Gone Fishing

Body Modifications

Fishing Gone

B ird ’ s W ord P rofile I f there’s one staff member throughout all of school that every student has visited at least once, it would probably be our resident computer technician, Matt Fish.

Fish has been a building technician for a little over four years, who recently set up shop in a small corner of the new library reserved just for him. Students are welcome to come to him at any time for issues with printing, misplaced passwords or computer viruses. Anything that can go wrong with a computer, Fish can usually fix.

“The entirety of my job is involved when things aren’t working the way that they’re supposed to,” Fish said. “You really get started by having to figure things out for yourself, because generally when problems happen, they’re happening for the first time.”

Junior Rose Morland visits him about once a week with computer problems.

“My computer’s just always malfunctioning,” Morland said. “I come to him with all my computer problems and he usually fixes them with a positive attitude.”

Others seem to agree with how much Fish has benefitted the school. Library media assistant Chris Everett works with Fish in the library, and sends students to see him if they need help with computer issues. “As you can imagine, with tech, there are issues that happen all the time,” Everett said. “If he wasn’t here, we would be in trouble.”

Before being hired by USD497, Fish studied at Johnson County Community College, and then worked for various websites, warehouses and a couple of other schools.

“I had some friends that had a position like this,” Fish said. “They recommended it as well.”

Although Fish works in a school, no educational background was required for the job, but he did have to learn certain safety procedures that could be used in the case of a student emergency.

“There are certain trainings regarding CPR and what to do if someone’s bleeding that most people do for public schools,” Fish said. “Those kinds of things that are required from HR, they do that at the time that you’re hired.”

With coursework becoming more and more paperless each year, having an in-school computer technician has become more essential. Both students and staff seem to be thankful for his presence in the building for any issues that could emerge.

“He’s definitely has to be at the high school level,” Everett said. “It was very smart of the district to have tech help housed in the buildings.” New technician proves a necessity

The hardest part of his job is constantly working to fix problems “I guess you could say that the entirety of my job is involved when things aren’t working the way that they’re supposed to,” compute tech Matt Fish said. After working at the Lawrence Public Schools for a little over four years, He learned what computer problems happen most amongst students and after a while he saw the same problems and was able to identify the problem quicker.

Aylssa Crum

Stella Eddinger

of the MONTHART

Mason Dickenson Alaysia Hall

Ashlyn Merrill

the Behind Scenes

Inside look at filming morning announcements

pages by Emma Nelson photos by Baya Burgess

Dressed in suits, juniors Cole Huang and Mattew Reimer film of Free State Today. According to Huang and Reimer, the suits were essential in bringing some character to the video. “Matt and I just felt like the announcements were missing a little bit of razzle dazzle and we thought we could turn it up a notch,” Huang said.

Junior Riley Bredemus records junior Cole Huang as Huang reports the announcements. After production and digital design classes, Bredemus has a good feel for filming and editing. “I thought the announcements would be a very fun project to use the skills I have doing what I enjoy and to contribute something to the school,” Bredemus said.

As Cole Huang and Matthew Reimer report, the filming and editing crew scrolls through the script. Video teacher Scott Smith finalizes the script after club sponsors and other staff submit their messages. For junior Riley Bredemus the tight time constraint is new. “The most difficult challenge is most definitely the limited time we have to film and edit,” Bredemus said. All cameras on them, juniors Matthew Reimer and Cole Huang film for the next morning. Soon, all eyes will be on them, which was stressful at first for Reimer. “At first it was a bit nerve-racking,” Reimer said. “But, since Cole and I are dressing for success, we have no issues.”

Speaking to the camera, junior Cole Huang recites his lines for the morning announcements. Free State has recently introduced a daily video rather than an intercom announcement. Students in front of and behind the camera put in a lot of work every day to write and film the videos. “Filming, editing, and publishing the announcements in a 40 minute time frame is tough,” said Huang.

Nostalgia Network Recapturing the decade’s memes pages by Greta Hayden

#DealWithIt 2010

GIFS featuring sunglasses being dropped with the caption “Deal With It” became popular. It was a comeback after being shown disapproval, later becoming mainstream on Twitter in 2011 as a hashtag.

2011

Conspiracy Keanu

Zuckerberg Note Pass x Nyan Cat

2013 Doge Doge gained popularity on websites Tumblr and Reddit. Later on, doge became internet jargon to refer to a dog. Doge is easily identifiable by the colorful comic sans internal dialogue by the dog.

2012

Grumpy Cat

Arthur Fist x Harambe Left Shark *sips tea* Possibly originally dubbed on Instagram, “But that’s none of my business” has been tied to Kermit’s image. It’s used to mock questionable behavior by one’s peers. The meme took off on Twitter and Tumblr. Variations of Kermit pictures remain popular today. *sips tea*

2015 2015

2016 saw rise to Arthur being featured in memes, a trend that continues today. One of the most popular was the balled fist, showing subtle frustration. Harambe was a gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo that many felt was unjustly killed, thus sparking internet outrage. There was also a boom in “Wholesome Memes.” Previously, many memes had edgy tones. These memes would feature feel-good content. 2016

Pizza Rat