December 2021

Edition III

School News:

Blue Devil Winter Concert

Local News:

Holiday Happenings in Martinsburg

Jordan and Hess annual Christmas Window and Shop Unveiling

The Flowers Unlimited Window Unveiling was hosted on. Flowers Unlimited moved into a new building so this was a very exciting thing for them. The window display was beautiful and there was fake snow! The window displays were lit up and each one was different in its own way. There were 4 windows in all and the outside was decorated beautifully. Now for the inside was a whole different story. The inside was beautifully decorated and had a very unique sequence wall up.

Wednesday StoryTime with Amy and Tony at the Martinsburg Public Library

This event was located in the square of Martinsburg and was November, 24 2021. It was so much fun and they had music and there were two books being read. Tony Martirano was playing music and Amy From the Library was reading some books. The two books Amy read were “Waddle Waddle” and “There’s an Elf in Your Book.” At the end they had Santa join them for a few extra songs. There were also cookies, hot chocolate, and even apple cider with Santa.

Christmas on Main

Christmas on Main was hosted on December 4th, 2021 in downtown Martinsbrug, WV. There were many vendors like food and jewelry set out for enjoyment. There was live music playing throughout the day and it was super fun. Now, if we venture over to the library there wa s a snowball fight happening! The snowball fight looked super exciting for the kids. Martinsburg going the extra step like always had an ice skating rink right out front of Blue White Grill (recommended restaurant to eat at). The ice skating fink was super cool and creative. You also had the chance to ride on a horse carriage.

Christmas Tree Lighting

The tree was lit December 5th, 2021 in Martinsburg WV. The Tree was stunning and I’m sure Martinsburg worked so hard on it. This lighting has gone on for years. I am so glad that martinsburg lights the tree every year. The lights were beautiful like always. The tree is still up and you can see it lit up at dawn. Martinsburg Christmas Parade The Christmas Parade route traveled on mainstreet in downtown Martinburg. The floats were beautiful and the parade was so much fun. Floats represented things like schools, businesses, local non-profit organizations, and churches. There were also ove 60 decorated jeeps in the parade! Last but not least Santa was there on the last float! The float was provided by Jordan and Hess FLowers Unlimited.

New Year’s Eve Apple Drop

This event will be held on December 31st 4;30-6;00 in downtown Martinsburg beside the Martinsburg City Fire Department at. There will be live broadcasting from 97.5 radio station. There will be food trucks and free apple cider donuts provided by Orr’s Farm Market. Shepherd University Martinsburg Campus will be providing free giveaways for the Apple Drop. Free activities are being provided from Healthy Berkley and First United Bank. Make sure to thank everyone who is providing things for this event and participating in it.

By Riley Martirano

Opinion Pieces:

How Do You Build the Perfect Snowman?

Step One: Get snow and roll it into a big ball for the snowman's lower body.

Step Two: Find a nice spot to roll the ball to for it to sit while you make another ball but smaller.

Step Three: Roll another ball out of snow, the ball must be a bit smaller than the lower body ball.

Step Four: Once you're done making the ball for the body of the snowman put it on top of the lower body ball make sure it's not going to fall off.

Step Five: Roll a ball out of snow for the snowman's head you must make it smaller than the body ball.

Step Six: When you're done rolling the head ball place it on the body ball again make sure the head ball wont fall off of the body ball.

Step Seven: Go ask one of your parents for a carrot and them to get you two twigs from a tree near by.

Step Eight: When your parents get you a carrot and two twigs put the carrot on the face and the twigs on each side of the body.

Step Nine: Go find some small black or grey rocks and make a mouth under the nose\carrot and then put the eyes on

Step Ten: Go get a hat and mittens and put the mittens on the twigs and put the hat on the snowman's head

Step Eleven: you are done enjoy your snowy friend

                By Cheyenne Miller

How My Genshin Impact Team Met 

(A Short Story)

As Xiao was slaying demons out in Jueyun Karst, the place where the adepti are said to live, he had a strange encounter. “Boo!” Hu Tao yelled in Xiao’s ear. Xiao’s fight instincts activated, causing him to turn around and put his spear against Hu Tao’s neck, her eyes widening. “Hey, hey! It’s just me, slow down!” Hu Tao pleaded. Xiao sighed, responding with, “You… you are so lucky. Do you need anything?” “Yup! I wanted to ask if you wanted to go to Xinyan’s concert? It’s being held just around here.” Hu tao asked, to which Xiao shook his head, he knows from experience how.. loud Xinyan’s concerts are. 

“Is everybody ready to rock’n roll? Well ya better be!” Xinyan announced to the crowd. The crowd roared with cheers as Xinyan’s guitar started playing, her speakers blasting music. Xiao, confused, followed the song of the music, finding the source. It was a stage, with the crowd cheering and yelling. ‘What a nuisance.’ Xiao thought, groaning at the slight headache he was getting from the noise. He shook his head and turned to walk away, when suddenly, the music stopped.Then, a young woman's voice, the same one singing earlier, came on, loud and clear, “Hey! Where ya’ goin’ lookin’ all sad like that? Come on, join the fun!” Xiao jumped at the sudden intrusion, were they talking about him? Xiao slowly turned around, to see everybody looking at him. “I… I was just leaving-” “Oh, come on! We accept everybody here, just try it!” the voice boomed. Xiao looked back to the direction he was walking in, and back to the stage, before deciding to try. He needed to try out more things, anyway, but oh,how he regrets staying, still, to this day.

“Please! I swear, you’ll enjoy this!” Hu Tao begged, Xiao denied her, again, telling her that, “I don’t want to go through that headache again.” Hu Tao pleaded, and pleaded, over and over until Xiao finally accepted, annoyed by Hu Tao’s cries and pleas. Hu Tao excitedly jumped up and down repeatedly, making Xiao regret his final decision. Xiao sighed and let Hu Tao drag him there. If he was going, he was definitely going to make Hu Tao do some work, too. Finally, they arrived at the concert, booming speakers and cheering people can be heard from miles away. Xiao examined the crowd, he saw a younger looking blonde girl, maybe about 16, with an older blonde girl, maybe in her 20s. Xiao joined the crowd with Hu Tao, right behind the blonde adult. She turned around to Xiao and spoke loudly, so he could hear her voice over the Music, “Loud, isn’t it? I’m only here for my little sister, Barbara, she was so excited for this!” Xiao nodded, responding with, “Yeah, I came here for my friend, she dragged me.” She let out a small laugh and held out her hand, referencing Xiao to shake it. Xiao reached his hand out, when suddenly, Hu Tao jumped over and bursted between their hands, cheering and yelling at the top of her lungs. After she moved, the woman smiled at Xiao and said, “I’m Jean, it’s nice to meet you…?””Xiao. My name is Xiao.” Xiao answered with a deadpan face. “I’m Hu Tao!” Hu Tao jumped in and introduced herself. Xinyan waked off the stage, towards the small group, the crowd parting for her. Xinyan arrived at the group, smiling, she said,”I’m Xinyan! Nice to meet y'all’.”

By Ash Tharp

Pop Culture

Rating Top Chart Christmas Songs

I will be rating a few Christmas songs, all just in my opinions and thoughts about it. I am not a huge fan of Christmas songs, musicals, or just any of that in general. Ratings may be a bit harsh.  

All I Want for Christmas Is You 

by Mariah Carey 

-1 for being overrated  

+1 because she hits them notes 

-1 for being desperate 

+1.5 for that one high note mid song 

+1 for changing the lyrics around 

+2.5 for4 not being too deafening 

TOTAL. 4/10 

I definitely will sing it every now and then, but when played on loop my entire head spins. Though the majority of the time it will be a joke. I would never sing that song unironically. 

Last Christmas 

by Wham!  

+4 for being a total bop 

+2 for having a good beat 

+1 love the star sound thing  

+.5 I do not hear it a lot 

-1 for being a love song 

+1 for being a good love song 

+1 hits them notes too 

-.5 because super popular on tiktok 

TOTAL. 8/10 

I’d sing this song anytime if I am honest, once I hear it, I just know that I'm going to be singing along and bobbing my head right with the beat.  

Santa Tell Me 

by Ariana Grande  

 +1 decent voice, love u girl 

+1 nice beat 

+2 gets my groove on, I was moving a bit 

-.5 love song 

 TOTAL. 3.5/10 

I would sing a few parts but not all, though it is something that may get my groove on.  

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer  

by Johnny Marks  

+3, classic 

+1 not a love song 

-.5 kind of depressing 

+.4 for having a good ending 

-1 because they used him just for light  

-.5 petty reindeer n Santa 

 TOTAL. 2.4/10 

I would not listen to this song willingly; it’s grown so tiring after years and years growing up with it. I kind of just grown out of it perhaps.  

 Little Drummer Boy 

by Pentatonix 

+3 for Rileys mom liking it 

+1 nice beat 

+3 THE RUMA BUM 

+.5, underrated 

TOTAL. 7.5/10 

I have never heard this song before, perhaps, and I'm not too sure if I'll ever listen to it again. 

The Grinch 

by Dr Suess 

 +2 good character 

+1 mean lyrics 

-1 may offend some 

+1 truthful 

+2 because my dad likes it 

-1 gross kind of 

 TOTAL. 4/10 

It’s alright at most, unlike Rudolph, I’m not as tired of this one as I should be compared to the other. 

By Leticia Webb

A Very Sweet Holiday

 By Sally Packwood

“All young Cookies deserve presents.” Eggnog Cookie

“I hope this light will reach all corners of this land..”  Cotton Cookie

“How about a cup of cocoa?”  Cocoa Cookie

“You cannot defy the cycle of life.”  Frost Queen Cookie

As the winter seasons come around,games are releasing new characters, outfits, and weapons. For Cookie Run Kingdom and Ovenbreak players, this ment new cookies along with new missions. For people who don’t know, Cookie Run Kingdom and Ovenbreak are free to play mobile games with in-app purchases, available on IOS and Android, Ovenbreak is a runner type game and Kingdom is an action combat type game, both following GingerBrave on his adventures. Now with that settled let's take a look at these cookie and game features.

Cookie Run Kingdom:As the air chills and snow starts to fall, our friends in the kingdom have  made some new friends: Cotton Cookie, Frost Queen Cookie, and Cocoa Cookie, along with some new gameplay features. Cotton Cookie is an epic cookie that stands at the rear of the team and is a support class, when her special attack is activated she restores the team's HP and summons sheep that attack enemies. Frost Queen Cookie is a legendary cookie that stands in the middle and is a magic class, when her special attack is activated, she freezes enemies and deals damage. Cocoa Cookie is an epic cookie in the defense class who stands in the front, for their special attack, they sit in a big hot chocolate cup and spin into the enemy’s. With this update, two new decor packs, two items Frost Queen and Cotton can interact, and one for Cocoa Cookie, have been added to the shop with each of the special items priced around 1,500 to 2,000 diamonds, and everything else in the packs being around 300 diamonds or 1,000 coins. With the winter update also came a new quest, where you can earn snowflakes to use in the Frost Queen's gacha, which ups the chances of getting her. These quests include doing guild battles, battling in the kingdom arena, doing bounties, earning chests from the wishing tree, and many more. For Cocoa Cookie, this event is split in two, with one being a story, and the other being to upgrade a cake that was given to every player to build. There was also a change in the Mayhem Arena, with snowmen helping your teams in battle. Well I think we covered everything in the kingdom, let's head over to ovenbreak and see what they're up to.

Ovenbreak: For Ovenbreak, not much has changed. Like kingdom, Ovenbreak has missions, however you have to collect stockings to get supplies for presents and complete missions to decorate a tree. Eggnog Cookie was the only new cookie added for winter. Eggnog Cookie is a representation of Santa for this universe, activating his special move during a run he is bringing gifts to a child. Like other cookies Eggnog Cookie has his own trail. If you don’t know what trail is, it's a level based on a specific cookie you can use to test how many points you can get with that cookie. One thing that they added to Ovenbreak is, if you drop or shake your device it makes bell noises. Unfortunately, that's all for Ovenbreak for this season, but if you want a better chance of getting these characters join Ovenbreak or Kingdom now to get these cookies before winter is over.

Thank you for reading, have a safe holiday season, and I’ll see you next year!

Mystery Mascot

For people who watch football, we know that the Washington Football Team has no logo, mascot, and real name. So, I thought of some alternate names. I want you to vote for the best team name and mascot name.

https://forms.gle/dLYYsnsS1uw2nNJk7

(You will have to sign in with your Google credentials to be able to participate in the survey)

Created by Avery Reyes

History

The Great Wall of China

Who is Wilson Bentley?

Wilson Bentley is an American photographer. He was the first person ever to photograph a snowflake. He was born in Jericho, Vermont. He was born on February 9, 1865. Wilson Bentley studied atmospheric ice crystal formation and snowflake photography. He became known as Snowflake Bentley because he studied and photographed snowflakes for 40 years. He used a bellows camera attached to a microscope, which he got when he was 17 years old.  

By Aubreigh Rogers

Announcement!

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Thank you for viewing our last edition of Blue Devil News until 2022!! See you next year!