Yosemite & Coarsegold Districts
School News
November 19, 2004

YHS student selected
for National HS Honor Choir

Raymond Granite student is women’s
Chowchilla Speedway racing champion

Choir and band concerts
planned for December

15 dozen cookies baked
for US soldiers in Iraq

Challenge Day planning
begins for annual event

Cadet Corp wins award in parade

Alternative Education Student Government officers

YHS student selected
for National HS Honor Choir
CARMEN GEORGE

Candice DiFiore, a senior at Yosemite High, is one of 176 high school students from all 50 states to be named to the National High School Honor Choir.

Four YHS students had been selected to try out for the choir.
Difiore will be one of four students in the 44 member Alto II section to represent California.

Thousands of audition tapes were sent in for judging, according to YHS Choir Director Tony Mowrer.

DiFiore will participate in rehearsals February 2-5 and will perform in a concert before approximately 3000 choral directors from around the nation on February 5 in Los Angeles at the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association.

“This is a significant honor for Candice and the YHS community,” noted Dr. Mowrer.

Raymond Granite student is women’s Chowchilla Speedway racing champion

SUBMITTED
Breanna Van Tassel and her grandmother, Jeannie McAbee, with Van Tassel’s trophy from her second win.

SUBMITTED
Breanna Van Tassel gets the checkered flag as she wins her first race at the Chowchilla Speedway.

Breanna Van Tassel, a junior at Raymond Granite High School, drives fast enough on a race track to be the 2004 Track Champion at Chowchilla Speedway, but, she says, she drives the speed limit on the highways and freeways.

On the track, it’s different. “There is such an adrenaline rush,” she says of her experience behind the wheel of a race car.

She feels safer on the race track than she does on the highway. On the track, she says, she is aware of everything and she knows what is happening. On the highway, she is always wondering what the next driver is going to do.

A person has to be 16 to race but they don’t need to have a driver’s license. Van Tassel raced before she had a license but she has one now.

Racing is a hobby for Van Tassel's family. She is the third generation race driver on her mother’s side. How-ever, she got into racing because of her grandparents, Tom and Jeannie McAbee, with whom she lives in Raymond.
Her grandparents started racing in 1973 and they both raced for 10 to 15 years. Her grandmother was California State Track Champion for three or four years.

Van Tassel says “my grandpa has taught me everything I know about racing.” He has also taught her how to care for her car, doing such things as changing the oil, tires and spark plugs and making sure it’s in good condition. “I couldn’t pull the motor, though,” she says.

The race season lasts from the middle of March to the middle of September. This past season was Van Tassel’s first and she only raced in Chowchilla. Next year she plans to race in Merced as well. One of her uncles has raced throughout the central valley in the past. She races in the American Hobby-stock category. This past season, eight women raced at Chowchilla, including Van Tassel and her grandmother. They accumulate points during the season depending on where they finish in a race.

Van Tassel believes she is learning some good life lessons in racing. For example, she says there is often a lot of drama as people argue or disagree “but you have to get past that,” she says. “You have to work together.” This is especially true when they are trying to get a car ready to go on the track. If people are arguing about who has the better or faster way to do something, nothing much gets accomplished.

Although she is proud of her trophy as the track champion, she doesn’t think the trophies are the most important thing about racing.

“When you race with all of these other people at the track, you’re not just friends anymore. It becomes a lot more than that; you are now one big family. Everyone helps each other out and you’re always looking out for each other. I think it’s the experience you get while racing more than all the trophies you get or any of the money you win.”

Last season, there were eight races for women at the Chowchilla Speedway and Van Tassel never finished further back than third. She worked her way from third place to second place and stayed there for three races. Then she was tied for first place with two races left.

She describes those last races:

“I was so nervous, but by keeping a level head while wanting to win Track Champ-ion I did what was safe for me and tried not to let my car get too much damage. The second to last race I got third place. I now had the lead by four points. I didn't start to celebrate yet because I knew I had one more race and it could either make or break me.”

September 25 was the last race of the season and Van Tassel started out fourth out of seven other women in the line up.

“I was really starting to get nervous at this point,” she says. “I knew once again I had to keep a level head so I wouldn’t mess up.

“The race was getting ready to start. We always do two warm-up laps before the guy in the flag stand waves the green flag. I thought to myself, ‘Okay, it’s now the third lap and the race is going to start.’ The man in the flag stand waved the green flag. The race was now underway. I took the lead in the first of 15 laps. I had to stay calm because I had 14 more laps to go.

“I stayed in the lead all 14 laps. On the 14th lap the flag man waved the white flag. This means that we had one more lap to go until the race was over. It’s the last lap and the guy in the flag stand waved the checkered flag. All I can think at this point is, ‘Oh, my gosh, I won first place and Track Champion all in the same night’.”

Van Tassel recalls pulling on to the infield and hearing the owner of the track announce her name as the new 2004 Track Champion in the ladies’ hobby-stock division. He asked her if she wanted to good news or the bad news first.

The good news was that she had won first place and track champion, the bad news was that the trophy he had wasn’t her trophy. The one for her was somewhere else. “Yeah, I know that we always get the cheap ones,” she quipped.

“After all was said and done,” she recalls, “I loaded my car up on the trailer, got my trophy and went home. It felt so good to win Track Champion my first year of racing.”

She says the year was “so much fun; I got to speed and not get in trouble for doing it.”

She wants to continue racing as a hobby but her goal is to become an oceanographer.

She says racing isn’t all fun, but it is worth it because of the fun they do have. “You have to work hard on your car and it costs a lot of money,” she says.

Choir and band concerts
planned for December

The Yosemite High School choirs and bands will present concerts prior to the winter break.

The band and percussion concert will be Tuesday, December 7, and the choir concert will be Thursday, December 9.

Both will be at 7:30 p.m. at Mountain Christian Center on Highway 49 in Oakhurst.

Tickets are available from any participating student or at the door. Cost is $5 for adults; $3 for children and senior citizens or $15 for a family.

15 dozen cookies baked
for US soldiers in Iraq

Student volunteers who helped bake 15 dozen cookies to ship to soldiers in Iraq included (front) Karin Rostum, a foreign exchange student from Norway, and (back left to right) Sarah Gilbank, Kimberly Usher and Veronica Stewart.

Twenty-five student volunteers worked about four hours Veterans’ Day morning to bake and package 15 dozen cookies to send to soldiers stationed in Iraq.

The Yosemite High Interact Club organized the effort and provided the money to buy ingredients and pay the cost of shipping the cookies.
Interact Advisor Consuelo Mercier was inspired to work on the project because her cousin, Jordan Blake, is stationed there. She drives a helicopter parts supply truck.

Blake will distribute the cookies to the 150 soldiers in her company which is part of the 120th Battalion.

The students, with assistance from Mercier and YHS teacher Dana Minard (the “dough taster”) baked chocolate chip, peanut butter, sugar and oatmeal cookies.

Among the students volunteering was Interact member and foreign exchange student from Norway, Karin Rostum. She said she thought the project was really nice and she enjoyed being part of it.

Challenge Day planning
begins for annual event

Planning has begun for Challenge Day at Yosemite High School. This will be the fourth year the program has been held on the campus.

The event will be February 22 and 23 with approximately 100 different students participating each day along with staff and community members.
YHS health teacher Nancy Lusby and student support facilitator Valarie Edwards work with students to plan the day and to raise funds to pay the expenses.

It costs about $10,000 for the two-day program. Funds are raised throughout the community to pay these costs.

For the second year, YHS has received a $3000 mini-grant from the Madera County Public Health Department to help with expenses.
Local service clubs, businesses and individuals also contribute money.
Students also participate in the annual Harry Baker Boys’ and Girls’ Club Christmas Tree Auction to raise funds.

Challenge Day allows students to get to know each other for who they really are, not as stereotypes, through a variety of activities.

Lusby says it is the most powerful program she has seen in over 25 years of teaching.

Anyone who would like more information about challenge Day can contact Lusby at 683-4667 ext. 289.

Cadet Corp wins award in parade

The Yosemite High School Cadet Corp won a plaque at the Fresno Veterans Day Parade as one of the best marching units.

Thirty cadets from the new program participated in the parade which is one of the largest in the state.

There are 70 students enrolled in the program which teaches marching skills as well as leadership skills and military etiquette.

The District Board of Trustees approved the formation of a rifle team as part of the corp. All practice will be done off campus at an approved shooting range and the rifles will always be under the care of instructor Phil Branstetter.

Cadet Corp is supported by the National Guard. It is a school-based leadership program ran by the cadets.

YHS is the fifth brigade in the Madera area; other schools are Independence High School, Madera High, Kerman High and a middle school in Fresno.

SUBMITTED
Students from Ahwahnee High School have been selected to serve as Alternative Education Student Government officers. They are Heidi Nilmeier, president; Ryan Wright, vice president and Jennifer Messick, secretary. The schools’ are the Snowy Owls and their colors are black, silver and white. Student Government meets the first Friday of each month. Nilmeier will graduate at the end of the first semester this year and will take college classes next semester; she is a teacher’s assistant (TA)at Mountain View; Wright is a senior and Messick is also a senior and a TA at Mountain View.

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