NEWBERG HIGH SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

Newberg High School Newsletter          
November 7, 2014

This week in Newberg Nation….
 

Holy Sooner Nation!

What an opening night last night for “Oklahoma” at the NHS auditorium! What a performance! All the hype, build up and drama truly came to life last night as our very own Flying Thespians put on a show for the ages! On cue, on note, hilariously funny and harmonically in sync, the cast, the vocalists, the instrumentalists and the crew brought the N.N. auditorium to life in a show that may have some producers on Broadway calling NHS very soon!

Kudos to Drama Director Drea Ferguson, Choral Director Robert Hawthorne, Director of Bands Joel Tanner and our student producer Mr. CJ Koch for a job well done! As last night was the opener you have tonight, tomorrow and next Thursday, Friday and Saturday to see this amazing show with curtain call at 7pm each night!

On to STATE!!!!

It’s an exciting week for N.N.’s water polo teams as they travel to Corvallis for their quarterfinal round of the state water polo championships! Loaded to the gills with talent, both the boys and girls teams are vying for their respective state titles and have high expectations about bringing home some metal while down in Corvallis!

To catch our Water Tigers in action head down to Corvallis on Friday, November 7, when the boys will tip off at 1020am and 630pm respectively while the girls will tip off on Saturday, November 8, with game times at 410pm and 850pm. Good luck Tigers and know that Newberg Nation is cheering you on!

Kudos, Props & Love….

This past weekend our ladies futbol’ team headed to the far reaches of Southern Oregon and found themselves in a battle with a class 5 Black Tornado! Battling to the end in their 0-1 loss to North Medford, our Tiger ladies fought to end including late game heroics that fell just short! Kudos go out to our girls and their coaching staff on a proud season!

Meanwhile, Newberg Nation’s Volleying Tigers took a short trip south last Saturday to McNary where they, too, found themselves engaged in aerial warfare! In four royal battle matches with great play after great play, the Celtics managed to pull out the victory 1-3 and our Tigers had to wrap up what has been a fantastic season! If you have not had a chance to see how our Tigers have embraced Newberg Nation check out the following video of them doing the alma mater and the subsequent Tiger Tunnel that has become a trademark of post games at the Tigers Den! Click here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PXFU_Lj33w

Think Pink!

On a related note, our beloved Tigers football team concluded their season Halloween night at Sherwood, a game in which the Tiger faithful from Newberg Nation traveled well, and were well prepared! It was a “pink out” at the Bowmen’s residence and our very Nation Crazees showed up large, and well equipped! To see how they took a “pink out” to a whole new level click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrTw0agAa70&feature=youtu.be

Green Thumbs & Greater Partnerships!

Gotta give a little love to Mr. Pete Siderius and his horticulture classes this week as well as all of our younger Newberg Nation brothers and sisters out at Dundee Elementary! On Wednesday, November 5^th, the high school kids and the kids at Dundee planted over 16,000 plants at Viewmont Park in a unified beautification effort! With green thumbs, topsoil and Flying Tigers everywhere, it was a sight to behold!

Our Future Leaders….

I was invited to join Mr. Dykema’s JSA students Thursday afternoon as they are preparing their arguments for a large regional speech and debate competition at SEATAC International next weekend. I found it most interesting that these Flying Tigers were not running for election this past Tuesday night as they are an incredibly talented young group of orators! Suffice it to say, that we can expect to see them on the election ticket sometime over the next decade cuz’ these Tigers can fly! Good luck at SEATAC debaters!

College Fair For All!

We also need to give a shout out to N.N.’s counselors who traversed our wet weather with over 250 students and 20 volunteers in their effort to keep promoting our college going culture here at NHS! An effort to support our students interests in advancing their academic careers beyond NHS and to connect them with nearly 1,000 college recruiters, it was an event for the ages as busloads of Tigers came back to NHS excited and informed regarding their future college plans! Now how about them Flying Tigers!

Upcoming Colleges Visiting N.H.S.:
Calvin College 11/6 @ 10:00, Wells College 11/6 @ 11:30, Sweet Briar College 11/7 @ 10:00, Chemeketa Community College 11/10 @8:30, University of Portland 11/12 @10:00, Seattle Pacific 11/12 @ 12:00, Pacific University 11/13 @8:30, and Southern Oregon University 11/17 @ 1:00.  Please stop by the College and Career Center to sign up.

Need money for college?  The Pride Foundation, Legacy Healthcare Education, Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber, Yamhill Oregon Hunters Association, and Live Your Dream scholarships are now open.  For more information regarding these scholarships and many more, stop by the Center or visit the College and Career Center page on the NHS website and click on Scholarships.

Band Love…

We would be remiss in not acknowledging our bands efforts to get out in our community this coming Veterans Day and connect with some of our greatest Newberg Nation fans! Playing at a few different retirement homes in the community, Mr. Tanner and his brass will be making their way around the community Tuesday afternoon and evening playing for many of our Newberg Nation community members! Now there’s some Flying Tigers for ya!

Welcome Transitions!

We thought we would also take a moment and share with the Tiger faithful that NHS is excited to be the new home of the Newberg School District Transitions program! With modifications underway to prepare their new home here at NHS, we would like to take a moment and extend a warm Newberg Nation “Welcome” to our Transitions students and their families! We will see you all soon!

The Breakfast Club

 On behalf of the administration here at Newberg High we would like to begin an event in which we meet with parents and community members in a casual setting to discuss all things Newberg Nation! To this end we would like to kick off our first “Breakfast Club” meeting on Friday, November 21^st, at 9am, in the meeting room at the Coffee Cottage (808 E. Hancock). This will give us a chance to grab a cup of Joe and a breakfast item and visit for an hour or so about our beloved Flying Tigers and anything else we can think of to share about the happenings at Newberg High! We hope to see you there!

A Beautiful tribute…..

"It is not length of life, but depth of life." Ralph Waldo Emerson

November 3, 2014

Dear Families:

Many of you know this, but for those of you who do not, my husband and I lost our beautiful, precious daughter, Marissa, in 2012.  She was fifteen years old and had undergone a bone marrow transplant at the University of Minnesota to cure the rare bone condition, Osteopetrosis.  She bravely faced her medical challenges with grace and courage. She had a determined spirit and never gave up. The transplant itself was working, but, sadly, many serious complications can occur from the conditioning regimens in preparation for transplant. The physicians believed that the chemotherapy and radiation damaged Marissa's lungs too severely and she passed away, moments before "Mother's Day, " on May 12, 2012.

Marissa had been a patient at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, but her hematologists sent us to the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital where she could be under the care of an Osteopetrosis specialist.  While in Minneapolis, we stayed at our "home away from home" the Ronald McDonald House.  We spent our last Christmas together at the Ronald McDonald House and were treated to kindness and generosity beyond our wildest dreams.

Now that we must find new traditions for our family, we have been donating toys each Christmas to the Portland Ronald McDonald House. Last year, I extended our tradition by asking the community of GE to help with donations. It was amazing the assortment of toys and blankets that we were able to take in to "RMH” If you are able to and willing, donations of new, unwrapped toys or new blankets for children of any age would be greatly appreciated, not just by us, but by the families at the Ronald McDonald House who are spending Christmas with their children hospitalized and/or facing difficult medical treatments.   "RMH" serves families with children of all ages, from infants through teenage years.  Toys are great but so are blankets.  While Marissa was hospitalized we received many cozy blankets for her and that was very practical and warmed our hearts at the same time. I will place a box in the lobby of GE from November24 through December 5 to collect these items. My husband, son, and I will deliver them to RMH in time for their Christmas events.

Thank you so much for allowing us to share this family tradition in honor of our beloved girl, the light of our lives, Marissa Rachael Poznanski.

Most sincerely,
Elizabeth Poznanski

Newberg NationThoughts…

~Principal Risen

In my last communication I stated that we should “dare to be great” as did the Flying Tigers during World War II. Saying we should dare to be great is one thing, daring to be great is yet another. As former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt states below, the more we have to overcome the stronger we become and in so doing we grow a belief that we can also overcome not only the next challenge we are faced with, but we can overcome any obstacle placed before us! This is the true spirit that we must embrace in Newberg Nation if we truly dare to be great!

We will have struggles. We will have to overcome them. We will have to press forward, refusing to allow the obstacles that stand between us, and greatness, stop us or slow us down! If we truly want to define Newberg Nation in a comprehensive connotation of excellence, then we must dare to be great, in all facets, while viewing the obstacles in our way as merely speed bumps along the freeway to greatness!

            To this end we simply have to “do the things we think we cannot do!” We have to graduate every child. We have to help every child go beyond NHS and further their education and/or training. We have to dare to have the best programs, whether curricular or co-curricular, in the state of Oregon! In so doing we must continue to develop our community thus we must labor, toil, persevere and maintain our resolve that our community of Newberg, Newberg High and therefore Newberg Nation, can and will be the greatest place in Oregon to live, and go to school, based on any indicator one wants to provide!

So ask yourself, are you ready to dare to be great? To come together courageously, look our fears in the face, and accomplish the things here in Newberg Nation that others believe “we cannot do?” We simply have to continue getting stronger, overcoming our adversity, working together, and in so doing, “do the things we think we cannot do!” If we dare to be great and embrace the spirit that Eleanor Roosevelt provides below we can and will unlock the endless potential that we already collectively possess!

Flying Tigers…

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along…You must do the thing you think you cannot do…”

~eleanor roosevelt