Menchville High School - Crown Yearbook (Newport News, VA)

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Mr. Guy Smith, Director of Custodial Services. Mr. James Snow, as head of the Physical Education Department, felt that the facilities were outstanding here at MHS. He also felt that everyone seemed more at home this year than last year. Coach Snow received an A.B. degree from Elon College and has been teaching for twenty- one years. He was athletic direc- tor, head baseball coach and assistant football coach at MHS during the 72-73 school year. The Mighty Monarch Band, under the direction of Mr. David C. Solomon, gave three perfor- mances for outside organizations during the 1972- 73 school year. Among other ex- citing plans, the band was mak- ing money in an attempt to take a trip to take part in an Inter- national Music Festival in the Netherlands in June and July of 1973. Mr. Solomon received a B.M.E. degree from the Shenan- doah Conservatory of Music and the American University. He is head of the Instrumental Music Department at Menchville. ICT (Industrial Cooperative Training) was under the leadership of Mr. Charles Tuel, a graduate of West Virginia University, where he received his B.S. in Secondary Education. The ICT program provided several juniors and seniors with the opportunity to gain training and work experience and to gain entry level skills into occupations of health and personal service. Mr. Tuel felt that this was a better year for ICT at MHS because the students showed more interest in classes as well as in clubs. Mrs. Bernice West began her third year at MHS in September of 1972, previously having been at Newport News and Denbigh High Schools. After seventeen years of cafeteria managing, Mrs. West found that the most challenging part of her job was satisfying the students. According to Mrs. West, the cafeteria in the public schools are not profit making businesses; in fact, each lunch costs seven cents more than the students pay. In evaluating Menchville ' s cafeteria, Mrs. West felt that the student behavior was really very good. One thing students should do is to accept the responsibility of carrying up their own trays. She said that the purpose of the cafeteria was not to compete with McDonalds for lunch business but rather to provide a well-balanced, type A lunch for every student in the school. department chairmen twenty-one

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Along with directing Student Activities at MHS, Mr. Thomas Marvin was also head of the Distributive Education Depart- ment. He explained that the only new course offered in the department during this school year was Fashion Merchan- dising with emphasis on the In- dividualized instruction on each student. Mr. Marvin attended V.P.I. where he received his B A. in D E and he has taught for eight years. He felt that MHS was the best school on the Peninsula during this school year and would rank it in the top ten in the state However. Mr. Mar- vin would like to see more par- ticipation in school activities and better attendance at sporting events, school plays, and the like. He praised MHS by saying, I think that the faculty and student body are working to make it the best all-around school there is. Mrs. Frances C. Nettles, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, where she received the B.A. degree, was Science Department Head, as well as Science Club Sponsor for the 1972-73 school year. Mrs. Nettles stated that students may hope to see some advanced science classes in the very near future. Mr. William Robinson, Chair- man, Industrial Arts Department. The women ' s athletic department is coming along slowly but surely, said Mrs. Mary Ann Rounds. Menchville ' s athletic department joined the Virginia High School League and has grown noticeably because of this association. Mrs. Rounds, department chairman and a graduate of Ithaca College with a B.S. degree and the College of William and Mary with a M.Ed., said that future plans include coed classes and a program for handicapped children within the athletic department. Mrs. Franklin Seney graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a B.S. in English. She has been teaching for fifteen years and has been department chairman at MHS for three years. She said. The biggest change in our program this year comes through what we ' re doing for our students who have trouble in keeping up with the majority of others in communication skills, and com- munications skills are what English is all about. Mrs. Seney believes that English is com- munication and this involves the interrelationships of all parts of the school. We feel it ' s necessary for the English department to become involved in school life and set an example for others. We want the students to know that we care. Her teachers proved that they cared, spon- soring perhaps more clubs and organizations than those of any other department in the school. twenty department chairmen

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Judith S. Anderson; BA M A VPI English, Scepter; 2 years Mayme E. BaCote; A B Va Union U M A Hamp Inst M A Dartmouth College; Social Studies AFS sponsor. 1 O years Margaret I. Baker; B S Hamp Inst; Guidance; 12 years Henry P. Barney; B S Old Dominion University, Social Studies; sponsor, Sop Class, 2 years Pamela E. Behrens; B A Old Dominion University. Foreign Language; 2 years Margareta G. Blanchard; A B in Ed U of Mo Foreign Language; German Club; 3 years Frederick D. Boyd; B S Va State College, Instrumental Music; String Concert Orchestra; 5 years Joseph A. Buggs; B S EliEabeth City State U; PE; 1 1 years Even teachers were evaluated. They spent long hours in departmental and committee meetings; instead of the usual three, teachers ' meetings were increased to more than half a dozen by the end of the first semester. They not only evaluated themselves as a group, but each teacher also analyzed himself. Completing twenty-page booklets, they answered countless questions about their purposes and goals in teaching and the results they expected from their efforts. For two thirds of the school year, teachers sweated over these, often nit-picking” questionnaires. And then, in a blitz of strangers, visits, questions and other related non- sense, a group of nearly forty evaluators from near and far in- vaded the quiet halls of Menchville, leaving as quickly as they had come. When the dust settled, all of the questionnaires, so diligently prepared during the long months of fall and winter, were gone, and in their short, one-week stay, this visiting team had evaluated MHS and deemed it worthy of the adjective ACCREDITED. Was it worth the effort and trouble to have this word at- tached to the name of the school. One MHS teacher replied, ' Tis but foolery. Another compared the process to a government feasability study costing much money and producing no results. Yet another concluded that the evaluation contained too many variables and was therefore too superficial. The feelings, pro and con, perhaps may justly be summed up in this teacher ' s reaction. I have ambivalent feelings about self-evaluation. Generally, however, my feelings are negative. It seems to be a case of reality versus ideals. As it is, most of our work will probably be shelved somewhere in Rich- mond and forgotten. twenty-two faculty