Extra Articles

Cheer Nationals

This year at the UCA High School Nationals in Orlando, Florida, the Jackson High School cheerleaders had outstanding placements in both their Traditional and Gameday teams. Their traditional team consisting of thirteen special athletes, placed fourth. They spent every single practice including additional ones repeatedly doing full outs to build stamina and uniformity to perfect the routine which is so important in the cheer world and are so deserving of the placement received especially given that this year was the first year ever bringing the traditional team to compete at UCA nationals. The Gameday routine, consisting of all 23 athletes on the 2025-2026 cheer team was nothing less than flawless as they placed in the top three teams out of seven amazing and super competitive teams, only 0.7 points away from placing first. So much work was put in this season by all athletes and all of the long hours that were pushed through never went unnoticed. Outside of the competitiveness down in Florida, they spent the rest of their time enjoying the disney world parks. Having fun at Magic Kingdom, traveling around the world at Epcot, and enjoying all of the exciting rides at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
By: Abby Gesen

NHS project

What is the NHS Project’s goal?

• The goal of any NHS project is to find a way to get our NHS members an opportunity to interact with the community through service. Not only that, but the duration of a service project also means that the work our members do will continue to help the organization throughout the year. For this year’s project, our officers chose to design a project centered around helping Compassion Delivered; this organization’s mission is to serve free, quality meals to terminally-ill patients. 

What does the NHS Project do?

• The NHS project with Compassion Delivered was centered around getting our members the opportunity to do service with the organization. There were unique obstacles posed by the age requirements for kitchen work, however, our bag decorating event allowed us to work through this. We also raised money for the organization through contributions from each member of the NHS chapter.

Who is involved in and leads this project?

• On the Jackson High School side, our NHS officers and Mr. Amedeo are leading this project. We’ve worked to assign our members to kitchen shifts, host a bag decorating event, and raise money for the cause. From Compassion Delivered’s side, Amanada and Daniel Anschutz have been coordinating our members during their kitchen shifts. Additionally, we were lucky enough to have Mr. Anschutz come in January to talk to our members about the organization, and to guide our bag decorating event. 

What skills does this build for students?

• I’m not sure if I can say that involvement in this project develops specific skills in our NHS members. This project wasn’t designed with that goal in mind, at least. The most important thing is that our members are interacting with their community. So if any skill is developed, it would be the ability to understand the importance of serving those in your community. 

How do these skills prepare students for life after high school?

• The hope is that after participating in the national project, students gain awareness of the opportunities available to them to give back to their community. They should be able to search for causes they believe in, and put in the work to support them.

How can people join the NHS Project?

• Even if someone isn’t in NHS, Compassion Delivered is an organization that is always looking for help. If a person is looking to contribute to the cause, I highly recommend looking into their service opportunities or making a donation. 

Why should people want to be a part of this and the NHS?

• Compassion Delivered is an amazing organization that deserves so much more recognition than it has. Their meal program has been serving meals to patients in Stark county since 2017. Despite that, their name isn’t one that many consider when it comes to service. That’s part of what made me so excited for the project this year. Being part of NHS means that you can take part in meaningful service. 

By: Torri Smith