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TGS Robotics Teams Head to State Competitions

Great news! Our two robotics teams are heading to States after winning amazing victories at their respective regionals (the FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Tech Challenge). For Open Forum on January 24 and 31, the two teams shared parts of their projects with the whole school. The Angry Nerds (Middle School) showed off a working violin that they had made and sang a song they had written about their project to the students. The Kingfishers (High School) brought down their robot to the Auditorium and put it through its paces. Everyone could watch it hang up a ring, throw a paper airplane, and suspend itself. We really enjoyed seeing both team’s hard work first-hand and congratulating them on their victories.

The good news started with Middle School in the FIRST LEGO League. On January 20 at Cane Bay High School, the Angry Nerds took a first place for their project to 3D print musical instruments so that any student could afford to buy one and learn to play. They did a great job researching the project and finding out that musical instruments and education are beyond the means of many families. The team figured out how to 3D print a violin and put on its bridge, strings, and pegs for about $60. Does the violin sound good? The manager at Andy Owings Music Store thought the quality was fine for student learners.

The team is now working on increasing the speed of their robots to try to do better in the robot part of the competition. We wish Mrs. Crosby, Dr. Neubauer, and the Angry Nerds all the best when they compete again February 17.

The Kingfishers, our high school team, headed for Dorchester High School in North Charleston on January 27 to compete against 21 other teams with their robot Phred in the FIRST Tech Challenge. Their competitions took place all day with almost no down time. Phred did his jobs exactly as he was supposed to and the Kingfishers found themselves in the final round competing for first place! We didn’t quite make it but we are still going to States, having brought home the second-place overall trophy.

Good luck to Dr. Gates and the “Nerd Herd as they head to Columbia on March 2.

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Ella Cheek: January 3, 2024

Our first guest speaker of 2024 was our own Ella Cheek. Ella graduated from TGS just last year and is the winner of our 2023 Senior Speech Award. Florida State is now her school and she had quite a lot to share about her experiences so far. Ella chose Florida State because it is strong in humanities and is a total change. So far, Ella, has been very happy down in Tallahassee.

Ella mentioned social changes she has had to face at Florida State after her time at TGS. The campus at Florida State is very large, with students commuting to class on electric scooters, the bus, and in cars. Ella said that when she first arrived, she had no friends. “I was lonely,” she said. “The only person I knew the first week was my roomate.” She realized that going to events and joining clubs was the only real way to find and make friends on a large campus. Luckily, she has ended up with a bunch of new friends after attending an engineering event.

College classes at Florida State are so large that it is nearly impossible to have a one on one conversation with the professor. Ella told us to cherish the ability to be able to talk with our teachers. Ella was also shocked to see how much technology is used in the modern college classroom. She quickly got the hang of it but she was not used to depending on her computer so much. Now that the transition is over, she has been having a great time.

Ella’s classmates Isaac and Kelsi were with us also for Open Forum. Everyone was glad to see them. Thank you all for the visit and thank you, Ella, for sharing your school experiences! Go Seminoles!

By Larson

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November 29: Giany Guedjo

Just after Thanksgiving break on November 29, we were introduced to Giany Guedjo, our guest speaker for Open Forum. He is currently the executive director at Carolina Human Reinvestment, a non-profit organization that specializes in promoting healthy lifestyles for kids in Georgetown County. He is also a talented linguist and speaks over 10 different languages. When he was a recent immigrant to the US, he learned to speak English in one year and three months at his first job over here, making sandwiches at Subway.

Giany was born in Bénin, a French-speaking country in West Africa between Ghana and Nigeria. Before emigrating from Bénin to the United States with his wife, Giany overcame very difficult conditions to get an education in Africa. For example, at his university in Bénin there were 2500 students in some classes. “Students broke windows to get in and get a good seat,” he said. “There were only 100 books for all those students.” After graduating as valedictorian, he worked at an orphanage and taught farmers how to market crops. Fourteen years ago, his wife won the US Immigration Lottery and they decided to move here.

Life is not easy for immigrants and Giany and his wife were no exception. The job at Subway allowed them to survive until Giany could get enough English to go back to school. He then got a Masters of Business Administration from Webster University. Even then, it wasn’t easy to find work. Giany learned of the job at CHR almost by accident but it is a great fit for him and he is now the proud executive director of this community nonprofit in both Georgetown and Pawleys Island.

One of CHR’s projects is community gardening. There are gardens in Georgetown, Pawleys Island, and at several area schools. People from the community and students can take home fresh produce and eat healthier, better-tasting food.  “Food is medicine,” said Giany. CHR also sponsors comprehensive after-school programs where elementary students can do their homework and practice their reading. Giany invited us to come read with kids as community service. CHR also has helped older kids find after-school and summer jobs in the community and managed the FoodShare program to help food-insecure families.

Giany told us that you should have fun in life, but you should get your work done first. He has a particular philosophy to conquering life, which is “when you do something, do it the hard way.” This is accompanied by a list of four rules: sleep hard, eat hard, play hard, and most importantly work hard. We would like to thank Giany for being our guest speaker for Wednesday and giving us the opportunity to do more community service with the CHR.

By Larson

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September 20, 2023: Richard Nesbit

On September 20, 2023, we welcomed Richard Nesbit as our speaker. Richard is involved in the Carolina Human Reinvestment Project of Pawleys Island, where he spends a lot of time working in their Community Garden.  Richard also runs a small non-profit organization that helps kids in Africa who cannot afford to attend school. He shared video footage of some of his trips to Africa to see the students and schools he helps sponsor.  His efforts are focused on Uganda, where education is very expensive.

Richard told us about how he started his non-profit. Several years ago, he heard from a Ugandan student named John who reached out to him on Facebook Messenger. John told him about the war going on in his village. Things were so bad, John had no hope of continuing his education. Richard decided to set up a GoFundMe and raised 1000 dollars for John’s secondary education. John got his diploma and ended up going to university!

Richard shared his photos and videos of Uganda. We saw a beautiful countryside with small villages where Ugandans farm and try to make extra money the best they can. The children are very well dressed when they go to school because they respect the institution. Richard told us that they love school and even hang out there on Saturdays to see their friends.

Richard’s non-profit has now helped about 24 students. He never expected to be helping kids in Africa who cannot afford school but that is the way his life turned out. Richard’s talk was a remainder that we have no idea what life has in store for us or what may be asked of us one day. Thank you, Richard, for coming and speaking to us.

By Gracin

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September 19, 2023: Victoria Smalls

On Tuesday, September 19, the Georgetown County Library Friends welcomed speaker Victoria Smalls, who works as the executive director of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission. Victoria spoke to a crowd of about 50 people in the Auditorium, including many TGS students, introducing us to Gullah Geechee culture.

The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor covers those areas on the east coast of the US where rice was grown. It stretches from St. Augustine to southern North Carolina. People from tribes in western Africa were enslaved and brought over starting in the 16th century to work in the colonies where the colonists began to exploit their knowledge of rice-growing, which included skills in engineering and hydrology—especially their knowledge of canal-building and how to use rice trunks to control the flow of water.

The Gullah Geechee people have preserved much of their African heritage: basket weaving, boat building, cooking, spirituality, and their unique African creole language. Gullah Geechee developed as enslaved people from scores of different African tribes with different languages had to communicate with each other and with those who enslaved them. Victoria shared artwork from several Gullah Geechee artists, such as Jonathan Green and Natalie Daise, who have re-imagined the joy, beauty, and dignity of Gullah Geechee culture even in the face of its horrific challenges.

Victoria talked about her own family, who owned land in St. Helena after the Civil War. She was excited because she recently found an 1859 receipt from the Freedmen’s Bank in Beaufort with the names of her great-grandparents on it. She read to us in Gullah and left us with a proverb which she applies to her own life and her work of finding out more about the culture she came from: “If you don’t know where you came from, you don’t know where you are going.”

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August 30, 2023: Dan Cross Turner

Our first speaker of this school year was Dr. Dan Turner, Head of Programming and Outreach at the Georgetown County Library. Dr. Turner has been working at the Georgetown Library for five years now, and has put together many different programs for the library. The library is currently closed for renovations, so he and his colleague Trudy Bazemore have been using the Es’Dorn Room at our school for their office. “It’s the nicest place we’ve ever worked!” he laughed.

Before working at the library, Dr. Turner taught literature and writing for 20 years at USC, Vanderbilt, Siena College, and Coastal Carolina. Turner was born “up north” in Spartanburg, and has a lifelong love for reading and writing which he enjoys sharing with others. One of his favorite writers is William Shakespeare but his area of concentration is American Southern Gothic literature. He urged the students who love writing to keep writing every day and not put up obstacles. “You’ve got to get it going to keep it going,” he said. “You don’t want to stand in your own way.”

The library renovations are a massive project, made possible by a bequest from Mrs. Jean Flournoy Moody, who left $1,000,000 to support the library upon her death. A team that included Dr. Turner first had to remove 80,000 books and place them into storage before the construction workers even arrived. “Our library was in need of some love,” Dr. Turner told us.

Besides adding much needed space to the library, the renovations to the library will transform the public space into something much more than a place to quietly do homework and read books, but will feature a filmmaking space with video editing software and production equipment. None of this would have been possible without the diligent work of the library’s dedicated staff members. Dr. Turner invited us to volunteer to help reshelve those 80,000 volumes when the library reopens in the spring! Our relationship with the Georgetown Library benefits our students in countless ways, and we would like to thank Dr. Dan Turner for being our first guest speaker of the school year!

By Larson

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April 26, 2023: Rich Shenone

On April 26th, our speaker was Rich Schenone from Georgetown Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission. He had a very frank and personal conversation with the students here at TGS. He began his talk by sharing his own struggle with drug and alcohol use.

In college, Rich was an alcoholic. He had to go to AA and counseling, which helped him get past that difficult time in his life.  Rich had a good job as a middle school teacher in New Jersey for many years. Unfortunately, his struggle with addiction wasn’t over. Rich was in a car accident and broke his vertebrae. He was prescribed pain pills and became addicted after being on them for only three days.

Rich and his family moved down to Myrtle Beach from New Jersey soon after his accident because one of his children has rheumatoid arthritis, and they thought the warmer climate would help and he wanted a fresh start. However, things went downhill for him in South Carolina.

“You wanna know what’s cheaper than pills?” Rich said. “Heroin. So, I became hooked on heroin. I could get the same effect from pills for cheaper.” 

“I thought I’d move down here and do some fishing and crabbing, but instead I ended up homeless on the streets of Myrtle Beach,” Rich told us. After an arrest and a chance meeting with a former student, Rich was ashamed and finally had the motivation to get his life back together and go to rehab. After that, he became a Peer Recovery Counselor in Charleston. Rich would help doctors figure out which drug an overdose victim had taken, and help patients recover. From there, he moved back to the Myrtle Beach area and now works for Georgetown Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission. Rich does many public speaking events.

Rich recently did a talk at the courthouse illustrating the difference between his life during his addiction and his life today.  He appeared in his former homeless clothes and shoes, left the stage, then returned dressed and cleaned up, highlighting the extreme change sobriety has brought to his life.

“The worst drug is the first drug you ever take,” he told us. We all would like to thank Rich for coming and sharing his story with us. 

By Emily

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March 22, 2023: Grayson Sossamon

Grayson Sossamon was our speaker today. He holds the special place of being the first student ever to sign up for our school, having started as a seventh grader in 2013! Grayson is attending Coastal Carolina University and majoring in Exercise and Sports Science. He is currently looking at graduate schools and pursuing an eventual degree in Physical Therapy.

Grayson works with a research professor in his CCU department studying the use of Blood Flow Restriction in exercise. Their work together gave him the unique opportunity to present at a scientific conference in Greenville recently. He showed us the poster of their experimental study. “It’s the exact same as a science fair project,” he said. “So whatever Dr. Neubauer is teaching you is for real!”

Grayson explained that restricting blood flow to certain groups of muscles can intensify exercise without making it hard on the heart. “The body is kind of tricking itself,” he told us. BFR is used for people who have cardiovascular problems–patients with heart disease can lift less weight and still get all the benefits of weight-lifting without straining themselves. The trick is finding the sweet spot where gains are maximal and risk to the patient is minimal.

Grayson told us that BFR is already being used successfully in many PT gyms but that people should only use it under the guidance of a professional.

Grayson started out as a test subject for the BFR research and found it fascinating and helpful to his own fitness. He then jumped at the chance to work with a professor involved in the research who needed an assistant. He ended up deciding to become a physical therapist! Grayson will graduate this May. We are very proud of him and it was delightful to see him back on campus.

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February 1, 2023: Hope McFaddin

“I’ve always loved the water and felt a real kinship with it,” said Hope McFaddin, our Open Forum speaker for February 1, 2023. Hope has been the head administrator for the SC Maritime Museum since 2018.

Hope told us that as a teenager, she felt depressed and decided to begin volunteering at the SCMM to get herself out and find some happiness. It worked, and she was eventually hired part-time, then full-time and now is very fulfilled by all the responsibilities of her job—writing grants, managing volunteers, running the many educational programs, helping create exhibits, and just keeping the building well-maintained.

The SCMM is an incredible asset to tourism in Georgetown. It is free and there are about 20,000 annual visitors from all over the US and many other countries. The umbrella organization for the SCMM is the Harbor Historical Society, which organizes the annual Wooden Boat Show and the summer Youth Sailing Program. Since 2017, they have had programs for youth every month upstairs and are hoping to start a hands-on learning area there. They are always looking to increase student traffic to the SCMM.

Hope told us that our involvement in the SCMM was “impactful and makes a huge difference,” and thanked us for it. The SCMM has made a huge difference for TGS as well, giving us amazing volunteer opportunities, sponsoring our sailing team, and always supporting our school events. One of our seniors, Kelsi, has been volunteering at the SCMM since 2020 and has learned a lot. Thank you for coming to talk to us, Hope!

By Quin

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January 18, 2023: Kris Brame

Today, TGS said, “Bonjour!” to Kris Brame, Mme Gates’ former French student who also had Mrs. Patrick, Dr. Gates, and Dr. Neubauer as his high school teachers. Fluent in French and German, he now works as a translator today after starting his own company By The Word Translation. He talked to us about his love for learning languages and his international educational path.

Kris originally wanted to learn German, inspired by an Austrian exchange student his family hosted when he was in 8th grade. He told us “Everyone was always asking Fabian ‘How do you say that in German?’ and I learned the words.” He took French in high school, then decided to go on a German high school exchange program before graduating. While there, he began to perfect his German and French.

After earning the German equivalent of a high school diploma, Kris decided to stay in Europe to pursue translation studies at the university level in Mainz. He finished his B.S. at Kent State, then interned as a medical interpreter in Indianapolis.  COVID put an end to in-person medical interpretation and at that point, Kris took the big step of starting his own company.

By the Word Translation is Kris’s online enterprise. He is still a medical interpreter, but now mostly does subtitle translations for many clients, most notably Netflix and a French poker show. Unfortunately, Kris couldn’t give any spoilers for our favorite shows! He had some advice for students who wish seriously to master their foreign language: find a good friend who is a native speaker to talk to and use the internet to read and listen to the language you want to learn. Vielen Dank, Kris! 

By Emily