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Feature Articles:
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Senior Puts Her Writing Experience To Work in
Internship with
Community Daily
 Mooseheart senior Michelle Perkins at her workstation in the newsroom of the Kane County (IL) Chronicle, a 20,000-circulation daily. Michelle’s weekday afternoons are spent editing news releases, handling calls from readers, working the phone to check facts, and writing brief features.
> When Michelle Perkins came to Mooseheart from Oregon last summer, she came with a clip file of which a journalism job-seeker in her mid-20s could have been proud.
Beginning before her high-school junior year in Grants Pass, OR, Michelle had signed up to participate in a rotation of teen writers in the features section of the Daily Courier, an 18,000-circulation daily newspaper based in Grants Pass. She demonstrated such a knack for fresh, readable writing that soon the Courier was using her as a regular contributor.
Coming to Mooseheart, she knew she wanted to do something journalism-oriented for her vocational requirement, and after viewing her story samples, Moose Magazine Editor Kurt Wehrmeister set up a meeting with professional acquaintances at the Kane County Chronicle, a 20,000-circulation community daily. Since mid-September, Michelle has been working from roughly 1:30-5:30 p.m. daily in the Chronicle newsroom, about five miles north of the Mooseheart campus; editing and rewriting news releases, compiling “in-brief” columns, working the phone to check facts, fleshing out obituaries--essentially, doing the job of a young newspaper professional.
“Michelle is very outgoing; she fit right in immediately here, and she’s doing good work,” said Chronicle Features Editor David Retseck.
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Please click on any photograph below to view a larger image.
Michelle reports to Chronicle Features Editor David Retseck (left), who works with her to verify proper style and formats.
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Senior Sergio Mazon Elected Mooseheart’s First Student Mayor Since the 1970s
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Sergio Mazon.
> Senior Sergio Mazon was elected on Nov. 15 as the first student mayor of Mooseheart since the 1970s, following a close race with Junior Katie Morones.
“Katie, I want to thank you for a fair and tough competition,” Mazon said after the news was announced at a midday all-campus assembly in the Fieldhouse. “I may ask you for help later on.”
Mazon’s duties as mayor are expected to include serving as one of two Mooseheart representatives at the Moose International Youth Awareness Student Congress, May 4-8 in Anaheim, CA. Mazon will also accompany Mooseheart Executive Director Scott Hart to local meetings with service organizations and Moose functions to promote the mission, goals and values of Mooseheart.
At the end of the school year, the plan is to hold another election, where a junior will be elected mayor, subsequently to serve as a spokesperson to visitors at graduation, and possibly to participate in the Youth Conservation Corps at Yellowstone National Park this coming summer, said Mooseheart Residential Coordinator Ron Ahrens.
Mazon (sponsored by Chicago Southwest Lodge 44) has been a Mooseheart student for three and a half years. His activities have included serving as the commanding officer for the NJROTC, as a member of the student council, and on the Military Ball committee.
The campaign between Mazon and Morones lasted more than a month, concluding with a constructive, maturely presented debate between the candidates in front of the entire student body on Nov. 14, the day prior to the election.
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Prior to the election, mayoral candidate Sergio Mazon (left) and Katie Morones debated the issues of importance in front of the entire Mooseheart community. Inset: students paid close attention to what the candidates had to say.
The debate featured questions from students, Family Teachers and school faculty, and covered a wide range of subjects ranging from the validity of Mooseheart’s student point cards to questions of personal character. The two answered all questions eloquently and diplomatically.
Asked how Mooseheart has helped prepare them for adulthood, Mazon said his family had moved every year prior to coming to the Child City--but now he has more friends than he ever thought he would, and is much more comfortable in social situations.
Morones, with the same question, noted first that she came to Mooseheart at age 3 in 1991.
“This is my home, my family,” she said. “I didn’t come here for Mooseheart to change me--but it did. I would be someone completely different if I had never come here, but I don’t want to be someone else.”
Concerning the handling of personal struggles, Morones said she talks to Family Teachers or faculty members for advice on the best decision to make. Mazon said he confides with the other young men in his home; that they all help each other out in times of trouble.
The Mooseheart Mayor concept is actually a throwback to a 1950s-through-’70s program, which apparently faded out about 1980. Mooseheart Superintendent Gary Urwiler had run across the concept while reading old material about Mooseheart; after meetings with Ahrens and Mooseheart Director Scott Hart, the three decided to revive the program, Urwiler said.
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Fourth Grade Teacher Betty Wells proudly watches as her students cast ballots in the mayoral election. Residential Coordinator Ron Ahrens (center) and Supt. of Education Gary Uwiler collected the ballots. |
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Davis Remembered on Founder’s Day Weekend,
October 22-23
Students learn--and teach--about
the man who conceived the idea of Mooseheart, and made it happen
 MHS letter jacket qualifiers received their jackets from Greenville, OH Lodge 329.
> The fourth weekend in October is always marked at Mooseheart with commemorations of the Oct. 27 birthday of the Child City’s founder, first Director General James J. Davis.
On Saturday, Oct. 22, students were called to speak on the Davis legacy for visitors from Ohio and Michigan in the House of God.
 Michigan Moose members (shown here at Penn Home) did some”reverse trick-or-treating” and presented a haunted house as well as hayrides for the Child City residents. Michigan Moose members also presented the Michigan Home with gifts and a check for $5,100.
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Crystal Bradley
Seniors received new watches from the Michigan Moose Association. |
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Wisconsin Visitors Help Kick off Holiday Season
 Wisconsin Moose Association Chairman Ron Rasmussen flipped the switch lighting the tree at the 42nd Annual Wisconsin Tree Lighting program at Mooseheart.
 Visitors enjoy the annual Christmas program.
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Band Director Steve Schmidt and his students set a festive tone for the season with holiday favorites and an impressive rendition of the Titanic motion picture medley. |
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3 MHS Seniors Named to National Honor Society;
’94 Grad Speaks
 Mooseheart High School seniors Mary Muns, Tiaka Smith and Cecilia Tobias were inducted into the MHS chapter of the National Honor Society during a Nov. 17 ceremony attended by students and teachers at the House of God. The three were named by their teachers based on their demonstration of the four Honor Society qualities of Character, Scholarship, Leadership and Service.
 The guest speaker was Keith Griffin, a 1994 Mooseheart graduate who now teaches elementary school in nearby Oswego. Griffin related how he became interested in teaching when he was a senior and worked as an aide in Julie Krietzer’s kindergarten class! |
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February/March/April 2006
