Students and staff celebrate the holiday spirit

Allison Pargeon awards David Brondyke with a ribbon for winning the Ugliest Sweater Contest at the school’s assembly before winter break on Dec. 22.

by Morgan Sanders

With the holidays just around the corner, Montezuma students and staff show their holiday spirit with their attire. 

Monday was holiday hats day, Tuesday was holiday socks and ties day, Wednesday was red and green day and last but not least, Thursday was ugly sweater day.  

Throughout the week, after giving one last test before break, many classes had holiday parties or watched movies in class to unwind before break. 

Thursday afternoon at 2:00 p.m., students and teachers piled into the junior high gymnasium for the assembly. To start the assembly, the band performed the songs “God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Deck the Halls.”

Then, the teachers entertained with a production of the song “Carol of the Bells.” 

After students had got a good look at the teachers’ sweaters, the second annual ugly sweater contest began. The teachers anxiously waited while students cheered or jeered at their sweaters. Determined to defeat previous champion, Keith Sietstra, teachers brought their A-game. Multiple teachers had light up sweaters and some of the men simply wore very small sweater vests and turtleneck shirts. This year, David Brondyke won with a sweater vest featuring a snowman he made using cotton balls  and pipe cleaners.  He was awarded with a ribbon to commemorate the event.  

To end the assembly, the band performed a “Holiday Medley” featuring “Jingle Bells,” “Jolly Old St. Nicholas,””Up on the Housetop” and “We Wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Teacher Talk: Stacy Schultz

by Kayla Werner and Elizabeth Ostrem

Stacy Schultz is a 1988 Montezuma graduate and is returning to the school to teach after teaching at Tri-County for four years and Ottumwa for two years. She has also taught at HLV for one semester and previously taught at Montezuma for three years. 

Schultz attended William Penn University to study secondary math education and graduated in December of 2001.She student taught at Montezuma from August 2001 to December 2001. Although she did not participate in any extra activities in college due to being a wife and mother of two children, she was a part of the flags team for two years in high school. 

Schultz decided to become a teacher because she wanted to impact society in a positive way. She also wanted to encourage young people to follow their hearts’ desire and change the world. 

The small school setting and friendly faculty drew Schultz to return to Montezuma. She most enjoys  knowing students and families of the community. 

In her free time, Schultz likes to visit family and friends, cook and go shopping. She enjoys comedies movies and how they make her laugh.

Speech and drama shows its talent

by Vincent Bushong

Every year, Montezuma’s speech and drama participants prepare a variety of different performances for contest. On Thursday, Jan. 5, the students will perform all of these for their parents in a dress rehearsal. The performances begin at 7:00 p.m. at the junior high gym.

The rehearsal provides a chance for all the participants to perform in front of a live audience before they perform for the district large group competition on Jan. 21 at Grinnell High School. This gives them an idea of what kinds of reactions the audience might have and see what areas of their performance need to be polished up and improved. It also gives parents a chance to see the students’ acts if they are not able to attend the competition. 

The performing groups include Freshman Choral Reading, Short Film, Ensemble Acting, Readers’ Theater, Musical Theater and Choral Reading. Derek Bates and Liesel Roorda direct Montezuma’s speech and drama activities with the assistance of Earlene Taylor and Anya Johnson. 

Attending and watching the rehearsals is free; refreshments will be sold in the form of loose-meat hamburgers. All proceeds will help cover entry fees for the speech and drama competitions. 

Montezuma’s speech and drama students put in many hours of practice preparing their performances for district contest. 

Come see the fruits of their labors in action!

JV Bravettes watch rockets take off

by Colton Talbert

Monday, Dec. 19 was a different environment for the Montezuma teams. The girls stayed home while the boys traveled to Eddyville-Blakesburg.  There was also a freshmen game added to the night. 

The Bravettes had another slow start to the night when three minutes passed before either team could get rolling. The Bravettes had turnovers that sent the Rockets off and left the Bravettes trailing 6-14 after the first quarter. The second quarter was almost a repeat of the first.  The half came with the Bravettes still trailing the Rockets 12-29. 

Coach Timm said, “We can’t turn the ball over 19 times in the first half and expect to win. We need to do a better job as a team.” 

The Bravettes had 34 turnovers to end the night. 

Coach Timm also added, “Mentally and physically we have to be ready to play the game. Tonight we had some girls who were ready, but we weren’t ready as a team. Eddyville has a nice group at the JV level, but I feel like at times we let things be way too easy for them on both sides of the floor.” 

The Bravettes had five shots inside while the Rockets had only five shots from outside the lane. Scoring leaders were Courtney Petersen with eight, Cheyenne Peters with four and Mackenzie James with four. Rebound leaders were Petersen (5), Clara Johnson (4), Dakota Norris (3) and Shayla Townsend (3).  The Bravettes were also made five out of 12 from the free throw line. 

The Bravettes will be off until after winter break, returning to action against HLV at home on Jan. 3.

Turn of the Page: 'Frozen Fire'

by Elizabeth Ostrem and Kayla Werner

“Frozen Fire” is a book written by Tim Bowler that begins with a phone call to a girl named Dusty. The voice on the other end, a boy’s, tells her he’s dying. Even though she’s never met the boy, he seems to know things about her, about what she’s thinking and about her older brother Josh, whom she hasn’t seen in years. 

After the call Dusty goes off in search of the boy, following a hunch that he’s at a park nearby her house. She finds a set of footprints and follows them, hoping they belong to the mystery boy, but ends up fleeing from three men with dogs who chase her before she can locate him.

Word of the boy soon starts circulating around her town, rumors that he’s wanted for holding girls hostage and disappearing from another city’s jail. He calls Dusty on her cell phone multiple times, but she fails to get many straight answers from him, especially about her missing brother. 

Some claim to have seen a strange boy in a coat hanging around, although no one’s been able to get close enough to question him without something strange or horrible happening.

Liz:

The mystery and intrigue surrounding the boy really work to draw the reader into the book. Dusty’s mission to find him, thinking that with his help she can find Josh, seems doomed from the start, but that only serves to further strengthen her resolve. 

“Frozen Fire” is a very suspenseful read, with a touch of supernatural and eerie psychological components that will leave readers wanting more.

Kayla:

“Frozen Fire” was a very interesting book to read. I was at home sick when I got the chance to read the book (and I’m glad that I was). I got to read it more carefully and pay closer attention to the detail.

The book really grabbed my interest from the get go and kept me in suspense through the whole thing. The detail that was put into this book is amazing, but the end really threw me off guard. I was not expecting it to end the way it did, but, after all of the reading, the book was wonderful.