Marching Band wins Pontiac competition

Saturday night marching bands battled a constant drizzle at Williamson Field during marching band performances at the 7th annual Indian Showdown and presented amazing performances of music pageantry. Eleven visiting bands from central and northern Illinois, as well as an exhibition performances by Pontiac’s Marching Indians, delighted the spectators on hand for the competition. The event, hosted by the PTHS Music Department and PTHS Music Boosters, saw Eureka High School’s marching band being named Grand Champion of the event for the first time with the top score of the evening competition. They were presented with the newly named Tom and Laura Ramseyer Grand Champion trophy, named in honor of the chairpersons of the showdown during the competition’s first six years.
Saturday afternoon began with schools participating in clinics provided by marching band experts on the practice fields at PTHS. This year’s clinicians were Dr. Joe Manredo from the University of Illinois, Christopher Pitlik from Alan B. Shepard High School, and retired high school Unit 5 band director George York.
For the evening competition the eleven schools were divided into three classes based on school and band size, and competed for overall awards in each class as well as the award for the most outstanding percussion, auxiliary, drum majors, and music in each class. Eight judges evaluated the bands on music, visual presentation, and the integration of the two elements.
The awards for the evening competition were as follows:
Class AA overall awards: 4th place – University HS; 3rd place – Herscher HS; 2nd place – Prairie-Central HS; 1st place – Eureka HS. Caption award winners in Class AA were: Percussion – Prairie-Central HS; Auxiliary – Eureka HS; Drum majors – Eureka HS; Winds – Eureka HS.

Grand Champion: Eureka High School, Eureka, Illinois

Judges for the evening competition were Dr. Joe Manredo from Illinois State University, Illinois State University Director of Bands, Dr. Stephen Steele, Alan B. Shepard High School director, Christopher Pitlik, retired Unit 5 high school band director George York, and David Allen from the University of Illinois. Dan Swallow judged auxiliaries, Genaro Cantu of Wauconda judged percussion, and Kim Breen of Champaign judged drum majors.

National Merit Semifinalists announced

Today the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in the 56th annual
National Merit Scholarship Program were announced by officials of
National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Eureka High School is proud to
announce that  Derek Jennings and Rose Stoller were recognized
as a National Merit Semifinalist. These academically talented high school
seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,400
National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $36 million, that will be offered next spring.

Eureka FFA Labor Auction

Written by: Ellynne Vance
(Eureka FFA Reporter)

The Eureka FFA hosted it’s annual Labor Auction last Thursday, October 9th, 2010. The Labor Auction is an annual event and is held at Les Reel’s Sale Barn in Congerville, IL. This event is the FFA’s only fundraiser for the entire year. The night got off to a great start with dinner, which was put on by the Eureka FFA Alumni. They served pulled pork sandwiches, chips, applesauce, and lemonade to drink. Katherine Syndram, this year’s FFA Historian and owner of local business Katherine’s Kakes, provided a range of different flavored cupcakes for the evening’s desert. “The chai cupcakes were delicious!” said freshman Jill Stoller.

The auction started at 7pm, with a festive mood in the air. When Ross Wettstein, a recent Eureka High School graduate and past FFA Officer, bought his previous Ag teacher and FFA Advisor, Andy Blackmer, the room filled with laughter. Between sitting in the audience and standing in the sale ring, FFA members of all ages had a fantastic night of fun and making memories to last them a lifetime. This year’s auction was a great success and the funds raised will help the Eureka FFA to continue it’s tradition of creating leaders in the community.

(Top Pic) Clint Schumacher stands in the ring while being sold.

(Middle Pic) Allie Miller and Jodi Blunier enjoy socializing during dinner.

(Bottom Pic) FFA members who were auctioned off.

"Go Green" is this years theme

“Going Green” is this year’s theme for Eureka High School. It is also our Homecoming theme as decided by the student council. This initiative came out of last year’s internal review process which produced this reflective question:

How can we, as a school, become more environmentally friendly and reduce our carbon footprint?

After meeting with the class sponsors and Presidents of each class, we have decided to forgo class floats this year for the following reasons:

1. The material used is thrown away and ends up in the dumpster which ultimately ends up in a landfill.

2. In lieu of classes building a float, they will have a fundraising competition during lunch to raise money for a local charity that we haven’t sponsored in the past.

3. One float will be built by all of classes together out of recycled materials. The charities sponsored will be listed on the float with how much money was raised for each one. This is to show unity as a school as well as to give back to our communities.

4. A large majority of the students do not participate in float building on a yearly basis. Most times the number is approx. ten different students total with most being class officers. This is for the entire two-three week period that the float is being built.

5. A combined effort to build a float will only take one week. This will be accomplished the week prior to Homecoming. The students that typically build the float are extremely busy with homework, community activities and extracurricular events so it should free up some of their time.

6. The money used to build a float ($300) can be better spent on the junior prom and senior trip. The class can also decide to donate the money to the charity of their choice.

7. The classes compete to win $200 at the end of the week so spending $300 each on a float puts all of them in the hole. On top of that, the freshman class typically comes to EHS with no money until they have a fundraiser.

Other ideas not associated with float building that help with our “Go Green” initiative include:

1. Spirit shirts for students and staff observed being environmentally friendly.

2. Large pop-bottle shaped containers were purchased to collect plastic bottles at lunch, during events in the gym, and at the football games.

3. The Science Club has renewed its efforts to collect paper products to recycle.

4. The majority of material used at class games will have been recycled. BTW: It will incorporate ideas from “Minute to Win It” and be held in the gym.

5. We are trying to move to more electronic communication and only sending newsletters home to those of you that don’t have an e-mail. BTW: We just finished setting up Skyward to send you this e-mail.

6. We are reducing the amount of color ink that we use to only items that will be kept by the students or used for promotional purposes.

If anyone has any other ideas to help us "Go Green", please contact Rich Wherley at wherleyr@district140.org.

EHS featured on Cool Schools

WMBD kicked off its High School Game Day "Spirit Poll" this morning during our morning newscast. The Bloomington Central Catholic HS vs. Eureka HS football game this Friday night is our Week Four "High School Game Day" game.

We urge you to vote for Eureka High School at http://centralillinoisproud.com/game-day
and vote to show our school has the most school spirit.

You'll find our Spirit Poll on the home page, along the left hand column of the page.

The winner of the Spirit Poll will be announced Friday morning on WMBD 31 News this Morning.

Also the marching band and our "Go Green" eforts will be highlighted on Channel 31 on Tuesday at 5:00am and again that evening.

Dr. Armstrong visit EHS

Brandon Armstrong, a 1999 EHS graduate, was a guest speaker in Mr. Bill's Physics class on September 1st. He graduated in May from UCSB with a PhD in Physics. He is currently doing post doctoral work at Harvard (Cambridge Mass.).

U.S. History Looks at the 90s

Recently, in the EHS Social Sciences Department, students learned about what life was like in the 1990s. Students from the junior class were born in the 90s and therefore cannot recall many of the major events that are commonly associated with that time frame. After learning about this era, the class will then focus back on early American culture and find relationships between the two periods in time. Students were given the option of writing an essay, creating a newspaper on poster board, or preparing a power point to teach to other students in class as part of their unit project. It is a different approach to the typical chronological way of teaching U.S. History, but in doing so, the hope is that students will have a better understanding of the similarities and differences of the past and present.