April 7, 2017Volume XXIII

Issue 22

A PUBLICATION OF HAMBURG AREA HIGH SCHOOLLeaders attend Young Leadership ConferenceLydia Warner – 11 On March 10, a Young Leadership Conference took place at Penn State Berks and was attended by students from Hamburg Area High School who were seen to be leaders. The purpose of the event was to expose these leaders to professionals in many different careers, giving them guidance in the fields they may be interested in. The students, prior to the conference, filled out a form where they checked off certain career fields that interested them. Law and order, human services, and personal finance were just a few of the available options. Based off of the students’ choices, they were split into groups to attend different classes regarding their selected careers. Tara Maloney said, “It was a really great experience that taught me about the real world and helped me nar-row down my choic-es of careers that I am interested in.” Kyra Neff agrees: “It was overall a re-warding experience and helped boost my confidence for the fu-ture.” The conference proved to be a re-warding experience and hopefully Ham-burg will continue to recognize its lead-ers.

Seniors job shadow Senator Argall in HarrisburgVictoria Baumert – 12 Two seniors, David Madara and I, took the hour and a half ride to Harrisburg to job shadow Senator David G. Argall on March 21. He identifies as Republican and represents both Berks and Schuylkill counties. Pennsylvania has 50 senate seats and there is a Republican majority. We received this opportunity via Senator Argall’s Senator for a Day event that occurred in October at Penn State Berks. We got to the Capitol Complex at 9:00 AM and met up with the Senator’s assistant who escorted us to a small meeting room. We learned about the technology that the Senators and their staff members use to communicate with each other and their poten-tial supporters. We then watched a conference meeting between a group of Senators, including Senator Argall, and a health service organization hoping to offer their deals to the Pennsylvania government. There were five senators in the conference: Senator David Argall, Senator Ryan Aument that represents Northern Lancaster, Senator Thomas McGarrigle that represents Delaware and Chester counties, Senator Scott Martin that rep-resents Southern Lancaster and Senator Elder Vogel that represents Beaver, Butler and Lawrence counties. There was no final decision at the meeting I viewed, but there was an interest in the new method of serving Pennsylvanians medically and financially. David and I were not allowed in the caucus meeting based on the fact that some of the information that they could have released is considered classified. Senator Argall had a small meeting with his fellow republican senator Senator McGar-rigle regarding blights in their counties. Blight is a term used to describe dilapidated and abandoned area that develops growth and decays. While Berks County does not really show any symptoms of blight, Schuylkill County is scattered with heavily blighted areas. Senator McGarrigle’s Delaware County also showed heavy signs of property abandon-ment and decay. They discussed about how they would try to push the bill that states that the county is responsible for their blights onto the floor. Much was not revealed about further details of the bill. After lunch was provided in the hysteric cafeteria, Senator Argall’s assistant took me and David to the Senate, where we would be introduced and watch a Senate hearing. Many of the senators had invited guests to the particular hearing; there were students from schools that won state sport championships, alumni and current students from the University of Pittsburgh and various other students from around the state. The time spent on introductions was almost 45 minutes long. Right after the introductions concluded, mul-tiple Senators requested a recess, to which the Senate President Mike Stack approved. Unfortunately, David and I were not able to view Senator Argall during a hearing, but we did experience the motions and were able to understand the chaos behind them. The entire experience reminded me of Mr. Kline’s mock Senate that his classes execute

at the end of the school year. Having the opportunity to job shad-ow is definitely an experience that should be taken if it presents itself. There is so much to learn and dis-cover that a prospective worker could have never imagined. I would have never thought of how much truly goes into the everyday motions of the State Government. I am so grateful to have experienced this, and I recommend this to anyone who is interested in working in the government. Senator Argall can be contacted from his web-site.

Hamburg students plan Lip Dub Shawna Hauck - 9 To show support for Dr. Ryan and Mrs. Argot, Hamburg Area High School is going to do a Lip Dub. A Lip Dub is a music video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing. Students will be lip synching to “The Fight Song” by Rachel Platten. After the video is filmed, editors dub over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. A local school, Governor Mifflin has also created a lip dub to support one of their teachers who is battling breast cancer.

By creating this music video, we will show our support for our community of Hamburg. In order to create the Lip Dub the whole student body is needed. Every student will be required to be involved in the filming. Sports teams and clubs are encouraged to make signs, dress up, and decorate. The filming of the Lip Dub will be on April 27.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Legend passes awayErika Romero – 12 On March 18, Charles E. A. Berry, also known as Chuck Berry, passed away in his home state of Missouri. He was a Hall of Fame musician, whose music laid the groundwork for rock ‘n’ roll. Berry was an in-fluential singer and songwriter, so much that his hit “Johnny B. Goode” was featured on the Voyager spacecraft Golden Record. Over the course of his career, Chuck Ber-ry created over 20 albums, many of them featuring hit songs such as “Maybellene” and “Rock and Roll Music.” He is not only famous for music, but for inventing multiple dance moves. Berry’s most famous move was The Duck, where he would bend his knees but keep his torso upright and make a skipping motion. In his later years, Chuck Berry established a nightclub, Berry’s Club Bandstand. While Chuck Berry has a long legacy, his tendency towards crime started at an early age. In high school, where his interest in music began, Chuck Berry was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to a reformatory for roughly four years. Multiple times, he was charged with tax evasion and served sentences of various lengths. With his impact on rock ‘n’ roll and modern music, Chuck Berry’s death has come as a shock to the general populace. Students recognize his song from popular movies, includ-ing Back to the Future. Overall, the legacy of Chuck Berry will live on through his music and creativity. For more information, visit chuckberry.com

Online students attend meeting for online schoolGabrielle Velez - 12 On Monday, March 13, 2017, there was a meeting with the school board about the virtual classes being held at Hamburg Area High School. Mrs. Beth Teaford was assigned the task of finding a few students who are enrolled within online classes who would be willing to speak at the meeting. There are two online programs Hamburg uses to give students who are in need of cred-its, have been out of school for weeks, are having trouble with the public aspect of school, did not get a class they needed for graduating, and many other reasons. The one program is Edgenuity which is the simpler of the two. It is an online class that provides videos of the teacher going over the lesson, documents to read, documents to fill out, notes to take, and tests to finish. The reason many chose Edgenuity is because with this program, students have the option of working ahead. The other program is called Virtual High School. This choice is way more realistic when it comes to high school. Not only does it have everything Edgenuity has, but it has projects, group projects, discussions, and no videos. This one proves to be the more challenging one because there are no videos and no breaks. Many students have enrolled in the many classes both have provided. Mrs. Teaford had to choose a small group to give the pros and cons of both programs used for the online option. Each student must show up at 6:30pm with some prepared points to discuss with the school board. After discussing the points, they are allowed to leave and are not forced to stay till the meeting is over. The only goal for that meeting is to see the pos-itive and negative responses of each student to see if it is worth keeping up with or if there is anything that can be done to help make it easier. Allowing the stu-dents to speak freely about the programs they are enrolled in allows the board members to actually have a discussion instead of just hearing a list. Good luck to all that were chosen.

HAWK HAPPENINGS April 7, 2017 PAGE 2

Hawk Happenings Publication Information:Adviser: Miss Terri McCarthy; Editor in Chief: Eliza Moseman; Issue Layout Editor: Erika Romeo; Writers: Paiton Albrecht, Victoria Baumert, Leah Bertschy, Sydney Buchfeller, Julia Doklan, Tabitha Engel, Samantha Everley, Sierra Fisher, Lexi Gerner, Sarah Gould, Meredith Haas, Shawna Hauck, Jocelyn Hess, Calysta Hinkle, Quinn Holl, Jennifer Hoshauer, Mia James, Alexandra Kline, Gabby Krick, Megan Krick, Kylee Landis, Carly Levan, Ashley Lojko, Erin Maloney, Kiara Mariano, Alyssa Marzili, Amanda McLaughlin, Miranda Pinder, Erika Romero, Odessia Schwinger, Stephen Sher-wood, Trayton Smith, Michaela Sturm, Lexi Tessitore, Gabrielle Velez, Bryce Wagner, Lydia Warner, Kayla Wright. Hawk Happenings is a weekly publication created by the students in the Publications class at Hamburg Area High School. It is distributed free of charge throughout the Hamburg Area High School community. The opinions in this newspaper represent those of the student writers and do not represent the opinions of the faculty, staff, administration, or school board of the Hamburg Area School District. We are a member of the Pennsylvania School Press Association (PSPA), the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), and Quill and Scroll. If you have any questions or comments regarding Hawk Happenings, anything that appears in its pages, or if you would like to sponsor our paper with a donation, please contact Miss Terri McCarthy, Hawk Happenings, Hamburg Area High School, Windsor Street, Hamburg, PA, 19526. Our email address is termcc@hasdhawks.org and our phone number is 610-562-3861, x2327.

Late Mother’s Day gifts that are easy to doTrayton Smith - 9 Mother’s Day is right around the corner and some people never really know what to do for the day. Yes, the easiest thing to do on Mother’s Day is to hug your mother and tell her you love her, but giving a gift is also one of the best things in the world as well. Here are some of the best gifts anyone can make and give to their mother’s on Mother’s Day. One of the easiest things to make by far is a card. The best thing about a card is that there are already pre made ones that can be bought at almost any store. Making one does not have to be all that bad though. Get some construction paper, put some writing in it that would make her happy and that is it. Another good gift is just breakfast in bed. Is it cliché, yes, but it works. A mother would appreciate this very much from her child. It is a good favor to return to a parent or anyone for that matter. Please do not forget to celebrate your mother on Mother’s Day this year, they do a lot for their children and family. Celebrate aunts, grandmothers, step-mothers as well, they do as much work as everyone!

Celebrating Keep American Beautiful MonthCarly Levan – 11 Keep America Beautiful is a national nonprofit that promotes taking care of the environment and educates people on the best ways to take care of the environment. The organization was created in 1953, and they use every April to spread awareness for recycling and keep-ing communities clean. There are over 620 communities that are involved in the celebra-tion and millions of volunteers along with the support of corporate partners, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals. Their main goals are to end littering, improve recycling, and beautify America’s communities. Keep America Beautiful provides research on how litter affects the environment and the best ways to clean up litter and to prevent litter. Obviously the best way to prevent litter is for everyone to stop littering, however it is improbable that this could happen. Keep America Beautiful advises that volunteers step up and clean up their own communities. The organization reported that tobacco products, such as cigarettes, make up 35% of the country’s litter. The organization created the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program which cut cigarette butt litter by approximately 50 percent in the first four months to six months after the program’s implementation. The initiative provides grant funding and easily accessible information about ash receptacles, pocket and portable ashtrays, and other education and awareness tools. Recycling helps the environment by taking garbage that otherwise can fill up landfill and harm the Earth and creating something new out of it. Recycling cuts down on greenhouse gases and pollution in general. To promote recycling Make America Beautiful created four recycling programs: America Recycles Day, I Want To Be Recycled, Recycle-Bowl, and RecycleMania. The organization reported that through their recycling programs they col-lected over 262 million pounds of items for recycling, provided one million people with ac-cess to recycling, and avoided greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing 87,827 cars from the road a year. They also received over 215,000 pledges to recycle, over 6,000 recycling ambassadors, and involved 5.5 million students in recycling. Keep America Beautiful’s last goal is frankly to keep America beautiful. This involves the organization encouraging volunteers to clean up communities and to plant plants. Through their Great American Cleanup and Community Impact Grants programs, the or-ganization has cleaned up the environment all across the country. The organization’s millions of volunteers have succeeded in beautifying 200,000 communities annually by planting native species, sustaining community gardens including fruit and vegetable gar-dens, planting trees, providing urban forestry, transforming vacant lots, cleaning graffiti, fighting blight, and more. For more information, visit: https://www.kab.org/

Seeking the truth in the newsLeah Bertschy – 12 Fake news has been a major problem in the United States during the last decade. Fake news sites have exploded since the election mostly claiming hilariously false facts about the candidates. It is hard to find a reliable news source that will tell the truth and give unbi-ased opinions and facts. There are ways to self-check news sites to see if it is a reliable source for the truth. One thing to pay attention to is the URL because if it ends in .co, it most certainly is a fake website. Second thing to do is to read the About Us section mostly to see who runs the site and to see if that person or group of people all have experience in jour-nalism and are credited people. Last thing is to see if the article has reliable quotes. If the article has little to no quotes then they got their information from false sources or the arti-cle is mostly opinionated which could be extremely biased. Some good news sources to read or watch for reliable news is BBC and the Economist are actually the top two highest rated news sites which both come from the British. News sources like CNN are acceptable to watch since they deliver news truthfully but can be biased towards one political party. One news site that is crawling their way to becoming a fake news site is the Wall Street Journal. There have been many incidents concerning their news articles with their major hit with their false accusations against YouTube celebrity, Felix Kjellberg or better known as PewDiePie. They have made many claims against him claiming that he is a Nazi due to a joke he made in a video but later apologized for the joke something that the “news” site did not take note of. They write their headlines and stories based off of one part of a quote or part of an event and completely change the story of what actually happened. The newest President has a bad taste when it comes to getting his facts from reliable news mostly due to the fact that many of his news sources are fake. For example, he has cited and referenced Info Wars which is run by conspirer Alex Jones who’s biggest conspiracy and fake news article was that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. Now it is very easy to read fake news articles but on the other hand there should be signals going off if someone who believes that a major event that changed the United States was fake. Senior David Madara supplied his input, “Fake news is a huge problem in this country. People have such an easy access to news now. The problem is that most people don’t check the sources or even do more research into a topic. They believe anything coming from the first source they find.” For more information about how to tell what is fake news and which news websites are fake visit, http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/12/05/503581220/fake-or-real-how-to-self-check-the-news-and-get-the-facts and http://www.cbsnews.com/pic-tures/dont-get-fooled-by-these-fake-news-sites/4/ which are both reliable news sources.

Managing seasonal allergiesSarah Gould – 11

As spring arrives, so do another several months of runny noses, itchy eyes and general misery. For some people, over-the-counter medication is not enough to combat these symptoms. My sister, Audrey Gould, a fifth grader at Tilden El-ementary Center, has some of the most severe seasonal allergies out of anyone I know. She shared with me her story of finding the best treatment for her allergies.

Audrey has suffered from her allergies for as long as she can remember. Caused by pollen and mold, they kept her from doing the things she enjoyed. When her friends went outside to play late April to July, and some-times in the fall, she would have to stay inside to avoid the pain and discomfort. Audrey took over-the-counter medication from the start. She began taking Allegra, but that was completely ineffective. She eventually switched to Claritin, and her symptoms started to be alleviated, but it still was not enough. Last year, Audrey finally got a prescrip-tion for Flonase, a stronger allergy medication designed for people with severe, persistent allergies like her. She began to take a combination of Flonase and Claritin every spring, saying “after I started to take Flonase and Claritin together, things started to get better for me.” She stresses just how much the medicine has helped her, and she urges anyone else struggling with severe seasonal allergies to seek treatment if they need it. “It’s all about finding the correct combination of medicine,” she told me. People suffering from severe allergies do not have to survive off of the weak over-the-counter medicine advertised on television. There are other options, and they can be indescribably helpful.Photo from www.target.com

A guide to PCsBryce Wagner – 12 The end of the school year is approaching quickly. Seniors that are attending college might be worried about buying school supplies such as dorm room furniture, notebooks, and new clothing for the summer season. It is a bit ironic that one of the things that some future college students will be using the most, a computer, is the thing that they do the least amount of research on. Even students that are still in high school that want a per-sonal computing device that they can use at home or in a public place do not do too much research outside of price points. A lot more should go into researching the tech so that one can get the most out of their purchase. A PC purchase and what type of PC one will buy really depends on what the PC will be used for. For those that are going to be using their PC strictly for papers and assignments that do not require high end 3D design programs, a simple laptop that comes installed with windows 10 should suffice. Touchscreen is a nice feature that one can add on to this if they do not mind the price going up just a bit. A laptop like this will be able to run ev-erything needed for a successful college experience. Considering that most colleges will purchase the full Microsoft Office package or a subscription to Office 365 for their students on will not need to worry about the costs for that. Students should only be paying around $200-$400 for a piece of hardware like this. For students interested in fields of study such as engineering, interior design, and art majors that require software that is a bit more serious on the processing side of things, one should look into an ultrabook that can handle some of the more hardcore computing. For the gamers, gaming laptops can easily double as a machine used for productivity and schoolwork as long as one accounts for the large amount of storage space that will be needed for smooth gaming. One of the regular ultrabooks runs anywhere from $500-$1000, whereas a high end gaming laptop will cost $900-$1500. If a more serious gamer is looking into gaming devices, maybe someone who has played video games on console for a long time but wants to make the switch to PC, then building a PC would be their best bet. Building a PC and then buying a cheap yet function-al Chromebook to handle notes during classes, writing short papers, and accessing the internet while outside the dorm is one of the most effective options for someone options for someone who wants to invest in a PC. A very standard budget for a project like this is $1000; $800 for the desktop and $200 for the Chromebook.