by Hali Rasmussen, Tenya Avila, and Brigham Williams

As 2016 came to a close and 2017 opened, we as Americans leave many things in 2016 and look to the new year. Big things are coming in 2017, the presidential inauguration, a solar eclipse that hasn’t been seen for over 4 decades, and lastly the Kennedy assassination file are being opened again.

pasted-image-0 — Map courtesy of Eclipse2017.org

Solar Eclipse

Mr.Briggs, a science teacher from MHS, knows a lot about the solar eclipse.

“This is one of the first times that (the solar eclipse) is going through the Idaho area. Motels are booked up early, people are coming to see this it’s such a great phenomena,” Mr. Briggs said.

The Americinn Lodge and Suites in Rexburg said the hotel had a group from Taiwan that booked the whole hotel back in 2014. They are all photographers along with their families coming to shoot the phenomenon.

JFK Files Declassified

After 25 years the Kennedy assassination files are being declassified. Mr. Ingram, a U.S History teacher at MHS shares what he knows about the files.

“There are government files that are being declassified regarding the Kennedy assassination,”said Mr. Ingram

To declassify something means you officially declare (information or documents) to be no longer secret. In 1992 the JFK Record Acts became a public law that was enabled in 1992. This Act required that all files and records be disclosed. This Act would be ineffective 25 years later which is the year 2017.

Senior Sara Thurgood is excited to see what is really in the files.

“It’s not about the assassination but more on like who was involved, where Harvey Oswald bought the gun from, how the CIA had something to do with it, where the secret service agents were… it’s gonna talk a lot on the small details,” Thurgood said.

Mr. Reeser a government teacher at the teacher has stated that the Presidential inauguration is going to begin a new era.

“We have a very different kind of president, not just cause he’s from a different political party, but for the first time ever we have a president with no political or military experience, and so he doesn’t really fit into the same box,” Reeser said.

Trump Inauguration

pasted-image-0-2 — Courtesy Twitter @realDonaldTrump

MHS students should take watch the inauguration as it is an extremely important event this year.

“The inauguration is kinda cool, it’s a big pageant. That we do every four years it’s a bit more dramatic when we have a new president rather than a president who has won re-election,” Reeser said.