A lot of Carter High students participate in clubs or activities inside and outside of the school. One student in particular is a senior, Ploomie Messer. Ploomie certainly stays busy with her life but she loves being involved. In matter of fact, she is one of the drum majors for the Carter high band, is the catcher for the high school softball team and is involved in national honors society and the student government association (SGA). Even outside of school, Ploomie participates in a travel softball team and the knoxville teen board. “I love playing sports and being involved in different things. I tend to get bored easily so I like to keep busy, most of the time”. Ploomie enjoys participating in anything that gets her involved. Besides the clubs and sports, Ploomie is also a hard-working student in her dual enrollment math and english classes. Some may wonder how she tackles her school work with being involved in clubs and activities but she claims “you just have to manage your time and enjoy what you are doing”. Talking to many of her friends, Ploomie is a responsible, hard-working student and an even better friend. One of her friends, senior Mckenzie Fisher explains, “Ploomie is helpful and always there for me whether it has to do with school work or just life in general”. Ploomie has different future plan routes after high school. She looks forward to attending college to either be in the band, play softball, become a pediatric physical therapist or either become a sports medicine physician.

At Carter High School everyone is playing Among Us. Among us is a free multiplayer game for all systems players can play as either cremates and importers, and the goal for the cremates to find out who the impostors and the impostors have to be sneaky, and slowly take out the players so they don’t know who it is Students love this game there are people that have said they would never play it and now they play it all day. They play it at lunch during class/enrichment. Some people say it’s fun and some people say it’s addicting for students. Aiden Loy, a student from Carter said¨ Among Us is really good and it helps you strategize.¨ But he also said it can be very addicting. More than 60 million people play Among Us a day. It’s also the 3rd ranked game in the world on PC. Noah Kelly another student from Carter, said ¨It’s good and he really likes it as a game but he was mad because he is never the impostor.¨  Landon Laulusa another student from Carter, said¨it has it’s up and down and he has split decisions on it.¨

Terry Cunningham is very well known around the school for being a charismatic history teacher. In addition to being a history teacher, Cunningham is actually a black belt in Karate and Kung Fu. Cunningham has been practicing both forms since he was a teenager. Mr. Cunningham says that he started ¨when I was in high school. Probably when I was sixteen or seventeen¨. Cunningham recalls shortly after earning his black belt when he was twenty two to twenty three years old, he was drafted into the military. ¨I had to take a break to go into the army,¨ he says. After returning from the army, Cunningham went back to Karate and Kung Fu. Since then, Cunningham has participated in hundreds of tournaments, winning ¨six-hundred and fifteen trophies, awards, and medals¨ he says, and he is still going strong at the tournaments. Over the years Cunningham has put his skill to good use. He says he has been a bodyguard, and even a bouncer at one point during his college years.

Landon Bruce, a senior at Carter, remembers fondly having Cunningham as a teacher. ¨I had Terry Cunningham first semester sophomore year for contemporary issues. It was a pleasure listening to him and I am excited to have him for American at war next semester,” he says. In the past years the school always had up to thirty minutes of activity time and Cunningham made sure to use that time to teach students Karate. Landon Bruce was one of the many students that participated in his lessons. ¨His karate lessons are good but i’m more skilled than him and he knows it too,” he states.  It is unlikely Landon would be able to beat Cunningham’s years of experience, but it’s always go he’s passing his experience down.

The Carter High School marching band and color guard hold a fruit sale every year during their season in the fall to raise money for equipment and other band necessities. The fundraiser has been going on for years, always coming around during the same time of year. Different types of fruit, such as oranges and grapefruits, are sold through a catalog. The students of the band sell the fruits by calling, texting, or talking in person to people they know. They ask for help with supporting the band. Oftentimes, people will agree to buy the fruit, despite the expense. The fruits are delivered fresh and prepared. These fruits are said to be delicious, much better than the common fruit bought from the grocery store. They are sweeter, juicer, and just better in general, hence why the band has decided to sell this type of fruits. Many teachers in the school ask Spencer Milligan, the band director, when the fruit sales will begin and when they can buy the fruits. Many other customers outside of the school love the fruit as well and look forward to the fruit sale. The students of the band seem to enjoy the sale as well, finding it very easy to sell the delicious fruit. Danielle Hoss, color guard senior, says she has already sold eight fruits, beating the minimum of five fruits per student easily. She enjoys the sale as it is a very helpful part of gaining funds for the band. “The fruit sale helps the band with instrument repairs, buying music, and drill but it also goes to the student account sometimes.” Danielle commented when asked what the fruit sale does. She also commented that she enjoyed the fruit sale because her customers are excited for when she delivers the fruit. In fact, most people in band feel the same way. Brooke Myers, junior color guard member, has already sold two different types of fruit to two different people. She is working hard to help the band and guard reach the goal, which is twenty five thousand dollars total. The reason for the fruit sale could vary but Brooke has a guess on what it is for. “Pay for our fees and so we can have nice stuff I guess,” Brooke claims as a reason for the fruit sale. She also said it would help the guard get equipment for the next season. She has done the sale before and is excited for the results of the sale, fully believing the band will reach their goal. The band asks people they know to buy fruit and are very excited for the sale’s end and they are all hoping to meet their goal. 

As the season is just getting underway, the bowling team has only played 2 games this season rather than last year they would have played 9 but Corona affected their schedule. In the last 3 weeks, they have only bowled 2 times, both teams are 1-1, Bowling has 2 teams, boys team and girl’s team, 6 bowlers on each team during head to head games. Bowling can be a team or an individual sport meaning your team as a team can win by points or an individual can win by points depending on the number they get. Branson Romines has this to say about the matches, “It can suck sometimes because the coach will yell at you and it sucks to get beat, sometimes it doesn’t go very well but it is very fun and I have a blast.” On average, Branson knocks down 165 pins per game and his high is 190. Branson’s favorite thing about the bowling team is how the team comes together, everyone has a good vibe with everyone, just the community of the team. Getting points of views from both sides of the spectrum Emma Henderson has this to say “ It’s honestly really fun. It’s something that I’ve never done before , genuinely. I’ve learned so much from Ray in such a short time and I’ve made some last minute friendships in the process.” Her average is 141 with a high of 182 pins knocked done in a single game almost beating the girls record of 184 held by Carter’s very own Ava Brooks, the boy’s high is 241 held by Keegan Woodrum who also goes to Carter.  Emma says her favorite thing about the bowling team is the friendships she has made and gets to have. She has gotten to rekindle some of her friendships and made some new friends as well. 

As Breast Cancer Awareness month kicks off in October Carter High School’s Coach Beaty is adding to his busy agenda by advocating for the Real Men Wear Pink movement that was started by the American Cancer Society (ACS). This campaign is to help raise money, awareness, and to educate everyone about how to go about getting annual exams, treatment, and diet to help prevent or help if you have cancer, along with many other educational and medical research and resources. His dedication to the cause is due to the many people in his life that have been affected by Breast Cancer. 

While many people think women are the only ones who can develop Breast Cancer many men have been known to get diagnosed with it. This stigma can cause mass amounts of men to be sickly and possibly die from Breast Cancer because they don’t realize that men can get it too.

There are many ways everyone can “get in the game”. Getting involved with local organizations and fundraisers can help raise awareness and educate. “All of us can get involved one way or another, donating money, volunteering, annual doctor visits, educating on proper nutrition that will help prevent breast cancer, etc.” 

Beaty first decided to do more than the average coach when he started coaching in college. “I guess you can say I have always had the desire to get involved and help in any fight to help others. My career path has just guided me in this direction.” 

As a member of the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches), Beaty felt strong enough to join the fight in cancer awareness, “So I jumped in with the Coaches vs Cancer and Suit and Sneakers campaign as well.” They have been doing this for two years now and will be doing it again on January 26th at the home basketball game against Gaitlinburg-Pittman; this will also be “pink-out” night.

As we get deeper into virtual teaching, teachers have their own difficulties with online and why they like classrooms more.

 Mrs. Bain is the lifetime wellness teacher and she had this to say: “It is difficult”. Now a lot of teachers have said this but going more in depth, she said that making the students understand what is being taught is one of the most difficult things to cope with. As students have as many as 2-3 classes at the time it gets hard to sort everything. She also said attendance was horrible because they would never check in to class.  Mr.Webb also teaches a virtual class and he had thisA to say, “Recording the videos is very difficult, having to record multiple videos for different classes and not having the feedback as being in class is very difficult.” Mrs. Bain also said that “The voice record was hard because your recording multiple videos for different classes and the worst part about that is if they don’t understand they can’t just ask questions, and take responsibility.”

Carter High School’s Basketball team practices, and their demeanor changes as they go through their season, a season that may or may not even follow through. Since Covid-19 started getting more and more serious, everyone has been extremely cautious of, for example, social distancing, wearing a mask, washing your hands.  Head Coach Spencer Beaty says, “We are all freshman when it comes to that. Senior Brycen McKeehan says “In the summer starting off it was really difficult not being able to run up and down the floors, having our own ball, sanitizing it.” All the players had a lot of one on one drills with Coach Beaty, not being able to really get a feel of how the season is gonna go and just not getting to come into contact with the other players, as you normally would in basketball, according to Brycen. In terms of bettering the team, Coach Beaty puts a lot of responsibility on the upperclassmen to teach the underclassmen how to act in the classroom or even at a football game on a friday night. In Coach Beatys words, “When our older guys are living by what we preach it tends to get the younger guys to by in a little bit quicker.” This also correlates to what Brycen said “Just finding guys that will step up and lead, that’ll put in extra work, that will have an actual team mentality to be able to counter for what we lost.”

Many teachers at Carter High School have been quarantined because of exposure to COVID-19. Including Carter’s French teacher, Ms. Wimer, and Carter’s History teacher, Mrs. Cupp. Both teachers have different points of view when it comes to talking about their quarantine. Ms. Wimer says she’s “much happier to be at the school teaching in-person.” There are many reasons for this; she says responses are limited cause of students’ muted microphones, and it’s hard to talk about missing work and grades. Overall Ms. Wimer says teaching online is like “teaching through a keyhole.” However, Mrs. Cupp has a different, more positive response. She says, “I already have an online class so it would definitely take the stress off if we were to go ‘red’.” Mrs. Cupp enjoys her online classes and is very prepared when it comes to Microsoft teams and canvas. Regardless of their feelings on the matter, both teachers are happy to do what is required of them in this uncertain year. 

Most school lunch food is mediocre at best. This is because it is made in a large factory somewhere, and then delivered frozen to schools everywhere via truck. This is true for Carter, with one exception: the cookies. The best item on the menu, flavored and baked to such perfection that it would put your grandmother to shame.

One of the reasons the cookies are so amazing is, as stated above, they are not pre-made. The cafeteria workers are kind enough to bake them once per week with the perfect balance of ingredients. This results in an amazing flavor and perfect texture: not too crunchy, and not too chewy.

The texture of Carter High’s cookies is truly a divine thing. They start with a decent amount of resistance when you begin chewing. Then when the flavor really begins to hit, they start melting into the perfect consistency for swallowing.

They even come in two different flavors: chocolate chip and sugar. This way, everyone can enjoy Carter High’s cookies.

You might argue that the cookies should be served more often than one day of the week. It takes a lot of work to make perfect cookies, and a lot of time and effort. If the lunch workers were to make cookies more often, it would add stress to their already busy schedules. Thus, the cookies would drop in quality. Or perhaps you feel that the two available flavors taste too similar. That may be true, but the chocolate chips add a nice pop to the taste, while the cookies are far from lacking without them.

In conclusion, Carter High’s cookies are truly the best item in the menu, and enjoyed by many students. It is a good thing we are all only given one though, otherwise we would all probably have constant stomach aches.