Kalico 2: Hypnotized & Naked in Hope Springs

Sandy: The Fall Semester As Seen By Seever

A daily journal by Sandy L. Seever

HSEG News, Eternal High School

Hope Springs, Texas

New Semester Looks 'Interesting'

Sandy Seever: Tuesday (turned in Wednesday morning)

School starts in a week. That is, the official date for resumption of classes is a week away. The exact date of when school "starts" is always open to debate, of course.

For athletes, the semester started a little more than two weeks ago when fall two-a-day practice began. It's a similar idea for the members of Eternal Glory Marching Band: marching practice began two weeks ago. Regular teachers returned to campus Monday, to sort out lesson plans and materials. The office staff, well, I suppose someone's been there all summer long.

For myself, the fall semester unexpectedly started today. My name is Sandy L. Seever, age 15, a sophomore at Eternal High School (yea!). And wouldn't you know it, I've got a homework assignment already.

Not that I'm complaining, of course. I like to write and the "homework" is simply to keep a journal of daily activity I might observe or take part in during the next few weeks.

I'm taking as many news media courses as I can manage at good ole Eternal High School. Mrs. Redmond, the news media teacher, called me to come up to the school today to check out the new equipment. If I can learn to operate it in the next few days, she wants me to produce a series of news reports and features.

Hooray for this. It means she accepted my idea from last Spring Semester, where I proposed presenting a six-minute program between classes to show on the hallway TV monitors called, amazingly, "As Seen By Seever."

I proposed to present "man on the street" type interviews, or in this case "student in the hallway" interviews, for viewing by all. Some other obvious candidates for interviews would be campus leaders and athletes.

Of course, a major drawback to my proposal at the time was the fact that Hope Springs Eternal didn't have any TV monitors in the hallways, nor did we have camera equipment, other than a small camcorder to produce the show. However, I had heard the school district might be springing for some serious updates in certain types of equipment, including audio-visual and the news media training center.

The worst that might happen would be that "they" would say no, because of the lack of equipment. But, to repeat myself, Hooray! The equipment arrived in the summer and is being installed even as the athletic teams sweat out their two-a-day workouts and the band sweats out the – music? I dropped by the band hall today to listen to their progress. Perhaps it's the audience who will be sweating when they hear this stuff.

Never mind that, it's not in school spirit to knock the band. They're doing their best, I hope.

Let's don't digress. It's time to return to the focus of this journal: Me.

Not really, but if felt good to say that.

Mr. Watson, our principal, called me to the office when he saw me in the hallway and "suggested" I keep a journal, namely this one, because he suspects this is going to be a very interesting semester.

He refused to give away many details, just saying that it's the sharp news hound that finds the news, so I should stay alert. Mr. Watson also said I should "hurry and learn to use that new TV equipment."

He did give a couple of hints. First, there's been some changes in the athletic staff. Second, I should ask the more veteran teachers about a legend among the staff that "things always get interesting when a Johnson Girl is in Eternal High School."