Receiving Bulldog Tickets by Cierra Dougherty

Receiving Bulldog Tickets

            Last year, the MBI team came up with the great idea of giving Bulldog Tickets to students who reflect the schools’ universals: demonstrate integrity, achieve excellence, work hard, gain respect, and share responsibility.

            When a student receives a Bulldog Ticket with his/her name on it and what he/she did to achieve the ticket, it’s put in a box in the office. Afterwards, during a Top Dawg assembly, the box full of tickets is used for a prize drawing. They pull out a certain amount of tickets and the winning student can pick out his/her prize. Unfortunately, the student has to be present to win.

            The Bulldog Tickets are a good and bad thing. The pros of the tickets are: they encourage the students to do the right thing and it allows students to be recognized for what they did. The cons of the tickets are: some of the prizes are a waste of money, most students don’t receive a ticket even though they are reflecting the universals, and some teachers forget about the tickets or don’t cooperate. The Bulldog Tickets are good, but sometimes it’s just a waste of time if some of the teachers don’t cooperate with the program and most students aren’t recognized.

By Cierra Dougherty 

Run The Course by Dominik Stallings

RUN THE COURSE

            On the 6^th of November the National Guard came to visit us in school. They prepared an obstacle course for the health and PE classes. This year they had a new course in which the students could have races and see who is faster to accomplish the course. There were two officers from the National Guard who were really nice and talked to us about many things.

            They told my class that they were here to have fun and that’s what they accomplished. I think everybody who ran the course with a friend had a great time and also did some exercise. The National Guards told us about themselves by the end of the period. We learned about what they were doing during combat situations. They were medics so they had to carry everything that would have to do with caring for injured comrades. They also wear Kevlar and their guns and ammunition.

            It’s quite impressive what they do out in the field and they offered to tell us about training, adventure and much more, I think they timed it really well since it was almost Veterans Day and everybody was thinking about what they did for the country. It was a good day for everyone at school. We learned something new and are maybe a bit more aware of our military and the benefits it gives us.

By Dominik Stallings

FCCLA Selling Cookie Dough and More by Cierra Dougherty

FCCLA Selling Cookie Dough and More

            As Christmas is getting closer and closer to us by the minute, our school’s FCCLA club is raising

money by selling treats everyone would greatly enjoy.

            The products we are selling are ELLIOTTS cookie dough, brownie mix, scone mix, biscuit mix, pasta and sauce mix, and trail mix. There are 9 different kinds of cookie dough, which come in at $16.00 per 3 lb. tub. The cowboy biscuits and prairie scone mix are sold for $13.00. The brownies are sold for $14.00 per bag.  There are 6 pasta and sauce mixes:  pasta with alfredo mix, Italian red mix, light lemon mix, mushroom bacon mix, herb butter mix, and cheddar cheese mix. 3 pastas count as 1 item and any of the 3 flavors are $15.00. And we also sell 4 types of trail mixes: sweet blazing, mother natures, farm boy original, and pioneers paradise, which are sold at $15.00 and come in a 23 oz. water bottle. The products are made in Montana, fresh for the customers.

            If you want any of these fine products, make sure to place an order by 11/21/13 with any FCCLA. And if you didn’t get to order before the deadline, you can order online at www.elliottsofmontana.com. You can also contact Mrs. Cable at ext. 221.

By Cierra Dougherty

            

Top Dog Assemblies and How They're Ruining This School by Leon Ochs

Top Dog Assemblies and How They’re Ruining This School

Every quarter brings another Top Dawg Assembly. It’s a time of joy and laughter where the school sits together for multiple hours trying to stay awake. Some say that the amazing prizes we can win are almost the best things they’ll get all year.

            All  sarcasm aside, Top Dawg Assemblies are a totally boring waste of time. They were put into to place in hopes that kids would be motivated by prizes to attend school. They are also designed to recognize students for their achievements. Though in reality, I cannot name a single kid who would wake up in the morning and say to himself, “Boy, I better go to school today so I can have a small chance to win some Skullcandy Headphones!” Maybe this motivation works for the younger classes, such as Elementary kids. Putting this on for Middle School and High School, however, is a huge waste of our schools budget and people’s time.

            Not only are the prizes useless, but they are only designed for people who show up to school all the time. So some kid could miss one day of school and have the best grades in his class, but he still wouldn’t be recognized for his work. So I, and many others, would agree that it really isn’t fair, or very important.

            Therefore, I believe we should eliminate Top Dawg assemblies. Save the money we’ve been spending on all these bikes and gift certificates and use the money elsewhere. I still do believe that it’s a good a idea for the Elementary kids who would get a real kick out of getting prizes for showing up to school.

            Some of the money we would save could be used on buying up-to-date class books. Or use it on sports equipment and renovations to some of the more worn down classrooms. Maybe even save it so we can have more school funded trips like Youth Legislature and the Advanced Biology Trip.

            Let’s stop the Top Dawg Assemblies, and instead think of more important and reasonable things to spend the money on. It’s up to the school to intervene.

-          By Leon Ochs

Toms Shoes Give-Away

TOMS Shoes Give-Away

            Have you ever heard of shoes being given away to hundreds of people? Have you ever seen people wear TOMS? Well, those are the shoes that are given away.

            Every year, our school gets new shoes, called TOMS. All grades get these new shoes so nobody is left behind.

            In order for the students to get their shoes, volunteers come and call each grade in one by one. Then the students get into two lines. At the head of each line there are feet measurers. They measure how big your feet are, and write down your shoe size. The students then hand off their number to another volunteer who hands the students’ shoes to them, giving them black, blue, or dark green.

            But who started TOMS shoes? Why would they want to give away all those shoes? The founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS is Blake Mycoskie. He started his TOMS business about 7 years ago. He created the idea of One for One. That idea was, for every pair of TOMS shoes that was bought, another pair was given to a child in need of some shoes. Because of his charitable idea, over 2 million pairs of new shoes were given to children in need of shoes since 2006.

He started TOMS unintentionally. When he visited Argentina, he saw children growing up without any shoes, and he wanted to fix that. So he did when he created his shoe business.

            Not only does Blake apply the idea of One for One for shoes, but he also recognized that sight should be another One for One. As he was travelling around the world, he realized that he could give more. So, he created the idea of TOMS eyewear. With every pair of eyewear purchased, TOMS would give sight to another person, one for one.

(from http://www.toms.com/

blakes-bio/l).

By Cierra Dougherty

Honoring our Veterans by Dominik Stallings

HONOURING OUR VETERANS

Veterans Day was first announced by President Woodrow Wilson to be observed on the 11^th of

November. It was made to honor the soldiers who fought in the 1^st World War, also known as the “Great War”. This is an American holiday and coexists with other holidays known as Armistice Day and Remembrance Day. These holidays were made to mark the ending of the war.

Veterans are people who served in the armed services and are mostly survivors of the World Wars. Today we have many different kinds of veterans. The most common veterans today are Vietnam veterans from 1966 – 1973 and the veterans from the Pakistan and Afghanistan Wars in 2003. But we still have veterans from World War II who are slowly growing old and passing away. I am not sure if there are still veterans alive from the 1^st World War but we are still going to honor them.

I am not sure how Veterans Day is celebrated since it is my first time celebrating it, or remembering to celebrate it. I am sure that it is a great holiday with many great things to do to honor veterans. It is important to honor your veterans; they fought in a war so you and me can live in peace and without tyranny or the threat from living in it. I think we should have more holidays styled like this one since it actually has a important meaning and opens people’s minds, I respect it and think it is a way to be a role model nation, we are going to have an assembly on Nov 7^th at 10:30 A.M on the football field, too. I think it is going to be a good thing we can all remember, a holiday to honor veterans.

By Dominik Stallings