Local Teachers run for a Cause

            Curing the diseases that can cripple the members of our society has been on the minds and in the steps of some of our mentors. Recently Mr. Church, Mrs. Furgeson, Mr. Johnson, Mrs. Penski, and Mr. Zubal found causes in which they feel very passionately about and found different ways to help the causes.

                Each mentor had their reasons for choosing the foundation that they endorsed.

In Toledo, Ohio on October 2^nd Church walked for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, JDRF. For Church juvenile diabetes hits a soft spot in his heart, considering that he has battled with the disease since he was fifteen. Church also conducted a fundraiser until October 1^st, the day before he went to walk in Ohio; the results of how much he was able to collect for the foundation was not reported.

If you have ever been watching a local television channel and happen to see a commercial for “Front Room Underfashions”, a store in Lansing on South Hagadorn road, you may take a closer look at the owners. Our own Mrs. Ferguson happens to have a very close relationship to the owner, her mother. Crystal Bliese, along with her best friend Judy Ferguson, own and manage the store. The relation that Mrs. Holly Ferguson has to the store is special to her. Front Room is designed for women who have undergone various types of breast surgery.

On Saturday October 23^rd Ferguson, along with her parents, sisters, brother-in-law, and niece walked for the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5K walk in downtown Lansing. This isn’t the first time that Furgeson has participated in the event though, she says she has been involved since it stared which was about ten years ago. Ferguson says she raised five hundred dollars for the American Cancer Society.  

Our own principal, Mr. Johnson, along with Mrs. Penski and Mrs. Penski’s brother-in-law and her daughter’s first grade teacher, ran the Detroit Marathon Relay Race in honor of Penkis’ daughter being the one of the four faces of the American Heart Association’s, Running 4 Heart, campaign. The team participated in the open co-ed division and finished 48^th out of 254 with a time just under four hours. Johnson ran the 6.6 mile leg and Penski ran a three mile leg.

Penski didn’t stop with just the Detroit Marathon though. On October 3^rd Penski along with her husband, children, brother, sister-in-law their newborn baby, and some friends ran the Big House Big Heart 5K; it was a fundraiser for the University of Michigan's Motts Children's Hospital and for us, the American Heart Association's Running 4 Heart Campaign.

“This was amazing - 25,000 runners, which was a pain dashing in and out of walkers for the first mile - every race finished by running through the players' tunnel where there were Michigan teams high-fiving runners and cheering them on and then through end zone and finished at the 50-yard line. And, yes, many of us wore our Spartan clothes and put a hex on the Wolverines,” Penski said about the race.

Mr. Zubal took to the streets of Chicago to run the Chicago marathon for the Tug McGraw foundation. The Tug McGraw foundation was established in 2003 to enhance the quality of life of children and adults with brain tumors and in 2009 expanded programs to include Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, and Trauma Brain Injury, TBI.

Zubal says that he trained for over sixteen weeks and ran over six hundred miles to train for the race. He also said that the race didn’t go as planned but he was able to raise around 1000 dollars for the foundation. Zubal says that he will probably run the race again.

Eaton Rapids may not be a town known for its participation in large scale events, but its proved that the hearts of some of our teachers happen to be used to help a cause bigger than them selves.

Every spring our town does host a walk for Relay for Life. Hopefully the time and energy that our teachers have given to greater causes can inspire some students to give to a cause greater than themselves. 

Tradtional CRP has changed

Realistically, people have been using the gift of life save others since biblical times. Early civilization was said to have used methods that, today, would be extremely unethical; like trying to resuscitate the body by using hot water or warm ashes or going as far as whipping the unconscious person.

                Using chest compressions to jump start the heart was adopted in early 1900’s and some sixty years later cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, became renowned as the way to possibly save a life in an out-of hospital setting.

                According to the American Heart Association, the AHA, bystanders that obtain the knowledge of how to perform CPR on a person who has just suffered sudden cardiac arrest can double, or even triple, the victims’ chance of survival. As of April 2009 the AHA said they train more than 12 million people in CPR including the general public and health care professionals.

                The AHA has not put an age restriction on when you can learn to perform CPR; they say the ability to perform CPR is based more on body strength. The AHA says that children as young as nine years old are able to retain the knowledge of how to perform CPR. The problem may not rest in the age of a person, however, if a person has the courage to watch a person collapse and, without deteriorating themselves, perform CPR on a stranger.

“If you see an adult suddenly collapse, call 911 and push hard and fast in the center of the chest. Don’t be afraid. Your actions can only help,” said the AHA.

                Recently,  the American Heart Association decide that the “P” in “CPR” will be dropped from the acronym and now we will refer to the resuscitation of the human life as CR. The P should have never been placed in the acronym though, considering that the actual spelling is cardiopulmonary, making the CP one word instead of two.

                With the change of the acronym also comes the change of the guidelines. The new guidelines apply to adults, children, and infants but exclude newborns. The traditional way of CPR was A-B-C; now calling it CR we go to C-A-B. The traditional A-B-C way was airway, breathing, and compressions. The new C-A-B way is compressions, airway, and breathing.

                  "By starting with chest compressions, that's easy to remember, and for many victims that alone will be lifesaving," says Michael R. Sayre, MD, chair of the emergency cardiovascular care committee for the American Heart Association and co-author of the executive summary of the 2010 AHA guidelines for CPR and emergency cardiovascular care.

                When someone is in a panic they may not be thinking clearly and may forget how to perform in an emergency. If you are in the same area as someone when they go into cardiac arrest here are seven steps for you to remember that could help you save someone else’s life:

 1. Call 911 or ask someone else to do so. 2. Try to get the person to respond; if they don’t, roll the person on his or her back. 3. Start chest compressions. Place the heel of your hand on the center of the victim's chest. Put your other hand on top of the first with your fingers interlaced. 4. Press down so you compress the chest at least two inches in adults and children and one and a half inches in infants. 5.  If you're been trained in CPR, you can now open the airway with a head tilt and chin lift. 6. Pinch closed the nose of the victim. Take a normal breath, cover the victim's mouth with yours to create an airtight seal, and then give two, one-second breaths as you watch for the chest to rise. 7. Continue compressions and breaths -- 30 compressions, two breaths -- until help arrives.

Hopefully no one will be in a position to have to perform CR on another human, but if you happen to be, remembering these simple steps will help aid you in saving someone’s life.

2010 Takes the Title of the Deadliest Year in the War on Terror

Within the last month the war in Afghanistan has taken a turn, a turn for the worst. The United States and The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, forces entered their ninth year of the War on Terror on September 20^th of this year.

            Eaton Rapids is no stranger to fearless men and women who have graduated as alumni in the past ten years and went straight off to fight in this war and it is said with deep sympathy that we have sadly had to lay some to rest due to the fighting this war brought them into.

            2010 however brought a change to the war; it is now the deadliest year the war has seen with almost 600 troops killed this year alone; according to iCasualties.com. The total number of fatalities that has plagued through the war has reached the absurd number 2,068 since the fighting began in 2001.

            The affliction here being that almost half of the fatalities were gained in 2009 and 2010. With the total number of fatalities climbing above 2,000 at a mercurial pace, more than half of the total number of deaths has been American troops.

            The end of August proclaimed a land mark in the War on Terror; we began the pull out of troops in Iraq. Iraqi insurgents played the role of cheating many of our servicemen and service women of there lives. Since the fighting began in 2001 the death toll reached the shocking number of 4,743, according to iCasualties.com, when the troop pull out began in August of 2010.

            In December of 2009 President Obama set the deadline for the pull out of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan for July of 2011. The Commander in Chief is set on July 2011 as the date for troop withdrawal but it would be very similar to the troop withdrawal in Iraq where the troops that are still in the country are acting as military advisors to the Iraqi forces.

Many advisors of the war, such as General David Petraeus the chief commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, advises the Commander in Chief that the pull out of forces should be gradual and “condition based”.

            When you compare Iraq and Afghanistan and the points that both countries are at in the war, Iraq had made copious improvements as far as deaths due to fighting in the ountry. In August, when the President began the withdrawal of forces in Iraq, fatalities had fallen dramatically. For this year our forces suffered a meager 55 fatalities compare to the 581 suffered this year alone in Afghanistan.

            It is understandable why General Petraeus is so timid of setting a date for the departure of forces in Afghanistan. Profuse improvements in Iraq were being made constantly, and most significant of all, lives weren’t being lost at such an accelerated rate as they are in Afghanistan now.

            Tragically as we watch the news we hear, on almost a daily basis, of lives being lost in Afghanistan and 2010 has been no exception to the matter. With only nine months until President Obama’s troop withdrawal is set to begin we can only hope that the fatalities will depress as we haul through what has been a never-ending war.

The Bark Goes Digital

It’s never too much to say that our historical community is, at a very rapid pace, approaching its digital age. The high school is possibly the largest arena for the digital age. It isn’t just the student body that has made the transition from the technology of our births into this new age of cells phones that can do practically anything for you except wash your laundry.

We have seven classrooms in our school that contain a full set of working computers. For anyone to conclude that more than three quarters of our student body population has a cellular device. Living in the 21^st century we have come to assume that technology will just continue to improve with the generations that expand as well.

It has been said in the past that soon the traditional letter mail will be replaced with e mail and newspapers will be expunged as well. The Bark, however, refuses to let technology run down the traditional production of our journal.

This year The Bark is putting our publications online; and we are encouraging as many people as we can to get on and read our articles. We have many different features on our website: we have a weekly poll, all of our advertisers are listed, with accurate broadcast of there company, and pictures of our some of our students in action.

We are encouraging as many people as we can to visit our website and see how we have taken our out-of-date publications to the next level. Our website is barkonline.blogspot.com

Not only have we decided to begin putting our publications online but Mr. E. Smith has set up an account with the Michigan High School Athletic Association, MHSAA. The website is designed to publicize Michigan High School athletics and to help athletes get recognized.

 Eaton Rapids began partaking in the calamity at the beginning of the competitive sports season, with our first recorded game being our JV football game against Charlotte on September 9^th.

These videos are on the MHSAA website. To get to our schools videos you use the URL: www.MHSAA.tv/EatonRapids. On the website you can find a variety of videos with some of our awesome greyhounds in action.  

Down Town Eaton Rapids Gets a Face Lift

In August of 2009 our transportation lives were dramatically altered as we know it. The Michigan Department of Transportation, MDOT, began road construction in the city of Eaton Rapids. The first area to undergo the new road development was the stretch of road by the elementary school, Northwestern.

            That construction lasted through the end of November 2009 and through the winter we all drove peacefully, well as peacefully as you can with the dreadful white blanket of snow surrounding us. Then, in April of 2010, right after we journeyed back from spring break, the main street of Eaton Rapids was annihilated.

            As the orange cylinders and the road construction signs lined the roadways of the

Main Street

and side roads the anticipation of what our renovated down town would look like really began to weigh heavily on motorists’.

            The construction hasn’t only caused a headache for commuters but it has also taken a chunk out of the cities budget. Eaton Rapids is paying for $781,006 toward the water main and storm sewer portion of the project. 2.75 million dollars of the project, the road improvements portion, is being funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, ARRA. 

According to an article written by Sally Trout for the Lansing State Journal some of the plans for the project included burying overhead wires, new paving along main street, decorative street lights, landscaping, and intersection and traffic signal upgrades.

            A very crucial part of the project is an upgrade of the city’s storm sewer; the improvements will cut down on the overflow of storm water into the Grand River.

            From a students perspective the construction has been pure torture having to commute through the detour to get to the school.

            Mallory Kunkel (’11) said, “The construction has been horrible, I avoided and am still avoiding the down town part of Eaton Rapids as much as possible.”

It was quite a pain when our town actually had to deplete our fourth of July parade, which happens to be a very well put on production, we usually have people from many surrounding towns come to see it. This year, if they came to Eaton Rapids, they saw a long line of orange barrels and road closed or detour signs.

            Not to mention, most of the towns’ population packed up and went else where for the holiday even though there was still activities in the evening, live performances from local bands, and the annual fire works show. The only positive part of less people assembling to the fire work show was parking and traffic weren’t an issue.

Although the construction has caused many problems for commuters, and put a damper in holidays that Eatonians regularly celebrate, the improvements to the town will be more than worth it in the long run and our town will have a revamped appearance to it.