Girl athletes in grades four through eight will have an opportunity to learn how to play basketball and hone their skills in the Annual Trojan Hoops Basketball Fall League.
The league will begin with a two-hour clinic from 10 a.m. to noon, on Saturday, October 31. Players will be grouped according to ability and grade. Games will be played from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on successive Sundays – Nov. 8, 15, 22, and 29, and Dec. 6 and 13. Before each game, there will be an instructional period. Coaches includes Monroe High School varsity coach Larry Nocella, his staff and players.
Registration is requested by Oct. 27. The cost is $50 if registered by October 27, and $55 if registered at the door on October 31. All participants will receive a 2015-2016 Monroe Girls Basketball Spirit Wear tee shirt at the end of league play. A registration blank is attached to this posting.
Persons with question can contact Coach Nocella at 734-693-0178.
The Monroe High School Council will accept donations tonight to help a schoolmate with a visual impairment to purchase a new set of glasses. Monroe High Freshman Abrielle Krupa suffers from Dominant Optic Atrophy and will be able to see much better with eSight glasses that will cost $15,000.... The donations being sought by the student council will go to Abrielle’s family to help them purchase special glasses for her. The fundraiser, which is held in conjunction with Visual Impairment Awareness Month this month, is another example of the fine work done by the student council in leading their school mates – and in this case attendees at the Monroe-Saline football game Friday night – in helping others.
There will be a half day of school for Monroe Public Schools students on Wednesday, October 14.
The Monroe High School Council will be accepting donations tomorrow night to help a schoolmate with a visual impairment to purchase a new set of glasses. Here, MHS Student Council members (from left) Anna Tartarian, Brianna Brown, Madi Farris and Matthew Huntoon take a quick break from preparing signs to publicize the effort. Monroe High Freshman Abrielle Krupa suffers from Dominant Optic Atrophy and will be able to see much better with eSight glasses that will cost $15,000. The donations being sought by the student council will go to Abrielle’s family to help them purchase special glasses for her. The fundraiser, which is held in conjunction with Visual Impairment Awareness Month this month, is another example of the fine work done by the student council in leading their schools mates – and in this case attendees at the Monroe-Saline football game Friday night – in helping others.
The Monroe High School Equestrian Team has ridden its way into the state championships for the first time ever. With its “Reserve Champion” placement last weekend in Region E, the team has qualified to compete in the state championships in Midland, Oct. 15-18. The Monroe High School team is the only Monroe County team to qualify for the state championships.
A club sports team, the equestrians have been riding representing Monroe High School since 2003, said Coach Sheri Kalenkiewicz. Mike Humphries is the assistant coach and Loren Huber is the team assistant/alumni advisor.
Riders for the team are: Seniors Sara Kalenkiewicz, Samantha Humphries, and Jessica Vanderlan; junior Aleesha Colpaert, sophomores Peyton Zorn and Mackynze Slatinsky, and freshman Rylee Richardson.
The run for championships is quite a story. Last year, the group was very pleased to make the regionals. This year, competing in District 7, they were crowned champions after being Reserve Champs in 2014. In fact, they won the division championship several weeks ago with 518 points compared with 334 for the second-place school. With the regional win last weekend, no one remembers the team ever having gone so far. But don’t call the team’s run a “fairy tale,” because a state championship has been their goal all along this season.
Competition at the state level is spread over four days with different riders participating in different competitions on different days. The riders, their families and their horses stay up in Midland for those days – not an inexpensive venture for the families since this is a club sport with no financial support from the MHS Athletic Department. Mrs. Kalenkiewicz said the participants and their families must pay for their lodging and the horses’ lodging and food, too, so sponsors always are welcome.MHS equestrian team in state finals
The Monroe High School Homecoming is being observed all week long with events every day of the week leading up to Friday and Saturday. The Trojans will play Bedford at 7 p.m., Friday, in the Homecoming game, which is preceded by the Homecoming Parade at 5 p.m., which leaves from Monroe Middle School, heads north along S. Monroe St., and then to the K of C Hall on W. Front St.
At half-time of the football game, the homecoming King and Queen wil be named. Here are the seniors who are the candidates: Queen candidates -- Alexa Angel, Allyssa Bukovitz, Cayla Frank, Jenna Gallottia, Sloane Lynch, Katja Oklejas, Taylor Thompson, and Cheyenne Tucker; King Candidates -- Sam Baker, Cameron Delben, Nick Fortner, Avery Haynes, Matt Huntoon, Nathaniel Koenecke, Marlon Martin and Connor Tullis.
The king and queen will reign over the Homecoming Dance at 7 p.m., Saturday night. Tickets are $15 each and available during school this week.
Numerous activities will be going on during school days but Wednesday night’s PowderPuff football game between the senior girls and the junior girls starts at 6 p.m. at Bunkelman Field and is open to the public. Afterwards, there will be a fundraiser at Buffalo Wild Wings where a percentage of the bill goes to the Class of 2016 if the diner has a special coupon.
The Tools for School promotion of Old National Bank is nearing the end – 11:59 p.m., Wednesday, September 30 – and some Monroe schools are bunched in near the top. That’s the good news but the story here is that you have to make sure the people who can vote for four your schools and “like” Old national Bank’s Facebook page do those things before the deadline.
Late last week, Arborwood held a 155-vote lead over a school Washtenaw County and it was pretty much a two-school race at that point. In fifth place was Waterloo Elementary with Monroe Middle School eighth.
Please check your school’s Facebook page for a link to vote for your school. The winning school will win $1,000 from Old National Bank and could also qualify for a $5,000 grant from Old National Bank if its Facebook page hits 10,000 likes.
Manor Elementary School art teacher Melissa Cramer is among those artists from around the world to be selected to display her art at the 2015 ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Mi., running through October 11.
She is one of only 1,550 artists in the world chosen to participate.
Ms. Cramer’s display is entitled “Women at Work: Viewing with an open mind inspires truth” and includes some 25 tool belts all made entirely from clay. Even the metal-looking parts are really clay but Ms. Cramer paints a metallic luster on the clay which creates the illusion of metal on some of the pieces.
“I have a sister in Zeeland who has been trying to get me to show my work in Grand Rapids for the last few years,” Ms. Cramer said. “I finally decide to try this year after I had an exhibit in April at Artomatic 419 in Toledo.”
Ms. Cramer said her inspiration for her exhibit first came more than 20 years ago when she saw a tool belt hanging on a nail in her garage.
Here is Ms. Cramer explaining her art in her exhibit:
“My work is unique in its own right, and it carries a meaning that is deeper than the surface appearance. My tool belts bear women’s names which allows the viewer to begin to investigate why such a title would be chosen. My work deals with stereotypes in society and how people are judged by their looks first and foremost. The tool belt is traditionally a male-dominated symbol. Due to that fact, this object lends itself to my purpose. The traditional tool belt itself is made of leather, which can be soft, like a woman.
“They have pockets in which to carry items of significance, just as a woman may carry a child in her womb. The complexity of the tool belts represents the many roles a woman may play in her life time. These belts represent strength, stability and substance.”
Ms. Cramer’s exhibit will be at the Fifth Third Bank/Warner Morcoss & Judd LLP Building in downtown Grand Rapids.
ArtPrize runs through Oct, 11 with more than 1,500 pieces of art at more than 160 venues across three square miles of Grand Rapids. To learn more, check out the website at http://www.artprize.org/.