Newcastle Middle School
Newcastle Middle School
Jody McCormack, Coach
Coach Jody McCormack is in her fifteenth year of teaching at Newcastle Middle School, six years as a special education teacher and most recently as a science teacher. She earned a bachelor's degree in education from Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota and later a master's degree in special education from Bemidji State University in Minnesota. She has traveled on several occasions with students to explore and discover the Florida Everglades and the Florida Keys, a climate and ecosystem different from their Wyoming home. She has helped students participate in state science fairs, Science Olympiad, and Science Bowl and has helped coordinate Men in STEM and Women in Science events for students.
Dominic Ankeney
Dominic Ankeney is a sixth-grader whose favorite school subjects are physical education, math, science, and physics. Dominic’s hobbies consist of spray-painting, the Science Bowl, video games, part time DJ, and storm chasing. His favorite types of music are rap, pop, country, and techno. His plans are to go to Yale University or Black Hills State University. When he gets out of college, Dominic will be either an engineer or a storm chaser mixed with on the road DJ. Some interesting facts about him are that he is a twin, he won the state of Wyoming Science Bowl with three other people, he is tall for his age (six foot at age thirteen), and built a robot out of old wires, spare chains, sheet metal, and a car battery. For a year and a half, he had to cope with his dad being in the hospital with a rare disease called Guillain-Barre Syndrome. No matter how many times he fails, he will continue to try.
Dylan Conley
Dylan Conley is eleven years old and likes social studies and science exploratory. He is fascinated by insects, arachnids, amphibians, reptiles, and extinct animals. His hobbies are fishing, playing Jurassic World Alive, and Ark. His future plans are to go to college to become a paleontologist. Dylan can make his thumb grow and is a collector of fossils. He is five foot and some of his insecurities are people taller than him.
Samuel Cunningham
Samuel Cunningham is a fourteen year old eighth-grader who enjoys competing in sports and is the top cross-country runner in his district on the middle school level. Sam also enjoys competing in academics. Sam is taking high school math, as a middle school student. Sam is the Student Council President for his school and his favorite subjects are science and math. Sam plans on becoming an engineer. Sam enjoys reading so much that he beat the reading record in elementary school. He also enjoys writing poetry and is now a published author because of that. Sam used to compete in swimming and in his first year he won seventh place in breaststroke at states. Sam enjoys hiking in the forest around his house.
John Sandrini
John Sandrini is a thirteen year old living in Wyoming. He is an honor roll student with no credentials. He is a future Air Force pilot and train and cheese enthusiast. He has participated in robotics for four years. He spends his free time dirt biking, bicycling, model railroading, livestock showing, aeronautics studying, fishing, hunting, and model plane flying. He wants to be an engineer or a F-35 pilot. He is currently in eighth grade math even though he is a seventh-grader. His dad is a senior wildlife biologist for Wyoming Game and Fish. John is a wrestler, swimmer and a baseball player. He also has a deep grasp on theology.
