Note: this article originally appeared in the February 2022 Inkspot magazine.  A surgical dissection of horror films, peeling back their skin, reveals a genre embodied by several sub-genres: the psychological thriller— “Silence of the Lambs” (1991), “The Sixth Sense” (1999), “The Shining”...

FFA Food Science team competes at State FFA’s Food Science team placed 3rd in the State Food Science Career Development Event (CDE) hosted at Southern Illinois - Carbondale on April 9.  The team of Drexel Douglass (’22), Evan Alvarez (’24), Juliana Bernardi (’22), and Peter Metivier (’23)...

FFA State: Four members place in top 5 Evan Kraft (’23) won first place at the Illinois FFA State Awards Day competition Saturday, March 26, competing in the Wildlife Production and Management event. Juliana Bernardi (’22) was named runner-up in the Food Service competition, while fellow seniors...

School Board cuts middle school foreign language The Unit 5 School Board voted to eliminate the 8th-grade foreign language program -- the result of a nearly $14 million budget deficit -- on Wednesday, March 9.  The Board removed the district’s 5th-grade instrumental music program from the list...

The IHSA State Speech Competition “was just mind-blowing,” according to Junior Ciara Wallace, one of Community’s three State qualifiers. Wallace, who competed in Feb. 18’s Poetry Reading preliminary round, described the State experience as “extremely competitive.” The competition at...

Student Council collects 75 units of blood during spring blood drive In partnership with the American Red Cross, Student Council collected 75 units of blood during the annual spring blood drive on Feb. 25. Community’s most successful blood drive collected 99 units in 2019. This year’s drive...

The IHSA Board of Directors announced the inaugural girls wrestling State tournament on June 14, with the first state finals scheduled at Bloomington's Grossinger Motors Arena this upcoming winter sports season. With girls competing for both Community and West last wrestling season, this change will...

The IHSA announced the innugrual girls wrestling season with a state series on June 14. To help grow the sport, Normal Community and West collaborated to hold a girls wrestling clinic for students K-8 on Oct. 18 at Community. At the clinic, 17 girls showed up to participate in wrestling drills...

The Normal Community Best Buddies chapter held their annual “pairing party” on October 1— pairing 16 students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) with a student buddy without IDD in an effort to build one-to-one friendships.  The Best Buddies “pairing party” marks...

Teen mental health is an ongoing issue, one made worse by the pandemic. Beyond the regular stressors of the teenage years, an estimated 10-20% of adolescents globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), experience mental health conditions. Globally, depression is the fourth leading cause...

With the news of Normal Community adopting four-day in-person learning beginning on Monday, April 5, students and staff shared their opinions on the shift from the two-day hybrid plan. "I feel like the students at Normal Community have done a really good job of keeping socially distant and keeping...

When it comes to mental health, teens don’t often reach out for help. According to a June 2020 National 4‑H Council survey, 65% of teens reported that they deal with their feelings on their own, while 67% pretend to feel better to not worry others. 3/4ths of the teenagers surveyed recognize “there...

Isolation. Stress. Anxiety. Depression.  All side-effects of a global pandemic. Teens across the country face unforeseen challenges as they navigate school, jobs, and relationships during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In March of 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak shut down schools nationwide,...

Student Council members worked to give back to the community by hosting a blood drive partnered with the American Red Cross on November 22 and a canned food drive for the Salvation Army the week of December 8. NCHS students and staff members donated 99 units of blood to the American Red Cross...

Madrigals host 19th annual dinner performances December 6 and 7, 2019

The Lady Iron volleyball team concluded their season at the hands of Minooka on Monday, November 4. The Indians defeated NCHS in two matches -- 25-12; 25-15 -- in the IHSA 4A Sectional semifinals at Ottawa Township High School. Hitter Mallory Oloffson (‘21) could describe Minooka in one word: good...