2news Clubs plan holiday activities • Junior Adam Steurer was crowned the winner of Mr. WHHS on Dec. 3. Second place went to senior Hunter Edmunson, and senior Matt Thielke placed third. The male beauty pageant featured a Christmas theme and was the senior class fundraiser. • The North Carolina Theater Conference took place Nov. 6-7 at Western Carolina University. Honors theater students performed their studentwritten production “I Know the Truth” on Nov. 2 at West. AT NCTC they received awards for best costume design and best scene transitions. Senior Kyle Keith won best actor. • Family Career and Community Leaders of America members are planning to babysit teacher’s children for a date night on Dec. 14. They will also volunteer at a soup kitchen in Asheville in December. • Foreign Language Club members are practicing to sing Christmas carols on the announcements during the week for Christmas break.
People’s choice Literary magazine staff begins work art and photography. Any student who wants his or her writing or artwork in the magazine can submit it to the staff. The staff then decides whether to inaving a love for different kinds of clude the piece of work submitted. writing and wanting to meet new “They jury each piece and decide if people, senior Kara Fohner looked it should be included or not included,” for a way to express her passions at West. Squires said. “If the staff decides against During her junior year, she found the perit, then we always give them back to the fect way to do this — West’s literary magastudent and say if you revise it we can zine. consider it again.” During the 1980s, the Wingspan staff Anyone who shows produced a supplemenan interest and a desire tary literary magazine to be on the staff is welfor a year. Years later in I’m there to offer come. There are many 2005, the magazine besupport and types of roles on staff, came its own producso students with a varition with former English ideas, but they ety of abilities make up teacher Rhonda Brand come up with the staff. as the adviser. Brand everything. It’s “You don’t have to produced the magazine actually do the writing; for three years. theirs, all the you can do the publi English teacher Betway from the size cation itself,” Squires sy Squires is the current said. “Or maybe you adviser. to the way they can be really good at “Last year was the want it to look. organizing and run the first year I was the sponfundraiser.” sor for it,” Squires said, Betsy Squires Staff members of the “but it’s been produced English teacher magazine are seniors as the magazine Legacy Kara Fohner, editor for years before that.” in chief; Michelle Phillips, layout editor; Though it was named Legacy for Shelly Miller, prose editor and fiction/ many years, Squires allows her students nonfiction editor; junior Alicia Thomas, to decide on the magazine’s name each technology editor; sophomore Kennedy year. Galloway, art and photography editor; “Last year we called it Spark, and I sophomore Anna Decker, poetry editor; don’t know what they’re going to name it and freshman Tony Brucken, submisthis year,” Squires said. “I’m not a stickler sions editor. for staying with the same name.” “Becoming editor in chief is definite The literary magazine is a collection ly one of the most interesting experiences of different types of students’ work. It will of my high school career,” Fohner said. print fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama,
Meredith Cole Asst. Entertainment Editor
H
“
”
Sitting Pretty
• Health Occupations Students of America, Distributive Education Clubs of America and FCCLA members had a Christmas party at Mr. Gatti’s Pizza on Dec. 3. • Concert band and marching band will be having a joint Christmas concert on Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. • Honors theater will be performing “All Because of Santa” on Dec. 14.
• Arts for Individuals members had their annual Bizarre Bazaar on Main Street to raise money for the Monty Parker scholarship on Dec. 4. • The dance department will present a firstsemester concert on Jan. 11 at 6 p.m. in the West auditorium.
Photo by Haley Glatzer
• Future Business Leaders of America members will go bowling in January.
Sitting on stage, junior Adam Steurer is crowned by seniors Elizabeth Thompson and Olivia Springer on Dec. 3. at the fourth annual Mr. WHHS pageant. The contestants competed in swimwear, evening wear, talent and interviews. The pageant raised $585 for the senior class, and $100 was used as prize money for the top three contestants.
Wingspan staff photo
In Flight
wingspan • december 11, 2009
Inside story Discussing page layouts for their upcoming publication, members of the literary magazine staff, including adviser Betsy Squires, senior Kara Fohner and freshman Tony Brucken, crowd around some sample publications. The literary magazine is produced once a year and sold to school and community members. “I’m meeting a lot of different people, and I enjoy being involved in something that’s productive.” Fohner said her favorite part of the literary magazine is looking at the submissions turned in. She enjoys seeing what work was handed in from different students and then choosing which submissions will be used in the magazine. “This year we are trying to stretch diversity,” Fohner said. “The English as a Second Language students handed in some really good poetry, and I think that those are some of the best submissions I’ve seen so far.” Former West student Shannon Perry has been helping out the staff with this year’s publication. Perry is currently a student at Blue Ridge Community College. She has offered ideas to possibly team up West’s literary magazine staff with that of
the community college. Right now, the staff members are selling candy as a fundraiser. They have received estimates back from the printer on how much their different design ideas will cost . The amount of money raised will determine which designs they use. “I’m there to offer support and ideas, but they come up with everything. It’s theirs, all the way from the size to the way they want it to look to the writing they include,” Squires said. One literary magazine is produced each year. Last year, each magazine was sold for $3. This year’s issue will be full color on slick, magazine-quality paper. “We sell to anybody,” Squires said, “so the only thing that I do is, knowing the Hendersonville community, edit if it needs to be edited. The content has to be appropriate for our community.”
Texting (continued from page 1) ple follow the law, it will save lives. But they know that there are always people who break the law, and these are the ones that they are trying to catch. “We don’t want to catch people doing this because the goal is to get people to stop. I think in the first year, we will probably catch a lot until the word gets out that we are actually enforcing it,” Grayson said. “I don’t think that we will have 100 percent compliance. If we can get up to 75 or 80 percent compliance, this law will save lives, and that is what we are all about. We want to keep people from getting hurt.” Although some feel that the texting law could save lives, they do not feel that people will actually obey it. “In theory, the texting law would make roads safer, but in reality, people will still text and drive. Lots of teens don’t follow the law about talking on the phone and driving, and they will not follow the texting law either,” Callahan said. On a national level, a bill has been introduced in Congress that would give other states two years to put into place their own texting laws. If they did not pass a law before that time, they would lose a percentage of their federal highway funds. “We have lots of federal laws that we have to follow already, and we get money for following those laws,” Grayson said. “If this law is enacted, we will get federal highway dollars that we can use.”
A survey conducted by Ford Motor Co. found that up to 93 percent of Americans feel that texting while driving should be illegal in the United States. The U.S. Department of Transportation, backed by Ford Motor Co., has been trying to push a national texting ban. Even though North Carolina has now banned texting, Grayson does not feel that lawmakers will try to pass laws that ban other distracting driving habits such as eating and putting on makeup. “We have other laws that we can use to keep people from doing these things. I don’t see the need for an individual law for those problems,” Grayson said. “We have always had laws that we can use to catch people who are driving unsafely.” Callahan also does not feel that laws are needed to keep people from doing these bad habits while driving. “Texting is more dangerous than other distracting driving habits because it actually takes your eyes off of the road. Laws can’t be put into place to stop things like eating because there is no way to regulate them,” Callahan said. The main goal of this law is to keep North Carolina roads safer and to protect lives. “I don’t think that anyone can argue that texting while driving is a good thing,” Grayson said. “About 700 people died on N.C. highways last year, and we want to cut down that number.”