Boys’ Basketball Produces Another Successful Season

Chris Morones was one of the seniors who excelled for the 2007-08 Mooseheart boys’ basketball team, which finished at 17-7.

> In some ways, there wasn’t much different about the 2007-08 Mooseheart boys basketball season from the previous season’s campaign.

But optimism reigned throughout the Ramblers 17-7 record, which was identical to its 2006-07 mark. Mooseheart won its playoff opener, as it did the previous season as well.

The Ramblers fell to host Westminster Christian in the Regional title game, failing to advance to the Sectional level of competition.

The Ramblers will miss talented seniors such as Floyd Mays, Mike Tovar and Chris Morones. But there is plenty of talent remaining on the roster, and some incredible athletes about to join the varsity. Mooseheart fans can hope for more success in 2008-09!

Mooseheart Girls End Long Playoff Drought With Postseason Win

Basheeba Mays (left) was one of the reasons Mooseheart’s girls won their first playoff game in 20 years.

> Good news just never stopped coming from the Mooseheart girls basketball camp this winter.

First, the team had more than 30 athletes from which to form its two squads. Then, the team showed marked improvement in its game-by-game results, culminating in a 10-12 regular season record.

The positive news was hardly done, however. In their first playoff game, the Ramblers defeated Illinois Lutheran and ended a 20-year playoff drought for the Rambler girls. Junior Kim Phillips sealed the victory with a three-point basket with just seconds to play.

Mooseheart fell to host Immaculate Conception in the Regional title game and the team finished the season with an 11-13 record.

But good feelings from a successful season remain, and a large number of this year’s varsity players return to try to improve even more for the 2008-09 campaign.

Tovar’s Strong Start Not Enough in Dunk Contest

Mike Tovar concluded his Mooseheart basketball career at the IHSA Slam Dunk Competition. Tovar dunked well, but failed to advance past the opening round.

> For the second consecutive season, Mooseheart’s boys’ basketball season ended – for one of its players – on the court of 11,500-capacity Carver Arena in Peoria.

But just as in 2007, Mike Tovar was unable to slam-dunk his way from the first round to the later rounds of the competition.

“I’m disappointed,” 6-2 senior Tovar said. “My legs are just really tired. We were all back here saying that we were going to do ‘this’ and we were going to do ‘this.’ And my legs just weren’t there.”

Through warm-ups and even through his first dunk at the IHSA’s Annual Slam Dunk Contest March 6, Tovar looked ready to perform and to thrill.

But after putting through a solid opening dunk in the opening routine of the 45-second competition, things began to unravel.

“I had a routine set down, and at the last second, I was changing it,” Tovar said. “I started changing things and then I ran out of time too.”

After struggling to make dunks following his opener, Tovar made sure to send through a second dunk – two dunks being the minimum to record a score for con-sideration by the judges.

“I knew I was going to get (the opening dunk),” Tovar said. “There was just so much more I wanted to do. I hit that one and my confidence went up. But it wasn’t enough.”

Tovar scored 25 points with his routine, good enough to score in the upper portion of Class 1A dunkers--but not enough to move to Friday’s second round.

For 7th-Grader Enriquez, ‘Locks of Love’ Donation is a Big Sacrifice, But She Makes It

> She is known on the Mooseheart campus for her engaging smile. But Diane Enriquez is also well-known for her beautiful dark, wavy hair, which once reached to her knees and until recently extended to her waist.

That changed on Good Friday, when Enriquez donated 10 inches of her hair to Locks of Love, an organization that turns that hair into hairpieces for people whose own hair has been lost during chemotherapy treatment for various cancers.

Though it was completely her own decision, giving up her own hair was an unusually tough ordeal for Enriquez, who is of Mexican descent.

“In some Mexican families, having really short hair is a sign of disrespect to your mother,” Enriquez said. “It’s your hair, and if you cut it too short, (it communicates that) you ‘want to be a boy’.”

Enriquez said she felt she had to ask her mother over the phone to allow the Locks of Love donation.

“I told her it was for cancer patients, and she said it was OK,” Enriquez said.

On the day her hair was to be cut, Enriquez experienced profound doubts. Her hair still reaches past her shoulders.

“People say it’s just hair,” Enriquez said. “But coming from my culture, it’s a part of me. When I looked at it, I wanted to grab glue and put it back on.”

Despite the temporary trauma, Enriquez said she was happy her hair was going to a good cause.

Meteorological Tower Data May Lead to Wind Turbine

Mooseheart Facilities Manager Keith Strutz with the meterological data tower; insets show its apparatus which measure wind and solar radiance.

> Motorists passing by Mooseheart’s southwest corner on Randall Road likely didn’t give it a second thought, but when a pole-like,130-ft. steel tower was erected on a fallow field in mid-March, it signaled the beginning of a fact-finding mission that could result in the Child City campus becoming a Chicago-area leader in environmentally friendly “green” power-generation technology.

It is a meterological data tower, constructed with a $40,000 grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation. From now until spring 2009, the various apparatus on the tower will measure a full year’s worth of data--temperature, humidity, solar radiance, but most of all, wind speed and duration.

5 Mooseheart Grads at NIU All Fine; 2 Come Home to Discuss

Arturo Fernandez (left) and Nic Grasty spoke to Mooseheart students less than a week after the shooting at Northern Illinois University. Both attend NIU, along with three other Mooseheart grads. All were unharmed in the Feb. 14 shooting.

> When word that a gunman had opened fire in a Northern Illinois University classroom made bulletins on Feb. 14, five Mooseheart graduates found themselves in attendance at a college that was suddenly front-page news all over the world.

DeKalb-based NIU sits 25 miles west of Mooseheart and has hosted scores of graduates from the Child City. In 2007-08, there are five Mooseheart graduates at NIU: Arturo Fernandez, Nic Grasty, Katie Morones, Danny Anderson and Nick Diaz.

Though none of the Mooseheart graduates were in the Cole Hall auditorium that day, they were all touched by the events of the Valentine’s Day shooting in which five students were killed and 18 more were injured.

Grasty and Fernandez, both freshmen at NIU, returned to Mooseheart during NIU’s unscheduled weeklong break the week after the shooting, to discuss the events of that day as well as their experiences so far in college.

Fernandez said he was in his dorm room and about to go to class when news of the shooting spread across campus.

“We had to stay in our dorm rooms,” Fernandez said. “We had to stay there because they locked down the campus when the shooting happened.”

Grasty was driving back to campus and encountered a traffic jam. Initial thoughts of a normal traffic disruption soon changed as the reality of the day’s events emerged.

“It was hard getting through to people because the phone lines were busy as people called their parents and their friends,” Grasty said. “It was really scary learning there was a shooting on our campus and we didn’t know, for awhile, where he was or if there was more than one shooter.”

As events transpired, there was just one shooter, and he went on a 10-minute rampage in one lecture hall on the DeKalb campus before turning the gun on himself. Those brief moments were harrowing for many on campus, who did not know what the outcome of the incident would be.

“Katie Morones was in class and they locked the doors because they thought the shooter might have been headed their way,” Fernandez said.

Despite the university’s efforts to electronically inform all students as to what had happened, there were still those brief moments when all was still unknown, and Fernandez said the scenes in his dorm were memorable.

“A lot of people were crying,” he said. “You saw a lot of people praying. A lot of people saw people who were injured.”

Fernandez has some words of advice for the current Mooseheart students to whom he spoke.

“Make sure you cherish everything you have and everything you do,” Fernandez told the Mooseheart students. “Cherish your friends--everything. That means the work you do in school. You never know what might happen.”

Grasty said the terror of Feb. 14 was a huge contrast to his time at Mooseheart.

“There’s a lot of structure (at Mooseheart),” Grasty said. “There’s not a lot of room for even things like fights to happen. People actually died at NIU.”

Grasty said he thinks about Mooseheart “all the time.”

“I think about the houseparents and the teachers here and all the effort they put in,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot of things from Mooseheart and I’ve learned to appreciate everything that was given to me there.”

Fernandez said his feelings toward the Moose and Mooseheart remain strong as well.

“I have a lot of respect for the Moose and what it represents,” Fernandez said. “They fed me and clothed me and taught me for seven years of my life.

“Whatever I can do to recognize this organization, I will do, because it’s a great organization.”

Hensley to Lead Campus 2008 YCCers

Since 1990, the Youth Conservation Corps program at Yellowstone National Park as been financially underwritten by the Moose. Three Mooseheart students, including sophomore Heather Hensley (inset) will be part of this year’s U.S. National Park Service program from June 13-Aug. 9.

> As she gets ready for a summer in Yellowstone National Park as part of this summer’s Youth Conservation Corps, Mooseheart sophomore Heather Hensley realizes she is about to make an exciting leap into the unknown.

But that won’t be anything new for Hensley, who has been moving confidently into new experiences from the day she came to Mooseheart in 2006.

“From the moment she stepped on campus here, she’s been something special,” Mooseheart Superintendent of Education Gary Urwiler said.

Hensley leaves for Yellow-stone June 13 and returns Aug. 9.

“I’m excited,” Hensley said. “I’m excited to go and get all my gear and then to pack it and take it with me.”

Hensley is one of three Mooseheart students who will travel to Yellowstone this summer to participate in the YCC program. She will be joined by Skyler Kirby and Sandra Tolson. Since 1990, the Moose has financially underwritten the U.S. National Park Service program, which has multiple goals: to help keep the nation’s premier national park in good shape, for youth to take an active role in that upkeep, and for them to learn about conserving natural beauty in the process.

Students from all over the country, including an annual contingent from Mooseheart, help with trail upkeep, fence repair, footbridge construction, and other tasks.

In return, the students have the chance to hike, camp and live in Yellowstone Park for what always proves to be an unforgettable summer.

“I know I’ll be away from Mooseheart and I’ll be away from Family Teachers and I won’t have adults around constantly,” Hensley said. “But I think it’ll be a lot of fun and it will be an experience I’ll never forget.”

Hensley has had a number of unforgettable experiences already in her time at Mooseheart. The sophomore is sponsored by Saline County (AR) Lodge 2567.

“I was talking with one of my friend’s moms,” Hensley said. “She happened to be really big into the Moose. She asked me to come back in a week.”

When Hensley returned, her pathway toward Mooseheart had begun. Hensley applied for admittance and was accepted.

“It was totally different from everything I’d ever experienced,” Hensley said. “This was the first place I’d ever been where I came home and people said, ‘It’s time to do homework.’ ”

A young woman who had learned to do things independently now had to learn how to be a part of a team. The lessons she learned in this area will help her when Hensley is in Yellowstone this summer.

“It was different in a good way,” Hensley said. “I’ve always depended on myself and I’ve never trusted adults,” Hensley said. “Any relationship I’d had was broken. When I came to Mooseheart, I had to learn to re-evaluate everything I’d looked at and how I looked at things.”

The application process for the Mooseheart students wishing to attend the YCC program has gotten tougher.

“We want them going to Yellowstone knowing about Yellowstone,” Urwiler said. “We don’t want them saying, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to Yellowstone. I know nothing about it, but I’m going’.”

Hensley is fully aware of Yellowstone, and of the YCC mission. She also knows none of this would have happened without the support of the the Moose fraternity.

“The Moose has done so much for me,” Hensley said. “It makes me feel good that I can go and repay them by going to Yellowstone and setting a good example and representing Mooseheart in the way it should be represented.”