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Magnolia High School celebrated its annual football homecoming recently. Reagan Villarreal (left) was named the 2012 Homecoming King, while Allison Woods (right) was named the 2012 Homecoming Queen. Both are seniors at Magnolia High School.

Last year was the second time that Magnolia High School Principal Jeffrey Springer was selected as a regional winner for the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals (TASSP) Principal of the Year award -- but this time it was different. This time he was also chosen as 2013's Principal of The Year for Texas, which means that of more than 1,000 school districts in the state, Springer was rated the top secondary school principal. This honor makes him eligible for the national award in 2014.

"This award is not about me," stated Springer. "This is a celebration of our community, teachers and students. In fact, as soon as I heard I won, I called a meeting so I could tell my staff that the data that resulted in this honor is about them and their students. I didn't want this to just be a title, but to inspire us to work together to live up to the expectations of our state's educators."

Springer strives to create an environment at Magnolia that is a place where lives can be transformed and characters developed. He wants to reinforce the feelings of family - with all that entails, such as togetherness, compassion and pride.

"Our school is not perfect -- it has a way to go, we all do," he explained. "Public education has something of a black eye right now, but we want to change that. We are on a quest from excellence to eminence. We want people to say that Magnolia ISD has great programs and is an academic success."

Springer, a Magnolia resident, has been an educator for more than 30 years. He was selected the Region Six Secondary Principal of the Year in 2006 and received that honor again in 2012. A former teacher and high school football coach, Springer received his B.A. in teaching from Sam Houston State and a Master of Sports Administration from the U.S. Sports Academy.

The TASSP recognizes outstanding secondary school principals annually, as part of its mission to facilitate learning through best practices in school administration. The organization was established in 1922 to build a network of Texas educators that wanted to take responsibility for the quality of school leadership. TASSP is comprised of more than 5,000 secondary campus administrators and is an affiliate of the national organization (NASSP). It is committed to increasing public awareness about the critical problems facing educational leadership and engaging partners from business, government and community groups to tackle these issues and improve public schools in Texas.

Being selected Principal of the Year is a great honor for Springer, and for Magnolia ISD in general -- it shows that the district promotes leadership above just "management," which is a big step toward achieving the "eminence" that Springer is talking about, district officials said.

Jake Duncan is excited about technology in schools and even more excited about teachers and students working together, in order to create innovative technology projects that can teach real life skills.

Duncan, the technology integration specialist for Texas Region 6 Educational Service Center in Huntsville, recently staged a video contest designed to motivate teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms, and to get the students to "show off their technology skills" in the process.

The contest asked for videos in three categories: Technology as a Teaching Tool, Morning Announcement and My School is the Best. Each category had two levels – one for grades K-5 and one for grades 6-12. Up to three videos could be submitted per school.

Magnolia High AV Production Instructor Kathrina Martin won the category of My School is the Best with the video "The Magnolia Style," a fast-paced parody of the popular Gangnam Style video by the South Korean musician PSY. The video involved a huge cast of Magnolia High staff members and students, but above all, it shows a sense of accomplishment and pride that the students have for their school, Duncan said.

Texas Region 6 comprises more than 12,000 square miles across 15 counties in southeast Texas, including Montgomery County. Region 6 has 57 school districts, including Magnolia ISD, and a number of private and charter schools. More than 30 videos were submitted for consideration in this first video contest, and winners were announced this month.

"This is an example of how we want technology to work in the schools – classroom transformation with digital learning," said Duncan.

"We actually created the video before we heard about the contest," Martin said. "When I heard about the contest I knew the video would be perfect for that."

Martin sent the idea she had for the parody to former student Jeremy Fowler – now a college student in Austin – and he wrote the lyrics. Fowler and another former Magnolia student Austin Clark then put the song together, which the students lip sync in the video.

Martin said the students and faculty members that participated in the making of the video spent countless hours meticulously matching every movement and shot in the original video.

"The kids had to do research on getting the shots and framing just right," she said.

Martin's students and Magnolia High had already received some fame for a past video, in which they lip synced to Katy Perry's song "Fireworks." Perry then got word of the video and shared it with her Twitter and Facebook followers, with the video now having received almost 400,000 views on YouTube.

"Our students work extremely hard and are very creative," Martin said. "I am really proud of what they did."

Duncan is optimistic that the next contest will have more entries.

"The next contest is on the subject of teaching others to become good digital citizens," he said. "The videos will be due May 13. These contests are about collaboration and creativity, not just about who can produce the fanciest video. I hope more teachers and students get involved in the next one – they can learn a lot and it's fun."

Each video must be submitted by a teacher sponsor, but students are invited to get involved. The Magnolia Style can be viewed here.

Tribune Reporter Caleb Harris contributed to this report.

The Magnolia High School UIL academic team placed second in the 18-4A district meet recently and advanced 21 students to the regional meet later this month. The team scored 370 points and competed in 75 academic events, covering 20 different subjects. 
The accounting team continued its dominance in district, taking first place for the fifth time in the last eight years and advancing to the regional meet. Bethany Mandrell placed first, Blake Hale finished second and Michaela Miller rounded out the top three. The accounting team looks to repeat as regional champions, a title they have held four out of the last six years. The team has also been to the state meet five out of six years and won the state title in 2008-2009.    
Under the direction of new theater arts teacher Rod Sheffield, the One Act Play claimed the district championship and advanced to regionals again, winning for its production of "The Good Woman of Setzuan." Kenny Gregory won best actor, while Rachael Malonson won best actress. Ben Hudson and Luke O'Neal were named all-star cast and Charity Whifield was an honorable mention selection. Joe Dirik was named top technician for the competition.
Andrea Zapata placed third in news writing and advances to regionals for the second consecutive year for the journalism team. Madison Disotell took first place in news writing, while Jordan Goff placed first in feature writing and both advanced to regionals.
Laila Espinoza placed first in computer applications, while Luis Cataldo won first in current issues and third in social studies. Katie Dennington placed third in mathematics, Caspar Stinn won third in ready writing and Amanda Sass was the second place winner in spelling. All will compete at regionals. 
Speech and Debate scored big and advances six to the regional meet. Miranda Sanford placed third in informative speaking, while Eric Gagliano took second in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Blake Bergeron placed first in both persuasive speaking and prose, with Juliana Nicolini in second in the same events. Marcus Sloan placed third in prose and sealed the top three spots to Magnolia High School. Meagan Wilson placed second in poetry.

Magnolia's Lady Bulldog basketball team continued their winning ways, upending their rival Magnolia West 60-39, Jan. 22.
The win improved the Lady Bulldogs to 10-2 in district play, putting them in a three way tie with Brenham and Montgomery.
The Lady Mustangs kept the game close throughout the first quarter, trailing just 12-11 heading into the second period.
Magnolia's depth and their full court pressure began to wear on Magnolia West, as the Lady Bulldogs opened up a nine-point halftime lead.
The third quarter was the deciding factor, as Magnolia went on a 19-5 run to break open the game and grab a 51-29 lead.
Allison Abendschein led all scorers with 15 points, and recently picked up the 1,000th point of her high school career as well. Ashley Richardson and Savannah Schroeder each pumped in 10 points in the win.
The Lady Bulldogs took on Waller Jan. 25, but results were unavailable as of press time.

The Magnolia High School girls soccer team finished an amazing run through the Texas state playoffs with a disappointing, but hard fought loss in the state semifinals April 18, in Georgetown.

The Bulldogs lost to top-ranked Denton Guyer 4-2, ending their season with a 19-6-2 record.

Magnolia fell behind late in the first half, giving up three goals within a span of six minutes, before Allison Abendschein headed a goal in after Zoe Bauerschmidt launched a corner kick her way.

They were down 4-1 with about three minutes to play in the contest, before senior Valerie Turner kicked a bullet, from about 20 yards away, past the Guyer goalie, for the final 4-2 score.

Some of the players and Magnolia head coach April Cleveland talked with the Tribune before traveling to the state tournament, after taking home the regional title.

"This experience has been awesome," Cleveland said. "Just being around the girls and the way they know how to have fun, but can turn it on when they have to. It's been an amazing experience."

"We've been an underdog for awhile now, but we like that," said senior Bauerschmidt. "We don't put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We just play for each other."

With a team loaded with 14 seniors, Cleveland expected a good showing this year.

"Did we expect (the final four)? No," Cleveland said. "But one of our goals was to make it to regionals and once we did that we reset them and expected to get to state."

Magnolia reached the regionals and then won the region three title. They fell behind several times during their playoff run, but always bounced back in the second half. They defeated Huntsville (3-0), Lumberton (3-1), Port Neches-Groves (1-0), Waco University (2-1), Kingwood Park in overtime (2-1) and Stratford (2-1).

Against Stratford, the Bulldogs fell behind 1-0 at the end of the first half; before senior Abendschein scored two second half goals to help bring the region three trophy back to Magnolia High School.

"No one expected us to get here," Abendschein said.

Bauerschmidt, Abden-schein and Turner have played together since they were in fifth grade.

"Since we were little babies," Bauerschmidt said.

"Knowing it's going to be our last games together makes us want to play hard," Abendschein said.

'We've never made it past the second round before and we wanted to make history," Turner said.

They did exactly that.

Six athletes from Magnolia High School recently signed national letters of intent to play college athletics. Pictured are (from left) Cole Williams, Stephen F. Austin State University baseball; Kyle Black, Panola Junior College baseball; Garrett Luna, Texas A&M University baseball; Allison Woods, University of Maryland at Eastern Shore volleyball; Tori Frederick, University of St. Thomas basketball and Chris Barnett, Midland University soccer.

Students in the Magnolia High School Family Consumer Science Child Development class recently participated in a parenting simulation using the Real Baby Think It Over simulation. The baby requires feeding, burping, rocking, and diaper changing on a schedule. The parenting experience allows the student to draw their own conclusions and discover for themselves what the responsibilities of a parent feel like.

The Magnolia High School DECA members competed in The DECA District 4 competition Jan. 19 at The Woodlands High School-College Park. The students pictured will advance to compete in the DECA State Competition in Corpus Christi Feb. 28. From left are Daniel Rodriquez, Amber Coronel, Ashlie Schwinn and Laura Dobrinski.

The Magnolia Debate Team grabbed second place overall, during a recent tournament at Ranger College. In Oratory, Blake Bergeron placed first, Amanda Sass second, Blake Hale third, Emily Ward sixth and Juliana Nicolini seventh. In Dramatic Interpretation, Juliana Nicolini placed first, while Blake Bergeron placed fifth. In Humorous Interpretation, Bergeron grabbed third place, Hardy Gatlin fifth and Nicolini sixth. In Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking, Miranda Sanford took home fifth and Gatlin placed sixth, while in Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking Nicolini placed second and Hale placed fourth. Meagan Wilson and Kirk Smith placed third in two-person cross examination debate, while Deanna Nelson advanced to the quarterfinal round in Lincoln-Douglas debate.