High School Fashion Design Students Participate in Annual “CAT” Walk Competition

Designing outfits in a limited time frame to meet the challenge of creating clothes and overall looks that represent aspects of pop culture sounds like a task that professional designers would take on for a reality television show. Students in Western Wayne High School’s more advanced sewing classes took on this challenge for the school’s annual “CAT” Walk school-wide fashion show and competition. The week-long event took place from April 10 through April 13.

The event is called “CAT” Walk in honor of the school’s mascot the Western Wayne Wildcat. Mrs. Colleen Carmody, director of the “CAT” walk event, explained that she first began this type of student activity in a classroom with two students and two judges thirteen years ago.

Through the years the event has grown to a competition between student teams in her sewing classes that consist of four designers and three student models each. The teams were called Color Pop, POPKORN’EM, and Trending Now.

Color Pop consisted of the following student designers: Cailin Brown, Zoey Rosensweet, Kayla Fitzpatrick, and Abby Gogolski. Students models for Color Pop were Noelle Orehek, Rachel Roberts, and Bayly Williams. POPKORN’EM consisted of the following student designers: Madison Kornuitak, Emily Shaffer, Isabel Valentin, and Rebecca Saar. Student models for POPKORN’EM were Trina Barcorola, Caitlin Henneforth, and Scott Walck. Trending Now consisted of the following student designers: Gina Infante, Morgan Wagner, Bree Price, and Victoria Petrosky. Student models for Trending Now were Abby Black, Kallie Jones, and Matt Trygar.

Carmody presents the students with a theme to create their clothes around and five specific scenarios within this theme. Students have less than three days to create their clothes which are then judged in the school’s District Office and by the student body.

The Trending Now team won the competition overall.

This year’s theme was Pop Culture. One scenario the students had to create fashion for was called Pop News: Current Events in the News. They needed to create a two-piece outfit to represent a current news event within the year that dealt with weather, social issues, sports, celebrity, etc.

Their second scenario involved Pop Male Fashion. They designed a “summer suit” for guys that had a matching tie and shorts in bold prints. Another scenario involved Pop Female Fashion. They destructed and reconstructed a pair of jeans to wear in a fashionable and trendy way and redesigned a white tee shirt to match them.

For the fourth scenario called Pop: Food, Carmody challenged students to create an original outfit with textured fabric to capture a food, beverage, restaurant, or dining trend within the last year.

For the final scenario called Pop: Social Media, students created a dress with long sleeves and a large collar to represent a hot social media topic or event such as Instagram, Snap Chat, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Pictured are student designers and models. From left, seated: Bayly Williams, Scott Walck, Andrew Iovachinni, Matt Trygar, and Mike Maguire. From left, row one: Mrs. Colleen Carmody, director; Abby Gogolski, Abby Black, Trina Barcorola, Noelle Orehek, Madison Kornuitak, Emily Shaffer, Rachel Roberts, Kallie Jones, Victoria Petrosky, and Isabel Valentin. From left, row two: Rebecca Saar, Caitlin Henneforth, Cailin Brown, Kayla Fitzpatrick, Morgan Wagner, Gina Infante, Zoey Rosensweet, and Bree Price.

High School Students Visit Highland Associates

Western Wayne High School students recently took a trip to Highland Associates in Clarks Summit. The students learned about architecture, engineering, and interior design. The employees at the firm went over their educational background and showed them current projects they are working on. From left: Vaeda Pontosky, R.J. Clemens, Bryce Urian, and Kurt Dietrich.

Musical Students to Air Interview on WVIA 89.9 on Sunday, April 23

Cast members of Western Wayne School District’s upcoming production of Bye Bye Birdie recently recorded an interview at WVIA Studios in Pittston that will air at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 23, as a part of the WVIA High School Musical Preview Show on 89.9 WVIA FM. From left: Mrs. Jessica Grizzanti McLaughlin, musical director; Samantha Pritzlaff, who plays Kim MacAfee; Ty Alpaugh, who plays Rose Alvarez; R.J. Clemens, who plays Albert Peterson; Maggie Podunajec who plays Mae Peterson and serves as student director; and Alivia DeLeon, who plays Gloria Rasputin and serves as student director. Bye Bye Birdie will be performed at Western Wayne High School in the newly renovated high school auditorium located at 1970A Easton Turnpike, Lake Ariel, PA 18436. Show dates and times are 7 p.m. on Friday, April 28; 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 29; and 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 30. Students and senior citizens $3 dollars for tickets and adults $5 for tickets.

High School Students Participate in FBLA State Leadership Conference

Students learned how to feel confident in giving presentations, how to effectively use leadership skills, and how to apply their knowledge of the business world among other things at the FBLA State Leadership Conference this week in Hersey, PA. The event took place from April 3 through April 5.

Thirty-one Western Wayne High School students attended the conference and seventeen placed in the top ten in the state. Those members placing in the top four in their events are now eligible to attend the National Leadership Conference this summer in Anaheim, California, from June 27 through July 3.

The following students placed: Dakotah Sopko, first place for Accounting I; Jack Tuman, first place for Accounting II; Ty Alpaugh and Laurel Frable, fifth place for Digital Video Production; Abby Black, first place for FBLA Principles and Procedures; Angelia Reggie, third place for FBLA Principles and Procedures; Samantha Atcavage, Evan Coons, Jillian Dudley, fifth place for Introduction to Business Presentation; Allison Mattern, first place for Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure; Noelle Orehek, eighth place for Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure; Morgan Amorine, Alexandra Buckman, Chayni Carroll, Jacob Karnick, Hannah Roedel, third place for Parliamentary Procedure; and Ezra Tetreault, second place for Public Speaking I; and Jacob Karnick placed sixth in Who’s Who in Pennsylvania FBLA. Also, Western Wayne FBLA received 10th place in Outstanding Chapter.

From left, first row: Evan Coons, Jacob Karnick, Dakotah Sopko, Angelia Reggie, Morgan Amorine, Hannah Roedel, Chayni Carroll, Ty Alpaugh, and Laurel Frable. From left, second row: Jack Tuman, Ezra Tetreault, Samantha Atcavage, Jillian Dudley, Abby Black, Allison Mattern, Alexandra Buckman, and Noelle Orehek.

RDW Kindness Club once again inspired kindness in others

Students in the RDW Kindness Club once again inspired kindness in others. Allie Pauler, Cianna Tyler, Carter Mistishin, Jacob Schott, Sean Bosshard, and Emily Dickson developed a scavenger hunt for first graders. Students were broken into small groups and had to find colored cards hidden throughout the building. On the cards were kindness-related words: generous, thoughtful, compliments, helpful, and caring. Once a card was discovered, students in the Kindness Club led a discussion about the meaning of the word and examples of how first graders could show this behavior. “They really enjoyed it” said Ashley Kromko, first grade teacher. “We plan to incorporate these words into our writing vocabulary.”

Middle School Students Participate in Northeast Regional Science Olympiad Competition

Creating bottle rockets, precisely using laser lights, and using interpersonal skills and linguistic communication skills to build an object, were just some of the tasks that students tackled at the Northeast Regional Science Olympiad Competition on March 8, 2017, at Penn State Wilkes-Barre Campus.

Pictured are the participants. From left, top row: Alexandria Bien-Aime, Rachel Tuman, Mrs. Nichole Musewicz, Madison Weinczyk, Maggy Langendoerfer, Joseph Sweeney, Miranda Kubilus, Bridgette Summers-Flannery, Rachel Hoch, Celeste Orchard, and Mr. Josh Rowe. From left, bottom row: Alexandra Butler, Makayla Gregory, Lena Piccolino, Courtney Petrilak, Sydney Ely, Abigail Lopez, and Jenny Guadagno.

Team mates Celeste and Rachel, 8th grade, placed first in their event called Write it/ Do it. The girls explained how the event involved them very precisely communicating with each other. For the event, Celeste had the task of looking at materials to build an object. Then she had a limited time to write extremely clear directions for Rachel to use to make the object. Finally, Rachel had a set amount of time to create the object based on Celeste’s directions.

Celeste, who is used to working by herself to complete tasks efficiently, said this experience helped her to build her confidence in others’ work abilities.

“I gained trust in other people because I knew that Rachel understood my instructions,” Celeste explained.

Rachel, also, learned a lesson from the experience involving analytical skills.

“I learned how to read information carefully because I had to pay attention to what Celeste said to do without any other instruction,” Rachel said. Rachel further explained that the event was challenging because she had more materials in front of her than she needed to build the object. Therefore, making Celeste’s directions even more instrumental in the construction process.

Western Wayne High School Students Participate in Annual Mock Interview Event

Anyone who has ever interviewed for the job of their dreams has most likely encountered the dreaded prompt: “Tell me about yourself.”

Students from Western Wayne, Forest City, Honesdale, and Wallenpaupack all had the opportunity to practice their response to this prompt and many others as a result of their participation in the Annual D. Carl Peet Memorial Mock Interview Day – Students Test Interview Potential event held at The Park Street Complex in Honesdale on Thursday, March 23.

Twenty-one Western Wayne students participated in the event. Their participation counted as a part of one of the following courses: Business Communications and Procedures, Sports and Entertainment Marketing, and Entrepreneurship classes all taught by Theresa Lubash, Western Wayne business department chair. Lubash’s students have been taking part in this event for over 15 years.

Lubash is a part of the Wayne County School-to-Work Committee. The committee, who works to put together this event, is comprised of representatives from the four area school districts and members of the local business community. Twenty-four business people from various local businesses took part in the event and helped the students to have an authentic interview experience.

From left, row one: Madeline Johnson, Holly Kuplack, Ryan Cavage, Bradley Carey, James Sommers, Jake Tinklepaugh, Jacob Karnick, Graham Dudley, Ethan Boots, Sal Tirado, and David Tucker. From left, row two: Justin Lee, Nate Adams, Jack Tuman, Jason Telese, James Kemmerer, Luai Hassan, Kaitlyn Juhasz, Kayla Fitzpatrick, Gracie Guarino, and Claudia Kovaleski.

Wayne County 4-H Extension Educators – “From Farm to Table”

Some first grade classrooms at EverGreen Elementary had a “From Farm to Table” presentation given by the Wayne County 4-H Extension Educators. The presenters read a book to the classes entitled Before We Eat, and our students participated in some activities that taught them about the origin of the foods they eat. We want to say thank you to our own Western Wayne High School student, Brianna Metschulat, and her leader, Ms. Scull, for taking the time to come visit!

Western Wayne Wears Pink and Blue for Jude

In support of the Jude Zayac foundation, students, staff and administrators wore pink and blue on Friday, March 24, 2017. The foundation strives to promote awareness of SIDS.

From left: Mr. Justin Pidgeon, Principal Evergreen Elementary, Ms. Elizabeth Watson, Assistant Principal Middle School, Julien Walck, Gabrielle Tetreault, Rachel Hoch, Samantha Killian, Adam Silfies, Mrs. Kristen Donohue, Principal Middle School, Dr. Katie Shemanski, Secondary School Psychologist, and Ms. Jennifer Robinson, Assistant Director of Instructional Services