Currently Browsing: Academics
May MS Teacher Feature—Ms.Harris
Photo Credit: Don Crawford
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Written by Kendra Davis, The Eagle Staff Reporter
“I like to keep school life and personal life separate,” a very professional statement from Ms. Harris, the middle school technology teacher and our May Middle School Teacher Feature subject. Many of Ms Harris’s students would say that she is strict and as a former student I would agree.
Now that I am gone, I realize that she very funny.
Ms. Harris went toSchenleyHigh Schooland after she graduated, went to Robert Morris for four years, where she earned Bachelors Degrees in Science,Business Administation,and Business Education.
She then spent two years atGeneva, where she earned her Masters Degrees in Science,and Business Leadership.
She accomplished a lot thanks to her parents, who were not that strict but had rules Ms. Harris knew not to break. They were very supportive of her, as well.
Ms. Harris loves her job and likes to relax when not in school. She also likes to spend time with her friends and family.
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Currently Browsing: Sports
Sirmons excels at difficult position
Photo Credit: Abner Roberts
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Written by La'Nia Latimer, The Eagle Staff Reporter
Chelsey Sirmons is a strong hitter and catcher for the Obama Eagles baseball team. His season is going good so far; he can always get better and take down top teams. By that Chelsey means the competitive teams like Brashear, Allderdice, and Carrick.
His primary position is catcher. If he had the opportunity to play another position it would be 3rd base or shortstop because it’s a lot more fun than sitting in one spot.
He feels that the most difficult thing about high school baseball is that the season is too short. He plays for Brighton Heights and the season is 2-3 months long.
“More communication, following directions and hustling,” said Chelsey when I asked him what the team needs to improve on. He feels that they’ll go pretty far and that there is a lot of young talent on the team.
Chelsey plans on playing in college and would like to go to Syracuse or somewhere north.
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Currently Browsing: Sports
Baseball team beats Perry, prepares for “big week”
Photo Credit: Abner Roberts
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Following his team’s 10-7 win over Perry on Thursday, Coach Kocur couldn’t think about anything other than the week ahead. “We have 4 games in five days. It’s a big week and one that I think we are ready for.”
At rainy, windy Brighton Heights Park, the Eagles scored early and often, breezing to a 10-3 lead before the last inning, when the Commodores scored 4 runs to make it a 10-7 final.
Joel Akrie, Shawn Langer and Horace Pope provided the offensive fireworks for the team to support the fine pitching of Mike Noftz, who raised his record to 2 and 0. Cassel West earned the save by retiring the only batter he faced.
“Our starters played very well,” Kocur said. “But all of our players need more game experience. This is a very good group of players.”
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Currently Browsing: In-Depth
Levi Brown: The experts are right. Skyrim is incredible
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Written by Levi Brown, The Eagle Editor
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a RPG (Role Playing Game). The game was released on November 11th, 2011 and received positive reviews from game reviews such as Gameinformer, X-Play, Metacritic, PC Gamer, etc. Fans of the Elder Scrolls series are usually fans of the award winning franchise Fallout. Fallout is the modern counterpart of Elder Scrolls; also both Elder Scrolls and Fallout are both developed and published by Bethesda Game Studios.
Skyrim is a game where the player can choose a play-style and customize their experience. There are three play-styles to choose from, they are Thief, Mage, and Warrior. The thief is a play-style where the character excels at pick pocketing, lock picking, sneaking, alchemy, speech, and light armor. The mage play-style excels at destruction, illusion, alliteration, restoration, conjuration, and enchanting. The warrior play-style excels at heavy armor, smithing, block, one handed, two handed, and archery.
In Skyrim, the player can also join factions that the player specializes in. They are the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, The Companions, The College of Winterhold, Imperial Legion, Stormcloaks, and the Nightingales (Sub-faction of Thieves Guild).
The player’s character Dovahkiin or Dragonborn can use an arcane magic known as the Thu’um or Shout. In Skyrim there are a total of 20 shouts that can be unlocked. Each shout is composed of three words that the player can find and unlock. The shouts can then be used to the player’s advantage.
In addition, to all of these features, Skyrim received GOTY (Game of The Year) award at the 2011 VGA (Video Game Awards). It would go on to receive many more awards that night. I highly recommend that you should purchase this game for its amazing features and gameplay.
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Currently Browsing: Sports
Trainer Pat is an important part of every Obama team
Photo Credit: Don Crawford
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Written by Don Crawford, The Eagle Senior Writer
From U.S.O Football to Obama soccer, the production of these championship teams doesn’t stop at the coaches. Athletic Trainers are the first ones to the games and the last ones to leave and are just as important as the coaches, if not more.
Patrick Hubert was the athletic trainer for the last year of Schenley and is now the athletic trainer here at Obama. “I love it here at Obama, the kids are great, the staff is very helpful and Mr. McGee and Dr. Walters are very helpful. The staff and student body always support athletics,” stated Pat. Pat, who grew up in Oakmont, always had a love for sports with a special passion for soccer.
Pat played soccer at the University of South Carolina before deciding to go into sports medicine field. “I played soccer in high school and college and realized I couldn’t play soccer for the rest of my life, so I went into sports medicine. Sports medicine is a great field in which you deal with orthopedic injuries, learn about the anatomy of the body and get to see a bunch of games for free but also hard work.”
Before coming to Obama, Pat worked for the New York Mets baseball team. Pat is married with two kids who, like himself, currently play and excel at soccer.
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Currently Browsing: News
Drama department begins Obama era with “Footloose”
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An award-winning tradition that was a school and area favorite at Schenley will begin anew under the name of Obama Drama when the production of “Footloose” opens on the stage of Peabody High School. The production will run both this weekend and next under the direction of Mrs.McKrell. Playing the leads this year will be Aman Milliones Roman, Keyanna Taylor Thomas, Sadik Roberts and Hannah Breslau.
More details will appear here shortly.
Plan on seeing “Footloose” for a rollicking good time this year.
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Currently Browsing: Sports
Rising to the occasion: Volleyball team takes on, outlasts WPIAL Quad A North Hills
Photo Credit: Rosa Vitti
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Written by Jymier Johnson, The Eagle Editor
On Monday night, our boys varsity volleyball played North Hills. The team had a real challenge in that it was forced to play all 5 games for a change. The Eagles started the first game off losing by 11, 14-25. The second game was a close one but the Eagles still lost 21-25.
Undaunted, The Eagles beat North Hills 25-13 and 25-14 in the next two games. Then came sudden death, where the first team to 15 wins.
North Hills started with a 6 point lead but The Eagles still came out on top with an end result of 15-10.
The Eagles really turned it on after the first two losses and a tremendous amount of spikes along the way. Many of them came from the two seniors Josh Grate and Canaan Reid, who continually soared over the net.
This type of match was statement game for Obama, one that told the entire region that Obama volleyball can play with anyone.
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Currently Browsing: In-Depth
Walter’s Gamer’s Corner: Kirby Super Star Ultra
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Written by Walter Robinson, The Eagle Senior Editor
Hey everyone it’s Walter again doing my first Nintendo game review. So I’ll be doing Kirby (because Kirby is small, squishy, pink and a total boss) for this one. Kirby Super Star Ultra is a sequel to Kirby Super Star (never got to play it sadly enough) being pretty obvious. Now the game has multiple modes and mini games that need to be unlocked to complete it. It also allows multiplayer with someone who has the game as well and allows Kirby to make a side kick from the power or skill he absorbed. Some of the boss fights are easy, if your skilled enough, but get harder the more you progress.
Some of the boss fights include Meta Knight (one of my favorite of those characters), King DeDeDe that has a giant hammer and then makes a better hammer that’s cool but terrifying, a giant monster bird (until recently that guy would destroy me and I would only have about 1% of health or something), and some characters I’m not going to spoil for you to find out. Though some modes allow you to play though all the Kirby levels as Meta Knight (*Biggest Grin Ever*). That means slashing a sword everywhere to get it powered up and do special moves, to put it short it’ll wide away all enemies except for bosses. A mini game in there is breaking a brick and causing a giant crack though the world, another when Kirby eats a lot of food in an eating contest against over Kirbys (it’s harder than it sounds).
Later on in this game are tournament rounds. In these Kirby gets to choose a variety of power ups depending on which tournament it is. In these tournaments, all the bosses fought are back and Kirby has to defeat all of them. In a different tournament, to unlock the real one, the player must play as the sidekicks without Kirby (sounds good, I like some of the design, plus some of them can levitate and shoot though walls). After doing that the real tournament begins to end the game. With five mystery boss fights that are all in the same order, the other boss fights aren’t, the health items don’t fill the health fully, and it is what I dubbed the hardest part of the Kirby Super Star Ultra. So that has been the first of my Nintendo DS games, stay tuned for more my fans.
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Currently Browsing: News
Obama YAG students spend unforgettable weekend in Harrisburg, have harrowing trip home
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Written by Angela Perfetti, for The Eagle
Twenty five high school students from Obama Academy of International Studies, an I.B. school within Pittsburgh Public Schools, were in a charter bus that was hit on the PA Turnpike while on travels home from Harrisburg after the conclusion of the YMCA Youth and Government model convention in the state capital today. None of the students nor the teacher nor two other adult volunteers were injured in the Sunday evening accident, westbound around Murrysville, mile marker 65. The bus driver as well as the driver of the semi-truck were both unhurt.
The bus and the semi truck carrying new Mercedes sedans bumped sides and scraped together while heading in the same direction. All of the exterior windows along the right side of the bus were broken and shattered, but the glass never reached the interior by the passengers.
“Wind seemed to push the truck into the bus through a turn and the driver did a great job to avert a more catastrophic accident,” said Tobias Rather, a junior within the school club. “State police were called and no arrest nor citations were made to our knowledge.”
Traveling on the bus were the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and the Editor in Chief of Pennsylvania’s Youth Government. All had been just been voted upon and sworn into office just hours prior in the PA State House Chambers. The student delegation had been to a four-day, model-government convention directed by the Pennsylvania YMCA (YAG). YAG brought together more than 400 students from across the state to participate in government events.
Students at YAG run their own government, electing a student Governor, presently Erik Rauterkus (junior from Pittsburgh’s South Side); Lieutenant Governor, Ben Junker (junior from Bloomfield); and Editor in Chief, Anna Vitti (junior from Highland Park). Two other elected officials come from elsewhere in the state: The Speaker of the House is from Hershey and the Chief Justice is from East Shore Y in Harrisburg.
These leaders facilitate YAG members in a year-long quest to write, debate, amend and vote for bills with committee and floor sessions. Bills are signed or vetoed by the Governor. Others win or lose court cases, report on top stories, and lobby for new PA laws. Some YAG legislation has been introduced and passed into real law within Pennsylvania.
“YAG has been a well-respected state program for many decades,” said Erik Rauterkus, now the 66th Youth Governor in PA.
“The YAG program clearly demonstrated various perceptions among citizens from suburban and rural delegations who have notoriously dominated the events in Harrisburg,” said Matt Lampl, Obama junior, Squirrel Hill.
“Only two out of 24 delegations come from within Philadelphia or Pittsburgh city limits. Naturally, the leadership tended to sway toward delegates from rural, rather than urban, areas, as they represented the majority. But the Obama delegation of 2012 made unprecedented impact this year.”
“Ours was an amazing feat, sweeping three out of the five main leadership positions,” said Annie Widom, junior, Squirrel Hill. Widom held a lobby position this week at YAG.
Rauterkus claimed the top spot in the election for Governor by besting a veteran YAG member, Erin Agnew, from Springfield, which is also the largest delegation.
The bus crash was the second major crash for Rauterkus this week. Just two days prior to the trip to Harrisburg, Rauterkus, one of the areas top junior competitive cyclists and captain of the school’s swim team, was rushed to Presbyterian Hospital after experiencing a major tumble within a sprint in a race at the Bud Harris Cycling Oval. Suffering from plenty of road rash and soreness, he persevered and still attended the youth leadership event.
Ben Junker, a swimming and waterpolo teammate of Rauterkus, pulled off a similar victory, narrowly beating five other peer members for the role of Lieutenant Governor. One of his duties is to preside over the Senate. Junker also was awarded the Outstanding Senate Committee Chair in the final joint session.
The new Editor-in-chief for YAG, Anna Vitti, was elected to that position by her peers and moved from her role as reporter.
Obama freshman, Rohun Joseph, was the fourth member of the squad who got put onto the YMCA invite list to attend CONA, the USA version for Youth Government. Adult advisers evaluate the students throughout the year and select an all-star cadre of youth leaders to meet for a week in North Carolina in July. Only 26 students in Pennsylvania get that opportunity.
This was the first year of the Obama delegation, as it replaced the recently closed Schenley High School. “The students made a great impression with their skills and leadership abilities, said YMCA Program Director, Adoree DeLuca-Johnson. “They brought the Obama Academy and Pittsburgh names to the state.”
The YAG members were reminded in an opening speech by Governor Tom Corbett, “Youth are the future of this world.” In the closing session, the Lieutenant Governor, Jim Cawley spoke about voting and duties as citizens.
“The key role we play in the YAG program may indicate the beginning of better relationship among the urban, suburban and rural areas of our Commonwealth in both policy and politics” said Demetri Lardas, Obama junior, from the Oakland area of Pittsburgh.
James Hill, 2011 Schenley graduate, from Stanton Heights and a former YAG participant said, “I’m thankful that no one was hurt in the bus crash. It must have been an exciting end to an exciting weekend. I’m immensely proud of Erik, Ben, and Anna for making a smash this year. Working with them in the past, I know that they are great kids and that they are going to work hard to make YAG even better next year. I’m very proud that they’re making there own legacy and proving inner city schools have what it takes.”
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Currently Browsing: News
The myth of a cell phone policy
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Written by Diamen Green, The Eagle Staff Reporter
Here at Obama Academy, we have a cell phone policy which is portrayed to be very strict. Once you are a student here it is known that no cell phones are to be on or visible during school hours, but that doesn’t mean everyone agrees. 5 of of 10 people openly admit to using their phones in school. The common belief here at Obama is “Cell phone usage should be allowed at lunch along with ipods, and talking in class is way more disruptive than silent texting”.
When I asked the rebels what problem do they find with using phones during class I got many answers. One 10th grade student said “I don’t think there is any problem with it. It forces you to use more multiple senses, and to multi-task” but on the other hand a student argued “If you’re doing two things at once, you’re not fully committed or learning either of them!” Students who don’t use their phones say they simply don’t use their phones in class because their battery dies quickly, or that there is not a real problem in doing so, they just chose not to do it.
The policy has consequences, or at least is supposed to have consequences, if it is violated. There is a check in every morning for those students who were caught with their phones, where they must turn it in at every morning and receive it again at the end of the day.
At the beginning of the year, yes ,it was something to be feared. But now, going into the fourth report period we haven’t seen a “check In” list in months. Students believe that this method was “not reasonable” and that the kids “will always find a way around it”.
I asked whether the method was too strict, or just not ethical in the opinion of students. One student replied, “It’s like having laws; just because people break laws it doesn’t mean no more laws!” So in conclusion, the cell phone policy is nice to try to enforce but if no one respects it, many won’t follow it.
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