G L O U C E S T E R C I T Y H S / / S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 / / I S S U E 3 LION'S ROAR

IN THIS ISSUE Consumer Bowl Champions St. Patrick's Day Fun in Gloucester

Athletes at their peak ANNIE BY EMILY PETRIK The school's performance of Annie ran from April 12-14 after months of practice. Many are familiar with the tale of Annie, played by Camy Rudderow, who has grown up in an orphanage but is adopted by the wealthy Mr. Warbucks, played by Dylan Raube. The foil to Annie's character is the cranky Miss Hannigan, portrayed by Emily Petrik accompanied by her siblings Rooster (Jack McElree) and Lily (Kacey Maldonado). The cast was rounded out with Sam Coyle as Grace and a diverse cast of orphans and featured ensemble members. April 13th was the last performance of the school’s musical, Annie. This was quite the n ostalgic night for many of our seniors, considering it was their last show that they would perform in at Gloucester High. The entire cast and crew performed flawlessly and made this year’s musical memorable. A few seniors have been involved in the theater program since their seventh grade year, so you bet there were some tears shed. I am very grateful for my experiences in the musical, and I’d encourage everyone to give it a try just once. The show is coming to a close also symbolizes the end of the year and graduation approaching a lot quicker than we all expected. It’s hard to believe that the next chapter of our lives is right around the corner for the seniors. Senior year has most definitely been the fastest year yet, and I’m sure it’ll continue to feel like this. I can hardly believe that in just under two months every senior will be going his or her separate way and preparing to start a personal journey in the fall, whether that’s one of the armed forces, the workforce, college, trade school, etc. I am eager to see where everyone is going to end up, and I hope we all enjoy these remaining days of high school and get excited for what’s in store. CONSUMER BOWL'S CONTINUED SUCCESS BY MATTHEW CARFAGNO

When I first heard Mr. Hagan say he needed a substitute for the Consumer Bowl, I figured it would be a fun opportunity, and gladly volunteered. I was not expecting the everyday meetings and practices, or the sheer amount of information we were expected to retain. Despite the constant meetings, I never felt stressed, and it never felt like a chore going to them. Although I started out intending to be the substitute, I worked my way up to secondary captain, and became one of five key team members.

The Consumer Bowl itself was a great experience. This year only one other school registered for the Camden County Consumer Bowl, Sterling High School. When the day arrived, we took the old school van to the Camden County Boathouse. We had a catered breakfast and lunch, and proceeded to beat Sterling 190-90, qualifying for the Regional competition. During this whole competition, I started and was never subbed out, and answered a lot of questions. Afterwards, we came home and celebrated. We had a little over a week's rest before we started practicing, for the Regional competition on April 12th. Gloucester has never won the Regionals before. This is due to the fact that there are bigger schools competing there and our missing it one year due to senior trip scheduling. This year, however, with the team we have assembled of myself, Thomas Billings, Christy Levandowski, Joe De Luca, we’re confident we can finally bring that Regional trophy home to the Lions Den. STUDENT COUNCIL HEADS TO NEW YORK BY ABDUL MAHI Waking up at six in the morning was tough to do on a Tuesday, but participants knew it was going to be worth going it because we were headed to New York with a great group of people. Our purpose was a Student Council trip to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The cohort consisted of students from our school and Gloucester Catholic, most of whom seemed pretty laid back. The teachers from Catholic were also nice and kind because they brought snacks and drinks for the whole group to have. It was going to take one hour and 30 minutes to get there as we started to take off. As we got there the wind was unforgiving but and despite the fact that the sun was shining,it still felt quite chilly. Students had to get on a ferry to go to Staten Island, which took about 10 to 15 minutes.

After arriving there we went inside a museum that outlined the story of the immigrants that came from Europe. After Student Council toured the museum and learned some history about the immigrants that came, we had to board the ferry again to head to Statue of Liberty Island, the main attraction. After docking into Statue of Liberty Island, the group toured around the island and took photos .

As I was walking around I realized something: the island is filled with different people from backgrounds which was similar to the immigrants that came here before us. The only difference was that everyone had a cellphone and seemed preoccupied. Then we had to wrap up our tour and head back home.

Colorguard BY MATTHEW CARFAGNO

I recently had the opportunity to talk with one of color guard leaders, Barbara Kutz, to talk about her color guard experience. Here's what she had to say

Q: What is color guard?

A: “Color guard is like a combination of dance team, flag, suit gymnastics, and choreography. We spin flags, we dance, we perform, and we use weapon equipment like sabres and rifles.”

Q: How does a color guard competition work?

A: “The competition is scored like most other competitions. We’re judged on technique, performance, show faces, footwork, makeup, and overall appearance. Just about everything you can see.”

Q: Where was your last competition and how was it?

A: “Our last competition was at Triton High School, and it was both color guard and percussion. It was an all-day competition. We got to the school around 8 AM and didn’t return until 10 o'clock at night. We had a lot of practice at the school, then we did our makeup, and then we watched other teams perform until we performed. We placed 8th out of 11 schools, with a score of 59, though we had an uncompleted show.”

Q: What is an uncompleted show?

A: “An uncompleted show means we had to write more of our show. We should get higher scores at later competitions when we have more to show. 59 is a pretty good score to start off the season with.”

Q: What are you anticipating this season?

A: “I'm anticipating a good season overall. Higher scores, and a lot of effort from all our team members. I'm expecting a lot of good performances from our seniors for their final shows, since most of our guard is seniors.”

Q: When and where is your next competition?

A: “Our next competition is this Saturday, March 23rd at Pemberton High School. Anyone can come out and support. It’s usually a few dollars to get in, but it's never too expensive. If you can't make this competition, we have more coming up. We also perform at the GHS Spring Concert every year.”

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: “Color guard is just a great experience, and I recommend anyone interested to come out and watch a competition, and get involved.”

Dates and Times for competitions can be found on the Gloucester City High School Facebook page a few days before the competition is scheduled to take place. All support is appreciated. St. Patrick's Day Fun BY HAILEY RITCHIE

Photo courtesy of Fox 29 News

This year Gloucester City held its 4th annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. There were several clubs and activities involved this year such as the dance/cheer team and other great groups from South Jersey such as string bands, Irish dancers, and many more. Just about everyone in Gloucester was lined up on the streets with great energy and excitement. Of course, the parade was yet again a success. As well as all the great entertainment within the parade, there were many meaningful tributes made to the James household on Monmouth Street for the sudden passing of Mayor James. Gloucester City is extremely blessed to have had Mr. James the longest serving mayor in Gloucester, as well as a Deputy Chief in the police department, a loving father, husband, grandfather, friend, so much more and wonderful man overall! He will be missed, and we will continue to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day just as he would want us to! Ten Day Get Away: A student's Journey to BY: ABDUL MAHI Umrah in the language means an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Hijaz, , performed by that can be undertaken at any time of the year. In contrast, the Ḥajj has specific dates according to the Islamic lunar calendar. When I started my Ihram, meaning a sacred state which a Muslim must enter in order to perform pilgrimage (Umrah). A pilgrim must enter into this state before crossing the pilgrimage boundary, known as Miqat, by performing the cleansing rituals and wearing the prescribed attire.

I started my Miqat from Dubai, where I had to stay holy until I finished my Umrah. By holy I mean I couldn’t curse, watch anything inappropriate, or even put on cologne because these acts would break my Umrah. After getting prepared from Dubai we took off and landed at Jeddah at the crack of dawn. As we drove through Jeddah, I saw one of the most beautiful sunrises. I saw huge mountains with odd shaped rocks.

It took 2 hours to get Mecca, where the city is like breathing and living due to its high level energy from the people and just the general environment.After getting out the SUV I went to the hotel with my family to drop our luggages off. Then we officially started our Umrah by going to the where I had to do some religious rituals starting off with the Tawaf, which consists of circling the Kaaba seven times counterclockwise direction. Men are encouraged to do this three times at a hurried pace, followed by four times more closely at a slower pace. After that I had to do Sa’i, which means rapidly walking seven times back and forth between the hills of Safa and Marwah. And the backstory of this is pretty interesting because this is a rendition of Hajar's frantic search for water. The baby Ismael (Ishmael) cried and hit the ground with his foot and water came out the ground. Lastly I had to do Halq, which is a complete shaving of the head, usually performed on men and this signifies the submission of will to God over glorifying physical appearances. After completing Umrah I felt tired because of the extraneous journey I had to part take on. I headed back to the hotel with my family and then ate some delicious and spicy Arabian food. Finally closing off by going to bed. After staying couple of days in Mecca we headed to which was 5 hours away, so we got another SUVand headed there. After arriving in Medina, I was amazed by the city’s infrastructure and the advancement compared to Mecca, where it was “eh” but Medina was thriving economically and as a city. The streets were clean and there weren’t any homeless people or anything that showed an economic problem. We toured the city of Medina by getting tour guide who showed the essentials history of by driving us to certain areas like Mount Uhud, it was the site of the second battle between Muslim and Meccan forces. He also took us to Wadi e Jin where there’s a gravity hill, also known as magnetic hill. It is a place where the layout of the surrounding land produces the optical illusion that a very slight downhill slope appears to be an uphill slope. Thus, a car left out of gear will appear to be rolling uphill. But Islam says there’s Jinns that push the car. I believe in science and in religion so I say both of the theories are correct. After that I ended my trip by riding on a camel.

Overall this journey was a religious revival for me and it made me feel a different way about my religion. I would recommend anyone to go to Saudi Arabia just to see the vast beauty it has to offer. Congratulations to our Exceptional Winter Athletes

Junior Chloe Bennett scores her 1000 career point and signs the ball with her parents looking on

Senior Matt Cruz was District 25 heavyweight champion was the runner-up in the Region 7 Heavyweight Title to advance to States in Atlantic City. He is the first student to make it to that level of competition. He's seen with Coaches McConnell and Higgins. Staff

Advisor: Miss Donohue

Writers Matthew Carfagno Emily Petrik Abdul Mahi Hailey Ritchie