Let Me Clairify

Derek Mohr, sophomore from Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, is the drum set player for the Morningside Jazz ensemble “M Avenue Jazz”. Mohr’s love for music didn’t begin with Jazz and his aspirations definitely don’t end with Jazz. He hopes to one day become a rock and roll drummer with a touring band and is willing to put in the time and effort to do so.

Derek got his start in music as an 8 year old in Texas who was emulsified in the Dallas blues scene, growing up a native of Sachse, Texas. There were local bands constantly playing when he would go downtown with his parents, who were also music lovers. Young Derek seen the guitarist strum away and play impressive solos, he seen the singer steal the show, but when I asked him what he thought the best part was he said “I was so young I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I just felt the guy swinging the sticks around in my soul”.

While Derek was attracted to blues outside the house inside the house his dad was playing something different on the radio. Texas rock band ZZ Top would play in the car, in the kitchen, and even the garage. Derek couldn’t escape the rock, nor did he want to, and again he felt the pulse of the song in his soul. A little older now he could recognize and understand what it was. Around the age of 10 he finally asked his dad “who is that?”.

Frank Beard, 2004 Rock and Roll hall of fame inductee, and long time drummer for ZZ Top became Dereks obsession he had posters and CDs. Derek never stopped moving his hands or tapping his feet when they were playing. Derek said jokingly ” My love for ZZ Top had developed into a healthy childhood obsession”.

Once Derek heard of Frank Beard, he was all Derek spoke of and drums were all he asked for. His parents finally gave in to his wishes for his 11th birthday. When recalling his first drum set he said ” When I was 11 it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, in my head I was sure I had all the tools to become a rock legend” When I asked Derek how he feels about his first set now he said ” It didn’t have all the bells and whistles but It had everything I needed”.

At age 11 is when Derek started his journey to rock stardom. He would play after school and all through the weekends Music was such a big part of Texas, and Derek wanted to carve out a space for himself in that bit of culture. One year after Derek found his calling and started chasing his dreams his life got uprooted and he was forced to Move to Sergeant Bluff, Iowa.

Derek remained strong in his musical endeavors long enough to try out for the 7th grade jazz band and start in his first official band. Derek has been involved with the Jazz band every year of his life since then but has always been trying to get back to his roots in search of his first rock and roll band. for years his search efforts were fruitless, but just this last year Derek was able to find a guitarist and a vocalist interested in making music together. The only step left for Derek between everything he’s ever aspired to be, is choosing a name.

The polar bear exhibit has been a main attractive for the Midland Zoo since 1985 and our unique exhibit allows the bears to engage in natural behaviors like playing in snow and swimming in the chilled pool. The polar bears family and the midland zoo family got smaller by one today. The elderly and beloved homer the bear passed away today.

Yukon and Mckenzie the other two bears that were in the exhibit have been removed and being monitored by veterinary staff for precautions Sake. The director of the zoo Chris P Bacon has been quoted saying ” We will do everything in our power to determine how this bear died. Animal welfare and the preservation of species are our primary goals here at the zoo”. Its hard to tell if those are truly his goals since this is the 3rd animal death this month. Last month a bobcat had died of unnatural causes and the giraffe had broken its neck while their horns were caught in a stall.

Homers Necropsy won’t be back for another several weeks but if its found that the zoo is responsible, what could be the punishment for the zoos negligence taking the life of three beautiful animals. Homer was however the oldest bear in the exhibit but there could be a lot of problems for the zoo looking towards the future.

The article was decent there really was no insider access into why they believe the lions shouldn’t be favored. There were no player interviews they only had the Vegas money line and a Coaches statement

The article was interesting if not anything else. It didn’t really pose any hard hitting answers or questions but it was very interesting to read that even the coach wasn’t sold on his team beating the 10-2 vikings. My only issue is they phrased the lead for the article in a way that made it sound like he didn’t care about his team or thought they weren’t capable. I think that in the future it might be harder for Eric Woodyard to get interviews with the Detroit Lions. In Woodyards defense he did do his research about the game and his statistical analysis for the game was correct. He said that teams in the vikings situation with the Vegas odds have Gone 0-9 since the Super Bowl era, so we know he wasn’t dealing with just the coaches opinion he had done good research.