The Raider Review December 2019 Meyersdale Area High School

Big Win for Winter Concert On December 12th, family, parents, and the community arrived to watch the annual Christmas Concert at our school. Throughout the past months, Middle School and High School band and chorus have been practicing to share their musical talents with the community and their peers. It is a way for students to show the hard work and dedication put into the arts, and the enriching qualities music has. When interviewing one student, he explained all the hard work that went into the concert. “I spent a lot of time practicing, and because of that I feel con-fident that the concert will go well,” said Casey Beitzel. Most students had the same reaction, ready to show their talent to the community. The Winter Con-cert isn’t just a place for students to show their musical talent. It’s also a way for the school to share festive spirit

while we near Christ-mas. Not only was the auditorium decked out in jolly decorations, the chorus and bands’ ar-rangements were full of classic Christmas mu-sic. High School chorus sung pieces such as Mary Sat a Rockin’, There is Faint Music, and Winter Wonderland. Some were pieces with a more reli-gious tone such as Mary

By Jeanette Hutzell

Sat a Rockin’ and There is a Faint Music and oth-ers were closer to classics like Winter Wonderland. The band also showed festive spirit with their music. High School band also sported three pieces; All the Angels we Heard on High, The Carol of the Bells, and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. Where Carol of the Bells put

more significance into different dynamics, Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer was a fun piece poking fun at the classic holiday movie. Middle school band helped show the growth that the music students went through between each grade. 6th and 7th grade students played Little Drummer

Boy, Christmas Fantasy, and Believe. Each piece had its own challenges for each student and sec-tion. One student I inter-viewed told me he loved Christmas Fantasy the best because of the xylo-phone part he was able to play. Another student told me he enjoyed play-ing Believe because of its appearance in “The Polar Express”. The Christmas Concert not only allows students to show their musical abilities and share the festive spirit, but it also lets the com-munity stop and take part on the music them-selves. DJ Roush shared this sentiment with me. “It promotes students and parents to be apart of that cultural experience that comes with music,” DJ says. All in all the Christmas Concert brought joy to the faces of many, and reminded people of the true mean-ing of Christmas - to care, share, and give to one another.

Meyersdale High School’s chorus presents itself and its talent to the community during the Winter Concert. Photo by Heidi Whitfield.

Annual Chorus WJAC Recording Session

On December 11th of this year, Meyers-dale Area High School’s chorus group traveled to Johnstown to record two of their songs for a broadcasting channel called WJAC. This is the second year in a row that our chorus has been invited to do so. They performed a song called “There is Faint Music” by Dan Forrest. It is a very soft, melodic tune that speaks of the night Jesus was born unto Mary. The second song the group performed held the same theme but in a different approach. “Mary Sat A

Rockin” by Greg Gilpin is a song with a layered sound. Each voice part is singing a different line or the same line in a dif-ferent key all at the same time. “Mary Sat A Rock-in was my favorite just because of how cool it sounded once it all came together. It was a cool change from the kind of songs we usually do and I think the audience enjoyed it,” said Jaden Blough, a Meyersdale high school junior and an active soprano 2 in the Meyersdale chorus. “While “Mary Sat A Rockin” was a crowd

favorite, other members of the chorus had dif-fering opinions. “I liked ‘There is Faint Music’ because of how pretty it sounded with all the parts blending together. It also gave me more of a Christmas feeling,” said Kyler Murray, a Meyers-dale high school senior and an active bass in the Meyersdale chorus. The recording will be aired on Christ-mas day on WJAC for the community to enjoy so make sure to tune in to watch Meyersdale’s chorus perform another beautiful concert.

By Abbie Simpson

Meyersdale’s chrous group has the pleasure of traveling to record two songs for broadcast every year. Photo provided by WJAC.

News December 2019 The Raider Review Page 2NHS Holiday

Activities Meyersdale Na-tional Honors Society members volunteered for holiday activities with children at Penn Alps Spruce Village on De-cember 6th and 7th. The volunteers individually worked four hour shifts icing cookies, from 4 to 8 p.m. on the 6th and 12 to 8 p.m. on the 7th. NHS member Karlee Logs-don commented, “It was a positive experience for

me. I like volunteering because it makes me feel good.” The club engages in volunteer activities throughout the commu-nity and for many differ-ent organizations, such as Somerset County Mobile Food Bank and the Four Diamonds Fund. Fellow member Kahylee Shaffer explained, “We basically do a lot of volunteering for multiple organiza-tions. We are known for

For the first time, Christmas At The Man-or included a live nativ-ity scene which was pro-vided by the Meyersdale FFA Chapter. The festive event took place on the evening of Saturday Nov. 24 at Maple Festival Park. Freshmen Hannah Emer-ick brought goats; sopho-more Alexia Law contrib-uted her donkey; junior

helping the community.” NHS is only one of several service clubs that students can join at MAHS, volun-teering being an easy way to give back to others. When asked if the activ-ity was enjoyable for her-self and for the children, Kahylee responded, “Yes, because we got to volun-teer to make a kid’s day better. Yes, because I like to volunteer and not ex-pect anything in return.” All in all, the holidays are a time for spirits of good-will and kindness to be encouraged, and commu-nity activities, along with service, present an oppor-tunity for that.

Abby Shuck, Vice Presi-dent of the FFA, took in her calf; and senior Jacob Sandy brought a lamb. All students wore costumes to authenticate the Biblical scene. Julie Kretchman, who organizes Christmas At The Manor, stated, “Ev-eryone loved it! We had so many wonderful com-ments. The students and the animals did a wonder-ful job.”

Seniors Karlee Logsdon and Kahylee Shaffer take time for a quick picture while preparing to pass out cookies. Photo by Kylie Bittner.

Christmas At The Manor

Members of the Meyersdale FFA Chapter dressed up and included several animals in

their new nativity scene. Photo by Elizabeth Sayler.

County Chorus and Band Concert

The 2019 annual Somerset County Chorus Festival was held at Mey-ersdale Area High School on November 28th and 29th. Many students par-ticipated in this activ-ity and went through two days of fun yet hard days. Students were chosen to represent their school, and learn music within two days to present a con-cert on the last day of the festival. The senior high chorus participants practiced for two full days under the direction of Dr. Kym Scott. The di-rector had selected many pieces of music for the participants to learn that consisted of a variety of different styles of music. Meyersdale Area High School’s Choir Director. Labrina Ritchey, states “I

believe that students earn a broad perspective of cul-tural experiences during the festival.” When asked how the county chorus festival impacts the stu-dents that participate. Meyersdale Area High Schools 2019 annu-al Christmas Chorus and Band Concert was held on December 12th this year. Both junior high and se-nior high participate in this concert. The cho-rus, under the direction of Miss Labrina Ritchey sang three songs for the audience. Some of the titles included “Mary Sat A Rockin”, and “Winter Wonderland”. The band, under the direction of Mrs. Katie Howard also played three songs for the audience Thursday night. Some of the titles played

included “Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer”, and “Angels We Have Heard On High”. As an annual tradition, alumni are given the chance to sing “Silent Night” with the senior high chorus. Both Howard and Ritchey believe it was a great per-formance put on by the Meyersdale music pro-gram.

By Kylie Bittner

By Elizabeth Sayler

By DJ Roush

Feature December 2019 The Raider Review Page 3

Student Body and Faculty Celebrations

Christmas is a won-derful and magical time of year. Many families get to spend time together by enjoying a big dinner, ex-changing gifts, attending church, or making cook-ies. Many have different perspectives of Christ-mas. For young children, they may view Christmas as a time to get presents and eat cookies. However, for adults, they may view Christmas as a time to be together with family and catch up on their lives. Dan Yoder, a se-nior at Meyersdale High School, “just loves Christ-mas.” Yoder loves Christ-mas because he gets to get together with friends and family to celebrate the holidays. He also gets

to celebrate Jesus’s birth-day. When asked what his favorite Christmas tradition is, Yoder said: “I run to my parent’s room and say ‘Hey! It’s Christ-mas!’ Then, we all run downstairs together and check under the tree for presents. Then, we start opening presents, but we have to wait for my grand-parents to come before we finish.” The Christmas season for Yoder means a time of being with fam-ily and friends: “We get to see all the happy and joy-ful faces that we don’t get to see all the time.” Mr. Schrock is a World Studies and Prob-lems of Democracy teacher at Meyersdale

Follow the Raider Review’s new Twitter!

@RaiderReview2

High School. Mr. Schrock enjoys many things about the Christmas season: “We have a lot of Christ-mas family traditions that I enjoy and it’s an oppor-tunity for my entire fam-ily to be together. It’s the only time that my entire family gets to be togeth-er.” Many families have various Christmas tradi-tions within their family. One of Mr. Schrock’s fa-vorite family traditions is having “a dinner with the whole family on Christ-mas Eve and then we go to church.” Lastly, when asked what this time of year means to him personally, he said, “It is a reminder of the coming of Jesus and the saving work that He has done for us.” Letters from Santa

By Emily Rosenberger

By Kyle Davis

Mr. Shrock demonstrates his unique brand of holiday spirit for a brief moment. Photo by Abbie Simpson.

It has been a tra-dition for over a decade for first graders to write letters to Santa. Mr. Smer-beck’s classes had taken on the task of responding to those letters. Before Christ-mas break, senior high students and occasional faculty and staff become

Santa and/or his elves to deliver the first graders letters from Santa. This year, Mrs. Hetz and Mrs. Deakins’ students helped out Santa and wrote letters in re-sponse. Mr. Swick played the part of Santa and Lar-issa Miller and Laken Hay served as the elves.

A dedicated Mr. Swick fills in for the always-busy Santa Claus when visiting the

children of Meyersdale Elementary School. Photo provided by Mrs. Hetz.

Feature and OpinionDecember 2019 The Raider Review Page 4

Christmas has long been one of the most over-commercialized and over-saturated holidays in terms of advertising. Since the 1880’s, merchandise relat-ed to the season has been sold in mass quantities for private and public cel-ebrations. Over time, some might argue, this scramble to profit has deadened the original spirit of generosity and kindness the holiday represents. Maybe to the point where the modern celebration is meaningless. Some student opinions on the topic: Devlin Brant, senior, “Yes. there was Christmas stuff out before Thanksgiving. Some of the feeling’s gone out of it but most of it’s still there.”, Jaylen Stephens, junior, “Christmas starts too soon. The spirit depends on who

you’re with, it’s about be-ing with friends and fam-ily.”, John Miller, sopho-more, “Christmas movies come out November 1st and there’s a lot of com-mercials.”, and DJ Roush, freshman, “I don’t think that Christmas is dead in terms of overcommercial-ization, however, I do be-lieve that Christmas has become a less cheerful pe-riod of the year.” Personal-ly, I don’t think that Christ-mas is so far gone. There’s bad aspects to it as there is to anything else, but there’s good in the sense of fami-lies and spending time to-gether. The holiday has a positive impact on society now just as it did hundreds of years ago. Hopefully, that trend continues for a long time.

Is Christmas Dead?

By Kylie BittnerBy Kyle Davis

Survey Results:30 students or faculty from Meyersdale High School responded to a sur-vey reguarding the “Pigeon Issue”. While 86.7% believes they should be allowed to wear hats, 13.3% believed they should not be allowed to wear

hats and that they are a potential harm.

Pigeon Hats

Christmas Decorations

Around the world, Christmas is celebrated in various ways. However, through families’ individu-al traditions, the holiday is made memorable. I personally have many traditions. One of them include receiving a new Hallmark ornament for my tree in my room that symbolizes something important from that year. I feel that every family should have a unique tra-dition that they all enjoy. I also feel that traditions should all be personal, otherwise the holiday feels too commercialized and blandly standard. Amelia Kretchman, freshman, has multiple

traditions as well. “Every Christmas night my fam-ily gets together and the adults gets us kids paja-mas. We also get a picture by our Christmas tree in our pajamas.” Scott Hahn, sopho-more, ventures, “We al-ways start the traditions on Thanksgiving. We draw for a hundred dollar gift card that is given to the winner on Christmas.” Mrs. Hetz’s tradi-tions start before Christ-mas. “On the first day of ri-fle season, my dad and I go Christmas shopping. Since he was never a hunter, the day that everyone would take off to hunt we would shop.”

By Faith Bittner

Recently, the inter-net has been captivated after several videos and photos surfaced via social media depicting pigeons in Las Vegas, Nevada wear-ing cowboy hats. Las Vegas resident Bobby Lee was the first person to record these birds on December 5th. Since then, a small contro-versy has arisen in the city regarding animal rights and abuse from concerned

individuals wondering how the hats are staying on and who is behind this absurd display. Local police and specialty Ornithologists have yet to intervene on the situation. The story hit Mey-ersdale High School when the video was shown in Mr. Stahl’s “Outdoors Forum” PLT last week, sparking mild discussion among the student body.

Senior Chris Thompson openly shared his opinion with us on the issue, “Pigeons deserve to have hats. It’s not inter-fering with their flight or their ability to scavenge food. As long as the animal itself is fine and not harm-ing itself over a little hat I don’t have a problem with it. Plus it’s pretty funny to see”.

Photographed in the controversial hats, these images originally taken by Bobby Lee were released to the public for use via social media.

SportsDecember 2019 The Raider Review Page 5

By Kyle Davis

Rifle

Boys Basketball It’s time for the 2019-2020 boys basket-ball to begin. The team has many veterans and has retained all starters from last year including D. Kretchman, Fisher, R. Kennel, D. Kennel, Reese, and Hetz. Along with these starters will be stars from last years JV team in Hughes, Sheets,J. Kretchman and G.Kretchman. The team is coached by Joe Kretch-

man and Kevin Yoder. Coach Yoder said, when asked about how the season is going to go, “. We have a very talented locker room and hope to go far with our sea-soned veterans.”. When asked about the upcom-ing season senior Devin Kretchman said,”I’m excited about the upcom-ing season, because we have a lot of depth in our team who have diverse

WrestlingBy Regan Gindlesperger As most people are “grappling” to get ready for Christmas, Meyersdale Red Raider wrestlers are preparing for what they hope to be a successful season. Dur-ing the 2018-2019 season, the team posted 10 wins and 8 losses. Coach Craig Tresnickey is confident that “his veteran wrestlers will help lead and prepare the younger wrestlers that have moved up to varsity to be prepared and ready to compete at the var-sity level.” After talking with Coach Tresnicky, it was very clear that he is excited to watch is team improve throughout the season and compete in upper level tournaments. Their first tournament was on Saturday, Decem-ber 7 in Blairsville, PA; the day concluded with 5 wins and 0 losses, bring-ing home the 1st place trophy. Sophomore at MAHS, Evan Thompson, states “ I feel that it should

go fairly well, we have a good amount of kids in the line up, so I think we will conclude with a very successful season.” It is easily deter-mined that the Meyers-dale Red Raider Wrestling team has high hopes of being successful and end-ing their season with a re-cord of a little over 500. The team includes three returning seniors: Drake Gindlesperger, Nick Ackerman, and Salis-bury’s Jonah Smith. Other members of the team in-clude: Bryant Most, Jalen Stephans, Noah Wilt, Evan Thompson, Kyle Robertson, Pablo Quinto-Martinenz, Trevor Don-aldson, Matthew Boyce, Collin Krause, Gavin Topper, Drake Troutman, and Austin Broadwater and Thomas Smith from Salisbury. The first home match of the season is against Northern Garrett on December 17. Come out to support the varsity wrestlers.

By Ani Beitzelskills” Due to the lack of students participating in junior high basketball, the freshman including the talented duo of N. Kretchman and Aldinger will be playing for the junior high team. Fresh-man Noah Krethman says,”I feel optimistic about the upcoming sea-son. I have very talented teammates” when asked about the season.

Meyersdale’s Mixed Rifle Varsity team participated in their first official match Tuesday, December 17th against Berlin. Meyersdale beat Berlin 1357 to 1240, a new school record. The team has 20 students, split evenly with 10 upperclassmen

and 10 underclassmen, which include seniors Lindsay Robertson, Tris-tin Donica, and Sammi Shrock. Each have scored an average close to 300 with Lindsay holding a 270, Tristan holding a 269, and Sammi holding a 268. One upperclass-men that has scored

well is junior Eric Baker with a yearly average of 260. All these members have made it to the state team for the Rifle Varsity team. The team prac-tices at the range in the magistrates office where home matches are also held at 4:00 p.m. If you attend a home match there will be a live score count and a feed on a television to watch the shooters.

Meyersdale’s Boys Basketball team stands proud at an away game. Photo provided by Jaden Cerreta.

Meyersdale Wrestlers pose for a group photo. Photo pro-vided by Jaden Cerreta.

SportsDecember 2019 The Raider Review Page 6

By Hailey Miller, Rachel Daughton, and DJ Roush The Red Raider Girls Basketball team is off to a 0-1 start after fall-ing to Southern Fulton in their first game of the season. The team, under the direction of return-ing coaches Fred Walters and Jim Kretchman, are looking forward to another great season of Meyersdale basketball. The team has two returning seniors, Jaden Cerreta and Marisa Walters. There are four juniors; Abbi Benning, Alix Tipton, Lauren Kretchman and Ol-ivia Miller. Sophomores; Linzee Emerick, Emily Abraham, and Darsea Robertson. Freshmen; Haley Miller, Amelia Kretchman and Rachel Daughton. Unlike the Boys Varsity Basketball

team, ninth grade team members will be compet-ing at the Junior Varsity level. Seniors Marisa and Jaden agreed that they’re excited to be playing together, but they wish more girls in their grade would go out for basket-ball. Varsity coach, Fred Walters stated “I love to see players get better and teach them how to grow as a player and an individual.” Junior varsity coach, Jim Kretchman, stated “I enjoy seeing my players grow into young adults.” The team began having open gyms in September and started practicing in November and has competed in sev-eral scrimmages includ-ing Northern Garrett and Fort Hill.

Girls Basketball The Rooney RuleBy Ani Beitzel Recently, the NFL has added a guideline called the Rooney Rule, hoping to aid in dis-crimination within the NFL. The Rooney Rule - named after Steelers’ late owner Dan Rooney - states that NFL teams must interview a person of color/minority for

coaching and administra-tive jobs. However, the league has not followed the Rooney Rule as strongly as it should. In the start of the 2019 season, 3 head coaches were minorities. With the firing of Ron Rivera, only 2 remain, which are Anthony Lynn of the Los Angeles Char-

gers and Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Along with Chris Grier, the Miami Dolphins’ General Manager, these three are the only men of color in high standing careers. With tensions about racism growing everyday, will the com-missioner decide to make the Rooney Rule stricter?

Action shots of the Red Raiders Girl Basket-ball team.

Photo Provided by Olivia Miller.

The Varsity Rifle Team practicing to beat another school record. Photo pro-

vided by Maddy Faner.

OpinionDecember 2019 The Raider Review Page 7

Screen TimeBy Elizabeth Sayler In the fall of 2018, Apple added “Screen Time” to iOS 12. This fea-ture, located in the Set-tings app, monitors the amount of time spent daily on the phone and records the weekly aver-age in minutes and hours. According to CNN, U.S teens use screens, includ-ing TVs, computers, etc. for more than 7 hours per day. Most of that time

is spent on smartphones, such as iPhones, which are convenient for checking social media (Instagram and Snapchat) and watch-ing YouTube, TV shows, and movies (Disney+ and Netflix). One Meyersdale junior spends almost 5 hours a day on her phone. Therefore, 2.5 months per year is consumed by screen time. One Meyers-dale freshman spends an average of 8.5 hours per

day on his phone, which is equal to approximately 4.3 months per year. This leaves only 7.7 months to live (not subtracting time for sleeping). By the time he turns 18, he will have spent over a year of his life on his phone. At this rate, by the time he turns 80 years old, he will have spent 23.4 years of his life on his phone. This is al-most one-third of his life.

Christmas TraditionsBy Emily Rosenberger The Christmas season is full of many traditions. Families deco-rate their homes together in anticipation for the upcoming holiday, at-tend Christmas church services on Christmas Eve, exchange and open gifts Christmas morning, and gather together for a

big dinner on Christmas day. One of my favorite Christmas traditions is a dinner that I have with my family before Christmas day. For this dinner, we do not have the typical ham or tur-key, mashed potatoes, or stuffing. We eat foods like: deer tenderloin,

broccoli salad, buffalo chicken dip, etc…. After dinner, we exchange gifts and spend the rest of the evening together. This is my favorite holiday tradition because I get to spend time with my fam-ily and enjoy good food.

With smartphone use becoming more and more prom-inent among users, it should be no surprise problems sometimes arise in the classroom. In a staged photo,

Mrs. Deakins lays down the law on Senior Megan Holler. Photo by Kyle Davis.

Junior Jeanette Hutzell demonstrates the act of tree decorating to get into the holiday spirit.

Photo by Kyle Davis.

The Middle School participates in an annual hallway

caroling event, sit-ting in the halls and singing to Christmas songs. Lydia Renzi and Laura Boyce. Photo by

Mercedes Wilt.

OUT NOWButterfly Death Metal - Krampus the Rampus and the Electric Harmonica! Avaliable via YouTube and SoundCloud!Note: Butterfly Death Metal and all similar pieces of artistic ex-pression are not en-dorsed by the Raider Review or MASD

ArtDecember 2019 The Raider Review Page 8

The Raider ReviewKyle Davis & Abbie Simpson - Editors in Chief

Kylie Bittner - News EditorEmily Rosenberger - Feature EditorElizabeth Sayler - Opinion Editor

Ani Beitzel - Sports EditorJaden Cerreta - Photography Editor

StaffMaria Kimmel, Jeanette Hutzell, Laura Boyce, Faith

Bittner, Lillian Clark, Rachel Daughton, Regan Gindlesperger and Haley Miller

We at the Raider Review value the art cre-ated by the students of Meyersdale. In the future we would like to extend our efforts to highlight the creations students want displayed by pos-sibly introducing an “Art Page” section to the Raid-er Review. Although while

Art PageBy Staff

“Santa Squidward” by Megan Holler“Dino Bois” by Kyle Davis and Chris Thompson“Abstract Man” by Steven Frampton

this page may replace the page 8 opinion section, it allows for a variety of cre-ativity and dynamics that hasn’t been seen in our publication for several years.

How to EnterIf you or someone you know has an interest in art and would like to show off their work in our newspaper, you may con-tact us via email through daviskr@masd.net or shaffeaj@masd.net. You may also submit any

art in-person. Just make sure all submissions are school appropriate and original, non-copyrighted works. We look forward to expanding this section of the paper in future edi-tions!