Date: Fri 07-Nov-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

scarecrows-Vouros-Clancy

Full Text:

Winning NMS Scarecrow Turns The Tables On Humans

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

There was some confusion Monday morning at Newtown Middle School once the

votes were counted to determine the winner of the 2nd Annual Sculpted

Scarecrow Contest. No one knew who the winner was.

It took nearly 24 hours for organizers to figure out which team of monster

makers were the masterminds behind scarecrow #29. Nearly 30 scarecrows had

been put out on the front lawn of the middle school and each was assigned a

number, but no one thought to find out which scarecrow had what number before

the scarecrows were taken down Monday afternoon. This resulted in a little bit

of detective work on the part of all students and teachers involved,

re-matching scarecrows and their makers to their assigned numbers.

In the end, it turned out scarecrow #29 - a scare human , really - belonged to

Jon Bunt, John Catino and Leigh Buckens. The boys' creation took over six

weeks to complete, with the trio working on average two nights a week at home

and four or five times a week during the daily Silent Sustained Reading period

at school.

The trio assembled a large crow that was scaring a man. "It's a scarehuman, in

a way," Leigh Buckens said Tuesday afternoon.

"It's a very `Twilight Zone' kind of thing," added John Catino. The three boys

had decided they wanted to make some kind of superhero, something that flew,

and decided to work on a hobgoblin. From that point, each was able to

contribute different components of the final project.

Students in the school's eighth grade Discovery and Gifted Art classes had

been challenged by their teachers, Claudia Clancy and John Vouros, to

construct larger-than-life size scarecrows. It was the culmination of a unit

the classes had been doing this fall on the background and history of

scarecrows.

After turning in drawings of what their creations would look like, teams of

two to four students each went to work, putting together entries for the

contest. On Saturday, October 25, in heavy rains, nearly thirty scarecrows

were erected on the front lawn of Newtown Middle School. The second haunting

of the school's lawn was underway. This year, the scarecrows would be left on

display for ten days, instead of the two-day weekend viewing last year's

scarecrows were given.

The student body, and all area residents, were then invited to visit the

school to see the brilliant creations. As with last year's inaugural contest,

nearly 30 imposing creatures were conjured. Each scarecrow was assigned a

number, and visitors were invited to pick up a ballot, write the number of the

scarecrow they liked best, add a $1 donation, and drop the ballot in one of

two available voting locations. All money raised through the voting process

each year is donated to charities of the winning students' choice.

Voting began the day the scarecrows went up, and closed Sunday, November 2.

Ballots were delivered the John Vouros' classroom at the school, or to The Bee

office.

On Monday, November 3, the votes were counted. (About two dozen votes were

left on-site, rather than turned in to the Bee office or John Vouros'

classroom. With the rain of late last week and all weekend, it made for some

very soggy ballots and a little more of a challenge to separate the votes for

counting Monday morning.)

Nearly 300 votes were cast during the run of competition. As had happened last

year, a number of voters put in multiple votes. Some people put in $5, $10 or

$20 bills and asked for all votes to be put towards one scarecrow, while

others asked that their donations be divided, with some votes going to one

scarecrow, the other votes to another.

The first place winners have decided to donate their portion of money raised

through voting to a marine wildlife protection organization. The second place

team - Brendan Berg, Mike English and Paul Kastner - has chosen ESCAPE to the

Arts as its beneficiary; and Mark DeFeo, Matt Pachniuk and John Wesley, the

third place team, will make a donation to the Blue & Gold Stadium Fund in the

memory of Robert Glander, the father of three middle school students who

recently passed away.

A Long Week

The contest this year turned out to be a little more daunting for the students

and scarecrows than had been expected. Mother Nature put in more than her two

cents' worth of rain, and there was another unwanted assault on the scarecrows

midway through the contest.

One of the challenges Mr Vouros and Mrs Clancy had given their students in

creating their scarecrows was that each would have to survive the wrath of

Mother Nature. For last year's students, this task was a little easier: their

scarecrows, after all, were only going to be outdoors for two full days; this

year's creations were out for over a week.

Three days into the contest - during the overnight of October 28 - four

Newtown High School students were arrested after being caught in the act of

vandalizing the scarecrows. Most of the scarecrows were damaged in one form or

another, and a few were damaged beyond repair. The four teenagers have a court

date of November 13.

The student body of Newtown Middle School pulled together Wednesday morning.

Members of one of Claudia Clancy's art classes joined those who had made the

scarecrows in front of the school, and all worked as a team to make repairs to

the scarecrows.

Voting resumed that day.

This week, the four high school students arranged to meet with the eighth

graders at the middle school. On November 4, the scarecrow teams and their

teachers met with Eric Bezler, Eric Dawe, Emily DeCosta, and Alexander Federov

in the middle school's Discovery room.

Each of the high school students apologized for what had been done. Calling

their actions "thoughtless and irresponsible," the four students admitted to

feeling uncomfortable and awkward, but assured the younger students they were

very sincere.

"I think everybody makes mistakes," Leigh Buckens said after the high school

students were finished. "They covered everything well, and they were

responsible in taking action for everything they did."

"Nobody's perfect," added scarecrow teammate Jon Bunt. "I've forgiven them."