-This year, we want to celebrate students SOARing! First quarter we focused on success and had our SOARing Summit for our high schoolers and SOARing Celebrations for middle schoolers at the end of the quarter. Congratulations to these 7-12th graders who were recognized as being successful specifically during the school day:

High schoolers:Thomas Eliades, Skylor Parks, Erika Fischer, Ian Greigg, Isabelle Froehlich, Megan Trierweiler, Kennedy Hensley, Haley Copenhaver, and Taylor Derocher.

Middle schoolers: Lauren Trapp, Braylan McCarthy, Preston Lidman, Jayce Furrow, Grayson Groves, Kinsey Townley, Jace Newell, Braden Anderson, Nick Vondrak, Marik Bock, Jenna Hoefling, Ava Lake, Raelyn Kempema, Mason White, and Camryn Robins.

Our Blackhawks in extra- and co-curriculars have been quite busy and successful as well! Some highlights pictured include our students involved in CTE programs, students who performed in the fall play, our 7-12 students involved in the music concert, and our athletes in football, volleyball, cross country, and swimming. Way to go Blackhawks and congratulations on all of your successes! We recently had pep rallies and State Send-Offs for our cross country and volleyball teams and will have a pep rally this Monday to recap some highlights in sports and fine arts first quarter.

As I enter my 10th year at Hinton, October rolls around with the usual classroom themes. I would like to focus on Military History for this update. Military History is a one semester course offered to juniors and seniors. Recently, we have wrapped up our unit involving wars with the Natives and are beginning our unit covering the Nazis. In this unit, we look at the ideological processes of the Nazis, and how they came to dominate Europe during WWII, as well as what eventually led to their demise. Since Military History is a junior/senior course, it is really interesting to see the students make parallels between what they have learned in the past two years in American and World history with the new information we cover in this course. Earlier this year, you may have seen a post on the school’s social media accounts about an interactive activity we did dealing with the battle of Yorktown. The students got to ask an AI website questions about the battle and make decisions based on a series of “what if” scenarios. These questions ranged from food related to what would have happened if Washington was killed during the war. It was very intriguing to hear the responses they received from the AI simulation, and overall the students seemed to enjoy themselves. In semester classes it always seems as though time is limited, but making time to try this new technology really seemed to be worth it and is something I hope to explore in other classes in the future as well.

The students are starting to dive deep into the foundation documents that launched the United States. They are beginning to search into the complexities of the United States Constitution and uncover the profound importance of its principles. They are also learning about the first Constitution of the newly founded United States, The Articles of Confederation. The eighth graders are creating their own tombstones to reflect the significance of the Articles. They must incorporate their knowledge of the document's strengths, weaknesses, and its role in shaping the nation.

The most important lesson these students are learning is why they need to understand and learn about civics. It is more significant than passing an exam or completing schoolwork, and it is about understanding the role they play as citizens- how they can influence the course of their nation and how the decisions made by their government impact their lives.

JV Football Finish Year with Perfect 8-0 Record

The Junior Varsity football team wrapped up another successful season in late October. The Junior Varsity played a total of seven games this season, four at home and three on the road. The finale of the season against Lawton-Bronson was a forfeit victory for a perfect 8-0 season record. I truly believe that our Junior Varsity program allows our underclassmen the chance to compete at a high level while developing the necessary skills to perform at the varsity level in the future. I can’t say enough about how much our guys improved throughout the course of this football season. It will take a consistent commitment to become the football we are trying to build here at Hinton. We have talked about this at length and now it’s up to them to utilize the opportunities we offer to get better this off-season. They have opportunities to compete in wrestling, basketball, and track plus our off-season lifting program.

The season record of 8-0 bettered last season’s mark of 5-3, we were 3-5 the year before, showing consistency and improvement over the last few years. We opened up the season with a resounding 61-6 shellacking of Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn on the home turf. In week two we hosted Cherokee and won a hard fought battle over the Braves 19-14. In the third game of the season the Blackhawks headed into Nebraska to play the Ponca Indians. The Blackhawks boys came away with their first shutout of the season with a 25-0 victory over our out-of-state rivals. In Week 4 our nemesis from up north came calling. The young Blackhawks avenged a 40-18 loss from a year ago with a 28-24 win at the friendly confines of the Held Sports. Sitting at a perfect 4-0, our War Eagle rivals to the west, the Westerners of A-W were in town for a showdown with your Blackhawks, we were able to come away with another victory by the score of 21-6. In game six of the season we were back on the road against a usually tough Unity squad, but after a 21 point first quarter the JV sailed to a 48-8 win over their former War Eagle foes.. We finished the year with one more game on the road against the Gehlen Jays. To me there is no better way to finish off the year than beating Gehlen at their place with a shutout of 39-0.

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Our football team consisted of mainly freshman and sophomores and a few Juniors that don’t get to play on the varsity. I truly believe this group learned how to compete as the season progressed. It will be fun to watch these young men develop over the several months with the off-season workouts that are available. Many of these guys will be called on to play a role on the Varsity next year.

Members of this year’s Junior Varsity squad were Juniors Tate Gottsche, Jack Beeck, Blake Schoenherr, Logan Charlson and Drew Keller. Sophomores Karver De Groot, Cole Friessen, Will Hagestrom, Logan Kempema, Julian Small, Tommy Tanner, Jack Diediker, Colton Hall, Kolt Dreogmiller, Landen Hanks and Carson Divis. Our Freshmen team members included Casen Boeve, Dawson Spies, Max Costello, Noah Wirth, Zach Anderson, Austin Charlson, Micah Robins, Cameron Rolfes, Jake Wager, Calen Keegan, Conner Hollinrake, Broday Anderson, Marcus Loutsch, Chase Jauer, Logan Hebert and Wyatt Schoenherr. On behalf of the football coaching staff, I would like to say thanks to these guys for all their hard work for making this season a fun one to be part of.

Show Me the Money!

The scholarship list is being updated as new applications are coming online. Please go to the link on the 7-12 Counseling page and check out new dates for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Senior Checklist:

__ Complete applications

__ Submit fees to sign up for housing

__ Gather '22 tax documents to get prepared for the FAFSA which is still slated to go live in

December

__ Check out the scholarship list at hintonschool.com 7-12 Counseling page

__ Stop in Mrs. Clausen's to confirm your semester 2 schedule/WITCC classes