Happy New Year Blue Jay Nation families! We know the year has gotten off to a slow and frigid start, but there are a lot of exciting things around the corner here at LHS we are excited to share with you.

First, we want to invite you to our rescheduled general membership meeting on February 5 at 7 PM where we will finally get to recognize our One Blue Jay Nation award winners. We will also provide many updates that will take us through the end of the school year.

As we have mentioned for the last several months, our Blue Jay Nation executive board has been working tirelessly to start a campaign that will extend funding opportunities for teachers and students, as well as launch our long-term vision for a permanent home for the LHS bell. To that end, we will be hosting our first ‘Raise the Bell’ Trivia Night on Saturday, February 24 starting at 6 PM. Please see the link in the newsletter below for more details. Tickets can be purchased individually for $25 each, or we encourage you to consider purchasing a table of six or eight. Gather all your friends and plan for a fun, adult-only evening. The event is open to the public - alumni are also encouraged to attend. You’re encouraged to wear your LHS spirit gear!

If you cannot attend the trivia event, we hope you will consider donating to the Raise the Bell campaign. We have set up a fundraiser using GiveButter where you may donate online to the bell tower project (see information and link below). We know this will be a long term project and are working with the district and their architects, Hollis & Miller to finalize the design, cost, and site selection. The bell truly represents all students at LHS and ONE Blue Jay Nation!

Troy Sheeley

Blue Jay Nation President

Join Blue Jay Nation PTSA for an evening of brain busting questions, snacks, fundraising and fun! Questions will be a mix of fun general knowledge and pop culture, with a few Blue Jay trivia questions sprinkled in.

Grab your friends and form a team or compete as an individual. Event details and registration info are found at the link below!

https://LHSTriviaNight.eventbrite.com

The Liberty Bell has become an anchor of LHS traditions since its arrival five years ago. It has been used for celebrating state championships, sendoffs to State and National competitions for our teams, along with being used regularly at LHS football games and Fall Kick Off.

The Liberty High School Blue Jay Nation PTSA are working with the district's architects on a tower structure to house the bell on school grounds. Fundraising for the bell tower will be kickstarted by this campaign and we look forward to seeing it through! 

Once the bell receives a permanent home, we envision even more meaningful traditions, such as incoming freshmen ringing the bell at orientation and all seniors ringing the bell on their last day of high school. Students have rallied around the Liberty Bell as a symbol of great things happening at LHS.

Your tax-deductible donation to LHS Blue Jay Nation PTSA will help us "Raise the Bell" and give the Liberty Bell a home! 

Learn more and make your donation here: https://givebutter.com/belltower 

NOMINATE A STAFF MEMBER TODAY!

We are looking for an opportunity to highlight one Liberty High School staff member per month this school year who exhibits the characteristics and spirit of our Blue Jay Nation community. These include: 

• Participates in the Blue Jay Nation community, either as a club sponsor, coach or student mentor
• Contributes to a culture of inclusion and acceptance
• Supports a variety of club and athletic activities
• Supports a culture of learning
• Represents the Blue Jay Nation community with pride

Please nominate one staff member who has caught your attention this month for the characteristics above and explain in one to two sentences why you think they are deserving of the #OneBJN Spirit Award. Thank you for supporting the Blue Jay Nation community! 

Nomination Form

WOMEN'S SWIM & DIVE

The Lady Jays swim & dive were at it again competing at the KC Classic Invitational this past week in Gladstone…BRRR! Again, MANY personal best times were made! The team placed 2nd out of 15 teams! Here are the final results (top 16 at prelims make it back for finals in swim).

Diving: 

8th - Belle Nickell

Swim: 

200 Yard Medley Relay - 3rd - Hannah Daughety, Bryn Tobin, Caitlin Hartwig, Alexa Workman

200 Free - Alayna Smith (3rd), Cate Hamilton (11th), Avery Jolly (14th) 

200 Yard IM - Caitlin Hartwig (3rd), Bryn Tobin (5th) Megan Gifford (7th), Ellie McWhorter (8th)

50 Yard Freestyle - Maree Deaver (8th), Lilly Babcock (13th)

100 Yard Fly - Megan Gifford (2nd), Shae Mortimer (4th), Cate Hamilton (11th)

100 Yard Free - Alexa Workman (2nd), Avery Jolly (8th) Lilly Babcock (15th)

500 Yard Free - Caitlin Hartwig (2nd), Alayna Smith (7th), Hannah Daughety (11th)

200 Yard Free Relay - 4th - Lilly Babcock, Avery Jolly, Alayna Smith, Maree Deaver

100 Yard Backstroke - Alexa Workman (3rd), Hannah Daughety (5th), Shae Mortimer (8th), Gabi Workman (11th)

100 Yard Breaststroke - Bryn Tobin (4th), Ellie McWhorter (7th), Hannah Huynh, Gabi Workman (16th)

400 Yard Freestyle Relay - 3rd - Alexa Workman, Avery Jolly, Alayna Smith, Caitlin Hartwig

Upcoming: 

• Tuesday, January 16th: Senior Night/Last Home Meet vs Kearney - 4:00 @ the Liberty Community Center
• COMO Invitational January 19-20th @ Mizzou Aquatic Center, Columbia Missouri 

Follow the team on X: LHSswimanddive to see results for future meets.

SAPPHIRES

Saturday, January 20, the Liberty Sapphires will be competing at the Lee’s Summit North Invitational. Following their regional competition, the Sapphires will be headed to Orlando, Florida, to compete in the 2024 UDA National Dance Team Championships February 2-4.

GIRLS WRESTLING

The Girls wrestling team competed in the Greater Kansas City Suburban Conference Tournament this past Saturday (1/13). The Lady Jays finished 3rd place overall out of 21 teams. The Lady Jays were led by Champions, Lilly Breeden (100 lbs.), Sandy Breeden (105 lbs.), and Alexis Stinson (235 lbs.) and Runner-Ups Jaden Breeden (110 lbs.) and Julia Breeden (120 lbs.)

Lady Jays along with the boys are schedule to wrestle in Lee’s Summit on Tuesday evening at 6 p.m.

Lady Jays will travel to Olathe South for the South Side Slam on Saturday and the Boys travel to Winnetonka on Friday and Saturday for the 53rd Annual Winnetonka Tournament.

Follow all of your LHS Blue Jay Nation teams on X (formerly Twitter) for play by play and other team updates throughout the week.

LHS SPEECH AND DEBATE

The speech and debate team gets back to competition at UCM this weekend. 

Soon the team will be reaching out to the community as we look for more judges for a few upcoming tournaments at the end of February and several in March. 

LHS THEATRE



Auditions for our One Act and Readers Theatre will now be held Wednesday January 17th at 3:30pm in the PAC. Applications for cast and crew should be completed prior to the audition. 

Any student interested may visit the LHS Theatre Callboard.

The LHS Thespians attended the annual Missouri Thespian Conference at the beginning of January. Students competed in technical and acting events, competitions, scholarship auditions and interviews, attended workshops and performances. Below are the results: (I will have pretty graphics made for these for the next announcement if you’d rather wait)

Superior Ratings for Individual Events (the highest rating you can achieve):

Sophia Sola - Monologue

Bennett Chapman - Musical Theatre Solo

Megan Boteler - Technical Theatre: Scenic Design

Elinor Dow - Technical Theatre - Hair and Makeup Design

Alethea Smith - Technical Theatre: Costume Design

Our Technical Design Teams also competed to create designs for Sweet Charity:

Costume Design Team (Alethea Smith & Madigan Reynolds) - 2nd Place

Hair and Makeup Design Team (Elinor Dow, Iris Vallier, and Mary Brink) - 1st Place

Zariah Gordon auditioned and was cast in the Page to Stage event. She was one of four students who made the cast.

3 LHS Thespian will also be performing in the Missouri All State Show, Sweet Charity, at the 2025 Missouri Thespian Conference. This is the first All State Show since before Covid. These students went through a rigorous audition process:

Adrianna Tervort - Nikki

Makenna Dohrmann - Helene

Olivia Dolton - Alice and others