High School sports and activities are a popular way to be a part of a team and participate outside of school hours, which is what seventh and eighth graders from SGMS, Pine Creek, and Saint Mary’s came to the high school to learn about on May 8.
It started out with students from every sport talking about their experience. Some of them had activities for students to participate in. It started with football and then next was soccer, who had a fun game where they picked four volunteers to play a quick game. Next was cross country and then golf who had some volunteers come down and try to hit the ball into the hole. After that was cheer, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, and wrestling. For wrestling they had Senior Tucker Shepardson throw a weighted dummy around and demonstrate some form and moves like a suplex. Basketball had a three pointer competition.
Junior Jon Durgan on the boys basketball team says “It was fun and I hope to do it next year. It’s important to be involved in activities to connect with people.” Freshman Maria Turck in girls basketball said, “The activities fair will encourage them to have a healthy lifestyle and sports build character.”
Tennis did some demonstrations showing that it takes a lot of different skills from a ton of different sports to play and be good. You have to be fast and be able to follow the ball and hit it. Baseball and softball let some middle school volunteers pitch the ball. Next was track and field, FFA, the academic team, TSA, and Archery Club.
Weightlifting teacher Ben Hahn came up and talked about the new archery club he started. They went to state this year. Senior Lyle Mccormick on the archery club speaks for the team. “I got fourth overall. It opens a lot of people’s eyes to archery which isn’t a very popular sport and it’s safe but people don’t think so, so I’m glad it’s known.”
That was the end of the activities but BPA, table top club, student council, NHS, band, choir, speech drama debate, Green Initiative, Farm to School, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and theater all talked about their sport/club. Speech drama and debate had three students come down and make an argument on if they think a hotdog is a sandwich. Two of them made the argument that it is and the other students made an argument that it is not.
Senior Ashley Strupp on the track team said “track has something for everybody and you don’t have to be super good to go to all the meets and you can hangout with friends and do all your events and have fun.” Sophomore Annie Keyes on the FFA team said “I think the fair is a great way for FFA and other sports so the incoming freshman know what their options are for the upcoming year.”
After Becky Ayler, next year’s SGMS principal, wrapped up the assembly, the students were allowed to go down to each table and talk to different sports and club students about their experience further and sign up for anything they wanted to. Some of the eighth graders are already in high school sports because of their hard work and dedication to their sport. Overall the activities fair is important for students coming into high school to learn about the different after school activities they can be involved in and learn a little bit about what it’s like to be in high school.