Michael Anderson's
D.S. Parrott Middle School
Experience

Wow here it is the end of my middle school education. I wish to thank everyone who made my three years at D.S. Parrott as great as they were.

I will recap 8^th grade as I did 7^th as keeping up has been really hard with all the work middle school gave us.

Again this year I was on the chess team and even though D.S. Parrott came in second this year in the County Championships, I held my weight by becoming the first student ever to be the Hernando County Middle School Chess Champion three years in a row. This is a record no one can beat, as it can only be tied. Good luck to all of you 6^th graders hoping to make your schools team and then win enough to get to the championships and then win them, three times in a row.

I made the Tennis team this year and even though I was not ranked very high, I did not loose one match in either singles or doubles and helped our team become the Hernando County Middle School Champions this year.

It took a toll on my basketball however as tryouts were in the middle of tennis and I did not try out well enough to make the team this year. Hopefully next year I can make both the tennis and basketball teams at Hernando High.

Once again I was the Vice President of the Student SAC 8^th grade this time, and got perfect attendance with the adult SAC. I also was placed on the adult SAC as a voting member this year.

I ran again for the student government and became the secretary for the whole group. It was a lot of work again, but very rewarding.

I was on the 8^th grade dance and awards committee and we did a great job if I do say so myself.

I left D.S. Parrott with a perfect 4.0 and high school credit in both Spanish and Algebra which should help a lot in the future. I mean to start high school with two “A”s already on the record.

A recap of my 7^th Grade is as follows. I made the chess team again this year and once again won the Hernando County Middle School Chess Championship. D.S. Parrott Middle School are the County Champions as well. It was a good year for sure.

I was able to make the 7^th grade basketball team and even though we did not have a very good year, I had fun and learned a lot. I was given the team spirit award and this was wonderful.

I once again ended the year on the high honor roll and hope to keep that up throughout my education.

This year I was a member of the Parrott Crime Watch in which we worked on ways to keep the school safe. We worked on a bully prevention plan and many other interesting things.

I was elected to the student government and worked hard to help with all of the programs we had. I really liked the Veteran’s Breakfast and the carnival.

I also served again this year on the Student SAC as the Vice President of 7^th grade and I know we really made a difference. I also had perfect attendance at the adult SAC meetings.

Below is my record of 6^th grade, I will try to add things to this page as the school year goes on. Middle School does not leave me the time Elementary School did for such an effort.

Wow I am in middle school! I am going to try to do a better job on my middle school web page than I did on my grade school page, however dad is giving me less and less help as he says I am getting to the point I should be able to do all of this myself. So hang in there with me and know I will do my best.

One thing that is the same here in middle school is the school mascot and school colors. We are once again the Lepords, as we will be in Hernando High also. Our colors are also purple and gold and will be the same in high school too.

In middle school I have ten subjects this year that gets reported on my report card. I am happy to say that on my first report card all ten grades are "A"s! To bring this up to date, at the end of the first semester I still have straight "A"s and am very proud of this fact!

I am in the Beta Club, which is a club for academic excellence that meets once a month. We will be going to a conference in the spring at Daytona Beach and I can not wait.

In January I joined the chess club as the only 6^th grader in the club. The way that this works at Parrott is anyone can come to meetings, once they have played a game against Mr. Provost he tells you if you are in the club or need to come to different events to learn the game well enough to be listed as in the club. I am happy to say that when I played Mr. Provost he put me right into the club. In the club we are ranked by how we play and the top eight players are on the chess team of the chess club. The team gets to compete against other schools in tournaments.

The first week in February I won the tournament to become the number one chess player at Parrott Middle School. This is the first time a 6^th grader has ever won a tournament. Many people have been telling me good job and things like that. Some I know do not believe I will stay on top, I guess they figure I surprised the other members and will not be able to hold my number one position very long. The good/bad thing about this position is that we had our first tournament of the year the very next week, Wednesday February 12, 2003 at Fox Chapel Middle School and as the number one player at Parrott I had to start by playing the number one player from Fox Chapel. This of course made me real nervous.

Let me now explain this Fox Chapel tournament, their club and our club. First their club. They have thirty three members and have been a club for six years with the same two advisors who are excellent chess players. This is Parrott's first year and we have twelve members with one on academic probation so we had eleven to draw from to get our eight players. Of the eleven in our club, two were sick the day of the tournament and two others could not get permission to go at the last minute as they were not in the top group that had been picked to compete but were ask when students called in sick that day. So we were only able to seat seven players. Because the tournament was for sixteen Fox Chapel seated nine. To make this clear a six year club with 33 members were able to seat 9 players while our 11 person 1^st year club seated only 7. Our club had two members place, we were 1^st and 3^rd and no matter how you look at that we have to say we showed well! So well they have ask for a re-match March 27^th at our school where we will have to defend our win.

Yes I am the one who won it all! I can't believe it, one week I become the school champion and follow it up with a win the next week against 15 of the best chess players of two different schools. Mr. Provost says I can now say I am one of the best players at Parrott for sure and right now I am the best until one of the other players takes that title away from me. I would also like to say that the people I had to play to win is like a who's who of the two schools. My first game was against their champion, like me their advisors felt he was not their best player but only their champion. The player Mr. Provost felt was our best player had to play the player on the Fox Chapel team that they felt was their best player. I beat their champion, but their best player beat our best player in the first round. It was a double elimination so he was not out of it. My second game I had to play our third best player and I beat her. At the end of this round we had two players unbeaten and two players who had already lost two and were out of the tournament. So our five went on. The next game I had to play their teams third best player, luck of the draw! I won and at this point there were only two of us left unbeaten, their best player, who had defeated our best player in round one and myself. Because we were both undefeated the winner of our game would be the tournament winner and the looser would go back and keep playing for second and third. Yes I won it, so I beat their champion, their best player and their third best player as well as our third best player to win the tournament. I am very proud of this and hope I can defend this title in March at the re-match. Dominique who is considered by many, including myself, to be our best player, just not this month! Dominique lost his first match but did not loose another match until we were down to two. Their best player played their champion for the right to play Dominique for second and third. The only loss either of these players had was to me! Well their champion beat their best player once more. This leads me to believe that maybe both clubs need to re-name their champions as their best players? Anyway their champion did beat Dominique for second but left us with first and third and that is a win for our school for sure.

This will be a review of two tournaments that ended our chess year. First we went to the National Chess Federation Middle School National Championship Tournament with four of our team. I ended up with a rating of 211t^h in the County. Dominique ended up 204^th to be our best player. Dominique and I were team mates in the Bug House event and we held our own in this unusual event. In the tournament itself I did well Thursday, Friday and even Saturday, however I lost every game on Sunday to fall behind Dominique and end up in 211^th place. With several thousand competing and over 800 games going on in our room, I am happy with this ending. My dad says I got to tired trying to keep up with the older kids and staying up playing pick up games. Since I did not win a game Sunday it is hard to argue with him and if we are able to go again I told him I would pace myself. To be able to attend this tournament Mr. Provost who could not attend made my dad a chess coach for our team and I am happy to say he got into the team picture with us for the year book. Dad did a lot to help the entire team this year and of course is the person who taught me to play.

The next tournament was the rematch against Fox Chapel, it was backed up because of testing but when it took place our team took it all. I once again went undefeated to win it all and become the Middle School Chess Champion of Hernando County, Florida. Dominique took second this time and Rachael took third. Since we had all of the players left near the end we had forth place also even though this was not official. What is official is Parrott Middle School is the Chess Champions of Hernando County and I am both the Parrott and County Champion for this year. I know everyone will be aiming to take this title away from me next year so I will have to work hard to do well as the team enters the 2003/04 season.

Officially Mr. Provost gave me a trophy at our last meeting naming me the number one player of the year for Parrott. It was a very good year.

Once again in middle school I have attended all of the SAC meetings this year with my mom and dad. I have even attended the sub-committee meeting on the dress code as my dad is on that committee. I have also been assigned by Mr. Gordon the school administrator to serve on the food/nutrition sub committee and just this week went to Powell Middle School to see how their cafeteria is different from ours in what they serve and how.

For those of you who know how active my dad was on SAC at Brooksville Elementary, he has not changed. He has already been elected as Vice Chairman of the Parrott SAC. For those who have not heard of this before, SAC is the School Advisory Council and they are a group of parents, teachers, administrators and business people from the community that work to make the school a better place and the school experience a better one for the students.

I have taken band this year as one of my subjects and I am now learning to play the tuba. So far it is a lot of fun and I am doing pretty good. I think that I can get into the senior band next year and plan on playing the tuba in a college band in the future.

I got my notice and am now a member of the senior band for the 2003/04 season. It has made me very proud.

I was part of a group of four who wrote a play for the school history fair. The four of us won our class and got to go on to compete for the school competition. One of our group dropped out and the three of us re-wrote the play and competed in the school competition and was good enough to get to go to district. Last week we took our play to Fox Chapel Middle School and competed against all the other schools in our district. We did not win and get to go to State, but our teachers said that the three of us did very well for the fact that their were only three of us doing a four person play and two of the three of us were fighting the flu on top of it. I think we got points for courage because we know we were not able to do our best. We of course did the best we could, just not the best we could have under different conditions.

I am also still in Quest, it is a little different here in middle school but it is still very challenging and a lot of fun. This semester we are learning to use a computer program called Power Point. So far I am doing pretty well with it.

Middle School has a lot more big projects than grade school had and so far I am handling it all okay. It does seem like there is so much more to do and so much less time to do it in. This is part of the reason I have decided to not play baseball this season. I have to give up something or I will start doing less than the best I can on everything and I want to make sure what I am doing is the best I can do.

I am happy to say my last report card of the year leaves my record in place. Straight "A"s one more time. Now to see if I can do it in 7^th grade? I also got the award as being the best math student in 6^th grade this year. Is that why I play good chess? Dad says it is a large factor.

Remember to book mark this page as I will be adding to it as my experiences here at Parrott are added to or change.

Thanks for coming to my page on my middle school education and I hope you come back.

Michael Anderson

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