Pg-1 Open House & First Day of School Pg-2 7th-8th Girls Volleyball Pg-3 Boys Soc-cer—Clubs Pg-4 Student Life—Featured Elective Teacher & Class Pg-5 6/7/8 Fea-tured Teachers & Students Pg-6 Puzzle and Trivia—Around the World Survey

Pg 1

Graphic Designers—Kendra Katingima & Cheyenne Frie-drich

Editor—William Stephenson Featured Teacher/Student Reporters—William Ste-phenson, Michael DeLaCruz, Curtis Begay, Kenny Keo-phakdy Sports Reporters—Anthony Brooks, Jose Chavez, Adam Fisher Headline Reporter—Selena Reyna Clubs—Amber Lotz & Halle Lara Around the World Survey—Andre Mazur & Criselia Lohr

Games—David Garcia Student Life—Edith Jimenez & Kenan Nebi Photographers—Deja Seav-ello & Anthony Lopez

Teacher: Ms. Hendrickson

Ms. Zapata & Ms. Leuthauser out greeting everyone

Mr. Sanchez Spanish Class

Ms. Karrels—8th Language Arts

Mrs. Ontriveros—6th Language Arts

Mrs. Dill, Mr. Limon,

Mrs. Watts, & Mr. Phillips—PE Ms. Spawn—7th Math

Mr. Gerads “G”

Decatur, Jeffery & Jona-than heading off to class

Hi Mr. “G”!

Student Newsletter—Advance Computers Page 1

Mrs. Schmidlin has a lot of fun playing volleyball and she has played since she was in middle school. She has coached at Cactus for five years and she also helped the coaches of the teams that her kids joined. Her favorite sports to play are softball and volleyball. Her favor-ite sports teams are the Chicago Cubs, Arizona Cardinals, and the Arizona Diamondbacks. She expects her team to learn the basics of the game and to learn to serve overhand. Learning three hits per side is always important too. She said the team also needs to work on bump-ing and setting the ball. She doesn’t know who the specific players are yet , but she hopes the entire team works together well.

Mrs. Dill has played volleyball since she was in junior high. She started coaching volleyball at CAC when she first started teaching. She said it is a great sport to play and watch. She has been coaching for 18 years. When she was coaching in 1993, she won the volleyball championship! She loves watching her son play football and wrestling and her daughter play softball and volleyball. She also enjoys pro football and ASU volleyball. Her expectations for the team are to be able to play volleyball so they’re ready for the next level. She is expecting the whole team to be outstanding this year. Mrs. Dill has been married for 24 years. She has a daughter named Kevan and a son named Joey. Her husband’s name is Scott and works at the Pinal County Sheriff's Department as a Sergeant. Mrs. Dill wishes the best for her 8th grade volleyball team. The managers are Kesie Foote and Savannah Hendrickson.

Mr. Alexander, 6th grade social studies teacher and now the new soccer coach states that there are a few returning athletes but he’s not sure who his star ath-letes are yet. Mr. Alexander liked soccer when he was younger. He played for 6 years. He said, “It takes a lot of running and discipline.” Mr. Alexander has coached many sports including wrestling, track, cross country, football and now soccer. He says he needs a new challenge. Mr. Alexander loves football and loves the Raiders. Mr. Alexander likes working as a team.

Coach Dill

Page 2

The 8th grade girls volleyball team Roster:

Hannah Norris, Anissa Torres Jordan, Madison Larson, Marah Lewis, Nyasia Epps, Kelsey Nolasco, Sydney Armendariz, Alexis Reeves, Briana Castro, Tiffany Carillo, Mariah Taylor, Kayla Hanson, and Nivek Butler.

Coach Schmidlin

Coach Alexander

7th Grade Girls Volleyball Team Roster:

Alisandra Belloc, Dominique Browning, Cheyenne Chavez, Chase Conway, Iliana Guerra, Mariah Lara, Cambria Mitchell, Destany Nieman, Ashlyn Norris, Staci Ortega, Ayliny Patino, Victoria Rivera, Cassity Sopha, Mathiana Thornton, and Micala Vereen.

7th/8th Grade Boys Soccer Roster:

Jose Chavez, Jared Walton, Luis Martinez, Jesus Almaraz, Tylar Bounds, Dylan Hale, Sergio Santos, Adam Fisher, Jorge Aguilera, Patrick Martin, Jose Vasquez, Francisco Galaz, Carlos Quinonez, Gabriel Rojas, Nick Olivarez, and Jacob Odya.

Ms. Hendrickson is in charge of the Chess Club. The first informa-tional meeting will be starting the first week of October. Chess Club will meet Wednesdays after school in the Media Center. We welcome new players and we will teach you how to play. We play for fun, then we play for ranking order, and finally we play a tour-nament for trophies. The requirements to stay in Chess Club are the same as all after school activities. You must demonstrate good behavior and No “F’s” & no more than one “D” on your re-port cards. They have a final District Middle School Tournament at CGMS playing for best team/school championship. Cactus has taken the championship 9 out of the last 10 years!!!

Mrs. Batina is the sponsor of NJHS. She is a social studies teacher in room C-8. NJHS is a club that is involved in community service and volunteer work in Casa Grande. They also do fundraisers to raise money for various things. NJHS started on Friday August 26, 2011. Meetings will usually be held once a month on Fridays or during 7th/8th grade lunch in room C-8. Some activities going on are tutoring at Cholla, a Can Food Drive, collecting soda tops, 6th grade Valentines Dance, and other community service activities. To be a NJHS member, students have to have a GPA of 3.65 and fill out an application, which is judged. This happens towards the end of the year so students have to wait to become a member and will be personally invited to join by a NJHS member at the end of the year.

More Clubs not yet advertised:

Student Council Drama

Science Olympiad

Cactus Clubs

CACTUS CLUBS: CHESS CLUB

YEARBOOK CLUB NJHS

Get involved! Join a club at Cactus

Ms. Flores is going to be in charge of the Yearbook Club. The first Year-book Club meeting started August 25. The Yearbook Club meetings will be scheduled after school, to include attending club meetings and sporting events. Exact dates are undecided at this moment. There are a lot of expec-tations to stay in the Yearbook club. The students in the yearbook must maintain academic eligibility. Students must meet in the behavior require-ments and respect Cactus in a positive manner. Students must attend all meetings!

The qualifications that are needed to be in Yearbook Club are:

Academic Eligibility

Completed and accepted application

Mandatory Attendance to all meetings

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Page 4

Madison working on “Penny Wise” as well.

Left: Adam is typing his newsletter interview while Ms. Hendrickson is checking another stu-dent’s assignment for the Advance Computers Class.

Above: Kendra’s assignment as the Graphics De-signer, is working on set-up & backgrounds for the student newsletter for the Advance Computers class.

Amber is writing down results of the sticky tape lab.

Mr. Sanchez hand picked his Spanish class. So instead of picking one student, he wanted to feature the whole B-3 class. We took a student survey in his class about what they do in his class and came up with the following results: Only one student liked to sing songs and dance, eleven students like the Salsa Contest, nine students like the Chocolate Festival, and seven students like his humor. Only five students enjoy watch-ing him play in the Teachers vs. the Students Spirit Day Games...as he has no mercy on the students during the Assembly games. There are thirty students who think that he shouldn’t be in the competition so that the students would have a chance to win a game.

Above: Curtis & Anthony are investigating and rating a new math website in Advance Com-puters.

Israel is writing down informa-

tion on a sticky tape lab.

Rashawn & Taylor working on “Penny Wise” activity Serina & Manny showing off their com-

pleted work.

Page 5

Nicole Grapp is a student attending Cactus Middle School this year. She would like to travel to Spain. Language Arts is her favorite subject because she loves reading. Her mom is a teacher and her dad is a technician. Cows are her favorite animal because they rock. She has lived in Casa Grande for four years. Nicole has attended Cactus since 6th grade. Her favorite color is purple. She loves it.

Cody Naranjo-Cody’s favorite subject is science. He learns about stuff he never heard of. His favorite teacher is Ms. Hipple. She is hon-est, fun, and has a good sense of humor. He plays football or hangs with his family during his free time. He has one brother, two sisters, and a mom and dad. They love each other to death. He didn’t go anywhere this summer but he got to meet his new neighbors. He would love to go to Japan because of their culture and interesting stuff like origami.

Megan Weaver used to live in Nevada and lived there untill she was 2 years old. Her favorite classes are Advanced Language Arts and Advanced Math, and her favorite teachers are Mr. Alexander, Mrs. Ontiveros, and Mrs. Schimidlin. After school, she does her homework and study. She enjoys spending time with her family. Over the summer, she went swimming with her cousins and her brother. Megan has never been to another country, but if she could go anywhere in the world she would go to Washington D.C. because of all the great sights.

Mr. Alexander grew up in Tucson, Arizona and went to two colleges, Prescott College, 2000, and University of Phoenix, 2006. He worked at a lot of dif-ferent places throughout his career. Mr. Alexander enjoys all topics at school, in-cluding math, social studies, etc,, because they all have something interesting about them. In his life, he has gone to two countries, Mexico and Canada. If he could go anywhere in the world, it would be Australia, because it seems like a good place to relax and interesting to scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef. Mr. Alexander is mar-ried and has 3 children. A daughter, Dakota, who is 4 years old, and twin boys, Dawson and Deaken, who are 15 months old. They keep him really busy.

Ms. Hipple grew up in central Michigan, where the mosquitoes are huge and the summers are humid. She doesn’t miss that at all. She went to Albion College in Albion, Michigan for her undergrad & Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan for her Masters Degree. She loves teaching students to write their own poetry, which is funny considering she used to hate poetry. She guesses that you just need the right teacher. Her parents still live in Michi-gan and her sister is in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. She has no children yet. She spent most of the summer reading at home. That may sound boring to some, but for her, it’s a great experience. She would love any place that’s a tourist trap. She has a degree in vocal performance and she sings in her spare time. She is also working on her first novel, a zombie book for teens!

Ms. Karrels is an 8th grade Language Arts teacher. She grew up in a city called Port Washington, Wisconsin and went to St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. She has five people in her family including herself. She has been to ten states and two different countries. Europe and Africa are some of the places she would like to visit. She loves teaching, reading, and writing. Dancing has been one of her hobbies since she was five. She also loves teaching and choreographing dance. Ms. Karrels is very excited to be teaching here at Cactus Middle School!

Countries Around the World Word Find

Cactus Coyotes

“AROUND THE WORLD” THEME

Where have you been—Where would you like to visit?

Page 6

Survey says...

6th Grade - Countries We've been to: None- 127 Mexico- 75 Caribbean- 1 Jamaica- 2 Canada- 5 Guatemala- 1 Spain- 1 England- 3 Egypt- 1 France- Spain- 1 Italy- 1 Fiji- 1

6th Grade - Countries we want to visit: France- 31 Japan- 5 Africa- 5 Haiti- 1 Australia- 8 Canada- 16 Mexico- 13 Europe- 4 South America- 2 Germany- 5 Italy- 28 Jamaica- 3 Netherlands- 1 Vietnam- 1 Afghanistan- 1

Poland- 2 Peru- 1 China- 8 Brazil- 3 Morocco- 1 Asia- 2 Cuba- 1 Israel- 1 New Zealand- 1 Spain- 4 Scotland- 1 Greece- 2 Ireland- 1 Tanzania- 1 Caribbean- 2

United Kingdom- Rome- 1 Russia- 7 Great Britain- 2

Where 8th grad-ers want to go: Afghanistan - 4 Amsterdam - 5 Australia - 5 Bahamas - 3 Brazil - 2

China - 8 England - 1 France - 13 Germany - 3 Great Britain - 1

Greece - 2 Haiti - 1 Italy - 18 Jamaica - 5 Mexico - 11 Paris - 11 Philippines - 1 Puerto Rico - 2 Rome - 1 Russia - 2 Spain - 1

Where 8th graders have been: Africa - 1 Belgium - 1 Europe - 3 Japan - 3 Mexico - 67

Never Been out of the U.S - Peru -1 Philippines - 2 Turkey - 1

Countries 7th grad-ers want to go: Afghanistan - 1 Africa - 3 Brazil -1 China - 18 Cuba - 2 Don’t want to go any-where - 13 Egypt - 1 England - 3 Europe - 10 France - 29

Germany - 12 Ireland - 2 Italy - 30 Jamaica - 2 Japan - 22 London - 6 Mexico - 5 Philippines - 2 Russia - 6 Scotland - 2 Spain - 1 Sweden - 1

Countries 7th graders have been: Australia - 77 China - 4 Costa Rica - 1 Dominican Republic - 1 El Salvador - 1

Germany - 3 Italy - 3 Jamaica - 4 Japan - 2 Mexico - 93

Never Been out of the US Philippines - 3