Bryan Culberson - Brogden Middle School

Bryan was a fifth grader at Brogden Middle School in Durham, NC. Bryan enjoyed the activities at his school. He was very proud to help raise the U.S. flag every day. He played the flute in the band.

How the school helped our family

When Bryan was injured, the children at his school created wonderful get-well cards that his teachers delivered to the hospital. There were personal messages to Bryan and words of encouragement to his family. You could tell that the kids were good and caring people.

After he died, they made even more cards, sent letters, and came to the funeral home to talk to Bryan's family. It was very gratifying to see how much the people Bryan spent every day with cared about him. His friends drew us pictures of Bryan and told us stories about him that we never knew.

An Honor from a U.S. Senator

The week before Bryan died, he wrote a letter to Senator Jesse Helms asking if he would donate a new flag to his school, since the old one was getting worn and the threads were unraveling. He never had a chance to mail that letter, so his mother sent it for him. The senator's staff presented the flag to Brogden in memory of Bryan in a moving ceremony. Lisa Dye Janes wrote a wonderful article about the ceremony for the Troop 400 newsletter, that you can read here.

What Bryan learned at Brogden

Bryan enjoyed his time at Brogden and learned a lot. He read a lot of books and wrote some fine reports. Here is one he wrote about The Hobbit.

The Hobbit- A book review by Bryan Culberson, age 11
By J.R.R. Tolkien
The story starts off in a calm little hobbit hole. The owner of this strange little hobbit hole is Bilbo Baggins. He was a hobbit. What's a hobbit? A hobbit is a small person, about half our size. They do not wear shoes because they have big hairy feet and the soles of their feet grow naturally leathery. They are usually fat around the waist since they like to have at least 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and when possible 2 dinners. They like to have parties and feast, but are weary of strangers. They are quick and silent on their feet. Bilbo has some unexpected company at the beginning of this story. A wizard, Gandalf, was accompanied by thirteen dwarves in Bilbo's hobbit hole. Before long, Bilbo had no time to ask questions why they were there. They had him running around preparing drinks and food for them. After they were done, they pulled out pipes, fiddles, and other strange instruments. Soon songs and smoke rings filled the little hobbit hole. After quite sometime Bilbo became weary and went to bed. The next morning when he woke up, he thought it was all a dream. Right when he was settling down for breakfast, Gandalf appeared. He pointed out the letter that the dwarves had left Bilbo and told him to hurry because he was already late. This is when Bilbo's great adventure as a burglar beings. During the next several chapters, Bilbo and the dwarves embark on an exciting and dangerous adventure. They ran into three trolls who captured them and were preparing to cook and/or squish them. Fortunately Gandalf saved them by tricking the trolls into arguing until sunrise. They were captured by goblins and narrowly escaped, accidentally leaving poor Bilbo behind. Bilbo meets a strange creature called Gollum and has a riddle contest with him. He also finds a magic ring. When he escapes and meets back up with the dwarves they run into giant spiders, which tried to poison them.
By now you might be wondering what this adventure was about and why Bilbo was involved. The dwarves were going to the "Lonely Mountain" which lay hoards of their ancestors' gold. They had to steal the gold back from the dragon, Smaug. Of course they would need the help of a burglar, which Gandalf told them, Bilbo. Thorin was the leader of the dwarves. His father was Thorain, King Under the Mountain until Smaug drove he and his armies away. But until now, no one has been able to kill the dragon and claim the gold. During the story, Gandalf leaves the dwarves to take care of important mysterious business. The dwarves and Bilbo were sad that Gandalf had to leave them. They ran into many more dangers which they narrowly escaped with their lives. Bilbo proved many times that he could be quite useful as a burglar. Also, he saved many of their lives. Sometimes they didn't really care for the way he thought of saving them. Such as the time he put them all in wine and food barrels and sent them down the river to escape the Wood-elf King. They were all bruised, wet, and cramped, but they all did survive.
Towards the end of the story, Smaug was defeated by Bard, a man from the River. He shot Smaug with his last arrow and struck the dragon down. Bard had learned the weak spot on the dragon from a bird who overheard Bilbo tell the dwarves. A war called the 5 armies breaks out. Everyone was after the gold, silver, and/or to take over the land. The armies consisted of goblins, wolves, men, elves, and dwarves. At the end the dwarves did get the gold, shared with the men and elves. It came at a high price for many dwarves, men, and elves were slain. Bilbo does make it back home to his hobbit hole, with just a few adventures on the way back.
This book leaves you wanting to read the whole series of hobbit books. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. It has some difficult but interesting words in it.

Here is another book report:

When the Tripods Came - A book review by Bryan Culberson,5^th Period – Ms. Hunter
by John Christopher

The story takes place in the United States. Laurie and Andy were sleeping in a shed when an explosion awoke them, they looked out the window there wasn’t any thing there the noise was gone as quick as it came so they just laid there and fell asleep. Then Andy woke Laurie up to a thumping noise, then Laurie asked is that farm equipment. No replied Andy its to loud and its shaking the ground. 1-2-3, and 1 or 2 seconds of silence then it would start up again each time it got closer and closer and closer until it was right on top of the house, then it just stopped. There were three long legs and three snake like arms coming out of the bottom each about 15 meters long. Then a terrifying site a third leg was coming into view it plunged right through the roof of the house.

Then the arms went to work moving shingles pipes and other sort of debris the coming across a black Labrador, the lab rose and started barking at the tripod then one of the arms picked up the dog and threw it a couple hundred yards away. After at least two hours of looking through the debris four tanks moved into position then a fifth one appeared playing moon light sonata one of the arms was waving and keeping in perfect beat with the music then the arms waving became more intense then with out warning it grabbed the tank and crushed it. The other tanks started firing there machineguns the bullets just bounced off the dome. An attack squadron flew in and shot seven missiles each only three hit and the tripod came down in a loud crash.

The following week Andy and Laurie were interviewed and asked questions at school about the tripods. Andy answered all his friends and the medias questions but Laurie wasn’t as corporative but in the end Andy regretted talking to much.

About five weeks later another tripod was spotted and this one was coming right through their town and just a few weeks before that people were being caped. What it is people who have fallen under the control of the tripods have made transmitting devices that look like rubber caps with wiring on them so who ever had the caps on was controlled by the tripods and believing they were here to help us but so people could not be controlled because they were mentally strong even when the caps were placed on them. People who where capped were getting out of control so if any one found wearing a cap would be shot on site no matter the circumstance. The capped were tacking over, to the point Andy, Laurie, and their parents went to Guernsey hopping the tripods haven’t effected the place. But when they arrived and docked a man greeted them and said "hail the tripods". That was a horrible shock to them. They had to trade some of their mothers antique jewelry for some caps but before they put the caps on they destroyed the transmitting the device so it looked like they where under control but they were really independent. At one time they had to hijack a plane to get to Switzerland when they reached the airport there were U.S. military troops guarding the airport everyone who was wherein the caps was shot right there Andy, Laurie, and their parents had to prove that they were not under the control of the tripods. Once they were cleared they got on a train and road the rest of the way to Switzerland. At the station they stopped at, they thought they should get their friend Ilse a box of chocolate while they were paying for it a mob came up behind them and called them dirty English which caused a fight right on the platform.

I would recommend this book to any one who likes sci-fi books and it has a lot of action and suspense.