April, 2013 Volume 88, Issue 8SignalThe

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Buzzing For More News?Check out more of our stories and ‘like’ our Facebook page at signalnews.blogspot.com

By Kelsi Thurman andKaylinn Taggart

Reporters

Yearbook editor goes on strike: yearbook canceled

By Kiarrah PleasReporter

Text “lingo” seeps into school work

On March 20, 2013 year-book editor, Sierra Scheid, announced that there will not be a yearbook for the 2012 - 2013 school year. “The yearbook staff doesn’t meet any deadlines. It’s already about 2 months behind schedule,” Scheid states. “I don’t see any point in keeping it going.” This “strike” may seem silly to some people, but this means an entire year of Thom-as Jefferson High School his-tory will not be recorded. Currently, the only per-son who has a passing grade in the class is Scheid, every-one else will receive a failing grade for uncompleted work. Scheid has already spoken with her counselor to have the class dropped. Yearbook supervisor Rob Lindquist, who is known as a, “very well-organized and meet the deadline” kind of guy, is having a hard time keeping the students motivat-ed to meet their deadlines. “They’re lazy, incompe-tent, and barely show up to class,” Lindquist stated. “I fully support Sierra’s deci-sion.” The yearbook class as a whole has not sold enough to even place an order. The

yearbooks which run about $55 dollars a piece will not be re-funded. The photog-raphers only have enough photos to cover the first tri-mester and the be-ginning of the sec-ond trimester. “Well, if the photographers won’t even go to take pic-tures to produce a yearbook, they shouldn’t have one,” Principal, Lisa Dale said. “Hopefully this work ethic will not carry over into their careers.” “That’s so un-fair!” senior, Shelby Jones, said. “Every other high school in the country has one, we should be able to have one as well, plus I’m out $55. not cool...” Because of the lack of ef-fort from the class, the school board has decided to cut the entire journalism department, which includes broadcasting and newspaper. “I honestly don’t even know why we are trying to come up with an issue for May,” student teacher, Doug Flegle said. “The school board will shut us down before we even get it done.”

Since the verdict, Flegle will have to redo his student teaching work because he could not complete the man-datory full semester. Though this is very un-fair for the students or staff, there is nothing anyone can do about it. As of now there will no longer be yearbook, newspaper, or broadcast class at Thomas Jefferson High School.

So we all have a lesson to learn from this, do your work and meet the deadlines so we can keep the privilege of hav-ing classes such as these. We want everyone to have a good April Fools day (in this case, month) and realize that this story is inaccurate. Every quote and “information” in this story is not true and ev-eryone will be receiving their yearbook as scheduled.

Graphic by Kaylinn Taggart.

Getting that first cell phone is a big step in every teenager’s life. But have you ever stopped to think how that little electronic box will be affecting your life in the future? During class, some stu-dents pull out their cell phones and text away. Teach-ers are starting to see a differ-ence in their work because of that. “They use more short-hand or ‘slang’,” said Cre-ative Writing teacher Mrs. Kristy Harris. “I think we need to teach what [writing techniques] to use.” It can also affect your grammar and the way you type. When texting, most people do not use correct punctuation. Words such as ‘you’ and ‘I’ turn into ‘u’ and ‘i’. Then you and I earn the titles “grammatically incor-rect”. “If you text and don’t use proper grammar and abbre-viate, it can affect the way a paper turns out,” said sopho-more, Kelli Cumberledge. “How you text directly re-flects how you write.” It does not seem like a such a big deal when you are actually texting or typing an email now, but consider this: You’re filling out an online application for a potential employer or contacting a pro-fessor at a potential college for the first time via email and your natural computer instincts kick in. You start shortenin’ ur words and usin’ abbrev.’s. Most employers and pro-fessors agree that proper English is more desirable to read. “To me, a wise person knows that there are differ-ent styles of writing,” said Dr. Neal Topp, a professor at UNO Education of Learning. “One for family and good friends, and another (and higher level) style for com-munication with others.” If you are having trouble keeping that fine line between texting and writing papers unbroken, try forming good habits such as: texting with proper grammar, spelling words correctly, looking up words you don’t know how to spell, and/or taking the extra time to edit what you say.

By Shelby JonesReporter

Introducing our new principal

We all know that once one door closes, another one opens. Thomas Jefferson will be wel-coming Dr. Jason Plourde as the new principal next year. Dr. Jason Plourde was rec-ommended by Dr. Martha Bruck-ner. She sent out a brief email in-troducing him to the staff. Dr. Plourde is currently an assistant principal at Wilson Middle School, and formerly was the principal at Washing-ton Elementary School and as-sistant principal at AL. He has been working in the district since 1997.

He graduated from UNO with a bachelors degree, and got his masters from Creighton, and his doctorate from UNO. He is also a Milken Award Winner, which is an award given to out-standing educators who make a great impact on their students and to everyone around them. “I’d highlight my interest in establishing and developing new relationships with students, staff and families,” Dr. Plourde says. “Positive relationships are criti-cal to success and being the best we can be.” Current Principal, Lisa Dale, thinks that he will make a smooth transition to TJ. “I would give him the same advice I would give anyone go-ing into a new situation,” Mrs. Dale said. “Be yourself.” Bittersweet goodbyes lead to happy hellos. Plourde is ready to take on this role. “I am very much looking for-ward to this leadership position at Thomas Jefferson,” Plourde said.

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TJ students win 2013 video contest

The winners of the “Iowa 2013 Teen Video Challenge” are sophomores Jonathan Ybay, Alex Powders, Dylan Montgomery, Cruz Gusman and junior Matt Powders. The contest was statewide and went through the Iowa Li-brary Services. The five will split the prize of $275.00. The Council Bluffs Public Library will also receive prizes worth $125.00 from Upstart and Collaborative Summer Library Program. An email sent out to teachers

stated, “The ‘official’ announce-ment won’t be made until the end of this month. A representative will from the Iowa Library Ser-vices will come to Council Bluffs and award them their prizes.” Anna Hartman, teen librar-ian at the Council Bluffs Library, will also receive her prizes at that time. The winning video will rep-resent Iowa in the Collaborative Summer Library Program web-site and will be posted along with the winners from other states. Congratulations to these five boys on winning Iowa’s 2013 Teen Video Challenge. If you see any of them in the hallways, make sure to congratulate them.

By Dana MefferdReporter

“2013 TVC - IA- Don’t Judge a Book By it’s Cover” photo from YouTube.com.

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By Dana MefferdReporter

Pasta for pennies

By Kaylinn TaggartEditor-in-Chief

Seventh grader, Chris Gilm-ore jumps to freshmen class

Photo of freshman, Chris Gilmore by Kaylinn Taggart.

Not every thirteen year old gets the opportunity to be a fresh-man in high school. That oppor-tunity was given to Chris Gilm-ore, and not by luck either. At the beginning of this school year, Gilmore jumped up from 7th to 8th grade but he did not stay there very long for on December 10, he jumped yet another grade to join the high schoolers. “Both times I was given the choice to move up,” Gilmore said. “My dad, I’m not really sure, but my mom - she’s sup-portive.” Upon receiving the Compass test results, he learned that he was recommended to be moved into Calculus 1 from his current Advanced Algebra 2 course. “I have the potential to basi-cally screw up the schools’ math curriculum,” Gilmore stated. “I don’t even know anymore, I’m just weird like that.” Gilmore explained that if he were to be moved to Calculus 1 and continue his mathematical studies from there, he would only

receive three math credits. It is required to have 4 math credits to graduate and to be accepted in college. “High school has a lot more diverse classes,” Gilmore said. “Expectable of course, because its bigger so there’s more room for classes and because this would be the point which kids are branch-ing off for the most part, deciding what they want their future to be compared to just basic.” The adjustment from Wilson Middle School to Thomas Jeffer-

son High School has not been so-cially and educationally rough for Gilmore, though he did mention that classes were tougher here than at Wilson. “I knew some people here, of course people who are really in my math class, and I’m keep-ing in touch with my old friends,” Gilmore said. Gilmore has not thought very much about college, but he as-pires to be an astronomer and to be able to “discover stars and fig-ure out how things work”.

By Allie TownsendReporter

Keep in mind the dresscode during spring

The Thomas Jefferson Student Council sponsored a penny drive through March 18 to the 28. The fundraiser was made to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. During the 2-week period students could donate their change during TJ Reads class. Whichever TJ Reads class col-lected the most coins won a free Olive Garden lunch. If a class raised more than $100 then they got a pennant to hang in their room. Student Coun-cil’s goal was to raise $1,500. March 25-28 they said they would play everyone’s “favorite” song Friday during every passing period until the goal of $1,500 was met-but did not. If the goal was met by the 28th then some of the student’s favorite teachers would dress

up as celebrities. This isn’t the first fund-raiser Student Council has done this year. They do a blood drive twice a year. The first blood drive of this year was on Octo-

ber 26. The second one will be on April 12. Students were able to bring any kind of change. Thank you to all the staff and students who donated change.

Photo of pasta for pennies box by Shelbie Granger.

“Hey mom, I broke my leg. It’s nothing serious, I just wanted to let you know that I am okay,” journalism teacher, Rob Lindquist states. “Oh my goodness do you need me to come down? Wait...What day is it?,” Mom-my Lindquist asks. “APRIL FOOLS.” Every year Mr. Lindquist plays a little prank on his mom saying that he is in the hospital with some sort of in-jury. Of course, as a mom she falls for it, but it does not take long for her to realize. April Fools Day has passed and people all over the world “celebrated” by pranking their friends, family, neighbors, and even people they don’t particularly like. There are many theories that may have led to this day. None of which are very fun-ny...but whatever, here is the real story. In ancient cultures they used to celebrate New Years Eve on April 1st because of the change of weather and colors. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII replaced the old Julian calendar. In this “new and im-proved” calendar, he shifted New Years Day to January 1st. According to popular expla-nation some people didn’t ex-cept the new calendar and got made fun of by other people. HENCE, All Fools Day. It hasn’t always been the cheesy, “Hey your shoes un-tied! LOL,” Fools day. Back in the day these pranks were over the top. Okay, maybe not over the top, but they are a lot better than the pranks in the 21st century. In 1989, thousands of mo-torists in London looked up and saw a giant flying sau-cer in the sky. As the saucer was landing people called the cops and warned them about this “alien invasion”. As one cop approached a silver suited man walked out of the special-ly designed hot air balloon. In the year 1982, an is-sue of the Daily Mail reported that 10,000 “rogue bras” were interfering with radio and T.V. broadcast because of the cop-per wiring in the bra. When the chief engineer of British Telecom found out he ordered all of the women to disclose what type of bra they were wearing. During 1915, in the midst of WWI, a French aviator flew over a German camp. Seeing an object drop they thought it was a bomb and scattered im-mediately. Later, when they realized that a bomb didn’t go off, they saw that it was a football with a note, reading, “April Fools.” So, this April, if you will not actually trick a fool, I would come up with some bet-ter pranks.

All fools day

By Kelsi ThurmanReporter

Top tech tips for your ChromebookSubmitted by theTech department

1. Keep it in a bag when it is not in use or transporting.

2. Do not leave it in any vehicle; cold weather or extreme heat could crack screen.

3. Do not put anything else in your chromebook bag, including food or drinks.

4. Do not draw on or apply any NON-REMOVABLE stickers to the Chrome-book or BAG.

5. Do not pick the Google logo off. They are $5.00

to replace.6. Do not lift or pick up

by putting pressure on screen.

7. Do NOT place anything on top of your Chrome-book.

8. Bring in charged, we do NOT loan out power cords.

9. Periodically clear out your history from “Begin-ning of Time”.

10. Listening to music or watching movies will drain the battery life.

11. Treat the laptop like your own.

12. Do not leave unattend-ed (Classroom, Gym or Lunchroom).

13. Wireless troubles - Shut down computer complete-ly and restart it.

14. If your laptop is dirty, the Tech Center has a clean-ing station.

TJ has a Tech Club that meets every Wednesday from 3-4:00pm. Everyone is wel-come including all AL stu-dents! If you are interested in Technology, we are looking for you to work in the tech center.

As you are walking around Thomas Jefferson High School, you will start to notice that stu-dents are putting away their win-ter attire to bring out their spring and summer clothes. As students start to make this change, they need to keep a cou-ple things in mind:

• No spaghetti straps

• No tank tops

• No short-shorts

• Nothing uncovering the shoulders

• No sagging pants, under-wear, or anything that will expose the buttocks.

• No muscle shirts

• No mid-drift shirts

• No cleavage/plumber cracks

• See through (mesh) garments

• All underwear is covered up

• Wear shoes to school

• There are the students who violate the dress code, and usually they get told to just go change what they are wearing.

“Nobody has a right to judge anyone one. It’s their own per-sonal character,” said sophomore Josh Smith, “But they need to keep it appropriate.” In other words, at TJ we want to display the correct example of how to dress. We do not want any distractions in the classroom, so keep it PG Thomas Jefferson.

Bulletin-Thomas Jefferson High School's next blood drive is Fri-day, April 12th from 8:00 am – 2:00 pm. The blood drive will be held in the field house. Sign up during your lunch hour or in Mrs. Gray’s class (C213). You can also email Mrs. Gray your name, time you’d like to donate, and teacher you have that hour/classroom number.

-The play “Alice in Wonder-land” will make their debut on April 26-27 at 7:30. Adult tick-ets cost $5 and student tickets are $3. -You can no longer order a year-book, but there have been extras ordered. When the yearbooks arive, the extras will be sold for $60.

-35 school days until summer!

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By Dana MefferdReporter

National Guard uses motorcycle to interest recruitees

By Dylan MontgomeryReporter

Teachers and life outside of school

Photo of the National Guard motorcycle by Shelbie Granger.

On March 22, the Na-tional Guard came to Thom-as Jefferson, they brought a motorcycle to help recruit students. The motorcycle was made by Orange County Choppers and is five years old. It also includes some of the weapons the National Guard uses. Conflict gre-nades and a m16 are just a few weapons that are on the bike. There was also a fallen hero tribute on the fuel tank cap. Each of the seven spokes represent the seven values. Loyalty, duty, respect, self-less service, honor, integri-ty, and personal courage. The bike brings students to the table. It has been very successful in helping the National Guard recruit students. On March 21 the National Guard brought the motorcycle to the Tucker Center. But they do not just

do this in Council Bluffs, they do it all over the coun-try. Students were also able to take pictures with the mo-torcycle. A military person-

nel would take your picture and your picture would be put on a card. All you had to do was go to the a web-site and type the code that was on your card and your

picture would show up in 24 hours. If you are interested in joining the National Guard remember you must be 17, a junior, and in high school.

Mall of the Bluffs1751 Madison Ave

Thomcyn’s Formal Attire

Do teachers have a life out of school? Well check this out. Mrs. Karla Hughes is a counselor at Thomas Jeffer-son. She also has a life out-side of school just like every other teacher and student. In her spare time Mrs. Hughes likes to take pictures of a variety of things like of her family or nature but her favorite is the countryside. “It’s a hobby of mine,” said Hughes. “When I was in high school, I saved my money and bought a nice camera.” Hughes has traveled to Ireland to visit family but also took some pictures and she took some shots in Italy. She says the pictures from there are some of her favor-ite. Mrs. Denise Hoag is an-other teacher here at Thom-as Jefferson with an agenda outside of schoolwork. She teaches computer graphics and uses her technological skills to enjoy her hobbies. “I am pretty much a computer geek,” said Hoag. “That’s just what people tell me.” Hoag also makes movies with her son that they think are funny. “I just acquired an un-derwater camera,” Hoag said. By now it should become apparent to you that teachers actually do have lives out-side of school and do stuff besides grade papers. Mr. Kevin Mills is an as-sistant principal at Thomas Jefferson and has many ac-tivities that he enjoys out-side of school. “I enjoy motorcycling,” said Mills, “taking trips with my family also.” Mills also enjoys going to concerts and likes listen-ing to blues and rock ‘n’ roll. These are not the only teachers with interests out-side of school. There are so many things to fill their free time besides planning les-sons and grading papers.

By Kelsi ThurmanReporter

Someone Notices at TJHS

Walking around Thomas Jef-ferson you see many different kinds of people; hipsters, skaters, jocks, nerds, grunge, preps, etc. But everyone seems to have one thing in common: negativity. “TJ’s ‘ghetto’.” - If TJ really is in the “slums” then why has the school gone through multiple renovations. The school also just received a new statue of Thomas Jefferson. “We suck at sports.” - We all have determination and strength to keep moving forward and get better. That’s what I call a real sportsmen. “Everyone stinks.” - Not only are these statements uncalled for, but they are untrue. I have classes with many people who do not smell. An anonymous student at TJ de-cided to take initiative and create a twitter account called Someone Notices. He or she tweets about all the good things that go on around the school. “I noticed a lot of people are constantly saying bad things about TJ, but there are a lot of

good things to say about the students at TJ” Someone No-tices said. “It's something I had been thinking about for a couple months and decided I should ac-tually do it.” This is an admirable way to spread positivity throughout the student body. Everyone is too busy looking at the bad, and a lot of things go unnoticed. A lot of the posts are about the little things. In the end, it is the littlest things that matter. A few of these quotes include:

“Just so you know, I've no-ticed that some of the people we consider bullies, can also be nice. I witnessed it myself, today and other days.” “In PE today a kid fell pret-ty hard, a guy on the other team helped him up and asked if he was okay before rejoining the game #Thingslikethis!” It is awesome what Someone Notices is doing. Changing the attitude towards our school could shed some light in Thomas Jeffer-son.

Someone Notices profile picture from Twitter.com.

Mayor Hanafan retires

Council Bluffs May-or, Tom Hanafan, has an-nounced that he will not be running for re-election. “I’m into my 25th year and it’s a long time to be in a position like this,” explained Hanafan. “My wife is retired and I have 6 grandchildren, I think it’s the best time to move on.” Mayor Hanafan gradu-ated from Thomas Jeffer-son High School in 1965. “I’ve spoken to sev-eral classes through the district about my job and how it is important to stay in school,” said Hanafan. “I’ve also been a member of the teammates program for 6 years.“ He later pursued his degree in history and gov-ernment from The Univer-sity of South Dakota.

By Brooklyn HolderReporter

See “Mayor Hanafan” page 4.

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Peer pressure and confor-mity are both similar in the fact that it causes people to do some-thing that they would not do on their own. Dictionary.com defines peer pressure as “Social pres-sure by members of one’s peer group to take a certain action, adopt certain values, or other-wise conform in order to be ac-cepted.” Conformity, however, also applies to social standards, at-titudes, practices, agreeing to another belief, or compliance. Students around school do seem to fall into this category in one way or another. I see this occurring more with school activities. When kids try to re-cruit others for a school activity, that’s called peer pressure - and

not in the negative connotation. I have my own way of dis-tinguishing the differences be-tween peer pressure and confor-mity. For instance, peer pressure classifies the situation as some-one trying to persuade another (who originally does not want to partake) to follow what they are doing - good or bad, whereas, conformity is willingly chang-ing what one believes or does to match the actions and beliefs of a person or group of people. “I think that some people conform to stay friends with their friends,” senior Katie Ad-ams said. “But when they are around other friends, they con-form to what they think. So it depends on what friend they are with to change their views.” A group of doctors set up an experiment to study the be-haviors of teenagers and peer pressure. They had a “game” in

Peer pressure and conformity influence studentsBy Kaylinn Taggart

Editor-in-Chiefwhich the instructions clearly stated to raise their hands when the longer line was pointed to. The study was conducted in groups of 10 and 9 of the stu-dents were told to vote wrongly. The student that did not know what the others were doing would raise their hand with the others for fear of being laughed at. The study showed that over 75% of the teens followed the crowd and chose the shorter line, (family.org.sg). “A small percentage - only 25 out of 100 - had the courage to take their stand against the group, even when the majority was obviously wrong,” the web-site, family.or.sg, stated. “This is what peer pressure does to an insecure person.” The same type of experi-ment, originally called the Asch Experiment, was done in 1951 and repeated multiple times in

the years after; all ending with the same result. Critics say that this type of study is not portray-ing a real life situation because it does not create tension or anx-iety for the participant to feel whether or not the situation is wrong, (simplypsychology.org). A lot has changed since the 1950’s. People are more inde-pendent, but peer pressure and conformity still occur among social groups. When friends are trying to get you to do other things, stop to think about what you personally believe to be right or wrong be-fore making a decision. Try to think about if it is something that is bad or something good. If you get the feeling that you probably shouldn’t be doing it, most likely you are right. Take the initiative and do the things that you like, without fear of how others will view you.

By Tristan EggettReporter

The book or the movie?

By Shelby JonesReporter

Prom 2013: Alice in Wonderland

With the approaching warm weather and sunshine, comes prom season; a favorite event of the school year for some students. TJ’s 2013 prom will be held at the Mid America Center on May 4th, from 8 pm to 11 pm. This is the last year that prom will be at this venue. The tickets are $25 a piece. Starting April 16th, you can buy them in the main office or Mrs. Mimick’s room (C123) after school. There are no couples tickets being sold. “There was a lot of confusion with cost, so we decided not to do couples tickets this year,” Mrs. Courtney Mimick said, who is that art teacher and is in charge of prom. Out of school dates must register by Thursday, May 2nd. Forms will be available in the main office or counseling center. The theme is Alice in Won-derland, which was decided by the junior class reps. “I think it's interesting and it will be fun,” senior Ciera Simbro says about the theme. Mimick said that she will be requesting that the DJ play more 80’s tunes, rather than the “dirty rap” music that has been known to play at the school’s dances. “I think that as long as there is a pretty equal balance, this could be kind of fun, but it shouldn’t go overboard with 80’s music,” Sim-bro stated “It’s less fun to dance to music you don’t know.” In terms of decorations, the Alice in Wonderland theme will come alive. “Expect a lot of playing cards, black and white checker-boards, flamingos, flowers, etc. The crazier the better,” Mimick says.

Would you rather flips pages, or flip scenes? Plots can have an easier understanding in books be-cause you have the freedom to use your own imagination to come up with the visual. The point of the book is to tell a story, not to visually show a story, that is left up to the reader’s imagination. Some movies turn out to be better than the book, but that i s not always the case. It really comes down to audi-ence’s opinion. “This book had quite a lot of action in it already and yet when the movie was released huge chunks of the story were removed and replaced with even more action.” said Cas-sandra Jade from (wordpress.com) about the movie version of Harry Potter and The Gob-let of Fire. The same source also

said, “The entire dragon chase sequence around the school, ending with Harry crashing into the roof did not exist in the book. It didn’t add a single thing to the story and because of this lengthy sequence the movie dragged on and still didn’t make any sense because key pieces of information were never re-vealed.” There are so many mov-ies that originated as a book, you may not know that, but 20% of movies are based on books according to www.bookreproter.com. Some-times an avid reader may go and watch one of the movies that are based on the book, but end up disappointed that the movie did not include all of the information and detail from the book. This is because film makers only have a limited amount of time to write the script, develop the scenes

and put the movie together perfectly. “Some movies are good and some are bad,” said soph-omore Alex Crook. “When they turn books into movies, I think they should add more information into the movies. I would like to see some Gary Paulsen books turn into mov-

ies. That would be cool.” Every person has there opinion about this topic, some may like it, others won’t, and others just don’t care. Books help people read, movies help people pay attention and use their eyes and ears. But in the end, both ways could be help-ful to the mind.

Photo of “Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone” book and movie from luuux.com/entertainment.

Through the terms he has served, there have been many projects. From hiking and biking trails to the flood in 2011. “Hanafan was the one who decided to hire a pro-fessional to come and evalu-ate the levy. They were able to mend it so it didn’t flood all of Council Bluffs,” said Mrs. King. He has put a lot of work and time into our commu-nity and it is sad to see him go. “A new leadership will be beneficial for the com-munity and it will give them an opportunity to do some things they haven’t gotten to do with my terms,” said Hanafan. There are other candi-dates looking into the posi-tion but no names have been released yet. The next may-or will be selected in the November 2013 elections.

Mayor HanafanContinued from page 1.