CONGRATULATIONS! - Fork Union Military Academy

Volume 11, Issue 4 The Middle School Newspaper May, 2006CONGRATULATIONS!A Message fromthe PresidentCadets, faculty and staff, as I reflect onceagain on the school year behind us, Irecognize all the hard work andaccomplishments that have taken placethroughout the year by everyone atFUMA. It has been a year filled withmany challenges along the way, but youpersevered and have earned a break fromthe study halls, marching, class work andhomework. But as you leave, take withyou the morals, friendships and the wordof God that should last not only throughthe summer, but for a lifetime. I am proudof all you have accomplished and lookforward to your return, whether inSeptember, or at alumni reunions. All ofthe faculty and staff wish you the verybest in the future as well as a restful andenjoyable summer!Schedule of EventsWednesday, May 24 th9:00 AM Faculty/Parent/Son Softball Game11:30 AM Picnic Lunch1:30 PM Dillard Guard Performance2:00 PM Graduation Parade4:30 PM Reception at Careby Hall7:00 PM Awards Program in Wicker Chapel Followed by aReception in the Dining HallThursday, May 25 th10:30 AM Middle School Graduation in the Wicker ChapelJohn E. Jackson, Jr.Lt. Gen., USAF (Ret.)President

The Bayonet 2 May, 2006Headmaster’s MessageIt is hard to believe that this year has finally come to a close. Through all of the successes and heartaches that have beenexperienced, we have grown as individuals and as a community. I wish the graduating eighth grade class much successas you continue your academic journey into high school. I am confident that you have been provided the skills necessaryto be life-long searchers of knowledge. To those sixth and seventh graders who will be returning to us, I congratulate youon a job well done, and I look forward to seeing you in the fall, ready to assume positions of leadership within the MiddleSchool Corps of Cadets.On behalf of the Middle School faculty and staff, I offer my heart-felt appreciation to the parents, relatives, and friends ofour cadets who have demonstrated such great support during the course of the year. We could not have accomplished ourmission without your support and cooperation.Have a great summer, and I hope to see all of you in August!LTC Robert FeathersHeadmasterMiddle SchoolEXCELLENT CONDUCTThe following cadets were awarded ExcellentConduct for the year.Congratulations!Joe BeckleyRussell BodineJosh ColliluoriPierce FirthMax HerediaZach JonesHyun KangDan McMurtrieGene McVeyDavid MerialdoDan MurphyJohn NashThomas O’ConnellMark ShumanAdam Welsh

The Bayonet 3 May, 2006A Message from the CommandantIt’s hard to believe that within days the 2005-2006 school year will be drawing to a close. September seems like it was amillion years ago, and May 25 th couldn’t get here fast enough. Just yesterday you were learning to shine shoes, make abed, fold clothes and keep your room clean. You began to learn things that will serve you throughout your life: honor,courage and discipline. Sometimes these lessons came easy, other times they tested the mettle of your soul. It has been atough year, but you made it. You persevered through and now you can take some time to relax. One thing is for certain,you experienced a whole new way of life at FUMA. Keep close to you the lessons that you learned and carry them homewith you this summer. Have a great one, be careful and thank your Mom and Dad for all they have done for you.MAJ Bill BlanchettiCommandant, Middle SchoolCONGRATULATIONSCADETS OF QUALITY!Joe BeckleyRussell BodineJosh ColliluoriPierce FirthMike GaylorMarcus Hampton-GayleTré HardawayMax HerediaSamuel HwangBlake JonesZach JonesHyun KangDan McMurtrieGene McVeyDavid MerialdoTravis MildeDan MurphyJohn NashAtta NasirThomas O’ConnellDaniel StoldtMark ShumanAdam WelshBy Michael MathisOn Wednesday May 17, 2006 there will be aCadets of Quality trip. The trip is paid for by the school andhappens each semester. The trip is for cadets who showthe qualities that the faculty and staff look for in a cadet.Some of these qualities are good academics, athletics andconduct.The cadets on the trip will be going to dinner anda movie. Dinner will be CiCi's pizza and the movie will beMission Impossible III. The cadets will leave the schoolaround 4:00 p.m. and arrive back on campus around 9:00p.m. It is a good chance for cadets to get off campus andenjoy some good food and a movie.The cadets that will be attending the Cadets ofQuality trip have worked hard to be a Cadet of Quality.They deserve their own little trip off campus and some timeto enjoy themselves. I am glad that the faculty and stafforganize a trip for these distinguished cadets.

The Bayonet 6 May, 2006Sports Wrap-upLacrosseBy Tré HardawayLacrosse didn’t have the best year but we werereally playing hard and practicing hard. Weactually did pretty well for a team of newcomers.Personally, my favorite game was the last gameagainst St. Christopher’s School. We were playingour hearts out. Towards the end of the game, weplayed especially hard and were crushing theopponent with lacrosse sticks. But we ended uplosing and, although we weren’t happy, we weren’ttoo sad because we had a blast all season long.By André MaloufThe lacrosse team for the 2005-2006 school year hada losing season of 2-4. Fifty-seven cadets tried out forthe team but not more than thirty-five players made theteam. Three of them were goalies. We ended theseason with about thirty-three players, but we allenjoyed playing together as a team. There were somegames where we didn’t have the spirit as a team. Butwhen we look back on the season, we all know that if itwasn’t the team or the experience, many of us wouldjust not be the same. On behalf of the team, I want tothank Coach Vanmoerkerque for all his helpthroughout the season and for encouraging us not togive up.

The Bayonet 7 May, 2006Sports Continued….BaseballBy Vachon AbramsThis year our baseball team had a prettygood season. We ended up losing moregames than we won but we had our goodtimes too. The head coach was CPT Coxand the assistant coach was LTCWashington. They were really greatcoaches. During the season we had threewins. We beat Collegiate twice andFluvanna once. The team consists offourteen players. Our pitchers were BrandonMurphy, Michael Mathis and, last but notleast, Patrick Spangler. The one big problemwe had this year was keeping ourselves offE.D. We probably would have won a couplemore games than we did if all our teammateshad practiced more together.By Adam ManningThe baseball team had an okay season. Wefinished with three wins. At least we won acouple of games. I think our biggest problemwas having players who were not at practice.We needed to go into each game as a team,but this didn’t always happen. Before one ofour games, Coach told us to play like it wouldbe our last chance to play on that field and itended up that it actually was. We weresupposed to have two more games after that,but they got cancelled due to rain. So,unfortunately, it really was our last chance toplay and we didn’t even know it. Coach Coxand LTC Washington were good coaches andthey taught me some things I didn’t knowbefore.

The Bayonet 8 May, 2006Last Will and TestamentI, Joe Beckley, leave to my roommate, Nash, the Burger King crown and the noodle. I leaveFirth my laundry skills. I also thank you faculty and staff for helping me through the past two years.I, Chris Butz, give my thanks to CPT Vanmoerkerque for preparing me for high school. He’sdone more than he knows. FUMA has done a lot for me although at times it was hard. In the end, ithelped me in so many ways.I, Kevin Clough, leave to Marshal Wiley my lacrosse skills. He needs them badly. I leave toany new cadets good luck; they’ll need it. I thank CPT Vanmoerkerque for being a great coach andteacher. I thank my mom, dad and all my friends who helped me through the year. Thanks a lot!I, Josh Colliluori, would like to thank my parents for helping me through the year. I would liketo send a shout out to all of my good friends: Daniel Clough, Daniel Sherlock, Kang, Mike Gaylor, theKoreans, Greg Sheneman and many more. CPT Vanmoerkerque and Mr. Benson are simply thebest. I thank God for helping me through this year too.“A life without laughter is a life not worth living.” ~AnonymousI, David Meraldo, leave next year’s football team my heart. I would like to give my thanks toCPT Keating.I, Travis Milde, leave to Nash my dragon riding skills; we all know he wants them. I alsoleave my magic carpet skills to Taylor Bailey. I give my thanks to CPT Keating. I want to thank mycoaches and wish everyone else a Merry Christmas!I, Harry Pagan, leave to Pierce Firth and John Nash my FUMA spirit. They can split it uphowever they want to. I thank all my teachers especially CPT Vanmoerkerque, my advisor, and CPTKeating, my best Boston Mass/New England teacher yet. But truly, FUMA has been a life changingstage of my life, for the good, even though it is annoying at times. I know that it is all for the better.Lastly, I want to thank LTC Feathers and MAJ Blanchetti for being there for me all three years, goodor bad. Thank you EVERYONE!“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”~Abraham LincolnI, Daniel Sherlock, leave anyone who is goalie next year, my lacrosse goalie skills; we allknow he needs them, CPT V.I, Adam Welsh, would like to thank MAJ Blanchetti for helping me this year, along with LTCFeathers and CPT Keithley, and all of my other teachers.I, Ward Wiley, leave to little Kim my E.D. skills. I also leave my ability to ruin CPT Keating’sday to all of the seventh graders. Last, but not least, I leave my common sense to Tanner.I, Mark Shuman, leave my basketball skills to the faculty for next year’s faculty/cadetbasketball game so, hopefully, they don’t get embarrassed again by the Middle School basketballteam.

The Bayonet 9 May, 2006I, André Malouf, want to thank the entire Middle School faculty for their support. I want to thankcoaches Vanmoerkerque, Balhoff and Feathers for helping us and encouraging us to do our best. I wantto thank LTC Washington for teaching me how important it is to love math. CPT Garriss, thank you for allyour support and for your friendship. I hope you have fun in Roatán! Mrs. Barber, thanks for all the funtimes we had in the exploratory. No hay palabras suficientes para agradecerle a mi madre, a mi padre,ni a mi abuelo Piero por darme la oportunidad de venir a FUMA. Jaime, mi hermano, Nella, mi hermana,Joaquín, mi segundo padre, Renzo, mi tío, Paolo, mi otro tío, Cristina, mi tía, y última en la lista peroprimera en mi corazón, mi magra magrisima, Chelita linda te adoro, gracias por todo su apoyo, todosustedes, durante estos dos años y espero seguir teniéndolo durante los próximos 4 años de HighSchool en FUMA. Gracias, Steven, Karen, Alexis, Ashley, Valentina, y Lucca por quererme tanto yaceptarme en su casa por dos semanas. ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡VIVA GUATEMAL!!!!! ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡Que el verano se prepare,porque allí voy!!!!!!!!!!I, Doug Shotwell, leave to Nash my position of rank so that he can perform on the main stage.I thank all FUMA Middle School faculty for giving me an opportunity to see my potential and make myselfbetter spiritually, mentally and physically. I want to thank my family for helping me and supporting methese past two years. Thank you and God bless.DramaBy Doug ShotwellOn May 2, the 3rd period drama class performed theirplay. The performance was really good. The play was about aprince who had a craving for adventure. The prince’s father didnot want him to have a craving and hired two pirates to kidnaphim. The two pirates are not the smartest pirates of the bunch.They couldn’t find a way to take him and then they finally did. Itwas funny how the pirates couldn’t get him and struggled to findhim. When they did kidnap him, they were very happy becausethey got two bags of gold. During the play though, one of thepirates felt sorry for the prince and gave him marshmallows. Theprince had not ever done anything fun and wanted to go out anddo so. The play was really funny and I can’t wait to see the 4thperiod play.By Vachon AbramsIn drama Mrs. Sherk allows cadets to either write a play or useone she already has. This grading period, a group of 7 thgraders consisting of Vachon Abrams, Adam Manning, ToryLatimer, Tré Hardaway, Yuvraj Taneja, and Alex Florence usedone of the plays she had and turned it into a better one. Theplay was called Goldmine Comedy Club. It took a lot of work toremember the lines, and if you were there, you would know wehad a few mistakes during the performance. In the plot, thecharacters were performing at a comedy club except for onepair that was trying to rob the place. In the end, they didn’t getaway with it. The best part of being in drama and doing a playis after you finish the play, when you get to bow in front of thecrowd that is applauding you.

The Bayonet 10 May, 2006Science ClassBy Michael SmithIn science class we have beenexploring plant life and learning how plantsfunction. It is actually a lot more interesting thanone may think. We are learning how theyreproduce and survive and all of their differentparts. Right now we are performing anexperiment. We are growing peppers in class tomonitor their growth progress. The peppers arestill only a few inches tall, but soon we hopethey will be fully grown plants.The way CPT Balhoff teaches really helps usunderstand all of the material. He uses modelsso we can actually see the different parts. So farthe class has gone well and I think we have alllearned more than we ever thought we couldabout plants. At least there is a lot more toplants than I ever thought!As for what the future holds, I’m not sure, but bythe way things are headed now, I’m sure it willbe interesting.By Michael SmithDuring my first period science class, wewere watching a movie and, all of a sudden, LTCGiszack walked into the class with a bag. Then heasked everyone if they knew what dry ice was. Mostof us did, but not many of us had never seen orhandled it before. So he opened up the bag andgrabbed a pair of tongs and pulled out a small chunkof the dry ice.He explained all about the physicalcomposition of it and told us that it is really fun tomess with, but you have to be careful because if it isin your hand for too long, it can possibly causefrostbite. He even showed us that if you put the dryice in a glass of water, it will boil because the ice willgo through a process called sublimation and thewater sort of boiled and a thick fog came out of theglass.It was really a surprise to see LTC Giszackwalk into the class with the experiment, but it was agood surprise. I had never seen dry ice like thatbefore, much less know anything scientific about it!

The Bayonet 12 May, 2006By Josh ColliluoriSpring DanceAAH! Spring…what a nostalgic time. Your finger lodged in your eye, and your nose running like a faucet. But,it’s not all bad, is it?All the nervous cadets, including me, were sitting at a table talking to the other guys, not willing to embarrassourselves in front of the girls. For a while, all we did was nervously talk and try to encourage ourselves. Finallysome brave, crazy guys and girls, too, stepped onto the dance floor. Everyone seeing the spark of electricitycame out on the dance floor. Once or twice the girls ran off when we came out (sigh).After a while, even the most timid guys and girls stepped up. In a valiant attempt, I tried to break dance to getpeople up and moving, but I got more laughs than dancers. The music certainly added to the mood of thedance, even if it was MC Hammer! Ha, just kidding. I danced so much that I had to sit down for a while. I’msure we aren’t keeping score of how many people we danced with, but ah, yep, I think I won.The dance was great. Everybody had fun. But first you’ve got to get in the groove and then you can relax andhave fun. The Thomas Gym was transformed into the dance area, lights, projector and all. Thanks toeverybody who helped set up, and thanks to our “incapable” DJ’s. You know I’m joking, Moss and Merle.

The Bayonet 13 May, 2006By Tyler WilsonOn Saturday, May 6th, Mr. Benson, CPT Cox, CPTKeithley and CPT Balhoff took ten cadets to RichmondInternational Raceway to see the Crown Royal 400. Wearrived at about 12:00 p.m. and walked a mile to the racetrack. Some cadets immediately bought souvenirs with thetwenty-five dollars they had been given. We walked aroundto the different activities before lunch.The most popular attraction we went to wasprobably the Army racing team's attraction. There we wereable to ride in motion simulators, rotate the tires of a stockcar and climb a mountain wall. Afterwards we walked toThe Green Flag Club to get free souvenirs and eat lunch.We ate chicken, macaroni and cheese, soda, and dessert.After eating lunch, we made our way to the pits.There the cadets got photos and autographs of theirfavorite race team. At about 6:45 p.m., we went to ourseats. We sang the National Anthem which was followedby a fly-by of four F-16’s. At 7:00 p.m., the race started.There were quite a few accidents during the race, but DaleEarnhardt, Jr. came through with the win. We had a greattime and would like to thank Mr. Higgins for sponsoring thetrip.By Yuvraj TanejaCPT Cox, CPT Keithley, CPT Balhoff, and Mr. Benson,took a group of cadets to watch a race at the RichmondRaceway. About ten to fifteen cadets went on the trip.We were all excited to see the race and for some it wasour first time ever to go to a race. We all got a hat, ashirt and a lot of souvenirs. By the time the race wasabout to begin, we were craving for some action. Duringthe race, a car blew out and caught on fire and theRainbow Warrior, Jeff Gordon, was having somedifficulties with his car. Gordon came in last and DaleEarnhardt, Jr. came in first. I think it was a goodexperience for all of us. We would like to thank Mr.Higgins for making the trip possible and for all thesouvenirs, food and tickets.

The Bayonet 14 May, 2006New York TripBy André MaloufLTC Feathers and CPT Garriss took a group ofMiddle School Cadets to New York City forthree nights and four days. I had the privilegeto go along with them. We departed fromCharlottesville at 8 a.m. and didn’t get to theairport in Newark, New Jersey until five o’clockin the evening. We rode a bus for hours. It wasboring but we got to know each other better.When we got to the airport, a tour guide by thename of Richard took us around the city for thenext few days. A group from a school inAugusta, Kentucky also joined us during thosedays. We went to Chinatown, Times Square,took a walk through Central Park, visited theEmpire State Building, the MetropolitanMuseum of Art and many other places. Wedefinitely had a blast!Washington D.C. TripBy Mrs. BarberThe D.C. trip on May 22 was one to remember.We boarded the busses at 8 a.m. and settled infor a long ride before reaching our NationsCapital. Once we arrived, we divided intogroups and went our separate ways. Our grouppaired up with CPT Garriss’s group and off wewent. First, we went through the Smithsonian’sAir and Space Museum. After seeing what wecould there, we went in search of something toeat. After lunch we spent the rest of theafternoon going through the Aquarium, theNatural History Museum and walking around tosee the Washington Monument and the WorldWar II memorial. By the end of the day, wewere all getting tired and were glad to beheading back to the bus. We boarded the busaround 5 p.m. and headed to Spotsylvania toget some dinner before coming back to FUMA.We had a great trip and would like to thank all ofthose who made it possible.

The Bayonet 15 May, 2006Senior SuperlativesMost AthleticMichael MathisMost IntellectualMost Likely to SucceedDaniel McMurtrieMost DependableBest CadetJoe BeckleyBest OfficerTravis MildeBest All AroundDoug ShotwellClass ClownTyler AllenBest Christian AttitudeMost CourteousFriendliestJosh CollilouriLoudestSpencer HurteauBest Inspection RoomLogan WhiteTeacher’s PetAndré MaloufMost OutgoingBrandon Murphy

The Bayonet 16 May, 2006Best Shined ShoesJared Wines and Seong Yong SeongE.D. MVPHayden LeishmanBest Military AppearanceAdam WelshHappy Birthday to You!AprilMay2 ....... Adam Welsh4 ....... Spencer Hurteau6 ....... CW2 Patterson6 ....... Edward Hartless13 ....... Daniel Stoldt14 ....... Tyler Wilson20 ....... Kevin Clough23 ....... John Nash24 ....... Zach Emery3 ....... Jonathan Higgins3 ....... Mark Frezzell5 ....... Mr. Benson13 ....... Frank Del Giudice23 ....... Jonathan Evoy23 ....... CPT Vanmoerkerque27 ....... Mr. Jackson31 ....... Alfonso ChavezJuneJuly1 ....... Josh Campbell6 ....... CPT Keithley6 ....... Tory Latimer10 ....... Jared Wines14 ....... Zach Jones17 ....... CPT Miller26 ....... CPT Cox26 ....... Seong Yong Seong27 ....... Samuel Hwang29 ....... David Metzger30 ....... Russell Bodine1 ....... Greg Sheneman3 ....... Blake Jones5 ....... Yuvraj Taneja6 ....... CPT Garriss7 ....... Benjamin Leonard9 ....... Kyle Persinger12 ....... Patrick Spangler17 ....... Mrs. Barber17 ....... CPT Keating17 ....... Daniel Sherlock30 ....... David Merialdo