FHUHS Administration

I am not particularly fond of catchy educational statements unless they are directly connected to the environment I am living in. I mention this because the often overly used idea of “it takes a village to raise a child” came into mind with the highs and low that occurred this past week at Fair Haven Union High School. I prefer to rephrase it as “it takes a community to successfully run a school”. To highlight how this applies to FHU, I will let Eric Ramey open the news from the week and thank him for doing so.

FHU successfully hosted the Vermont Division II Soccer State Championships on Saturday Nov.3rd on Tom LaPlaca Field. Hosting such events is an enormous task, and it truly took the entire FHU community and beyond to pull this off. Eric Ramey and Kyle Wilson served as site administrators, and relied heavily on students and adults to cover all necessary areas for the day. FHU students Ashley Brown, Devin Laramie, Nolan Link, Garth Roberts, Keith Schneider, Ryan Kent and Sean Vincent were here to assist with setting up tables, selling 50/50 tickets and other general errands, while Mark Cassidy and Dan Celik were parking cars all over the campus in an effort to accommodate the many fans in attendance. Joyce Roberts organized the members of the community (Maureen Hall, Debbie & Jenna Smith, Kandi & Karla Ramey and Fran LaPlaca) to assist with the ticket gates, while the Slaters Booster Club manned the concession stand. Fran LaPlaca’s National Anthem Singers did a superb job singing the Star Spangled Banner prior to both games, while sophomore Emily McIntyre was the official scorer for both contests. Craig Pettis was in charge of handling all substitutions for the day. Athletic Trainers Mike Finnegan and Gordon Fields were here all day, and Officer Quelch from the FHPD provided security. And, as is always the case, Mark Cassidy had LaPlaca Field in top notch condition for the athletes. VPA Associate Executive Director Bob Johnson had this to say about the day, “On behalf of the Vermont Principals” Association, I wanted to thank you for hosting the Division II Soccer Championships on November 3, 2007. The time and effort you and your staff put in was evident as we had one of the smoothest running events I have been at in a long time. Very few people will truly understand all the time and effort it takes to manage all the logistical issues that are encountered at a championship site. However, you and your staff pulled it off perfectly and as a result the athletes and fans got to enjoy two excellent games.” Thank you to everyone who helped with the day, and especially with promoting our facility.

On a tremendously sad note, FHU has lost one of its best Slaters. Last week, Joe McCann passed away at his home from an apparent heart attack. Joe has been a staple of the Slater sports landscape for over 25 years, serving as an assistant softball coach for the last 20+ years, as well as operating the scoreboard for every basketball game in our gym for the last 25+ years. On top of that, he took care of the time for both field hockey and soccer for as long as anyone can remember. But most importantly, Joe loved Fair Haven Union High School. He wanted every student to have a fair shake and experience success in all their endeavors. With his passing, we have lost a wealth a experience and knowledge which found a way to benefit our student-athletes on a daily basis. FHU and our entire community will miss Joe tremendously. He truly is one of the greatest Slaters of all time.

Friday morning started off with an all-school Veteran”s Day Assembly. The students were attentive throughout, paying the appropriate respect due to our veterans and soldiers, as well as allowing for the many contributions of Joe McCann to be honored. Mr. Curt Hier spoke in our gym to a quiet 600 person audience asking all of us to give particular attention and respect on Tuesday when we start the morning off with the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Hier also gave the audience a worthy assignment over the three-day weekend by asking us to give thanks personally to some of those serving or helping those who serve.

Mrs. Gina Himes’ Community and Independent Living Class will be making Thanksgiving tray favors for the patients at the VA Hospital in White River Junction. They will be delivered to the Hospital by the DAVA in time for their holiday meal.

Mr. Ben Worthing”s General Biology classes will have Steve Schild, GIS Manager for the Rutland Regional Planning Commission, visiting on Friday. Mr. Schild has been working with students on their school-wide tree inventory, community mapping project, this fall. Students have been using Garmin handheld global positioning systems” (gps) to create a database of trees within the boundaries of FHUHS. Later they will transfer their data and create a workable GIS (geographic information system) denoting important tree data including species, health, age, height, diameter and location.

Students started the GIS project working with Mr. Connelly by getting practice with a gps to find geocaches hidden around the school. Later, they mapped the co-ordinates of local landmarks and transferred their data into a local GIS. Finally, they used the compass function of their units for a direction, speed and elevation exercise. The gps” and mapping program were provided by a grant from Wendy Savery, ARSU, Assistant Superintendent.

The General Biology students are looking forward to completing their real-life project. When finished, the digital mapping co-ordinates will be uploaded to both Google Earth and ArcGIS to create a working attribute table and coordinate map of school trees.

The Fair Haven Travel Center has graciously awarded Fair Haven Union High School a $500.00 grant through the Exxon/Mobil Corporation. The grant money is intended for items or programs that will directly benefit students. It is apparent that the Fair Haven Travel Center appreciates the value of education in the community, and for that we thank our neighbor.

Our Voice and Vision class has been using Microsoft Photo Story to create digital stories that combine images, narration, text, music and special effects for a variety of purposes. So far they have short stories, essays, how-to’s, and some products that fall somewhere in between. Our school and district technology coordinators, Eric Snay and Katie Duggan have been instrumental in bringing this new technology to the students.

Project Graduation is having a basket raffle on Saturday, December 1st at FHUHS cafeteria. Basket viewing starts at 11:00am. There will be baskets, bake sale, 50/50 and door prizes. In order to make this event successful we would welcome donations of baskets or food items. Contact Lisa Lewis at 468-3227 or Sue Brown at 537-4474.?Į?ĮGarden Shed raffle tickets are now available. Tickets are 1 for $5.00 or 3 for $10.00. Project Graduation parents and students will be around the area selling tickets. Contact Lisa Cawley at 265-4215 or Elsie Ferman at 265-4158 to get yours.?Į?ĮNext Project Graduation meeting is scheduled for November 28, 2007 at the FHUHS cafeteria at 7:00pm. New ideas and participants are always welcome. Thanks for the information above Lisa as I know Project Graduation entails a tremendous amount of effort and team work in order to make the year end gathering work.

November is a busy month for the FHUHS music department! This week, twenty FHUHS students auditioned for spots in the Green Mountain Music District 5 Chorus, Wind Ensemble, Concert Band, and Jazz Ensemble. Special congratulations to seniors Emily Rampone, Dave Brown, Michelle Park, Carly Schnieder, Jon Kuehne, and Reggie Schulman who have auditioned four years in a row! This year’s auditions were held at Proctor High School on November 7th. Best of luck to all of our wonderful musicians.

Fair Haven Union High School is proud to be sending over twenty students to the Northeast All Star Music Festival in Lake Placid, NY. The students will play in either the Interstate Symphonic Wind Ensemble, under the baton of Mark Fonder of Ithaca College, or the All Star High School Concert Band under the baton of Laura Rexroth, director of Bands at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The students will rehearse from Thursday, Nov. 15th through Sunday the 18th, and will perform a concert at Lake Placid Center for the Arts on Sunday, November 18th at 1:00 p.m.. The FHUHS Symphonic Band honored the four armed services during Friday”s Veteran’s Day Assembly by playing “Veteran’s Day Salute.” In addition, seniors Nick Montello and Rich Hall performed Taps with echo. These talented students literally helped set the respectful tone for the occasion.

The first regional Scholar”s Bowl Tournament will be held on November 16th at 4:00 p.m. at Middlebury Union High School. The Scholars Bowl team will be meeting for practice on November 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15. The team will be leaving school at 3:00 p.m. on the 16th. The other schools participating in this tournament include Mt. Abraham, CVU and Middlebury Union High School. I hope the week has been a good one,

Brett C. Blanchard, Fair Haven Union High School Principal