Counselors Help Aspirations Lab Stay open for Another Year by Rebekah Fleck

For those who are not in high school, when you hear ‘Aspirations Lab’, you probably don’t know what that is. In years past, students can remember having access to the Aspirations Lab whenever they needed help with things such as college applications, studying for SAT’s, or doing things such as filling out the FAFSA. Things took a change for the Aspirations Lab this year when it’s lost it’s grant from F.A.M.E, causing it to lose it’s yearly Aspirations Lab coordinator, and leaving it useless.

Luckily for students, the Guidance Staff at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School (OHCHS) did not want the students to lose such a beneficial item. Because of this, the Guidance Staff decided to take the Aspirations Lab under their wing and make is accessible to students for 2 days during the week, Tuesdays and Fridays.

In the past years that the Aspirations Lab was open, it had one person in their that was in charge of running it, known as the Aspirations Lab Coordinator that was mentioned earlier. Because their was no funding for one, the Guidance Counselors, Rachel Paddock, Kevin O’Reilly, Amy Peterson, Stephanie Goss, and Nancy McClean now rotate running the Aspirations Lab on the days that it is open.

Paddock says that although it hasn’t seen a lot of action yet this year, she is confident that as things such as college and financial aid creep around the corner that the Aspirations Lab will see more students coming in.

Last year the Aspirations Lab coordinator was Sean Merz, who returned to OHCHS this year as a math teacher. He had a very good time running the Aspirations Lab. Merz says that he enjoyed helping students prepare for what they were planning to do after high school. He also enjoyed the fact that all of the students who walked through the doors of the Aspirations Lab were motivated in some way to learn how to do something.

Merz said, “I liked the environment of this Aspirations Lab as compared to a classroom because it was a lot more open, it was a lot more comfortable and it didn’t seem forced on any students.”

Merz had many cases last year where had the students not asked for help they would not have been able to pursue any of their dreams or pursue any of the things that they had wanted to do. Merz saw many students succeed and grow in the process of using the Aspirations lab. The Guidance Staff is hoping that was Merz saw last year will be the case this year as well, that many students will succeed, grow and be able to pursue their dreams.

High School attempts to break World Record by Shannon Kriger

As the students of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School filed into the gymnasium for the annual “Aspire Higher” day, there was excitement and much anticipation in the air. Although none of the students had known what the school administrators had up their sleeves at the time, the cameras placed in every corner of the gym was a clear indication that something out of the ordinary was about to take place.

All of the students found their way to a seat on the bleachers with their friends while the school’s staff threw college t-shirts into the crowds of undergraduates, in honor of the school day dedicated to encouraging students to consider their post-secondary education options.

Once the hype had calmed down, Mr. Moccia, the principal of OHCHS, became the center of attention.

“Today, we are going to break a world record”, Moccia announced.

With this being said, the students were inquisitive. Many children grow up reading and hearing about people that have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records, but making it into the infamous book is something that very few are capable of doing.

Moccia explained to the crowds of teens how the record was the most people doing sit-ups simultaneously. This record was last achieved by a company in Japan, who had broken it in the October of 2013 with 263 people doing one concurrent sit up.

Although the world record that the students of Oxford Hills were breaking wasn’t exactly the most prominent, the pupils were still enthusiastic. After all, how many people get to say that they made it into the Guinness Book of World Records?

The students that wanted to participate in breaking the world record made their way down to the gym’s hardwood floors where they all crowded around Moccia.

Moccia made clear that the students would all be doing 7 sit ups- one for each letter in “vikings”, which the group would spell out letter-by-letter after each sit up they performed.

With over 500 people on board, the cameramen prepared to video tape the scene.

Moccia stood with the microphone in the middle of the sea of high school students, and vocalized how many sit ups the crowd had done- all while spelling out “viking”.

The spacious room was filled with excitement as the students completed the 7 sit ups and broke the world record and cheered from enthusiasm.

With the incident caught on camera, it is to be sent to the Guinness Book of World Records and if all goes as planned, will be published in their next book and on their website.

Oxford Hills Football Anticipate Eastern Maine Class A Playoffs by Shannon Kriger

While a majority of the community is awaiting Halloween this coming Friday night, the Oxford Hills Varsity football team is preparing for their first appearance in Eastern Maine’s Class A football playoffs in nine years.

On Halloween night, the 5th-seeded Vikings will be taking on the 4th-seeded Bangor Rams for the second time in the past couple of weeks. Last Friday night, the Vikings played against the Rams in Bangor, winning the game with a final score of 18-0.

Although the Vikings vanquished the Rams just last week, they are approaching the game humbly and are expecting a game much different than the last.

Last Friday night, Bangor had a disadvantage when they rivaled Oxford Hills. The Rams were missing some of their starters due to a heavily disciplined locker room incident that occurred within the team.

Considering the absent athletes in the last game, the upcoming game is expected to be much closer.

The Vikings, who had ended their season at 4-4, are very confident in their team’s skills coming into this game. When it comes to the team’s proficiency on defense, they believe that they are one of the best in the state.

“We are very physical and fast”, Mark Soehren, the head coach of the Vikings, commented on his team’s dominance on the defensive end.

When questioned on what he was expecting for this Friday’s game, Coach Soehren responded, “It will be a game between two teams that run the ball almost all of the time. It will be very physical and hard fought.”

Come support the Oxford Hills Vikings in their first appearance in the Eastern Maine Playoffs in several years at Cameron Stadium in Bangor on Friday, October 31st at 7pm., October 31st at 7pm.

Aspire Higher Day Becomes More than a Parade by McKayla Ivey

Every year, the community of Oxford Hills gets together to march in the Aspire Higher day parade. The goal of the parade is to help kids become more aware of their opportunities after high school, especially post-secondary education. Kids from kindergarten all the way to seniors in highschool come together, led by the band, to march from the middle school to the high school. This year, instead of having the parade then returning to the normal schedule, the principal of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School (OHCHS), Ted Moccia is planning out a whole day event.

The event will happen on October 22, 2014, and the school will start off with a regular schedule. The students will start their day as they would every day, but instead of going to second period the entire school will go to their CBA, which is like home room. Then when everyone is in their CBA, Moccia plans for our school to break a world record as a school and make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. He believes it will bring the school togetherand get a bigger sense of community, and that is what the whole day is about. After this, the school will go to the gym to listen to a motivational speaker, John Jenkins, who is a former mayor of Lewiston/Auburn.

After the school breaks the record, which Moccia has yet to decide what we are doing, the entirety of the high school will walk to the middle school through the nature trail, also known as the Viking Trail, which is 1.2 miles long, and connects the high school to the middle school. Then everyone, K-12, will line up and march in the parade back to the high school.

Moccia explained, “There will be a College Fair that will have between 70 and 80 representatives of colleges, universities and armed services, along with a non profit fair.” The colleges are there to represent themselves as a school and also to make high school kids aware that there are options out there. That there is life after high school, and that there are people willing to help them pursue their dreams. To make kids more aware, there will be the normal scholarship giveaways, which happen every single year. People from the community donate their money to show their support for our future. To go along with this, 237 T-shirt 93 different colleges from around the country will be given away. How we got the T-shirts is also a cool thing that Moccia did for the school. He sent out a letter to many different universities around the U.S. asking for T-shirt donations and telling them about our school and the Aspire Higher day.

The non-profit fair, established by Brewster Burns, an English teacher at OHCHS, will be going on at the same time as the College Fair. He explains, “It’s any area organization thats a non-profit, like food banks and the  co-op.” These businesses that are coming to the fair are strictly non-profit making businesses. “At this fair what they do is, they come in and set up a little table, a display, and then they will be seeing students between eleven o'clock and two o'clock, which is at the same time as the college fair.” Burns explained. The purpose for this fair is to set kids up with community service opportunities or even Senior Project opportunities.

We invite you to come and watch the parade on Wednesday, October 22 at 10am to support our students.

Maker Spaces Make their way to Oxford Hills by Rebekah Fleck

With experiential learning taking the limelight at the Middle School in Oxford Hills, it was only a matter of time before it made its way to the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School (OHCHS).

Jennifer Lance, the Librarian at OHCHS, is hoping to make the Oxford Hills district more cutting edge by bringing Maker Spaces to the area. What is a Maker Space, you might ask? According to Lance it’s a place where kids can be creative and learn how to do something that they might not necessarily be able to do at home.

The Maker Space at OHCHS will be beginning around the last Monday in October, and will be happening the last Monday of every month. They will be known as Maker Mondays. During this time, kids will have the opportunity to do things such as design comic book shoes, making stationary, or carving pumpkins that were donated to the program by Pumpkin Land.

It will be just open to high school students as it gets off from its feet. But Lance is hopeful that by good word of mouth other libraries in the Community will begin incorporating Maker Spaces into their libraries.

Lance says, “So it’s giving them a chance, because that’s what libraries do, right? They share things in a free way so you can have an experience that you wouldn’t have before, and whether thats a book, or a cricut machine. Who's going to go buy a $350 cutting machine to use at home? Nobody. So for us to have it here means that lots of people can experience that, and that’s what we’re trying to do; find some things that run along that mode of introducing new concepts to people.”

Lance also says, “It definitely works; it’s a different way to learn and we want to make sure that we’re giving people not just one level. Sometimes people see libraries one way and we actually work a lot of different ways. Acrossed the country a lot of school libraries are trying to have a Maker Space.”

Maker Spaces are becoming quite popular around the United States, and the state of Maine. In the building of a new high school in Portland the architect designed in a Maker Space into the Library.

The Camden library lets students check out Maker kits, where students can actually check out a kit and do a project at home or on their own time. Lance is hoping to have Maker Kits at OHCHS as well.

Jennifer is hoping that the Maker Space at OHCHS will give students a chance to take a break from regular learning and do something fun that you could take something away from, like a new skill.