FFA Banquet awards members and community

Nathan Wheeler awards Keith Brake  with the Blue and Gold Award at the FFA Banquet on Thursday, March 15.

by Vincent Bushong

The Montezuma FFA wrapped up this year with the annual Parent-Member Banquet on Thursday, March 15.

 The events included presentation of awards for FFA members, parents and community members and scholarships for senior members, as well as the installation of the 2012-2013 officers. To end the banquet, the annual work auction fundraiser was held, bringing in $10,600. 

The awards presented to 9-12 grade members were the Scholarship Awards, the Leadership Awards and the Outstanding Service Awards. 

Awards for Career Development Events (CDE’s) were presented to the following teams: Business Management, Agriculture Sales, Agriculture Communications, Marketing Plan, Soil Judging and Conduct of Meetings. 

CDE awards for individual events were Radio Broadcasting, Job Interview, and Individual Agriculture Sales. 

Awards given to members of the community for their support for the FFA were the Outstanding Mom Award, presented to Shawn Doty; Outstanding Dad Award, presented to Kevin Osborn; Outstanding Parents Award, presented to Don and Betsy Cranston; and the Blue and Gold Award, presented to Keith Brake.

Scholarship Awards for the senior members were the Montezuma FFA Scholarship; the Rempp FFA Achievement Scholarship, awarded to Nathan Wheeler; and Matt Mann’s scholarship, awarded to Nathan Wheeler and Aly James. 

The Star Greenhand award was given to Vincent Bushong and Clara Johnson, and the Star Chapter award was given to Nathan Wheeler, Kendra Doty and Kendra Cranston. 

Members of the 2012-2013 officer team, as voted on by all members of the Montezuma FFA, are: President Tyler Swenson, Vice-President Halley Ogan, Secretary Norman Martin, Treasurer Courtney Petersen, Reporter Carly Steele, and Sentinel Colleen Johnston. Assistant officers include Vincent Bushong, Katelyn Gregory, Karah Hansen, Abbi Nelson, Steven Kopp and Jack Little.

Kony 2012 Youtube video makes an impact on Montezuma

by Morgan Sanders

I’m sure you have heard about the Kony 2012 video on Facebook or Twitter. If not, Kony 2012 is a video about a warlord named Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and their actions in central Africa. 

The video brings light to the subject and shows how The Invisible Children plans to “make him famous”. The video’s goal is to raise awareness. After being posted to Youtube, the video had over 70 million views in just seven days. 

The LRA has been kidnapping children for over 26 years and making them into sex slaves and child soldiers. They have kidnapped over 30,000 children. 

In the video it mainly shows the violence happening in Uganda, but it is also happening in Sudan and Congo. Kony  has made his way to the top of the International Crime Councils list for most wanted criminal. 

Invisible Children was created in 2003 after three filmmakers went to Africa looking for a story. After returning from their trip and people viewing their footage, people wanted to help and created the organization.

They first started working in Uganda in 2005. In Uganda, Invisible Children works with locals to develop programs where there are needed on the ground. Their mission is to use film, creativity and social attention to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Kony’s rebel war and restore LRA-affected communities in Central Africa to peace and prosperity. 

This campaign has been called Kony 2012 because it is a time sensitive mission. Right now, the United States has 100 troops stationed in Africa helping them with the repairs of the damage of the LRA. 

At Montezuma, students and teachers are interested after watching the video and want to make a change. In Miss Farrington’s  current issues class, students are writing letters to policymakers about how they feel about the subject. In the video, it states that in order to raise awareness they are involving 12 policymakers and 20 celebrities to raise awareness. 

After watching the video, my personal reaction was that I wanted to do something to stop Kony. I believe this is the reaction most people have after viewing it. 

There are many things you can do to raise awareness; you can order the action kit, sign a pledge, donate money and repost the video to Facebook.

I ordered an action kit as my contribution. Many people have supported the cause, but I have also heard a lot of criticism about Kony 2012 and what Invisible Children really is. This is not anything the government has started; it was started by a nonprofit organization to raise awareness and to raise funds to help stop it and help the victims recover.

If you have any questions or want to learn visit www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html and www.kony2012.com.

Boys track gears up for the season

by Andrea Farrington

The boys track season is starting off with warm weather and a total of 24 boys on the team, which includes three seniors, six juniors, seven sophomores, and eight freshmen.

The three seniors out this year are Stephen Vavroch, Shane Lyons and Matt Armstrong. They are all looking forward to the upcoming season.

Lyons says, “My goals for this season are to maintain good grades, get back in shape and stay involved.” He has been out for track for two years.

Vavroch’s goal is to make it to state, and it is his fourth consecutive year.

This year is Armstrong’s first year out for track. His goal is to have fun.

Coach VanVeen said, ”I am looking forward to seeing how much our returning athletes have improved from one year to the next. We have some very solid kids coming back from last year. We’ll need them to make that jump for us to compete in the conference. We also have some promising newcomers that need to make an impact.”

The boys kicked off their season with an invitational indoor meet on Tuesday, March 13 at Iowa State University.

Four advance to All-State

by Natalie Kirton

On Saturday, March 10, 14 students had the opportunity to perform in front of three judges while at the State Speech & Drama competition in Clinton, a two-hour drive from Montezuma. Some students chose to leave the night before competition and stay in a hotel. Others woke early in the morning and rode in a group to the school. 

Students whose performance received an over-all I rating were Luke Goodman, Cassie Corbin, Alyssa Lyddon, Aly James, Mariah Hirsch, Shena Bryan, Clara Johnson, Karah Hansen and Abbi Nelson. Macy Taylor and Destiny Romberg received over-all I ratings in two categories. 

Zach Gibson and Niall Lyons received II ratings, while Seth Fahlenkamp received II ratings in two categories. 

“We had an awesome season and everyone worked really hard! Liesl Roorda and Derek Bates deserve a huge thanks for all the time they spent getting us to where we are now,” said Hirsch. 

Four of these students received the honor of moving on and performing at the All-State program, hosted in Cedar Falls at the University of Northern Iowa. These students are Hirsch in Storytelling, Taylor in Literary Program, Goodman in Prose and Johnson in Storytelling. They will be performing their pieces on Monday, March 26, beginning at 8:30 a.m.