The Blazer | Vol 38 | Issue 3

the the

Issue3 | Volume 38 | December 2016 | Gardner Edgerton High School | Gardner, Kansas

b MEET THE STAFF: EDITORS IN CHIEF JACYLN ADAMSON BROOKE BOYER COPY EDITORS SAVANNAH COX NIKITA DRAKE

STAFF WRITERS JAQUI CAREY JEWELL CARTER CHUCK CLARK LILLI CLARK JESSE HENISS MADELINE OWENS MALYNN PIERCE SAVANNA RENNER HAYDON WYANT

CONTENTS:

4 6 7 NEWS

Obama recap Olathe West

EDITORIAL

Bringing outside dates to dances

OPINION

Breaking the Santa news

No more standardized tests

IN THE KNOW:

Current local, world news in brief By: Savannah Cox and Jesse Heniss

Shooting at Olathe Student attacks Ohio State University WalMart A suspect was shot and killed by police officers at the Olathe Wal-Mart on Sunday Nov. 27.

According to KMBC, officers were called to the WalMart on Kansas 7 Highway at 10:30 p.m. due to a report of an armed person.

The 50-year-old suspect appeared to have a cylindrical weapon. The police arrived at the scene and told the suspect to put the object down. The suspect refused and was tased by a police officer.

According to KMBC, the suspect was killed on the scene.

“The officer injured in the incident was taken to an area hospital with nonlife threatening injuries and later released,” KMBC news said.

The officers involved have also been placed on routine paid administrative leave starting Monday, Nov. 28.

The incident still remains under investigation.

On Monday Nov. 28, a man attacked Ohio State University injuring eleven people. The attack set off a campus-wide lockdown and a mass-shooter alert.

According to Fox news, the attacker was a 20-yearold Somali refugee. ISIS has claimed responsibility. It is unclear, however, if they instructed the attack.

The attacker drove his car over the curb at and struck pedestrians. He then got out of his car and attacked students with a butcher knife.

The campus officer engaged the attacker and killed him.

This all happened outside of the chemical engineering building. According to CBS, the fire department was already on the scene responding to a report of a chemical leak. When students left the building a car was waiting outside to run them over.

The suspect’s motives are still unknown. The injured students are being treated, and classes have resumed.

NFL debates canceling Thursday night football

Voting system under review

According to NBC Sports, recently it has been suggested that the NFL will end or limit Thursday night football.

During the 2016 season viewings and ratings greatly decreased. The NFL believes this is because Thursday night games are not typically prime time games.

Richard Sherman, cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks, told NBC Sports that “any time you play a football game and play another one a few days later, it’s going to be tough on the body.”

The owners of the NFL agree limiting Thursday night football will decrease player injuries.

According to NBC Sports, the league has multiple options such as starting Thursday night football at Thanksgiving and continuing it throughout the season.

However, no changes will be made until 2018 after the current contract with CBS and NBC runs out.

After Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, by almost two million votes but lost the electoral vote to President-elect Donald Trump, former Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders said it is time to re-examine the Electoral College.

Other Democrats have called for the Electoral College to be abolished altogether and have presidents be elected by the popular vote, including California Senator Barbara Boxer who filed a long shot bill to amend the US Constitution and eliminate the Electoral College.

Meanwhile, former Green Party candidate Jill Stein has walked on a recount effort for Clinton’s campaign which would help contribute to the effort in Wisconsin.

Although Trump has called it a scam, Sanders told CNN, “The Green Party has the legal right.”

However, the recount is expensive, intensive and unlikely to change the result of the election unless voter fraud is proven.

8 11 14 FEATURE

ENTERTAINMENT

ACTIVITIES

Reactions to the election

Top Ten Christmas items

A look in the yearbook

Christmas DIY

Pets dressed for winter

Girls wrestlers

A lasting legacy

Overview of Obama’s presidency Pioneered the

Dropped

Began

By: Nikita Drake

Repealed

Unemployment Military the “don’t Affordable break Ended ask don’t rate to Healthcare down war in tell” policy Act in after in Expanded war in Iraq in hate crime Middle protections East

4.9%

2010

Created Race to

2011 2010

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NEWS

2009 4

Photo courtesy of: Intergovermental Affairs

A pristine educational setting Olathe West will portray a modern system for learning

By Savannah Cox

The Olathe school district is opening a new high school next fall. The high school will be named Olathe West to add to the directions of the other schools. West will be home to the 21st century programs public safety and green technologies, and will hold up to 2,000 students.

Each Olathe high school has specific programs associated with it known as 21st century programs.

Olathe East has the design and leadership programs. Olathe Northwest has aerospace engineering and e-communication programs. Olathe North has animal health, geosciences, medical professions, sports medicine, exercise sciences and distinguished scholar programs. Olathe South has computer science, bioen-

gineering and business finance programs.

According to the Olathe Public Schools website “the 21st century programs are four-year programs that allow students to build upon their interests and learn specific skills they can apply toward their postsecondary experiences and work fields.”

The public safety program at West is for students who have an interest in the legal field. The green tech academy is for students with an interest in the energy and sustainability fields.

For the first year, only freshman through juniors will be at West. This will give the seniors the opportunity to finish at the school they started.

West will be home to the Owls and their colors will be blue and silver.

The Olathe school district has been working on this school for almost three years.

The school will include a centrally-located learning commons and collaboration spaces that connect to the entire building. The classrooms will be in four separate wings, also known as communities. The main part of the building will be open study spaces for students to collaborate.

“I think it is a neat concept, but I don’t think it will work out very well for underclassmen. I think I would prefer the way GEHS is set up,” senior Logan Turner said.

GEHS is set up with the different wings of classrooms, but does not have the open collaboration spaces that West will have.

The main focus of West

is the use of technology, open, modular learning spaces, efficiency and collaboration among students.

The Olathe board of education named Jay Novacek principal at West. Novacek is currently the assistant principal and athletic director at ONW. According to the Olathe Schools website, this coming fall will be his 18th year in the district. Prior to his administrative position, Novacek taught English and coached baseball at ONW. West will play all sports at the varsity level except for football this coming school year. They will compete at the junior varsity level this year and start competing at the varsity level the following year.

The school will be complete in March and open its doors in August.

Dance restrictions cause students to stay home The staff editorial represents the opinion of The Blazer staff.

Agree 13

Disagree 0

Many students choose to not attend school functioned dances because they can not bring outside dates.

The handbook says that no student is permitted to bring an outside date to any of the dances, except for Prom. This ostracizes many students who have significant others at other school or whom have graduated the year before; they are left with the option to go by themselves, stay home, or attend another school’s dance.

“I didn’t go to my senior Homecoming this year because I was unable to bring

my boyfriend as my date,” senior Savanna Renner said.

“I didn’t want to be the odd one out by being the only one in my friend group without a date.”

Ottawa, Olathe South, Olathe Northwest, Olathe East and Wellsville are all examples of local schools that allow students to bring outside dates who are under the age of 21.

The administration might argue that bringing outside dates would be overcrowding but only about 1/3rd of students on average from the school attend the dances. Therefore, the school had planned to accommodate for the hundreds of students who did not show and would have space to accompany the few outsiders without it being problematic.

If a school like Olathe

South--which occupies 2,200 students and has a smaller campus--can bring dates, there is no reason that Gardner should not be eligible to also. All of these schools, like ours, have their dances held at their own school (with the exception of Prom).

The school is losing money because students are choosing to attend other schools dances because of the restrictions set into place here.

If the option to bring dates was provided more students would be in attendance.

This ultimately means more money coming in and a better turn out for the StuCo members who spent hours planning and decorating the commons.

A simple system could be set into place to still keep

Breaking the Santa news By: Jewell Carter

EDITORIAL

Almost every toddler spends the year behaving well for Santa Claus to bring gifts, writing wish lists and setting out cookies and milk on Christmas Eve for the big man in the red suit.

For those toddlers almost nothing is more traumatic than taking that magic out of the holiday season.

The question is how to not traumatize kids when telling them the truth about Santa. The easy answer: there is no way to not upset them. Many people have a horror story of how they found out about Santa Claus.

“I found out when I was in 5th grade riding the bus home from school,” senior Shelby Daniels said. “I

6

wasn’t upset about it but I was genuinely surprised.

I went home and told my mom and she was upset that someone had told me the truth.”

Perhaps finding out the truth in fifth grade is a bit too late. For some parents it becomes a struggle to keep this magic alive for their children, wondering what age is acceptable or opportune to break the truth to them. However, when the child is old enough their peers and surroundings will suck the joy out of the holiday versus the parents having to claim that burden.

“There’s so much reality in this life, that one of the delights of childhood, and of being a parent, is to spread a little fairy dust occasionally,” Slate columnist Emily Yoffe said.

On the other hand, some parents break the truth to their children very young.

According to researcher Jacqueline Woolley, 74 percent of children at the age of three, believe in Santa Claus. The same study also shows that 85 percent of five year olds believe and 33 percent of nine year olds are still holding onto that fantasy.

While the age of three is too young and nine is considered too old, “it also depends on how hard parents try to maintain the Santa illusion,” according to Woolley.

As long as children are not writing letters to Santa when you send them off to college, it will not do any harm to keep them believing a little while longer and keep that magic alive.

track of who attends the dances. At Prom, if students want to bring dates who go to other schools or who have graduated, they pick up a form in the office that asks for their guests basic information. After it is turned back in, the administrations approves or disapproves this persons attendance. This system could easily be put into place for other dances.

Allowing students to bring outside dates would encourage many more students to attend. The current restrictions ostracize many individuals who would attend the dance if they could bring a date.

“We won’t have dances after high school so spending it with the person you choose makes the night more magical and fun,” senior Abbey Bilhimer said.

2016 Editorial Policies The

Blazer

is

the

official

publication of Gardner Edgerton High School, printed by Osage Graphics in Burlingame, KS. This is a student publication and may contain controversial matter.

Gardner

Edgerton

School

District

No. 231 and its board members, and employees disclaim any responsibility for its content; it is not an expression of school district policy. Operating as an open forum, students and editors are solely responsible for the content of this student publication.

Opinions represent the views of the individual writer, not the staff as a whole, with the exception of the editorial.

Letters to the editor are welcome and must be no longer than 300 words, typed and signed by the author. Letters will be considered and published on a space-available basis.

The Blazer staff reserves the right to edit all submitted material for content and libel. For advertising or other information, please contact: The Blazer 425 N. Waverly Road Gardner, Kansas 66030 (913) 856.2640 rossl@usd231.com

Dating preferences:

Having preferences based on race while dating is not racist

By Charles Clark

In the pursuit of a mate everyone has their preferences. Some women prefer tall guys and some men like girls with blonde hair.

Some preferences go beyond simple physical features. For instance there are those who prefer people of the same sex or the opposite sex.

Recently the concept of having preferences for the race of your partner has come into question. Does having racial preference about dating make someone a racist?

The problem is this cannot be answered with a simple yes or no because the answer is both yes and no. The answer depends on

whether you look at it objectively or subjectively.

The Oxford Dictionary defines racism as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.

Therefore, having a racial preference for a partner could be considered racist because you are discriminating by the color of their skin.

On the other hand, you may not be discriminating because you believe your race to be superior. No one can control what preferences they have, but someone else might.

Some believe that Hollywood has a slight influence

on our racial biases. It is no secret that Hollywood has a large influence on our culture, but according to the Hollywood Diversity Report from 2014 - 2016, “More than half of films had casts that were 10% minority or less.”

With minorities underrepresented in Hollywood it could be inferred that the standard of beauty in America could be influenced towards whites.

With that said, the impact of this is noted on dating sites and apps.

According to the dating app OkCupid’s blog “White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer

them even more exclusively.”

Even amongst the gay community this is an issue.

“Blacks get fewer responses,” OkCupid said.

The data presented by dating websites and apps shows that whites are more sought after, but that does not make it an issue of racism. At the end of the day beauty is in the eye of the beholder and is simply a preference that cannot be controlled.

If picking a partner based on race is racist then picking a partner based on their sex is also sexist. However, neither of these preferences stem from the belief of superiority.

The answer is A. no more standardized tests Although being prepared for tests is always a must, when it is the only thing that teachers become focused on, the real problem presents itself. Are these standardized tests a true reflection of how well teachers perform?

When students spend time preparing for tests, they learn valuable skills: Time management, understanding reading passages, following directions, and knowing when certain answers can be eliminated.

These are all important test-taking skills that students need to know as they progress through school and their career paths.

Suppose a fifth grader walks into class at the beginning of the year reading

at a high-second-grade level, and, sadly, that is not all that uncommon. Now that teacher carries that student up to a mid-fourth-grade level. That is a year-andtwo-thirds jump in a year.

Because standardized tests in many states tests fifthgrade levels. That school and teacher did a tremendous job, but they get nothing to show for it.

Kids are not getting a liberal arts education, but prepping to a very narrowly drawn standardized test in primarily language arts and math. The administration was interested in passing the test more than anything else, because that is what continues to give the school funding.

Good test preparation focuses on making sure that

students are meeting state standards, rather than focusing on test-prep activities. It is important that teachers are focusing on grade-level curriculum rather than the standards that No Child Left Behind puts into place.

The trouble with teaching to the test is that the standardized tests are not by their nature able to measure meaningful learning and emphasize the trivial rather than the essential.

Take, for example, writing. Instead of measuring how well students can express themselves clearly, the tests ask students to select the best wording from four choices, often written about a topic that the students are not familiar with.

This also raises a question: do your test scores reflect

how good your teachers are?

Absolutely not. Many academically-talented students find themselves in classrooms with less-than-desirable teachers and still do well just because they are smart, not because the teacher is a “good teacher.”

In contrast, when students preform poorly on tests, it does not always mean the teacher is at fault.

Just because there may be a relationship between good teachers and high test scores does not mean that the high scores are caused by the teachers. Luckily at GEHS we do not have to worry about bad teachers, but all across the United States it can be a serious problem.

7

OPINION

By: Haydon Wyant

Decision 2016: the aftermath

By: MaLynn Pierce

Another election year has come and gone, and the next President of the United States has been chosen.

His name is Donald Trump.

This election was broadcast all over the world. Most suitably in America, where the population was going to discover who their new president was going to be.

As time shortened to the 8th, an increasing gap in America’s unity became more evident. Social media became a battleground with people bashing each other for their opinions.

Public places held magazines either supporting or trashing a given candidate.

People would spark up a conversation, and in many cases, it would be about the election.

“I saw students who were much more balanced in their views. [...] So that wasn’t a problem,” sophomore English teacher Julie Gillette said. “I had students on both sides of the discus-

sion, but their views were more based in actual observations and thought rather than just choosing a celebrity.”

Each person had their own view on why their candidate should be president. Both sides brought their own arguments to the table.

Sophomore Fiona Turner was a Hillary Clinton supporter in this election.

“I found that first of all, she was the most qualified, she has spent her entire life in politics,” Turner said.

“She definitely knew what she was going to do.”

The day had finally come, Nov. 8, 2016 was here. People around the world took to social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to voice their opinions. The candidates also took to these sites to voice their last minute thoughts as well.

The morning of Nov. 9, the electoral votes totaled up, and Donald Trump was

Julie Gillette sophomore English teacher Democrat

FEATURE

“It is a Crucible for American citizens to show what you really stand for, and what you believe in, and how far you’ll go for these beliefs.”

8

the winner. Feelings came out and people said whatever they wanted.

“I was really happy. I guess I didn’t like Hillary as much as I liked Trump,” sophomore Hannah Orrison said.

“But Trump seemed to be the best decision for our country in a long time.”

Individuals that were not for Trump felt an impact as well.

“I am scared. That was definitely what I thought,” Turner said. “It was less against him because he’s one person, because they allowed a man that is racist, and homophobic, and xenophobic and transphobic and all of those awful things.”

Not only did Americans react, so did world leaders from a variety countries.

“Let's give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt," Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said, as he urged the US not to "close in" on itself.

On a smaller scale, stu-

dents and staff in the school had their opinion on the effect that this election was going to have on America.

Ranging from positive to negative, the opinions were said.

“People were afraid when Ronald Reagan was elected, but it turned out to really good. So I think that’s how this is going to work out too,” Orrison said.

A negative opinion came from Trump supporter sophomore Holden Carney.

“Negatively because I feel like even though Trump won and that’s how it is,” Carney said. “He’s such a polarizing candidate that people won’t be able to get behind him if they weren’t before. With riots going on all over the country, it’s just bad for America.”

America now has its new President-elect, and both the citizens and the world are going to have to witness how his next four years go.

Sophomore

Chris Carter Republican

“I chose Trump because I did not believe in Hillary’s beliefs and especially with abortion. I did not want to take babies’ rights away, just because they can’t talk.”

Social media specialists

Two students make money using popular apps By: Lilli Clark/Brooke Boyer

Most teenage kids have social media websites they use daily for personal reasons. TaeVheon Alcorn and his twin brother SaeVheon have accounts too, but they also have accounts where they promote companies and celebrities as a part time job. Because they have a vast amount of followers on their business accounts and they are paid to promote companies they obtain the job title as a Social Media influencer.

The twins currently run four accounts: three Instagram and one Snapchat.

They use the followers to create new accounts, monetize, and network to work with other social media influencers. They have reached a total of 1.2 million people across all of their accounts. 250K Instagram, 880K Vine and 83K on Snapchat.

“This all started when I was 12 years old and I saw my friends getting a lot of likes,” T. Alcorn said. “I wanted to get a lot of likes just like they were so I started to follow a bunch of people on the app Vine.”

Vine was their first breakthrough. They followed a lot of accounts and got followers in return, eventually they were receiving more followers than they were following. T. Alcorn on his

Vine sports page, and S. Alcorn on his pages of celebrities. After running the sports page for a year, they changed it to a comedy page and had several posts go viral.

After gaining thousands of followers on Vine, they began using Snapchat and Instagram too. Both sites are about Dylan O’Brien; an actor from Teen Wolf and The Maze Runner. They typically post pictures of him acting on set or photos that the paparazzi has taken. On average their posts range from 11,000-23,000 likes each on Instagram and about 75,000-82,000 views on Snapchat.

“These fan pages do so much for us, they allow TaeVheon and I to connect with popular clothing brands, communicate with famous Internet people, and interact with other people like us who have millions of followers on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and of course it allows us to make a profit,” S. Alcorn said.

In addition, the twins create publicity for O’Brien by sell products with his name and or picture on it. To get people to buy the products they post pictures of their own clothes on their pages. Every now and then they have sales so that it will boost the amount of products purchased.

“[We] sell hoodies, short sleeve tees, long sleeve tees, tank tops, sweatshirts, and even mugs,” T. Alcorn said.

They also promote other upc o m i n g sites such as clothing brands.

They post pictures and videos of the clothes across of all of their social media sites so that it reaches a larger audience. The companies pay the twins for each post and they often receive free products from the companies.

“Some sites we’ve promoted are Shelly Cove, Badoo, and Wood Watches,” S. Alcorn said.

Across all of their accounts, they are required to post certain advertisements and promotions on specific days when the company asks. They continue to post normal content on other days. On average, they post one thing every other day to keep their followers in-

trigued and gain new ones.

The Wood Watches company, for example, pay the twins $185-$200 for promoting their products. On Snapchat they can make anywhere from $20-$125 per post.

By doing this the boys have made a total of $15,000-$20,000. With this money the boys are going to save up and eventually buy their own cars, they are hoping to do this in early 2017. They have been saving most of their money since they started in the 5th grade.

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FEATURE

Instagram: @idylan.obrien @ithomas.sangster @imazerunnerseries Snap: obdylan

Christmas ornament DIY Directions:

1. Find a place to hang your wet ornaments. Then you will begin to paint your hand using the white paint.

You want to coat your hand enough so that it covers the ornament without it being patchy.

2. After, you will place the palm of your hand directly on the bottom of the ornament and then grab the rest with our fingers. Let it hang until completely dry (about 15 minutes).

3. After your handprint is dry you can now begin to paint your snowman.

Using the black paint, give your snowmen eyes, a mouth, a hat, and three buttons. Then, using the orange paint give your snowmen a carrot nose. If you would like, use the red or green paint to create a scarf to go around your snowman’s neck. To finish Make sure to download the Aurasma app and follow your snowman’s body, add stick arms gepublications to watch the ‘how to’ video by scanning the using your brown paint.

4. Now that your snowman is finished, photo above. use your white and blue paint to create snowflakes on your ornament.

5. Once you have finished painting, hang your ornament until it is dry.

• Washable paint with colors of: Clean off your brushes and clean up Red, White, Orange, Blue, Black and Brown your area.

• A small and large paint brush 6. Finally, snap and tweet your • Large glass ornaments (4 pack Walmart) finished product to @gehsnews so we • Paper clips can see and share your artwork!

Things you need:

Chocolate covered peppermint pretzels Prep time: 30 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

FEATURE

• Six one ounce chocolate squares • One 12-pack of candy canes • One bag of pretzel

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Directions:

1. Melt chocolate on low heat in a saucepan stirring occasionally. While the chocolate is melting, begin to crush your candy canes in a ziplock baggie.

2. Dip the pretzel into the chocolate completely covering the pretzel. Roll out in the peppermint toppings before the chocolate hardens and then lay of wax paper.

3. Continue this process until ALL the white chocolate is gone or you run out of pretzels.

4. Place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes and then store in an airtight container.

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By: Savanna Renner

One for the books Creators of the yearbook share their process, favorite moments By: Jaclyn Adamson

ACTIVITIES

The sales of yearbooks have continued to rise over the past few years and is showing no sign of slowing down. The yearbook staff works for 9 months to craft and perfect the books that students hold onto for years. There are 23 students on staff that work in and out of school to make the book as best they can.

Seniors Katherine Newburg and Ashley Crabbs give the most time as Co Editors-in-chief. They have to review every page for spelling and grammar mistakes and to make sure the design is the best it can be.

“I constantly feel like I have to be working on something for the yearbook because I am always worried that we are not going to get the pages done when the deadline comes,” Crabbs said. “It’s a difficult job and I can’t imagine doing it alone.”

There are several other positions on staff that contribute to the final product.

Photographers and writers are all assigned pages and fill up the space with interesting things going on at GEHS. Photographers are constantly going to extra curricular activities and tracking down students for quotes.

The rest of the staff is responsible for not only the story, but also the design and graphics on their page.

“We help the staff in anyway possible to create the best looking page they can,”

14

Crabbs said.

The section editors, seniors Nikayla Kussatz and Sydney Borstelman, are in charge of sports, senior ads, weekly stories and portraits.

All the pages go through them for editing before reaching the final checkpoint.

“I like being in a leadership position,” Borstelman said. “It makes me feel not completely useless.”

The process starts with ideas. Members of the staff are assigned partners and a certain week. These weeklies cover anything interesting going on during their assigned week. The staff has to go through previous yearbooks to make sure they have not covered that topic in the years before.

Once the editors approve the ideas, they get to work collecting pictures and quotes. On every weekly page there is a bar, this year it is a ‘From the mouth of’ segment, in which one student is asked a question about their high school careers.

If it is not a weekly or bar segment it is called an alt-coverage.

This could be anything from a small story to a poll to graphics made by the staff. These stories are often about big events that happen outside of school.

“My favorite spread that I’ve made would probably be my Olympics focus spread from this year,” Newburg said. “I really just love how the

layout of the page ended up and the design with the titles was really fun to create.”

From start to finish a spread of two pages can take anywhere from a week and a half to a month to complete. It goes through multiple rounds of editing and revising before it can be sent off to the plant.

There are several deadlines throughout the year where specific pages have to be done in order to get the book finished in time for distribution.

The yearbook runs both picture day and the distribution of books. The staff has to round up every student to make sure they get a picture in the book. At the end of the year the staff gets to pass out The Trailblazer to the entire school.

“Distribution is a little frustrating because students don’t remember what their last name starts with,” Kussatz said.

Having a role on the yearbook staff can be very beneficial to students later on in

Graphic by: Jaclyn Adamson

their careers. It teaches not only strong writing and graphic design, but also leadership and time management skills.

“I plan on pursuing a degree in journalism at either Butler University or Oklahoma State University,” Crabbs said.

Every year, The Trailblazer staff distributes a book that is better than the one before. Cataloging the events of one school year into 252 pages, covering the big events while also making sure everyone is included.

They get a chance to create something that will be looked at 30 years from now.

“I absolutely love being a part of yearbook and working with everyone,” Newburg said. “It’s been a great three years working on the book and I’ll be sad when it ends.”

Photos by: Alyssa Jones