On Sunday, November 20th, the Stockton Geology Club sponsored a trip to the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, NJ. The trip was partially covered by the club, with members attending having to contribute $5 toward their tour fee. Transportation was provided, and we disembarked from the Arts and Sciences building by 7:45 am.

During the drive up, we wound up running further into the system that dropped a few flakes at Stockton. By the time we reached Sterling Hill, about 2-3 inches had accumulated, and, naturally, snowball guerrilla warfare soon ensued. Not even the accompanying professor was safe. After things calmed down a bit, we were treated to a tour of the museum and the uppermost level of one of the zinc mines on the site. The tour included descriptions of the geologic formations and processes visible at the mine as well as demonstrations of the equipment used when the mine was active. The history of the mine was also covered as part of the tour, as well as some of the fluorescent minerals found in the mine, which include willemite (a zinc ore) and calcite (calcium carbonate mineral), which respectively glow green and orange under an ultraviolet light. There was also an opportunity for guests to collect their own samples at the surface, and a gift shop with a number of small fossils, fluorescent mineral samples and crystals available. I wound up leaving with a trilobite and a sample that included willemite, calcite and franklinite (another zinc ore).

Our time at Sterling Hill concluded by about 2 pm, so we reassembled at the school vans and began the 2-1/2-hour drive home. We returned to campus around 4:30-5:00 and some club members went out for food soon after our return. I, personally, went back to my dorm.

On October 13, an Afternoon of Service was hosted by Commuters on the Go. The event was held in the Campus Center Event Room, and served to fulfill a short-term Honors service requirement. About thirty or so students attended the event, which included a number of small service projects to benefit the less fortunate.

The projects involved in the Afternoon of Service included building teddy bears for children in the hospital, creating small baskets for poor mothers and homemade birthday cards for homeless children. I personally participated in the birthday card activity with a handful of other students from my dorm building. Over the course of the event, a large number of cards were created, many with corny, birthday-related puns decorating the covers, others with a more simple “Happy Birthday” and stickers. The mothers’ baskets station, which made small baskets and cards for Mother’s Day, saw no less creativity. I personally think it was a bit early for a Mother’s Day-themed service project, but it probably came down to the logistics of collecting and distributing the baskets. The final station, which created teddy bears for children in the hospital, was a longer process and as such continued into the reflection session at the end of the event.

The reflection session following the event served to tie together three separate activities that initially have little in common with each other. The actual reflection involved participants writing the most important people, traits and physical objects in their lives, trading with someone else, and throwing away one of the other person’s cards. This served to illustrate the situation of the people this program was designed to help – having lost something dear to them without having had any sort of say in the matter. The reflection was more powerful than I would have initially thought it would have been, and that is to the credit of the organizers of the event.

Brian Kibelstis

Last Friday, I was able to attend the Osprey XC High School Invite. The Osprey Invite is a high school cross-country meet held at the athletic complex on Pomona Road near Lot 8. The annual event is sponsored by the Stockton XC / Track program, and provides high school cross-country runners with the opportunity to win medals and be seen by college-level coaches, the latter more for upperclassmen than the freshmen and sophomores.

Among those running the meet were my former teammates from Williamstown High School, who posted a strong showing among the twelve teams racing. Both the boys’ and girls’ teams placed third in their respective races, with strong individual showings to boot. Among the medalists – comprised of the top ten runners in each varsity race – were three representatives of the Williamstown Braves teams, including a promising freshman and a graduating senior with collegiate potential. Besides the Braves, runners representing Absegami, Mainland, Raritan, Atlantic City, Brick Memorial, Cedar Creek, Holy Spirit, Oakcrest, Ocean City, Pennsauken, and Pinelands Regional competed on the course, which was noticeably – about 400m, or ¼ mile –longer than the standard 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) of a typical high school cross-country course. As a result, many times were noticeably slower, although a number of newer runners were able to break their personal records (PRs) in spite of the longer course.

Although the course was noticeably longer than a normal race – something I heard several times over from my old teammates after they ran – the winning times are still pretty impressive. The girls’ race, which started first around 4:15, was won by a runner from Mainland in 18:50, over a minute before her nearest competitor, a runner from Ocean City who crossed in 20:09. The boys’ race, which started after the girls’ race finished, was won by a runner from Absegami in 17:20, which, in a standard 5K, is a good, but not exceptional, time. When accounting for an additional 400m, however, it would equate to a 5K time of about 16:03, which is a notable time in high school cross-country; likewise, the winning girls’ time would equate to a 17:26 in an exact 5K. The top Williamstown times in each race, 17:49 in the guys’ race and 22:06 in the girls’ race, would respectively equate to about 16:30 for the graduating senior and 20:28 for the upstart freshman.

Overall, I would recommend any former high school runners to look out for this meet next year to see if your old teammates are coming to your backyard. I found out about this meet quite by accident, and I wound up having a great time reconnecting with my old coaches and teammates, seeing the latter where I was at this time last year – trying to figure out where they will end up for college, etc. – and being able to help them with it in ways I previously hadn’t been able to.