Watch the start of Tracks and changes with announcers and editing. This has the lead-in to the first show and some highlights from the first Wall-of-Famers.
This is mainly a battle of the directors from 2007 to 2010. Two directors primarily worked alone and recruited their actors, and the other two pair of Wall-of-Famers focused on their own acting. Mollie Nelson made her Wall premiere as a sophomore only to return senior year to set records for performance.
Spirit Week for 1999 had students in various costumes for each day, the Blue-White game, the presentation of homecoming attendants, the game, the band's performance, and the dance in the gym. All is summed up here.
This has some brief mention of all these events: T-shirts for all students, art show stand-outs, Rockin' around at Christmas, Extra-Milers, talent show, Top Five School for academics, and Miss Mamerica.
Commencement 2001 This file is "remastered," re-edited to shows excerpts from the graduation speakers and program along with a commencement of summer vacation with teachers toasting the past school year.
Teleprompter origin, 2000-01 This has Mr. Preston's leadership class busy building the teleprompter from a kit. The hearty chuckle at the end is Preston himself.
Classic Macarena: Professor Christian Brackmann of Brazil was an AFS student at PCHS. He emailed in 2012 to submit his segment that had run on Tracks in about 1999.
1995 Romance: This is not the "Hollywood Romance" we are to purge from the hallway. This takes place outside the building where the current art wing stands. It's a commercial for a newspaper ad students are invited to buy.
Field Day 2002: Before the Wolverine Festival was begun to supplement the Homecoming festivities, there was the spring field day that was initiated.
2000 Getting Out Series: This kidnapping story had a run of about three segments which are compiled here. Some actors were recruited outside the class.
Grendel Senior English Project: Mrs. Warren's Grendel is described on the Keepsake page. After the senior project was done, this is what the class came up with to work on.
1997 Country Boy Sports: Buck Preston, the English Dept. Chair for many years, liked this segment because it captured the good ole country boy. It has many imperfections, but it does show off a hobby.
1997 Explode Juice commercial: This is based on the anti-cigarette commericials of the time. The concluding explosion is from the movie Speed a few years earlier. This is still editing on VCR's.
1997 Tracks feature snippets: This has favorite cartoon characters, a commercial of "your brain on drugs," and a Walker, Texas Ranger spoof.
1997 Tracks: "Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees" was an intro and Josh McEntire assisted Barclay Newman as an anchor. A story of Jeff Thomas's school murals is given.
1996 Lead-in and stylin': Mr. Staton was always hip with high tech. He orchestrated this slo-mo on the VCR when computer editing was hardly possible. Then Mr. McEntire, Mr. Greene, and others show off their wardrobe.
Pre-2000 Arts Faculty: Mrs. Kuether, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Vanderford, and Mr. Coss tell of their artform for this piece that was originally for an open house event.
Guy & Girl Romancing: This gives a girl's perspective on getting a guy and then how guys aim to appeal to girls.
Auditorium Delight with Agoo: Always a big benefit of having a first-class auditorium for the community was being able to enjoy for free what adults would pay big bucks to see. No symphony this time, but African dancing scored a big hit.
Cinderella 1999: Mrs. Kuether directed some super productions , with and without music. Cinderella was a particularly lavish production.
Blair Witch Spoof: This spoofed the Blair Witch Project, which in 1997 set records for ticket sales for a new sort of horror documentary.
Mission Possible, 1995: Jon and Shane and Andy teamed up with a community citizen that used a Video Toaster for special effects. The explosion was from Speed but some transitions we could never have done with our limited VCR editing.
Spoof Trek 1995: The script was taken from a booklet that spoofed Star Trek. These actors added their own personality to the roles.
AFS Australia: Leah was an AFS student in 1999 that made her assigned individual project on the Vegamite spread for sandwich bread. It was a cultural experience not many classmates seemed to share a taste for.
Mr. Greene in 1997: Mr. Greene was excited to be newly married; he also gave his enthusiasm for having freshman in his advocate after having seniors the year before.
Band Circa 2000: Do you hear "Grand Champion"? Mr. Vanderford and his cadets heard that title won with regularity.
Combo Talent Show 1995: This was probably the first of the school's talent shows, premiering the fall of 1995. It combined teacher performers with student performers. The quality of the video cameras available at that time to students was poor, but the acts were still notable, as excerpted here.
Talent in Ms Mamerica 1995: Those new to Polk County will find it strange to see such notable staff members dress in drag. But it was for a good cause; on this occasion it raised money for the band. The math teacher that won danced for his talent and in celebration of his crowning.
The first Tracks does lunch: This lunchtime critique was part of the first 1995 Tracks broadcast. It is very poor quality by today's standards, and classes use it on the exam to critique on all the areas to improve.
How to Wow a Tracks audience: This gives the step by step process for the general making of our video segments in 1999. VCR editing was still done, but computer editing was also ongoing on two computers.
Tracks, from the very first 1995 show: This lead-in was varied each time to try catching attention. Andy, Jon, and Shane had video as a passion and channeled it into Tracks.
