The Sentinel

Softball vs. College of Southern Idaho

garrett cabeza — Fri, 17 May 2013 05:49:06 +0000

Softball vs. Salt Lake

garrett cabeza — Fri, 17 May 2013 05:39:31 +0000

Softball vs. College of Southern Idaho

garrett cabeza — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:06:09 +0000

Softball vs. Snow College

garrett cabeza — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:03:45 +0000

Skipper’s hard work leads to success

benaiah cheevers — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:52:30 +0000

Despite a disappointing fall season last semester, North Idaho College golfer Spencer Skipper has adjusted and improved his game, making him one of NIC’s top competitors for the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) National Championship May 12-17 at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas.

Skipper, a 20-year-old sophomore from Coeur d’Alene is studying business administration.

He grew up playing golf with his father, Steve, who has taught him a lot about the game.

Spencer said he always went to the driving range with his dad when he was younger, but he didn’t begin playing golf competitively until his freshman year at Lake City High School.

“My dad has been the one who has mostly helped me get to where I am today in golf and in life,” Skipper said. “I’ve also had a couple of swing instructors who have helped me with my game, but I’ve mostly learned everything from my dad.”

Spencer said he and the men’s and women’s teams practice every day.

“I’m out here on the Avondale Golf Course every day, and if I’m not out here, I’m at the Coeur d’Alene Public Golf Course by myself practicing,” Skipper said. “I’m usually out practicing every day for at least a couple of hours.”

Spencer said his favorite course to play is the Coeur d’Alene Public Golf Course, but that the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course is obviously very fun to play on.

“Spencer has improved greatly since he began playing for us,” said head coach Derrick Thompson. “Even though he struggled in the fall, he’s played so well lately here in the spring.”

Skipper said he is considering a few different schools to transfer and play golf.

“Right now, if I had to choose which school to go to I’d probably go to William Penn University in Iowa, but I’m not decided on any school yet. I’m going to wait and see how the national tournament goes.”

Skipper said he wants to play golf professionally if he can make it.

“Golf has really helped me get a good start on my higher education and if I have more opportunities to keep playing golf, especially as a career, then I definitely will,” Skipper said. “If I can play at a higher level after college then I’ll definitely see if I can accomplish my dream of playing on the PGA Tour.”

Skipper said he’s faced a few challenges to get where he is today.

“I’ve gone through some slumps,” Skipper said. “I played terrible this last fall, and that kind of screwed me over from going to a NCAA Division I school because many Division I schools are finished recruiting by the end of the fall season. I played so bad that no one even wanted me, but I came into the spring season with a positive mindset. I didn’t put too much pressure on myself to find a school to transfer to and I just went out and played.”

Bright future for Coleman

benaiah cheevers — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:37:20 +0000

North Idaho College golfer Arlee Coleman has high hopes for the women’s National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) National Championship at the Longbow Golf Course in Mesa, Ariz., May 13-16.

Coleman is a 19-year-old sophomore from Chewelah, Wash. She’s studying business communications and pursuing a career in medical sales.

She has been on top of her game this spring season and is hoping to play well at nationals.

Earlier this spring, Coleman shot rounds of 87, 86 and 87 to earn an eighth place finish at the College of Idaho Invitational at River Bend Golf Course in Wilder, Idaho. The women finished seventh with a three-round total of 1122.

The women battled through difficult conditions for all three rounds. The temperatures were in the 40s and the winds were gusting up to 40 mph.

North Idaho doesn’t always host the nicest weather for golfing, but that hasn’t stifled the NIC men’s or women’s teams, especially Coleman from doing well this year.

Coleman said she initially wasn’t planning on attending NIC.

“I was initially considering playing volleyball in Seattle, but my mother has Multiple Sclerosis so I really wanted to go somewhere much closer to home,” Coleman said. “I called (head coach Derrick Thompson) to ask if he had a spot on the women’s team. He ended up recruiting me and I signed, which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made because I love it here in Coeur d’Alene. I love everything about NIC.”

Coleman said the biggest factor in deciding to attend NIC was that it’s only about an hour and a half away from her hometown.

“I’m so glad I did come to NIC because the town is excellent and you can’t find a better place to go to school,” Coleman said. “I’ve made many great friends and it has been fun to play at the Avondale Golf Course, one of the nicest courses in the Coeur d’Alene area. This is just the town you want to be in. I tell everyone to come here because it’s great.”

Coleman said she lived on the golf course her whole life. She said she was torn between playing softball and golf but her parents encouraged her to pursue golf. Coleman placed fourth at state her junior year of high school.

“My dad is a big golfer,” Coleman said. “He’s not very good but he’s been playing for a long time. My family and I were the second people to build a home upon the Chewelah golf course, so I’ve been playing ever since I was a little girl. My family and I lived right by the second green on the golf course.”

Coleman said she and her family would have family passes to the Chewelah golf course each year so she was fortunate to be able to play often.

“My younger brother, Carson, and I would always have rivalry games because he’s just a year younger than I am,” Coleman said. “I started beating my dad during my sophomore or junior year of high school and now when we play I beat him by about 15 strokes each round.”

Coleman said she’s received not only a lot of help from Thompson, but the NIC men’s golf team has really helped her improve her game.

Coleman is continuing on to the University of Northern Colorado next year. She verbally committed about two weeks ago. She said she hasn’t signed yet because head coach Brandon White of Northern Colorado and the university haven’t decided on an exact dollar amount to provide for her scholarship offer yet, but that she will most likely have a partial scholarship her junior year and a full-ride her senior year.

“I have a lot of family members who live in Colorado so that was a big part of my decision to commit to there,” Coleman said. “I had some serious mental problems with my golf game during my freshman year at NIC. I would sometimes just be crying on the golf course so I spent a lot of time this last summer working on my mental game and I kind of came around. This year I’ve had some much better scores with lower rounds and I think it’s just because my head game is much better and I’ve matured quite a bit in my game.”

Coleman said that she hopes she and her team play their best at nationals this year.

“Last year I didn’t play very well,” Coleman said. “I kind of choked and so hopefully this year I can finish well and earn myself a good spot. As a team, hopefully all of our girls can perform well and it’d be nice to be within the top 10 as a team.”

Student art takes over Boswell corner gallery

tyson juarez — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:37:50 +0000

On the evening of April 16, a crowd of students, artists, and art-lovers gathered in Boswell Hall. There they stood talking cheerily with each other about the art process, the logistics of taking good photographs, and simply musing about life and the never-ending complexities while helping themselves to coffee and cookies.
It was the opening reception for the latest exhibition to grace the walls of Corner Gallery. The work, which is usually created by professional working artists, now features the original pieces of NIC art students. The work displayed was created sometime over the course of this academic year in one or more of the numerous art classes the college has to offer.
A wide variety of can be seen in the gallery; from graphite drawings and oil paintings to photos and ceramic sculptures, the pieces chosen epitomize the range in talent from NIC art students. Much of the work in the exhibition can be described as abstract, their subject matter pertaining to either a figure that is heavily distorted or reminiscent of nothing of this physical world. Other common subjects in the work included landscapes, both photographed and drawn, as well as collages.
Every piece entered into the student art show was judged by a local professional artist. Kensie Lovlyn’s graphite piece entitled “Behind the Mask” took first place. “The Kiss,” a brightly colored abstract oil painting by Rebecca Clement, took second place, and Leasa Harmon’s untitled collage won Best in Show.
“I love this year’s gallery,” said Harmon, whose total of eight pieces are being displayed in her first student art show. “It’s very different from last year’s show, but all the work is so great.”
“It’s a great opportunity for the artists,” Harmon added.
The gallery is open and free to the public, weekdays 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and will run until May 10th.

Students take part in faculty member’s creation

tyson juarez — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:36:07 +0000

As the lights dimmed in the Schuler Performing Arts Center, the crowd grew quiet and watched the stage as the cosmic dance “SYM: A Dramatic Dance Symphony” began. “SYM” is a performance written and composed by NIC music instructor Gerard Mathes featuring the direction of Crystal Bain and Joe Jacoby.
Strongly tied to philosophy, each movement in the performance flows through a particular, and often quantum, idea. The first movement, “Creation,” opens slowly with a gentle dance and piercing operatic harmony from Bonnie Mitson, Teri Grubbs and Alyssa Maurer before seamlessly moving into a lively song entitled “The Big Bang” primarily featuring the vocals of Gustave Lester.
As the performance went on, a strange and witty sense of humor could be seen cultivating at times where humor would seem irreconcilable but nevertheless adds to the ingenuity of Mathes unique writing. The piece “Jabberwocky,” based on a poem written by Lewis Carroll, for instance, featured David Mills wildly laughing and jumping around stage like a demented madman, chaotically yelling seemingly-incoherent ramblings before picking up his violin and playing it wickedly. It was the musing of madness that could not but help garner some laughter of sorts from the audience.
Amid the chaos and nonsense of the Big Bang and the Jabberwocky the performance took a change of pace in the second movement to explain the creation of the game of chess. The cast was now found onstage together, dressed in medieval garb standing perfectly still. Each of the characters only moved on cue in a thoroughly specific manner, as if being guided by the spectral force of an invisible and omniscient chess player. With each cue the narrator gave further detail of the game’s history. This all occurred as the music melodically droned on and two characters sat in chair in various postures, repeatedly spouting off cycles of numbers.
The performance picked up pace once again for the third movement which paired the nature of quantum physics with tango dancing as Jacoby sat off on the side of the stage fiddling with an oversized ball of string. The entire movement, which is entitled “Philosophies Scientific (Quantum Physic and Schrodinger’s Cat,)” revolved constantly around the idea that a cat trapped in a box with a decaying radioactive substance and hydrocyanic acid is in the state of being both alive and dead until someone opens the box.
The symphony comes to a close in the fourth movement “The Rise and Fall,” a movement that was strongly influenced by the paintings “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, “Son of Man” by René Magritte, and “The Fall of Icarus.” The dancers onstage, who began the scene sitting still in chairs now struck poses and lifted each other as Alyssa Maurer sang elegantly. As the music continued the dancers slowly rise and then begin to fall as the paintings projected onto the wall of the auditorium change. Hauntingly chaotic singing pierced the melancholy nature of the movement as the dance continues. The shadows of the dancers moving rhythmically like volatile phantoms on the backdrop of the stage.
The song ended with each dancer leaving the stage one by one and taking a seat in the audience, leaving only Maurer onstage singing operatically before the room grows silent and lights dissolve into darkness.

The Game Guru: Xbox creates new pizza hut app.

tyson juarez — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:34:17 +0000

As if obesity wasn’t an issue in the United States, Xbox and Pizza Hut have joined forces and now you can order pizza right from the comfort of your Xbox. Utilizing the Kinect sensor, gamers can speak their order, use gestures, or just rely on the good old controller to place an order. Since you tell Microsoft your address and credit card number when you sign up for Xbox Live, putting your order in is as easy as (pizza) pie.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how this would be any more convenient than just picking up your phone and ordering it. I mean, since it’s a system application, this means you would have to quit your game to launch the app, rather than just hitting pause to pick up the phone. Even if you don’t feel like talking to anyone to order your pizza, you can already pick up your smart-phone or tablet, or just log on to your computer and order online without speaking to anyone except the guy or gal that delivers your cheesy deliciousness.
Microsoft isn’t the first company to use games to aid in your quest for hot, fresh pizza. Back in 2005, Sony put a pizza-ordering function into Everquest II, and in 2009 they added a shortcut to Papa John’s on the PS3’s web browser. According to the release, this is the first tangible item to be available through the Xbox 360; however Forbes magazine predicts that in the long run, we could see more.
Perhaps what I am more interested in is another human interactive application known as IllumiRoom. Microsoft unveiled the new technology at CES. IllumiRoom is an augmented reality projector unit that sits on the user’s coffee table and extends gaming onto nearby walls. The current prototype utilizes a Kinect sensor and a projector. The Kinect reads the geometry and colors of the room, and the projector displays all the visuals around the TV.
There are a variety of ways that IllumiRoom can enhance the quality of your gaming by extending the game from your TV out onto the walls, highlighting key items or other players that are off screen or just simply highlighting elements of the game, such as gunfire or explosions. With IllumiRoom, things can appear to actually fall from your TV onto the floor.
Although it is speculated that the new technology will be implemented into the Xbox 720, I guess we will have to wait until the May 21 event regarding the next generation console, or at E3 which starts in June.

Summer trip may build character, change lives

tyson juarez — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:32:12 +0000

On May 17, 20 NIC students will be in-route to the Central American country of Guatemala. For two weeks the students will take part in a Spanish cultural immersion program in the historic city of Antigua, a place known for its prolific and well-preserved colonial architecture.
Over the course of their stay, the students will reside with a Guatemalan family and immerse themselves completely into the local culture, speaking no English and studying for four hours a day every day. Out of the 20 students that are going to Guatemala, 11 are taking the course for “Contemporary World Cultures” credit through NIC.
As the second trip of this nature to Guatemala, this will be the first time this course will be taken for credit. Students were given $1,500 in financial aid specifically for the program.
“What better a place to go to for a Spanish cultural course than Guatemala?” said NIC Spanish instructor Scott Estes.
“Just getting to experience another culture will be the coolest thing,” said Corrine Ready, one of the students going on the trip. “I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household and, being gone so long, I’ve lost the ability to speak it fluently. I’m hoping doing this course will help me get it back.”
Aside from the educational purposes of the trip, the student are given the choice of taking optional excursions to further delve themselves into Guatemalan culture, such as watching locals keep alive traditional Mayan weaving processes and visiting a “coffee finca” where they cultivate coffee, one of the country’s largest exports.
The opportunity for volunteer work may be given to the students as well, such as tutoring and working with malnourished children.
“I’ve traveled all around the U.S.” said Joel Rade, another student going on the trip. “Being able to experience another culture makes people in another country a little more real. Instead of isolating ourselves like we tend to do, we can really understand each other as human beings.”