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How It's Really Done
The staff of "The Weekly" got a chance to watch a live newcast and tour KY3 recently. But there was a surprise nobody expected. "We watched the noon news, and about three minutes before it was over, during a commercial, they told us they wanted us on the set for the end of the show," said adviser Dave Davis. So the 14 students who usually produce a show of their own hustled into position to help the noon news team close out its program. Anchor Steve Grant, a Hillcrest	graduate himself, handled the brief introduction, and joked about Davis, weather man Brandon Beck, and himself all graduating from Evangel University. "Best field trip ever" said one of the members of "The Weekly" staff. The visit included a tour of Master Control, newsroom, control room, and a chance to see how a newscast happens. The staff of "HTV Magazine" started its year in 2010 with a similar tour before the 10 p.m. newscast. Davis, who hosts a workshop	for scholastic broadcast teachers each summer, always brings that group to KY3 as well. "They are always so hospitable and willing to let us see how things are done. It's a highlight every year," said Davis. The final few minutes of the visit included a photo op as students sat in the anchor chair and got a sense of what it felt like to be in front of the $50,000 dollar cameras. Top|Home

Hornets Provide Pep
Pleasant View rolled out the red carpet as students from Hillcrest put on a spirited pep assembly for one of the HHS feeder middle schools. The Blue Wave Drum Line, varsity girls and boys basketballers, and the HHS cheerleaders were part of the 40-minute assembly, covered by HTV'sDylan Walker and Brennan Wolf. "We came out to get them excited about their basketball season, but also to get them excited about coming to Hillcrest to become Hornets," said history teacher	and Hillcrest baseball coach Ryan Schaffitzel. One of the assembly highlights was some dunks by the varsity boys, including a resounding jam by senior center Dorial Green-Beckham, who flew over a volunteer from the stands for a one-handed stuff. The show also incorporated the PV basketball team and the Bluejay cheerleaders, who performed alongside the Hillcrest cheerleading squad. The assembly was sponsored by a	committee of teachers at HHS who work to promote HHS to the feeder middle schools. A couple of weeks after the assembly at PV, the group traveled to Reed MS for a similar event. Hillcrest is unique in the R-12 school district as it is the only high school whose feeder schools all come to Hillcrest. That means kids in the elementary and middle schools in the HHS district all end up at HHS some day. Top|Home

Powerful Message Delivered
David Parnell was 15 years old, a pot smoker hanging around the wrong crowd, getting into arguments time and again with his mom. "I was a kid, so I thought mom didn't want me to be happy. I look back on it now, in hindsight, and think, oh my gosh, I must have driven her nuts. She knew the road I was taking, I wasn't going to be happy." said Parnell. That is an understatement. Parnell's life was a spiral into hell, and he now travels across the country doing what he can to prevent young people from taking that same, tragic road he followed. He came to Hillcrest during his visit to Springfield to do present, "Facing the Dragon: One Man's Battle Against Methamphetamine." It is his book title as well. Parnell spoke to the entire student body	in two presentations, one in the morning for grades 9-10, one in the afternoon for grades 11-12. HTV's Morgan Wilson and Breanna Feemster then sat down to interview him about his life. Parnell was not just a drug user, he was also a drug provider, selling to people while he could see their kids in the car, and see that the buyers barely had adequate clothing. He said, "I just had a lot of guilt about what I was doing, but I wanted them to buy dope so I could do dope for free." Eventually, Parnell tried to kill himself, and instead blew his face off. Surgeries kept him alive and gave him a face back, although it is altered by the devastation of the gunshot. He told Wilson about his wife and seven kids, who often come to his presentations. Parnell got his wife, Amy, hooked on dope at one time, and she stayed with him because she was dependent on him for drugs. Eventually, Parnell went to prison,	which separated the couple. But today they are together, raising their family. "It wasn't the shooting that changed my life, it was asking God to come into my heart and change me while I was lying in a hospital bed," said Parnell, who briefly mentions his faith during the presentation. He spoke not just about the horrible impact of methamphetamine, but also about the prescription drug problem that is now impacting more and more teens. Graphic slides flashed on a big screen throughout the presentation, and a few students did leave the auditorium. But most stayed and heard about the miraculous, tragic, shocking journey of David Parnell. Top|Home