Penn Points Online

Jonny Fernandez, a Hispanic student, said he came to Penn Manor to get away from the fights and racial violence in his urban high school.

So far he hasn’t been disappointed.

“I feel more comfortable here than at my old school,” he said.

Many other minority students expressed similar sentiments, although  some expressed the complete opposite after transferring to Penn Manor, a mostly white, mostly suburban and rural high school that has experienced racial incidents in the past.

Laronn Lee, an African American student who transferred here this year, says he’s never felt uncomfortable either, “everybody’s pretty friendly.”

That leads to the question, is racism still going on in Penn Manor?

“Yes to the tenth  power,” said Lashaya Baker a minority, “but it doesn’t matter because ya’ll can’t get me outta here.”

“There’s a difference in being afraid of being jumped in the hallway and being called a name,” said Quay Hanna, a race-relations consultant hired by Penn Manor in 1997 when tensions here reached a boiling point. “Sometimes it’s a matter of different cultures rather than different races,” Hanna  said.

“Sometimes I hear people talk about their parents being (racist),” reported Alyssa Figueroa.

Hanna said some fears of racism at Penn Manor are based on the past, widely publicized,  incident but it’s also based on stereotypes people have put on different school districts, deserved or not.

“I’ve actually had a student say that he heard that the gym was used on the weekends for klan meetings,” said Hanna.   “Many students are told to watch their backs when they come here, especially if they’re coming from different cultural backgrounds.  All of this is untrue, but rumors are powerful and hard to dispel unless one is here and able to speak against the lies.”

Many of the views observed here contrast with each other and many echo the same tune.

“Its not that it’s so much racial tension here, just uncomfortable,” said Natasha Fletcher, although Fletcher said she has never had a racial incident here in Penn Manor school district she still feels that not everybody is showing their true colors.

In 1997, some Caucasian students wore all white t-shirts in support of a fellow classmate suspended for initiating a fight with an African American student.

Now more than 10 years later there hasn’t been another major racial incident and students seem to be heading in the right direction even though the number of minorities attending the high school has more than doubled.

Minorities represented 5 percent of the total school district population in 1999-2000 and they now make up 13 percent, according to official state records.

The Hispanic population has grown fastest.   According to the Pa. Department of Education statistics, in 1999, there were 109 Hispanic students in Penn Manor.  That population has more than tripled  since then to 361 students.  Likewise, the white student population has decreased in the past eight years.  White students numbered 5,161 in 1999.  Now there are 4,536 white students.

Many students of color say that they do not really feel tension here, but are uncomfortable, not just because they are the minority but because they are misunderstood.

“People are afraid of what they don’t know,” Marcos Rivera said.

However, more and more students from the most polar of backgrounds are becoming more accepting and more aware of unjust stereotypes.

More than a dozen students, mostly minorities, were interviewed at Penn Manor on this issue, among them were several white students.
“I think it’s great, we need more diversity,” proclaimed Abby Newport, a white student.

“It’s a good thing because all of the minorities will become the majority,” said Josh Herr, another white student.

“It’s the 21^st century and I think it’s time everyone is accepted,” said Morgan Fletcher.

“I think Penn Manor has more to offer than (my old school),” said Ariela Contreras, a minority student.

In every story there are two sides, two views, but one truth. Although it has become clear that racism has not quite left from this school, or from this world for that matter, it is evident that it’s getting the hint from students who go to school here.

By: Robert Henry

Will Penn Manor always be known for its racial problems of the past?

Maybe not.

Although the number of minorities has doubled in Penn Manor over the past decade, racial incidents have decreased since the high school enlisted the help of reformed racist Quay Hanna.

“Penn Manor is unique,” said Hanna.  “It’s hard to measure how more or less racist someone is, but we are progressing.”

In 1997, racial tensions broke out at Penn Manor resulting in what today many  Penn Manor students refer to as “the whiteout.”  That  incident of racial violence occurred after an African American student was stabbed by a white student with a pencil, recounted Hanna.

When the accused student who stabbed the African American student returned from his suspension,  he was greeted by several white students wearing white t-shirts in his support.

Penn Manor called Hanna and arranged for him to speak with their student body. Upon hearing about Hanna’s book “Revelations of a Redneck,” discussing his change in views on race, administrators thought he would be the man for the job.

After Hanna addressed the whole school, a select few involved in “the whiteout” were angered and wanted to speak to Hanna privately. Hanna agreed to speak with the students the next week.

Following Hanna’s first meeting with the students, they asked him to return the next week. This continued for the rest of the year and by the end of the year, the racial tension had subsided so much between the the African Americans and the white students, that the students involved in the “whiteout” asked the African American students to join their club.

Thirteen years later, Hanna still meets with Penn Manor students on a weekly basis discussing issues of race. This club has helped open the eyes of both white, African Americans and Hispanics and allowed them to understand each other and speak to each other freely, he said.

“I’m not trying to create a bunch of little Quay’s I just want people to think,” said Hanna.

Hanna was not always as open minded.  In fact he was  a self-proclaimed racist. All that changed when he took a bus trip throughout the U.S. where he was seated next to an African American where he was forced to listen to him and interact with him.

“It’s easy to be racist from a distance but hard to be that way to an actual human’s face,” said Hanna.

The bus trip changed Hanna’s life and made him change his ways. He decided  to spread his new-found respect for other races to other people.

As for Penn Manor, racist remarks and racial tension have  greatly decreased over the past thirteen years,  Hanna said, and he hopes to keep this going.

By: David Mohimani and Miriam Karebu

Kaleb Long, a committed and involved 16-year-old hog raiser, says that “some pigs are hard to get rid of ‘cuz you like ‘em.”

Long, one of the top hog showmen in Lancaster County, started showing hogs at the age of 8, when he decided to raise hogs himself instead of having to buy other people’s hogs.  Now he has 32 sows of his own that he breeds, and sells the piglets to butchers or other hog raisers or FFA members.

Recently at the Lampeter Fair, Long, was ranked a top hog showman after showing his two hogs.  He and his brother, Cameron, have made it to national levels with their show hogs.

Long will be showing his market hogs, which are butcher hogs, at the Pennsylvania Farm Show this January.

During competitions, the hogs are judged on a few different things,  including the amount of muscle, and how they walk, Long explained.  He also shared that the best part of the fairs is just having fun with the other FFA members.

Only about 25 percent of the Penn Manor FFA students show animals at fairs.  The rest go to support their friends and have fun, as well as participate in the other community events, such as the pig chase and orchard freeze.

The brothers started their business when Kaleb was 14-years-old.  Long says that most of the money they make goes back into the business to buy supplies that they need in order to keep their business up and running.

Long said that they started by selling their hogs to neighbors, who told other people, and “word spread fast.”

Long explained that he has to get up by 5:30 every morning to make sure the piglets are warm, and to feed them.  Once he gets home from school, Long needs to feed them again, check on all the equipment, and even give shots to some of the piglets.

The hogs for show typically have less fat, so they look trimmer, whereas the hogs sold to butchers have more fat and are less eye-appealing, Long explained.

Females are mostly for showing because of the way they walk.  They are also kept longer for breeding purposes.  Males aren’t needed as long, so they are sold to butchers.

Long says that his family only butchers one or two a year for themselves, so they sell most of them.  The average hog weighs about 250 pounds, and they make about 50 cents per pound.  That works out to  about $125 profit per hog.

Long plans to continue his business throughout high school, and maybe after.

Another FFA member is also a determined business owner.  Chris Cook and his brothers are the founders and owners of “Cook Brothers Lawn Care,” located in Mountville.

Cook switched from Hempfield High School to Penn Manor for it’s outstanding agricultural program, to help his business.  Hempfield is paying tuition for Cook to come to Penn Manor, because agriculture classes are not offered there.

He does not show animals, but he helps at the fairs by working at the FFA’s Orchard Freeze stand, which sells all natural slushies, “for all natural people,” Cook said.  He also helps with the kid’s fair.

The 18-year-old is taking business management courses in hopes of furthering his business knowledge, along with classes such as agricultural equipment and floriculture.

There are ups and downs of his career, the most rewarding being meeting new people and having the satisfaction of completing a job, he said. However, Cook shared a story about how after completing a job, the customer’s wife sprayed the plants and killed everything he worked so hard on, and then blamed him for it.

Despite those problems, Cook plans to continue his career in landscaping.

These ambitious business managers already have a head start on their productive futures.

By: Brittany Burke and Alyssa Funk