PHS Choir Solo and Ensemble Results

The PHS Choir Department took 39 entries at last Saturday's District Solo and Ensemble Contest. They captured 29 Gold, 9 Silver and 1 Bronze awards. Of those Gold's they will take 10 soloists and 5 ensembles to the state competition on Feb. 28th.

The following students will be taking solos to the state competition: Nicole Beguin, Kayla Clemons, Angelina Jung, Tayler May, Nicole McLain, Shelly Ortiz, Samantha Overmyer, John Patrick, Scott Read, and Matthew Slaydon.

The following students will be taking ensembles to the state competition: Nicole Beguin, Serena Constable, Kendall Cooper, Casey Faricelli, Courtney Harris, Angelina Jung, Tayler May, Shelly Ortiz, Samantha Overmyer, John Patrick, Heather Rohr, and Diane Sarna

Charles Ratliff Publishes Children’s Book

Charles Ratliff, ENL and Language Arts teacher at Lincoln Junior High, published his first book entitled The Hideout at the Abandoned Fish Hatchery. The children’s book is somewhat based on a location at Bass Lake where Charles and his family spends much of their summer vacation. The co-author, Leslie J. May, is a colleague from Arizona where Charles taught previously.

PHS Band and Orchestra Qualifies 30 for ISSMA State

From the orchestra, sophomores Cameron Pifer and Addie Palmer will advance to state with string solos. Cameron earned a Gold Award on her cello solo and Addie earned a Gold Award on her violin solo.

From the band, the following students will advance to state finals with a solo performance: Cassie Eberly and Katie Shaffer (flute solos), Jacob Pritchard (oboe solo), Doug Booth (trumpet solo), Leah Cook (mallet solo).

The following students will advance to state finals with an ensemble performance: Cassie Eberly, Elizabeth Oviedo, Mae Christiansen (2 ensembles), Krista Krpan (2 ensembles), Katie Shaffer, Bailey Capper, Brittany Halsey, Amy McLiver, Chris Eberly, Calvin Cook, Faith Fish, Tom Wilson, Sam Kemp (2 ensembles), Kayla Wentz, Ben Kraszyk, Lindsey Holloway, Caitlin Jung, Doug Booth, Tim Gordon (2 ensembles), Zack Heet (2 ensembles), Jacob Shafer, Sam Shafer, and Andrew Kurtz.

Plymouth Grapplers win Sectional

Individual Sectional Champions for Plymouth were Chuck Holmquest, Chase Lewendowski, James Letsinger, and Damon Howe. Nolan Ludwig and Brock Vermillion finished 2nd, Caleb Kelly finished 3rd, and Trent Keyser and Chris Erickson finished 4th. These wrestlers will advance to the Regional Competition this Saturday in Rochester.

Also scoring points for Plymouth were Austyn Lee, Blake Gaines, Scott Barry, and Sam Tomasik.

Plymouth Students Excel at the Scholastic Art Show

Plymouth High School was well represented by their artists and can be proud of their accomplishments.

The following students received GOLD KEY AWARDS:
Fletcher Craft - Computer Art
Federico Cuatlacuatl - Computer Art
Federico Cuatlacuatl - Drawing

The following students received SILVER KEY AWARDS:
Megan Good - Drawing
Christina Green - Drawing
Jordan Harner - Drawing

The following students received HONORABLE MENTION AWARDS:
Nikki Chalk - Drawing
Megan Good - Drawing
Kelsey Houin - Drawing
Daryl Huff - Computer Art
Deidre Johnson - Drawing
Krista Krpan - Sculpture
Kirsten Thomason - Printmaking

Also, two students received awards for their PORTFOLIO submissions, which contained 10 pieces of their finest artwork. Federico Cuatlacuatl received a GOLD KEY PORTFOLIO AWARD and Nikki Chalk received an HONORABLE MENTION PORTFOLIO AWARD.

The Gold Key Awards will advance to the National Scholastic Awards in New York. The Exhibition can be seen at the Century Center January 31st thru February 14th. The Awards Ceremony and Reception is on February 8, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. in the Bendix Theater at the Century Center.

In-Service 1/2 Day

Friday, February 13, 2009, is scheduled as a corporation in-service day.

All Elementary, Riverside, and LJH students will be dismissed at 12:20 p.m.

PHS students will be dismissed at 12:30 p.m.

BPA Excels Again

Congratulations to Plymouth High School’s BPA Team for an outstanding performance at Saturday's District Leadership Conference at Warsaw High School. Twenty three members advanced to compete at the State Leadership Conference and twelve of them will compete in two events. Many members won medals in Open Events and many members were medalists in multiple events. Alex Eads competed in seven Open Events and won 7 medals.

To cap off a great day in competition, Gage Egierski was elected District 2 President for the 2009-2010 School Year.

School Activities - Update

The Boys varsity basketball game scheduled for this evening at Concord has been cancelled. A make-up time/date for the game will be announced at a later time.

The BPA District Leadership Conference scheduled at Warsaw has been postponed. The gymnastics meet at Lowell has been postponed until February 24, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. All other Saturday activities for Plymouth High School are still scheduled to take place. This includes the speech tournament, wrestling super dual at Clay, 9th grade boys basketball tournament at Tippy Valley, home swim meet vs. Wawasee, home girls JV/Varsity basketball games vs. Concord, and home boys JV/Varsity basketball game vs. LaPorte.

The boys basketball tourney at Lincoln Jr. High is also still on schedule for Saturday morning beginning at 9:00 a.m.

Activities for Friday Night and Saturday

We will post between 12 - 1 on Friday to let students and fans know about the status of activities on Friday night and Saturday. Decisions will be based on wind chill and the location of the activity.

School Closed

Plymouth Schools are closed Friday, January 16 because of the extreme wind chills. Announcements concerning weekend activities will be made at noon on Friday. The Administration Office will be open until 1:00 PM.

2 Hour Delay for January 16, 2009 (Friday)

Due to the wind chill predictions of -34 by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, we are calling a two-hour delay for Friday, January 16, 2009.



Mr. Tyree uses the following websites when determining wind chill and weather predictions.



http://www.weather.com/outlook/driving/interstate/local/46563?from=hrly_topnav_driving



Once you navigate to the site, you can choose to look at an hour by hour forecast that will show temperatures, wind chill, etc.



http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Plymouth&state=IN&site=IWX&textField1=41.347&textField2=-86.3145&e=0



The NOAA website also gives a tabular forecast by the hour. To find this report, go to the right side of the web page and at the bottom will be a link for "tabular forecast". After clicking that link, you will see a table showing various elements...and you can define the elements that you would like to see and hit submit.

Schools Closed

Plymouth Schools are closed on Thursday, January 15 because of the extreme cold conditions. At 7:15 AM wind chill gusts were blowing as low as -23 degrees. The prediction from the National Weather Service illustrate that temperatures will not get any better throughout the day. We have been notified that the Boys and Girls Club will be open today.

Snow Days

The process for determining delays often starts at 4:00 AM or sometimes the night before. I've gone to bed at night when a blizzard-like storm has been predicted only to wake up early the next morning to find that there was a wind shift and the storm missed Plymouth, but hit Warsaw and Wawasee.

We have employees that drive our roads in the morning and during the day if warranted. We communicate with the State and County Highway Departments concerning the conditions of the roads and if they believe they can keep the roads open and safe for our busses. We have several good web sites that give us an hour-by-hour forecast weather specific to the Plymouth School District and not a general forecast for the the Michiana area. We use all of these resources to make a decision and the final decision is made by me the Superintendent of Schools.

In regards to today's call, the roads were in acceptable shape this morning when we delivered children to the schools. It was -9 degrees wind chill, which according to the National Weather Service, children can stand outside waiting for a bus for at least 30 minutes without the worry of frostbite. As the day passed we continued to monitor the weather web sites and the county and state plowing schedules. I determined that the safest time to take children home would be at the end of school. This would give the county and state time to remove and snowfall or drifts caused by this morning's snowfall. In addition, by waiting until the end of the school day we aren't afraid that we'll send a young child home to an empty house.

Tomorrow morning the forecast is for heavy snow and wind chills over -20 degrees. These wind chills predictions decrease the outside time to only 10 minutes before the chance of frost bite. Also by calling a delay the night before we give parents a chance to line up child care for their children if needed.

School Cancellations

The 6:00 p.m. Adult Education Classes are cancelled for this evening.


All activities after 6:00 p.m. in ALL buildings are cancelled for this evening.

2 Hour Delay for January 15, 2009 (Thursday)

Due to the wind chill predictions of -26 by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, we are calling a two-hour delay for Thursday, January 15, 2009.

In-Service 1/2 Day

Thursday, January 22, 2009, is scheduled as a corporation in-service day.

All Elementary, Riverside, and LJH students will be dismissed at 12:20 p.m.

PHS students will be dismissed at 12:30 p.m.

**REMINDER**
If there is a two-hour delay on any in-service day, school WILL be in session the FULL day.

School Cancellations

The 6:00 p.m. Adult Education Classes have been cancelled for this evening.

The PHS girl's basketball game scheduled for this evening has been cancelled.

All activities after 6:00 p.m. at ALL buildings are cancelled for this evening.

2 Hour Delay

On the West side of the corporation, we are experiencing high winds and blowing snow that leads to poor conditions for driving. With the impending wind, cold, and snow that is predicted to continue, we are calling for a 2 Hour Delay.

Where are they now?

Most of us remember Jenelle Palmer, a 2001 Plymouth graduate, as one of the sparkplugs of that 2001 state runner-up girl’s basketball team. Since graduating from Plymouth she has also graduated from Ball State University, spent one-year in an accelerated program at IUPUI, and now is in her 3rd year of Optometry School at Indiana University in Bloomington. Jenelle is getting ready to start her rotations and has already gone through her "White Coat Ceremony." We are proud of Jenelle and her accomplishments.

Where Are They Now? is a new feature for the Plymouth Truth. We are pleased to partner with the Pilot News to bring you stories about Plymouth High School graduates and their life after high school. While Where Are They Now? will concentrate on writing snippets about graduates, the Pilot News may pick up a story now and then for their feature Small Town, Big World.

If you have a story you would like to report about a son, daughter, brother, sister, any relative or even a neighbor, send their story in an email and make sure you include the person's email or phone number, the graduation date from PHS and we will feature the person in one of our weekly Blog entries.

Send emails to sdodson@plymouth.k12.in.us

Severe Cold Weather Bus Route

January 12, 2009

The weather forecast for the Plymouth area causes some concern for morning (AM) travel to Plymouth Schools this week. Tuesday through Friday we will offer a Severe Cold Weather Bus Route for walkers. Listed below are the pick up points for students to catch the Severe Cold Weather Bus:

7:17 Baker and Fairbanks
7:20 Walnut and Novelty
7:22 Walnut and Harrison
7:24 Walnut and Monroe
7:26 Walnut and Washington
7:28 Walnut and Lewis
7:30 Pierce and Gilmore
7:32 Gilmore and Dickson
7:34 Pearl and Conger
7:36 Thayer and Nursery
7:38 Miner and Ewing
7:40 Bayless and Charles
7:42 Liberty and Pennsylvania

Any questions concerning the Severe Weather Route may be directed to the Transportation Office at 936-3169.