After racing the mile at 4:56, Freshman Jonathan Eastlund scored a personal best, beating his previous score of 4:58. Eastlund, a varsity runner, typically runs the 800 meter and the mile, his most recent time on the 800 being 2:10. Eastlund’s improvements resulted from strenuous practices and vigilant coaches.

“Workouts are tough,” said Eastlund. “Knutson is pretty hard on us, but he cares. He knows what he’s doing to make us better.”

Eastlund puts his efforts at practice to the test at meets. Even with his experiences competing in soccer, Eastlund still finds starting a race challenging.

“I do get nervous before races–I get this feeling in my stomach,” said Eastlund. “You always have a time goal that you want to get.”

In order to cope, Eastlund has developed different methods to calm his nerves before and during a race. Before he runs, Eastlund makes himself yawn, a method that releases calming endorphins. While he runs, Eastlund likes to think of different songs, particularly techno. In addition to these tricks, Eastlund drives himself to do well with a competitive attitude.

“The best feeling is when you’re in a race and you see someone that’s just about where you are,” said Eastlund. “You just want to beat them. It’s a pretty good feeling when you do.”

Eastlund hopes to continue doing well and help the team win the Mississippi 8 Conference Championship for the ninth year in a row. He has found mentors to look up to and model himself after to complete this goal.

“[I look up to] Dan Pettit and Bo,” said Eastlund. “They’re  pretty fast, and they never complain. I want to be like Dan when I am his age.”

Eastlund’s coaches support him as he makes an effort to attain his goal. Although Eastlund hasn’t yet thought about a college career in running, he has the rest of his high school career to continue to improve.

“John’s a rockstar for a freshman,” said Long Distance Assistant Coach Rachel Busch. ”He has a lot of potential and he will have a lot of fun tapping into that his next three years.”

“Honestly, I felt a bit doubtful because it seemed unlikely that he would answer, but he did,” said Voeller, “I knew that it if we didn’t talk to him soon, he’d eventually be too famous to contact. He is the CEO of a fantastic website and he had great things to say.”

Dozens of BHS students are among the site’s first 60,000 members.

Metcalfe agreed to Skype with the students after they sent the message, requesting that Metcalfe speak with students interested in learning from a professional.

His response read: “We’d be delighted to talk about the messy process of making things simple.”

Journalism teacher Ryan McCallum had previously been making an effort to teach his students that same concept. After the district web filter blocked off Tumblr.com, McCallum searched for another site that his students could draw inspiration from.

When he discovered Jux.com, he shared it with his students, using it to discuss and evaluate the importance of design. After the class spent time creating accounts, exploring the site’s capabilities, and using elements of its design as inspiration, they made the effort to further their learning by contacting the CEO.

“I walked into the room and screamed because I was so excited,” said Sansevere, “I had been looking forward to it all weekend because I was really excited to talk to someone who was in charge of such a creative outlet of awesomeness.”

Approximately 35 students, some of which were not a part of McCallum’s class, attended the extra curricular meeting. The conference served more as a discussion as Metcalfe responded to student questions. During the discussion Metcalfe shared the purpose of Jux.com.

“We’re more focused on building a product that meets the needs of creators,” said Metcalfe. “Let’s make something fast, simple and easy to work with. We want people to be able to share and create easily.”

IDEA BEHIND JUX.COM

“We actually started with a different idea. That’s how it usually goes with start ups, right?”

NAME OF “JUX”

“We really liked the idea of what juxtaposition came from–the notion of creativity.”

DESIGN OF JUX.COM

“It’s always a work in progress. We’re trying to do something that we don’t think other people do so much, which is a mix of application and media.”

JUX APP

“The answer is yes and no… It’s a different skill set, so we are going to hire and build that up later in the summer.”

SIZE OF JUZ TEAM

“Seven people right now… It’s pretty common to get to market in a lean fashion.”

METCALFE’S HISTORY

“My background is not typical for the team. My background is in design and advertising.”

ADVERTISING

“By no means are we going to stick banner ads on peoples work.”

USER COUNT

“From a user count perspective we have 65,000 jux users. From a creation perspective we’ve got about 3,500 posts each month.”

FEATURED CONTENT

“Manual Curation… The best way is to look through it, pick what’s inspiring, pick a mix, keep it light.”

“Our goal for this blood drive is 148 units,” said Bergquist “We have 175 students signed up to donate blood and the Red Cross is giving us more staff this time.”

175 upperclassmen joined teachers, administration, and staff members in donating blood. According to America’s blood centers website, (americasblood.org) an average of 4.5 million American’s need a blood transfusion each year.

“I think it’s a good way to help people out that really need it,” said Skarin. “I think anybody that’s able to donate blood should do it.”

Because this blood drive is being held while there are not any sports in progress, it has attracted new donors. Senior Tim Skarin, who was unable to donate at the Fall drive, was able to donate at the spring drive.

“I couldn’t donate blood the time before because of football,” said Skarin, “but I have had blood taken before, so its not a big deal to me.”

Story by Jay Mason and Nicholas Swearingen –  Graphics by Valerie Ostvig

Although no one from the class of 2012 won the National Merit Scholar award, students were notified throughout the month of February that they had won other awards. Senior Liza Davis has already been notified of her status as a Commended Scholar.

“I was excited and surprised,” said Davis. “I was really happy when I found out I got even that far.”

Juniors applying for next year will have to go through the same process as Davis, which includes a four-step application, competing with students all over the world. After applying, the 50,000 highest scorers on the PSAT will qualify for recognition. Two thirds of the qualifying students will be recognised as a Commended Scholar. Though students recognised as commended scholars do not continue in the competition they will still qualify for special scholarships. Of the students not recognized, approximately 16,000 will move on to be semifinalists. Semi finalists will then be judged based on PSAT score and overall academic achievement. 15000 finalists will then be chosen–one percent of the the students that applied–and from that group the winners will be selected.

Junior Michael Hank, along with other Juniors, will be attempting to follow his brothers footsteps by applying for the 2013 NMSC scholarship. He will be competing with other high PSAT scoring students with GPA’s in the 99th percentile.

“[The competition] is a little worrisome because I know I got around the top one percent, but it’s close,” said Michael Hank. “I’m not so sure.”