Stuart Finishes Strong

Andy Wiltsie

       Stuart Miller ended his season recently with the best finish in the 8 year history of Delphos Jefferson finishing runner-up in the Division III 189-pound weight class. Stuart ended his season with a record of 44-3, easily one of the best records in Jefferson history. Stuart kept his season strong the entire year including finishing no worse than second place at any event this season. When I asked Stuart what his feeling was standing on the podium down in Columbus he said, “Standing anywhere on the podium at state is awesome, but looking to my left this year was #1, so it’s kind of a motivation for next season.” Stuart was also asked about how it felt to be the most successful wrestler in Delphos Jefferson history and he modestly answered, “I’m not done yet and the program is still fairly new.”

        I ended the session of questions by asking Stuart what he felt he needed to improve on to keep up his rate of success and he simply said, “Everything. There’s always room for improvement.” So, the question is will he continue the trend and become the first state wrestling champion in Jefferson history and second state champion? Only time will tell.

Hopeful Season Ahead for JeffCat Baseball. . .

Jordan Jettinghoff

The Jefferson boys baseball team starts the season with essentially the same team as last year’s 11-9 team.  They return 10 players from a very young, but already experienced team and look to improve on many things as individuals and as a team.  The team is looking for its 6th double-digit win season in a ten year span. 

“The score is still 0-0 at the beginning of the game, so no team is going to back down when they come to play us,” says varsity baseball coach Mr. Montenery. The Wildcats have a very strong pitching group, leadership, and game experience to lead them in many games this year.  The seniors who provide the leadership are Damon Joseph (P/OF), Adam Kraning (C), and Chris “Bill” Wilkin (1B).  Even only with 3 Seniors, the team has many Juniors who are in their 3rd year on varsity and have much experience to be able to compete game in and game out all year long. 

The NWC is always a tough conference to play in.  “The conference title still goes through L.C.C. and Crestview; you got to knock them off and still have to be prepared for Ada and Paulding as well.”  The team does set in a pretty good position as they return their entire pitching staff of Damon Joseph, Sean Fisher, Josh Miller, Craig Carder, Matt Antalis, and Mike Rahrig.  Of the returning 10 letterman, they return a combined .312 batting average, 90% of last year’s hits and RBI’s from 2007. 

      Even though the team is quite experienced, the team is still looking to improve all throughout the season.  “Fielding, stealing bases, and hitting are all areas of improvement that always could use practicing to get better.  Those are the skills that everyone needs to be a complete player in this sport and it shows commitment to program.”

Torture the Teachers

Lauren Schnipke

Special thanks to all the teachers who volunteered themselves to be pied. And thanks to the whole student body for donating money. All together we raised $621 dollars to give to Children’s Hospital. I interviewed a couple of pie-er and pie-ees. I      Murry Etzkorn said, “I felt so powerful!!” 

      Mrs. Siebeneck said, “After my Andy Wiltsie beauty treatment, I had glowing, refreshed skin and my hair was bouncy and silky.”     

Mr. Rex exclaimed, “I felt violated… very violated.”

Thanks again for all those who participated in the Torture the Teacher event.

asked how exciting it was to pie a teacher or be pied. I got some good responses. Andy Wiltsie replied, “It felt great to finally pie a teacher.”

WE SAVE LIVES. YOU CAN TOO. PLEASE GIVE BLOOD.

Tiffany Bowers

American Red Cross came to our school for a blood drive last Thursday. I went into the gym and interviewed a representative who was willing to stop what she was doing and talk to me. I asked her what it takes to arrange a blood drive and this is what she said: “They [Red Cross] have to come to school and talk to the students about what giving blood is about. They also have to schedule a time to come into the school; they come in up to 2 hours before they even start taking blood just to get everything set up in the gym.” She also said it takes a lot planning; they have to do all this before they can even start the whole blood drive.

I also interviewed Murry Etzkorn because he gave blood. This was his second time giving blood to Red Cross. He gives blood because it is the right thing to do. He will give blood again if it’s convenient for him.

I also interviewed John Redmon because he has some strong opinions on this. This is his second time giving blood. He said he will keep giving blood because he wants to help people and he may need blood later in life.

Shauna Bowers was also interviewed; This is her second time giving blood. She says, “It feels good to know I’m saving lives by giving blood.” She isn’t scared of the needle!!