Congratulations to Lucy Reynolds

Lucy Reynolds, a junior, has been selected to participate in the IMEA All-State Honors Choir (top 5% in the state!).The concert is at 3:15 on Saturday, January 29. 

Journalism Class Video

Here's some of our students' holiday news broadcast--featuring some of our own! :)  

Illinois State Scholars

Congratulations to the following senior students who have been identified as Illinois State Scholars -- Landon Davis, Michelle Hedlund, Jacob Higginson, Henry Houser, Tyler Johnson, Chad Kennedy, Leah Klepzig, Ty Morris, Alec Saebeler, Meagan Sporrer, Aubrey Tippin, Jakob Verhulst, and Jordan Verhulst. 

PPHS FFA wins section 14 meat judging contest

Congratulations to the PPHS FFA for winning the Section 14 meat judging contest ! Participating schools were 

Athens, Porta, Plains, Pawnee, A-C central, and Lincoln. Individual winners and team members are listed below.

Jeremy McAfee 2nd overall individual

Brandon Stickler 3rd overall individual

Brooklyn Wieland 6th overall individual

Will Raftis

Colton Shriver

Alec Fisher

Hannah Reiser

Mackenzie Schlicht

Here are some pictures from the event. 

PPHS works with local food pantry

PLEASANT PLAINS HIGH SCHOOL GIVES BACK TO LOCAL RESIDENTS FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON

By: Michelle London, Reporter

The holidays are just around the corner, and for Pleasant Plains students, that means this means it's time to serve. 

"We usually have a food drive around Thanksgiving time, and there's a lot of people who come in and they can donate cans and sometimes we even can donate money," said Pleasant Plains Senior Lauren Hurt.

Items are given to the helping hands food pantry in Pleasant Plains.

"We provide approximately 40 families here in pleasant plains with 10 days to two weeks’ worth of food."

Lisa Reiser, who runs the pantry, says they gave away four-thousand pounds of food last month alone. Donations came from local churches, businesses and schools like Pleasant Plains High.

"We couldn't really run this food pantry without the help from our entire community and I'm really grateful that our community is so generous," said Reiser.

For Friday's big match-up, these students have come up with a fun way to provide for area families in need.

"They're donating t-shirts for our football game on Friday and then people who come to the game, family just supporters of the football team can go ahead and make a donation for the t-shirt, then the donations will be brought back to the food pantry," said Hurt.

PD Friday

On Friday, the teachers and myself were fortunate enough to get some time to participate in some fun team building activities. The team of Mrs. Schmitz, Mrs. Shaver, Mrs. Crossland, Mr. Crivilare, and Mr. Lucas were victorious in the competition.

Boys Golf Headed to State

Congratulations to our boys golf team as they are headed back to state! The following is a blurb from the SJ-R.

HAMILTON — Spencer Allender shot an 83 Monday at par-72 Deer Run Golf Course to lead Pleasant Plains to a second-place finish in the Class 1A Hamilton Sectional and a team berth in this weekend’s boys state golf tournament.

Plains shot a 350 team score. Quincy Notre Dame won the meet at 331, and Rock Island Alleman took third at 358. The top three teams advance to the 1A state meet.

“Spencer Allender (the Cardinals’ lone senior) came through for us, and so did (sophomore) Christian Darush (who shot 90),’’ Plains coach Paul Kastner said. “He was really on fire until the last couple of holes, then he kind of struggled. He shot a 42 on the front nine, which was huge for us. That’s his best round of the year.”

Plains qualified for state for the fourth straight year and the sixth time in the last eight seasons.

“The (state berth) in 2012 was the most surprising,’’ Kastner said. “We were really young that year. This one’s surprising, too, but I knew we had a chance. We just had to put up a number. The kids did a great job in tough conditions. The wind was howling.”

Boys Regional Golf Champs.

Congratulations to Coach Kastner and the boys golf team for winning the Greenview Regional with a score of 344. Individual scores are below. Congrats guys!!

Pleasant Plains

TJ Painter (So.)	77
Corbin Tullis (Jr.)	87
Spencer Allender (Sr.)	88
Mitch Bergmann (So.)	92
Christian Darush (So.)	93

Also, Congratulations to Maggie McGrath for shooting an 82 in the Williamsville Regional to advance to sectionals!!

Getting Back In Touch

Greetings, 

It has been a while since my last post, and I wanted to share some good news about our students at PPHS. Please see below.

Tyler Johnson just won the Clayville Scholarship award.  This is the 3rd consecutive year that a student in our AP English course at the high school has won this scholarship.  I highlight this because students are required (through a mini unit in AP) to complete both college application and scholarship essays.  Each year students in AP are required to write the Clayville essay as a part of this unit.  They may then choose to submit the written essay for the competition if they wish.  Also of interest to note -- this is also the 3rd year that we have done this.

Henry Houser and Alec Saebeler have been named Commended Students in the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program. About 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise.  Although they will not continue in the 2016 competition for National Merit scholarship awards, Commended Students placed among the top five percent of more than 1.5 million students who entered the competition. 

construction pictures

Here are some pictures of the construction progress.

Construction Project

laying the floor

new science classroom

outside of new social science class

PPHS Art Students

Jacob Delong, (Mr. Boehme holding Jacob Delong's certificate because he could not attend), Allex Langley, Sarah Livingston, and Leah Klepzig were honored with having their artwork featured in the 28th annual Sangamon County Art Exhibit hosted by SIU School of Medicine April 27 - May 15, 2015.

The awards ceremony was held on Friday, May 15th at the SIU School of Medicine art gallery.

2015 Graduation Pictures.

PPEA representative Christine McGraw presenting the PPEA Scholarship Award.This year's recipient was Connor Riddle

Salutatorian Zach Ross 

Senior Choir: Shi Kluge, Touren Paulsen, Adrianne Reese, Faith Tyler, Morgan Mayer, Venla Rajamaki, Bill Johnson, Jonathan Hagmann, Mikey Holmes, Danyalle Downey, Emily Shaw, Rachel Lange

Valedictorian T.J. Covey

High School Band

Senior Class Officer Emily Yakel giving the welcome address

CLASS OF 2015!!!

Congratulations to Emily Yakel

Congratulations to Emily Yakel on being selected as a Jacksonville Rotary Scholar-Athlete recipient. Senior students from 26 schools in west central Illinois were recognized during the 30th Annual Scholar-Athlete Awards Dinner in Jacksonville, Ill., on April 24, 2014.  Students were selected based on the recommendations of school administrators and coaches. 

WYSE and Science Competition Results

Congratulations to the WYSE team as they placed 4th in the state competition for the 700 division public schools.  There were 15 teams in our division at the state competition and over 300 individuals

Zach Ross placed 3rd in physics, Sam McGraw placed 4th in physics, and Alec Saebeler placed 6th in chemistry. 

At the Blackburn Science Competition, Plains placed first in biology, chemistry, and physics.  Individually, Sam McGraw placed first in physics, Zach Ross placed 2nd in physics, Josh Davis Placed third in physics, Alec Saebeler and Michelle Hedlund tied for 2nd in chemistry, Jacob Higginson placed first in biology, and TJ Covey placed third in biology.

Over a dozen schools were at the competition including Plains, Athens, Riverton, Rochester, Carlinville, Pawnee, Triad, Mt Olive, Gillespie...

FFA Dairy Judging and National Ag Day

Below are some photos from the FFA Dairy Judging competition and National Ag. Day

Dairy judging

Dairy judging

National Ag day with the Brandt car!

National Ag Day with Governor Rauner

Highlights from the last couple weeks

1. Congratulations to the boys and girls basketball teams on winning Regional Championships!!

2. The WYSE team finished 3rd at Sectionals.
 Individual Medalists:

T. J. Covey - 2nd in Biology

Adam Ely - 3rd in Engineering Graphics

Alec Saebeler - 2nd in Engineering Graphics

Sam McGraw - 1st in English

Josh Davis - 3rd in Physics

Sam McGraw - 2nd in Physics

Zach Ross - 1st in Physics

Ross, McGraw, Covey, and Saebeler will advance to the state finals.

3. Scholastic Bowl finished a nice season at 41-17

Congratulations to all the students!!

Sangamon CEO

I wanted to share some information about a local program called Sangamon CEO. Sangamon CEO is about Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (CEO).  It is a year-long experience that aims to empower talented young adults to become innovator problem-solvers and enterprising, action-oriented entrepreneurs.  Students visit area businesses, learn from experts, participate in a class business, write business plans, and start and operate their own business.  

The class meets for 1 ½ hours each school day from 7:30-9:00 am at a multitude of locations throughout the area.  The program is open to all Sangamon County high school seniors in good standing that can provide their own transportation to our many class sites.

To find out more about our program, visit www.SangamonCEO.com.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact the lead instructor, Mr. Mackey at Mackey@SangamonCEO.com.

The application must be completed in full by 5 PM March 13, 2015, including:

  1.  Three letters of references (which can be downloaded at www.SangamonCEO.com/Apply and emailed toMackey@SangamonCEO.com)

  2.  Copies of your transcripts and attendance record (from your guidance counselor and emailed to Mackey@SangamonCEO.com) 

You will be notified regarding the status of your application by April 10, 2015 through email or your guidance counselor.   

Plains boys help SHG hockey

Top L to R:Griffin Tebrugge, RJ Wood, Alexander Wik
Bottom: Keith Steele

 Four PPHS boys who play on the SHG Hockey team just helped knock off Chatham in the Playoffs! They won 10-5 to advance to the Championship Game against Bloomington this Wednesday night! The game starts at 7:00 pm at the Nelson Center in case any PPHS sports fans would like to cheer them on!

Senior Night

Congratulations to our seniors, and a big thanks for your hard work and commitment. L to R: Tom Bohrer, Miguel Bohrer, Pam Bohrer, Hallie Hayes, Mike Hayes, Alice Hayes, Scott Bee, Dylan Bee, Michelle Bee.

PARCC information

This year in Illinois we begin a new  state assessment called PARCC. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers is a consortium of states working together to develop common assessments in Math and English Language Arts(ELA) in grades K-12. The PARCC has replaced the PSAE at the High School level.

At the High School, students in ELA III, Algebra II, or Integrated Math 3 will be required to take PARCC. PARCC consists of two tests; the Performance-Based Assessment (PBA) and the End-of-Year Assessment (EOY) . The two tests will occur during two separate "testing windows". The first window will be used for the PBA. The PBA is designed to be completed in the above mentioned courses courses after roughly 75% of instruction. At Plains, we will take our PARCC PBA beginning March 9th. The EOY assessment is designed to be given after roughly 90% of instruction has taken place. At Plains, we will take our PARCC EOY assessment beginning the week of April 27th. The testing windows are 2 weeks and will be done in the classroom.While the testing window is 2 weeks,  we will not use all of that time.

The PBA test will consist of 3 parts ELA and 2 parts Math. The EOY test will consist of 2 parts ELA and 2 parts Math. Students will take both components and the scores will be combined for a summative score.

For more information, please visit www.parcconline.org

Congratulations to Claire Neibergall

Congratulations to Claire Neibergall who has committed to play soccer at Lenoir-Rhyne University. Lenoir-Rhyne is a Division II school located in Hickory, North Carolina and has approximately 2000 students. In 2014, they were ranked 11th nationally.

Pictured with Claire is HS coach Greg Bryan

Congratulations to the WYSE team

For those of you that don't know, WYSE(Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering) is a high school academic competition consisting of several subject areas including biology, chemistry, physics, math, english, etc. Our 2015 WYSE academic team took first place in their division at the regional competition at LLCC yesterday. Congratulations to the following students on their awards. 

 Individual medal winners were:

TJ Covey 1st in biology

Alec Saebeler 2nd in chemistry, Michelle Hedlund 3rd in chemistry

Beverly Watson 2nd in computer science, Zach Pappas and Josh Davis tied for 3rd in computer science

 Alec Saebeler 3rd in engineering graphics

 Sam McGraw 1st in English

 Zach Ross 1st in mathematics, Connor Riddle 3rd in mathematics

 Sam McGraw 1st in physics, and Zach Ross 2nd in physics.

Drive for Tomorrow field trip

On January 28th, the sophomore class was able to participate in the Drive for Tomorrow program put on by the Illinois State Police and Illinois Department of Transportation. The students participated in activities that dealt with topics such as impaired driving, motorcycle awareness, roll over and seat belt simulations, drowsy driving, and emergency situations. Below are some pictures from the day.

roll over simulation

seat belt convincer

impaired driving course

impaired driving simulation

PPHS Scholastic Art Award pictures

Six Pleasant Plains High School students were honored at the 31st Scholastic Art Awards Ceremony on Sunday, January 25th. The student art was judged against art work from 30 counties in the Mid-Central Illinois Region. The art of Gold Key winners will go on to the national level in New York. Mid-Central Illinois Region winning art is on display at the Springfield Art Association at Edward's Place (700 North Fourth St., Springfield) from January 25 - February 26

Pictured are Leah Klepzig (Gold Key), Olivia Harrison (Silver Key), Sarah Livingston (Honorable Mention), Darcy McLean (Honorable Mention), LeahAnn Wolle (Honorable Mention), Mr. Jim Boehme (HS art teacher), Mr. Chris Martin (MS art teacher). Not pictured is Carlton Hazelwood (Honorable Mention).

(Picture provided by Allex Langley)

Attached are some photos from last night's Sangamon County Tournament action.