Singing Spartans Rise to the Challenge

By Jon Crawford, OHS Torch Reporter

On March 3, the Olympia High School choir performed, in the auditorium, the masterwork “Mass in G” which was written 200 years ago by an Austrian composer named Franz Schubert.

Schubert's Mass is performed at a college level and is considered vocally and harmonically demanding. Choir director Debbie Aurelius-Muir, however, said she believed the students could rise to the challenge.

By performing this masterwork, the choir hoped to inspire the audience with the high level of musicianship. The High School choir rose to the challenge and performed this difficult masterwork that has been mostly performed by professionals.

“The sound it creates takes you back to the time period it was created,” said Senior choir member Doug Stribling.

Doug said that he thought this masterwork had a wide range of emotions which made it compelling to the audience. The pieces ranged from hopeless to joyous.

Mrs. AM  was pleased by the performance by her choir, “I was absolutely blown away by the level of performance.” Mrs. AM said she was absolutely amazed by the performance. Everyone knew their part and knew exactly what to do every time.

The choir was not scared to take on the challenge of trying to learn this masterwork. When the time for the performance came, the students had no trouble standing up to the challenge.

Class Scheduling is Upon Us

By: Jeris Eilts, OHS Torch Reporter

Olympia High School is almost done with electronic scheduling with freshman, sophomores, and juniors; the counseling office done this for two years and students seem to love it.

Class scheduling has started with all classes. Electronic scheduling is a lot faster and easier for the counselors.

“This year I am really proud of our sophomores because only about 5 of them haven’t finished their scheduling and it makes it a lot faster on our part to get the schedules back to the students,” said Mrs. Steve, OHS Counselor.

Students learn the electronic scheduling process really fast and they like it a lot better than the old version. If students miss out on the scheduling, then it is very easy for them to finish it because it is all online.

“We will have schedules run and back to students by the end of the year,” said Mrs. Steve

If students get their schedule back and need changes, they need to do it before the first day of school so that the counseling office can get changes done.

For graduation seniors, there are a ton of scholarships the counseling office has posted recently. The OHS Guidance office has a website and also a twitter handle, @Oly_counseling. The website is olympiacounseling.wix.com/OHScounseling.

Boys Track Team Has High Hopes

By Caleb Yeazle, OHS Torch reporter

The Boys track team is off to a roaring start for the 2016 season; they have a total of 10 seniors to lead the team throughout these next couple months.

Mr. David Stine, OHS Boys Head Track Coach, said, “My goals for the team this year are to most importantly have fun, increase numbers from last season, have continuous individual improvement throughout the season, and get as many athletes to stick through the whole season.”

The boys have a grand total of 10 seniors on the team: Triston Ballinger, Bo Bauer, Cody Cheeseman, Chance Cook, Cole Hammel, Levi Litwiller, Levi Niesen, Tj Peters, Ethan Sebok, Dallas Spencer.

“The team’s biggest strengths this season will be in our pole vault and 300m hurdles with two returning State competitors, Triston Ballinger has placed the past two years in state and won the Indoor State meet in the 2015 track season. Levi Litwiller was a 17th of a second from making into the placing run,” said Coach Stine.

The team is also going to have a few challenges this season. A couple things will be the fact that they have a lack of numbers to fill all the events; also the lack of facility to practice when the weather is not on their side can be an issue.

Coach David Stine is expecting a lot from a few of the underclassmen. The underclassmen of the are showing potential to prove themselves in the varsity meets.

“Brock Gottschalk really picked his game up towards the end of the season last year and this year he has started where he ended last season, if not even better. Then Dalton Spencer is just an all around great athlete and only the second-ever freshman to jump over 20ft in the long jump, he definitely could possibly have a state showing,” said Coach Stine.

The team is participating in the indoor track meets right now every Saturday in march, with the Indoor State meet. The regular season begins in April.

Olympia To Host After Prom Event

By Kiersten Robbins, OHS Torch reporter.

Students from different schools rave about their After Proms, now it's Oly’s turn; the Olympia High School After Prom will be on April 30 and includes many fun activities.

After Prom will start at 11:30 pm and will end at 4:30 am. Anyone attending Prom can also attend After Prom, including freshman, sophomores, and kids from other schools. Juniors and seniors from Olympia who are not attending Prom may buy a ticket to just attend the After Prom.

Mrs. Davis, OHS Prom Sponsor, said, “Everything is still in planning stages, but hopefully there will be enough stuff to do that the kids will enjoy themselves.”

In the gym, there will be inflatables, an open gym, and a professional hypnotist or a professional magician. In the cafeteria, there will be casino type games where students can win tickets to claim an amazing prize at the end of the night.

Movies will be playing in the auditorium and laser tag will be located in the hallways of the school. There is also talk about possibly having the pool open for students. In the morning, breakfast served to everyone who attended.

A survey will be distributed to students to see what they would most want to see at After Prom. The favorites will be chosen, if not everything can be provided due to funding.

Mrs. Davis said, “There are usually around 250 students attending Prom, so we hope for even more than that at After Prom.”

Parents are desperately needed to help make this a great after prom for students. There will be a meeting on Monday, March 14, at 6pm in the OHS library for any parent or teacher who would be willing to help at after prom. Monetary, prize baskets, or door prize donations are also in need to make the event amazing.

Art Students Travel to Compete for Victory

By Adam Gaither, OHS Torch Reporter

On March 2, OHS art students took a field trip to Central Catholic High to have their artwork judged in an area-wide artistic competition; Oly triumphed with two first place finishes.

The winners were Abigail Spencer and Alexis Schopp. Abigail’s project was made using a mixed media art style. Her design was of Walt Whitman, an American poet who she enjoys. Abigail said that her favorite part of the project was ”making the facial hair.”

Alexis’ project was made using a ceramics art style. The original design had called for the sculpture to be female but was changed during the sculpting when she thought that it looked more masculine. Alexis likes the end result of her project even with the changes and said, “It was intended to be smoother, but the texture added character to it.”

Before the competition took place, the 14 OHS art students had to unpack their artwork. The artworks of the students were separated into six categories: paintings, black and white drawings, colored drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and mixed media. There were other categories at the event but theses six listed were the ones Oly students participated in.

On top of having some students winning competitions at the field trip, the students also had the opportunity to listen to a professional ceramics artist as a guest speaker. During the speaker’s time with the students and visitors, the judges finished reviewing the artwork.

After the speaker was finished, the judges announced the results. Two OHS students placed1st out of the six competitions.

Metamora Comes out on top of Olympia

by Jesse Furman

Olympia Indoor soccer team fought hard against Metamora, but came up short at the end of the game; this puts the record for the team at 3 wins and 2 losses with two games left.

    Olympia soccer team battled in both halves and the game ended 5 to 6 Metamora. There was 3 subs available on the sideline instead  1 or none, so that was a big help to the team.

    Clay Bachman, 2016 Team goalie said, “It would have helped if I actually knew all the rules before playing goalie, but I still enjoy not having to run all over the place. I will play goalie in the upcoming games since I'm better than I thought I would be and I think it is actually fun.”

    Clay was not informed of all the rules as goalie when he started on Sunday, Olympia received 3  fouls because he was not all familiar with the rules. The fouls did not count against Olympia throughout the game since they never scored on the foul, but Clay will be practicing on these skills next week.

    Blake Dehn, team midfielder said, “The game started out fine but halfway through the game  the other team started playing dirty and causing a lot of fouls against teams. I started getting a little mad with some of the other players and how the ref sided with their team.”

    Andres Alberts, team forward said, “We ended up scoring 5 goals total and I thought we could have done better than that.”

    It is hard to be a perfect team when the team does not get the chance to practice with each other during the week. There are only allowed two minutes to warm up on the field before each game and only 1 minute for halftime. Most of your warm up is stretching before the other game is over and then going out and taking shots in the 2 min field work out.

    Johann Meyer, team forward said, “ Hopefully next week goes better and we get back on our winning streak and we need a better defense or they need to step up and do a little better.”

OHS Cheer Season Comes to a Close

By: OHS Torch reporter Nick Barclay

    The Olympia High School cheer season ended after the boys basketball regionals loss in mid February at Athens High School; next year's cheer season starts with tryouts in a few weeks.

    The OHS cheer team had a lot of fun this year and everyone is looking forward to next season. First year coach, Amber Kashner, learned to get along very well with the girls and, in return, so did the rest of the cheer team.

    OHS junior cheerleader Cara Geurts said, “ We were able to adjust to Amber very well and enjoyed the season.”

    The season started back last summer with camps at ISU, where both JV and Varsity competed. The two squads held their own against many other schools from around the state, showing off their school spirit.

    Rolling into the season, the cheer team was excited to show off some of their new moves. The team performed on the sidelines and at halftime of football games and basketball games, as well as school pep-rallies.

OHS senior cheerleader Lainey Whitaker said, “The best memory I have is from the homecoming assembly when we got to perform and we nailed it.”

The cheer team also recently held open gyms for anyone interested in joining the teams. Some boys showed up to some of the open gyms to give the girls a little extra muscle in the cheers.

If anyone is interested about tryouts there is a packet in the office for guys or girls interested in joining. A cheer clinic will be held March 14th-16th, then a tryout will be held the 17th.