Red Bud High announces new principal

Red Bud High School students will see a new principal roaming the halls in the fall. Rob Pipher, currently an assistant principal at Mount Vernon High School, has been hired at Red Bud, District 132 Superintendent Jonathan Tallman said.

“He separated himself a little bit on his application materials, and further in the interviews,” Tallman said.

Pipher is director of curriculum and instruction and director of the guidance department, Tallman said, and that and other experience and responsibilities at Mount Vernon were similar to what Red Bud needs.

“I believe he’ll be an exceptional principal at Red Bud,” Tallman said. “He understands the educational, social and emotional needs of high school students.”

Pipher will start at the beginning of the 2016-17 school year.

Theater win

The Belleville West High School cast and crew of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” won fourth place at the Illinois High School Association Drama and Group Interpretation competition on April 2. Cast members Wade Cook, Rachel Deschaine, Bailey Guinn and Janae Robinson were named to the All-State Cast, the most named to all-state of all the schools entered.

‘Favorite teacher’

Alyssa Simpson, a senior at Collinsville High School, was the local winner in the Barnes & Noble Bookseller’s “My Favorite Teacher” contest for her poem about teacher Darrin Neuber.

Simpson and Neuber will be honored at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Fairview Heights Barnes & Noble, when the store kicks off its Teacher Appreciation Days.

“King of the Nerds” described her teacher as being tough and “... made of stone. Set out to destroy our poor young souls” at first. But as the year went on, she wrote that Neuber taught students to be “intelligent, instead of smart. Because smart people know facts but intelligent people solve problems.”

By the numbers

Members of the Immaculate Conception School’s seventh-grade math team earned fourth place in the region of the Illinois Math League with a team score of 95 points. The Columbia school’s eighth-grade team came in 15th place with 108 points. Eighth-grader Spencer Biske tied for 10th place among individual students in the eighth-grade league. The eighth-grade team also came in first in the regional standings, made up of nine counties. Spencer is the top-scoring student in that region, and Mary Wessel tied for third place.

Jump for $3,400

St. John Neuman Catholic School in Maryville raised more than $3,400 for the American Heart Association as part of the Jump Rope for the Heart campaign. The money supports the American Heart Assocation’s research and education initiatives. The Jump Rope event also earns money for the school to add physical education equipment.

Food drive

Jefferson Elementary School in Belleville exceeded its goal of 5,000 food items for the annual “Drive Away Hunger Food Drive” by 55 items. District 118 gathers the items every year for the area’s food banks and delivers the donations by school bus. As part of the food drive events, Jefferson Elementary had a “Crazy Hair Day” to help generate interest for the drive.

Trebuchet contest

Rubber balls, not rocks or manure, were the hurled objects at Lewis and Clark Community College’s ninth annual Trebuchet contest on Friday.

Edwardsville High School was among more than 30 teams that competed; Jersey Community High School won first place.

The trebuchet is a military machine first used in the fourth century and continued well into the 15th century, most frequently in the middle ages and was used in siege warfare.

Contestents were judged on the trebuchets they designed and built, as well as computer-aided design drawings and their performance during the contest.

Habla español?

Two teams from Belleville West’s Spanish Scholar Bowl went to Southern Illinois University Carbondale on March 31 for the annual Foreign Language Scholar Bowl. The Level A team tied for third place in its division, and the Level B team took second place in its division.

“In my seven years attending SIUC’s Foreign Language Scholar Bowl, I’ve never before had any teams score as high as they did this year. My teams blew me away, and I couldn’t be more proud,” said Rachel Woods, one of the team’s sponsors.

Level A team, made up of Spanish 3-4 students, includes Michaela Bauza, Sophie Rock, Jackson Barger, Emily Feazel, Jackson Fournie, Easton Jaromin, Grace Odom, Rayvin Smith, Katryna Wilkes, Allyson Winkelman and Audrey Young.

The Level B team, Spanish 5-6 Honors and Spanish 7-8 Honors AP students, includes captains Rachel Stuckel and Alyssa Tourville, and Emilee Bridgwater, Jill Ann Buettner, Hallie Drew, Madeline Hansen, Kaitlyn Hayden, Derek Henke, Branden Preston, Avery Reed and Olivia Young.

Shoeman Water Project

Eagleview and Parkview elementary schools in Columbia collected more than 1,100 pounds of shoes for the Shoeman Water Project. The schools collect shoes every year and Shoeman exports the pairs to secondary markets. Money made from sales in those markets provide clean water to communities around the world by paying for drilling rigs, water purification systems, pump repairs and more.

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 9:41 AM with the headline "Red Bud High announces new principal."