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.

Penn High School Athletic Director Jeff Hart announced the hiring of Kyle Zaber as the Kingsmen Head Coach for Boys Soccer.  Zaber is a highly respected coach in the soccer community and has had an extremely successful career both playing and coaching boys soccer. 

After an all-state high school career in the St. Louis-area and a successful college playing career at Dominican University, Coach Zaber has built an extensive coaching career. He began his coaching career at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Ky. He has had numerous club coaching duties, as well as a six-year stint as an assistant at Holy Cross College.   Zaber has also served as a longtime member of Coerver Indiana’s coaching staff.

“Coach Zaber has a proven track record of high-end success for his teams, both on and off the field,” Hart said. “He brings immediate credibility to the program and we are thrilled to have him join our outstanding group of head coaches at Penn.  His ability to communicate positively and his emphasis on developing high character student-athletes fit the culture here perfectly.”

Zaber is excited to guide the Kingsmen Boys Soccer Program.

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to coach the boys’ program at Penn High School,” Zaber said. “Several of these young men I’ve coached at various stages of their youth soccer careers. It is a reward and a tremendous responsibility to now have the opportunity to coach them at the high school level. I’m very grateful to Jeff Hart and the Penn Athletic Department for allowing me this opportunity. Go Penn!”

Coach Zaber holds a Masters of Art degree in Sports and Performance Psychology and is currently working toward his Doctorate of Education.  He and his wife Karlie, a Penn graduate, have three sons – Keagan, Finlay, and Declan. He is employed as an account executive at Press Ganey Associates in South Bend.

Penn owns a proud history in Boys Soccer. The Kingsmen were Sectional Champions and Northern Indiana Conference Champions in 2017. The Kingsmen have won 11 Sectional Championships, including the last seven seasons. Penn won a State Championship in Boys Soccer in 1999.

Calling all teachers … Register today for TECHNOVATION 2018! 
 

This is a great learning opportunity open to ALL TEACHERS in the state, and not just P-H-M teachers.  As part of the  Indiana DOE Summer of eLearning Program, P-H-M is one of 51 school districts all across our state offering high quality professional development mini conferences. This is the fourth year that P-H-M has hosted TECHNOVATION at Penn High School. The the one day conference will be Tuesday, July 31. 

​What to Expect…

Technovation is a conference centered around innovative practices and the intentional placement of technology in the classroom. Technovation is open to anyone interested in integrating technology and education. It is an all-day event beginning at 7:30 a.m. and ending by 4:00 p.m.

Breakout Sessions…

This year we have sessions by educators from across the state as well as education partners showing off the latest developments with popular school technology. Some of this year’s sessions highlight STEM in the classroom, student engagement, the whole student, and hardware and software guides for Apple, Google, Canvas, Hapara, Edmentum and more. Participating session leaders come from many different districts and there are a wide variety of sessions with content for everyone! Click here to scroll through the list of sessions offered.

Keynote Speaker

Technovation will feature keynote leading educator and Google certified trainer Denis Sheeran. Denis Sheeran is an engaging, fun, highly requested nationwide speaker, who delivers keynotes, full­ day workshops, and small ­group professional development courses to teachers and administrators. He is a Google Certified Educator and has a master’s degree in educational leadership and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics education with a minor in music. Before becoming the Director of Student Achievement for the Weehawken Township School District in Weehawken, NJ, Denis taught high school math, from Algebra to Advanced Placement, for thirteen years at Lake Forest High School in Lake Forest, Illinois and supervised the mathematics programs in Sparta, Edison, and Chatham NJ. Denis is also the author of the book "Instant Relevance".

*Lunch will be provided and there are opportunities to win door prizes!

►Find out more at the Technovation 2018 eLearning conference website

►Click here for Online Registration 

Technovation 2018 sponsors:

Please see a photo gallery below from Technovation 2017 to see how engaging and hands-on the sessions are.

Penn High School Athletics teams continued to stand tall on the Indiana High School Athletic Association landscape, as the Kingsmen combined for an 82.7 percent winning percentage (554-106-10) in 19 sports during the 2017-18 school year.

A total of 1,100 students competed in the Penn Athletics program.

In addition to winning in the arena of competition, Kingsmen student-athletes also excelled in the classroom, combining for a cumulative Grade-Point Average of 3.54 (on a scale of 4.0).

Girls Soccer, coached by Jeff Hart, highlighted an exceptional 2017-18 showing by Kingsmen teams with a second straight state championship and a national championship title.

Football, coached by Cory Yeoman, competed in the State Championship Game for the 12th time in program history, and finished as state runner-up.

Two Penn student-athletes earned IHSAA’s top honors during the 2017-18 school year.  Kristina Lynch earned the prestigious IHSAA Mental Attitude Award for Girls Soccer, and Erin Ludwig, also Girls Soccer, was one of 13 student-athletes state wide named as a CATO Scholarship award winner for excellence in academics, sportsmanship, community involvement and citizenship.

Penn also dominated in the Northern Indiana Conference (NIC), accomplishing a combined 92.6 winning percentage (274-22).

Additional highlights for the 2017-18 school year include:

• Penn teams earned 16 sectional championships in 19 IHSAA Championship Tournaments.
• The Kingsmen hoisted a Regional Championship trophy in 9 sports.
• Penn won 2 Semi-State Championships.
• Penn teams combined to win 15 of 19 NIC Championships.
• Penn was the only school in the state to win a Sectional Championship in every Fall sport.
• Penn was the only school in the state to win a Sectional Championship in every Spring sport.

More than 250 people participated in today’s (Monday, July 2) an active shooter training drill held at Penn High School. Personnel from multiple local emergency, first responder and police agencies, along with Penn High School and Penn-Harris-Madison administration and staff were all involved in today’s valuable community exercise. Participants in today’s drill either partook as active participants in their emergency responser role, actors, observers or evaluators. Please see a photo gallery below from today’s drill. 

P-H-M’s Director of Safety and Student Services Mike Seger worked with Sgt. Bryan Fox, Training Coordinator with Mishawaka Police Department, and several other St. Joseph County agencies for nearly a year planning today’s safety exercise. Other participating agencies included: St. Joseph County Police, Mishawaka Fire Department, Penn Township Fire Department, Clay Fire Department, St. Joseph County Emergency Management, Memorial Hospital, Elkhart General Hospital, St. Joseph Medical System, St. Joseph County 911 Center, South Bend Fire Department and Honeywell Security Group. Representatives from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Indiana Department of Education Office of School Building Physical Security & Safety were also on hand to observe today’s drill.

“Today’s drill was important for P-H-M because it gets our community first responders working together for the benefit of our school and all other schools in the community,” said P-H-M’s Director of Safety and Security Mike Seger.

“Anytime you get the opportunity to have this many disciplines, this many organizations do a real life exercise in the environments that they may have to work in some day, it’s a benefit,” said St. Joseph County Police Assistant Chief Bill Thompson. “Today was a worthwhile venture because we were able to get some many people involved, test a lot of our systems, to see not only what we do well, but the things we can improve on. Any time you get a chance to do that, it improves our capacity to respond and it makes our community safer.”

The scenario for today’s training exercise was an after school hours event at Penn High School: a student/staff dodgeball game taking place in Penn’s Main Arena. Actors were on the gym floor and in the stands simulating crowd patrons, as well as staff actors stationed at the event door entrance. A St. Joseph County police officer playing the role of the active shooter entered the building using noise bombs and blanks. The drill included simulation of multiple victim casualties. This allowed for law enforcement personnel to practice their tactics of finding and neutralizing the shooter within the building. By having actor victims, this gave local Fire Departments’ Rescue Task Forces and First Responders the opportunity to practice arrival on the scene to access, triage and transport victims. St. Joseph County’s 911 Center involvement in today’s drill allowed the dispatch systems to be tested. Today’s exercise also involved the extra step of transporting the actor shooting victims to Memorial Hospital and Elkhart General Hospitals; St. Joseph Medical center used paper patients. Including the hospitals in today’s drill was key affording our local hospitals the chance to test their internal emergency and surgical staff and systems.

“The overall goal was to test the system to identify the intra agency communication breakdowns in order to overcome and correct what we can to make the system better together,” said Cmdr. Bryan Fox, Uniform Devision.

The exercise was an evaluation and was conducted in a no- fault atmosphere.  A debrief was held immediately following; however, a more detailed report and findings will be provided to participating agencies at a later date.