Upcoming Home Events

November 12th & 13th – All School Play

November 14th – HS BB and Wrestling Practices begin

November 14th – Board of Education Meeting

November 15th – JH BB at Smith Center

November 16th – SRC Day

November 23rd – 25th – Thanksgiving Break

November 29th – JH BB at Smith Center

December 2nd – HS BB at Smith Center

December 3rd – HS C-Team Tournament at SC

December 12th – 7-12 Christmas Concert

December 12th – Board of Educatin Meeting

Click here for a full list of activities

Smith Center Homecoming Week

Homecoming week was filled with an array of activities to get students excited for the Friday football game against Ellis. Students had fun participating daily by dressing up according to the theme of the day. On Friday, at 2:00, the homecoming ceremony was held in the Auditorium to announce the 2016 homecoming king and queen. This year’s queen was Mikayla Dietz and the honor of king was given to Kaden Meitler. The Chansonnaires also shared a song at the ceremony. The ceremony was wrapped up with a pep rally held at the 4-way stop in downtown Smith Center where the cheerleaders and dance team performed along with the band. Speeches were given by Nick Linn, Kelli Armknecht, and Darren Sasse. Later that evening, the football team performed flawlessly with a big will over Ellis 52-0. The STUCCO organization sponsored a dance for the students 9-12 on Saturday, October 8th from 9:00 – 11:00 at the high school commons area.

(Joel Karg and Kaden Meitler)

Homecoming King and Queen

Smith Center Jr/Sr High School

The Redmen Connection

November 2016

(Kaden Meitler) (Dane Coleclasure & Jayden Peterson)

Homecoming Candidates – Keaton Bortz, Jade Coleclasure, Kaden Meitler, Mikayla Dietz, Chase Ryan, Becca McDowell, Thayne Benoit, Sierra Kirchhoff, Ian Stansbury, Hannah Hrabe

Trace Haven

Colton Hutchinson

Below: Coach Hutchinson and Coach Sasse

Homecoming

2016

Teacher In-Service Held October 10th

FFA Competes in Dairy Cattle Judging

The teachers had a change of pace on Monday October 10th as they took a day of In-Service. In the morning from 8am to 12pm, the teachers listed to a presentation given by Mr. Chris Dinkel from High Plains Mental Health. The teachers learned what warning signs to look for in students that may be suffering mental health issues including depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, or even bi-polar issues. The teachers will complete the In-Service in January.

Mr. Tim Davis took his FFA students to Bird City on Wednesday, October 12th to compete in the Dairy Cattle judging contest.

The Greenhand team placed 6th. Members include Sam Tucker, Chasity Bonfonti, Jessalyn Kirchhoff, Sam Heron, Paris Bailey, Ayden Long, and Sabrina Saltzman.

SC Cross Country Qualifies for State Competition

The Senior team placed 8th overall. It’s members include Kyle Sasse, , Hesston Maxwell, Gavin Wagner, Austin Hoblemann, Avery Hawkins, Kacie Timmons and Sierra Kirchhoff.

On Thursday, October 13th, Mrs. Kelli Armknecht took her cross country team to Lakeside to compete. This is a very well attended meet as there were lots of runners and the competition was very tough. The Smith Center runners placed as follows: Tanner - 3rd JV - 21:10 Sydney - 60th - 24:58 Hannah - 4th JV - 24:37 Joel - 28th - 19:23 Tayln - 6th JV - 25:07 Oliver - 59th - 21:03 Caley - 56th - 24:32 Beau - 70th - 21:32 On Saturday, October 22nd the team traveled to Hill City for the Regional Cross Country meet. The team ran with a lot of heart and represented Smith Center well. Qualifying for the state competition was Joel Karg with his time if 19:03. Individual results are as follows: Joel – 7th – 19:03 Beau – 29th – 24:05 Oliver – 39th – 21:22 Tanner – 60th – 23:14 Martin – 63rd – 26:14 Caley – 18th – 24:37 Sydney – 19th – 24:45 Hannah – 22nd –25:11 Tayln – 23rd – 25:

The State Cross Country meet was held in Wamego on Saturday, October 29th. Joel’s teammates also made the trip to Wamego to support Joel on his state competition run. Joel was able to place 50th out of 99 runners. Congratulations!

Lady Red Wrap Up The 2016 Volleyball Season

Redmen Football Wins District Title and Moves to Post-Season

Thayne Benoit Dalton Oliver

Chase Ryan Kaden Meitler

Ashton Hawkins Clay Winslow

David Hileman Keaton Bortz

The post season play for the Lady Red began with the MCL tournament which was held at TMP on Thursday, October 13th. The Lady Red came away with 4th place in the league. The Lady Red lost a close one to Phillipsburg but were able to recover and turn around with a win against Hill City. On Saturday, the Lady Red started the day off strong with a win against Stockton and Oakley. They then met up with TMP where they took a loss and ended the day with a win against Norton for a 4th place overall.

The team then traveled to Belleville for Sub-State. The first match was against Plainville where the Lady Red was able to come away with a win. They then matched up against Washington County who beat them in two sets 25-21 and 25-21.

The Redmen football team came out of district play with a 3-0 record to move onto post season play. The Redmen defeated Sacred Heart 33-0 in their first game of district play, defeated Republic County 40-7 in their second game, and Ell-Saline 39-0 in the third game to win the title.

The night of Thursday, October 27th was senior night for the football players. A special ceremony was held before the football game to recognize the seniors and their parents. The Redmen defeated Moundridge with a score of 52-6 at the Regional game on Friday, November 4th to advance them to the Sectional game on the 11th.

Parent’s Night

JH and HS Band and Choir Attend KMEA Event

Basketball Season Begins

Art Students Share Their Talents with LTC Residents

Ms. Alisha Debey and Mrs. Greg Hobelmann took their music students to Hays High School on Saturday, November 5th to participate in the Northwest Kansas Music Educators Association Mini-Convention.

The junior high honor choir members attending were Lynzie Reynolds, Kaylee Davis, Ferrin McCoy, Jarek Meyer, Griffin Kugler, Nathan Hendrich, and Charlie Timmons. These students performed with the Junior High District Honor Choir under the direction of their year’s clinician, Gretchen Harrison. She is She is the Choral Director at Frontier Middle School in Olathe, KS. Mrs. Harrison also directs the Vivo Allegro and Brillante choirs of Kansas City. Junior high and high school band members also participating in the NWKMEA Mini-Convention were Ashlyn Long – flute; Maggie Peterson – flute; Tayln McKenzie – flute; and Paige Archer – percussion. They were instructed by this year’s clinician, Randy Fillmore who is the director of the Lawrence-Free State High School Band.

The Junior High Basketball season kicked off their year with their first home game on Thursday, November 3rd against Osborne. This year’s coaches for the boys are Shane Traughber (head) and Billy Thayer (Assistant). The girl’s coaches are Patrick Miller (head) and Denise Kattenberg (Assistant). The High School season will begin practice on Monday, November 14th after buffer week ends which was November 7th – 13th. This year’s coaches for the high school girls will be Nick Linn (head) and Greg Hobelmann (assistant). The boys’ coaches will be Joe Burgardt (head) and Art Woodcock (assistant).

Mr. Goedert took his art students to Long Term Care on Sunday, November 4th to share their art with the residents. They painted some Autumn-inspired art with tempera paints and watercolors. Two Art Club members, Jade Coleclasure and Nicole Huffman, and one teacher, Alisha DeBey joined in on the fun.

Second Teacher In-Service Held on November 7th

Character Education with Junior High Students

Mrs. Heather Sasse started off the In-service with a session on Breakout EDU. It is an online learning game platform that teaches teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting participants with

challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem-solve. Breakouts are perfect for classrooms and staff trainings. Specialty K-12 Breakouts can be used to teach core academic subjects including math, science, history, language arts and have embedded standards that apply problem solving strategies within a real world OR collaborative context.

Mr. Darren Sasse continued with the education theme by giving a presentation to the teachers on Google Education, more specifically Google Classroom. Classroom is a free web-based platform that integrates the school’s Google Suite for Education account with all the Google Suite services, including Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar. Classroom saves time and paper, and makes it easy to create classes, distribute assignments, communicate, and stay organized. Teachers can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback and grades right in Classroom. The Google format works best on the Chrome Books so the teachers experienced hands-on training with them as well.

Nora Rhoades, Family and Youth Development Agent, from K-State Research and Extension continues to come to the Smith Center Jr/Sr High School once a month to visit with the junior high students regarding character education issues. In the picture below, she is talking to the 8th grade P.E. class about making the right decisions in life and how one decision can lead to a good or bad result.

November 2016

Vocal Students Perform at MCL Music Concert

FCCLA Happenings

The high school vocal students and Chansonnaiers traveled to Phillipsburg High School with Ms. DeBey on Monday, November 7th to attend the MCL Vocal Clinic with four other participating schools. The select singing groups from each school performed first followed by a concert by all choir members. Thy choir performed the songs they worked on that afternoon under the direction of the clinician. Ms. DeBey has done an excellent job with the vocal students at Smith Center as their performance reflected their hard work and talents.

This year’s Chansonnaires include the following students : Maggie Nixon, Nikki Wilkinson, Maddy Koelsch, Adalynne Haresnape, Kaitlyn Godsey, Becca McDowell, Sharon Topel, Mikayla Dietz, Sydney

Devlin, Natasha Colby, Ethan Peterson, Trace Haven, Logan Zabel, Jordan Wilson, Camden Dietz, Ross Ifland, Ashton Hawking, Avery Hawkins, Brett Meyer and Colton Hutchinson.

October has been a busy month for Mrs. Amy Terrill and her FCCLA club. On October 5th, 26 officers and members attended the District B Fall Leadership Conference in Osborne. Dayton Befort and Camden Dietz, Families First Peer Education Team, presented a workshop on building a healthy family. They presented to 120 students from 9 different schools. On October 11th, the FCCLA members hosted a Red Cross Blood Drive for students and staff of SCHS and also helped set up, serve, and clean up for the Roy Shellito benefit.

The FCCLA members got involved in the local community Hospital Fundraiser on October 22nd by delivering and serving meals. They also took part in donating items to the silent auction fundraiser.

On October 26 Dayton Befort and Camden Dietz, of the Families First Peer Education Team, presented a workshop on building a healthy family at the FCCLA District G Fall Leadership Conference held at Hutchinson Community College. They presented to 145 students and advisors from several different high schools.

Mrs. Terrill’s “Leadership Service In Action” class wrote and were awarded two different grants in October. Dayton Befort and Maddy Conaway received $336 to purchase a computerized Cricut cutter to be placed in the high school library. It will assist in creating bulletin boards, signs and graphic designs for use throughout the school.

Camden Dietz and Kaden Meitler wrote a grant to the Smith County Community Foundation in the amount of $2,100 to set up a Jr. Redmen Pantry at the grade school. Funds can also be used to replenish the pantry at the Jr. Sr. High School as well.