FFA Banquet

Last  Wednesday the FFA held their annual banquet in our commons area. What a great crowd we had for that event and what a wonderful job the FFA members did in putting this all together. First of all I would like to thank the many sponsors who contributed to our organization. Without those sponsors, none of this would be possible. The Grand sponsors were; Heritage Farm Equipment, Schlegel Farms - Jacob Schlegel, Schlegel Farms - Butch and Amy, Sukup Farms and an Anonymous donor. Other sponsors were Westwood Family Dental, Scott Equity, Mercer Landmark - Grover Hill, Myers Farm - Jim and Gail Myers, Anonymous donor, Haviland Drainage Products, A&J Lloyd Farms and Lee Kinstle.

It is always a sad time when we say good-bye to our current officers. All of those officers did such a great job this year and they will really be missed. Thank you to Jacob Sukup (President), Zach Sinn (Vice-President), Levi Noggle (Secretary), Devin Dicke (Treasurer), John Breckler (Sentinel), Wyatt Wolfle (Student Advisor), Dylan Tumbleson (Reporter) and Chase Gerken (Chaplain).

It is also at this time that we celebrate the new officers and look forward to their term in office. We welcome, Blake Miller (President), Daniel Sinn (Vice-President), Zach Dealey (Secretary), Peter Wharry (Treasurer), Andrew Grote (Sentinel - blocked in above picture), Wyatt Miller (Student Advisor), Logan Shaner (Reporter), Gabe Evans (Parliamentarian) and Logan Gerding(Chaplain).

The award winners this year were;

Attendance - Zach Dealey and Devin Kline
GPA - Daniel Sinn and Jacob Sukup (both 4.0)
Citrus - Dalton Smith (1st), Jacob Sukup (2nd), Blake Miller (3rd)
Most Valuable FFA member - Jacob Sukup
Outstanding Weld Board - Zach Sinn
Tractor Trouble Shooting - Jacob Sukup and Zach Sinn
Ag Mechanic Skills - Jacob Sukup and Zach Sinn
Small Engines - Jacob Sukup and Zach Sinn
Quiet Leader - Zach Dealey and Jacob Sukup
110% Award - Daniel Sinn and Jacob Sukup
Most Improved - Charles Thomas and Levi Noggle

I can't help but put a extra note in for our out-going president, Jacob Sukup. Jacob did such a tremendous job as the president. He was a leader by example as can be noted by all the awards. He is such a hard worker and will truly be missed. Thanks for all you did this year Jacob and for being such an outstanding leader. Jacob will be the first to say that he had a lot of help from his vice-president, Zach Sinn. You may also notice Zach mentioned in the above awards list many times. Both of these fine gentlemen will be missed next year. Thank you and good luck in all you do.

Finally I just want to say thank you to Mr. Mike Miller. Mike does such a great job with these students and shows such an interest in each and everyone of them. When you are in Mike's lab, you feel that you are with the best and you feel valued. Thanks Mike!

P.S. Thank you also to Mrs Stoller for the great cupcakes again this year. Mrs. Stoller has been doing this for several years now and it is very much appreciated. Thanks!

Congratulations BPA students

First of all I would like to thank all the students who participated in the Business Professionals of America (BPA) contest down in Columbus last week. As I told you, I was going to update everyone with the results. I am happy to say that we have four students who will be going on to the National competition in Boston Massachusetts this May 5th. The following students placed in the top spots at the State competition and will be moving on:

Spencer Wannemacher - 3rd place. Java Programming (Delphos Jefferson)

Alexis Forester - 2nd place. Computer Modeling (Crestview)

Alexis Doster - Top 5 place. Integrated Office Applications (Continental)

Kenneth Pinks-Liebert - 2nd place. Network Administration using Microsoft (Parkway)


Vantage is very proud of all our students that went down there and competed and did their very best and now we wish the very best for those four students heading to Boston. What a great accomplishment and I hope you are as proud of your work as all of us at Vantage are. I had the opportunity to sit through Alexis' presentation on her computer modeling program the day before she headed to the competition. It was so inspiring and well done. I was convinced that if she relaxed while she was in Columbus, that she would place. All of these students work so hard and put so much time into these projects that it is nice to see four of them get rewarded. Alexis Forester even had this quote that I feel says it all,"It's really exciting to have earned going to nationals for BPA. It's truly a great reward for working hard on something for so long, and to get recognized for it. I'm also greatly appreciative to be given this opportunity by Vantage Career Center." I hope you not only do your best in the National competition but also take the time to enjoy Boston and the surrounding area. It is a beautiful city with so much to see. Once again, congratulations from all of us at Vantage.

Well tomorrow (Wednesday) marks the final day of the third quarter and the start of our Easter break. I hope everyone takes some time to relax and find something fun and exciting to do. The fourth quarter is always the fastest quarter we have during the school year. There is so much to do with so little time. I hope you come back re-charged and ready to go and finish the school year proud of what you have accomplished this year. Have a great Easter season!

March Madness 2016

I have always enjoyed March and the NCAA tournament known as "March Madness". It's a great time for avid fans and non-fans to get involved in selecting a bracket and then watching how your teams do in the competition. It's a tournament where an underdog team can come in to the tournament and knock off an undefeated team just because they were hot that one night. That's what makes it so fun and thus the deserving name "March Madness" because it is crazy.

However, when it comes to school, March Madness can be a little too much for a lot of students and they become overwhelmed with everything going on in school right now. March is a time when you have to make sure your cap-n-gowns are in, graduation pictures should be turned in, third quarter comes to an end and grades are becoming more and more important and of course scholarship deadlines have passed you by or they will be coming up quickly. Well let's all take a breath and brake this down one item at a time.

I know at Vantage Career Center, we have to deal with thirteen home schools. We try to make the daily announcements about your home school graduation or prom if the information is available. I always tell the student that if you don't hear the announcements or there wasn't an announcement for your home school, then check their website. Each home school has a lot of information regarding graduation, prom, etc... and they also usually have their morning announcements on their website. If you check their webpage and don't find anything, please come and see me and I will make a quick call to the home school counselor.

Well we are winding down the 3rd quarter. If you must pass the fourth quarter to pass for the year and graduate, then I have contacted your parents or guardians and also talked with you about what you need to do to finish strong. No matter what else you have going on, you must focus on your school work for the last nine weeks and don't give up. If you need some extra help or would like to come in early or stay late, please contact your instructor and ask them if they could do this for you. I promise you they will accommodate you anyway they can. We have a great staff here that will go the distance if you are willing to work. If you are looking for help on test taking strategies or study skills, please stop in my office and we will discuss this.

Finally, the big topic now is scholarships. Well I have mentioned scholarship deadlines in this blog before and they have been on the scholarship page since the beginning of the year. The only thing I can tell you is that many of the scholarships are over with but there are still many out there. Please check out the scholarship page and check the dates. Don't forget the local Vantage scholarships. We have the Robert Brandt scholarship and the Robert C. Stevens scholarship. If you were a Jr. Rotarian, that scholarship is due April 11th. I also encourage  you to check out the college that you are going to and look for their scholarship dates.

Like I said, March is certainly a crazy month, so let's take a deep breath and relax. Get your brackets ready for the tourney games, get everything done that you need to pass for the year and before you know it summer will be here. Also, good luck to the Lincolnview Lancers in their big game tomorrow at the State championships.

P.S. Watch for a future blog talking about our BPA State Contenders and good luck to each of them as they compete down in Columbus.

OGT's and THANKS !

Just a reminder that next week is OGT week for our students. All students who are scheduled to take the OGT test next week have been given their schedule. This schedule shows the date of their test, which room they will be taking the test in and the subject area. If you have not received a schedule and believe you still have an OGT test to pass, please see Mr. Knott or myself as soon as possible. Please take time to run some practice tests. These practice tests can be found at Ohio Means Jobs or a few of these links:

http://ogt.success-ode-state-oh-us.info/studentsOGT.htm

http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Testing/Testing-Materials

http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Testing/Testing-Materials/Released-Test-Materials-from-the-Ohio-Graduati-1


Secondly, I would like to send out a great big THANK YOU to everyone who participated in the jeans day yesterday for Marius down in Haiti. As you may know, one of my recent blogs was about the health troubles that Marius is having and how he could really use our help financially. Well Matt Miller and the Haiti Interact club decided to have a jeans day to raise some money for Marius. I spoke with Matt at the end of the day and I am happy to say that we raised over $1230. This is so awesome. What a great school we have and how proud to be part of a special group. This money also includes funds from a chili lunch that some of the staff put together. Thanks goes out to all of those who helped organize that effort. I also wanted to send out a great big thank you to our local Rotary Club because during their meeting this past Tuesday, they raised $245 for Marius. This is such a generous move by the Rotary and it means so much to have their support. Thanks again Staci and the Rotary club.

ReThink

ReThink before the damage is done. That's the slogan behind some new software that is absolutely brilliant. I want to thank Mr. Regedanz for passing this information on to me. ReThink is a non-intrusive, innovative, patented software product that effectively stops cyber-bullying before the damage is done. Cyber-bullying is getting more and more prevalent today than it ever has and we must find a way to stop it. Well a 14 year old girl did just that. Trisha Prabhu, from Naperville IL, read a news story about the suicide of an 11 year old girl from Florida who had been repeatedly cyber-bullied by her classmates. She was shocked, heartbroken, and outraged. How could a girl younger than herself be pushed to take her own life? She knew something had to change. While doing her research, Trisha found that current solutions that are out there follow the STOP, BLOCK, TELL method. Victims are asked to stop what they are doing, block the cyberbully, and tell a parent or guardian. Unfortunately, this approach doesn't stop the damage before it's done, places the burden on the victim to stop the cyber-bullying, and research has found that 9 out of 10 victims don't tell anyone that they are being targeted. They suffer in silence.

What Trisha developed when she was 13 years old is an app that uses patented context sensitive filtering technology to determine whether or not what the person is going to text is offensive and gives the adolescent a second chance to reconsider their decision. Without getting into a big ordeal about the brain and how it works, it is common knowledge that the pre-frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain) fully develops later in life, thus an adolescent doesn't have the capabilities to think rational at times and they do things more spontaneous. This app will give the teenager a chance to think about what he/she is about to send. You may be thinking or doubting that this is going to work but research showed that when adolescents are alerted to ReThink their decision, they change their minds 93% of the time. In this internationally acclaimed study, using ReThink, the overall willingness of the average adolescent to post an offensive message reduced from 71% to 4%.

Trisha has been endorsed by several major papers such as Time, Huffington Post, U.S. News and World Report, Chicago Tribune, Forbes and has appeared on Good Morning America, MSNBC, ABC, FOX, BBC and France TV. She was also selected as one of the top 15 Google Science Fair Global Finalists.

I will include two links for you. One is her YouTube presentation that lasts 11 minutes and the other is her website. My hope is that all the teachers would watch the presentation with their class and then visit the website. There are opportunities for our school to become involved and use this on all our connections and also for us to nominate two ambassadors from our school to implement ReThink at our school. This is a free app for Android and an iOS device.

Her Video Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkzwHuf6C2U&feature=youtu.be 

Her Website 

http://www.rethinkwords.com/