Junior wins scholarship by raising funds to fight cancer

Junior Rachel Rubright received a High School Leadership Award from Widener University in Philadelphia January 11.This award is to recognize students in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey for their leadership skills within their communities. Rubright has done a large amount of volunteer work for her local church, including being a waitress for bingo and lectoring. She also does volunteer work at her fire company.

Rubright received the award for the service project she completed. She turned a few of Edgar Allan Poe’s well-known works, including The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-Tale Heart, into scripts and performed them at The Simon Kramer Building in New Philadelphia. She and her helpers spent about a month preparing for the performance

All proceeds were given to the National Cancer Society. Rubright and her helpers raised $96 from donations.

Along with receiving the award, if she chooses to go Widener, she will receive $20,000 towards her first-semester tuition.

Junior wins VFW essay contest and moves to state level

American History classes were eligible to enter a competition to write an essay about how they wanted to change America, sponsored by Veterans of Foreign Wars. Juniors Emily Witmier, Patrick Moran and Erika Shuman were the three contestants chosen by the history teachers out of all applicants for their essays. The three then went to T102 to record their essays live. The VFW board voted, and Witmier advanced to and won the district-wide competition.

Due to her being snowed in, Witmier was not able to go to the state competition January 22-24 in Gettysburg, but she received an email saying she placed 6^th out of 24 total contestants.

“I was very pleased when I won both competitions,” Witmier said. “I was thankful for Mr. [Andrew] Smink and Mr. [Robert] Kempsey for proofreading my essay.”