GIVE BACK TO LOCAL PEOPLE IN NEED-----BENNY'S BODEGA

 DONATE ITEMS FOR PEOPLE IN NEED

Benny’s Bodega Visits SHS

By: Noelle Hanek

Have any clothes that no longer fit? Extra goods laying around the house or hiding up in the pantries? Now is the perfect time to donate these unwanted items to those in need! From now until April 11th, Sparta High school is collecting donations for Benny’s Bodega, an organization located in Newton, NJ that helps provide necessities to people in need. Benny’s Bodea is special because the items donated are set up in their store where people are allowed to shop for the items they need. Rather than receiving a bag of donated items, people have the freedom to choose their own items they need for themselves and their families, just as people who go shopping in a general supermarket do. The organization is collecting clothing(new/gently used), hygiene supplies, food(non perishable), baby supplies, and winter jackets. This is a great organization to donate no longer needed items to because you know they are going to someone who can really use them. 

Besides donating, students can further get involved with Benny’s Bodega. They can make flyers to promote this organization and hang them around the school, help pack the bus to transport the donated goods to the store on April 11th at 1pm, and they can organize the donations at the store on Monday April 11th, from 3:30 to 5:30pm. If you are interested in participating in any of these events, the sign up sheets are on the SHS Key Club and National Honor Society google classrooms. Thank you Ben for visiting our school and sharing your work with us!

Image from https://www.bennysbodega.com/ 

SHS's GOT TALENT!

 SUSSEX COUNTY TEEN ARTS FESTIVAL REVIEW 

By Olivia Flanz

On March 15th, this year’s Teen Arts festival took place at Sussex County Community College. Teen Arts is a festival where students from high schools in the area come together to participate in workshops and performances. The workshops were run by professional artists, and the activities included hip-hop dancing, water painting, wood-shoping, blacksmithing, origami, knitting, poetry, African drumming, chainsaw art, juggling, and much more! Students who participate in visual arts, photography, and drawing and painting had the opportunity to submit their work to be displayed in the art gallery. Students who submitted their work into the music or performance category, such as playing an instrument, singing, or dancing- had the chance to perform at the festival. Since there was no festival last year due to Covid-19, many students, staff, and venues were excited to participate in the event.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT!

 INTENSE TRIVIA GAME AT SHS SPARKS CONTROVERSY 

By: Grace McDonough 

SHS class of 2024 hosted Sparta’s very first annual trivia game night on March 11th at 7:00 p.m. 

Students gathered in the Sparta High School cafeteria for a night of competitive fun. Each team fought valiantly for the prize: a $100 Amazon gift card! To participate, there was a $20 fee per team, and teams were only allowed five members respectively. As promised on the flier, there were snacks and drinks for sale, however the pizza that was promised never made an appearance…

Some of the teams included: 

Never Gonna Quiz You Up

The Untouchables

The Lone Ginger

The Brainy Baddies

Quiz Pro Quo

E=mc Hammer

There were four rounds in all, each consisting of five trivia questions. As the questions were asked, students hushed and listened closely, hurriedly jotted their answers down on a slip of paper, and quickly turned it in to be judged. The points were tallied on a wager system: based on the confidence your team had in the answer, a value between 1 and 8 could be wagered. Getting the question right awarded the points to the team, but getting it wrong could not deduct points. Each numerical wager could only be used once, so the teams had to choose wisely and trust in their knowledge of each category. And of course, no cheating would be tolerated, so phones were silenced and placed in the middle of the tables to ensure that no googling occurred. 

All seemed to be going smoothly until controversy arose. The last question of the entire game was a bonus round. Each team was allowed to wager 1 to 30 points and if they answered incorrectly, their wager would be deducted from their points. The announcer asked the final question which read, verbatim, “Which United States state contains the name of another U.S. state within its name?”

Unlike other rounds, the teams had only 60 seconds to answer and turn in their slips. The winning team for instance, The Brainy Baddies, wagered all 30 points on the answer “West Virginia.” However, the answer “Arkansas” was announced.  You might be thinking, based on how the question was phrased, both answers were fully correct, which have been confirmed by websites such as funtrivia.com. However before any contentions could be heard, the prize was awarded to the winning team, Never Gonna Quiz You Up. 

Though it was fun, there could be improvements for next year. This upset definitely left a poor taste in some of the player’s mouths, especially when other questions during the game were remedied when there was more than one correct answer. For example, when the question “where is the tallest building in the world located?” the game makers failed to specify what they meant by “where.” Both “The United Arab Emirates” and “Dubai” were accepted as answers and teams with those answers were awarded their points, despite the fact that they were specifically looking for the first answer. When this exception was made, players questioned why the same exception could not be made during the final round, when they should have specified that they wanted a one word state. 

BOOK CLUB

 Join The SHS Book Club!

By: Kelly Groome

The SHS Book Club is the newest club at Sparta High School and is currently welcoming any students who are interested! Within the club, students have the opportunity to enjoy a discussion on each monthly book and listen to the different perspectives of their peers. 

The club hosted its first introduction meeting at the end of February, however, it is not too late to join! One meeting will be held at the end of each month during lunch upstairs in room 422. 

For the Month of March, the club will be reading In Five Years By Rebbecca Searle, a current bestseller on Amazon. The book features a woman named Dannie Kohan who believes she has her dream job and is engaged to her long-time boyfriend. However, one day Dannie wakes up and realizes she's in a different apartment, engaged to a different man; five years in the future. 

If you are interested in reading the rest of the story and joining the club all are welcome!

Join using the Google Classroom code: t5pecot

NEWSIES SEIZE THE STAGE!

 SHS Presents Newsies!

By Hayley Lane and Kavya Kamath

(Photography by Rebecca Mancini)

On March 4th, 5th, and 6th, SHS proudly presented Disney’s Newsies as the 2022 Spring Musical. After months of singing and choreography, all of the hard work brought by directors, actors, featured dancers, tech crew, and more, finally paid off! 

Based on the 1899 historical Newsboys Strike, this Disney musical tells the story of Jack Kelly (Laurel Ferguson), a newsboy dreaming of a life out west as an artist. After renowned newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer raises the prices of the “papes,” Jack and his fellow newsies see their dreams, livelihood, and the spare coins in their pocket disappear before their eyes. The newsies have no choice but to take action and orchestrate a city-wide strike for fair child labor practices. With the help of young reporter Katherine Plumber (Megan Armstrong), the Newsies successfully stop the presses and stop the city, winning fair prices and city-wide respect.

Sparta High School’s Newsies contained some of the most empowering, thrilling and exciting moments brought to the school’s stage: Flashing lights, chanting, and acting through the aisles of the auditorium just to name a few. Technically, the show featured metal scaffolding and larger-than-life backdrops, a record number of mics, personalized costumes, and piles and piles and piles of prop newspapers.

At the end of Sunday’s afternoon performance, director’s gifts were presented and the annual Jeff Syberg Memorial Scholarship was presented to senior Georgia Paraskos. 

Congratulations to everyone involved! A complete list of the cast and crew (featuring headshots) can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10158616376268602&set=pcb.350157233410358

DECA Takes on AC

 

DECA STATES COMPETITION 

By: Noelle Hanek and Hayley Lane

From February 28th to March 2nd, students of Sparta DECA competed in the state competition in Atlantic City, against other New Jersey students. Students who advanced to states scored high enough on the regional competition DECA exam. Students selected their competition from a variety of business categories such as marketing and management, sports marketing, finance, business law, and hospitality. Additionally, students had the ability to choose whether they wanted to create a presentation ahead of time, or do a role play in which they were given limited time to create a presentation, that they presented in front of a live judge. Students had the choice to work in teams or individually. 

On the night of February 28th, an opening ceremony was held, welcoming all of the students and wishing them best of luck in the competition. The following morning, the competitions took place. The semi-finalists were then later called down to present again, where the finalists would be selected. An awards ceremony was held that night for the students who made it to the finals. 

The next morning, the grand Award ceremony took place, where the top seven teams in each competition were announced and received a trophy, advancing to the finalist national competition in Atlanta Georgia. Several students made it to nationals from Sparta, whose names and event be seen below. The best of luck to all of the finalists!

Students take the stage as they collect their awards.