Freedom High School is made up of three different communities: New Sewickley, Freedom and Conway. Conway and Freedom have more of a suburban setting, having a lot of houses side-by-side. New Sewickley, on the other hand, has much more of a country feel. Farms, back roads, open spaces and most houses are spread apart. If someone who lived in any kind of city setting took a drive through New Sewickley, they would call it “the middle of nowhere.” For us, it’s an everyday home. Students from other school districts near Freedom would describe us as “hicks.” But in reality, Freedom contains the weirdest mixture of people. Freedom is very unique, which can’t be said about most schools. Even though so many of us are different, no cliques reside in the district. Everyone is friends with whoever they want to be. No one cares who is friends with who or who is dating who. Something that makes us all different is everyone’s hobbies: dancing, deck hockey, playing an instrument, doing gymnastics, running and even skateboarding. However, a lot of us have in common is skiing and snowboarding. Freedom’s Ski Club consists of a good number of students and is sponsored by Freshman English teacher Andrea Niedbala and Multimedia teacher Kristen Milanovich. Typically students go to Seven Springs for every ski trip offered. In the past, trips landed on Thursdays, and if we didn’t come to school the next day after getting home late, we would be removed from ski club promptly. Two years ago, the sponsors changed trips to Friday nights to avoid the hassle. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to work either because of how busy things were. Now we have gone back to driving up to Seven Springs Thursday nights. Trips begin between early and mid-January, depending on the crazy weather of past years. The talk of an overnight trip began two years ago, and each year the ski club has been tortured with even the thought of this happening. Who wouldn’t want to go away for two days with best friends for a low price? Unfortunately, it was never a possibility for Freedom because of the strict budget. This year will be our first overnight trip, and Holiday Valley is who we’d love to thank for the opportunity. Only about 50 of us could attend the trip because of bus space. The day we found out about the trip, the sponsors said they begin accepting money before school started the next day. Ski club members flooded the office the next morning for a guaranteed spot. Each one of us is thankful that we have had the opportunity to go on this trip. “I’m thankful because not every school cares enough to let their students have ski trips or even go on trips period. I think it’s cool we get to go to someplace different,” Junior Jesse Herzog said. Thank you Holiday Valley!