Newspapers / Grimsley High School Student … / Nov. 25, 2008, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Grimsley High School Student Newspaper / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
2 news November 25, 2008 Ford pleases parents with smart key restricting teen driving capabilities Ibylaurenwise Reporter Beginning next year. Ford will introduce a way for parents to monitor teen driving when they are not in the car with their children. "MyKey" refers to a computer chip programmed in the key, which maximizes speed at 80 mph. Other options include a limitation to radio volume and a chime set to ring continuously until drivers and passengers all fasten their seatbelts. "MyKey" will be standard on the 2010 Ford Focus coupe as well as other Ford models coming out late next summer. According to spokesman Wes Sherwood, this feature will eventually spread to the entire lineup of Fords, Lincolns, and Mercuries. Even though highway speed limits are lower in most states. Ford chose the maximum speed of 80 mph in case an "unusual situation arises," said Jim Buczkowski, director of Ford's electronic and electrical systems engineering. The company believes that 70 mph is too limiting. On www.news.cnet.com, many parents ob ject to this particular new feature; while it limits the speed on highways, teens are still able to double their speed within city limits, which is where the ma jority of teen accidents occur. Ford responded by offering parents an oppor tunity to set a chime that rings each time the car reaches 45 mph, 55 mph, and 65 mph to alert teens of their acceleration. Parents can also program a chime to ring for six seconds every minute until the driver has fas tened his or her seatbelt. Part of Ford's Driving Skills for Life program, this new gadget was designed to educate drivers on safety but also to inform them of techniques to reduce fuel consumption. While the gas light in a Ford usually lights up when the car is 50 miles until empty, another chime can go off when the car is 75 miles until empty. Such notification works well for young drivers who fail to notice fuel lights appearing. Because research ers claim a large number of teenage car accidents link to music blaring in the cars. Ford allows parents to control radio volume. Controls for radio sound stops working once the automobile reaches the maximum volume, which the parents decide themselves. Market research shows that 75 percent of parents favor the idea of speed and audio limits, but 67 per cent of teens dislike the MyKey, finding it too confin ing. Research also determines that parents are more likely to allow driving privileges for their teen driv ers in their parents' cars with this system. Once teens realized they would be able to drive more often, the number of objecting teens dropped by nearly half. Pushing to raise the driving age from 16 to 18 is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This research group that the auto insurance industry funds claims car crashes are the leading cause of death among teenagers, and hopefully such statistics can decrease by placing limits on factors that contribute to car accidents. Also from the website www.news.cnet.com, a top official from the IIHS explains that the new key is in triguing, and she is unaware of any other companies offering such a helpful technological advancement. Ford has already specialized in using computer chips in keys to prevent thefts, causing the car to not start if it doesn't recognize the chip in the key. "Making use of existing technology, and through the magic of software, we're able to build features on top of the features we already have," said Buzcowski of the MyKey. MyKey is an inexpensive system for quelling par ents' fears and helping teens learn the fundamentals of safe driving when they are the least experienced. Alumni commemorates Eula Tuttle with anecdotes, portrait unveiling ■byannakanode Reporter Grimsley chorus alumni lovingly remembered their choral director Eula M. Tuttle on Saturday, Oct. 25, in the Chance Cousins Auditorium. Alumni affectionately remember her as one of the "The Big Three," who include the chorus, orchestra, and band teachers who taught the longest period of time in the music department faculty. Members of the alumni spoke, as did Miss Tuttle's protege Jeanne Meredith Busse and nephew Dr. Robert Grant. Midway through the ceremony. Grant and Busse, an assistant director and later head choral director herself in the 1950s and 60s, unveiled a portrait of Tuttle. At the end of the ceremony, all three Grimsley choirs sang with any alumni who chose to join them on stage. "She possessed a genuine love for her students, and they loved her," said Busse, who joined Tuttle when she was young and viewed all of Grimsley's teachers as stars under the direction of Greensboro Senior High's principal "Red" Ruth. Busse also stated that Tuttle knew she was strict but never apologized for it, and many of her students later thanked her for teaching important skills besides singing. Tuttle demanded her students to perform their best, and she reciprocated her best in return. As a funny side note, Busse shared that Tuttle suffered from motion sickness and therefore would become ill whenever she and her students rode a bus for a field trip. Present musical director Marshall Johnson introduced the Madrigals who sang "The Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key and arranged by Derric Johnson. Alumna Jean Turner Blackwood, Class of 1959, and present principal Anna Brady welcomed guests. Peter Byrd, Class of 1974 and GHS historian, recognized Margaret" Maggie" Moore Jeffus, Class of 1952. Byrd also named and thanked contribu tors to the portrait of Tuttle and encour aged others to make donations since the the portrait cost was not fulfilled. Two people shared their reminis cences of Tuttle, the first of whom was Jerry Smyre, Class of 1951. Apparently Miss Tuttle did not have a car for a long time, but when she bought one, it was a 1949 Plymouth Coup, and all of her stu dents were envious. When Tuttle learned that Jerry did not have a car to pick up his date, she loaned it to him. Ironically, the car had no radio, so students donated money to buy one for her and actually installed it for her. Smyre and the other students decided not to tell Miss Tuttle, but rather to let her enjoy the surprise as she discovered the radio on her own. Smyre recalled she was so happy she almost cried. Then he spoke about "The Queen's Men," a singing group Tuttle organized. "The Queen's Men" came about when Tuttle escorted a group of her male sing ers to a contest in Richmond involving five or six high school choirs. The con test included several categories, one of which was site singing. Tuttle did not realize she had re ceived the site-singing piece early and taught it to her choir; therefore, her sing ers knew the music well, whereas their competitors did not. Consequently, other groups stopped singing, turned around, and stared. Tuttle was so pleased by the attention that she formed "The Queen's Men" since her nickname was Queenie, and her students and col leagues treated her like a queen. Terry Garrison Lashley, Class of 1955, also reminisced about the only time she remembered Tuttle appearing speech less during a rehearsal. Someone had brought a water gun to this rehearsal because it was a hot day near the end of the school year; there was no air-condi tioning at the time. Tuttle found the grm, took it, and proceeded to squirt people who were not singing accurately. At one point Miss Tuttle knocked the gun right off her stand in front of Lashley. "I bent down to pick it up, and some thing happened," said Lashley. After picking up the gun, she squirted Tuttle right in the face. Every one was shocked because Lashley was a model student who would never have committed an act so disrespectful. To this day, she does not know what pos sessed her to squirt Tuttle. The funniest part of this story is that the gim malfunc tioned a bit and released much more water than it normally would have, causing Tuttle's face to be covered with water and then for the water to drip down all over her shirt. After the two anecdotes, Jean Turner Blackwood, Class of 1959, read what is commonly known as "Tuttle's 'Pome.'" This "Pome" was a letter from Miss Tuttle to her former students in which she related how much she really appre ciated all they did for her and how she hoped they appreciated all that she did for them. It was truly an emotional piece, resulting in Blackwood having to stop several times while reading it to compose herself. Tuttle sent several copies of her "Pome" to people she deemed very special and needle- pointed the last several lines. While Miss Tuttle worked at the school, the Ford Company chose her music department to be one of four from high schools in the South to have a resi dent composer on staff in 1961. The re quirements included having balanced programs for each department and for each of them to be exceptional. The other three high schools were located in Ar lington, Tennessee; Lexington, Ken tucky; and Tallahassee, Florida. John Bams Chance was the composer for 10 Documents for the Grimsley choirs date back to 1906, and not until 60 years later in 1960 did Busse form the Madri gal group. The school was still called Greensboro Senior High then, and many of the choral students in the class of 1962 signed petitions and organized several other activities to prevent the name from changing to Grimsley. Tuttle starteded a select group of singers that still exists today through the North Carolina Summer Institute in Choral Art. Students from aU over North Carolina still participate in this rigorous summer camp that is available for elementary, middle, and high school students. Tuttle's students remember her say ing that anything less than their best was not good enough, and she was never truly happy when someone stated that their performance was near perfection. To such a compliment, Tuttle would re ply that it was not perfect and that they still had a lot of work to do. All of her students' diligence paid off whenever they participated in contests because they always received the highest recog- nition of Superior. Retraction In our October 31 issue (Volume 84 No.2), we reported in ''Traditions fade as few culprits ruin fun for students seeking to show their spirt" that the article was written by Courtney Brown when it was actually written by John Stephens
Grimsley High School Student Newspaper
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 25, 2008, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75