TCPS 2023 Buoy

BUOY

A LITERARY ARTS MAGAZINE OF TALBOT COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOL

Volume 2 Spring 2023

BUOY

1.( n ) TO MARK BY OR AS IF BY A FLOAT

2. ( v ) a . TO KEEP AFLOAT B. TO SUPPORT, UPLIFT Faculty

Front Cover Art

Katie Fuentes-Aguilar 5th grade, CDES

Advisor

Lyndsey Basham Curation and Magazine Design Saint Michaels Middle High Art

James Redman Curriculum Supervisor for Fine Arts

Art Teachers

Christie Dugan White Marsh Elementary School

Derek Enzor

Back Cover Art

Alison Lister 5th grade, CDES

Saint Michaels Elementary School & Tilghman Elementary School

Jeremy Joseph Easton Elementary School

Tara Leeson Chapel District Elementary School

Shawn Leffler Easton Middle School

Bridget Whited

Saint Michaels Middle High School

Acknowledgements

Administration

Dr. Sharon Pepukayi TCPS Superintende nt

Dr. Helga Einhorn TCPS Assistant Superintendent

Principals

Dr. Indra Bullock Saint Michaels Elementary School Principal

Dr. Kari Clow Chapel District Elementary School Principal

Mr. Corey Devaric Tilghman Elementary School Principal

Ms. Kelly Murdoch Easton Middle School Principal

Dr. Lisa DeVaric Easton Elementary School Principal

Ms. Kim Seidel White Marsh Elementary School Principal

Mrs. Theresa Vener St. Michaels Middle High School Principal

Inspiring Educators

Thank you Educators for offering creative outlets for your students and inspiring them to submit to Buoy.

Board of Education

Emily Jackson Board President

Candace Henry Board Vice President

Jymil Thompson

Mary E. Wheeler

Amy Dodson

Susan Delean-Botkin

Deborah Bridges

About Buoy :

Buoy would not have happened without the inspirational teachers whose perseverance and energy through these few years continued to inspire students to go beyond the daily curriculum and adventure into the arts, analysis and writing.

The magazine collaboration was the brainstorm of the Gifted and Talented Supervisor, Dr. Sherry Sutton, Carol Reed, and the cohort of art teachers, and the GTI staff.

Most importantly, we thank the five elementary schools and our two middle schools of TCPS. Students were given the opportunity to submit again to continue our voyage and keep us floating along. We hope you enjoy the wide range of selfexpression and emotion our talented students have to offer. Our students, teachers and GT staff and arts cohort thank the Reynolds-Cristano Fund of the Mid-shore Community Foundation and TCPS Education Foundation for their generous funding of this project.

Additional thanks to our staff and faculty at our seven elementary and middle schools:

Chapel District Elementary School, CDES Easton Elementary School, EES Easton Middle School, EMS

Saint Michaels Elementary School, SMES

Saint Michaels Middle High School, SMMS Tilghman Elementary School, TES White Marsh Elementary School, WMES

Hello students! We hope you are ready for another wonderful ride through these pages full of creativity. Please continue creating and using the arts to help you float through life! Hopefully the art in these pages will make you question, make you dream, mak you inspired, and most importantly make you feel! May the arts carry you always!

P.S. How many buoys can you find in this issue? The answer is at the bottom of the last page!

BUOY 2023

Oskar Hudson, 6th Grade SMMS, Digital Painting

4

Hyland Emory WMES, 3rd Grade Marker

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5

Andrew Sanchez SMMS, 8th Grade Oil pastels

Northern Lights

by Lila McDermott 7th grade, SMMS Photoshop Painting

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Moths

Thin layers made of chitin

Building up your wings

The bittersweet feeling

Of life’s tinted things

Like mysteries in the dark

Fluttering through an endless ending

Darkened depths made of daunting death

Changing minds for lines pretending

Bones crossed beneath the soil

Transforming from Sun to Moon

Moths scattering across the melted glass

Night spilling its empty gloom

by Joelle Horney-Weems

8th

grade, EMS

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Rachel Lin

7

8th Grade SMMS Scratchboard

Cool Kid Will Moyer

7th grade SMMS Photomanipulation

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Slamm ers

by Jonah Morris 8th Grade, EMS

I’m up at bat during the 15th inning of the Little League World Series. There are three balls, two strikes, and two outs with the bases loaded. They’re up 10-7 from their last at-bat. Now, it’s all up to me to win this thing or we’re done for the season against our biggest rivals, the Tigers.

Suddenly, I woke up. We’re on the travel bus when my friend, Aaron, calls out to me and says, “We’re all taking a vote for what we should get for lunch and you’re the deciding vote. The king or the clown?”

I respond with, “Let’s get funny!”

I then hear some groans and some cheers, like Aaron’s.

“All of your lunches are all on me!” he says, “Only if you guys help me win this game against the Tigers!”

They all respond by promising him that we’ll win the game. Then I remember that we both hate each other, so it will be a dirty game from the start.

Now fast forward to 6:30 pm.

We’re all so nervous in the dugout of our final game of the season and we’re all waiting for the time to go out. Then our coach makes the motivational speech of the century as he hates the Tigers even more than we do as his brother is the coach and they always beat us in the playoffs. Then we get out there and we play ball. In the first inning, Aaron makes two grand slams and the Tigers get 5 runs. Aaron is in amazement when he says,

“ I think I threw out my arm and knees.” (continued on page 10...)

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• • •

(continued from page 9..)

So we get the athletic trainer out here. He dislocated his right shoulder and tore his ACL in both of his knees. He can’t play anymore. So we keep going and then in the ninth inning, we get tied up 7 to 7. The coach called a meeting during the transition.

He said, “Alright our best player is out for the night so we have to keep fighting and we will not give up. We will continue to destroy them and we will not give up!”

That made us all go wild. We were hyped up and we were not going to give up! We kept going and at the top of the 15th, the Tiger scored 3 runs. We finished it quickly because we brought in our new closer. Then, the Tigers started to taunt us and say stuff like, “Bye, Bye losers! You guys suck! Go to heck with all the other losers!”

Well, we weren’t going to take it. Neither was our coach. He got ejected from the game. We were given the choice to forfeit or keep playing but with no coach. We decided to stay in to “Beat those jerks!” as Greg put it.

So, we start to bat. First-person has a pop-up out. Second-person puls a double. Third-person has a single. The fourth person strikes out. The fifth person walks. And somehow, it was now my turn. First pitch, strike. Second pitch, ball, and two more after that. Fifth pitch, strike. And that made me go back to the dream I had. Bases loaded. Two outs. I’m three and two and now the next pitch will be the last of the game. Either a win or a horrible loss.

Suddenly, the pitcher throws a knuckleball. I swing, and it’s a home run! The crowd is going wild! The team is jumping out of the dugout. Then it hits me.

We won! We won! All of a sudden I’m lifted into the air. We beat the Tigers!

People are chanting our name, “Let’s go Slammers! Let’s go!”

THE END

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Summer Sunset Yellow Sky Rocks

by Callan McCoy 1st

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WMES Paper 11

Adelyn Lynch Kindergarten

grade, SMES

Reece Shellhammer

3rd Grade, EES Mixed Media

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12

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Guilianna Thompson 4th Grade, CDES Mixed Media Emily Russ

13

3rd Grade, TES Pencil

Night Sky

Stars above Water below Forests ahead

by Camden Fenzel 4th Grade, SMES

Wind picking up Maybe the future is too far ahead

Julie Spring 4th Grade, SMES, Tempera Paint

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Annalise Schutt 3rd grade, CDES

BUOY 2023 Yousuf Ali 5th Grade, SMES Pencil 16

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Pencils17

Sofia Miller 8th Grade, SMMS Colored

Penny Turner

7th Grade, SMMS

Digital Painting

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Georgi Hock

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7th grade, SMMS Digital Painting Andrew Yetter

19

8th Grade, SMMS Scratchboard

BUOY 2023 Image courtesy of pexels.com

Bella Simmons 7th Grade, SMMS

20

Acrylic Paint

7th

Digital Painting

Joelle

8th Grade, EMS

Digital Painting

7th

Digital Painting

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Mady Shortall Grade, SMMS Wyatt Weippert Grade, SMMS Horney-Weems

It’s Perching

by Varnika Lanka 8th grade EMS

The night was almost like every other night. The birds were asleep, the wind gusting through the saturated green leaves. The street lamps were swarming with insects. I left my bedroom window open every night to let the cool breeze in. Then I would close the window, shutting the blinds and peacefully go to sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling dehydrated. My entire body felts very cold and numb. I sat up and looked around to see that I had forgotten to close the window before I went to sleep. I examined the room to make sure I didn’t forget anything else. Nothing.

I got down off of my bed and went to close the window, but before I did I stuck my head out to feel the nice cold breeze on my face to wake me up. Sometimes, I hear some weird scratching coming from my glass window. At this point, I thought the scratching was coming from a raccoon who somehow managed to get on top of my roof.

I saw a small statuette of what looked like a little girl holding a plushie I assumed. I didn’t think much of it.

‘It’s probably my wild imagination,’ I thought to myself.

I closed the window and locked it to make sure it wouldn’t accidentally open due to the hard gust of wind. I flopped on my bed, knowing I am very dehydrated. I reluctantly got up, again, and opened the door to exit my room.

When I opened the door, it was very dark, and hard to see. I tried finding the light, but ended up ramming into a glass table. I fell to the ground in pain.

‘I should’ve brought my phone, could’ve used it as a light source,’ I thought, while I rubbed my head.

(continued on page 23...)

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I felt something touch my hand. I quickly turned around to see what touched my hand. There was nothing that I could see or make out at the moment. Until I turned around again to face what was in front of me. There it was, a tall, black, boney figure, with white scribbles for eyes. It was right in front of me. It started to scratch on the glass table, and it sounded just like when something was scratching on my window.

I tried to get up, but something was keeping me from getting up. I knew it was somebody, because air isn’t that heavy to keep anyone down. Even though I was hurt I knew something or someone was doing this. I asked who was holding me down…No answer. I asked again…Still no answer. I turned my head around, barely being able to, since this thing was holding me back. . . . It was the girl, the one that I saw outside. She put my head back to where I saw the black figure.

Then the figure turned to me . . . It was perching.

THE END????

23

(continued from page 22)

SADIE BARCZAK 5TH GRADE, EES

Katalina Fogler

2nd Grade, TES

Names

Everybody has a name

Some are different

Some are the same

Some are short

Some are long

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Michael Black 5th Grade, EES Ink

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Cynthia Mejialchu 5th Grade, EES Mixed Media

IF I WERE MAYOR.... by 4th grade students at SMES

Camille Robinson 2023..

I would make a good mayor because I am caring, respectful, and protective. I am protective because I always protect the people I care about like the people in my town, and I would stand up for them. I would make sure that the roads and parks are safe because I do not want people to get hurt and for everyone to be safe. I will do this by hiring people to fix roads and parks. I will add more recycling bins so it would be better for the ecosystem. So, I will use the tax money and buy more recycling bins. You should vote for me as mayor because I listen to people. I’m respectful. I will make sure that the fire department, police, businesses, roads and parks are good and that people are safe! I would also donate to the hospital so they can save people!

Parker Merriken 2023

ETOVIf I was mayor, I would be a good mayor because I am respectful and helpful. I respect my family and friends and I like being helpful. First, I will open a foodbank for people in need and I will save food for the food bank. I will make a charity to raise money for park upgrades because some parks have not gotten new equipment in years. I would get new equipment to add.

Emma Sadler 2023..

I would make a good mayor because I am trustworthy and dependable. I am trustworthy because you can always trust me to do anything that’s right. I am dependable because you can always depend on me to do something you ask me to. I would pick up trash on the ground because I don’t want animals to eat it and get sick or die. I don’t want trash to get people sick either. I will change a lane for first responders because they need to get to the hurt people quicker because some people don’t move out of their way. You should vote for me as mayor because I will keep you healthy and safe.