BROCKWAY, Pa. (EYT) – The National Guard recently gave Brockway Area Junior-Senior High School a chance to take gym class to new heights.
“Sgt. Daniel Miller from the National Guard got ahold of me and asked if we wanted the kids to have it for their PE class that day,” explained Brockway physical education teacher Tom Bussard. “It opened their minds to something they aren’t exposed to on a regular basis.”
The wall was 30 feet high with climbing harnesses and pneumatic rigs so the students could be lowered to the ground slowly. Students had to get a permission slip signed by their parents before embarking on the skyward adventure.
The students’ attitudes about the rock wall ranged from nervous to calm. Two seniors who had experience on rock walls before approached the prospect as just another day climbing.
“It was exhilarating, I guess,” senior Pierce Yahner said. “It added a thrill factor to the day.”
“I wasn’t nervous,” fellow senior Noah Vokes said. “I did it before at amusement parks. You had friends watching you, so it was like a weird audience. It was neat doing it at school.”
Sophomore Isaac Cherico climbed the wall for the first time. He agreed that having his friends watch was a “weird audience.”
“I was good at it, so I wasn’t embarrassed,” Cherico said. “It was a challenge that got easier the more you did it.”
“A lot of the kids were being typical teenagers and saying they didn’t want to do it,” Bussard said. “Once they saw some other kids having fun, they were lining up to go.”
A visual media student got the chance to film his entire experience with a Go Pro camera.
“I took a selfie at the top,” Elijah Shifter, a junior, said. “The fear of knocking off the Go Pro was the thing that freaked me out. If it was mine, I wouldn’t worry as much, but it was the school’s. You have to be cautious and know that it’s there.”
The footage will air on Rover News Live and be available on the school’s website.
Brockway physical education classes usually focus on the expected sports – basketball, volleyball, and the like. On a nice day in May, Bussard was happy to get the kids outside and doing something unique.
“The wall had three separate levels, and if they were on the hard side, they had to push through and show determination and grit,” Bussard said. “For the most part, everyone enjoyed it all day. Some kids came down twice to climb it again. Overall, it was a successful day.”
While many of the students already had climbing experience, the climbing wall may have given some of them the climbing bug.
“I really want to do it again,” Cherico said. “It was a lot of fun.”
Copyright © 2024 EYT Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of the contents of this service without the express written consent of EYT Media Group, Inc. is expressly prohibited.
