This year’s Semi was themed, “Harvest Ball” and was held on Saturday, November 23, from 4 to 9 p.m.  at Ladore, Waymart. There were over 250 students in attendance and several faculty members helped the Western Wayne security team chaperone the event. The  2019 Semi Prince is Lou Azzato and the Semi Princess is Rylee Sheehan.  From left: Western Wayne High School Principal Paul Gregorski, Lou Azzato, Rylee Sheehan; and Vice Principal Matt  Barr.

The Western Wayne High School received a 500 dollar 2019 ExxonMobil Educational Alliance Grant for their math and science departments. ExxonMobil and Liberty Petroleum present these grants to various area schools each year. The check was presented to Western Wayne on Thursday, Nov. 21. Western Wayne Administration and staff are excited to use these funds to better the educational experiences of their students. From left: Mr. Matthew Barr, high school vice principal; David Stinson, district manager; and Mr. Paul Gregorski, high school principal.

            This year Western Wayne High School will have a student ambassador program.  Ambassadors will greet visitors to the high school and escort them to their destination in the building.  In November, the ambassadors went through a training with Julie Bialkowski from Penn State Scranton.  

            Freshman Skylar Long said she learned a lot about developing her communication skills from the training session.  Skylar is highly involved at Western Wayne being a member of both the volleyball and basketball teams along with participating in Future Business Leaders of America.

“I think that participating in the student ambassador program will help me be a better student leader,” Skylar said.  “I will learn how to take control of situations and how to be personable with people.”

Skylar explained that student ambassadors will be given advance notice of when they will greet visitors. In addition, student ambassadors will dress professionally and give visitors a brief tour of the school.  They will also engage visitors by telling them facts about the district such as the history of Western Wayne along with other information about sports and clubs at the school that individual student ambassadors are a part of.

Junior Lenny Maiocco will also be a student ambassador and hopes the program helps him to develop his communication skills.  Lenny is a student leader at Western Wayne who is involved in many activities.  He is a member of the tennis team, FBLA, NHS, Youth Advisory Committee, student council, and National Society of High School Scholars.

“My experience in the program will help me to work on my ability to present information that I know to others,” Lenny, who aspires to study engineering or law, said.

Senior Sydney Peet agrees that the program will help her in the future.

“The program will allow me to grow my communication skills and work on connecting with others,” Sydney, who plans to study global business with a minor in musical theater, said.

All of the Western Wayne student ambassadors look forward to working with visitors to their school.

Western Wayne High School AP Biology students visited Lacawac Sanctuary and Biological Field Station on October 17. 

 Students had the opportunity to engage in field research in the area of Forest Ecology and Conservation Biology.  During the course of the visit, students collected and analyzed data from the Lacawac Forest including a comparison of biodiversity inside of Deer Exclosures as compared to the rest of the forest, tree identification, invasive species discussions and conservation ecology. 

These rich field experiences allowed students to really understand the characteristics of a stable forest ecosystem.  Students learned about research that is happening at the collegiate level at Lacawac Field Station and about partnerships between Lacawac and various universities.  These students will return to Lacawac in the spring to conduct their own research in the area of aquatic ecosystems.

All of the students greatly enjoyed their field experience.

Junior Cailie Thoman, who wishes to study marine biology in college, explained the benefits of doing scientific work in this type of setting.

“I liked getting out and being in the fresh air on our hike while we worked,” Cailie explained.

Her classmate fellow junior Carter Davis agreed.

“We got a lot of experience on collecting data,” Davis, who hopes to enter the business field, explained.  “I find it easier to learn outside.  I think I am more attentive out there in the field.”

Another classmate junior Courtney Petrilak explained how the students had many tasks on their trip.

“One thing we collected data on was different tree types,” Courtney, who aspires to be a physician’s assistant, said.  “We had to identify them.”

All of the students agreed that their study of science grew and developed through the work they engaged in on the trip.

 High School Biology teacher Mrs. Christine McClure is grateful to have the opportunity to have these types of experiences with her students.

“We would like to thank Mrs. Jamie Reeger for organizing, coordinating and creating such rich learning opportunities at Lacawac for our students and the Western Wayne Education Foundation for their generous grants that continue to fund our experiences,” McClure said.   “We would also like to thank our administration for their support of this trip.  We look forward to working with Lacawac Sanctuary and Field Station in the future as we continue to promote scientific research and career pathways in our community.”

At the annual engineering competition at Wallenpaupack High School, students were challenged with building a structure out of simple materials, that was able to transport a weighted model car across the span of two points on the wooden foundation students were given.  The structure created by the students also had to move in some way to allow a 9″ obstacle to pass underneath.  

         The Western Wayne Team A decided to make their bridge unique and not use the optional pier support in the middle of the bridge.  The team’s ideology behind this was that it would help make their bridge stand out.  Their philosophy worked, the bridge was the only one in the competition that did not use a pier at all.  

         With all of the great minds working together, they came up with a design plan for a drawbridge that would lift upward to allow the car to pass under it.  Since the team was only provided a limited selection of materials, they had to be creative with their design choices.  They made this hinge out of cut up pieces of straw and a piece of spaghetti that passed through the straw allowing it to pivot.  

         The team’s design for the other half of the bridge held stationary.  They used a technique of braiding paper towels to create a cable-like suspension for the static portion.  By giving their bridge these attributes, the team achieved the innovation award at the competition.

         The Western Wayne Team A consisted of Jacob McCormick, Landon Firmstone, Collin Murray, Matt Rosengrant, and Max Phillips.

         Max discussed his experience at the competition.

“We used the first 20 to 30 minutes to brainstorm how we could make a bridge with the given materials.  We first thought of a draw bridge, but we thought it would be too complex.  So, we decided to try to make a half drawbridge, half suspension bridge,” Max explained. “I personally learned how to work as a team better and to find different ways to use unique materials.”

         Max’s teammate Matt also enjoyed his experience at the competition and thought he benefited from it.

“At the annual Wallenpaupack engineering competition, my team and I were faced with an engineering problem.  The problem was that we had to create a bridge which lifted up on one side in order for a car to pass under it.  We ended up winning the innovation award.  I believe this was mainly due to the paper-towel rope we made for the suspension part of the bridge as well as the pasta noodle and drinking straw hinge we made for the drawbridge section of the bridge,” Matt explained.   “Overall, this competition challenged my mind a lot and was very enjoyable.  I would definitely recommend anyone interested to attend.”

From left member of the Western Wayne Team A:  Max Phillips, Collin Murray, Matt Rosengrant, Landon Firmstone, and Jacob McCormick.

Seven members of the Western Wayne High School chapter of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) recently participated in a Business Retreat sponsored by the Wayne County School-to-Work Committee.  In addition to students from Western Wayne, students from Wallenpaupack, Honesdale, and Forest City were in attendance.

The day began with an opening session conducted by Thomas Shepstone, Shepstone Management, who discussed the trends and forecasts of jobs in the Wayne County area.  Next, Laurie Guzda got the students involved with an exciting marketing activity.  

        This was followed by a field trip to Moka Origins, a coffee roastery and bean-to-bar chocolate factory. The owners have established their own farm in Cameroon, Africa, and are uniting with partner farmers around the world to strive to generate real social change.  Jeff Abella, Director, Himalayan Institute and CEO of Moka Origins, spoke to the students about social entrepreneurship and small business strategies.

Representing Western Wayne were (seated) Lenny Maiocco and Derek Mason.  (Standing) Kate Mattern, Darlene Black, Sydney Peet, Ezra Tetreault, and James Fryzel.  Ms. Theresa Lubash, FBLA Adviser and Business Department Chairperson, accompanied the students.

Western Wayne Junior Lacey Falloon won second place for the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Academy Creative Task Challenge for its first unit of study.

Lacey is working through the course as a part of her computer science class at Western Wayne High School.  Lacey explained that the task that won her the second place certificate was her coding of actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s face when he played Jack in the blockbuster hit Titanic. 

She explained that he is one of her favorite actors, and she thought it was a unique idea for a coding task.  Lacey loves the challenge of coding and has been spending time both in the classroom and outside of school on perfecting her coding skills.

“I like beating others to get a task complete,” Lacey explained.  “I’m always trying to finish first.”

Along with trying to work on her coding speed, Lacey also constantly tries to come up with new creative ideas for coding.

“For my second unit task for the Carnegie Mellon course, I made stick figures climbing a ladder,” Lacey said.  “For this project, my picture has to keep changing to different things.  It takes time to create projects like this.”

When Lacey isn’t working on her programming skills, she enjoys doing projects for Future Business Leaders of America where her primary focus is accounting.  Lacey likes to set goals to challenge herself in all of the work that she does.

“I like a challenge,” Lacey said.  “When I finally figure out something with coding, I sit there and wonder why I didn’t figure it out from the start.”

Lacey looks forward to working on more coding projects in her course at Western Wayne.  Western Wayne faculty, administration, and staff are proud of her accomplishments and can’t wait to see what she does next.