“I don’t know if I am valedictorian yet, but it would be pretty exciting,” Fleurant said.

Considering she doesn’t know if she has earned the spot she has yet to begin her speech.
However, people are already asking her for shout-outs.

Although Fleurant is busy keeping her grades up, she is still involved in extra-curricular activities such as, being on the varsity cross-country running team, varsity soccer. She also plays the clarinet and was in All-State Band.

“Finally being able to say you’re a senior and being able to count down till graduation is definitely exciting,” Fleurant said.

Another perk for Fleurant is being able to eat in senior hall and wearing blue on class color day. Like most seniors she is looking forward to graduating and going to college.

“I’m going to miss a lot of people here, but I am looking forward to meeting new people and having a whole new experience,” Fluerant said.

Fleurant’s advice for future seniors is: “Make the most of your senior year and have fun. It goes by fast, so enjoy the time you have with your friends.”

Fleurant’s future plans include attending college either in Maine, Massachusetts, or Connecticut and possibly majoring in neuroscience and minoring in Spanish and hopefully playing soccer.

Learn how to work with money.

Everyone loves money and wants lots of it. In this economy, it’s important to know how make smart decisions with money. If you would really like to learn about this, you should consider becoming an accountant.

The main job of an accountant is to keep a record of a company’s money. This is an important job because it allows managers of a company to see how well their company is doing and  it allows the government to determine how much tax a company needs to pay.
In order to become an accountant, you must get a degree in accounting. Getting experience in a internship would also be helpful in getting a job. If you are good at math and have good analytical skills, accounting could be the right job for you.

The average salary of accountants was $65,840 in 2008.

Like many jobs, how much you earn depends on how much experience you have. In 2008, there were 1.3 million accountants and employment is expected to grow through the year 2018. This growth is expected to come from the greater need of accountants because of changing laws.

During the December holiday season, however, the number rose to an astounding number of 1,645 crashes. In the 4.25 days of 2008 that were accounted for in the study a total of 407 crashes occurred.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released a study in 2008, which suggested the average cost to repair a car after an accident was just over $4,000.

When you look at new cars costing $20,000 or more, it may surprise you that the average repair cost is only about $4,000. However, you have to remember that a new car loses 15% to 20% of its value within the first year of ownership. That would bring the value of $20,000 car down to $16,000 at the maximum rate of depreciation. Once repair costs approach $8,000-$10,000, most car insurance companies would simply total the car rather then attempt to repair it.

Girls JV played West also on Wednesday the 4th, and won with a final score of 37-32.  “It was ugly, but we won,” said Stone, the coach for the girls JV team.  “I think we played hard but not smart,” said Stone.  Some left the game feeling like they could have done better.  Stone said, “We need to reduce our turn-overs and take care of the ball.”  When asked how our team will prepare for upcoming games, Stone said, “We prepare the same by hard work and practice and learning from our mistakes.”

Boys C team played West on the 4th, but lost with a score of 15-63.  The starters played a tough game but lost in the end.  The starters were David Mayhew #3, Jacob Shercliffe #10, Paul Kodiak #14, Henry Paris #15 and Chase Gate #24.

The only issue is the parents and volunteers putting on Grad blast need more volunteers in order to make it a successful and fun time.

There will be a t-shirt design contest for the Grad blast t-shirts. All seniors are invited to submit a design for the t-shirt. Any good ideas can and will be submitted. If you want to submit a design, you can do so by emailing your design to Lori Bond (lbondcnm@gmail.com).

The Grad blast volunteers are also looking for parents’ email addresses so that they can get in touch with parents to coordinate events. They meet at Jitters every other Monday (Jan 23, Feb 6, 20, Mar 5, 19, etc.) at 6:30 pm.

They are emphasizing that the Anchorage School District has nothing to do with this event.

If you would like to help out with Grad blast in any way possible, please feel free to email Arlene Rasic (arlene.rasic@alaska.gov), or get in touch with them on their Facebook page (Chugiak-Eagle River Grad Blast 2012).

The starters for the game were Ryan Harris, Wayde Snell, Skyler Fullmer, Marquis Spearman, and Luke Plumb.

The opening tip off was won by Chugiak’s Marquis Spearman. Chugiak then made a series of costly turnovers which gave Service an early lead. Chugiak was then able to put points on the board and play excellent defense, which gave them a brief lead. At the end of the first period, Service had the lead. Service continued to have the lead for the rest of the game, due partly to CHS turnovers. Towards the end of the game, Chugiak’s Steven Puterbaugh made several free throws, along with Travis Craig, Matt Oldenkemp, and Luke Plumb.
“It was a good game. We just need to work a little harder and not make turnovers,” said Puterbaugh.

While they had many turnovers, they also had a series of takeaways late in the game by Matt Oldenkemp.

“I was just waiting for them [Service] to go down, and I saw that he didn’t see me, and I just grabbed the ball and scored,” said Oldenkemp.

The boys were able to keep their heads high after the loss, knowing what they had to do to change their play. They played Dimond the following Tuesday.

“We are not doing very good in the competitions,” said Steve Wehr the anchor and also captain for the Mustang’s team.

Even though the Mustangs stats are not very strong, it does not stop the team from having a ton of fun while losing.

“Chugiak is not really a bowling school but we do have fun. The other teams are a lot more serious and up tight about this sport, and we are more relaxed,” said Wehr.

There is no doubt that the Chugiak bowling team lost to the West Eagles by points. But they did win a good time hanging out with friends and having a blast doing what they love to do.

In the first period, Kris Tomazevic, a sophomore at Chugiak, scored a shorthanded goal. Soldotna followed with two more goals during the remainder of the game.

Matthew Bennett, the Mustang’s goalie, played really well.

“Bennett had a good game,” said a spectator that was impressed.

“I know that we as a team have the skill to beat almost every team we face,” said senior, Brady Sizelove, who plays defense for Chugiak.

The majority of the boys on the team are underclassmen without a lot experience.

“If we got our heads a little more in the game the outcome would have been much different,” said Sizelove.

The team didn’t play their best this time due to two weeks without practice over winter break. It showed in their performance at the game.

Rodney Wild, the varsity Mustang’s Coach, had high hopes for the team in the upcoming game.

“We need to execute better if we’re going to be successful,” said Coach Wild.

At the Colony Invitational on January 12, Chugiak got 10th with a team score of 92.5. “Our individual champion was Garret Morrison and as a team,” Coach B. said, “We worked on take downs that we used in the tournament.”

Alex Medeiros made second in individuals on decision, while Robert Huffer placed fifth. Jake Wenzl earned points for the team as well as Richard Burroughs by winning their consolation brackets.

Wrestlers practice from 2:30-4:30 and the individual conditioning/training gets them tough and strong for next time if we’re up against another wrestler that is not strong so we could easily beat them in a match. Conditioning is about 80%, and 20% is about training and hard work for those wrestlers.

“I think it was good they were physical, I like when the game is physical and the penalties were good because our team lost their cool.” When asked what does your team need to do to prepare for the next game? Coach Hulse said, “Overall effort needs to be improved.” “The team struggled today on pushing ourselves, they could have performed better and they under estimated the Mat-Su team,” Coach Hulse said “The season was going really well and their record is 5-6-1.”

“The team is a lot better than last year and I’m really proud of them, especially their win against Dimond/West on Wednesday, one of the top teams.” This is Coach Hulse’s first year coaching the team.

“The team played good and without the penalties we would have probably won”  Senior Rachel Russell said after the game.  ”The team is improving every game.  But we need to practice and work on power plays,” Rachel said.

Randy Quincy, a spectator in the stands when asked about the game said, [he thought] that both teams did the best they could. He also said, “both teams could have made better passes during the game.” In Quincy’s opinion, the team could improve by  ”making good passes and skating with the puck.”  He also said “the officiating could have improved.”