East Montgomery CountyImprovement District

$1,000 Scholarship

All graduating seniors are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship. Ifyou attend a North Harris Montgomery Community CollegeDistrict campus, go to the Financial aid office at that campus

to apply and the college will invoice EMCID directly.

If you will be attending any other college, university or accred-ited technical school, you will need to send us the following

information:

*Copy of high school transcript*Copy of enrollment documentation*Copy of a paid receipt up to $1,000

*Drop rate information for that institutionPlease include your permanent mailing address and phone

number.

“EMCID Changing the Shape of East Montgomery CountyFor Progress”

21575 U.S. Hwy 59 N. Suite 200, New Caney, TX 77357281.354.4419

January, 2009New Caney High School 21650 Loop 494 77357

WINGSPAN

Young people love tech-

nology. They surround them-

selves with it all the time and are

hardly away from it. At first

glance you might think they

couldn’t live without it.

Students are seen with

iPods, BlackBerrys, and laptops

walking around school.

The new Porter High

School Principal Ken Hodgkins

wants the new school to incorpo-

rate technology, like the Tri-

Caster, a device used to stream

Technology

Plans For

Porter High

SchoolBy Spencer McAdams

They came, they saw, and

they defeated. New Caney High

School took no prisoners at the

UIL competition.

At the first UIL competi-

tion, several New Caney students

loaded up on the bus and traveled

to Hamshire-Fannett, where they

competed in a variety of UIL sub-

jects. Computer applications man-

aged to crush their opponents,

placing in first by Olivia

Milkovic.

“I’m ecstatic!” Olivia

said, “This is my first time ever

coming here. Nobody thought I

would win but I did.”

But Olivia was not the

only victor at the tournament. Her

fellow teammates also placed;

third by Danny Cuevas, and

fourth by Rachele Daniel.

“I couldn’t be prouder,”

the computer applications teacher,

Deitra O’Neill said, “It absolutely

brought tears to my eyes when I

realized how well they had all per-

formed.”

Science competitors ex-

celled as well. Alex Rodriguez

won not one but two awards; sec-

ond in science overall, and first

in biology and his teammate and

brother, Luis Rodriguez placing in

second in biology.

Their science team, con-

sisting of both of the Rodriguez

brothers, Eric Bush and Devon

Howard became champions steal-

ing second place from the other

participants.

“I think we have a chance

of actually going to area,” Alex

said.

Even the math contestants

fared favorably well. Bush deliv-

ered three spots in the winner’s

circle, sixth place in number

sense, fifth place in calculator

applications, and fourth place in

math overall.

The next UIL competition is

scheduled for February 7.

Computer Applications wins bigBy Megan Arnold

Academic Decathlon team members (above) qualified for state. See

story on page two.

video and audio

onto the

internet.

T h e

Tri-Caster be-

ing used by

many churches

and commer-

cial ventures

could place

Porter High

School on the

cutting edge of

education tech-

nology.

“Basically we are moving

from the age of industrialization

to the age of technology,” Mr.

Hodgkinson said, “We need to be

on the cutting edge as a high

school.”

Mr. Hodgkinson hopes to

use Tri-Caster to stream video of

sporting and community events

onto the internet where they can

be watched anywhere in the

world.

UIL Computer

Applications

team (left) has

been winning

big.

Principal Ken

Hodgkins

By Torrie Adams

The election was not

about race, people who always

bring up race just contradict

themselves over being “color-

blind”. As the old saying goes it

depends on what he can bring to

the table and what can Obama

bring? He has lack of political

experience, ideas similar to

socialism, and no military

experience.

Now onto the paying for

the school lunch issue. Unfortu-

nately, the free food for every-

one, hurts everyone. The world

runs on hard, cold cash, that’s

the way it has always been and

most likely that will never

change. The reality is there are

thousands of people who don’t

eat all day in America. Some of

them receive Medicaid, others

don’t. People need to realize the

state and federal government

can only feed so many.

Now, onto the “Bailout

is Bad News”. It does have a

few good things about it if you

This that or other

New TennisCourtsby Courtney NashSports Writer

The New Caney High Schooltennis team started the new year with abang. The team was gifted with newlyrefurbished tennis courts to begin the2009 spring season.

The courts were in desperateneed of repairs due to age and winddamage caused by hurricane Ike. Therenovations included brand new fencingwith windscreens, re-leveling, re-

surfacing, and fresh coats of paint.“I’m excited about the new

courts! I can’t wait to see what greatthings will come of them,” said varsityplayer, Megan Chappell. The team isenthusiastic about the updates.

“The new courts will allowplayers to hit the ball solid and notmake as many mistakes.” CoachThomas Lowe said he expects to seechanges in the performance of theplayers.

The team has high hopes fornext year as they plan to host a fewtournaments to show off the renewedcourts. So far the tennis team has takenpart in one tournament in Liberty.

Matt MillerReporter

On Jan. 30th, at Nimitz High

School, schools from all around gathered

to compete in the Regional Academic

Decathlon. Subjects included social

studies, English, mathematics, science,

art, music, and even economics. The

New Caney High School AcDec Team

qualified for the State Competition (13th

year in a row).

The New Caney AcDec team

was composed of many of the brightest

students of New Caney High, which

included Gilberto Ramirez, Sarah

Vickery, Edgar Garcia, Justin Wilson,

Tanya Domingez, Rachel Sims, Jonah

Wilson, and Trent Lawrence. The

Coaches of the team were Jim Moore,

Lauri Stephenson, Elaine Smith,

Courtney Ieva, and Eric Russell.

New Caney won both of the

team events over the entire 24-team field

in the “Super Quiz” category which, this

year, focused on evolutionary biology.

Every member of the New Caney AcDec

team earned gold medals in these two

categories.

Sims, Wilson, and Lawrence of

Academic Decathlon

qualifies for state thir-

teenth year in a rowthe Varsity, or C student division, posted

high marks in the entire region and swept

the gold, silver, and bronze medals as

the highest scoring individuals in the

competition.

Wilson and Domingez of the

Scholastic, or B student division placed

in the top five students of the entire

tournament as well.

In individual events, such as

essay, social studies, art, speech, math,

economics, music, language, and

literature, were won by the New Caney

team. Particularly in the art category,

New Caney nearly swept the event with

eight of its nine members earning

medals.

NCHS Journalism

on the

East

Montgomery

County

Observer

Youth Page

are talking about the present,

however, the long term result

could be bad.

The current theory for

universal health care is the

worst idea ever. First, you have

the government dictating what

doctor you go to and when.

Next you have the doctors who

struggle to survive because they

are forced to work for the

government.

All nations are corrupt to

a degree, healthcare is just one

of the millions of scams run

with the consent of the govern-

ment. The current universal

health care doesn’t eliminate

injustice, it adds to it.

Dirty hospitals, poor

care, and rare visits to the

doctor, are all you can expect

from universal health care. As

for spreading out medical costs,

that’s called heavier taxes on

citizens. If everyone needs to

go visit a doctor through the

government and there are few

doctors, what’s the chance you

get to see the doctor anytime

soon? Think about that.

AcDec members (above and

right) during tournament.

Journalism received two na-

tional awards in January.

On January 9th, New Caney

High School was featured nation-

ally by the School Tube educa-

tional network. Each day a school

from across the world is selected.

Journalism Honored

America should be in-

volved in Israel’s problems with

the terrorists in Iran and Palestine.

For one, when a country becomes

allies with another country it

means they are sworn to defend

each other. Another reason is the

terrorists against Israel, are the

same terrorists against America.

It’s not right to abandon a

fiercely loyal ally of forty years

when they need us most just be-

cause we don’t want to upset Iran.

If we abandon Israel now, we only

prove one thing - America is

scared of terrorism. If fighting on

Israel’s side either through words

or actions sends a message to ter-

rorists, then it’s worth it.

We all know that our en-

tire economy relies on the govern-

ment for support. But, what does

the government rely on?

Recently, the Governor

of Illinois attempted to sell

Obama’s senate seat to the high-

est bidder. The only question I

have is, what else is for sale in the

government?

It’s not like they have ga-

rage sales in Congress. How

much of our government relies on

bribes? What else are they sell-

ing? You know everything is ok

when the one thing that keeps

America together is performing

illegal acts.

Someday I hope to win the

lottery so I can be a Supreme

Physical abuse in relation-

ships can be a problem.

When some worthless

husbands feel insecure about

themselves they tend to beat on

their wives. Sometimes the hus-

bands do it just because they can.

The wives try to leave their

husbands but the husbands

threaten to kill them if they leave.

The children are caught in

the middle. They see this happen-

ing to their mom and are afraid of

their abusive dad. They see that

their mom might die if they don’t

do anything and call 911 and try

to save their beaten moms.

What if it happens again?

What will happen to the wives?

They could go into a coma for

three months or more and some-

times the wives die in the coma.

What will happen to the hus-

bands? Will they go to jail?

The husbands may re-

marry to different wives and their

new wives would not know about

what happened to their first wife

Spouse abuseHeather Thompson

until it happens to them in the

middle of her marriage.

Spouse abuse is a com-

mon problem often covered up by

family, but there are agencies to

deal with the problem.

There are shelters for bat-

tered women and children who

wish to leave their abusers. Also,

seek help if you are involved in a

relationship with an abusive boy-

friend. Through the Internet these

safe-havens can be found.

Support our alliesBy Torri Adams

Whether America wants it

or not, the Middle East can and

will attack us whether we are in

their business or not. It’s either

protect Israel and continue our al-

liance or wait like sitting ducks

for the terrorists to pull another

9/11.

The Israeli-Hamas con-

flict lasted for a few weeks and

now a “cease-fire” has been de-

clared.

During the conflict, Pal-

estinians and Israelis died, some

were civilians, some terrorists,

and some soldiers.

Staff of Eaglevision are Megan

Arnold, Blake Barton, Ciera

Bolieu, Tanshia Davis, Austin

Dickey, Jameil Francois, Meghan

Fuhre, Gabrielle Gage, Ashley

Gunn, Brittney Mansell,

Samantha McGinty, Kenneth Mi-

nor, and Torrie Adams.

Also, in January a podcast by

photojournalism student Erika

Smith was selected by

Teachertube as the second high-

est rated podcast for the United

States in 2008.

What else is

for sale?

By Spencer McAdams

Court Justice. After all, isn’t

that the only thing that mat-

ters? Why settle for some-

one with great skills and ex-

perience when you can make

a load of money?

I’m quite sure that

this is not the way the found-

ing fathers wanted our gov-

ernment to end up. What’s

next, selling military intel on

eBay? But it’s not all bad, at

least when the entire govern-

ment collapses, there will be

a lot of money to buy a new

one.

EagleVisionOn

Teachertube