October 1998 News Archive

Monday, October 19, 1998

Earthling Mural Finds A New Home

At 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 23, 1998, Santa Barbara High School will host a dedication of the literary mural that was formerly housed in the Earthling Bookshop. The mural, donated by Penny and Terry Davies of the Earthling, is now located in the school’s library media center.

"This mural means a great deal to the Santa Barbara High School community," said Laura Wilson, chair of Beautify Santa Barbara High. Wilson immediately contacted the Earthling upon learning, from a Santa Barbara News-Press report, that a permanent home had not yet been found for the mural. "We are especially grateful to Penny and Terry Davies of the Earthling Bookshop for their generosity. They believe that students should be surrounded by the best in art and literature," Wilson added.

In order to be placed in their new setting, the project required removal and refurbishing of each literary figure. According to Wilson, it took artist Barnaby Conrad about three weeks to accomplish the task. Conrad adapted the mural to fit its new surroundings. Now, looking down upon SBHS students are the images of writers such as Ray Bradbury, Mark Twain, Sue Grafton, Edgar Allan Poe, Jonathan Winters, and Gertrude Stein, to name a few.

Artist Barnaby Conrad and Earthling owners Penny and Terry Davies will be on hand for the dedication. Santa Barbara High School is located at 700 E. Anapamu. 

Monday, October 19, 1998

It’s Homecoming, Time To Strike Up The Band

Homecoming is just around the corner, which means that Santa Barbara High School will kick off the event with a spirited Homecoming Parade on Friday, October 23, 1998. The school’s football team, cheerleaders, homecoming princesses, marching band and pageantry will participate.

Noontime shoppers will witness plenty of green and gold when the Dons make their way along the parade route. The parade will depart Santa Barbara High at approximately 11:45 a.m. The entourage will head west on Anapamu, down State Street, east on Canon Perdido, and return to campus.

The football game (Santa Barbara High versus Ventura High) will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Peabody Stadium.

Tuesday, October 6, 1998

Concert to Benefit Drama Department at Goleta Valley Junior High School

On Friday, October 23, 1998, at 8:00 p.m., Goleta Valley Junior High School (GVJHS) Drama Director Clark Sayre will join his students for a special performance to benefit the school’s Drama Department. The performance will take place in GVJHS’s Linton Roberts Theater. Sayre and his students will team with Los Angeles composer/arranger Shelly Markham for an evening of song. Sayre’s goal is to raise funds for student scholarships to productions, guest artists and residencies, guest performances, equipment restoration and production/royalty costs.

Clark Sayre is a native Santa Barbaran who appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince’s Merrily We Roll Along and the revival of Oliver, starring Patti LuPone. The benefit will be an evening of song that celebrates the child within each of us. The program includes Broadway standards such as "Never Neverland" and "Once in Love With Amy," to pop and folk classics like "Danny Boy" and Harry Chapin’s "Cats In The Cradle." Also included are several new songs written by Markham.

Sayre’s association with Markham began almost ten years ago with a phone call to Streisand/Sinatra arranger Peter Matz, who suggested Markham as a person that "really knew how to put club acts together." Sayre and Markham have teamed up for two acts, one which premiered at Hollywood’s Gardenia Room and the other which began at Fess Parker’s Red Lion and subsequently toured throughout Southern California. In addition, Mr. Markham has been a frequent guest in Sayre’s classrooms and workshops where he has set numerous student lyrics to music. Markham teaches with Margaret Whiting and other luminaries at a nightclub act symposium in upstate New York. He is currently working with Judith Viorst on a musical version of her children’s classic Alexander and the No Good Horrible Very Bad Day, which will premiere at Kennedy Center in February.

Participating in the evening will be students Malynda Hale, Alexander Georgakis, Kyle Campbell, Danny Soto, Sara Mutinelli and Elizabeth Koppa. According to Sayre, "Although these students range in their level of outside school experience, all share that youthful exuberance, and spontanaeity which the evening celebrates."

Goleta Valley Junior High is located at 6100 Stow Canyon Road, Goleta. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at Nicky’s Hair Design, 1315 Anacapa Street, and Tempo Music & Video in the Fairview Shopping Center. For more information or to reserve seats, please call 967-3486, ext. 601. Seating is limited.

Friday, October 2, 1998

National Merit Semifinalists Announced

The National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists and Commended Students for the 1999 program have been announced. Nationally, 15,500 Semifinalists were selected from a field of almost 1.2 million students in more than 20,000 U.S. high schools. According to Public Information Director Elaine Detweiler of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, "Semifinalists ... are the highest scorers in each state and represent less than one percent of each state’s high school graduating class." The Semifinalists are seniors who will continue in the competition for approximately 7,600 Merit Scholarship awards. Only those students who advance to Finalist standing will be eligible for the awards. This year, the Merit Scholarship awards are expected to total $28 million. The awards will be announced in the spring.

Commended Students are recognized as academically advanced seniors. This year, approximately 34,500 students received the National Merit Scholarship Corporation’s Letter of Commendation. These students ranked among the top five percent of all students who took the the 1997 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Local Semifinalists and Commended Students are:

Dos Pueblos High Schools / Semifinalists

• Anna Forgie
• Jamie Freed
• Tanya Koshy
• Amy Lamboley
• Katherine Tobin

Commended Students are Tyler Fredrickson, Danica Harbaugh, Darlene Hunt, Luke Janes, Alena Kitson, Cheyne Knight, Stacey Lydon, Ari Shapiro, Emma Wall, Kirsten Wallerstedt, Thomas Wu.

San Marcos High School / Semifinalist

• Diana Schwyzer

Commended Students are Cheryl Barkley, David Devore, Miriam Inbar, David Major, Lindsay Merrill.

Santa Barbara High School / Semifinalists

• Marissa Elliott
• Andrew Fisher

Commended Students are Ross Hale, Robert Marzio, Andreas Schwarz, Chad Stephen, Adam Stone, Tobias Warner.

Thursday, October 1, 1998

Dos Pueblos and Santa Barbara High to Participate in Digital High School Program

On September 18, 1998, 315 California high schools were selected to participate in the California Department of Education’s 1998-99 Digital High School Program. According to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Easton, "This is the second year of a four-year program established by the Legislature in 1997 to expand technology to all California high schools." The goal is to integrate technology into every high school in the State by the year 2000. By integrating technology into the learning environment, students will benefit from improved student-to-computer ratio; telecommunications access; and technology literacy skills.

This year, the participating schools will share $136 million in education technology grants. Grant funds are to be used for hardware and software, wiring, and teacher training. Schools are selected through a random drawing. Included in the current group of applicants are two local high schools: Dos Pueblos and Santa Barbara. [Cabrillo Senior, in the Lompoc Unified School District, and Santa Ynez Valley, in the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District were also selected.] Funding will be disbursed at a level of $300 per student. Thus, based on their enrollment data, Dos Pueblos High School is eligible to receive $502,500 and Santa Barbara High is eligible for $692,100. These are matching grants. Current and previous technology purchases and donations can be considered part of the match, within certain parameters.

Digital High School Program funds will be received once the grant applications are approved by the State Board of Education. The applications are formidable in that they require extensive information and documentation. The deadline for submission is June 1999. Teams from both schools will prepare for the application process through various means: participating in a State teleconference on October 5th; attending an October 22nd training session at the Santa Barbara County Education Office; and visits to other digital high schools. Coincidentally, both schools are hoping to submit their application on or about January 1999.

The grant application must detail each school’s plan for technology. Santa Barbara High School Principal J.R. Richards says, "Santa Barbara High School is well prepared because we have been working on a school technology plan that is tied to student learning. Our technology plan will be very useful for this grant. We’ve identified areas for improvement, such as having a word processing lab in the library; updating our graphics lab, physics lab, math lab, ESL [English as a Second Language]; lab; and allowing us to finish our high-tech lab and our Academy lab. In terms of technology readiness, schools are always behind and our dream is that for one magic moment we will be at the cutting edge. We want every single classroom to have at least one computer plus teachers who are trained to use their computers." Meanwhile, teachers at Santa Barbara High are eagerly taking steps to polish their computer skills. In fact, every Monday after school, several SBHS teachers update their knowledge of computers by participating in a voluntary training session conducted in the school’s Multi-Media Arts and Design Academy lab.

Mike Couch, principal at Dos Pueblos High School, points out that the Digital High School Program grant isn’t about simply acquiring technology, it’s about integrating it into a cohesive plan for student achievement and staff development. Principal Couch notes, "This grant will provide an important tool for increased student learning. It will also allow our library to be automated so that we will be connected, via the Internet, to public, college, and university libraries throughout the world."

The Department of Education has established a Web site for information on this program: www.cde.ca.gov/ls/et/st/dhsmain.asp