BirdvillePeople

affected by social media

Page 2

UIL realignment announced

Page 4

Men’s Basketball

makes playoffs Page 4

YPMPMusic

Review Page 3

SOPA censor bill

tabled Page 3

JROTC advances in Academic Bowl competition

Rock ‘n Roll here to stay

There are only three words to describe the excitement. It is automatic! Systematic! Hydro-matic! It is Grease Lightning!

Theatre reenacted the icon-ic musical four days in a row flawlessly. The actors had the en-tire BHS auditorium standing on their feet by the end of the play.

The roles of Danny and Sandy were played by Matthew Matherly and Mandy Foster.

“My first reaction [to find-ing out I would be playing Dan-ny] wasn’t a reaction at all, be-cause it was ten o’clock at night after a day of rehearsal and a per-formance of the fall show. It was more like a zombie seeing free brains… excited, but still dead,” Matherly said.

The Pink Ladies were played by Amy McKinney, Tori Smith, Emily Ivey and Leah Beth Etheredge.

“My favorite scene would have to be when Rizzo and Kenickie get into a fist fight on stage, because Baylor Morrison is Kenickie and it’s great that I get to do something new such as fight with [him]…he’s such a great ac-tor and it’s great getting to share this experience with him,” McK-inney said.

Madison Williams had the part of Patty and Ryan Ivey played Teen Angel and Johnny Casino.

“I auditioned for the part I

by Kendall CarlsonEditor-In-Chief

got (Teen Angel), because he’s al-ways been my favorite part of the show,” Ivey said. “I’ve seen this show a few times and each time this part rolls around, Teen Angel comes out, sings his song, struts around, receives thunderous ap-plause, and then leaves. It’s a part that audiences seem to really en-joy, myself included.”

Other major players in-cluded Vince Fontaine played by Blake Bolt, Clay Wilson as Doody, Sonny played by Chris Coyle and Taylor Hearne as Rog-er. Brandy Twine played Cha-Cha and Eugene was played by Sean Woods.

“Everyone knows these characters, everyone knows these songs. It’s now our job as actors to translate ourselves onto these characters, while still retain-ing the elements that made them iconic,” Ivey said.

The male chorus included Seth Barton, Ashton Boukros, Tory Boyd, Brandon Calvin, Gage Daulton, Max Gamble, Samuel Garcia, Alex Healy, Jose Hernandez, Joe James, Chandler Laird, Nick Landivar, Ty-ler LeDoux, Garrett Love, Michael Peschell, Devin Spraggins, Nathan Stevenson, Logan Thompson and Michael Williams.

The female chorus included Abby Arnold, Amy Anderson, Mick-ey Castenada, Colleen Chauncey, Melissa Crawford, Hunter Dukes, Jamie Greco, Jodi Henley, Steffie Huffstetler, Rebecca Hurlbut, Paige Jenkins, Ashley Koeneke, Sushia

Lancaster, Katie O’Brien, Vy Nhan, Marisa Perales, Ashley Rose, Lau-ren Sargent, Monica Suarez, Melissa Taylor, Catherine Valoon, Elizabeth Valoon and Elysse Villalobos.

“The best thing about being in chorus is just singing with everyone,” Lancaster said.

On average, the students put more than 100 hours into rehears-ing for a musical. This year was no exception. Many students were up at school for days at a time rehearsing and getting their parts just right.

“On a bad day I may as well sleep at the school, but apparently there are policies against that,” Matherly said.

The first musical ever pro-duced at BHS was Grease back in 2000.

This new cast has the privi-lege of having their musical recorded and submitted for consideration for the Betty Buckley Awards to be an-nounced in the near future.

The show never stops as the next theatre production is the UIL One Act Play, The Bog Of Cats.

The posting of the company list includes Seth Barton, Char-lotte Cairns, Brandon Calvin, LeahBeth Etheredge, Mandy Foster, Taylor Hearne, Ryan Ivey, Matt Matherly, Baylor Morrison, Tori Smith, Elizabeth Valoon,

The main cast of Grease!

Theatre performance of Grease! huge successOAP By The Bog Of Cats company announced

Madison Williams and Assistant Director / Stage Manager Melissa Crawford.

Understudies include Amy Anderson, Ashton Bokros, Lily Clegg, Alex Healy, Joe James, Sushia Lancaster, Nick Landivar, Ashley Rose, Lauren Sargent, Clay Wilson, Catherine Valoon and Sean Woods.

There are several small non-speaking roles that may be filled by understudies depending on the final cutting. Some techni-cal roles may be filled by under-studies also.

OAP competition begins in March.

HawkBirdville High School’s

JROTC academic team com-peted against 1,583 teams from around the world to advance to the second level of the JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl on February 1st. The competi-

by Kendall CarlsonEditor-In-Chief

tion continued through Febru-ary 15th.

The team consists of Abi-gail Durden, Jules Watson, Sa-vannah Beasley, Mahlon Miller, Foster Davis and Chase Wiley.

“They pick students who have good grades, knew the ma-terial in class and tested well,”

Beasley said. “We’ve been put-ting a lot of extra time into the competition both inside class and outside of class.”

One of the main goals of the JROTC Academic Bowl is to prepare students for upcom-ing exams such as the SAT and ACT, as well as graduation ex-

ams. In each level of the com-petition, the students have to answer questions about JROTC curriculum, English, math and science.

“It was important, because it shows that JROTC is more than about army-related ac-tivities. It’s also about showing

your skills academically too,” Beasley said.

Only twenty-four of the 1,583 teams advanced to the 2012 Army JROTC Leader-ship Symposium and Academic Bowl Championship in Wash-ington, D.C. at George Mason University this upcoming June.

see more...www.thebirdvillehawkonline.com

www.birdvillehawks.ihigh.comwww.birdvillehigh.com

The HAWK is published monthly, during the regular school calendar, by the Journalism Depart-ment of Birdville High School.

Its purpose is to serve as an open forum for the students, fac-ulty and staff of Birdville, and the surrounding communities of Col-leyville, Hurst, North Richland Hills, Richland Hills and Watauga.

The HAWK is a member of the Interscholastic League Press Conference and Southern Interscho-lastic Press Association.

Advertising Rates are $5.00 per column-inch. Current circula-tion is 1500 copies in print and the paper is archived on the world wide web at www.birdvillehigh.com. Pa-pers are distributed free of charge.

Editorials reflect the views of the writers and do not necessarily re-flect the views of the school faculty, staff, students or administration.

Letters to the Editor are wel-comed and must be typed, single-spaced and limited to 200 words. They can be delivered to room A400 or emailed to birdvillehawkstaff@gmail.com and must be signed and include a phone number and address for verification.

Page 2FebruaryBirdville

Hawk

Kendall CarlsonEditor-In-Chief

News Editor

Megan AbelArts & Entertainment

Editor

Matthew HildewigFeatures Editor

Garrett NallSports Editor

Holly NguyenPhotographer

Opinions Editor

Jannet HilesAdviser

Jason WellsPrincipal

Life should be valued more than opinions on websites

fewer distractions for students taking the tests and fewer disci-pline issues for teachers. It was simple and easy.

Teachers also had to adjust their frame of mind with less time to review in the days before the tests and extra time for review built in to the actual testing time.

Many students who were not required to take the tests opted for

by Megan AbelArts & Entertainment Editor

comfortable clothing, pillows and catching some shuteye.

The changes were not all bad, and came about mainly because of the district’s income from the state received according to attendance.

Many students agree the easy days were a relief from a semester of hard work. Birdville is one of the few schools that offers exemp-tions, so students should not be an-

gry about mandatory attendance, because they are still being offered a great opportunity that other stu-dents envy.

Even though finals exemp-tions were originally instituted to encourage and reward attendance, some feel it is counter-productive in preparing students for college, since no one is exempt from finals in college.

According to many media outlets, there has been an in-crease in cyberbullying activity.

Cyberbullying is when people are teased, degraded or even threatened through social media websites or another form of communication through the internet.

Over the past few years this has grown exponentially, with the sudden increase in pop-ularity of social websites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and several others.

Because of social media sites, movies, television, news and other sources, cyber bully-ing has been maybe exaggerated just a tad bit.

In no way should bullying be condoned, but throughout history kids have had issues in school with other kids. It is hu-man nature.

After being bullied in el-ementary school, all the feel-ings of being hurt that come with it are understandable, but now that it is happening through Facebook does that really make it any worse.

Of course the outrage

comes from the fact that some cyberbullying victims have tak-en their own lives.

This is, of course a devas-tating fact and blow on Ameri-can society, but in return is it not a fact that people taking

by Garrett NallSports Editor

The value of life is so much

more importantthan words

from an insecure person.

Cyberbullying must stop

A semester end tradition has ended this year at Birdville High School.

For several years, Birdville has offered a unique option for students - as long as students met requirements set by the school, maintained good grades and few absences, they could receive the reward of not only being exempt from taking the final exams, but also that time out of school.

This year, however, Birdville has changed its policy, and it has become mandatory that students attend school during testing times even if they are exempt from the tests. This has been a big change for students who are used to the privilege of skipping finals.

Some students who were exempt from tests decided to take the tests regardless of exemption, simply because it was easier for the teacher to administer tests to every-one instead of just half the class.

Teachers offered students the option that tests taken despite exemptions would only be en-tered into the grade book if they were beneficial to the student, so for many taking the test was not so regrettable.

This was not the only change to the testing guidelines.

The schedule for taking tests was also a big change en-compassing four days instead of the previous three.

The previous schedule was simple, with seventh period on Wednesday, then odd classes one day, even classes another day based on the specific semester. With more students being exempt on the final day, there were fewer students on campus; therefore,

“I am looking to exercise

and run on the track and just workout and

keep my body in shape.”

Moataz Ahmed Junior

What are your plans for spring break?

“I am hopefully going to San Diego

for vacation and then to ASU

to tour the campus and do a softball clinic.”

Taylor MooreSophomore

“I am planning to visit

my cousin in

Washington D.C.”

Tuan VuFreshman

“Hanging out with friends

most of the time, maybe go to the beach.

I don’t know, we’ll just see.”

Kacie FreemanSenior

“I’m going to be coaching volleyball, cleaning my house,

relaxing and watching movies

that I haven’t seen.”

Jenna GomezFaculty

OpinionsSemester final exam exemption policychanges created to benefit students

these social websites more seri-ous than their own lives an even more devastating fact?

The World Health Organi-zation estimates that over 755,250 people commit suicide each year. That is just barely over .01 percent of the US population. Now think about how many stories there have been in the past few years on kids taking their life, because of cyber bullying, not too many.

So while the issue has been about stopping these cyberbul-lies, the real issue is teaching kids to stand up for themselves, for what they believe in and to value their own lives more than someone else’s opinion of them.

Students should report cyber-bullying to their parents, crisis coun-selor and anyone that will listen.

The value of life is so much more important than words from an insecure person who puts some-one down to make themselves feel more important.

North East Mall undergoes major changes

by Matthew HildewigFeatures Editor

Features Page 3FebruaryBirdville

Hawk

Visit any popular site on the web in the past few weeks and not surprisingly, find in-formation about, or protests against House Bill 3261, or as it is referred to, SOPA (Stop On-line Piracy Act).

SOPA is a bill that was first brought up by U.S. Representa-tive Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas.

The bill, which was brought to light on October 26th, is na-tionally acclaimed and world wide web criticized for its main goal of expanding the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight on-line trafficking, copyrighted intel-lectual property and circulation of counterfeit goods.

Attributes to this bill in-clude the requesting of court or-ders to bar advertising networks and search engines from linking to infringing sites.

Court orders will also re-quire Internet service providers to block access to web sites break-ing the law, and expand existing criminal laws to include unau-thorized streaming of copyright material.

Students might wonder how SOPA could effect them. On January 18th 2012 many popular sites the student body are dedicat-ed to either raised their banners or shut themselves down for a day in protest to SOPA.

Some of the sites like Wiki-pedia, Google, Tumblr, and You-Tube were among over 7,000 web sites that participated in an online protest to the bill.

To many students SOPA is

seen as a way of censoring the In-ternet.

“The bill is wrong, it vio-lates our first amendment and cen-sors subjects that aren’t a problem of the web,” Kevin Hutsell said.

Many students disagree with SOPA saying it is in viola-tion of free speech, and it is an ineffective way to solve the prob-lems of the Internet.

“The bill is absolutely ri-diculous and illegitimate, it will change the Internet for the worse if passed,” Anna Gibbons said.

Now with this information one might wonder who on Earth could actually support a bill that threatens one of societies most uniquely complex ideas; but there are many for it.

Many in Hollywood sup-port the bill, many congressmen and women, as well as many large corporations.

A majority of Hollywood’s actors and musicians do support the bill, because the bills main purpose is to stop online copy-right piracy.

Many artists are in favor, because it protects their products. With SOPA, all sites that con-tribute to illegal downloading of music, movies and games would cease.

The bill would allow the government to shut down popular torrent sites, blogs, music sites, and just about anything that has ever provided any form of copy-righted material.

The voting for the passage of the bill was originally sup-posed to happen in late January; but due to the mass protest of the bill on the 18th of January Rep-

For some head-banging, moshing, or guitar ripping met-al in the local area, check out YPMP, Your Past, My Present.

The band YPMP is a post-hard core metal band that features Matt Fortner, Brandon Doyle, Cody Klinger, Evan Romrell, and Evan Moschetti, one of Bird-ville’s own juniors.

The band which started play-ing a little over a year ago out of a Haltom City practice room is an

epic metal band that has released two singles, Blood and Sand, and I, Regret. YPMP is also working on finishing their first EP.

The band has played around the entire DFW area including, Tomcats in Fort Worth, Dads in Lewisville, Phil’s in Arlington, and many more.

The band has also competed in Battle for Unsilent Night 4, and Battle for South By So What.

The band like many, aspires to be signed by a major recording company, so they can make it big

resentative Lamar Smith has de-cided to table the bill until further notice.

To table the bill, means to put the bill on hold until further

Many Birdville students’ have noticed major changes go-ing on at their favorite local mall.

The North East Mall is one of the most frequented locations by teenagers in this area. After school, teens flock to this favor-ite meeting place and attempt to temporarily forget projects and homework by shopping, eating or just hanging out; however, they are starting to worry their favor-ite hangout may be changing too much.

“I began to notice stores were missing,” student Zarah Manzi said.

Manzi considers walking the mall a healthy alternative to sitting at home.

“I mean there are sales ev-erywhere, especially at stores go-ing out [of business], but it just worried me. Is the mall going un-der or is this just a weird remod-eling phase,” Manzi said.

According to Holly Con-ner, Director of Marketing for

North East Mall, major changes are taking place to improve the shopping experience.

“Many stores that may ap-pear to be closed are only tempo-rarily closed for renovations like Claire’s that is scheduled to re-open sometime in March,” Con-ner said.

Other stores, like Gap are keeping their doors open while remodeling, hoping customers will overlook the temporary in-conviences of construction.

Though it is true that Aber-crombie & Fitch and Godiva have left the building, other stores are coming in to to fill the void.

“Godiva’s previous loca-tion is being filled with a differ-ent candy store called See’s Can-dies,” Conner said.

Godiva, Abercrombie & Fitch and Hallmark left for vari-ous reasons.

“Hallmark also owns the store outside the mall on the cor-ner of Pipeline Rd. at The Shops at North East Mall. They wanted to consolidate and concentrate their effforts on that store,” Con-

ner said.Even teens who rarely visit

the mall, like Morgan Taylor, have noticed changes. Unlike her classmates, she had a very differ-ent assumption about the mall.

“Bankruptcy makes sense to me, but then I think about that remodeling that they’ve been working on behind the food court. If they were so close to breaking, why would they be remodeling,” Taylor said.

According to Conner, ma-jor changes are happening at the Food Court entrance, which is considered the main entrance to the mall.

“We are revamping the entire look of the entrance, new paint, seating, landscaping and steel structures. We feel the shop-pers will really enjoy the new look,” Conner said.

The food court is scheduled to be completed in early March.

Other new additions in-clude The Limited, which will open in the Dillard’s wing later this summer and G by Guess, opening in the Nordstrom’s wing

in late spring. Changes also include the

consolidation of Image and Im-age Plus, opening in late spring in the J.C. Penney wing.

Many students expressed disappointment in the closing of the ecclectic store, Earthbound.

“We were sad to see Earth-

by Matthew HildewigFeatures Editor

by Megan AbelArts & Entertainment

Editor

notice, not dead, but put on hold for further voting on a later date.

With this newfound delay of the bill non-supporters can only hope for it to be killed once and for

all. To contribute to the fight, call

state senators or congressmen and women, send letters and sign peti-tions to support or kill the bill.

and share their passion of music with the world.

Evan Moshcetti the aspir-ing bass player has been with the band since the beginning. With his ability he wants to make a career out of music and keep going.

“I want to continue doing what I love and hopefully tour the world” Moshcetti said.

For more info on the band and its music check out their Facebook and Youtube pages by searching the bands name.

YPMP - Evan Moscetti, Brandon Doyle , Matt Fortner, Cody Klinger, Evan Romrell

SOPA bill, attempt to censor internet tabled

Your Past, My Present shreds in local venues, music halls

Music Review

bound go, because they were a great shop for us. We are still working with our leasing team to try to get them back in a different space,” Conner said.

According to Conner, up-dating and providing an overall positive shopping experience is the goal.

Hawk Sports BriefsMen’s Basketball - Season standing, tied for first place in district. 22-9 (11-2).

Womens’s Basketball - Final season record 14-17 (5-9)

Men’s Soccer - Won Brewer Tournament 4-0.

Women’s Soccer - Won Brewer and Jonny Baggett Memorial Tournament. Overall record 14-1.

Track & Field - Practice has started. The first meet was 2/18/12

Swimming - 11 swimmers advance to Regionals.

Hockey - Season standing, in second place with a record of 11-4.

It is often said that with great experience comes great success, and this year’s Birdville Men’s Varsity basketball team is a true testament to that.

With all 5 starters being seniors, the Hawks have mounted a 21-9 re-cord and a 10-2 record in district at press time.

They are tied for first in district with By-ron Nelson after suffering their first loss in district to none other than Nelson and then a few games later losing their second against Azle.

Both of the Hawks’ games against Nelson this year have been nothing short of thrilling.

Their first meeting here at Birdville went all the way into a fourth over-time, and then their recent game went into just a sin-gle overtime.

Since the Hawks have played Nelson twice this year already they have no remaining games this regular season against

them. “This year has defi-

nitely been a trip. It’s far from over and we cer-tainly hope to keep up our winning ways to keep moving forward,” guard Kevin Reynoso said.

The hype around this year’s team from a school spirit standpoint has been nothing short of

spectacular. The student section

has been anything but qui-et, heckling the other team and pushing the Hawks for the W.

In response the team has lived up to expecta-tions by putting up a 7-1 record here at home.

“We for sure pride ourselves on our team. This has been the best team I’ve seen since

I’ve been here so we certainly want to show as much support as pos-sible,” junior Ashlyn Massey said,

The Hawks now have their playoff spot locked in and are ready to get started with the post-season but, before the playoffs begin, they still have a chance at winning district.

Birdville must win the remainder of their games and Byron Nelson needs to lose just once.

“Winning district has been our goal since day one of the season. Even though we have a playoff spot locked, we’re not going to stop pushing until the end of the sea-son,” guard Cris Sawyer said.

Timber Creek has won 4 of their last 5 games including a win against Nelson. The Falcons’ only loss during that span came to Azle by 4 points.

Go out and support the Men’s Basketball team as they push through the playoffs.

Men’s Basketball pushes through to reach goals

UIL realignment good for Hawk football team

by Garrett NallSports Editor

Every 2 years the University Interscholastic League redraws the dis-trict boundaries throughout the state. This realignment year, UIL seems to have done Birdville some good.

The district has al-most a completely different outlook as it did this past season. There is only one returning member which is Boswell.

Saginaw High School has rejoined the district af-ter taking a two year beat-ing at the 5A level going just 1-9 on the season last year.

A new Eagle Moun-tain-Saginaw ISD school, Chisholm Trail will be join-ing the district. This will be Chisholm’s first year of

by Garrett NallSports Editor

competition at any level. Being that they will only field freshmen and sopho-mores, the Rangers do not pose much of a threat to the Hawks in the 2012 season.

In addition to all three EMSISD schools, there will be five Fort Worth schools. The FWISD com-petitors combined posted a 17-34 record last year. Only Dunbar went at or above the .500 margin with 6-5 record.

It must be noted that the three-time defending state champs the Aledo Bearcats will not be in the district this year.

Aledo has always seemed to have Birdville’s number, but this year it will be irrelevant since they are no longer on the district schedule.

The Football team is going to have quite the easy schedule this year but, the one concern is the postsea-son picture.

The Hawks could be looking at a first round playoff game against a team such as Lake Dallas, Denton Guyer, Byron Nel-son, or maybe even Wich-ita Rider. All four of those teams post a major threat for knocking out the Hawks in the first round.

The 2012 football sea-son feels like it is going to be a special one with so much talent returning.

Season tickets go on sale in the summer, before school starts. Go to www.birdvilleschools.net for more information. Click on de-partments and then athletics for the latest district news.

Sports Opinion

“Winning district has been our goal

since day one of the season.”

Cris Sawyer

Page 4FebruaryBirdville

HawkSports

Cameron Grant takes the shot for the Hawks against Springtown. Photo by Legacy Yearbook Staff