 By Grace MahonyThe Nomination: - "I’d like to officially nominate Abigail Roby for the IT Girl of the day at Inspiring Teens Magazine. Abby is a pillar of my senior rep program and is always the first to volunteer for any event we have whether it’s from being in shoots, helping with the shoots, or helping with community activity. Abby was named Cadet Commander in her JROTC program and holds multiple records for PT training. She’s attended leadership events and puts her all into her program. She’s been recognized for her outstanding community service which is something that she is the proudest of. Abby has faced adversity in a male dominated program. She has been bullied and teased yet she has remained steady in her beliefs and has been an exemplary example of what a young leader should be. I fully believe that Abby has a very promising future ahead of her and I am so proud of everything she’s accomplished." Nominated by Samantha Tooley  Settled on the famous Ohio River, in a shallow curve on the edge of Kentucky, is Daviess County. A relatively quiet county that houses a powerful young lady; Abby Roby. She is an inspiration to many for her perseverance, strength and stunning accomplishments. Five years ago, chance changed her life. In eighth grade, she walked out of the first day of volleyball tryouts only to be approached by Commander White, the senior navalist instructor of the ROTC program who had known her older brother. ROTC focuses on instilling the value of citizenship, service to one's country and personal responsibility in students. Abby was eager to join the coming fall and, though she didn’t know it at the time, begin the journey of finding herself. It wasn’t long before Abby found herself learning lessons that she'd keep with her for years to come. After earning awards at both the local and national levels, she attended National Junior ROTC leadership training. It was here that her senior chief would tell her to "worry about the thing you can control and if you can't control them then don't worry about them". It was a statement that would help her through the hardest years that were still to come.  As a sophomore, she was bullied by many people, including her brother. The hard times took a toll and her grades dropped, she quit volleyball and began to lose herself in the work she did as the JROTC community service officer working in the community beyond her high school. The joy on people faces when she brought in 10,000 donations to local shelters kept her busy and gave her experiences that would earn her an award.
She relied on her own strength and the support of her senior chief and friend, Michael Gatrost, to bounce back. She was able to work hard and rise above her competition to become her county's first female cadet commander, an honor she values as her greatest accomplishment. She's learned how to take charge and communicate properly with other. As a recent high school graduate, she plans to enlist in the Navy this August and continue to serve her country. And for all of us, she can remain a figure of great inspiration and strength.
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 By Grace Mahony Where is there a place where learning is enhanced by fun, friends, confidence, social-skills and overall enjoyment? It's acting school! I've been attending classes for almost six years and have learned so much about myself, others and the art of acting.
When you first enter an acting class, you are greeted with a smile and a vibrant energy. Soon, you will begin various interesting, interactive and sometimes downright weird warm-up games to get your body and mind ready for the class ahead. It may take a week or two, but you will quickly become so close with the strangers in your class that you'll forget that you've only known each other for a couple of days. Then we get down to business, your welcoming and patient teacher will brief you on the weekly goal (each week is a new aspect of acting!) and, often with excited squeals from the class, how we will learn that aspect. For improv classes, aspects are learned through a series of creative and entertaining games. For classes studying a script, you will be challenged to introduce the aspect into your scripted part for a fantastic conclusion game to end the class. One of my personal favorites is a focus game called Zip Zap Zop, where you have to focus on the pattern and the quick moving energy as it is passed around the circle. I have had the amazing opportunity to attend these classes for six years and have recently begun helping with younger classes. I get to work with kids of all ages and personalities. Each day is a new and exciting adventure that I could be more grateful to be a part of. By Grace Mahony
Images by Lily Miles From Greco-Roman archways to modern abstracts, Central Bucks schools have created the perfect balance of new and old. Before you even walk in the doors, you have already learned to remember the past and embrace the future because when mixed together, they can create something extraordinary. If you are a student at Tohickon Middle School, every morning you are greeted by an abstract arch with obvious Greco-Roman roots. The architectural arch itself is a Roman invention from around 2000 BC, when its original purpose was to make stronger bridges in the Roman Empire. However, Tohickon has used it to create a domed marquee over its student entrance. It was then modernized by adding geometric rectangles. This style fits the decontrsuctivism style of architecture, which encourages freedom from the more functional aspects of architecture shown in the intersecting rectangles that don’t necessarily serve a functional purpose. If you look slightly to the left, you will see an extravagant example of modern glasswork: a bold glass stairwell. Since the beginning of the 21st century, glass wall paneling has become a common embellishment in many new pieces of architecture, like the new Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. If you are a student at Tamanend Middle School, you have seen the school’s main entrance. This entrance is a semi-circle wall lined with brick pillars. In modern architecture, circles are a common geometric base due to their lack of previous ridged corners and aesthetic appeal. The brick pillars, however, have roots as far back as the ancient Greeks, where similar pillars (or columns) were used to hold up ceilings while increasing their overall expandable potential. If you are a student at Central Bucks West High School, you go to a school with a very college-esque campus and building. The green roof of the clock tower is a blatant romanesque revival architecture piece that can be commonly found in Italian architecture. There are also many Greek columns found at most entrances, like at the previously mentioned Tamanend Middle School. The high school building also actively demonstrates the brutalist style with its series of three protruding concrete structures that frame various doors to the right of the grand courtyard. Each Central Bucks School is different, but all have modern, historic and international architecture inspirations. It is a perfect metaphor for what goes on inside the stunning buildings’ walls.  An interview with RJ Toothill by Grace MahonyHow did you become interested in computers? I really don’t know… it was some YouTube video that I watched. What inspired you to build your own computer from scratch? I found a channel about mostly building computers and stuff. It just kinda caught on from there. How old were you when you built your computer? Was this a challenge or asset? I was ten and it was a little hard to comprehend stuff like knowing what each value & gigahertz meant What was your favorite part of the process and why? Shopping for the components. The store had everything like boards and ram. It was awesome. Do you want to work with computers when you grow up? Yes…either in programming or something in assembling computers. How long did it take to build your computer? Alright, this is hard to explain, but it should’ve taken eight hours, but because we had a faulty mother board, it took us about a week to diagnose that it was a faulty mother board. So in all it took about a week. Can you walk me through the basic steps? First you want to know what you want to do with the computer. For example, video editing, you’d want a more beefy computer for rendering. Then you’d research and you’d find what specific specs would fit that. So you’d need a better processing unit and not as much ram. And then you’d shop for the components, build it, and make sure it posts or puts an output to the screen. And then install the software. How do you begin such a big project? Research. You need to do a lot of research on it. Did you have any help? My dad helped put in the smaller components and the ram. Rams are kinda hard to install. How did it feel when you were finally finished? Relieved mostly because we actually found the problem for it not booting, which was the broken mother board. And accomplished just cause the feeling that you built a computer. Are there any parts of the computer that were your personal choice? Actually, the personal touch was we bought another hard drive so we can put two operating systems on it, which was mostly our choice…it wasn’t required. What advice would you give to other kids, who want to work with computers? Do a lot of research, watch videos on it, like actually watch someone build the computer and find out what each component does. |
