WCTSMA State Competition

The CHS Sports Medicine Team had their best showing ever at the WCTSMA State Competition this last weekend in Kennewick. This is our 3rd year competing in the nation’s largest sports medicine CTSO and like previous years, we have continued to improve in all areas of the competition. Over 2 days, students competed in poster presentation, large group forum, job application/interview, ankle taping, written testing, and practical skills demonstration. Here are some of the highlights from a very successful weekend. If you see any of these students, give them some congratulations!

Student Forum: Maddie Bertalot, Mental Health in Athletics – Student’s Choice Award

Anatomy and Physiology: Tanner Thorson – 3rd Place, Paige Neff – 2nd Place

JV Quiz Bowl: Emy Reisenaaur, Claire Jones, Hanna Moss, Kimmie Boone, Liz Mazemke – 3rd Place after making it to the final round

Varsity Team: 5th Place in the Large Schools classification AND qualification for nationals

2018 Music Education Innovator Award

Ethan Chessin, Camas High School, Camas, Washington: “The Business of Music.”—“Each year, we commission a commercial musician or rock composer to write a full-length concert performance for my choirs to perform alongside professional musicians from the community. As my students learn about the composition process, they also gain knowledge from a variety of music-industry experts—and apply it. A talent buyer explains her job, and then my students pick the opening act for their final performance. Later, a publicist teaches about press releases, and then the student-written press release is shared in local media. Record label executives help students design the album, graphic designers help students with poster art, sound engineers teach about live sound, and more. This year we’re focusing on the digital recording and marketing of music, so students are filming and editing music videos and setting up a website to market the recording.”

2018 Recipients will be invited and recognized at the CMA Foundation’s Music Teachers of Excellence event. They will also be invited to present on their school’s programs at the 2018 National Conference of the National Association for Music Education in Dallas, Texas, this November 11-14 (all-expense paid).

Team Mean Machine 2471 “LIVE”

Camas High School’s team 2471 headed off to World’s in Houston, TX this past week and competed Thursday through Saturday in the worlds largest robotics competition for high school students. Team 2471 battled each day and produced an impressive win loss total of 6 wins and 4 losses in their division and was ranked 14 out 67 robots in that division. The down side was they fell short of qualifying for the finals and competing on the Einstein field Saturday.  Super effort this year Papermakers you have a lot to be proud of…

Here is a link to the FIRST robotics competition and Team Mean Machine results page in Houston.
Below is a link to a game demo for this year’s competition and a link to their winning match at districts.

2018 FIRST POWER UP Game
Winning Match at Districts

CHS Student Creates Charity

Caleb Field, a senior at Camas High School, has seen a need in the Dominican Republic after traveling there a couple years ago and was struck by what he witnessed. Youngsters play baseball all the time, as much as they can, even though most lack the proper equipment for the game.

They play in shorts and flip-flops. A group of children might share one bat. If it breaks, they improvise with sticks.

“Growing up in Camas, every single kid has his own bat,” Field said. “Kids here will have one pair of cleats per season, then be done with them.”

Field wanted to take advantage of the excess in the United States to try to give back to others who love baseball as much as he does.

“How can I reuse these?” he questioned.
Then he found an answer.
“Give your cleats a second chance.”
And bats. And gloves. And pants. And jerseys. And so on.

Field, a designated hitter and first baseman for the Papermakers, came up with a plan. He started Bat Back, a charity to “take lightly used baseball equipment, preserve it, then ship it down to the kids in the Dominican Republic.” Read more at Clark Country TODAY.com

A Lesson in the Music Business

Camas High School Choir Director Ethan Chessin, left, freshman Mandy Hansen and pro keyboard player Lorna Krier Milgaten work out a new keyboard part.

After playing horns and woodwinds and arranging scores for the likes of Arcade Fire, Coldplay, David Byrne and Father John Misty, multi-instrumentalist and composer Kelly Pratt set his sights on another stellar collaborator: the Camas High School Choir.

It’s not the first time the choir has worked with a rock star. Two years ago, director Ethan Chessin — a teaching-award winner for exactly this kind of energetic innovation — launched a grant-funded musical partnership with Young Audiences of Oregon & Southwest Washington, which helped hook him up with experimental pop band AU. Band and choir wound up staging a grand performance featuring a challenging blend of musical styles, sung by 200 young voices and backed up by powerful rock ‘n’ roll instrumentation and video projection. Read more at The Columbian