3Designed By Alix Leavitt

Mitt Romney says he will lower taxes and reduce regulations and create a more bal-anced budget. However he also realizes that some regulation is needed to make a free market work the rules just need to be updated and more modern.

Mitt also wants to ease the burden on small businesses. Romney believes Obama wants to raise taxes.

Mitt Romney is also big on morals and is a pretty humble man. I know that Mitt has done some stupid stuff like putting his dog on top of a car but everybody makes mistakes, I don’t know anyone perfect do you?

I think that if Mitt was president he would make some good changes to America. He will not let illegal immigrants come to America. He won’t support gay marriage but this does not mean that he hates gay people. Obama does support gay marriage which is his opinion so it’s cool but he can’t really do much about legalizing that for a few years. Obama may have cre-ated a few jobs but the little companies are still suffer-ing. Romney says he will fix that and save the little man. Obama has promised change for the last 4 years but not as much as most people hoped would happen. Romney was governor of Mas-sachusetts so he has a “feel” for leadership. He also plans to shut down the Obama care. He is really conservative which is good. Obama on the other hand is a progressive liberal who is not conservative to any extent.

I am on Romney’s side but either way I urge you to vote—if you are of age.

2012 Election: Obama Or Romney?

Sometimes voters have short memories. In 2008 when Obama was elected we were losing over 800,000 jobs every month, we were in two wars, and Osama Bin Laden was hanging out with his friends. Fast forward four years later and there are 3.1 million new jobs, one war is ended, one war is almost over, and Osama Bin laden is dead.

Obama cares about the middle class and will do even more in his second term to help average Americans. Obama cut taxes for 95% of working families. Though not perfect, under Obama’s Affordable Care Act, 30 million more people will have health insurance.

If Mitt Romney is elected he wants to repeal the act. Mitt Romney said 47% of Americans believe they are victims. Do you think half the

people you know believe they are victims waiting for the government to give them handouts?

Obama wants to focus on innovation, educa-tion and job creation. Innovation will keep Ameri-ca as a world leader. Good education ensures that people will be qualified to get good jobs. Job cre-ation will put people back to work now so our economy will be strong.

Voting for Mitt Romney will bring our country back to 2008 to the same conditions

that caused the recession.Please don’t forget how far we have

come. A vote for Obama is a vote for

the future.

VOTE OBAMA VOTE ROMNEYIzzy Vahala

CommentatorNINa StearNS

Commentator

Imagine going from a city high school of 3000 to a small town high school of 300. Scary? Boring? Different?

Going from a big high school to a small school is very in-teresting for me for the simple fact that everyone here at P Hill knows everyone. Students get to know each other a lot easier then you would at my old school of 3000. A new school in general can be scary to any high school student but not me. I don’t feel out of my element because I’ve attended five different high schools. I was nervous when I first attened because everyone here seems to have known each other for most of their lives. I wasn’t sure if i’d fit in.

I thought at first I’d be seen as an outsider. I didn’t know if my style or personality would be accepted. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect on the first day of school but good news.

I was completely wrong.

From A big SCHOOL to little PHILL

Why did you decide to become a teacher? I was in Grad school and I thought I wanted a PhD and I was doing research and it

was really lonely. I didn’t have to pay for grad school, I got funded because I was willing to be a TA [teaching assistant] so I had to attend lectures and take notes and then [teach] labs and I also had to teach discussions. I loved helping people learn science and it was awesome when I could help somebody. They would say “Wow! You re-ally helped me,” and I was like “Oh my God, this is really amazing.”

What is your favorite thing about teaching? My favorite [thing] about teaching is just interacting with people.

I’ve worked in bio tech industry and I’ve worked in research and I usually [didn’t] get to interact with very many people. Even though I love teaching Science my favorite part is just interacting with differ-ent people all day.

What were you doing before Pleasant Hill? I was in 4J [school district] the last two years and they were hav-

ing some budget cuts. I did my student teaching at South [Eugene High School] in 2009 in chemistry then the following year I interview for a job to teach Physical Science to 9th graders and a 10th grade Biology class.

In March I got a letter that was like “Guess what? You are laid off in June” and then I taught summer school that summer. Then I was going to substitute teach but my son was only 3 at the time. [My husband and I decided to wait] and see what happens. We knew someone else in the Biology department [at South] was retiring.

In November the teacher announced his retirement and I applied for the job (teaching Biology and Physical Science) and I got it and I started in January and in March I got my

2nd letter of lay off. I taught summer school again this last summer, then I applied for a few jobs and I got this job. Yay!

How is Pleasant Hill different from South Eugene? What do you like/dislike? I love the physical space here. I’m an “outdoorsy” kind of person so coming to work,

driving out here is very peaceful and [I like the] setting. I look out my window and there are sheep and apples and it’s very peaceful to me. At South it was very “institutional” looking, long hallways with no windows and bright lights. It was really intense.

Even though I ended up having the same amount of students [at Pleasant Hill as South, they are ] spread out over more periods because I don’t have two prep [periods] which is nice because I get to know everybody a little bit better.

I like the diversity of people here. I have never had [students] who are hunters.

I feel like kids value the relationship with teachers here a lot. To me it’s important that kids have a good experience with me and be able to like Science after they leave. I’m a hard teacher but it’s still important to me to have a relationship with [all of my students.]

The Science department here is amazing. I feel like I fit in way better here, my personality mixes in so much better with Dick [Er-ickson,] Jada [Taylor,] Beth [McCool] and Inga [Perham]. I get along with them so well.

If you could have a superpower what would it be? I’m going to be really boring and say I [would want to] fly. The other [power] would

be that the minute I lay down in bed I would sleep for ten hours and wake up really rested.

Introducing Mrs. Tubman

CheyeNNe ShIellCommentator

Deepraj pawarReporter

Everyone here is very nice and made me feel accepted, I joined volleyball conditioning for the last month of summer so I got to know the girls and they’ve made being here a lot easier for me.

Being a new kid at a big high school means no one really no-tices you... until second semester. People won’t really talk to you unless you’re going to make the effort first. For me this was hard because I can be shy.

Kids have their own cliques and, will let you know if they don’t like you. The school experience is completely different at a bigger school. Not to bash on the bigger schools, I’ve been too but its just harder to feel accepted within your class or even in the school.

But at P Hill I feel more apart of the school already.

Above: Jackson Bertsch calls out.

Below: the Billies march hand-in-hand to play the

Boomers on Homecoming .

7Designed By Alix Leavitt

What about our color shout? BrIaNNoN Barrett

Reporter What is it like to teach and direct 15 girls with pom-poms? For Jessica Bascom it’s

a blast! Jessica has wanted to coach cheerleading since her cheer coach inspired her at a young age. She has a lot of fun with her girls, and she feels rewarded when they do well. Unlike last year Jessica is getting the ladies ready to compete. Coach Bascom thinks that Creswell, North Douglas, and Regis will pose the most challenge to her team this year.

Playing music during practice is something that Jessica thinks improves the girls quality of skill. PHHS cheer is especially talented at stunting this year! Their chore-ography is one of their weak points but not for long. For Keykey Rinker ( First time cheerleader, Sophomore) cheer practice is a fun time to tumble and do tricks with her friends!

Keykey loves coach Bascom and all the “Super cute” uniforms that she has picked out. Keykey thinks Jessica is special because she takes time out of her personal life to coach the cheerleaders, and she helps the girls fundraise money to help them afford being a part of the squad.

Experienced Cheerleaders like Jessie Schluckebier and Sarah Berroyer help new members like Alonna Reeves, Jordan Da-vis, and Emily Waits.

It is hard work for Jessica to keep all these girls fo-cussed but it is part of her dream come true.

Football is taken seriously at Pleasant Hill High School. No one knows this better than our principal and Head Football Coach, Randy Fisher.

Mr. Fisher first learned that he wanted to be a coach in high school.

“Being a coach gives me an opportunity to work with stu-dents to achieve common goals”.

One of these goals is to work hard enough to make it to the playoffs. In order to reach the playoffs the Billies had to conquer the Santiam Christian but the Billies were unable to clip the Ea-

gles wings, losing 27-13. Still the Billies sport a 5-1 record and are ranked 8th in state at 3A Level.

It may sound like football is all hard work, but coaches and players also find times to have

a few laughs.“Many funny things have hap-pened but I think the funniest is when a player put their uniform on backwards,” says Mr. Fisher.

All-and-all Mr.Fisher is very pleased with this years teams.

Last track season, the Pleasant Hill track and field facilities were the laughingstock of the league; our track was rock-hard, worn, and weird smelling. No one could run in lane eight because it was com-ing off in chunks. The football field had to be regu-larly mowed, which would leave chunks of grass that eventually decomposed and were ground into the track. But a light was shining at the end of this tunnel of shame: rumors of a new track and field.

The rumors proved to be true: with grant mon-ey and donations from the community, enough funds were raised to build a new-and-improved track and field. Now, the football field is made of clean, synthetic turf and the track is soft and springy. The stands are also repainted in blue and grey with exciting phrases on the front such as “Fear The Goat” and “Home of the Bil-lies” in cheery yellow. The community put a lot of time and money into this proj-ect, but what do the students and staff at Pleasant Hill think about the change?

A lot of students really liked how nice the track and field look. Andrew Mah (11) thinks that the new track “Seems prettier than it previously looked; clean-er, greener, and better.” Keisha Bardgett (12) said, “It’s very nice looking, and I love how it looks lit up at night. It shows the glory of PHHS sports.”

Better, Brighter, Faster!emma BoyS

Reporter

Austin Fisher

Reese Blatch

Jackie Brooks

Ulrich Farry (10) sees the change as “a really good im-provement... It’s great to play on.” Sabrina Boyd (11) thought that “[The track is] a great piece of history and will hopefully be here a long time.”

Some people didn’t think very much of the upgrade . “[The] track sucks; a waste of money,” remarked Mar-tin Swan (11). Taylor Langeliers says she “Doesn’t like the fence.” Ben Larson (11) voices some constructive criticism: “It’s really nice, but what annoys me are the black rubber pebbles. They get in my shoes, stick to my

socks, and are almost impossible to get off. It should be more compacted.” Ben did have some positive aspects to mention. “The soc-cer ball moves a lot faster on the new field, and it feels like you’re running faster. When you’re on the field, it feels like you’re in a stadium.”

And the teachers? They benefit from the track as well. Ms. Stevenson, one of the throwing coaches on the track and field team

as well as an art teacher, said she’s “Excited for the new shot and discuss rings. They’re going to be really nice!” Ms. Bonaventure’s visit to the first football game of the season caused her to “really appreciate our school more.” Ms. Bonaventure also enjoyed “seeing so many people

from all over the community gathering at the school.”

Perhaps we can all agree that our upgraded track and field will make a positive impact in the Pleasant Hill community.

NICole orreReporter Students react to the new Track and Field

Alex Leong and Connor Baker

“I love how it looks lit up at night. It shows

the glory of PHHS sports.”

The Cheer team gathers to support school

spirit.

Billies fight for playoffs