As students prepare for summer, they have some extensive summer plans.
Senior Qayyim Carr plans to take a trip to Ireland to attend the O’Carra family reunion. The event takes place during the first official week of summer break and will last one full week.
Carr said the reunion is an annual event “but in recent years my family hasn’t been able to go.”
Junior Ariel Sydes has been accepted into a summer training program at William Beaumont Hospital. She has been part of the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program at Oakland Schools Technical Campus, in Royal Oak, where she is learning the basic skills to become a certified nurse’s assistant, while still in high school.
“We had a choice of Providence or Beaumont Hospital, and luckily I got the job at Beaumont,” Sydes said.
Only the top five students in her program were offered that opportunity, Sydes said.
Sophomore Amber Cooper will enter the VIP Dance Competition this summer at Disney World, in Florida. She is a member of the Femmes Fatales dance group and performs hip hop, vogue and jazz routines. “I think our team has a fair chance at winning,” said Cooper, “because at regionals we got first overall and second for open categories, so I think we have what it takes.”
Fellow sophomore Sampson Ekom will be traveling in August with his AAU basketball team called the Eagles. “If we do well, we’ll be headed to Indiana.”
Sophomore Rayven Malone and junior Rachel Walker plan to attend a summer journalism camp at Michigan State University from July 26-30. Both want to study sports photography.
Walker says that while attending the camp, sponsored by the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, she expects to network with other high school journalists and take excellent motion pictures and stop-action photos.
More than 100 students in the Marching Band will be headed to a week-long summer band camp from August 2 – 8 at Camp Skyline in Almont, Michigan, which is in Lapeer County.
Band camp this year is in a different location than last year. It’s 45 minutes from Southfield High, which is closer than in past years. Band camp is $400 per student, which includes a jogging suit.
Band Director David Miller said he switched band camp locations this year because Skyline is cheaper and closer to home than the previous location, and chaperones do not have to pay, unlike previous years.