Updated transcripts for returning BHS students with GPA/rank reflecting spring credits should be available by Thursday of next week. Transcript request forms will be available Monday-Thursday this summer in the front office on Silver.

Time: 10 a.m.-6 p.m

“For some of our students the stimulation of a large graduation in a large unfamiliar place overwhelms them, therefore they choose not to participate,” Johnson said. “The Life Skills graduation gives those students and their families a chance to have a similar experience in a smaller setting.”

The graduation is a team effort, with various classes and clubs working together to truly make the occasion spectacular.

“Culinary classes headed by Brenda Guzman and Rhonda Cupit prepare delicious desserts and serve them during the luncheon,” Johnson said. “Barbara Volk-Tunnel and her floral design classes decorate the auditorium and dining tables according to the theme we have chosen. Reneè Richards and mural club design members a mural that lights up the stage.”

There are many parts that make up the ceremony, including students shaking hands with administrators and listening to a guest speaker. This year the guest speaker is Rose Norwood, who was the dean of Special services for five years.

“The students know and love [Rose], so she was a great choice to speak to them,” Johnson said. “This year we will be entertained by assistant principal Baldomero Valdez who will sing and play beautiful Mexican music during the program.”

Life Skills graduation has a unique theme each year, helping to make each graduation memorable.

“This year’s theme just happens to be Mexican,” Johnson said. “We don’t try to take away from the regular graduation so we have themes.”

One memorable event in the graduation is each student presenting a speech about what they have accomplished in the past year.

“I started writing simple speaking parts for the students to practice and later let them write their own,” Johnson said. “They loved it! It made them proud to stand before the microphone and practice their speeches. Everything else just fell into place and the result is what we have now.”

The special graduation started when Johnson noticed that Life Skills students weren’t attending graduation.

“I met with the counselor at the time Linda Asberry and two of our Special Education teachers, Nancy Fuchs and Mae Frances Wells to plan a graduation program for the next graduating class and they all shared in the vision.” Johnson said.

From its simple beginning, Life Skills graduation has blossomed into a great program, that continues to celebrate the students’ accomplishments.

“The graduation ceremony is her baby, it’s what she has envisioned for her students,” career tech teacher Nina Wright said. “She started it as an alternative for them so they wouldn’t be lost in the crowd at Reed, and each year she tries to make it better and more meaningful for those students. It’s very important to her for those kids to have special recognition; and that’s what’s it all about.”

Johnson originally planned on going into Home Economic Education, but then her mother began to work for the Mental Health Mental Retardation (MHMR) association and it influenced her career choice.

“Through her job I met her clients and fell in love with them and I wanted to learn more about people with special needs,” Johnson said.

Johnson teaches Life Skills well by varying the activity, but keeping the skills the same.

“[Johnson] is very patient with the students, what should take one or two times to learn a skill take her students’ takes multiple times, going over it and over it and over it.” Wright said.

Johnson gives to the students, but the students also give back to Johnson in many ways.

“Before my surgery in October of 2013 I received a heart shaped pillow with hearts appliques with all the students and staff names stuffed in the pocket,” Johnson said. “It melted my heart! Then one of the students said to me ‘I’m going to pray for you Ms. Johnson so you can come back school!’ I never felt so loved and appreciated.”

Through Johnsons hard work Life Skills graduation continues to thrive. This years graduation will take place on May 23 at 11:00 am in the Blue Auditorium.

Sure anything homemade tends to be better, but sometimes you just don’t have the time or the patience to do it yourself, so you turn to local restaurants. I’ve been to every restaurant in town that serves crawfish, and for every good restaurant, there’s an a restaurants to avoid.

For a relatively small city like Bryan/College Station, there are plenty of restaurants to choose from when looking for crawfish. I’m the kind of person who tends to be particularly picky when it comes to food, and when crawfish season rolls around, I definitely know what I want and where I want to go for it.

Crawfish lovers: whatever you do, and I mean by any means necessary, crawfish lovers avoid the Shipwreck Grill. My experience with this restaurant didn’t live up to what so many people made it out to be. I ordered five pounds of boiled crawfish and side of fried crawfish and it seemed like the cooks were a little too seasoning happy when they were adding spice to pot. Sure, if you can’t handle the spice of crawfish, then you might as well not eat it, but their spice tasted a little off. I gave up all hope after the first six I ate. Without even trying the side of fried crawfish. I just wanted out of there as fast as I could. When the spices are so overwhelming that you can no longer taste the crawfish, you know you’ve gone too far.

Crazy Cajuns, which is now closed, used to have some of the greatest Cajun food in town, but new owners took over and things just went downhill from there. The best part about their food was how authentic it was, I felt like I was tasting real Cajun food when I ordered my usual shrimp jumbo and couple pounds of crawfish.

Some of the best crawfish dishes are made at home and at crawfish boils all around town. If you ever get the chance to buy a few pounds and cook it yourself, I’d definitely recommend it. Even if you’re not sure what to do, just throw in some potatoes, corn and spice with and you’re set. Don’t forget the spice either. Leave them to boil for 15 minutes and they’re ready to eat.

The Chamber of Commerce hosts their annual crawfish boil to benefit the Brazos County Youth Livestock. Its $100 per couple for tickets but it’s definitely worth it. For the past two years I’ve gone and I was not disappointed.

If you want to get closer to the water to grab some seafood, Galveston is great for spring break, the beginning of crawfish season, my best friend and I headed down to Galveston for the day expecting good seafood. We spent the day on the beach and asked around to find where the best crawfish place in town were, someone told us to try the Olympia Grill on the Seawall, surprisingly it wasn’t that bad. Their gumbo wasn’t half bad either. So if you’re ever in Galveston, I would recommend being a little more adventurous and trying something new.

Crawfish season being my favorite season, I will never pass up an opportunity to eat it. If you’re one of those people who doesn’t particularly like seafood, you’re missing out. As always, don’t judge a book by it’s cover, mudbugs may sound unappealing and the idea of sucking their heads might turn your stomach, but their taste will thrill your taste buds.

There are several reasons why adults and children should learn to survive without phones. The most important reason being the improving communication skills. Contrary to popular belief, texting friends the word ‘lol’ does not classify as “good communication skills”. Many media sources are beginning to cite extended phone usage as the leading cause of a general decline in the ability to communicate efficiently and effectively, both of which are vital to success in school and business worldwide. These skills also carry over into personal life as well. More frequently, people find themselves absorbed into conversations consisting of one-word – sometimes even one-letter – messages with their friends. However, when they actually meet their peers in person, they realize that they can’t make conversation as easily and continue to stay connected with people over their phone while ignoring the people around them. This phenomena has progressed to the point that people have even started using phones to have serious conversations that they should have in person, such as break ups, asking people out, and emotional issues.

If people were asked to go without their phones, they would have to plan events with those around them. Instead of texting people last minute asking to go places or do things, people would be forced to talk to others and come up with a plan beforehand. While both ways can work, it is better to make plans in person because people tend to like prior warning, and it helps to reduce schedule conflicts. As such, the ability to make and execute a plan is critical to real world success.

One final point to consider is that phones don’t really help people build their character. If you are like me, and I know more people are guilty of this than like to admit, you can find yourself sitting inside for hours playing Angry Birds or browsing the endless maze of Facebook posts. The rise of smart phones has only made it easier for people to lose themselves in the digital world, however, wouldn’t it be more beneficial to be outside or with friends? Progressively, instead of going to meet friends, cell phone users find it easier to simply plug in their phone and neglect the real world in favor of one of their own. When it comes down to it, phones can keep us from what really matters – friends, family, and the world around us.

All in all, I don’t mean to paint cell phones and their users as desensitized people with no social skills. However, I do hope you will take a second to put the phone away, talk to a friend, make a plan for a social event, or just go have fun outside.

“We put a committee together of parents, administrators, teachers, and a gentleman from outside of the district who came to run the meeting,” superintendent Tommy Wallis said.

The committee included students as well, and principal Lamond Dean says a plan of action was reached.

“Information was disseminated among the community of Bryan High students and parents,” Dean said. “We have tried to balance the numbers, and plan to work towards a more balanced number between Bryan and Rudder over the next five years.”

Besides more evenly distributing the community’s student population, the change will benefit the district in many ways, affecting multiple athletic teams and other UIL competitors.

“Hopefully it will combine efforts with more local high schools like College Station High School and Rudder High School to help formulate a district that will lessen travel, and it would be better for our students,” Dean said.

Each year in October, UIL takes enrollment counts from every public high school in Texas. This academic year, Bryan aims to lower their enrollment, even with changing UIL classifications and alignments.

“UIL will go through the schools and divide them up in equal parts, with about 250 schools in each district,” Dean said. “Next year, they’re going to renumber the districts, so though Bryan may be 5A next year, it’s actually 4A because the number scale is going up to a 6A.”

Currently, Bryan High competes against other 5A schools with about 2,200 students. Other schools in this division such as Conroe ISD schools compete with nearly 3,000 students.

“Some schools are double our size as far as UIL participants, and that lessens the competition opportunities for us since we just aren’t the same size that they are,” Dean said.

By making this move, Dean says students will not only receive more opportunities competition wise, but their time spent of travel will see a positive change.

“As opposed to going to Conroe twice a week, we can easily go to College Station or across the street to Rudder,” Dean said. “We can have more of a centralized travel schedule that will help economically, as well as help our students not be on the road so much.”

The economic upsides to this shift in divisions were one of the initial reasons for considering redistricting and downsizing.

“We began to look at the financial implications of our budget, and what we could do to cut spending, because we’ve been cut so much money from the state,” Wallis said. “One of the things that was brought up at one of our budget meetings was the possibility of Bryan High School going 4A.”

Student athletes and other competitors will see additional changes outside of the competitions.

“I definitely think it will help the school as far as school spirit is concerned,” Dean said. “A lot of students grow up together, and all of the sudden get friendly competition because of locale. We will get a chance with our two campuses to compete against College Station’s two campuses, as well as maybe some more centralized districts. Brenham is one of the ideas.”

Possibly one of the greatest impacts the district will see is a better community brought together through UIL events.

“I think it’s all positive,” Dean said. “It will create a more closely knit community.”

Preconcert chamber music, in the lobby at 6:20 PM, will be provided by our UIL State Solo and Ensemble qualifiers.

Symphonic Band program includes:

The Great Waldo Pepper March by Henry Mancini
Out of This World by John Williams
Blue Moon arr. Warren Barker
On the Overland Stage to El Paso by David Holsinger

Wind Symphony program:

Slava! by Leonard Bernstein
Harry Potter’s Wondrous World by John Williams
Sinatra! arr. by
Overture 1812 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (complete with cannons and bells!

People like the idea of experiencing fear in a controlled setting, it allows them the thrills and chills without putting themselves in danger. They would rather experience the feeling of terror in the comfort of a chair alongside some popcorn and a large drink, because when the credits start rolling, people know the fear is over and they are thrown back into the safety of reality.

Still, it seems strange to some that movies containing so much violence capture so many people’s attention. I can’t explain the reasoning behind watching these movies, but I know I am not the only one that enjoys the violence, gore, and blood – lots of blood. People seem to like terrifying themselves.

Take the American television drama Dexter which is about a blood spatter analyst that is also a serial killer. As a child, Dexter Morgan was traumatized by having to watch the murder of his mother. He was then taken under the care of Miami police officer Harry Morgan, who later finds that Dexter was corrupted by the murder and now has a need to kill. Harry then teaches Dexter only to kill people that have killed without a reason. Killing people doesn’t usually sit well with most, but this show contradicts that idea with it’s massive amount of gore. And the audience continues to sit and watch. Why? If someone knew they were to die in some horrific way, I would assume they would be pretty scared – but watching someone else go through it is mere entertainment? People enjoy this kind of psychological thriller for all it’s darkness and gore.

I’ve also heard of a show called The Walking Dead which revolves around zombies and brain-eating. The show draws huge crowds each week with blood, sweat and tears. Slashers aren’t new to the popular culture, either. Movies like Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street have been cult classics for years and continues to gain followers in each new generation.

While some believe the thrill of being scared is just not logical, others believe that it has to do with the feeling of adrenaline. People like the jolt they get with every scare. Others say it is a way of seeing the character’s point of view through the eyes of the audience. Some people even yell at the screen about how stupid the characters are for stepping foot into a room or for not realizing there is someone behind them.

I don’t think everyone can understand the appeal of scary movies unless they have the mind of a twisted, sadistic and possibly dangerous person. I’m not saying you have to be insane to like scary movies, but it takes a certain type of person to like the scare over a happy ending.

“My relationship with my family has strengthened due to the countless hours spent on the softball field,” Rebecca said. “I think it is the relationships formed and strengthened over the years that make softball such an important part of my life.”

For many, sports can be a relief for stress and struggles. Rebecca also finds it as a relief for her, and a time to not have a care in the world.

“When I am on the softball field or in the dugout, it’s as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist,” Rebecca said. “It is a very liberating feeling to be able to focus on this one thing.”

Excelling in the classroom is a must for athletes, and Rebecca has learned to balance both worlds.

“I feel that my success on the field and in the classroom is largely due to determination and hard work,” Rebecca said. “Growing up, I was taught to identify my abilities and talents and use them to benefit others. I find satisfaction in succeeding both on and off the field.”

At times, balancing both school and sports can be hard to do. Remembering how to handle these situations gets Rebecca through them.

“At times it can be difficult to balance both school and softball, but when those times come, I remind myself to focus on living today and tackling tomorrow when it comes,” Rebecca said.

With sports come the fans, and Rebecca is grateful for her supporters on the team, out in the crowd, and the man upstairs.

“Bryan High softball fans do a wonderful job of supporting and cheering for the team,” Rebecca said. “While I am on the field, I do my best to support and work for my teammates and for the people in the stands because I know that they all support me. It is truly a great thing when you can go and play this sport not only for yourself, but for your team, your fans, and God.”

Many learn and take life lessons from their involvement in sports, this is true especially for Rebecca.

“My involvement in softball has taught me to balance my priorities,” Rebecca said. “I have learned the importance of communication and teamwork and also how to battle through tough times and keep a positive attitude.”

Softball coach Enrique Luna has nothing but positive things to say about Rebecca, and says that her leadership skills are worthy of admiration.

“Rebecca does an outstanding job of controlling her emotions,” Luna said. “She remains cool under pressure. She leads the team no matter what is happening.”

Being a good role model to others can be difficult, but Rebecca handles it with composure.

“Rebecca does a great job being able to keep up with it all, and she is an incredible young lady who our younger athletes and her teammates can really look up to,” Luna said.

Many athletes have their favorite sports moments, and one especially comes to mind for Rebecca.

“My freshman season is one that truly stands out,” Rebecca said. “For the first time in my life, I got to play alongside my sister, and that was an amazing experience. During that season there were three sets of sisters on the team. In one of the games, all six of us were on the field at the same time, and that was a very fun game!”

Aside from sports, Rebecca is involved in many other activities.

“Besides softball, I enjoy singing as a member of the Bryan High Choir and playing the piano,” Rebecca said. “I am also very active in my church and youth group.”

Strong bonds are important for any team, and the softball team definitely shares a unique one.

“The bond that is present throughout this team is very special,” Rebecca said. “I feel as though the girls on this team have my back and I have theirs. We stand up for each other, help each other out, and build each other up.”