Congratulations to Alexander Gales, Josh Holtschlag, and Samantha Shafer, who signed letters of intent to play at the collegiate level on Wednesday. Gales will pole vault at High Point University; Holtschlag has signed to play golf at Bucknell University; and Shafer will continue her volleyball career at the University of North Alabama.

Dramatic. Unbelievable. Resilient. Heroic.

When the Panther football players strapped on their gear Friday night, they knew what was ahead of them – a battle, against the tough number one seed from the east Notre Dame team (10-1), away from home, for the opportunity to advance to the TSSAA Division II-A State Semifinals for the first time since 2001.  They couldn’t have imagined, though, the way it would all play out. A slow start. An uphill climb. A comeback win. It was all of those things as the Panthers defeated the Fighting Irish 34-33 in a game that won’t soon be forgotten.

It is hard to believe that the iPhone was introduced just a decade ago, and though drones are now available for purchase as Christmas presents, as recently as 2012, they were on the cutting edge of many technology departments. The past decade has been full of rapid innovation, and with emerging technology around virtual and augmented reality as well as artificial intelligence, predicting the future is increasingly challenging. As parents and educators, this lack of clarity can be intimidating as we work to prepare our children for what awaits them when they graduate. How can we educate students for a world whose future is unclear to us?  

Junior Andrew Cox ran away with the TSSAA Division II-A Cross Country State Championship on Saturday. Cox won the title with a lifetime best time of 16:24 as he ran away from the field, and Ethan Rhoden medaled with a 12th place finish, leading the Panthers to a fifth place overall team finish. 

We recently had Homecoming 2018, and one of the traditions during that week is celebrating our legacy students at the annual Legacy Breakfast. Legacy students are those whose parents are FRA alumni, and we spend the morning with them and their parents, who always seem to find FRA friends, old and new alike. This year, we have a record 87 legacy students.

While the school has grown and changed over the years, the mission and heart of FRA remains the same.

Sloan Kaczynski has always loved to write. So when the annual writing contest for middle school students came around, the then fifth-grader jumped at the chance to put her ideas to paper. “I always thought expressing myself through writing was a great way to deal with whatever I’m going through, whatever my thoughts are,” she said. Now, two years later, seventh grader Kaczynski is a published writer of The Gold Rush, A Story Filled with Family Love & Personal Perseverance.

The historic FRA varsity golf season came to a dramatic end on Tuesday as the girls team repeated as TSSAA Division II-A State Champions and the boys team finished third in the state. 

Senior Angelina Chan won her second individual state title, and sophomore Tzunami Polito finished as state runner up for the second time. Senior Josh Holtschlag finished his incredible season as state runner up on the boys side as he led the young Panther squad to its top-three finish. 

Chan and Holstchlag are two of the most decorated golfers in FRA history. 

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We all know a young reluctant reader - one who views reading analogous to getting a tooth pulled at the dentist’s office. As a middle school English teacher, I encounter several of these students each year, most of whom openly admit their detestation and avoidance of reading. In today’s world of advanced technology, however, this isn’t surprising news. To many kids, Fortnite and Snapchat are much more appealing and exciting than a so-called “boring” book. Plus, reading requires something that many kids like to avoid if at all possible: effort.

As my oldest son is entering the tween years, I find that one of the more difficult challenges of parenting is realizing that you do not always know what your children are thinking and feeling. While we all do our best to raise our children with a sound moral compass, empathy, and coping skills, we may still find ourselves wondering when do the typical ups and downs of adolescence become something to worry about. 

Congratulations to senior Ben Spicer, who has been recognized as a semifinalist by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Each year, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation names 16,000 students from across the nation as semifinalists, meaning they have the highest PSAT/NMSQU Selection Index Scores (calculated by doubling the sum of the Reading, Writing and Language, and Math Test Scores) in their states.

Spicer will advance to the finalist selection later this year.