On 2 March 2019, Fleetwood Area High School’s National History Day Club won third place during regional competition at Kutztown University. The advisers are history teachers Becky Jarosynski and Todd Weiss.
Their entry, which was a presenta-tion of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, according to Weiss, explained what the sailors experi-enced when they sacrificed themselves to help end World War II. The five members are Nisha Savino, Elizabeth Ramsey, Mead-ow Mosey, Hannah Kutz, and Jess Merzy.
Because of their success, Fleet-wood's NHDC team qualified for the state tournament! The tournament will be held in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The exact site of the event is currently unknown.
“After researching our topic, we create this diorama. Ours was solely based on the U.S.S. Indianapolis, and when we get there, we place the diorama on the table,
and the judges judge us on our art skills, facts, and other information. They ask us questions to make sure we know our facts so we can get credit for accuracy,” junior Nisha Savino said.
The theme of the competition was called Tragedy to Triumph.
“The display was designed in a crea-tive manner with primary source documents to support the story. The students qualified for state competition, which is the second weekend in May in Carlisle, PA,” Weiss said.
“We did a lot of research, which took weeks to get this project as good as we could get it. There was a lot of information and a lot of good primary source docu-ments that we used. Our main primary source was from a survivor of the incident. Because we’re going to state competition, we’re still adding things to the project,” junior Elizabeth Ramsey said.
The U.S.S. Indianapolis, according to History.com, was transporting materials needed for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on 9 August 1945. The materials were delivered on 26 July 1945. The ship was bombed by a Japanese submarine on 30 July 1945, and 317 out of the 1,196 men survived.
“The students put a lot of time and effort into completing the entry for our first competition. We were very pleased with the end result and have many ideas for next year’s exhibit as we learned a lot from going to the competition and seeing the other exhibits, as well as from the judges’ feed-back. We are very excited to have placed third in our category and be moving on to the State competition in our very first year of competing,” history teacher Jarosynski said.
By Isabella Balthaser
History Club Places Third and Heads to States School
The FAHS girls' lacrosse team’s season took off with a great start. Fleetwood girls com-bined with the Schuylkill Valley lacrosse team to work hard towards a wonderful season.
This is the third year that the Schuylkill Valley girls' lacrosse team has existed and ac-cepted Fleetwood players to join the team. The team consists of 35 field players and two goalies. The girls are run by three delightful coaches. Coach Rob Newpher is the goalie and attack coach, Coach Dustin Frantz focuses more on the attack and middle positions, and, lastly, Coach Kristin Newpher is the attack coach.
Since the Schuylkill Valley team started up later than most teams, their win-to-lose ratio isn’t the best. However, they have still won quite a few games, and they stick with and learn from the ones they lose.
Fleetwood Area School District doesn’t
have its own team, so players are able to play for the Schuylkill Valley Panthers. All of the Fleet-wood girls feel welcome and enjoy playing for their team.
“At first, I was nervous because I only knew a few of my friends from Fleetwood, but
everyone is accepting, and I even play a varsity position as goalie!” Cloey Wessner, a junior at FAHS, said.
“Besides the cost, playing for Schuylkill Valley is really fun and an amazing opportunity to meet new people,” Sierra Moyer, another junior at FAHS, said.
The Schuylkill Valley girls also enjoy the combination of the team.
“I love the Fleetwood girls; they are super funny, and I’m so glad our teams are connected because I made a lot of cool new friends,” Julissa Sonon, a freshman at Schuylkill Valley High School, said.
The Schuylkill Valley Lady Panthers lacrosse team started off their season right and are still playing hard to the end.
By Jessica Carlin
Fleetwood and Schuylkill Valley Combine to Make Joint Interdistrict Lacrosse Team for Students School
The Fleetwood Boys' Tennis team is preparing for their new season to get under way. The team is hopeful that they can use their depth to win a lot of matches this sea-son.
“We’re slightly better than the aver-age team due to the depth of our lineups,” senior Justin Kramer said.
The team is led by their “number one,” Matt Dybowski, and they are also strong throughout their starting nine lineup.
At six foot three inches, Dybowski is an imposing figure to play against. In only his second year of playing tennis, he is hap-py to be a captain of the team alongside Nico Touch, who has played four years.
“Tennis gives me an opportunity to compete and hang out with my friends,”
Dybowski said. Last season, the team received an
infusion of new talent playing for the first time. Then juniors Dybowski, Justin Kra-mer, Lucas Strange, and Owen Breisch joined the team, along with then sophomore Andrew Slusser. These new players played a variety of sports, all but Dybowski play soc-cer, and he has played basketball his entire life.
This addition of athleticism helped the team become a difficult group to beat. Players one through nine are either well-experienced players like seniors Nico Touch or Nick Miller, or they are athletic newcom-ers.
“The team is solid because we have good depth throughout our lineup,” Dyb-
owski said. The team has also shared the senti-
ment of having good chemistry. They have fun playing tennis, which translates to a good team atmosphere and success. This chemistry helps contribute to successful doubles tandems as well.
In addition to singles matches, each meet contains doubles. The team’s excep-tional chemistry helps players like Slusser and Dybowski enjoy playing doubles togeth-er and succeed.
Fleetwood’s boys tennis team is us-ing their athleticism and team chemistry to put together a successful season.
By Samuel Schappell
FAHS Boys’ Tennis Prepares for Upcoming Season School
Page Two June 2019
On 21 March 2019, Jiangsu Tianjiayi, a chemical plant in China, exploded, setting off a tremor which matched a 2.2 magnitude earth-quake.
The chemical company is on the border of the city of Yancheng in Jiangsu Province.
The plant was made in Xiangshui County in 2007 and creates pesticides.
An inspection was done last year by the State Administration of Work Safety, which found major leaks, a lack of safety training, poor management, and a lack of operating procedures.
The explosion went off a little bit before 3:00 p.m. As of information gathered now, forty-seven people have been killed while ninety have been injured.
A resident that lives near the plant said “the road is filled with injured people.”
Most residents of the area are fleeing out of caution because most think the air is toxic and water may be contaminated.
More than nine hundred emergency professionals responded to the fires. By 7:00 a.m. the next day, the fires were cleared.
Approximately four thousand workers and local homeowners were forced to evacuate once the blast went off.
Lately, China has been trying to increase safety standards after explosions have occurred.
In 2015, there was an explosion that occurred in the port city of Tianjin, which killed 173 people.
Also, in 2018, twenty-three people were killed in an explosion near a chemical plant in Hebei Province.
“I am scared this could happen in the
United States because it is a possibility every-where you go. The employees should be trained properly. The death toll should not be that high, and they should have done more to prevent it because this isn't the first time and they need to prevent this before it happens again. I do think this could have been prevented; it was very irre-sponsible,” Fleetwood Area High School senior Chloe Allison stated.
By Elyse Essick
Chemical Plant Explodes in China; 47 Killed Science & Technology
After unforgettable moments, March Madness concluded with Virginia defeating Texas Tech.
When March Madness started mid-April, Zion Williamson and the Duke Blue Devils were favorites to take home the title. In the first round, Duke blew by sixteen-seed North Dakota State by 23. Murray State’s Ja Morant had social media blowing up about his first round performance, helping them upset Marquette.
Round two was nothing but exciting. UCF gave Duke a run for their money, letting the win slip away in the final minutes and al-lowing Duke to slip away with a one-point win. Maryland and LSU were tied coming down to the final seconds until LSU point guard Trem-ont Waters delivered a clutch layup with two seconds left to get LSU to the Sweet 16.
Three-seeded Purdue and two-seeded Tennessee took the game into OT after battling
all of regulation. Purdue jumped ahead in OT and controlled the lead from there, advancing them to the Elite Eight to face off against Vir-ginia.
The two teams battled to the end, tak-ing another game into OT. The score was tight down to the last couple of seconds until Virgin-ia took a five point lead to finish the game.
Auburn fell to Virginia by one in the Final Four after a memorable run as the five seed. Texas Tech held off Michigan State by ten, advancing them to the Championship Game for the first time ever.
Virginia against Texas Tech was a bat-tle. The two took the game all the way into another overtime. Texas Tech fought but could not keep up with Virginia, losing 85-77. With the win, Virginia secured their first ever Na-tional Championship.
By McKenah Rapposelli
Virginia Takes Home March Madness Win Sports
E-cigarettes have been used in scien-tific research recently due to the underlying question, what will be the health risks of smoking e-cigarettes?
Millions are familiar with the term e-cigarettes, which have increased in use expo-nentially in recent years. This billion dollar product convinced millions that vaping is safer than smoking tobacco, which it is; however, it can still be life-threatening. These electronic cigarettes not only damage the lungs but also other major organs, such as the heart.
Even though vaping is safer than smoking tobacco cigarettes, it is not deemed healthy. The nicotine found in e-cigarettes can cause damage to the cardiovascular sys-tem and the respiratory system. Because nicotine tells the body to produce more adrenaline, a hormone in response to stress, it causes the arteries to narrow. It narrows because the adrenaline in the bloodstream causes the body’s muscles to tense. This can cause the blood pressure and heart rate to increase, which could lead to serious health risks such as strokes.
Vaping is toxic to the heart. Since e-
smokers are smoking from a metal device, they will inhale tiny particles of metal that can lodge into their lungs. This can be toxic to the cardiovascular system because lungs convert deoxygenated blood into oxygenat-ed blood from the heart. The heart will then pump this polluted blood throughout the body, causing damage.
Not only are e-cigarettes bad for your health, but they are just as addictive as regular smoking. Vaping contains nicotine, an addictive drug found in tobacco plants, that causes a sort of high in smokers. This continues the addiction. According to the latest annual “Monitoring the Future” re-port, the rates for vaping in high school seniors have gone up from 27.8% in 2017 to 37.3% in 2018.
There is significant evidence sup-porting that vaping leads to smoking tobac-co. The guilty additive that causes this addic-tion is nicotine. This harmful substance is present in both products and it is the reason why people get addicted. Nicotine acts as a reward for the brain and therefore is the main reason people get addicted.
By Madeline Feichtel
Research Shows E-Cigs Just as Addictive as Regular Health/Medicine
Fleetwood Student Named Head of Marketing and Promotions for Advanced Comfort Specialists Community
When you think of the word brand, you think of a company that can provide the services one needs. With that thought, someone might also think of how that brand makes him or her feel. When someone thinks of your own compa-ny and brand, you want them to feel positive and trusting of you. That is how sophomore Gavin Milligan described his role as marketing and promotions head.
His father, Chad, is a co-founder of Advanced Comfort Specialists, or ACS, which is the family business. ACS provides HVAC ser-vices to residential homes and businesses. The company is based in Blandon and is a short walk for most of locals. Since Milligan was twelve, he
had little presence in the company. His task was to watch over social media accounts and make posts every now and then. Recently, Milligan earned quite the promotion and received media attention from the Reading Eagle’s Business Weekly and Reading Magazine.
Milligan’s father decided to make him the Marketing and Promotions Manager. The company gives Gavin a budget, and he must allocate it and spend it the right way on adver-tisements.
“I have to be very strict. I have to know that I’m spending the money the right way. Once I learned that, I slowly eased into the Marketing and Promotions Manager role,” Milligan said.
Creating ads and buying ad space is not a job that can be done behind a computer screen all day.
“A lot of what I do is outside the office. Typically, what my day is, I go out and I work 7 or 8 hours in the field. I take pictures; I take videos,” Milligan said.
He does this all while learning about the HVAC industry. At the end of the day, Milligan then sits at a desk and compiles all of his materi-al for advertisements. When asked about taking over the business when his father retires, Gavin says he wants to expand into plumbing and elec-trical work. But for right now, he is focused on customer service.
“We are in the customer service indus-try. We have to make our customers feel good. That’s actually my marketing strategy. I want to build relationships and I want to give them [the customer] free stuff. If they’re loyal to us, we give them free stuff. A lot of what we do is fo-cused more on customer service than being prof-itable that month and that quarter and that year,” Milligan said.
When someone messages the company on any platform that they need HVAC help, Milligan replies in under three minutes with whoever is being dispatched to help.
By Aaron Poper
Twenty-year-old Arifa Sultana of Bang-ladesh recently gave birth twice within one month. How is this possible?
Sultana has a condition called uterus didelphys. It is a rare congenital abnormality in which a woman has two separate uteri.
In a female fetus, the uterus starts out as two small tubes. Normally, as the fetus develops, the tubes come together to form the uterus. Sometimes, they don’t join completely, and each one develops into a separate structure. This is what happened with Sultana.
Many women with this condition have normal pregnancies and deliveries, but some have complications, including infertility, miscar-riages, premature births, and kidney abnormali-ties.
Sultana gave birth to a baby boy in late February. He was a premature birth. Only twen-
ty-six days later, Sultana was rushed to the hos-pital after complaining of severe stomach pain. It was then that Sultana was given an ultrasound, and it was discovered that she had two more babies inside of her. She gave birth to a set of twins, one boy and one girl, through a C-section.
The first baby and the twins were con-ceived a month apart and developed in two separate wombs. Sultana hadn’t had an ultra-sound before her first delivery, so she wasn’t aware of her condition.
“When the patient came in, we per-formed an ultrasound on her and found there were twin babies. She had no idea that she had two other babies,” Dr. Sheila Podder, the doctor who delivered the babies, said.
All three babies are happy and healthy.
By Madison McElwee
Woman Gives Birth Twice, 26 Days Apart Health/Medicine
On 15 April, the Notre Dame cathedral burned. The 850-year-old building was almost completely destroyed after firefighters had finally extinguished the blaze.
The cause of the fire is still up for specu-lation nearly a month after the fire itself. French investigators reportedly believe that the fault was electrical wiring.
Notre Dame itself was built in such a fashion that made the spread of flames almost too easy.
“The hulking framework of wooden beams that supports Notre-Dame is composed of huge pieces of timber, which is ripe for catch-ing light. The supports are even called a 'forêt' (or forest) because they're enormous pieces of oak,” Business Insider said.
Mass devastation flocked all media out-lets for weeks after the Notre Dame news was spread.
"My heart is breaking seeing the fire at Notre Dame. I’ll never forget walking in the first
time in Paris and being in awe of the beauty of it." Singer Camila Cabello tweeted.
"Interrupting my birthday to express how much pain I’m in watching the Notre Dame fire unfold. Such an incredible building. I’m so sad," Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams tweeted.
“It really was heartbreaking to see such a beautiful building get destroyed like that,” senior Melissa Dieda said.
Plans to rebuild the church seemed to begin before the cathedral flames were even put out. Over one billion dollars was raised only two days after the fire.
Billionaires and the average worker alike donated towards the rebuilding of Notre Dame, which could take decades to complete.
“I’d like to see the Notre Dame be re-built. I am also glad to see that many very pre-cious artworks were saved,” junior Kayla Riffle said.
By Morgan Althouse
850-Year-Old Notre Dame Catches on Fire Religion
Page Four June 2019
The Tiger Times is a high school news journal that is produced using funds from The Fleetwood Area School District as well as club fundraisers. All subjects and topics appearing within The Tiger Times are self-selected by student reporters themselves; howev-er, article suggestions are accepted from all students, staff, administration, and community members. Opinions and viewpoints stated in The Tiger Times are not necessarily the opinions and viewpoints of The Fleetwood Area School District, its administration, its faculty, the club advisor, or even the entirety of The Tiger Times staff. The Tiger Times is a public forum, the primary goal of which is to provide an outlet for student expression to The Fleetwood Area School District and its constituent communities. View-points and opinions that are contrary to those appearing in The Tiger Times are welcomed, but they are not guaranteed publication except by approval from the student editors. Students who are not matriculated in the journalism course or who are not among the club’s roster are still eligible to submit content for the periodical. All articles and letters selected for publication may be subject to editing for length and language consistent with the style established by student editors of The Tiger Times.
The small town of Fleetwood delivers some good soccer, a tight-knit community, and some pretty good pizza around town. The Tiger Times set out to try a regular cheese slice at each pizza joint in Fleetwood and determine which place offers the best tasting slice. McKenah Rapposelli and Sam Schap-pell tried a piece from each place: Cristina’s, Massimo’s, Fiore’s, Fleetwood Pizza, Olyvia’s, and Mazzola’s, assessing the cheese, sauce, crust, and overall taste.
SS: The first place tested was Cristina’s. This Blandon Italian eatery sells a large pie for ten dollars. This is the cheapest pie in all of town, and rightly so: the slice was not that special. The sauce was lacking in substance and not that spe-cial in taste. The crust was average, and overall the piece had a bland taste that was rather below average. Ratios are a big thing when it comes to the quality of a pizza, and this slice’s ratios were off. There was not enough sauce or cheese, and the crust taste was too prevalent. Overall, Cristi-na’s is below average when it comes to pizza, but I will say the service is spectacular and their other Italian food is very good. Pizza is just not their strong suit.
MR: As the cheapest slice we tried, there was not much expectation. Overall, it was not terrible pizza, but the sauce was the best part about the pizza. There was barely any, though, which made the pizza a tad dry. There was enough cheese, and the ratio was a little off, but the cheese was nothing special, and the crust was your normal Berks County pizza crust.
SS: Following Cristina’s, we hit up Massi-mo’s. The service was, again, pretty good. The pizza, however, did not necessarily hold up. The
slice was a good size with a pretty good crust. The ratios were only off by a bit, with the slice having a bit too much sauce. This does not al-ways bother me, but Massimo’s sauce is very sweet and has a lot of it, which makes the sweet taste overpower the rest of the pizza’s compo-nents. A large pie here comes in at $11--not a bad deal but not my first choice for pizza in the area.
MR: Just as Sam said, the ratio of sauce to cheese was not bad, but with how strong of a flavor the sauce was, it could have used less. The price is only a dollar more than Cristina’s, but the extra dollar may be worth it, even though Massi-mo’s is not my first choice in the area.
SS: The next spot we went to was Fleet-wood Pizza. This little joint in town sold a cheap large pie for $10.25, a good price. The slice we tried had great ratios and a nice sweet sauce--not as sweet as Massimo’s, but a nice sweetness com-plimented well with the ratios. This place was honestly a pleasant surprise.
MR: For my first time at Fleetwood Pizza, it was a surprise. The pizza was better than the last two and only $10.25 for a pie. The taste was not like the rest, but good nonetheless. The sauce was a little sweet, but not too sweet, and a nice crunch to the crust was a good complement, making the pizza above average.
SS: Fiore’s was next. This well-known Italian restaurant in the town of Fleetwood has the most expensive large pie, $11.25. This slice was very cheesy. It did not have a ton of sauce. The pizza is a prime example of good compo-nents being ruined with bad ratios and propor-
tions. The piece did not impress me enough to convince me to buy an entire pie for the price they are charging.
MR: Fiore’s charging $11.25 for a pie was a little bit too much. Filled with cheese, the pie had promise, but with the lack of sauce and boring taste, the ratios were thrown off. The slice was better than Cristina’s but also more expen-sive.
SS: Next we tried Mazzola’s. This place, situated across from Olyvia’s on Pricetown Road was really good. It smelled like a good pizza joint, and the slice held up. It was a good-sized slice as well, always a plus. The sauce had a great tomato taste, and the ratios were very well executed. Overall, the pizza was a very tasty one, worthy of the $11.00 price tag for a large pie.
MR: First appearances are big, the smell was great, and Mazzo-la's pizza did not let down. Ratios are a top priority with pizza, and they hit it. $11.00 for a pie here is most definitely worth it.
SS: We
must have saved the best for last because our last stop was Olyvia’s. Also on Pricetown Road, this Italian restaurant had terrific pizza. The sauce has an incredible flavor with a hint of sweetness, the ratios are nearly perfect throughout, and the floury crust tastes absolutely amazing. A large pie goes for $10.50 here, an absolute steal. We cer-tainly saved the best for last with Olyvia’s.
MR: Sam is not wrong--Olyvia’s pizza was all around great. The sauce came out amaz-ing, complementing the cheese and crust, making this the best pizza we tried, and for a great price.
By McKenah Rapposelli and Samuel Schappell
Local Pizza: Who Are the Winners and Losers? Community
What’s yellow and looks like a bana-na? You might think it’s a banana, but you’d be wrong. It’s Mr. Houp’s banana case.
English teacher Mr. Zachary Houp acquired the holder at a Tupperware party in 2013. He needed a new one after his previ-ous one was either broken or stolen by his mother. The current banana case is more durable than the previous, which Mr. Houp is very happy about.
“Earth-shatteringly jealous” and “awed” is how Houp describes anyone who’s seen it.
"Somebody asked what was on my desk in first period one day," Houp said. "A picture then found its way on to social me-
dia, and for the rest of the day students were asking me about it--even students I'd never met before!"
Houp says his best memory with the beloved case was that there was a time when he dropped his banana, and he was con-cerned about the bruises it might cause, but then he remembered it had a case, so it was nothing to be concerned about.
“If you consistently eat bananas, (the holder) is an indispensable tool towards preserving the fruit,” Houp said.
Now, some facts on bananas:
1. Bananas are less dense than water, which causes them to float.
2. Bananas are among the most common fruits eaten by Americans.
3. The plants that bananas grow on are actually considered to be herbs.
4. A banana is scientifically classified as a berry.
5. Bananas produce serotonin in your body, which can act as a mood enhanc-er.
6. Bananas grown before the 1960s are different from the bananas we eat to-day. This is a result of “the Panama disease,” which wiped out most of the bananas. We now eat Cavendish bana-nas.
7. Bananas reduce blood pressure due to
its high potassium content. 8. The inside of a banana peel can aid in
reducing itchiness caused by bug bites or poison ivy.
9. Eating a banana before working out can lead to a better workout, once again due to high potassium, which allows more nerve and muscle function.
10. Bananas share about half of their DNA with humans.
Facts courtesy of https://thatsitfruit.com/blog10-interesting-facts-about-bananas/.
By Aydan Tregear
Banana Case Becomes FAHS Celebrity for a Day
School
Tony Tinderholt, a Republican state legislator, introduced a new bill into Texas.
This bill would make abortion illegal with no exception for incest or rape.
If abortion would occur under the new law, it would be possible to charge the woman with homicide and the death penalty because Texas allows capital punishment when homicide occurs.
Tinderholt said that his bill is really only trying to accomplish one goal, which is bringing equal treatment for unborn human beings under the law.
He also said it would make individuals consider the consequences of having sex.
The bill is specifically called the Aboli-tion of Abortion in Texas Act.
This bill means that any person who tries to receive an abortion could be prosecuted for murder or even sentenced to death.
There are no exceptions to the act. The Washington Post reported that nearly
500 people testified, with only 54 people testify-
ing against the bill. The text of the bill reads “A living hu-
man child, from the moment of fertilization on fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum, is entitled to the same rights, powers, and privileges as are secured or granted by the laws of this state to any other human child.”
“I think it's important to remember that if a drunk driver kills a pregnant woman, they get charged twice. If you murder a pregnant woman, you get charged twice. So I’m not specifically criminalizing women. What I am doing is equal-izing the law,” Tinderholt said.
“Overall, this is hurting people because it is not worth it. There is no way this bill will spread through the United States. I think abor-tion is one of those things that is based off of the situation and circumstances. I think this bill is stupid and way over the top; it is useless, and nobody needs it,” Fleetwood Area High School senior Chloe Allison said.
By Elyse Essick
New Texas Bill Would Criminalize Abortions without Exception
Politics
The German Club has a habit of making various foods from the German culture, such as black forest cherry cake. This time around, the club is going to make something a little odd.
Picture a plate of spaghetti and a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Now mash the two together. Spaghetti eis is what the Ger-man culture calls it. So what is it exactly, and what does it taste like?
It’s not as gross as it seems. Spaghet-ti eis is basically vanilla ice cream squeezed out of a noodle press topped with cherry syrup and either almond, or coconut, white chocolate flakes. This type of ice cream was popularized in the 1960s by Dario Fantanel-lo from Germany.
Nowadays in Germany, a person can order spaghetti eis at eiscafes all over the country. It is among Germany’s most popu-lar desserts.
On 23 May, Fleetwood’s German Club will be making their own spaghetti eis! However, Spaghetti Eis doesn’t go without its critics.
"For a dessert that already melts too quickly, the process of extruding it before eating just seems risky," English teacher Zachary Houp said. “It looks good if it’s spaghetti, it looks gross if it’s ice cream. But I'd make it for my kids once out of novelty."
“Spaghetti Eis is great. Not only does it taste good, but it also looks good. Contrary to Mr. Houp's belief, it holds its shape quite well,” German club member Sam Ruemmler said.
German teacher Mrs. Christine Moll recommends that anyone interested in the delicacy should join German club next year. If you are currently enrolled in a German language class, it is also advisable.
By Aaron Poper
German Club Enjoys Spaghetti Eis Treat with Members
