“Why not?” “Because I said so!”

I’m sure most of us have heard these words before, and if you were anything like me, you didn’t accept “Because I said so” as an actual reason not to do something. Yet, so many of us accept this excuse when it comes to the law.

While many children came home to watch cartoons or play outside, senior Ana Meyer came home at age seven to meet her new parents for the first time. Meyer was adopted after spending several months in and out of foster care.

As Americans, we pride ourselves in our rights and freedoms that are endowed by our Creator and guaranteed in our stall worth constitution. Above all other rights, Americans have always treasured and valued the freedom of religion, as decreed in the First Amendment.

The circus is in town! Actually, the circus is in the state–10 states.

It’s Super Tuesday folks, and the spectacle that is the Republican Primary season has been nothing short of a Koch Bros. Circus.

The Wizard of Oz, a classic American cultural entity, is cherished by children and adults across the country–and messing with something so treasured is always a risk.

Still, the risk paid off for the Fine Arts department over the weekend as they performed their interpretation of The Wizard of Oz to an audience that was left both delighted and fulfilled.

ESPN is a fixture in most households across the nation, but few viewers have the chance to personally know the athletes featured on the television channel.

Bryan High students are an exception, as senior J-Mychal Reese has not only been featured on ESPN, but in numerous sporting publications and scouting organizations for his success in basketball.

In fact, ESPN.com ranked Reese as their No. 28 prospect nation-wide for high school basketball players overall.

Published on January 27, 2012 by the Bryan High School Norseman in Bryan, Texas. To zoom in or magnify, please use the toolbar at the bottom of the viewing window.

Food. Fruits. Vegetables.

It’s grown by hardworking men and women on farms that blanket the American countryside; where the agrarian roots are more than skin-deep. Or is it?

Testing reminders and graduation requirement posters will be un-TAKed from walls all over campus over the next three years as the school begins to look to the STAARs for a new standardized testing requirement.

Effective for the Class of 2015, students will be tested using the STAAR, a system of end-of-course exams for students’ core classes, instead of the previously administered TAKS exam.

This year, we saw the world give birth to a festive new street tradition in which hundreds of people throughout the nation camped out in their downtown streets and parks. They may look like they’re having fun with their street dancers and Guy Fawkes masks, but these campers are serious business. After all, they’ve finally found something to do with their lives! They’re occupiers and this is their occupation.

It’s clear that students have become more accustomed and efficient with technology then ever before. Computers, smart phones and tablets are consistently used by students at home to do their homework and stay organized with their schoolwork. Yet, these devices are banned from the very place that’s supposed to promote learning and productivity. Of course, […]

Gear Up will be hosting a Scholarship and College Workshop for students interested in attending college or a technical school on January 19 from 5:00 to 8:00 P.M. at Jane Long Middle School.

Additionally, Gear Up will be hosting another college preparation session on January 30 at 5:30 P.M. at the Rudder High School Presentation Room. This session will feature Edward Tarleton and address course management advice, college preparation tips, college application process, graduate school options, graduate school essay strategies and graduate school interview guidelines.

The Mayans may have not been so crazy after all. December 2012, the predicted date of the world’s demise, is inching closer and closer. While the rapture may not be as imminent, it’s clear that 2012 really will usher in a different world than we’ve ever known before.

It seems fitting that 2011, a year that began with the Egyptian Revolution and Arab Spring, ended with the Russian winter, as thousands of Russians stormed the Kremlin this month in protest of Vladimir Putin’s corrupt government.

The Extended Essay (EE) is one of the central components of the International Baccalaureate Programme, as students are required to conduct in-depth research and compile an essay in the topic and field of their choice.

With only a maximum limit of 4,000 words, students are free to demonstrate their understanding and passions with the extended essay.

Students who are interested in going to college after high school and are willing to take higher-level classes are encouraged to apply for the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program.

Students, Parents, Teachers and Community Members can now donate to the PTSO by using their Kroger Plus cards via the Kroger Neighbor to Neighbor Program. After linking one’s Kroger Card to the Neighbor to Neighbor program, a portion of the purchases made will be contributed to a fund that later distributes money to the PTSO.

The Sophomore Class Council, which plans and hosts the Sadie Hawkins dance, will meet each Wednesday after school in room 2223 from 3:45 to 4:05 after school. The Class of 2014 will also plan associated fundraisers to prepare for Sadie Hawkins, and can address other concerns that the Sophomore Class may have.

The PTSO began selling this year’s long-sleeved Go Big Blue T-Shirts and Sweatshirts in purple, hot pink and gray on November 18 during all lunches. Sweatshirts are on sale for $20 each, with long-sleeved T-Shirts on sale for $12 each.

Students will be taking final exams for their fall courses from Wednesday, December 14 to Friday, December 16. Exams for periods 5, 6 and 7 will be held on Wednesday and exams for periods 1 and 2 will be held on Thursday, with the remaining exams for periods 1 and 3 held on Friday. Students will be dismissed from school at 12:55 on Thursday and Friday, with a normal release time on Wednesday.

Although it may be difficult for some to imagine school without all of the school supplies that they were once accustomed, recent budget cuts have forced administrators and teachers to take another look at what equipment and supplementary supplies they can purchase.

For years now, it seems that the entire world has proclaimed online classes to be the savior of public education. “The future is coming!”we’ve been told. Well, if this is what the future entails, I couldn’t be happier that I am graduating this year.

ecause one of the highest expenses for a school district is staffing, one area that schools and districts cut down on is in personnel. Although staff layoffs have been avoided, fewer personnel are on Bryan ISD payrolls this year.

One manner by which layoffs are being avoided, while still cutting down the number of staff, is through not re-hiring teachers who left the district last year or retired.

Due to increased pressure on the school budget and declining enrollment, administrators were forced to cut certain academic programs. Latin, which was previously one of the four foreign languages taught, is now being phased out, as students this year can no longer take Latin I.

CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) is an integral part of the International Baccalaureate program that is designed to demonstrate a student’s extracurricular involvement.

Each of the three facets of CAS are also designed to ensure that the IB student emerges from the Diploma Programme as a more well-rounded individual.

In their fifth games of the season, the Freshman Blue and both Junior Varsity Football teams claimed victories this week. JV Blue won 50-23 against Killeen Shoemaker, JV Silver 9-6 against Pflugerville Hendrickson and Freshman Blue 24-12 against Killeen Shoemaker. Freshman silver fell to Killeen Shoemaker 0-26.

The Parent Teacher Student Organization, PTSO, will be partnering with Rosa’s Cafe on University drive Wednesday evening for a profit-share fundraiser, in which the organization will receive 15% of sales.

Patrons who are looking to benefit the PTSO should notify salespeople that they are with Bryan High School or obtain a flyer from a PTSO member. The fundraiser will run from 11:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M.

Students are often frustrated by the course requirements for graduation and what are sometimes seen as ‘useless’ courses that they are required to take. However, most of these classes are not ‘useless’ and there is reason to their requirement.

After elections over the past two weeks, new officers assumed their duties within the Student Body, Junior and Senior Class Councils.

For Juniors and Seniors planning on attending a college or university after high school, many opportunities are available to learn more about each school and the application process.

FYP, the Flexible Year Plan, is a program that allows schools to send home students who meet certain criteria two weeks early. Traditionally, the FYP two-week period has been held at the end of each school year.

This year, however, FYP will be split into two, one-week periods. The first FYP period will be the week after winter holidays. The second FYP period will be at the end of the school year as it has been in the past.

Before this year’s homecoming football game on September 23, the Viking Band will be hosting a spaghetti dinner from 4:30 to 7:00 P.M in the Silver Cafeteria.

In their second game of the season, the Viking Freshmen and Junior Varsity Football team won each of their games against Round Rock McNeil on Thursday.

The JV Blue team won 19-14 as the JV Silver team won 16-0. The Freshmen Blue team won 31-14 and the Silver team won 13-8.

As students gain access to school Google accounts this fall, much of the world will also be dabbling in the cloud, as services like iCloud and Dropbox become even more popular.

These services store user’s information online, reducing the need for people to keep their documents saved to their computer. Plus, these services also allow users to access their files anywhere, like on a smartphone or public computer at school.

In San Marcos, the Lady Viking Volleyball team came home with a 2nd Place title in the 2011 Century Link Ragin’ Rattler volleyball tournament after defeating Second Baptist and Temple on Saturday.

In their first game of the season, the JV Blue Football team came away with a 22-21 win against Clear Springs. The JV Silver team fell to Clear Springs in a final score of 24-12.

For girls looking to purchase dresses and accessories for the 2011 Homecoming dance, the Junior Class Council will be hosting the Homecoming Dress Sale on Saturday, September 10 in Gym 3 from 8:30 A.M. to noon.

The dresses and accessories range in price from $5.00 to $50.00. All proceeds will benefit the Junior Class Council, which funds and organizes the Junior/Senior Prom.

For the first home Viking Football game, the Cheerleaders will host their annual hamburger dinner fundraiser in the Silver Campus Cafeteria from 4:30-7:00 P.M.

Tickets, which can be purchased from any Viking Cheerleader, cost $9.00 apiece with all proceeds benefiting the Cheerleader Booster Club. Attendees can dine-in at the silver cafeteria or pick-up their meal via drive-thru in front of the silver cafeteria.

When President Obama isn’t off interrupting Bachelorette episodes or playing golf, he occasionally makes time to deal with pressing domestic and international issues, like taking down al-Qaida or rescuing the American auto industry.

Yet, the President and Speaker Boehner were apparently not content with just playing games on the golf course, for they also wanted to produce a full-fledged crisis that put our nation’s economy and credit in danger.

The Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior and Senior Class Councils will be meeting on Wednesdays immediately after school in Room 1200. The Student Council will meet following the Class Council meetings at 4:00 on Wednesday afternoons in room 1200.

For the opening game of the 2011-2012 football season, the Vikings will face Clear Springs at Veterans Memorial Stadium in League City, Texas on Saturday at 7:00 P.M.

Lady Viking Volleyball players competed this week in the Westwood Volleyball Tournament, ending the 3-day tournament with a record of 1-5.

Parent Open House and orientation will be held on the evening of August 29 from 6:00 to 7:30.

Students may not start classes until August 22, but for new Superintendent Thomas Wallis, preparing for the school year began on July 1.

Wallis, the former Superintendent of Palestine ISD, began reading about the new Superentindent’s job in mid-Spring, as it appeared in postings on Texas Education websites, but hadn’t initially considered applying for the position.

Visitors to the Bryan High School website will notice many changes this fall, as the online edition of The Norseman takes the place of the previous website.

All of the same information is still accessible through the new website, using the ‘School Information’, ‘Faculty & Staff’, ‘Extracurriculars’ and ‘School Calendar’ navigation buttons in the left sidebar of BryanHighNorseman.com. Additionally, students, parents, faculty and community members will be able to view the latest news and articles from The Norseman.

Spoons, a popular frozen yogurt eatery, will be in the Silver Cafeteria on August 9-10 during schedule pickup, from 12:30-2:30, and August 29 from 5:30-7:30 during Open House for students, parents and staff to help support the PTSO and Viking Band.

Proceeds from the sales of frozen yogurt and toppings during schedule pickup will benefit the Band, while the proceeds from Open House will benefit the PTSO. The yogurt will be sold for $3.00 each.

In an effort to preserve the history of Bryan High School, The Norseman has made past copies of its publication, starting with Volume 10 in 1980, available for download on BryanHighNorseman.com. The offering is a part of a website upgrade by the Norseman staff for the 2011-2012 school year.

The issues can be accessed by visiting BryanHighNorseman.com/archives and selecting a desired year and month. All online articles that have been posted since the creation of BryanHighNorseman.com are also accessible through this interface.

For the 2011-2012 school year, schedule pick-up will occur from August 8, 2011 to August 11, 2011 from 11:30 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. in the silver cafeteria, in which students and parents will have the opportunity to double-check their scheduled courses, pay any fines, purchase parking permits and pick up their textbooks and IDs for the upcoming school year.

A&M Consolidated graduate and current Cornell University undergraduate student Frank Liu has returned to the Bryan/College Station area this summer to offer SAT counseling and preparation for high school students. Liu is a part of a national Ivy Insiders organization that pairs high-school students with students from Ivy League Universities for SAT preparation.

At a meeting on June 13, the School Board approved a new dress code policy that requires shorts and skirts to extend to the top of the knee, male students to be clean-shaven with tucked-in shirts and prohibits athletic shorts and pants outside of approved activity, among other changes.

For the 2011-2012 school year, Assistant Principals and Academic Advisors will be assigned students based on grade level instead of by alphabetical order. With this change, the assistant principals and academic advisors will also be moved to the same offices.

A spotlight on how the math, art and foreign language classes are using technology.

A high school diploma grants each student incredible opportunity. Yet many don’t explore the depth and extent of this opportunity in considering potential careers after high school.

One of the most overlooked job paths for high school students is in working for the city, and, as the city undergoes rapid expansion and growth, these jobs are increasingly important.

Today, many Americans think of trains as bygone technology and artifacts of the Wild West, symbols of rugged cowboys and pioneers. Yet, for the rest of the world, trains are ever-evolving technology and one of the easiest forms of transportation.

Instead of investing in high-speed rail, the United States has focused on fostering interstate highways and air travel. While these forms of transportation can be useful, they’ve put us in a difficult situations like with oil dependency and air travel security. Inter and intrastate train development could not only weaken our dependency on oil, and, reduce our carbon footprint, but provide an alternative, efficient form of transportation that doesn’t involve the hassles that modern-day air travel entails.

Huddled around the television each Tuesday and Wednesday night, many Americans find themselves glued to the talent showcase that American Idol has become.

Instead of only being able to watch these performers compete on a television screen, students will have the opportunity to watch and cheer on their friends and peers in the school-wide talent show on March 26th.

As students, we often forget that teachers and faculty members also struggle to balance their work, family and extracurricular activities, but many teachers are involved in a variety of activities, and have learned how to effectively manage their time and serve as excellent examples, not just to other faculty members, but for students as well.

While many students view the bowling alley as a place to hangout for pizza and fun, students on the bowling team see it as a place where they hone their skills and prepare for upcoming tournaments.

MTV viewers will know Diggy Simmons as the son of RUN-DMC superstar Joseph Simmons, but these days, the fifteen year old is making a name for himself as a rapping, internet superstar.

As technology progresses through time, the security of our personal privacy and safety has come into question. The internet, and thus the ability to post and share personal information, has made the access to such information of others almost ubiquitous and gadgets and gizmos can produce harmful radiation rays that could lead to cancer.

One of the most recent events to raise questions about each of these concerns is the use of full-body scanners by the Transportation Security Administration in airports across the United States.

As one of the fastest-rising causes of death in teenagers, texting while driving, is the focus of a new school-wide campaign to raise awareness of the dangers and effects of distracted driving.

The Student Council kicked off their campaign the week of Dec 6, as they showed videos on the daily announcements, passed out informational materials and held a pledge drive related to texting while driving.

Throughout the rest of the school year, Key Club will be creating care packages to send to the American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting in the War on Terrorism. In order to sponsor and create these packages, Key Club is joining with an organization known as Honor Our Troops (H.O.T.).

Andere Länder, andere Sitten. When in Rome, do as the Romans, or literally, Other countries, other customs.

As the head of the Languages Other Than English (LOTE) department and a fluent speaker of Italian, German, French and English, German teacher Jan Krammer embodies this classic proverb as she teaches students about the values of studying other languages and cultures.

After being introduced in the 1950s, it took almost ten years for color televisions to become a popular mainstay in the American home and render black and white television obsolete.

Now, an argument is being made that three-dimensional television is about to have the same, revolutionary effect on the television and movie industry that color television had in the 50s.

When asked what their favorite class of the day is, plenty of students would undoubtedly answer, “Lunch!”. Yet, how many students know what goes into making a daily meal in the school cafeteria?

Starting at 6:30 in the morning, cafeteria workers begin arriving to start preparing for the day’s meals.

After December 2007, when a national recession was declared by the National Bureau of Economic Research, state and federal budgets have been under intense scrutiny.

A central aspect of the state’s budget that is being considered for budgetary cuts is the education system.

For many students, high school is the time to seek out their passions, and for the musically-inclined, this means performing in student bands.

While Bryan High sponsors several musically-oriented organizations, many students continue their education by recording, performing, and writing music on their own with their peers.

We’ve all sat through the lectures and heard the warnings about maintaining proper online privacy, like not giving out our address or phone number, but how many of us truly take steps to keep our information private?