Walk for Water - Mrs. Frawley's Environmental & Biology classes along with some students from Mrs. Sack's and Mrs. Niemantsverdriet's classes participated in a Walk for Water on Friday May 4th to bring an awareness of the global water crisis and raise funds that will go towards safe water and sanitation solutions for communities around the world.

Did you know? Every 20 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease
2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation
Water related diseases are the leading cause of death for children under the age of 5
Women and girls spend hours each day collecting water

Latin Club Convention continued - The delegation included the following students: Seniors: Nathan McMullen and Jessica Jones. Juniors: Clare Burkhardt, Cassidy Hawthorne, Alyssa Alfano, Tim Shoemaker, Austin Webb. Sophomores Alexis Conway, Bekkah Knaggs, Andrea Parks, Andrea Hatvani, Sara BenBella, Amanda Maillie, Rachel Coad (in absentia), Sarah Murrin. Freshmen included Lisa Gemmer, Charlie McCary, and Kendra Willhoite. The students were accompanied by teachers Amy Sawan and Jeff Kolo. Mike Gemmer was the delegation’s parent chaperone.

 The students competed in a variety of contests: academic, graphic arts, handicrafts, creative and literary arts. The club scrapbook received an excellent, while the club project and banner received a good rating.

• Nathan McMullen , a senior, won 3rd in the state for Level III Grammar; 7th in Level III Vocabulary; 7th in Level III Derivatives
• Charlie McCary, a freshman, won 9th in Latin Recitation
• Jessica Jones 6th in costumes; 9th in Pastels (Upper)
• Andrea Parks (standing for Rachel Coad) and Bekkah Knaggs 5th in Couples costumes.
• Austin Webb 1st in Charcoal Upper; 1st in Woodworking (Upper) ; 2nd in Pencil (Upper ); 3rd in Ink (Upper);4th in Colored Pencil Upper; 4th in Mixed Media (Upper); 5th in Pastels; 7th in Watercolor (Upper). Austin also won 2nd in the state for in Individual Graphic Arts Sweepstakes.
• Andrea Hatvani 3rd in Ink (Lower); 4th in Mixed Media (Lower); 6th in Watercolor
• Clare Burkhardt 3rd in Mixed Media (Upper); 4th in Ceramics; 6th in Games
• Alexis Conway 6th in Pencil (10th); 8th Mosaic (Other)
• Rachel Coad, 7th in Watercolor,
• Sara BenBella 5th in Watercolor
• Kendra Willhoite, 9th in Ceramics
• Charlie McCary 6th Mosaic
• Cassidy Hawthorne, 6th in Mosaic (Other)
• Sarah Murrin 9th in Woodworking;
• Andrea Parks 7th in Woodworking; 6th in Dolls; 9th in Drawn Posters (Lower)
• Charlie McCary,6th in Woodworking
• Alexis Conway, 2nd in Woodworking
• Jessica Jones 10th in Woodworking (Upper); 6th in Large Model
• Bekkah Knaggs 7th in Large Models
• Tim Shoemaker 3rd in Large Models
• Lisa Gemmer 1st in Textiles; 3rd in Constructed Chart; 3rd Constructed Map
• Sarah Murrin 9th in Drawn Map

Debate Team - On January 26 and 28, the Medina Debate Team competed at the Akron District Debate Tournament. There are 14 schools in the Akron district of the OHSSL (Ohio High School Speech League), including schools in Summit, Medina, and Wayne counties. Medina sent twelve students, and ten of the twelve qualified to the state championship tournament in March. This represents the highest percentage of qualifiers among all schools in any one event. One Medina student, Veronica Toth, qualified to states last year in one debate event and qualified this year in a different one. Usually, a student will compete for four years in a single event and hope to qualify to states by his or her third or fourth year. Veronica did this in her first year in each event. Additionaly, there was a 4-way tie for district champion in the Public Forum event (two person teams); three of those four were Medina teams.

All in all, this was our most successful district tournament and qualifies our team for our 10th straight trip to the state finals. The students who qualified for the state finals were seniors Paige Blankenship, Emily Morgan, Veronica Toth, Max Deka, Tyler Thompson, Brian Haberfield, and Jared Topp; juniors Abbey Meyer and Kate Johnson; and sophomore Andrew Shea.

Penguin Bowl Team - The Medina team of Scott Gerlica, Cori Komm, Sarah Smith, Tom Joseph and Cara Piombo won the regional contest of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium on February 4, 2012. They will be competing in the Nationals contest in April.

Physics teacher Doug Smith arranged for Astronaut Greg Johnson to visit and make a presentation to about 270 Physics and AP Math students on December 13th.

The Penguin Bowl team at Medina High School recently cleaned up the Rich Clevidence Memorial Garden as a fall service project. Students first listened as Mrs. Patrick and Mrs. Balsinger shared their memories of Rich as he inspired and educated students through his tutoring and gymnastics coaching. Students then got to work pulling weeds, trimming back shrubs, and cleaning up debris in the courtyard garden. With this cleanup, the garden should be ready to shine next spring for everyone at the high school to enjoy. Student volunteers included Penguin Bowl Captain Scott Gerlica and Penguin Bowl team members Sarah Smith, Cara Piombo, Sara Durbin, Katie Lloyd. Stephanie Durbin, Allison Verhotz, Erin Van Camp, and Latarian Brown also assisted with the memorial garden clean up.