Seniors planning to apply for N.C. Teaching Fellows scholarships and juniors who want to attend the N.C.

Governor’s School next summer may be disappointed. In July the N.C. General Assembly ap-proved a state budget that cuts both pro-grams. A shortfall in tax revenues led state legislators to pass a budget with more than $3.7 billion in cuts. More than 60 percent of those cuts came in the areas re-lated to education. Students have always received items and services such as agenda books and driver education without having to worry about the cost. This fall the student body will be expected to pay a $5 fee for their agenda and a $45 fee if they plan on at-tending driver ed. In addition, there will be a fee for Saturday attendance make-up sessions. Cuts included an $850,000 allocation for the N.C. Governor’s School program. Students selected to attend the 48-year-old program will now have to pay a $500 fee, and the number of students accepted to the program may be cut. Supporters of the Governor’s School have raised more than $135,000 in contributions to help fund the program next summer, the Char-lotte Observer reported “When we learned that the program was not getting any funding from the state, we were incredibly depressed and sad that it had to happen, but we weren’t going to give up,” senior Anna Decker said. Decker attended the 2011 Governor’s School East in theater arts. “We instantly started fundraisers and advertising and tried to get people to do-nate,” Decker said. “One day we went out and did charity work in our Governor’s

School shirts. That day we also called some Governor’s School alumni, and they donated a lot of money. Thankfully, there is going to be a Governor’s School 2012.” In past years, about 600 students at-tend either Governor’s School East locat-ed at the Meredith College in Raleigh or Governor’s School West located at Salem College in Winston-Salem. The program is a six-week residential program for aca-demically and artistically gifted students. The N.C. Teaching Fellows program was also eliminated from the state budget. For the past 25 years, the program has awarded renewable $6,500 scholarships to 500 college freshmen committed to teaching careers in the state. N.C. Speaker of the House Thom Til-lis has publically said he is rethinking the decision, saying that educators and advo-cates of the program have convinced him that Teaching Fellows should continue, but he has taken no steps to fund the pro-gram for this year’s high school seniors. “I have heard from enough teachers and enough superintendents and enough advocates that I am convinced that we have got to find a way to bridge it back,” Tillis recently said at a Wilmington town hall meeting. “I am convinced it’s a good program.” According to Principal Dean Jones, doing away with the program will be a disadvantage to areas of the state that are considered high-risk. “Those who have a calling to teach are still going to go into the profession. However, what will hurt us is that Teach-ing Fellows graduates many times are able to align themselves with at-risk school districts, places where it’s hard to recruit and retain teachers,” Jones said. “Often they go into those areas and commit four years to the teaching profession. There are many districts that are low wealth, and I think those areas are going to be affected.”

River StoneCottage

CONSIGNMENT SHOP

Monday - Friday10:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Sat. 10:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Featuring localjewelry artists,

furniture, home decorand more

4023 Haywood Road/Hwy 191Mills River, NC

891-8400

Mills River RestaurantBreakfast 6 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

7 days a week

• Homemade country cooking• Italian specials • Greek specials

• Party Room availableCorner 280 &191

• Full Seafood menu available

220 5th Avenue EastHendersonville, NC 28792

828-697-0105

www.wingate.edu/hendersonville

Etowah Florist

West HendersonHigh School Students and Staff receive 10% offpurchase with thisad. Come and check out our Store!

etowahflorist@bellsouth.netwww.etowahflorist.com

Corner of 64 & S. RugbyHorse Shoe, NC 28742

(828) 891-8702(828) 890-5030

2Band awardsannounced

news wingspan • october 21, 2011

In Flight High Note

pho

to b

y H

eid

i Bri

ckho

use

Legislators cut Governors’ School, Teaching Fellows scholarships

Budget (cont. from Page 1)DID YOU KNOW?

AMY TAYLOR AND KATIE MILLERfeature editor/asst. feature editor

To prepare for marching band competitions, junior Hunter Hogan rehearses with the fourth period band class. The Flying Falcon Marching band has placed first and second at competitions this fall. “I always feel confident about my competition and my performance, and I just try to relax,” Hogan said. “We practiced really hard and did really well with our last competition.”

• The Flying Falcon Marching Band competed in the Knight Tournament at North Henderson on Oct. 8. The band received second place overall (Class 2), second place in music, second place for drum major, first place color guard and first place drum line. The band also received the Fan’s Choice Award for the second year in a row. At the Land of the Sky Competition at Enka in September, the band earned first place overall, first place music, first place color guard, first place drum major and first place percussion.

• The Skills USA organization will sponsor a schoolwide food drive beginning Nov. 1 to provide food for needy families at Christmas.

• The literary magazine is now accepting submissions for publication. The staff is seeking artwork, photography, blogs, diary entries, poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Submissions should be turned into English teacher Betsy Squires in Z-8 or emailed to manifestliterarymagazine@gmail.com.

• FFA officers include senior Tayler Tavel, president; senior Laura Hamilton, vice president; sophomore Sydney Smith, secretary; senior Ryan Loudy, treasurer; and sophomore Julie Hart, reporter.

• SWAT members will host the Great American Smokeout on Nov. 17 during lunches.Students will be asked to sign pledges promising not to use tobacco products.

• Pride and Junior Civitan officers include seniors Sieara Bishop and Nathanael Littauer, co-presidents; seniors Alisha Carland and Natalie Rice, co-vice presidents; seniors Savannah Carland and Mandi Melton, treasurers; sophomores Chandler Danielson and Lauren Stepp, secretaries; sophomore Tazmae Padilla and senior Vlad Siedlecki, historians.

• Key Club officers include junior Heidi Brickhouse, president; senior Zeinia Khan and junior Amy Taylor, co-vice presidents.

Weird Laws

“With this 10th anniversary, I have seen a lot of speeches and flashbacks, from when the attacks happened. It is honestly comforting,” Seneker said. “I remember just really turning to the government for help in terms of making sense of this, reassuring me that this wasn’t going to happen again. When I see President (George) Bush in these news accounts, it brings back this feeling of warmth. I honestly felt comforted by the government. “The day of Sept. 11, I was student teaching at T.C. Roberson. I remember exactly where I was standing,” Seneker added. “Another teacher had called to my room to tell us to turn on the TV; the first tower had

just been hit by the airplane. My cooperating teacher wanted to go into the details of what this could be. I was trying to calm students down. I remember the stillness that was in the school. Everything was just still. We all just froze in place for a whole day. At one point, I was looking outside during all of this. I remember just what a beautiful day it was. Not a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining; it was just absolutely beautiful. I remember seeing birds and squirrels. I saw the world going on and in the midst of all of that, there was this absolute terrible thing that happened. The contrast was striking to me. I was just taken by that.”

transportation expenses. The only thing that goes to these costs now is the $20 per student fee,” Parent said. “However, it is not a pay-to-play fee; it is a transportation fee. Pay-to-play is something different. Parents may feel like their child is entitled to play in the game if they pay $20, but it’s what they do in practice that determines if they’re playing.” Parent said the fee will help offset the transportation costs that West is expected to pay out of school funds. “The revenues have to be generated from other sources because of funding reductions. The Board of Educa-tion voted to charge a $20 fee to offset costs of transporting the athletes to events,” Parent said. “I turned in the money that was collect-ed, and it was somewhere around $6,000. I’m

estimating around 50 percent of transporta-tion costs have been covered by the $20 fee.” Driver education classes were offered free of charge to students in the past; however, the General Assembly cut funding for the pro-gram and voted to allow local school boards to charge up to $45 for the class. Driver education instructor Kent Teeter said Henderson County is one of the few coun-ties in Western North Carolina that decided to charge this year. “The state cut the driver edu-cation budget 27 percent and authorized each school system to charge up to $45. Our school system chose to charge the $45 and some did not charge at all,” Teeter said. “It’s up to the school system as to how much of the budget they need to recoup.”

• In Hendersonville, it is ille-gal to back into a parking space.

• Elephants may not be used to plow cotton fields in North Carolina.

• It’s against the law to sneeze on city streets in downtown Asheville.

• In North Carolina, riding a bicycle without both hands on the handlebars is prohibited.

• Bingo sessions in North

Carolina must not exceed five hours.

Sept. 11 (cont. from Page 1)

Hurry Expires: November 28th