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DuBois Area Senior High

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The Observer On Line

Look for us in September 2011

2011 graduation set
Catherine Sheffo

  As another school year quickly draws to a close, graduation seems to be the topic on everyone’s minds and the word on everyone’s lips.  This year’s commencement ceremony, which will take place on June 3rd at 7:00 p.m. at the DuBois Area Middle School, promises to be the continuation of a long line of quality programs organized by assistant principal Jeff Vizza.

   The graduation ceremony itself will take place in the middle school gymnasium.  Because space is limited, seniors will receive six tickets, four for the gym and two for the nearby auditorium.  Seniors will walk through the auditorium on the way to the gym.  The ceremony will also be streamed live to a screen in the auditorium and on the DuBois Area School District website. 

   Vizza attributes the ceremony’s success and high quality to several years of careful tweaking.  “It’s a pretty nice ceremony we’ve put together in the past three to four years,” he says.

   As for this group of graduating seniors, one of whom is Vizza’s eldest daughter, he says that it has been, “a very enjoyable group to work with throughout the year.  I think that this is a fantastic group of seniors just because of the way they have stepped up and become leaders in this building.”

   Whether they are family, friends, or just familiar faces, this year’s graduating class will surely be missed. 

 
This is the last issue of The Observer for the School year. We will return in September. Thank you for your support.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


Saying goodbye to DAHS
John Jacobson

There is something to be said for a man who has dedicated forty years of his life to teaching high school students.  Mr. Terry Swope is ending his fortieth year of teaching at DAHS with a mixture of sadness and excitement before he goes into retirement. 

   Fresh out of college at twenty-one, Terry Swope had a lot going for him.  He was thrilled – but scared – at the prospects of teaching at his alma mater, DuBois Area High School.  He would enter a room of students only four or five years younger than he.  The worry of being “eaten alive” by these kids was only exceeded by his want to teach music education.

   Forty years later, he is ending his time at DuBois Area High School without that worry any longer.  Teaching music education is, “Something that is essential and important….and challenging and fun,” according to Mr. Swope.  “Making music with young people is a joy and a pleasure.” 

   Missing the students he’s taught over the years only begins to give an idea of what his retirement makes him feel.  He carries many fond and vivid memories of his time teaching.  Mr. Swope was once able to take the choir down to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to sing with several thousand people for Loren Matzel on the Symphony’s anniversary.   The memory of favorite musical productions such as Camelot and Fiddler on the Roof also help to ease the feeling of leaving his students.  A positive to his leaving is that, according to him, he will not miss the paperwork that comes with his position.

   The time in which Mr. Swope began his long teaching career at DAHS was one where students were more respectful and dedicated.  “Today’s students aren’t so dedicated,” says Swope.  He goes on to say that today’s students are being pulled more ways with work and activities, and that there are still students that are dedicated to what they do despite the decrease in total dedication. 

   Swope ends his career with hope, a hope that he has contributed a sense of caring for each other in his students.  He says that the chorus is like a small family within a large family. 

   Many people often tell him to think of the thousands of students whose lives he touched.  “What I say to them,” he says, “is think of the thousands of lives that have touched mine.”