4710 Park Center Ave NE Lacey.Wa 98516(360-491-2966)www.nchs-olympia.org

CalenderNov.10-Veteran’s Day AssemblyNov.11-Veteran’s Day-No SchoolNov.16-18-1/2 DaysNov.23-1/2 DayNov.24-25-Thanksgiving Break

Table ofContentsPage 2-Around the School

Page 3-Feature PagePage 4-Sports Page 1Page 5-Sports Page 2Page 6-Student VoicePage 7-Creative Arts

Page 8-Games

The Navigator

NOVEMBER ISSUE

Around the SchoolKacey Marshall

1. How many years have you played volleyball? This is my 8th year of volleyball.2. What are your favorite hobbies? Cooking, listening to music, playing piano, and reading.3. What is your favorite meal? Anything homemade.4. What is your favorite holiday? I love thanksgiving.5. Where were you born? I was born in Corvallis, Oregon.6. What is your favorite sport to watch? Either football or basketball.7. If you could live anywhere, where would it be? Somewhere away from the city with lots of mountains and trees8. Do you prefer WSU or UW? Neither… OSU- go beavers!9. Where do you plan on going to college? I plan on going to college in the Salem, or Portland area.10. What are you hoping to major in? A math or science field.

Mrs. Downey

1. How long have you taught here at NCHS? 6 Years Total2. What is your favorite class to teach at NCHS? History, Algebra3. What are your goals as a teacher? I want to teach to the best of my ability so that my students will get all A’s.4. What is your Favorite Activity outside of school? Decorating5. What is your favorite food? Pork Fried Rice6. What unique skills do you possess? I can take a cherry stem and make it into a knot in my mouth.7. Where have you lived? I have lived in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington.8. What is something unique that no one knows about you? We adopted a dog that was rescued from flooding in Taiwan and has been apart of our family for the past 2 years. 9. Favorite Music? 70’s and 80’s music.10. Where did you attend college? Oregon State

Teacher Spotlight Senior Spotlight Written by: Justin Blang Written by: Tyler Blang

Heard in the HallwayAbout the Friday Song: “I think everybody hates it, but they like hating it together.”–Brian Motz/ “This hallway is too slow for a ninja!” -Nick Geesey/ “What’s blue and smells like red paint?......... Blue paint!”-Jesse Stacy/ “I ain’t neva’ seen a teammate put a team on his back like dat befo’. For

real doe!!”-Josiah Shelman/ Mrs. Clay: “What do you call a penguin in the desert?” Class: “We don’t know, what?” Mrs. Clay: “Lost!”

Photo Taken by: Joel VandeKieft

Photo Taken by: Joel VandeKieft

Page 2

Feature Once again, it’s the holiday season. The fall colors surround us with arctic air biting noses when one takes a step outside. November is a month to celebrate Thanksgiving. The turkey, the stuffing, the sweet, mouth-watering desserts all comes to one’s mind. Yet, a question lingers in the air, what is the true meaning of Thanksgiving? Is it to remember our pilgrims and their risky voyage across the sea? Or, is it to celebrate family coming together and eating until their pants can’t buckle? Well, neither is the answer in this case. Thanksgiving is all about God and giving thanks for what He has done. The Puritans left England for the sole reason of religious freedom. They wanted to go and es-tablish a place where they could worship God how and when they wanted. Once they got to Plymouth Rock, many of them died in the winter, but come spring time, their small economy started to grow. They began Thanksgiving as a time to give thanks to God for all He had done for them. Even though they lost many, and had hard times ahead of them, they recognized the need to give thanks for what God had provided them with, because they knew they couldn’t do anything without Him. This is the true meaning of Thanksgiving. It’s not all about the turkey or ham, the family or dinner; it’s about God and giving a minute to commemorate His glory and provision. As the holiday season approaches, let us not forget the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Psalm 69:30 says, “Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song.” So, when you and your family are gathered around the table, take a moment to remember what God has pro-vided for you.

The origin of pumpkin carving has nothing to do with Halloween. The story begins with a clev-er and deceitful Irish man named Stingy Jack. He liked to play tricks on all of his friends and family. Jack thought that he had no chance of getting into Heaven. One day, he tricked the devil into climbing a tree. Once the devil was at the top, he tied a silver cross around the base of the tree so that the devil could not get down. Stingy Jack told the Devil that there was only one way he would let him down. The Devil would have to promise he would not accept Stingy Jack’s soul when he died. The devil agreed. As the story goes, on the day of Jack’s death, he went to the Gates of Heaven and Saint Peter would not let him in because of his deeds, so Jack was sent to hell. When Jack got to the gates of hell, the devil did not accept his soul, as promised. Jack didn’t know where to go, so he asked the devil for some light to lead him in the darkness. The devil gave him some fire from hell, and he put it in a hollowed turnip. Jack was forced to wander forever. Now on Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) when the veil between the spiritual and physical realm is weakest, Jack wanders the earth. To thwart off Jack, the Irish made Jack-O-Lanterns by carving out turnips, potatoes, and beets and put candles in them. Today, we keep the tradition by making Jack-O-Lanterns with pumpkins.

Happy Thanksgiving

3

The Meaning of ThanksgivingWritten by: Danielle Homolash

Origin of Pumpkin CarvingWritten by: Nick Mailhot

Photo Taken by: JooSil Kim

Photo Taken by: JooSil Kim Photo Taken by: JooSil Kim

Page 3

Above: RT Joel VandeKieft breaks through a block.

Photo Taken by: Lynette VandeKieft

Above: Michaela Kier goes up for a serve.

Photo Taken by: Dr. Ketchum

Fall Sports Page 4 Football Frenzy!

Boom! Headshot!

Above: RB David Zhou runs the ball for NCHS.

Photo Taken by: John Damitio.

This season, NCHS’s football team had its toughest year yet. With 20 players at the begin-ning of the season, the number of players slowly dwindled due to injuries, grades, or quitting. The team had 12 rookies, includ-ing 3 seniors that were new to tackle football. Senior all-star quarterback Tyler Lebien com-mented on the season saying, “It was definitely a rebuilding year for us, and hopefully we established a firm foundation for the upcoming years.” Junior, second string quarterback Eli-jah Shoffner, remarked on the upcoming season by saying, “I think our season taught us a lot, but mainly how to work togeth-er. Next year, that experience will help us win some games!” Next Year’s team will be led by Shoffner, and they hope to be even better than this year.

Written by: Joel VandeKieft

Written by: Gabriel Dominguez

“I think our season taught a lot, but mainly how to work together. Next year, that experience will help us win some games!” - Elijah Shoffner

“The best part about my final sea-son is all the winning we have done and the memories we have made that will last a lifetime.” -Jessica

Waldrop

The Navigator’s volleyball team carried on the tradition of smash-ing all challengers while compiling a stunning 13-1 record. Although the team was plagued with inju-ries this year, they didn’t let it slow them down. The most impacting injury was 3rd-year starter and last season’s Pacific 2B League MVP Jennessa Offut’s devastating knee injury. One of the things that helped the Navigators this year was the amount of experience that was brought back from last sea-son. With the team only losing one senior from the class of 2011, they were able to return seven seniors and one junior for this season. The experience was a big advantage in the district and state tournaments where they were predicted to “do some damage”, according to Head Coach Pat Bowker.

FALL SPORTS

Photo Taken by: Reni Michael

Girls’ Cross Country

seniors, five juniors, and only one sophomore. Out of these nine players, four of them have been playing since their freshman year. With all of this experience come post-season hopes. In their league tournament, Alex DeSoto won his prelimi-nary match, but lost his next one. Although Jared Fritz and Zoltan “Zolt” Talaber had a chance to go far as a doubles team, they lost in a close match early in the tournament. The tennis team didn’t do as well as they had hoped, but they are going to come back next year with even more experi-ence and talent! Although they didn’t do really well in the league tournament, Jared Fritz said, “we still celebrated with a Burger Party at Red Robin.”

Boys’ TennisWritten by: Ryan Penner

“This is the best we have been in 3 years!” Jared Fritz exlaimed while talk-ing about the 2011 NCHS Tennis Team. The team is very ex-perienced this year, consisting of three

Captain Lucas Graham and Co-Captians Josiah Shelman and Aaron Michael. They had a strong coach-ing staff with returning coaches Larry Weber and Mike Michael, with added assistance from Julie We-ber. With close finishes and dominating victories, the team started out the season looking pretty good and it only got better from there. The guy’s team showed off their potential at the King’s Invitational with a strong team victory over the #2 state ranked 1A team- Kings, winning by 6 points with Lucas Graham placing 1st and Josiah Shelman placing 2nd, only 4 seconds later. The team went on to win districts, and compete at state. Lucas Graham won state as an invidual, and Josiah Shelman finsished in the top 16. They finished out the season with a close second, making this year an overall success.

Photo Taken by: Reni Michael

Page 5

Boys’ Cross Country Written by: Josiah Shelman

The Northwest Christian guy’s Cross-Country team had a spectacular season. The team this year had decent numbers with a 9 man squad led by

Written by: Elizabeth Weber

Photo Taken by: Jared Fritz

The Girl’s Cross-Country team kicked off the start of a great season with Capital Invite. The girls did very well, competing against large 3A and 4A schools. The following week, the team com-peted at Ft. Steilacoom, winning the small school division, beating out 2A schools. The girls had a very strong varsity team this year, consisting of: Elizabeth Weber, Hailey Bredeson, Kami Bates, Megan Tiegen, Ali Sowers, Savannah Schilter, and Anna Brooks. Districts this year were held in Battleground and the girls took home first place, winning by a large margin. In early November, the team traveled to Pasco to compete in the State Meet. Elizabeth Weber and Hailey Bredeson led the team, finishing 3rd and 4th place, respec-tively. The girls made history, becoming the first team ever in any division in the state of Washing-ton to win six consecutive state championships.

that Christmas is not about pres-ents and gifts. It’s about family and God. I think if we all sit back and really look at what society has done to the Christmas holiday we would feel stupid about the way we act. When asked about black Fri-day Trevor Magruder responded by saying “It’s freakin’ sweet!” whereas Abi Hembree thinks “Black Friday is kinda a waste of time, and people are crazy for getting up that early.”

The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. This term originated in Philadelphia and is known to business as the margin of profit. On this day many peo-ple stay up late or wake up early to take advantage of these excel-lent sales. When I was younger I thought that those people who waited in the cold for hours on end just to get the chance to buy something was a bizarre idea, but now that I’m older I realize the great opportunity this event is. Even though there are fights and mountains of people every-where, personally I think that these obstacles are worth jump-ing over to obtain that gift for whomever that special someone might be. However, this under-lines the materialistic greediness of our society where things are placed above the thought and true intention. It is ok to partici-pate in these kinds of things, but when people start getting into fights over plasma screen televi-sions and toys we should realize

HopeWritten by: Lucas Graham

Black Friday Written by: Kelvin Lal

Student Corner Job 11:18 “You will be secure because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety.” The Bible refers to hope quite often, but what does “hope” mean? How can it be applied to today’s world? The dictionary de-fines hope as “looking forward to something with desire and rea-sonable confidence.” Simplified, this means that a hopeful person is expecting something good to happen. God gave us a good example of hope-in-action in the book of Job. Job was a very wealthy man who lost all his material possessions; he was a man looking for a solution to his problems. The world told him to deny God in order to restore his life. However, Job possessed a strong hope in God and would not deny Him. As a result, God honored and blessed Job. Today, thousands of years later, we can share in the same hope that Job had; a hope that grants confidence, a hope that gives safety.

JOB 11:18Quotes

Written by: Chantelle Hartman

Photo Taken by: Kelvin Lal

Above: Elizabeth Shoemaker and Janna Salo fighting over a micro-

wave on Black Friday.Photo Taken by: Kelvin Lal

What does thanksgiving mean to you? “Turkey.”-David Zhou.What are you going to do on Black Friday?“ I’m going to wake up at 5 in the morning and go to the mall to shop till I drop.”-JeAnna Lombardo.

David ZhouPhoto Taken by: Kelvin Lal

Page 6

SALE!!

JeAnna LombardoPhoto Taken by: Kelvin Lal

ShoesWritten by: Zach Carras

Shoes are the best;I bet they came from the West.My favorite type is basketball,And they are off the wall. I like shoes so muchI wish I had a bunch.They help you jump in the “ayer,”And it makes you look like a player. There are so many different types;The new ones bring the most hype.Nike and Jordan are so fly;They can sometimes be hard to buy. There are so many different colorsNone of them are like each other. Some people don’t care what’s on their feet,But with great shoes you can-not be beat.

Join the ClubWritten By: Trevor Magruder

Everyone who is interested in art is welcome to join the Arti-san’s Gathering. There is a meet-ing every Thursday from 3:45 - 4:45pm in room 114 (Spanish room). If you submit a photo it could be chosen to have it be displayed on this Creative Arts page.

Creative Arts

Drawn by: Nina Petchprapa

Photo Taken by: Chantelle Hartman

Page 7

In Artisan’s Gathering, the main purpose is to exchange drawing techniques and to share your art. There are about seven people who regularly attend, which is a little less than last year. They hope to see more people attend so there can be a wider selection of art to see. If you want more information regarding Artisan’s Gathering, contact Nina Pethch-prapa.

“I’m always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do

them.”-Pablo Picaso-

Gator Games

This Thanksgiving, I am going to my grandparent’s

____(noun)_____. My grandma always makes the most

____(adj.)_____ ____(noun)____. She starts

_____(verb plural)___the night before because there is

so much___(noun)____to prepare. Last year, she made

the___(noun)____ with the most___(adj.)____ gravy.

The___(adj.)____ part of the day is after the

___(noun)____, when we are all so___(adj.)____ and

___(adj.)____ that all we can manage to do is

___(verb)____ around.

Mad Lib

Riddles

5) If flow is row

and no is row

and snow is bow

and tow is low

and no is tow

what else is tow?

Written by: Nick Mailhot

Teacher #1 Teacher #2

1. I used to be a boxer. 1. I used to be a principal. 2. I have run 2 marathons. 2. I say “aboot” not about. 3. I have 2 kids, one boy and one girl. 3. I used to coach basketball. 4. I can sword fight (fencing). 4. I am a history geek. 5. I am always doing dishes. 5. I don’t teach freshman.

gUESS tHE TEACHer

1) It has seeds that you can eat and you get put in it if you cheat. It can look sad, it can look mad.

What is it? Written by: Kalli Walker

2) What gets hotter as it cools?

Written by: Kelvin Lal

3) What’s green, soft and three feet?

Written by: Nick Mailhot

4) What gets wetter as it dries?

Written by: Jesse Stacy

Page 8

Answers:Riddles: 1) A pumpkin 4) A towel 2) An air conditioner 5) Flow and Row 3) A yard

Guess the Teacher: #1-Dr. Nielsen#2-Mr. Fulton

Photo Taken by: Kami Bates