Myrtle Beach Sun Times
The state’s high school dropout rate increased slightly last year and an upcoming report on the graduation rate is expected to place North Carolina “below the middle of the pack,” officials said Wednesday.

That means it’s time to make a renewed push to raise the age through which students are obliged to attend high school, and to find better ways to account for those who leave, members of the state Board of Education said.

“Sometimes kids who are dropping out are kids who are more impulsive,” said Jane Norwood, a professor at Appalachian State University. “They might say to you, ‘Well, I’m going to go to community college,’ and they don’t realize the requirements for doing that.” Read full article

Progess has been made in the last year, but there’s still a lot of work to do, and it begins with people’s willingness to lead

Winston-Salem Journal
Much more can be done in general on energy-saving initiatives. Other colleges and universities in the region still need to follow the lead of Appalachian State University students, who a few years ago started an energy-saving initiative on their campus. Read full article

The Senate passed a bill to endorse tax-free textbooks, and Student Government is continuing to promote projects to decrease prices.

NCSU’s Technician
One of the Student Senate’s goals for this year is to campaign to lower textbook prices, and this semester, the Senate has taken new measures to achieve this goal, one of which was a project to put faces to students paying high textbook prices. “I hope that they will eventually lower the textbook prices and eventually have a rental program like at Appalachian State,” Kristy Craig, a freshman in political science and one of the students who took a photo for the textbook prices book, said. Read full article

Washington Times
A music therapist and entertainer from North Carolina was named “Best New Act in Country Music” in the 25th annual Colgate Country Showdown in Nashville. Megan Peeler, a graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., was selected from five finalists during the competition at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
Read full article

Charlotte Observer
About 8 p.m. Wednesday, something peculiar flashed in the sky — something twinkly, something colorful, something eye-catching. “A fireball,” says Daniel Caton, observatory director and astronomy professor at Appalachian State University in Boone. Based on the reports, Caton believes it was an unusually bright meteor that burned up about 30 miles high in the atmosphere somewhere above Charlotte. Sightings came from more than 100 miles away.

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