As the second semester begins, The Feather staff would like to acknowledge the past events and accomplishments seen around the FC campus. From the addition of new teachers, classes and clubs to successful sports, the student body kept busy and filled with first semester with many memories.

The Feather has strove to inform the student body as well as the community of events that occurred as well as features on multiple people and occasions. The Feather has tried to do so through numerous outlets including articles, slideshows, videos and podcasts.

After reviewing the past semester, The Feather has decided to summarize the events in the categories academics, campus events, athletics, community and extracurriculars.

CAMPUS EVENTS

To start off the 2013-’14 school year, the student body along with parents and faculty met for a morning convocation, Aug. 12. The school joined for a time of worship and welcome of the new year. With Superintendent Debbie Siebert addressing the audience, she announced the theme for the school year, “We Are One: Growing in Christ.”

As an annual tradition, new families gathered at John’s Incredible Pizza to meet their host families from FC at the New Family Dinner, Sept. 26. Enjoying a meal together, connections were made among the families while the students also enjoyed the many entertainments offered by John’s Incredible.

To bond more, the senior class attended the annual Senior Retreat at Calvin Crest, Sept. 21-22. The seniors were given the opportunity to get to know their fellow classmates better by being separated at random into groups where they had to perform a number of group activities. The activities included volleyball, kickball, several trust exercises, skits and a night walk.

The 29th annual homecoming game was in full swing, Oct. 25. Student Leadership puts on the event coming up with a superhero theme, “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s homecoming!” where each class chose a superhero to portray on their floats.

At the start of homecoming week students were encouraged to dress up in honor of the event. Student Leadership also chose the dress up days such as Marvel Monday, sports day, pajama day, fake injury day and spirit day. Throughout the weeks pageants for the queens and princesses were also thrown as well as the famous King Dance and the rally the day of homecoming to get the student riled up for the night.

At half time the homecoming court was announced as follows: Sydney Belmont was named freshmen princess, Alli Breedlove was crowned for the sophomores, for the juniors Elise Winegarden was named princess, Annalise Rosik was crowned senior princess with Hannah Avila being crowned queen and Kyle Hudecek was named homecoming king.

ACADEMICS

New additions were added to the list of classes offered at FC. Two new Advance Placement (AP) classes came about, AP European history and AP Biology. Along with those classes an additional science class was added, Zoology. And to round out the new classes Chinese III has been offered to the students.

On top of new classes, FC faculty also gained three new teachers. The English department welcomed alumnu, Amy Deffenbacher while the history department was introduced to Kory Friesen who had subbed multiple times before her full-time position. Karen Walters joined the science department taking over AP Biology, Zoology, and a regular biology class.

First semester also began monthly Spanish language articles in hopes of broadening readers’ cultural focus. Spanish III students teaming with Feather staff members to diversify understanding of culture, language study and travel. For the latest Spanish opinion article (Dec. 13, 2013) and links to previous ones, check out Lo sue aprendi de la clase de Espanol.

ATHLETICS

Continuing from last year, homeschooled students from Tower Christian School were a part of the varsity football team. One change that came about this year for the football team was switching to eight-man football after leaving that league in 1992. The team was 4-1 in the Central Sierra League and 7-4 overall.

Girls varsity volleyball team went 5-5 in the West Sequoia League, and 13-12 overall. The Eagles made it to playoffs winning their first game but were defeated in the second game of playoff making their postseason play score 1-1.

The entirety of the varsity varsity cross country team made it to the Central Sequoia League Championship with five of them qualifying for the Central Section Valley Championship. Senior Aliciana Quintana also moved on to the CIF State Cross Country Championships.

The varsity cheer squad along with the junior high cheerleaders hosted their annual cheer clinic to teach the basic cheer skills to elementary participants, Oct. 7-10. After days of practice and learning new stunts and cheers the elementary girls were able to cheer for the first half and during halftime of the varsity football game, Oct. 11.

The girls varsity soccer team travelled to the Garces Holiday Soccer Festival, Dec. 20-21. The team placed first in the Bronze Division at the tournament making their overall score 4-3. The boys varsity soccer team also travelled to the Garces tournament, winning their first game making their overall score for the postseason 2-4.

Boys varsity basketball competed in the Dinuba Holiday Tournament, Dec. 18-21. The Eagles won two games at their tournament and have brought their overall score to 4-3 as of Jan. 6.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

As an annual event, the student body gathered in the Student Ministries quad at 7 a.m. to participate in the national event See You at the Pole (SYATP), Sept. 25. Since 2005 the event has grown to over 2 million participants nationwide, with students and faculty gathering all over the country to pray for their school, community and nation.

Volunteers from the high school student body travelled to the Fresno Fair grounds to assist the Convoy of Hope, Nov. 23. The outreach visits hundreds of towns spanning 46 states and 109 countries to provide food and other human services to the less fortunate. Students packed tangerines, persimmons and lettuce alongside other volunteers from the community.

To aid Pinedale Elementary School, FC commenced in a school wide canned food drive. The entire student body collected canned foods and boxed foods from Nov. 12-Dec. 6. The food was distributed to the families in the Book Buddy program between FC and Pinedale.

Operation Christmas Child (OCC) was also another outreach FC got involved with, as they do every year. During the month of October kindergarten through twelfth grade collected numerous boxes to send to children in other countries.

The final project the high school participated in was the stuffed animal drive. The purpose of this donation activity was to collect as many stuffed animals as possible to send to the children at Children’s Hospital Central California. At the end of the semester students gathered in the Student Ministries center to watch a Christmas movie and with the donation of an animal they received a free lunch, Dec. 12.

EXTRACURRICULARS

Performing Arts

After going from seven students in the 2012-’13 school year the drama class gained 25 new students. Under the direction of Susan Ainley, the drama class performed their Christmas play The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The class also started rehearsing for their spring musical, Bye Bye Birdie.

A new addition to the music department was the forming of the Kingsmen Quartet which is an ensemble for high school boys to get involved in. The choral groups and ensemble groups participated in various competitions, competing in one at Fresno Pacific University and Fresno State University’s Invitational Choral Festival. They also put on shows of their own such as the Dessert Concert and the fourth annual Round the Table Carol Sing.

Visual Arts

The art classes impressed at the Big Fresno Fair as many students entered original pieces, each participant placing. Junior Shannon Martens also entered a piece into ACSI Art Festival. Along with aiding her students in developing their art skills, art teacher Sharon Scharf had her students bake cookies to send to soldiers overseas.

Clubs

For clubs this year a new addition was added for the students to become even more involved. Cycling club led by science and Chinese teacher Dan Harris, and aid from junior Rees Roggenstein, joined the list of clubs offered at FC. Along with growing physically the club members will also grow spiritually with devotions that will occur during the bike rides and throughout the time spent as a club.

Science Club, also led by Harris, has returned for another year. Students are able to broaden their knowledge on science through numerous experiments they perform with their fellow club members, and under the supervision of Harris.

With a great number of members, Spanish Club offers students to learn more about the Spanish culture and language, led by Spanish teacher Beatriz Foth. The members also participated in a service project where they filled school bags to send to kids in Honduras.

California Scholarship Federation received a new advisor this year. Academic Advisor Michelle Warkentin took charge of the club involving her students in multiple service projects such as lending aid to the Dakota House and collecting cans for the canned food drive.

The Book Buddies program with Pinedale Elementary was also in full swing this past semester. In the program high school students travel to Pinedale Elementary and pair up with a student to help them read or learn to read.

Sister to Sister and Brother to Brother is another club offered which acts more of a mentoring organization. Senior, junior and sophomore high school students are paired with junior high students to act as a mentor to give them any advice and help, and also act as their friend.

Publications

The Feather was given an All-American ranking for the fourth year in a row by the National Scholastic Press Association, (NSPA), Nov. 5. The publication received five marks of distinction with their highest score yet of 4,200 out of 4,300. This rating is only given to about 15 percent of student newspapers across the country.

The Feather was also named a Digital Crown Finalist by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA), Dec. 18. The paper received its best critique yet from the CSPA along with its highest score yet of 983 points out of 1,000.

The staff continues to offer up their work on school events as well as community events for The Feathers readers. Along with San Joaquin Valley Town Hall visits, the writers on staff contribute information from beyond its schools borders.

This writer can be reached via Twitter: @viv_hinojosa. Follow The Feather via Twitter: @thefeather.

For more features, read the Dec. 11 article, Freshman fear finals: Join the discussion.