Norse News

By Brynn A. There was excitement in the air on the morning of October 26, as 22 singers from the Roland-Story choirs made their way to Indianola to audition for the 2024 All-State choir.  The All-State audition process begins in August and consists of months of rehearsing in a group of one to four people. Each group sings a selected cut from five or six different songs in front of a judge and this lasts about five minutes. After the initial audition, singers can be recalled by the judge to sing on their own. Some others are not recalled and are accepted into the choir on just their group audition. Singing in this ensemble is one of the greatest honors a high school singer can achieve.  On Friday, the day before auditions, Mr. Stalzer stated, “I feel very confident that a lot of our students are going to have success, because they are very well prepared and a lot of them are looking forward to it.”  Senior Allison Tjaden remarked, “I think it went well, I was really confid...

By Owen K. The 2024 Norsemen football season has pleased Story City and Roland locals. The team's progression and culture-building over the past four years have earned the Norse a 6-2 record heading into the first round of the playoffs.  The season started with a dominant win over South Tama but was followed by a tight loss late in the second game against Nevada. In the third game, the Norse shut out close rival South Hamilton with a score of 56-0. Heading into the 4th game, the Norsemen knew they would need to beat Kemper Catholic to strengthen their hopes of winning the district.  The game was neck and neck the whole way, with both teams hurling punch after punch to fight to stay in it. The game was tied at the end of the 4th quarter and went into overtime. The Knights struck quickly in OT with a touchdown and a 2-point conversion. The Norsemen got the ball with only ten yards to go, but could not push through Kempur's tough red zone defense bringing up a 4&8. They ran a...

By Alli J. The Roland-Story Volleyball team welcomed the Clear Lake Lions for the 3A quarterfinal match on October 22. They have had a very successful season. The Roland-Story volleyball team set the record for the number of games won in a season. Roland-Story is the conference champion and remains undefeated within the conference. Roland-Story entered the game with a record of 29-4. Clear Lake entered with a record of 13-15. This was not the first time that these two teams competed against each other this season. Earlier in the season, they met at the Forest City tournament where Roland-Story came out with a win.  Roland-Story took the lead early in the game and finished the first set with a score of 25-15. Set 2 also went to the Norsemen with a score of 25-9. Lastly, Roland-Story finished out the match with a score of 25-9 in the last set. The Quarterfinal match went to the Norsemen. They won their 30th match of the year in 3 straight sets over Clear Lake. There were many outst...

By Keely O. FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, is a club that meets at the home of the Berggrens (when it's nice out) and at the high school (when it’s cold outside). We meet almost every Sunday from 6-7 pm.  On a usual night at FCA, we start by playing a group game, which could be anywhere from a game of wiffle ball to Nukum. After the game, we circle around as a big group and do our lesson. Mr. and Mrs. Berggren always has a lesson each night. We get a sheet of paper that has various questions and bible verses on it. Once we get the paper, we break off into smaller groups and go through the questions and verses. We discuss the questions as a small group before we come back together to discuss them as a large group. That normally is what FCA consists of but on Sunday, October 20th, we did something a little different. We had a game/fun night. There were lots of different things that were set up for us to do. We first got pizza and dessert, and if you wanted you could sign up f...

By Brinley C. Did you know a cross country course is 3.1 miles long? The Roland-Story Cross Country team headed to Nevada on October 14, 2024 to compete in the conference meet. The team has put a lot of work into perfecting their performances and were ready to compete. The meet didn’t go as expected but the team still ran their best times and gave themselves a chance at winning.  This was the first meet where temperatures were below 80 degrees. In fact, it was around 50 degrees so the team was ready for their first cooler meet.  This course is a little different than most. Most of the time they are held on golf courses and you do a lot of back and forth, although this time the runners are running around a lake. The athletes run through the woods as they are slowly making their way around the lake. Since they are mostly surrounded by trees on their run it limits the spectators. There are not a lot of people cheering them on. They are on their own, which is hard. They need to ke...

By Leila W. On Monday, October 14th, many topics were discussed at the Roland-Story High School school board meeting.  The school board members are Chris McIlrath, Erica Watts, Matt Dahlsten, Ashlee Mullenbach, and Tosha Whipple. There were also two other speakers present, Mr. Patton and Rylee Wolf.  The topic of middle school lockers was mentioned among the board members. It was brought up that the state of the current lockers are deteriorating with broken locks and shelves. Everyone was in agreement that the middle school needs new lockers.  Another subject that was brought up was the fall fundraisers including FCCLA, band, and choir. The funding goes to support our school trips and other activities. This year the band is going on a trip to Florida over spring break and next year Spanish is going on their trip to Spain. Spanish also previously took a trip last spring break to Costa Rica. One of the main topics that was discussed was make-up school days. They talked ab...

By Kelsey J. We had been preparing for this competition for two weeks. We were ready. But, there was still that sense of nerves in the air. We could all feel it, no matter how tired we were. It was Saturday, October 5th, and it was the day of the Carroll Band Days. We woke up early that morning to load the buses and the trailer. It was a mad dash to make sure we had everything. We checked, and double checked to make sure that we had all that we needed. Then we all made sure we were on the bus and made our way to Carrol. Most people just slept on the bus or listened to music. We had to focus on what was ahead of us. The flag girls hurried to make sure all of their makeup and hair was complete. It was a very calm bus ride.  Then when we got to Carroll, we unloaded at Adams Elementary School where we could use the restroom and get dressed and ready for the performance. We first got all dressed, girls first then the guys. After that we helped to unload the trailer. We got the larger in...

By Caitlyn F. On Monday night, October 7th, the Roland-Story volleyball team played a conference match against the PCM Mustangs. It was senior citizen night for the student section and the stands were full. This was a big day for the team because it was senior night for the six seniors on the team, Kate Berggren, Caty Erichsen, Kennedy Petersen, Paige Curtis, Josie Ramus, and Kamryn Lande. These girls have been a big part of this team, and it was an emotional night for the whole team.  After the seniors were recognized, the captains from both teams were called to flip the coin to decide who would serve first. PCM won the coin toss. The first serve went to senior Josie Ramus who passed a perfect pass right to setter Miley Geise who then set it to Kamryn Lande for the middle kill. The next couple of points went back and forth between the two teams and then Roland Story finally went on a little run of serve aces. The score was now 4-1 Roland Story is up. Norse was up by three the enti...

By Blake N. Coming off a win the Roland-Story Norsemen had another easier opponent this week. They will face off against the Greene County Rams this week in Jefferson. Despite not being on their turf, the Norsemen brought home a well-deserved win vs. Greene County. To start the week the coaching staff and players received news that Blake Larson will be out for 4-5 weeks with a broken wrist. He started two games and had at least one interception in each; to say the least, it was a big loss for the Norse.  This week was like any other week for the players, same practices but a different game plan for the new team. The Norse all around played a great game, but a few people stood out. First was Cody Long with an amazing game. Cody finished the game with 10.5 tackles and 2 tackles for a loss of yards. This is impressive because the Rams leading tackler only had 8. Another player who had an outstanding week was Sophomore Ben Mazyck. Mazyck finished the game with 170 rushing yards with 20...

By Morgan B. Over 33 Iowan children are sent to the hospital each day in farming-related accidents. Members of the Roland-Story FFA are trying to lower this statistic by showing students how to be safe on the farm.  On October 2, 2024, the Roland-Story FFA held their annual farm safety day for the 3rd grade students at Roland-Story Elementary.  The third-graders spent a fun afternoon outdoors, traveling to each of the 10 stations to learn about certain aspects of outdoor safety. Stations included tractor, ATV, animal, first aid, fishing, my plate, sun, Iowa products, chemical, and grain bin safety.  At a station, led by 2-4 high schoolers, the 3rd graders would learn how to be safe in that area. After instruction, they completed an activity or played a game related to what they learned. Every station also had visuals related to their topic.  Visuals are a great way to help students remember what they are learning. Getting to sit on an ATV and seeing the parts the hig...

By Justin S. Last year our team got close to state in all games. All games can either be played online or face to face. All schools may have one varsity team and one JV team per game. Each player may only play on one team per round (usually by week). All communication and organization will run through the Designated Esports Coordinator; however, there may be a game-specific coach. Teams are required to play online or face-to-face with their opponents. High school esports is part of the gaming industry. In the gaming industry, you can win millions of dollars from winning a tournament. Take Fortnite for an example. According to Mathew Players from EsprtsGG, players can win hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars. In some tournaments, you win nothing.  Sometimes you win millions of dollars. The Iowa High School Esports Association (IASHEA) hosts a number of games  throughout the year for student-athletes to participate in.  Smite is a 5 vs. 5 tower defense shooter ga...

By Selah H. The week of homecoming for Roland-Story this year was Sept. 23-27. The student council was in charge of all the fun things going on throughout the week, and they did a great job this year--everybody had a great time! Lots of fun pictures were taken, they passed out candy everyday, and decorations looked great.  On Monday there was a pep rally in the new gym going over what the week was going to look like. The cheerleaders led cheers, seniors stood up and talked for sports, the band played songs, and there was a game to finish it off. The dress up day for Monday was PJ day. Tuesday was powder puff for the senior girls who wanted to play flag football. Both blue and purple teams had been preparing for weeks, it was a good game but purple came out with the win. The student section was very loud! The dress up day for Tuesday was Adam Sandler day. Wednesday was lunch on the field. The student council planned that as well; everybody had a fun time on the field. Most people pl...