It is unfortunate that so many people have to worry about how they will feed their families for the holidays and throughout the whole year, but thanks in part to Iron Range Youth in Action and local Iron Range Food Shelves, many enjoyed a holiday meal. Every year Iron Range Youth in Action helps put on a Food Drive in schools around the area and all proceeds go to local food shelves to help give food to those that are without it for the holiday season. The Food Drives took place between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the following schools: Virginia, Mt. Iron/Buhl, Cherry, Chisholm, Ely, Mesabi East, Northeast Range, North Woods, South Ridge and Eveleth/Gilbert and also included their elementary schools. Students brought in non-perishable goods to their classrooms. All donated items were distributed to food shelves where or near the school was located. On top of giving food to the needy, students were also competing for a party, grades K-3, 4-5, and 7-12 and had friendly competition amongst themselves to see who could collect the most food.

In total, all the schools raised about 15,000 pounds of food. That is an amazing number collected by student. IRYA’s efforts definitely aided the food shelves during the Holiday season to help many needy families. After the food is collected, members of IRYA stop by the classrooms and pick up the food and bring it to local food shelves to be given out.

College can be an intimidating event in your life. You are away from home, on your own, stressed, and building up years of debt. But college is an experience that you will never forget, and will prepare you for a brighter future.

There are a lot of things you can do to limit college stress, and one of the biggest and the best is to apply for scholarships. Scholarships are great and can provide tremendous returns from an investment standpoint.

The Marshall H. and Nellie Alworth Scholarship is a $20,000 scholarship for students majoring in Mathematics or Science. Marshall Alworth, a very intelligent man, started Alworth Mining and Developing. Alworth held interest in many business ventures and owned several properties. Both Nellie and Marshall Alworth had no religious affiliation, but had many charitable enterprises. In 1949 a scholarship fund was created in honor of the Alworths by their son Marshall W. Alworth. Over $1.3 million will be given as scholarships to students throughout the Northland for the 2012-2013 academic year.

All students possibly considering going into careers of either science or mathematics should definitely fill out and return an application for the Alworth Scholarship. Even if you think there is no way you could be eligible for this award, it is worth your effort to apply. With applications such as these you never know who has entered and you should never sell yourself short or not apply because you think that there will be someone smarter or better suited for the scholarship.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” This quote by Margaret Mead basically exemplifies the basis on which America has grown since we decided our country would decide by voting. Whether we are voting for our next political leaders or whether we should amend the Constitution, that small group of citizens has been there campaigning, or petitioning, or even just voting for their cause. Without them, our country would progress little, if any, in comparison to the rate it has.

However, that small group can only push us so far. The rest of the responsibility of moving forward rests in the voters’ hands. It is the duty and privilege of American citizens to vote for what we want. In some countries, the citizens have no say whatsoever. Their leader is their leader; they live their life how they get told to. End of story. They live with the knowledge that they can’t change anything, even if they want to. That is why it is so important to make your voice heard and vote.

The other part of voting is gathering enough information to make an informed decision. If you don’t know as much as you can about what you are voting for, how can you be positive that you are making the right decision? It may sound like a daunting task, and at times it can be. Picking the core principles out of the jumble of information that seems to be flying by during election time can be entirely overwhelming, but with practice, anyone can become an informed citizen.

That is why Kids Voting was created. By having kids start voting at a young age, they start to understand what a ballot is and how to vote. As time progresses, the kids learn more about voting, and they start to gather information and form opinions. By the time they turn eighteen and can legally vote, they have a number of elections under their

Its that time of year again when all the creepy crawlies come out for eight nights of fright, that’s right the Field of Screams is back and on top with this being a new year of scare it happens to be the tours 10th birthday so the committee is looking to make this the best year yet. With scary and creepy monsters ranging from zombies to man eating clowns you are sure to be scared and running for the gates. I was fortunate enough to be one of the many people helping to try and make the Field of Scream’s 10th birthday the scariest tour of them all.

As if clowns weren’t already creepy enough as they are the kids in IRYA were able to show just how creepy a clown can be while also being able to wear some crazy masks, makeup, and clothing. As people got to the end of their tour they run into a clown jumping around, giggling in their faces, and worst of all blowing an air horn. While this is going on the people see a man or woman screaming and running from a clown as he tries to beat him or her. Then its into the building. As they come in they are greeted by a plastic hanging clown in the face than a crazy clown tells them where they are and what’s going on.

Then its on to the next room a black and white one where things aren’t what they seem. When the people walk in the room is full of smoke and strobe lights, but what they don’t know is that there are two clowns sitting in the corners of the room and before they realize this it’s too late and the clowns are in their faces. The last room is full of black lights and funky neon colors and

Did you know 30% of all teens have been involved in bullying- either as a bully, as a target, or both. Only 40% of teens report feeling lonely. More then 50 students in the past ten years have been killed in school shootings.

On February 22, 2012 a group of girls from MIB, including myself did a fantastic presentation, to over 60 students, on the many effects bullying has on people and the three main characters, The bully, the victim, and the witness. The bully is the person that has hurt someone physically, mentally, or verbally. The victim is the person who has been hurt or put down. The witness is the person who has watched someone being bullied. We adressed all three of the charecters throughout the entire presenation.

We chose the topic bullying because we felt it was the biggest thing going on in schools today and has gotten worse throughout the years. We wanted to make it known that bullies cause many young kids today to hurt themselves, hurt others, and even commit suicide. Within the last 10 years, there has been over 40 school shootings. One of the shootings that stand out the most is the one that occured at the Columbine highschool. Many students lost their lives because of those two boys being bullied. They had no one to turn to when the going got rough and they wanted to pay them bullies back. Just recently there was another shooting in Ohio because a kid was bullyied! This is not just "another shooting" its something that happens when bullying is to much for kids to handle!!

During the presentation we started off by introducing ourselves and what our presentation was about. We then proceded with facts just to introduce some of the things we would be covering. We followed up by showing a video made by teens for teens. In the video it stated many facts that are a part of everyday bullying. It also showed a video clip from the Columbine shooting and the phone call to the police. In the whole video it showed teens that were actually a part of a school shootings and how each of them wished they could have helped the people, and how they felt bad that they caused the guy so much harm. About every other person that showed in the video had something to say about how in each school they started in they felt like they needed to change just to make friends when in all reality the did not need to change one singe things about themselves. After the video, two of the girls explained that if you