Penn dominated in its first Northern Indiana Conference competition of the Girls Golf season, defeating New Prairie and Jimtown on Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018.

Penn shot a 165, coming in 108 strokes better than New Prairie, which shot a 273. Jimtown did not field a complete team.

PENN 165: Lyvia Li 35, Grace Szklarek 39, Ryen DeToro 39, Kate Burnett 52, Hannah Urbanski 57.

Penn placed second in the Penn Girls Golf Invitational held on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, at Knollwood Country Club.

Homestead won the event with a score of 324. Penn placed second with a score of 346, followed by Northridge (363) and Noblesville (364).

Penn’s Lyvia Li shot a 76 to place second in the individual standings.

PENN 346: Lyvia Li 76, Grace Szklarek 78, Ryen DeToro 92, Kate Burnett 100, Hannah Urbanski 109.

Penn Girls Golf opened the 2018 second by placing third in the Homestead Invitational on Monday, July 30, 2018.

Homestead won the Invitational with a score of 296. South Bend St. Joseph placed second with a score of 342, and Penn was third at 352.

Penn’s Lyvia Li was fifth among individuals with a score of 76.

PENN 352: Lyvia Li 76, Ryen DeToro 100, Kate Burnett 96, Hannah Urbanski 113, Grace Szklarek 80.

It’s August and that means Kingsmen sports and Marching Band practices are in high gear as teams and Fine Arts Academy students prepare for their fall seasons.

To help the students cool off and as a little reward for all their hard work, Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker hands out popsicles at the end of practices (click here to visit the P-H-M District website and view the entire photo gallery). It’s annual tradition that students come to expect and look forward to. He’s been doing it for 13 years!

Today (Friday, August 3) Dr. Thacker handed out frozen treats to Girls Cross Country runners, Boys Tennis players, Penn Band members and Volleyball players. Next week he will visit Boys and Girls Soccer, Boys Cross Country and Cheerleading practices.

Kingsmen Band Director Glenn Northern and his students are hard at work preparing for the upcoming fall marching band season. The Band has actually been practicing since late July with full-day practices starting the week of July 30. See the full photo gallery below of practice on Wednesday, August 1, 2018.

Penn’s Marching Kingsmen is preparing for the state band championship November 3, 2018 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Northern was named 2018 Outstanding Music Educator of the Year from the Indiana Music Educator Association and P-H-M was named among the Best Communities for Music Education by the NAMM Foundation in the Spring of 2018 for its outstanding commitment to music education. 

Lisa Pawlik, who coached Penn to a State Championship in Volleyball in 2010, is returning as the Kingsmen head coach for the 2018 season.

The Kingsmen held their first practice for the 2018 season on Monday, July 30.

Penn’s first home game of the 2018 season will be at 7:30 p.m. against Fairfield on Thursday, Aug. 16.

Click here for the 2018 Penn Volleyball schedule.

Penn All-Sports Passes are on sale now in the Athletic Department Office from 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Click here for details.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.

Coach Cory Yeoman and the Penn High School Football Team reached the Class 6-A State Championship Game last season.

Practice for the 2018 season started on Monday, July 30.

The Kingsmen open this season at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 17, at TCU/Freed Field when Penn hosts Valparaiso.

Click here for the 2018 Penn Football Varsity schedule.

Penn All-Sports Passes are on sale now in the Athletic Department Office from 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Click here for details.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.

Penn High School’s Boys Tennis Team opened the 2018 campaign with the first practice of the season on Monday, July 30.

The Kingsmen, coached by Eric Bowers, have won 16 consecutive Sectional Championships.

Penn opens the season at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 16, against Warsaw on Penn’s Dar & Dot Wiekamp Tennis Courts.

Click here for the 2018 Penn Boys Tennis schedule.

Danielle Black, Penn’s Early College Academy Leader, returned Friday, July 27, 2018 from Ethiopia. Black was named P-H-M’s Teacher of the Year in May and the Indiana Department of Education announced just last week that Black is among the top finalists for 2019 Indiana Teacher of the Year! Black’s educational work spans half way across the globe to Ethiopia where she co-founded a charity, Awake & Alive, Inc. In 2012, Awake & Alive partnered with Bright Future (a highly reputable Ethiopian nonprofit organization) opened Bright Future Academy in Kechene to serve the poorest and most marginalized children in Ethiopia. Today, Bright Future Ethiopia provides an education and two meals a day to 187 children, a large majority of which are orphans or half-orphans. In addition, Bright Future provides medical and general health education for the widows of the half-orphan students.

Black traveled to Ethiopia in July to lead a team of volunteers to teach English to the children. Read her reflection below and view the photo gallery below from her trip. You can also visit Awake & Alive’s Facebook page to see more pictures from her team’s trip.

Reflection after July 2018 Project Presence Team to Ethiopia by Mrs. Danielle Black (July 27, 2018)

Just over 24 hours ago I was saying goodbye to the land and people I have come to love so much. Now, jet-lagged but content to be back in America, I am reflecting on the new and old lessons of the past nine days.

There are many kind people that say encouraging words to me when they find out what I’m involved with in Ethiopia. I think people inherently know that every life matters and my opportunity to be a part of starting a kindergarten and tutorial center for children and an empowerment project for some of their mothers is powerful. I agree. It has been one of the joys of my life to be a small part of Awake & Alive. To lead teams of Americans to Bright Future Academy and its Tutorial Center to teach and play with the children and meet their sponsor families is incredible. Lives have been and continue to be drastically changed in the slum community of Kechene, and seeing it in person is like nothing that I can describe in words, even if I am an English teacher by education! What I don’t think many people in America know is that I truly believe the families and children of Kechene have blessed our lives so much more than we could ever bless theirs.

There is a well-known saying that it is more blessed to give than to receive. My experiences in Ethiopia bring this truth to life more than anything else. To see the light in a child’s eyes when you love on them and show them by your actions that they matter, to hear mothers in poverty talk about their children who are everything to them, to watch Americans experience the generosity and hope of the Ethiopian people for the first time despite what we would consider dire circumstances–all of these are examples of how true the words of Jesus Christ are that when we give of ourselves, we are the ones whose lives are touched, not just the other way around.

This time around, our small team of six taught English lessons designed by one of the team who is TESOL trained to children ages four through 12. We played, let them braid our hair, held, sang, danced, laughed, and cried. We passed out approximately 176 sponsor bags to each child, many of them personally packed and dropped off to me by individual sponsors back home in America. We visited homes, volunteered at a local orphanage run by spunky and passionate Maltese Sisters and celebrated with two Ethiopian friends who graduated college. We also encouraged the all-Ethiopian staff at the two compounds and visited the Kechene Women’s Empowerment Project, hearing the stories of the mothers there and buying jewelry from them. All of these amazing events were special for all, but perhaps most for the "givers" not the "receivers."

All in all, it was a trip that renewed my passion and the passion of our team to continue fighting the good fight to get resources to marginalized people and to truly love people, both across the world and in our very own communities. In looking outside ourselves into what we can do for others, we realize what makes us as humans really come alive!

The first Kingsmen Athletic practices for Fall sports have been tentatively scheduled.

Click here to see the the first week of practice schedule.

The IHSAA moratorium week (no off-season practices or workouts) is July 2-July 8.