theJohnson Creek School District Volume 6, Issue 3 - February 2020455 Aztalan St. Johnson Creek,WI

By: Mackenzie Kletsch Senior Staff

jaMama Mia! Here JC Goes Again!

Johnson Creek High School is presenting Mama Mia the Musical. Mama Mia is a musical about Donna Sheridan who runs a hotel on a beautiful island in Greece. Her daughter Sophie is getting married, and hopes to find her father. Sophie invites three men from Donna’s past to her wedding, because Sophie is trying to find her real dad to give her away on her wedding day. The cast list has been set. Donna the lead character will be played by Megan Christian, Sophie the daugh-ter will be played by Natalie Grenz, Rosie that is one of Donna’s best friends will be played by Mackenzie Kletsch. Another one of Donna’s best friends is Tanya who is being played by Hannah Constable. One of Sophies’ best friends is Ali who will be played by Olivia Sykes, and another friend is Lisa who will be played by Anna Yezzi. Harry, whom is one of the men, will be played by Russell Wiezorek, and Bill, another man that was in Donna’s past will be played by Alex Bowman. The musical could always use more students. Anyone is welcome. If you are interested, please speak to or email the directors: Ms. Hegi, Ms. Edington, or Mrs. Morris. The directors are very eager and excited to start rehearsing and to put the production together. Rehearsals will start in January and the show will run on Saturday, March 21 and Sunday, March 22. Ms. Hegi is excited for it all to come together. “I always look forward to the show coming together. I enjoy seeing progress from the bare stage on day

one to opening day, which includes the built set, costumes, lighting, sound engineering, integration of the pit orchestra, choreography, and more. Many aspects go into a successful musical and although it can be stressful, it’s re-

warding once it all comes together,” Hegi explains. Johnson Creek is a small community, as well as a smaller district than others. Many students are very involved in both sports and musical. “For the musi-cal to be a success it is very important for everyone to practice outside of school and come to rehearsals prepared. We are also trying to put a show together in two and a half months so it is crucial for students to come prepared. To ensure success, I have created a document for stu-dents to show what is on the agenda for students each week.” Ms. Hegi has expectations for students to meet in which will make the musical amazing. She has been working hard on making practice recordings, which will be available to the students, so they can practice vocally on their own time. The schools have purchased monitors that will be used in front of the stage that will help the students better hear them-selves. The pit orchestra can make it difficult for the actors to hear or be heard, so the monitors will help with that problem. Math teacher, Mr. Zbichorski, and Science teacher, Mr. Lind, are going to be working together to help with the sound and blocking out the light during the performances. The directors and actors are excited to start rehearsals.

District Happenings

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Choir ConcertsBy: Jasmine TolsmaSenior Editor

On October 29th the High School had a choir and band concert. The concert started out with the JC Sing-ers Choir at 7pm. This year’s concert had a country theme. Songs per-formed included: The Gambler, I’ll Stand By You, and Need You Now. Soloists included Daniel Smith, Jo-sey Whitehouse, and Elizabeth Ar-nold. After the JC Singers perfor-mance, it was Concert Choirs time to perform. First they performed an all women’s piece called Lineage, then The Gardens Last Red Rose which is a full choir piece, Jonna, a mens piece, and lastly another full choir piece, Give Us Hope.

After the choir portion of the con-cert was over, the band went on stage and performed A Day at the Zoo by James Curnow, For the Beauty of the Earth arranged by John Kinyon, Pix-ar Movie Magic arranged by Michael Brown. A Day at the Zoo utilized some special effects to depict differ-ent areas/sounds in a zoo including key clicks, air, and bird sounds. The concert was very successful and an overall fun time to watch.

The annual Holiday Concert was held on December 19th. The concert started off with the JC Singers choir. They performed the songs: Let It Snow! arranged by Andy Beck, Blue Christmas arranged by Mac Huff, and Go Tell It arranged by Victor C. Johnson. The Concert Choir followed the JC Singers with their perfor-mances of White Christmas arranged by Molly Ijames, Merry Christmas Happy Holidays arranged by Roger Emerson, and Glow arranged by Eric Whitacre. Next,the jazz band wowed the crowd with Santa Baby arranged by Mike Story, Oye Como Va ar-

ranged by Paul Murtha, and Big Band Holiday arranged by Carl Strommen. Finally the Concert Band finished by performing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer arranged by Luther, Hen-derson & ad. Michael Brown, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies arranged by Tchaikovsky, A Christmas Tale arranged by Randall D. S t a n d r i d g e , Stille Nacht arranged by Jacob de Haan. Brooke Jo-seph and Alex Bowman each performed a solo where they both had to scream multiple times throughout the song A Christ-mas Tail. This concert was very cheerful and put every-one in the holi-day spirit.

By: Jasmine TolsmaSenior Editor

Our Johnson Creek High School Choir performs at various events and locations throughout the school year. This year, the Choir performed at the Dane County Airport for holi-

day travelers. The concert started off with the JC Singers performance of Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! followed by Blue Christmas and Go Tell It. After they performed, the Concert Choir took the stage

singing Glow, White Christmas, and Merry Christmas Happy Holi-days, Soloists were Megan Christian and Alex Bowman. As a whole the group repeated the concert two times though. The goal every year is to make people at the airport smile and feel happy during the holiday sea-son. As a whole, the met their goal. Smiles were seen on many travelers’ faces. The entire field trip was a suc-cess. The group is eagerly awaiting next year’s trip to the airport.

Another event for the choir is an event called Honors Choir. Three people from each section are able to attend by auditioning for a spot. This year the people attending for the Soprano sections were Mackenzie Kletch, Megan Christian, and Nata-

lie Grenz. For the alto section Emily Tolsma, Jasmine Tolsma, and Vivi-ana Segura. For tenors they included Domonic Raabe and Russell Wiec-zorek. For bases Jake Yoshino, and Alex Bowman. It’s a big event held

at the Abundant Life City Church in Madison WI on November 18, 2019. Choirs from all over the Trailways South Conference come together and perform as one big choir. They all arrive at 9:30am and stay there to rehearse until they perform their concert at 6pm. They are practicing all day for the concert with a lunch break and a few 15 min breaks in between. The final concert that was performed at the end of the night was a great demonstration of the confer-ence’s ability to perform.

Students Show Off Their Musical Talents

Honors Choir Performs for Travelers

District

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New Teachers Bring New PerspectivesBy: Trinity ValloFreshman Staff

Mr. Kyle Morris joined the John-

son Creek High School staff as a math teacher in August. One of Mr. Morries favotite things to do is showing his school spirit by always wearing school apparel and attend-ing events such as basketball, vol-leyball and football games. You can usually find him by the doors selling tickets for entrance to the games with his wife, Mrs. Morris (one of our so-cial studies teachers).

As well as being a math teacher he also likes to help out with student council to help him gain a better under-standing of the stu-dents. Mr. Morries finds inspiration in helping students learn and grow. Not only is it the student’s growth that keeps him go-ing, he knows he has the opportu-nity to teach and model respectful behavior and show empathy towards others.

It is currently Mr. Morris’s first year teaching high school stu-dents and the maturity level bar is definitely set higher. He previously taught 7th grade math in Beloit for two years. Prior to joining John-son Creek his experience with high school aged students came while substitute teaching. His philosophy for teaching revolves around get-ting to know the students, having a growth mindset, as well as self-mo-tivation. He believes that students don’t buy into your class if you, as a teacher, don’t put effort into getting

to know them for who they are. He wants students to know that they are constantly learning and growing. He wants them to know that our brain is a muscle and just like all the muscles in our body, if you put the work in you will develop more muscle and become stronger.

While he was in high school, Mr. Morris worked as a camp counselor. This led to his desire to become a teacher. He sees himself more as an understanding teacher rather than a tough one because he builds his class around trust. He trusts that every student will use their time wisely to finish the as- signments he has given out and turn them in on time

as well as be self-motivated to learn. The biggest challenge Mr. Morris has faced in his teaching career is that he has seen a lack of funding for basic materials. He’s had students who couldn’t afford school supplies so he’s had to go out and spend his own money just to make sure they would have a notebook and some-thing to write with.

Mr. Morris looks most forward to bringing new math class options to JCHS and get involved in more

clubs and trips. He stated that overall so far, he has been enjoying his first-year teaching and Johnson Creek High School and is excited to see what the future holds. Mr. Morris is overall a really good teacher and is always on top of everything. Mr. Morris is the type of teacher that will be there to talk if you need someone to talk to and he will be there when you need help with an assignment. Mr. Morris is also a goofball and it makes the class exciting.

Mr. Michael Meracle saw an op-portunity with the Johnson Creek School District and jumped on it. Mr. Meracle started the school year at Palmyra-Eagle High School, but

made the switch to Johnson Creek after the end of the first quarter. While he was at Palmyra he coached boys basketball and football. He chose to come to Johnson Creek because the Palmyra-Eagle school district was in a state of uncertainty, meaning it’s highly possible the entire school district would be clos-ing by next year. What also helped with him making his decision is because he has always been impressed with our school district and has heard a lot of good things about it. He’s a believer in the benefits of a small district. A lot of the students have grown to start liking him a lot

I’ve asked students what they think of Mr. Meracle and a majority said that he is a really good teacher and have grown to like him a lot already.

There’s a lot of good things that Mr. Meracle has put effort into at this school with just the short amount that he’s been here. He likes to have fun with his students and his person-ality shows it. You’ll rarely see Mr. Meracle without a smile on his face.

The staff seem to like him and are very kind and welcoming to

him. Most students get excited for his class. Mr. Meracle has brought excitement to all of his classes and can always bring up a student’s mood by making a joke or support-ing us. Mr. Meracle likes to show his school spirit by participating in school events with students who are involved in them which could help him get to know who they are better. He makes his classes interesting or fresh by keeping the structured and on task as well as add a little bit of excitement for the students that in-clude funny and interesting moments while teaching. He stated that most students are respectful towards him which makes him enjoy teaching as well as working with them. He has been teaching for the past 10 years as well as coaching MS/HS sports a lot longer which is great because he has a lot of experience in teaching.

His philosophy in teaching is to build relationships with the students, even if they don’t like the subject they are being taught they will still enjoy being in class because they have a good relationship with that teacher. He chose to be a teacher be-cause he enjoyed being taught when he was younger and he wants to pass it on to other students so they may consider being a teacher as well. He thinks of himself as an understanding teacher because he believes they can work together and can help the stu-dent be successful. The biggest chal-lenge that he faces is students hav-ing cell phones and having them use them responsibly. He states that he is a flexible teacher, meaning learn-ing your students strengths and using them to build on their weakness is the way to go. He assumes the big-gest challenge most teachers face is getting their students to make smart decisions, now and in their future. For this year he’s looking forward to getting to know everyone and get in-volved in the school.

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By: Lily Webster Senior Editor

Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like going to an elementary Christ-mas choir concert, where you can lis-ten and enjoy carols sung by bright, smiling, young kids. This year’s K-4 holiday concert was themed “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON”, so their songs revolved around that same general idea. They sang 12 songs, with the K-2 coming together for a song, and the 3rd and 4th grade singing a piece together. The kin-dergarten class sang Jingle Jive and We Will Jingle, first grade sang Hear Those Bells and Chime In. The sec-ond grade class sang Do You Hear What I Hear and Listen to Jingles, and the K-2 combined piece was The Rhythm of The Season. After the first seven songs, they gave the au-dience an intermission. After the in-termission the third grade continued on the concert with singing Here We Come a Caroling and Do You Hear?, the fourth grade then took over and sang Silent Night and It’s A Holiday of Music. The third and fourth grade finished off the concert by perform-ing I Hear Those Jingle Bells.

For the holiday concert, Mrs. Hataj is the one who chooses the songs, however, she asks the fourth graders for help. I discussed how she calms the kids down before the con-cert and gets rid of their “pre-show nerves” and she said that she has a process that allows the students to become fully comfortable with their songs throughout the entirety of the preparation time before a concert. One aspect of this that really stuck out to me was that when she is introduc-ing new pieces to her students, she has them lay on the floor and just lis-ten to the songs, allowing them to be a “musical sponge”, the second part of this step is still just listening, but having a musical movement and/or manipulative, which normally hap-

pens during the second lesson with new music. Overall the el-ementary hol-iday concert went well, and all of the children and the commu-nity enjoying singing and listening to these holiday carols.

By: Lily WebsterSenior Editor

Recently the third grade class took their annual field trip to Sunset Ridge Assisted Living to sing Christ-mas carols to the residents, and to the staff members there. I spoke with Mrs. Miller (the third grade teacher) and Mrs. Hataj (the elementary mu-sic teacher) about this field trip and they both said that the kids enjoyed the field trip, and they enjoyed being able to spread Christmas cheer while singing and being able to give the gift of music to the residents there that may not be able to get back into the christmas spirit. Mrs. Miller said, “This is just for fun. Students prac-tice in class with Mrs. Hataj to pre-pare and got the chance to showcase their holiday concert music as well. Mrs. Hataj says that this is always her favorite part of the holidays and all the third grade teachers agree. It’s so great to see the excitement of the students and the smiles on the faces of all the residents. It’s just such an amazing experience!” Overall, the students enjoyed their field trip,

By: Denalyn Sweiert Sophomore Staff

On December fourth, the US His-tory class and AP US History class all took a trip to the Lincoln Tall-man House in Janesville, WI. The Lincoln Tallman House is a house that took place in the 1800’s, a fam-ily called the Tallman’s lived there. They were one of the richer families living in the 1800’s; they owned two servants, one boy and one girl. The boy would do the outdoor work and the girl would do the work inside the house. Inside the Tallman house through the front door there is wide open space and the rooms are huge. As you go further back in the house the hallways and rooms get smaller and narrower; which is where the servants spent most of their days. In each room of the house there were bells on the side of the walls which allowed the members of the family to ring down to the basement and get a hold of the servants if that particu-lar room needed something. There were also tubes in the hallways that allowed members of the household

to communicate with the people in the basement. Many believe that this house along with the Milton House were a part of the underground rail-road; however, it is not known for sure that this house was a part of the underground railroad as the rumors have come from the Tallman’s own personal claims. At the Lincoln Tall-man House there are multiple tours on which students and other commu-nity members can go on, our school just went on the tour that talked about the Tallman family and what their daily life was like. On this tour our school toured the main floor and the upper level of the house, other tours get to go into the basement and tour the kitchen and the wash room.

One of the rooms in the house was in fact shared with our former president Abraham Lincoln. Abra-ham Lincoln ended up staying in the Tallman’s house for two nights even though he intended to only stay one night. The reason why he was there for two nights instead of one was because he didn’t know that when entering the house, you are to leave your shoes on the rug and wear your slippers around the house, at the time though Abraham didn’t have slippers or know that he had to wear them around the house so he was going to wear his boots. So he did as he was taught, and wore his boots up to his room and placed them outside the door for the servants to clean dur-ing the night; only to wake up to his boots not being by the door. At break-fast that morning Mrs.Tallman asked where Lincoln was because he was not at breakfast, but no one knew so they sent someone up to call for him. Turns out Lincoln was in his room because if you didn’t have slippers, you were to be ashamed of wearing stocking feet around the house.

Elementary Sings Christmas Carols

Third Grade Field-trip

Going Back in Time

Elementary News

Community News

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By: Denalyn SiewertSophomore Staff

Here at Johnson Creek High School people all around the com-munity gather every Monday, Tues-day, and Thursday from 5:15 am to 6:05 am to do bootcamp. Bootcamp is led by Diana Thomas. The class is free to any Johnson Creek High School student and is $40/month or a $4 drop in fee. All fees collected are donated to One Team One Dream; an organization through our school. Any extra supplies or equipment that are needed are purchased out of Thomas’s own pocket, however Di-

ana states that, “the school is great about sharing equipment with us also.” Each day they do a different workout, however those three work-outs continue throughout the month. The workouts they do contain a mix of aerobics, weights and plyometrics, which work on all areas of the body. “Plyometrics mimic the fun you had as a kid hopping, skipping & jumping around on the playground. Plyomet-rics used to be called “jump training” and is good for any sport that uses explosive movements. You might do a series of jumps and hops like jump squats or one-legged hops or we even

do box jumps and jump over cones and we do love to skip run. Aerobic exercise or “Cardio” exercise is exer-cise that refers to the use of oxygen to adequately meet energy demands during exercise. Normally during aerobic exercise your heart rate stays low enough that you are comfortable enough to hold a conversation while you exercise. Examples of this lower intensity exercise would be jogging, walking, and fartlek training like our Tabata Tuesday class,” explained Thomas.

Dylan Thomas is a sophomore here at Johnson Creek High School. Dylan is a part of the bootcamp pro-

gram that is run in the mornings, she used to go a lot during her 7th and 8th grade years. Now that she is in high school she hasn’t had time to make it consistently so she goes every once in a while. Dylan’s favor-ite part about boot camp was that she was al-ways doing something, and that the workouts changed every month which kept bootcamp interesting and exciting. She also thoroughly en-joyed speed and agility, stretching, relays, and circuit workouts. Her fa-

vorite workout was “the card game”. She explained that you get a card and then you would do a workout depending on what each card stood for. Overall, Dylan benefited a lot from boot camp. It made her stronger physically and mentally. It also made her faster because they also did a lot of speed and agility. Dylan claimed that working out in the morning put her in a good mood for the rest of the day. All in all, the Johnson Creek bootcamp program benefits lots of people whether it be people in the community or people that go to school at Johnson Creek.

By: Joe Potuznik Guest Writer

The Crossroads Community Church hosted our ninth Free Thanks-giving Dinner for folks in Johnson Creek and the surrounding commu-nities. The idea was birthed from a couple of us who went to serve at a similar event in Janesville back in 2010. Our thinking was, “why can’t we do this in our community?” The Crossroads mission statement is to Love Jesus, Love Others and Meet Needs. So, after much prayer, plan-ning, gathering donations and volun-teers willing to ‘give up’ their own holiday, our idea became a reality in 2011. Each year, we have served well over 100 meals to a variety of folks. Our dinner is open to anyone. Some don’t have the means to have their own meal or are experiencing hard times. Others have nobody to celebrate with. Still more just don’t want to deal with the hassle of put-ting together an elaborate meal and just want to relax. Whatever the reason, all are welcome to join us! While the Crossroads family is the bulk of the volunteer base, we

have had many people from other churches and the community join us year after year in serving. Over the years, several folks have made donations and contributions of some of the food items or paper products. This year, two members of the com-munity graciously offered to fund the entire event. We had another great turnout this year. We offered 4 one-hour time slots from (11-12 12-1 1-2 or 2-3) that people signed up for. All RSVPs were sent through at text, call or email. They asked that everyone let us know what time slot they would be attending and how many there will be in their party to help us plan for food and space. This year, the dinner was followed up by a Black Friday Rummage Sale that took place from 9-3 on Black Friday. Folks came in and took whatever they need for whatever they feel it’s worth. We don’t price our items so we can be sure folks are able to get things they need that they normally couldn’t have access to. People pay what you can if you can! If not, then they take the items anyhow. God has called us at The Crossroads to be a light in our community. These are just two of the services we offer and will continue to press on in our mis-sion to Love Jesus, Love Other and Meet Needs.

Community Goes To BootcampA Crossroads Thanksgiving

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High School Sports Recap

By: Lily Webster Senior Editor

With boy’s basketball well underway, our com-munity has been able to see the progress and the success that Johnson Creek’s boys have shown with five wins thus far, this season. Ryan Lind, a science teacher, and the head varsity coach at Johnson Creek shared some insight with me regarding this year’s season. When I asked his general expectations for this year, he stated them simply, “I expect great things from our team this year. I think we have some really skilled players that work hard and respond well to construc-tive criticism from coaches.” He con-tinued by saying, “I expect that we will improve ev-ery day, and if we can do that I think we will be a tough team to beat at the end of the sea-son.” This year’s team has high hopes, and we are sure that they will be able to fulfill their dreams for this season due to the dedication and effort put forth by the players and coaches, not to mention the unconditional support from the student body and the community.

Lind also shared that this year they have many three-sport athletes, which allows them to stay fit and active throughout the year, most of which playing football along with baseball or running track in the spring. He stated that while fall and spring sports always have very competitive teams, he hopes that their competitive nature will translate over to basketball throughout the season. When I asked him specifically about advice to senior players he said, “This year’s senior class was in

8th grade when I took the job at Johnson Creek. I was the 8th grade basketball coach that year, then I coached JV for two years and now varsity the last two years. So this will be my 5th year coaching this senior class, which is pretty cool. I have had the chance to get to know these guys pretty well, and I respect them a lot. My advice would be to just enjoy it, and to keep working hard because it will be over in the blink of an eye. As long as they can look back after the season and say that they gave it everything they had, they won’t have any regrets and I think it will be something they can look back on later in life and be proud of.”

Lind will have coached each of our senior boys for their entire high school basketball career, allow-ing for him to gain a deeper connection with the sport, along with the athletes. Since Mr. Lind has been coaching for so long, I assumed that it would have impacted his life in some way, he was open to sharing his overall experience and reaction to coach-ing for years. He explained the effects coaching has

had on him as, “Coaching basketball is definitely one of the best things I have in my life. I feel like I can make a positive impact on the lives of people who would otherwise be complete strangers. I still stay in touch with many of the players I have coached, and it is awesome to see them doing so well as adults. At times, coaching can be physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting, but I would not trade it for anything. The basketball court has been one of the places in my life that I have felt some of the best emotions and some of the most heartbreaking feel-ings, but I think that is all part of why I love it.”

Along with the coach being fully devoted, the basketball managers are as well. Vivi Segura, a three-year returning manager for the boys talked to

me about what it takes to be a manager, the responsi-bilities that come along with it, and why she enjoys it so much. Being a manager means being at all of the games, conferences, etc., due to this, Vivi says that she has developed friendships with the athletes, and that she feels valued by everyone involved with the team. When asked about her favorite memory from her years of managing, and she stated, “There was a very aggressive game last year, I’m sure everyone will remember this game against Dodgeland. The opposing team’s audience was very disrespectful regarding our team and spectators, using vulgar lan-guage and actions; this resulted in the entire crowd being riled up, especially the managers. But this didn’t affect the boys negatively. They thrived off of the energy in this game, both teams played hard, and it showed. Returning points back and forth nonstop, the game was extremely close. Whether we won or not, the passion, support, and encouragement of the crowd pushed the boys forward. Just seeing them vibe with the crowd and push themselves, will al-ways resonate with me.” This is showing the sports-manship and bond that the players at Johnson Creek have with themselves and one another. Being able to take negative energy and allow it to have a positive outcome that every team should be capable of, and our boys are good at showing that aspect of teams-manship.

While there are many fun times being a manager, they also do have responsibilities to follow and take care of. When I asked what tasks they have to com-plete she explained it as, “The majority of our tasks revolve around the boy, like folding their warmups after the starting lineup, filling their water bottles, and in a way, providing a constant support system, but it depends on where we are for our other tasks. During home games, we help set up and clean the gym (i.e. chairs, non-slip mats, garbage by the team, etc...), as well as filming the duration of the game and take care of what the boys need. At away games, we also have to take on book, the official record-ing of points, rebounds, and fouls. When you hear about book and attempt it for the first time, it’s very overwhelming. But in all reality, it’s just observing the game.” Overall, it seems as though Vivi has had a very positive and welcoming experience with the team and she recommends it to any students inter-ested in managing any sport, because it allows you to gain a closer relationship with the coaches and the players; it is also as easy as just asking, coaches are always on the look-out for extra help!

Overall, the boys have been playing hard and well, and the community is excited to see what the rest of the season has in store for them.

By: Trinity ValloFrehsman Staff

High school girls’ basketball has been doing good

as a team so far this year. The aggressiveness is actu-ally insane. Everyone has been working very hard this year and are doing well. They play hard and put their all into every game even if they are exhausted. They work as a team every game and they are there for each other all the time. If you have watched the games it’s clear that the teams sportsmanship is there and it’s strong. Coach Wedig believes that being a multisport athlete will help you and benefit you with other sports no matter what sport you like the most. He doesn’t believe in athletes putting all their focus into one sport while they do other sports because he believes that it burns athletes out and eventually they will lose interest in the game. He likes athletes that do multiple sports because there are different roles and opportunities as well as different adversities that’ll help them grow in both an athlete and as a person. He suggests to deal with commitment and missed basketball time by being very understanding and knowing that family and education will always come first, yet during the season he expects full com-mitment to basketball while the season is going on unless there are family issues or their school work. He values practice time rather than game time a little bit because in practice we work on developmental skills and players skills and seeing what they can do. A structured practice is very important to both Coach Bowers and Coach Wedig. A basic practice day starts with dynamic stretching and warm up followed by some kind of drill which involves a lot of movement to get the blood flowing and their bodies warmed up. They will do a little bit of ball handling, shooting, rebounding, boxing out, free throws and defensive drills in the middle of practice. He leaves the last proportion of practice for game prep.

Coach Wedig wants students to prioritize their school work more than anything. You should get your school work done before anything else. Every year at the beginning of first practice he tells the girls to put their all into every practice and they are here to put in the work and get better. He wants them to

use their best judgement to represent our school, basketball team, and family at all times. As a coach he looks forward to new ideas and ways to help the basketball team to improve. He believes that there is so much to learn from whether its X’s or O’s, or just learning how to lead or develop the players. He says that he asks himself every day, “did my team get bet-ter? Are we better today than yesterday?” He goes by every day and watches practices to see the im-provement and know what we still have to improve on. He likes to push play-ers to better themselves on and off the court. His over-all goal for all the players is when they step on the court to want to get better and to put all their effort they can into practice and get better and improve their skills. Coach Wedig believes that every player has a role on the team and it’s not about being the best player. They all bring their different strengths to the court which once they figure out how to use it together to better their team. He understands that basketball is a long season and he thinks it’s really important to keep the athletes energized and focused throughout the entire season because he knows that they have the ability to do so and get better. One way he keeps the players energized is he changes things up every day. Which may include different drills, different layout how practice usually is, and it all comes around with learning new things. He finds it super important to change things up not only for the athletes but for the coaches as well. He wants every athlete to give their all on and off the court, whether you’re on break and have a basketball hoop or just workout to keep your body fresh.

His best memories in coaching is seeing every athlete grow and develop from the beginning to the end of the season. Coaching to him is so rewarding seeing the transformation from the beginning to the end of the season of coaching to see what he accom-plished in helping the athletes. He has absolutely no bad memories of coaching because he always finds a way to turn them around, and believes you can learn more from a loss than a win. Sometimes the athletes aren’t just athletes to him and turn into fam-ily. It’s my first year of high school basketball and from middle school it’s a lot different. middle school basketball for me was about friendship and felt noth-ing like family. While high school basketball feels like a family and it definitely brings you closer to a lot of other people. That goes for every high school sport though. I feel like the sports in high school has

changed me a lot and it’s been very exciting to see everyone’s growth including mine. When I’m on the court before a game with the girls I feel like a family and there’s a great relationship between all of us. There’s been a lot of middle schoolers that have told me they are going to drop out of basket-

ball once they get to high school. I don’t think they should because I used to practice with them in middle school and they have a lot of po-tential. High school basketball isn’t about being the best or worst because you all bring your own strengths to the team.

Your different strengths are what makes you a team and it’ll improve overtime. I inspire everyone in middle school and high school to try something new. Who knows you may like it. When I’m on the court I feel amazing and I’m sure every other bas-ketball or any athletes feel the same way once they get in the game.

Basketball is most definitely a contact sport but it’s a lot of fun once you feel the game and the play-ers you’re playing with and it could also help with making a lot of new friendships. There has been a lot of close bonds and a lot of improvement in all the girls on the basketball team and its crazy see-ing how much they improved from the start of the season till now. We have had a few injuries this year but the girls are healing from those and will be back on the court in no time. From what I’ve learned so far is that high school basketball is not even close to what middle school basketball was like. Its so much more put together and there’s a lot more condition-ing and drills that we focus on every day, even when one of the girls are extremely tired from the previous day they will still put all of their effort into practice because they want to get better. Not because they are told to do so. They committed to the sport and they are going to put their effort into it and make it a good season for not only them, but their teammates. Now let’s talk about the seniors. The seniors are a HUGE part of our team because they showed the underclassman so many new ways to get back on their feet when something goes wrong or how to im-prove their ability in defense, offense, shooting and basically everything you need to know on the court. The underclassman always knows that if they have something they think they are doing wrong they can always ask them and they will know how to help and will give them a good input on how to fix it.

Boys Basketball Off To A Great Start

Girls Basketball Continues To Push Hard

High School News

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By: Emily TolsmaSenior Staff

The article you are reading right now was made by none other than the Johnson Creek A/V Print and Com-munication class. In this class, we take bits of information from what goes on around the school district and community, then turn it into the newspaper that you are reading right now. Writing the newspaper takes a lot of time and effort from each stu-dent that writes the articles. In the beginning of each quarter all of the students get together and pick out what topic each person is doing and what they are going to write about that topic. “The Jay” takes about nine weeks to make, and only one comes out each quarter. The Jay is not our only production. We also create the Johnson Creek High School year-book, record the weekly Blue Jay News Network, keep students up to date about what’s going on through the tv slide show in the Weis Center, among other day to day activities.

The process of making a yearbook starts from the very beginning with everyone deciding who gets what topics for each page in the yearbook. The student with the selected page is in charge of taking pictures for that appropriate topic, all year. Once all of the pictures of that topic are gath-ered up, we use a yearbook making site called Walsworth to keep ev-erything organized. When the year-book is finished, we add the finishing touches then send it into Walsworth for printing. Making the yearbook may sound easy but it’s a lot more work that it seems. The time it takes to gather all of the images, add in the appropriate names to each per-son, design the pages, get the senior quotes, get the senior picture, and to do it all on a time frame is a difficult task. In this class there are nine stu-dents and one teacher. Each student was asked what their favorite part of

the class was and here are their re-sponses. Caitlin Burns said, “editing and creating yearbook pages is the best part, YOU get to choose how the pages look.” Denalyn Siewert said, “Being able to show artistic abilities and skill on the yearbook pages.” Hannah Constable said, “I like being able to work on my own ideas and projects. This class is something I re-ally enjoy because I am interested in going into this type of field in col-lege. I am able to express my ideas in multiple ways and use my creative eye. Good communication is some-thing I value.” Trinity Vallow said, “My favorite part has been the year-book because it’s a fun experience to take pictures of other people and it makes you feel like you actually fit in a little bit more than you really do.” Lily Webster said, “My favorite part of A/V Print would be my per-sonal project (taking on the role of the newspaper editor) because I enjoy being able to see the final product and get feed-back from the community on the work that I’ve done, along with the work of my class-mates.” Mackenzie Kletch said, “the best part about A/V Print is that you get to work with your classmates to share ideas and create things like the yearbook together and make it unique.’’ Nikkita said, “The best part of AV Print has been making memories and always laughing with the people in-volved in this class.” And finally, my favorite part about the class is how open everyone in the class is with each other, because of the openness it makes this class really easy to share ideas and work together or projects. Being in this class is a very fun and hard task, however at the end of the day you always know that there will be laughs and friends, but most im-portantly, there will always be more work.

By: Mackenzie KletschSenior Staff

Let’s do a recap of this last sea-sons football team. Mr. Wagner the head coach, gave some insight of how the season went. Johnson Creek Boys Football finished 8-3 with a Division six playoff. “Obviously we would like to win all of our games but we had a great season. Very proud of our players” Wagner expresses. Af-ter every game the team would come together to do an unknown ritual with Mr. Wagner. The highlight of their 2019 season was beating Win-nebago Lutheran in a D6 playoff game. This years seniors walk out of the team with 31 wins in the last

four years. Mr. Wagner explains that he loves this group of seniors, “they were outstanding student athletes who competed and excelled”. Senior Justin Swanson has played football all four years of his career. Swan-son was selected all star conference and believed that it was an honor “it shows that my competitors hold me in high regard”. Justin expressed that throughout the season the team continuously pushed each other. “We

made sure that we were never satis-fied and kept pushing ourselves to be a better team.” Justin expressed. The team always made it a priority to push their teammates to do their best as well as to put trust into their team-mates as they do their job. The teams most memorable highlight was that their first Division six playoff game in school history. Justin is very grateful for the experience he had, “ I would just like to say that it was truly a blessing to be able to compete with every single one of my teammates for the past four years.” Senior Sam Budig, has been an all time confer-ence athlete two years in a row and much like other players, his favor-ite highlight was beating Winnebago Lutheran.”... at practice we worked a lot on individual fundamentals, and then team drills”. The seniors were sad that the season came to an end, but are excited to open a new chapter

in their life. As for Mr. Wagner and the other coaches for next season, they are all excited and ready to teach more, as well as learn more, making sure that the athletes are giving their all. Coaches are ready to coach and athletes are ready to work hard.

AV Print Productions Football Team Enjoyed Success

High School

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By: Jasmine TolsmaSenior Staff

This year’s AP Computer Science class has 16 students in it, which is a huge growth compared to last year which had four students during the first year it was offered. I am one of the 16 students in the AP Computer Science class and it is very interest-ing. We take a look at the parts com-puters that most people don’t even think about. We have been taught about how people hack into sys-tems and how easy it is for people to steal your information. We have also learned about pixels in an im-age and how all of those pixels form together to create one picture. Hav-ing a bigger class makes it more fun to be in because you get to hear how different people interpret ideas and concepts and compare them to your own way of thinking. Mr Perucco is the teacher of the AP Computer Sci-ence class and he says that “a bigger class means more students are get-ting exposed to computer science. Realistically, our world revolves around computers and technology. I believe by exposing more students to how computers work, we are better preparing students for the workforce and post-secondary education.” In-terest in the computer sciences has boomed in recent years, students are becoming more interested in learn-ing about the technology we use on a daily basis. Mr Perucco says that an-other reason why a larger class is bet-ter is because “we are able to do more

group work. As you’ve seen so far, a lot of our lessons revolve around in-teracting with classmates. This will continue to be the case as we get into something called pair programming. With a class of just four, it was really difficult to diversify ideas or have as much creative input as we do now. I’m really happy with the size of the class and the effort being put in by the students. I hope that the computer science program at JC continues to grow.”

By: Emily TolsmaSenior Staff

The Johnson Creek High School volleyball team has been going strong for years and years, allow-ing girls to find a team and make new friends. However, this year they welcomed a new member to the team, Ralph Hombsch. Ralph has done what most guys fear to do, he joined the volleyball team. To do so, Ralph had to make a couple sacri-fices like devoting his time, energy, and even quitting football. Because of all of the friends and connections Ralph made from football, this was a difficult decision, but a decision well made. He stated “Growing up foot-ball was never my favorite sport, I loved watching it but never enjoyed playing it. Most people love hitting other people but I was never one of those people who enjoyed hitting or getting hit.” Because of volleyball he had made even more friends, except without the hitting.

Growing up Ralph gained a lot of knowledge about volleyball due to both of his sisters, who both played in school and club volleyball. “I knew

all the rules and calls but I’d never practice volleyball besides playing on the beach or in my backyard. So, I guess I learned how to become more of a well-rounded volleyball player from this team.”

In the beginning of the season Ralphs original plan was to just help out at practices by playing against the girls, and doing drills with them but, then a member on the team con-vinced him to go help with the games and help with stats, then he became a manager. Being a part of the volley-ball team was quite crazy for Ralph, just being at a practice of all girls was a big change. But he enjoyed every minute of it just practicing with the girls and making them laugh and ul-timately getting closer with them was the best part for him. There were a lot of good memories shared this year, Ralph shared, “My favorite memory of volleyball was probably the third

week of practice when we were serv-ing and Brooke was standing by the net picking up a ball. Meanwhile I was trying to serve the ball as hard as I could and sure enough I served a volleyball right into Brooke’s fore-head. A close second to my favorite part is when we played Deerfield for the conference title and I took it upon myself to get the girls hyped up, so before the game I went into the locker room and gave a speech. This speech was about doing whatever it takes to help your team, needless to say I had a worm wiggling around in my mouth the whole speech and when I pulled it out they all went crazy.” So, throughout the season Ralph learned a lot about the lives of a volleyball player and all of the crazy fun adven-tures that come with it. No mistakes were made however, memories were.

AP Computer Science Attracts More Students Than Ever Be-fore

Girl’s Volleyball Gains An Unex-pected Member

Athletics

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By: Hannah ConstableSenior Staff

With college applications under-way, many seniors are planning for their future after high school. Some also must make the decision of whether or not they will be continu-ing their athletic career collegiately. So far, three athletes have made their commitment to their future teams, and there are more to come. National signing week took place beginning on November 20th, the official days that colleges are able to announce those athletes that will be joining their 2020 team. Although nobody in

Johnson Creek took part in this spe-cific week, some have already made their decision.

Brooke Joseph, a three-sport ath-lete, has decided to continue playing softball at Bryant & Stratton. This college is located in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and is about 40 minutes away from Johnson Creek. There, she is planning on earning her Gen-Ed’s until she figures out what she wants to study. “I love the sport and I wasn’t ready to be done with it,” she answered. “Also, it’s beneficial to help pay for college as well.” When asked why she chose Bryant & Strat-ton, she simply replied, “I instantly fell in love. I’m most excited about the housing, but I’m also really excit-ed to be surrounded by hard-working people who will push me.” Brooke

expressed that she cannot wait for college to start.

Additionally, Hannah Con-stable will be continuing her running career as a Big Ten Conference ath-lete at the University of Minnesota. When asked what she planned on running, she responded, “I definitely will be running indoor/outdoor track, but I haven’t decided if I will contin-ue running cross country. The coach-es have expressed their interest in me doing so.” Hannah shared that run-ning in college was a ‘no-brainer’. “I couldn’t see myself not running. Actually, I mostly based my college choice on the team itself.” Hannah

said she was also looking at the University of Wiscon-sin, but it didn’t feel like the right fit. “From the be-ginning, Minnesota caught my eye. They had been communicating with me since my sophomore year,” she shared. “Then, when I took my official tour, I just fell instantly in love with the campus, team, and cul-ture. Both my parents and I were truly amazed by ev-erything they had to offer

for student-athletes. It all felt like a dream come true.” Hannah says that she plans on studying communica-tions, but doesn’t know exactly what area. When asked what her college goals were, she replied, “I’m really excited to be part of a large team, especially with the girls. A big girls’ team is something I’ve never had. I hope that I can be part of a team that wins the Big Ten conference. I think I have a long way to go, but I also hope to be a Big Ten champion and make it to nationals.”

Finally, Mateah Roehl is plan-ning to continue her wrestling career past high school. North Central Col-lege is one of her options. There, she plans to study psychology with the goal of earning her doctorate degree. When asked, she said that she had no

plans to give up wrestling after high school. “It’s always been a dream of mine,” she said. “For a while, I didn’t think that I would be able to wrestle in college because no universities had women’s wrestling, but recently many women’s teams have emerged.” When asked why she is pos-sibly choosing to continue wrestling par-ticularly at North Central, she replied, “As soon as the coach con-tacted me, I loved his coaching phi-losophies, and they fit in with the values that I already had.” Mateah also expressed that she is very ex-cited to be surrounded by people that have the same passion as her. Mate-ah also has big goals for the future. “My goal by senior year of college is to be a national champion. Further down the line, qualify for the 2024 Olympic Trials.” Although she is interested in North Central, she also expressed that she is still open to other universities. These other schools are Stevens Point, Augsburg, York, Lakeland, and Campbellsville. Her decision is not yet final. Mateah also thanks her coaches, teammates, family, and friends who have supported her.

Besides these three athletes, there are more that are continuing to search. Justin Swanson is one of them. He plans to continue play-ing baseball. “I chose this sport for two reasons,” Justin said. “The first reason is that it is truly a sport where the mental aspect is expo-nentially more important than the physical aspect. The second rea-son is because growing up, I made my greatest memories while play-

ing baseball and it has always been the sport I’ve found myself wanting more of it.” Justin expressed that he plans on making his decision closer to spring, but is most seriously con-

sidering the Milwaukee School of Engineering or North Park Univer-sity. “The most important thing for me in my decision-making process for schools has been finding a school where I can balance receiving a qual-ity education while also playing for a competitive sports program,” Justin explained. Justin plans to study some area is engineering, but is not sure

Senior Athletes Announce Their College Expierence

Giving Back

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By: Hannah ConstableSenior Staff

As Christmas comes around, the National Honors Society prepares for the annual Jefferson County Christmas Neighbors. For two weeks in November, a food drive was run through the entire district to collect items that can be donated. During these weeks, grades compete to see who can donate the most items to be rewarded with a party. This year, a total of 959 items were donated. The 8th and 10th-grade classes were able to come in first and win the competi-tion. Additionally, teachers were able to benefit from donating. By paying $20, they received a ‘jean pass’ in which they were excused to wear jeans for the entire month of Decem-ber. A total of $870 was raised and donated as well.

On December 10th, NHS headed to the Jefferson County fairgrounds

to spend the day setting up for the event by organizing, labeling, and moving items into the warehouse. Food, clothing, toys, and other items are sorted throughout the building, involving multiple tasks that our stu-dents helped with. “Toys and cloth-ing need to be organized and priced, canned food gets labeled, potatoes and sausage are counted and bagged, boxes are assembled, and the food is

sorted,” explains NHS advisor, Mrs. Christian. “Christmas Neighbors is special to the NHS because it gives the students an opportunity to give back to the community. The students work ex-tremely hard and feel great about all they have accomplished.”

This volunteering event is something that students look forward to every year. Justin Swanson, NHS presi-dent, explains why. “I look forward to being able to help members of our community around Christmas time and see-ing how happy Christ-mas Neighbors makes them.” Justin is one of the few mem-bers that volunteers both of the days. “On the second day, people come to Christmas Neighbors to shop for their families,” explained Mrs. Chris-

tian. Our bilingual students help the families shop and translate the infor-mation as needed.” Justin, along with other four year Spanish students and native speakers, gets to see first hand what kind of impact that Christmas Neighbors has on the community. “On the second it feels very busy be-cause there are so many people help-ing and coming in looking through stuff. The families always seem very

happy,” Justin explained. “I enjoy being there both days, but I’d say the second day if I had to pick because you get to see how your volunteering

makes others happy and grateful.”Johnson Creek continues to be

positively recognized for the hard work our students do. “I received many compliments about our stu-dents from the adult volunteers,” Mrs. Christian shared. “I was told that the Johnson Creek students stand out above the rest of the student vol-unteers because they work so hard all day long. Another adult told me that they love having Johnson Creek students because they can depend on them to get the job done.” It’s easy to see that the enjoyment of volunteer-ing really shows and is something that Johnson Creek will continue to be a part of and hopefully make a positive difference in the community

By: Nakkita ShawlinSenior Staff

As many are aware, the John-son Creek School District has been

working on building baseball and softball fields for our teams. On No-vember 9, 2019, the school district hosted a gala to help raise funds for

this cause at the Elks Lodge located in Water-town, Wisconsin. The main organizer, Richard Wrensch, helped fur-ther my knowledge and answer a few questions regarding the gala. Mr. Wrensch stated that the night started off with a “cocktail hour” that lasted from 4:30 - 6:00 pm. During this time, the silent auction items were displayed with open bidding sheets.

After the cocktail hour, dinner was held and provided by Glenn’s Market of Watertown. As dinner finished up, so did the silent auction. Following, Wrensch and Lyle Wuestenberg gave a short presentation to thank the sponsors, donor, and guests while introducing the celebrity guests. These celeb-rity guests included Lynn Dickey, a former quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, Bill Michaels, a sports talk show host, and comedian Scott Novotny. After the celebrity guests gave their presentations, the silent auction was held and lasted until approximately 9:30pm. The auction items included gift cards, baskets containing food items, and even au-tographed items. As the auction end-ed, live music was presented by the Bobby Friss Band closing the night at 11:00pm. Richard Wrensch men-tions how successful the night was by stating that $55,000 was raised that evening thanks to the many sponsors and people that attended. With the help of the Gala, students of the Johnson Creek School District should see brand new softball and baseball fields in the near future.

Community Feels The Christmas Spirit

Gala raises OTOD funds

Non-Profit Organization

U.S. Postage

PAID

Permit No. 12

Johnson Creek, WI 53038

Johnson Creek School DistrictThe Jay Newspaper

Johnson Creek School District455 Aztalan St.PO Box 39Johnson Creek, WI 53038www.johnsoncreek.k12.wi.us

School BoardRichard Wrensch, President Mark Siewert, Vice President June Kolaske, Treasurer Heidi Hartz, Clerk Duane Draeger Jennifer MaluegKen Johnson

RESIDENT

Referendum Announcement

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