Winter sports are upon us and basketball players, cheerleaders, and wrestlers are getting ready for their quickly approaching contests. The Rapid City Journal has begun featuring teams in their previews and Thursday published a nice write up of the wrestling team, which they consider to be a serious contender for a state title. We do too, but we’re biased and proud of it. Perhaps the most apparent indicator of the Central High School wrestling program’s notoriety is the recognizable pate of its decorated coach, Mr. Pearson. In the online version of the article cited above, one can see without a glance at even a pupil whose photo is in the lineup. We love you, Coach!

***

Speaking of sports, The Pine Needle did some checking into alum Tony Smoragiewicz this week to see how his freshman season was going over at the University of Michigan. As far as we can tell, the typical path for freshmen with collegiate level cross country is to red shirt their freshman year, which means essentially sitting out all meets so they can save a year of eligibility for when they’re bigger and more ready for the competition. Apparently Tony didn’t need that, because he has been running and running well. At the NCAA Championships in Kentucky, Tony was the third place finisher for his team, placing 132nd overall. Michigan’s website points out that it was his first ever 10K race, and the listings show that Tony was the only finisher from Michigan who was not a junior or senior. This might be a good time to mention that once you’re a Cobbler, you’re always a Cobbler, right? Nice job, Tony.

***

The French Club commandeered the announcements in their attempt to sell French berets for $5.50 each. These fine looking berets are made of wool and are offered in black, red and kelly green.  We’re curious what will happen if the French club successfully starts a fad. Either way, it did remind a few old teachers of a skit from the past teasing foreign language teachers who aren’t as cosmopolitan as our fine faculty.

***

While we’re talking about selling things, the Dahl Fine Arts Center is having a Christmas Art Mall at the Dahl this weekend on Friday, November 30th from 4 – 7pm and on Saturday, December 1 from 10am – 7pm. Mrs. Greenway points out that the gift shop features original work by local artists including some by Central High School art teachers. They will have original hand-made items from 20 local artists (jewelry, scarves, cards, ceramics, soap, cards, ornaments, etc) with prices starting from under $10. One more illustration of how talented the faculty here at CHS is.

***

Much tiling was done at Central over the Thanksgiving break. The crew tore up a large section of tile in the central corridor, in front of the east end of the commons, and then relaid it. It’s still grout-less, but that will likely come this weekend? A few other tiles were put down across from the commons, and as the grinder has moved just west of the business department doors in its race west, the tiling for the rest of the area across from the commons and in front of the business department can now proceed.