s a Game.. Know the Rules” was guaranteed to serve as a reality check for families of student-athletes looking to get their degree and play at the college level. Jack’s 45-minute presentation was FREE and open to the public.

Entering his 16th year touring the United States, Jack Renkens has established himself as one of the top athletic/motivational speakers in the nation, presenting at state athletic conferences, football clinics, college financial planning groups, sports camps and high schools from coast to coast. His speaking tour includes over 170 high schools each year, with enrollments from 250 to 2500 students. As a former high school/college coach and athletic director, Jack is also a featured newspaper columnist, having written 12 books on the recruiting process.

Jack’s message is never sugar-coated. “It may not be what some parents want to hear, but it definitely is what they need to hear. I’m primarily trying to get families to be realistic about the opportunities that are available and to get them to understand it’s about getting your education, not about hitting the ball, kicking the ball, throwing the ball. It’s about finding the right match academically.”

One of the many realities Jack details are the high expectations of athletes and parents when it comes to having sports pay for a college education. “There are a lot of student-athletes out there and less than 1 percent are going to a Division 1 school,” he said. “However you’ve got 99 percent of kids out there that can play at the college level in divisions other than D1. The key is finding the right school and financial aid package.” “Student-athletes need to come to terms with three basic realities,” Jack said.

Number one. You don’t get to pick the school. They pick you.

Number two. A college coach can’t recruit you if he/she doesn’t know who you are. Student-athletes need to market themselves.

Number three. Don’t get hung up on the words “athletic scholarship.” Focus on “funding” comprised of academic money, merit money, grants, endowment and achievement money.

Parents have an opportunity to hear the truth about college athletic recruiting, the role of their high school coach, the impact of today’s social media and where parents fit into the

process. If your son or daughter is serious about getting a college degree and passionate about the sort they play, this is an event you can’t afford to miss.

For more on Renkens’ presentation, check the Recruiting Realities web site at www.recruitingrealities.com. To see him in action, search “Jack Renkens” on www.YouTube.com.

STUDENT OF THE MONTH

Each student was chosen to be Student of the Month because of exemplary behavior, character and performance. We appreciate the support of each of the

community organizations. There is a critical connection between a successful public high school and a strong relationship with its community.

Maham Ahmad was the Rotary Club Student of the Month. Carolyn Previti was the Exchange Club Student of the Month.