Scholastic Art Contest Winners

Please congratulate these students for getting into the "superbowl" of the high school art world in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. This region includes Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky High Schools.

Gold Key Awards
James Pikar / Drawing “Self” -Junior
Madison Furnish / Drawing “The Awakening” -Senior

Silver Key Awards
Harlee Hornsby / Drawing “Doves”-Senior
Justine Krieg / Photography “Atelophobia”-Senior

Honorable Mention
Faith Dawson / Painting “Kid Again”-Senior
Madison Furnish / Drawing “Steam”-Senior
Mitchell Howes / Drawing “Robot”-Senior
Justine Krieg / Photography “Fear”-Senior
Sydney Long / Photography “Lights”-Senior
Samuel Lutes / Photography “Wires”-Senior
Guinee Meredith / Digital Art “Sleep”-Junior
Joy Strunk / Digital Art “The Wolf's Howl”-Sophomore

Ryle students send 7,000 meals to Eastern Ky.

by Justin Duke, NKY Enquirer
Ryle students send 7,000 meals to Eastern Ky.

FLORENCE — A little bit of work is going a long way.

Ryle’s Future Business Leaders of America club sent about 7,000 meals to food banks in the Appalachian region of Kentucky.

Students from the Ryle FBLA loaded a truck full of about 7,000 meals to send to Kenucky's Appalachian region. The meals were purchased with $2,050 raised from a 5k in November. / Thanks to Faith Evans

The effort began in November when the club hosted a 5k to raise money for Kids Against Hunger.

Kids Against Hunger is a charity that aims to significantly reduce the number of hungry children in the United States and to feed starving children throughout the world. This is done by distributing a highly nutritious, vitamin-fortified soy-rice casserole to starving children and their families in more than 60 countries through partnerships with humanitarian organizations worldwide.

The 5k raised $2,050, which was used to buy the meals.

About 40 volunteers from the FBLA joined up with several other groups who’d raised money for meals at 7 Hills Church in Florence Jan. 12 to pack up meals and ship them off. With the 7,000 meals from the Ryle FBLA, a total of 38,000 meals are going to the Appalachia area.

Due to tough economic circumstances, that area was facing malnutrition risks, said FBLA member Sadhvika Reddy, a senior.

“Their food banks had completely empty shelves,” Reddy said.

Having the FBLA put a dent in the problem is a proud accomplishment for the group, she said.

“Just thinking about feeding 7,000 people is hard to fathom,” Reddy said.

This was the FBLA’s first experience with Kids Against Hunger, but after seeing how much the club can help, the relationship will likely continue, said FBLA member Faith Evans, a junior.

“I think next year we might continue with the packaging because it was such an awesome experience,” Evans said.

Ryle students open prom dress rental shop

by Justin Duke, NKY Enquirer
Ryle students open prom dress rental shop


FLORENCE — Two enterprising high school juniors are looking to cash in on prom season.

Morgan Sandmann and Olivia McGregor are owners of the Lemon Drop Dress Shop, a consignment rental shop for formal wear like homecoming and prom dresses.

The Ryle students started the business over the summer after the dresses they’d worn had proven popular.

“Girls would ask to borrow our dresses, but our parents didn’t want us just giving them out because they paid so much for them. So we figured renting was a good idea,” Sandmann said.

The two started gathering all of their old dresses and getting others to offer up their old dresses.

“Every time it’s rented, they get a percentage,” McGregor said.

The two started working out of the dining room of McGregor’s parents’ Florence home and offered dresses for the homecoming season. Girls from all over Northern Kentucky rented their dresses.

“We didn’t expect it to get as big as it has,” McGregor said.

They attribute their early success to a simple concept. “Girls don’t want to spend a lot of money on a dress,” Sandmann said.

With the success, the two are looking to open a storefront sometime in the next year.

Because a dress is rented, it can be used for more than one dance in a season. So if girls from different schools like the same dress, it can be used on different weekends and Lemon Drop will dry clean it in between rentals.

With the new year under way, many girls are already hunting for prom dresses, so Sandmann and McGregor are already busy.

“People are already asking,”Sandmann said.

The shop shows the dresses it gets in on its Facebook page, and Sandmann and McGregor are planning a fashion show at Ryle Feb. 15.

“We’ll have all of our dresses on display,” McGregor said.

Proceeds from the fashion show will be given to Ryle’s junior class to help pay for this year’s prom.

McGregor and Sandmann are currently sizing customers so they can find the right dresses. To set up a sizing or to look at the dresses in stock, email lemondropdressshop@ gmail.com.

Teen Drivers | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

The NHTSA has some useful information on many issues related to Teen Driving.

Teen Drivers | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA):

'via Blog this'

What Do International Tests Really Show About U.S. Student Performance?

Below is an excerpt from the blog The Daily Kos:

We regularly hear people bemoaning the ranking of the US on such exams.  In the past various people have pointed out a number of problems with placing too much weight on such rankings.  For example, in some past administrations of  TIMMS some nations exempted non-native speakers of the primary languages. Others eliminated questions on coastal biology on the grounds that their nation lacked a coastline (something the US did not do for students in the middle of our vast nation).

Often in recent years we have been held up and compared to the countries that did best, most notably Finland, more recently also  South Korea, Singapore, Shanghai, and Canada.  Singapore is largely a city-state, and Shanghai is very much unlike the rest of China.

Carnoy and Rothstein decided to do their explorations including matching US performance against that of Finland, South Korea and Canada as high-performing countries, and three large post-industrial countries with a number of similarities with the US economically:  the UK, France, and Germany.

To provide further depth to their analysis of US performance, the authors also examined data from various versions of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often describe by educational researchers as the nation's report card.  Like TIMMS and PISA, it uses a random sample of students from across the nation.

 . . .

Because social class inequality is greater in the United States than in any of the countries with which we can reasonably be compared, the relative performance of U.S. adolescents is better than it appears when countries’ national average performance is conventionally compared.

--From a report, released by the Economic Policy Institute and co-authored by Martin Carnoy and Richard Rothstein. 

NKY Enquirer 2012 Fall Sport All-Stars

The NKY Enquirer recently named their annual spring sport all-stars. The article link is attached:  NKY 2012 Fall Sports All-Stars

Congratulations to the following Ryle student-athletes that were named NKY Equirer All-Stars:

Honorable Mention Boys Cross Country - Michael Edwards
Girls Cross Country - Jensen Bales
Honorable Mention Girls Cross Country - Heidi Anderson
Honorable Mention Football - Nick Kennedy, Garrett Mead, Lex Sowards
Paul Clancy - Boys Golf
Logan Gamm - Boys Golf
Austin Squires - Boys Golf
Honorable Mention Boys Golf - Zach Adams, Hunter Hughes
Nadine Innes - Girls Golf
Garrett Meade - Boys Soccer
Tyrus Sciarra - Boys Soccer
Honorable Mention Boys Soccer -  JB Browning, Josh Butler, Dan Jensen, Connor Jordan, Mitchell See
Honorable Mention Girls Soccer - Jill Davenport, Elise Duggins, Ellie Schmalzl, Jaclyn Zembrodt
Ashley Bush - Volleyball
Honorable Mention Volleyball - Ashley Howe, Harper Hempel, Alexa Nichols, Heather Torline

Congratulations also go out to Jonathan Ehlen for being named the NKY Enquirer Boys Golf Co-Coach of Year.  He led the Raiders to their 3rd straight NKAC Division 1 championship, and a runner-finish in the regional tournament and an area best 4th place finish at the KHSAA state golf tournament.

Ryle Boys Golf Coach - Jonathan Ehlen

Congratulations to these award winners and to all of our fall sport student-athletes for a great year. Thanks to all of our parents, community members, and coaches for their hard work in supporting our students!

Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda

Congratulations to the Ryle FBLA - they are currently ranked the 2nd largest FBLA chapter in the nation!

Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda:

Graduate Services

On Wednesday, Graduate Services met with the seniors to deliver a presentation and a packet of information on graduation caps, gowns, and invitations.

http://www.graduateserviceinc.com/