Pattonville's annual career fair had over 60 presenters available to speak to students on Nov. 3 regarding career selection, job skills, training and education requirements, and occupational journeys. The career fair was held in the main gym and multipurpose room during Homeroom. 

Senior Hayley Buschmann spoke to a certified flight instructor from St. Louis Flight Training to learn about possible opportunities. 

“I’ve always been really interested in planes but I didn’t know how to find out more,” she said. 

After listening to “The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin,” first graders in Lisa Stahlhut’s class completed a pumpkin STEM challenge with Rungsee Suvansri in the STEM lab at Rose Acres Elementary School. 

The task was to create a non-round pumpkin using pipe cleaners and Apple Jacks cereal pieces. Students had to write a plan and come up with alternative shapes in their design. 

Pattonville Fire Protection District conducted fire extinguisher training for family and consumer sciences students at Pattonville High School. Hands-on training such as this one can prove priceless during an actual emergency. 

“We’re teaching kitchen safety in class and we were just thinking about how do we take this further, how do we expand this and make it more hands-on and practical for these kids,” FACS teacher Madison Avery said. “In just one phone call, we were able to get everything set up with the fire department and they were here to help.”

Pattonville Heights Middle School eighth grader Eva Benson recently published her first manga novel, “Forgotten.” She is both the author and illustrator of this published work. 

“I came up with the storyline when I was eight years old and my ideas just kept spiraling until I finally decided I needed to write this down.” 

The illustrations on the pages took about nine months to complete and her goal was to publish it before she turned 13 years old.

“I made the book when I was 12 but it took several months to find the right publisher and then I was involved in picking the paper I wanted to use,” Benson said. “Mangas are usually printed on newsprint, but that wasn’t an option so I had to go with something else.”