Winged Post Volume 24, Issue 1

Matriculation welcomes class of 2026

TESTING NOT MANDATORY FOR ASYMPTOMATIC STUDENTS

Class of 2023 arrives early for Senior Sunrise

sabrina zhu

Approximately 100 seniors partic ipated in the annual tradition of Senior Sunrise, which took place on Monday at Davis Field. Class of 2023 students arrived at 6:15 to watch the sunrise together, an activity that symbolizes their journey into their final year in high school.

The senior council and senior class dean, upper school Performing Arts Pro duction Manager Brian Larsen, organized the event and brought hot chocolate and donuts for students. Seniors sat together on blankets, took photos, and relaxed un til the schoolday started.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

Wildfires ravage Northern California, burn thousands of acres

sabrina zhu

Over five thousand wildfires have burnt through hundreds of thousands of acres in California, with numbers predict ed to rise as we enter fire season. Residents of vulnerable regions are encouraged to prepare evacuation plans in case of emer gency; there are currently no active wild fires near the Bay Area.

The McKinney Fire of Siskiyou Coun ty, the largest fire of the summer, has been only recently contained and took the lives of four. Additionally, the Oak Fire of Ama dor and Mariposa Counties has forced areas of Yosemite National Park to tempo rarily close down.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

Director of DEI starts new position on all school campuses

Brian Davis will assume the new role of Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclu sion (DEI) at the lower, middle and upper school campuses. Prior to joining Harker, Davis served as the Associate Director of Equity and Inclusion at St. Ignatius Col lege Preparatory in San Francisco.

Continued on page 9.

Upper school students and faculty gathered on Davis Field on Friday for the 2022-23 Matriculation ceremony to wel come the class of 2026 to the upper school and mark the commencement of the new academic year.

The ceremony began at 9:30 a.m. with the class of 2026 entering Davis Field to the applause of the sophomore, junior and se nior classes. To begin the ceremony, Head of School Brian Yager discussed the upper school’s 25th anniversary before offering advice to the class of 2026.

“Enjoy and embrace this process,” Yager said in the speech. “Look to the stu dents in the grades above you for guidance and for inspiration, as well as for examples of what will be expected of you in the years to come. The students around and before you have accomplished an incredible

amount. Stand on their shoulders to reach your own heights in the next four years.”

Yager then introduced Cantilena, who performed their rendition of “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” by Stevie Won der. New Head of Upper School Paul Barsky then took the stage and delivered a speech providing historical context surrounding 1892 and 1893, the dates to which the earliest stages of The Harker School can be traced back.

“As we enter the school’s 130th year, we bring a wide ranging perspective and experiences,” Barsky said in the speech. “Regardless of our length of time or ex perience, we build upon the deeds of the past, the adherence to Harker’s value and our commitment to ‘samfund sind’ and ‘umwelt’. I wish you a remarkable year ahead and I’m proud and so excited to share it with you all.”

Following this speech, Barsky intro duced Associated Student Body (ASB)

President Kris Estrada (12), who encour aged students to explore interests. ASB Vice President Gordon Chen (12) then invited the attendees to stand and repeat after him in a recitation of the Matricula tion Oath. As per tradition, the freshman class signed the Matriculation Book to recognize their dedication to the oath and upper school.

During the signing process, the upper school councils took the stage, performing small skits of “Upper school 101,” themed with SpongeBob, Phineas and Ferb, Squid Game, and The Office, to familiarize the freshmen to life at the upper school.

“I enjoyed the skits they had out be cause they were educational and funny. They taught me more about extracurricu lars and where to find my classes,” Mindy Truong (9) said. “I think [matriculation] was a good transition day before I actually had to go to school.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

To celebrate the start of the new school year, freshmen attended orienta tion at the upper school campus while sophomores and juniors participated in ropes courses and rafting off campus on Thursday. These were the first times that sophomores or juniors had class trips since 2019, as trips in the last two years were canceled due to the COVID-19 pan demic and wildfires.

The junior class met at 6:10 a.m. on the Upper School campus before taking a three-hour bus ride to the South Fork of the American River. Students first at tended a safety orientation led by guides from the O.A.R.S. rafting company and then suited up in life vests and helmets. After a quick lunch, the juniors separated into their advisory groups and entered the

rafts, where the O.A.R.S. guides instructed them on proper rowing techniques.

“It was really nice to get together since we haven’t had an off campus class trip in a while,” Kaitlyn Wang (11) said.

“For our sophomore class trip, we went to the middle school campus, but I thought the place we went [for rafting] was a good location with lots of activities to do.”

Continued on page 2.

RISING CLASSES Frosh students read the matriculation oath while standing. Associated Student Body (ASB) vice president Gordon Chen (12) led the recitation of the oath.

KATELYN ZHAO

SKITS AND SPEECHES (Upper) Junior council member Ella Lan (11) performs in a skit. The sophomore, junior and senior class councils each created skits. (Bottom) Head of Upper School Paul Barsky speaks to the school community at matriculation. Administrators, along with various student council members, gave speeches.

KATELYN

ZHAO

KATELYN ZHAO

ELLA YEE

DAY OF ADVENTURE A junior advisory paddles on a raft together. The junior class participated in a rafting excursion in the American River the day before matriculation.

Students bond over class activities

Grade 9 students attend orientation, grades 10 and 11 go on class trips

Upper school library relights yearly tradition of Recreate Reading

This year’s ReCreate Reading expe rience, organized by the upper school librarians, took off in March. Students selected a book sponsored by a faculty member that they wanted to read over the summer. Later in the spring, stu dents had the opportunity to meet other students reading their chosen book, and the teachers briefly introduced the book to the group. The full discussion will take place on Thursday, Aug. 25 with students re-gathering in their faculty member’s room.

“Managing the ReCreate Reading program is a big but rewarding task,” upper school librarian Meredith Crans ton said. “Luckily, it is not a one person job—our library staff, our faculty, and our students all pull together to make this program what it is. I love to see how our community comes together around the simple and profound pleasure of reading for fun.”

Continued from page 1.

Though the advisories first practiced rowing in coordination and following commands in calmer waters, the tour in cluded class I, II and III whitewater rapids. Throughout the tour, students had chanc es to voluntarily leave their rafts and swim in the river. In parts of the river that had rock obstacles or turbulent rapids, some juniors unexpectedly fell into the water, requiring assistance from fellow students to climb back into their rafts.

“I think junior year is good timing for [the rafting trip],” Business and Entre preneurship teacher and junior advisor Michael Acheatel said. “Sharing that tight of a boat or pulling each other out of the water might have been a little much to ask for a freshly bonded group, but it gave our advisory an opportunity to not only laugh and goof off but also do some teamwork.”

Sophomores met on Davis Field at 7:30 a.m. before a two-hour bus ride to the ropes course located in the Santa Cruz mountains. Upon arrival, they split into groups consisting of a few advisories to participate in team bonding activities.

The sophomores then moved on to the ropes course, which involved a vari ety of wooden obstacles. After a break for

new experience for me.”

Frosh orientation began at 10:15 a.m. in the Nichols Atrium, where students had the opportunity to meet new people and reconnect with familiar faces. After a few minutes of mingling, grade 9 students gathered by advisory to introduce them selves to their fellow advisees.

“I’m new to Harker this year, so meet ing everyone was pretty exciting,” Aashvi Ravi (9) said. “[It made me feel like] the rest of this year is going to be really fun.”

Upper school librarian Lauri Vaughan launched ReCreate Reading as Harker’s Summer Reading program as a campus librarian in 2010. A main goal of the program continues to be to help culti vate a love and a culture of reading at Har ker and preserve the element of choice for students. In 2017, Vaughan won the Mar garet A. Edwards Award from the Ameri can Library Association for the best sum mer reading program for young adults.

lunch, they returned to climbing on the ropes course in the afternoon.

“I thought the trip was an excellent opportunity for us to do some team bond ing,” Alex Huang (10) said. “My favorite part of the day was when I stood on the ground and helped other people climb by encouraging them and pulling the rope so that they wouldn’t fall off. I’ve done rock climbing before, but I’ve never helped someone else do the climbing, so it was a

The class then headed out to Davis Field for activities led by Apex Adven tures, a company that organizes various team bonding events. Advisories compet ed against each other in a series of chal lenges that involved communication and cooperation, such as filling a column with water to raise a rubber duck or sorting themselves based on numbers from play ing cards without talking.

“Freshman orientation is a great tra dition,” Anika Akkiraju (9) said. “My older brother played the exact same games and even talked to me about them right before orientation. He made it sound really fun, which it turned out to be.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

DECA launch welcomes grade 9 students to program

This year’s DECA Launch took place on Saturday and Sunday at the upper school to welcome in and introduce grade 9 students to the DECA program.

DECA Launch is an annual event organized by the current DECA officers and advisers for the incoming frosh class, where they prepare events and activities similar to those throughout the school year or at conventions.

“[At DECA Launch], we show the [in coming frosh] what DECA is and what we can offer them and just get them excited for the DECA year,” Anika Muddu (12), chief executive officer of Harker DECA, said. “We hope that a lot of the freshmen will start to become more open, start to be less shy, and be more confident in them selves and their speaking skills.”

After registration on Saturday morn ing, students filed into the Nichols Au ditorium to hear speeches and presen tations, including ones about the DECA experience and competitions. Students then were introduced to the innovation challenge on Saturday afternoon, in which small groups of students came up with in novative ideas to solve a given problem.

On Sunday, they listened to a graphic design presentation, as well as an alumni panel. They also participated in a roleplay event, in which a student has 10 minutes to prepare and then present about a prod uct, judged and helped by current DECA high school students. Finally, the small groups from the innovation challenge

gave their presentations to an audience of other students and parents.

“[I came because] the activities looked fun, and I thought I could learn something,” Wenjie Zou (9) said. “[Today I hope to] learn some business strategies and meet some new people.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

For students, ReCreate Reading pro vides a fresh way of approaching books. The program fosters a more relaxed and laid-back environment of shared discus sion compared with the rigorous pres sures of literary analysis in an academic English class, letting students experience books in a less structured, more explor atory way.

“I prefer ReCreate Reading because there’s a lot more freedom to it,” Matthew Goetting (11) said. “With English books you have to look at it through the analysis lens which is not as enjoyable and those books are more boring, but I like how with ReCreate Reading you can pick whichev er genre you want and there isn’t as much pressure because there’s no worksheet or graded discussion.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

TEAM EFFORT Sophomores walk with wooden planks beneath their feet during their class trip on Aug. 18. Students engaged in group activities in addition to a ropes course.

WATER FIGHT Jason Monaghan (11) uses a rafting paddle to splash his classmates during the junior rafting trip on Aug. 18.

BALANCING ACT A Class of 2026 advisory uses ropes to stabilize a wooden frame in one of the group activities during their orientation at the upper school campus.

FELIX

YEE

ZHU

SALLY ZHU

WELCOME IN Director of Membership Vedant Balachandran (10) leads registration for DECA Launch on Aug. 13. DECA Launch is an annual event led by officers and advisors.

“I’m new to Harker this year, so meeting and getting to know everyone was pretty exciting”

AASHVI RAVI (9) UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT

BY AASHVI RAVI

WHO declares monkeypox global emergency

Declared a global health emergen cy by the World Health Organization (WHO) in May, the monkeypox outbreak has spread beyond historically impacted areas to over 94 countries as of Aug. 21.

The WHO Director-General declared a global health emergency when several monkeypox outbreaks appeared in areas such as Europe and North America, out side the disease’s endemic region of cen tral and west Africa. As of Aug. 21, over 41,000 cases of monkeypox have been detected worldwide, with 12 deaths. In Africa, monkeypox seems to be trans mitted to humans from infected wild animals, while elsewhere the virus has spread among people including those not associated with travel to Africa.

Outside of Africa, about 99% of monkeypox cases have been detected in men who have sex with other men, but experts have emphasized that infectious diseases can spread to anyone. With cas es found in women and children as well, experts warn that monkeypox may even tually become widely transmitted among the general public.

Obstacles regarding vaccine distri bution and treatment access are plagu ing the global response to monkeypox. Countries are currently relying on Jyn neos, the two-dose vaccine previously used to combat smallpox, as the main defense against the virus. Africa, the con tinent that has seen the most monkeypox deaths, has not received a single dose of the vaccine. The lack of global atten tion given to monkeypox until it impact ed richer Western countries echoes the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak, where the discovery of cases in the U.S. expedited vaccine production despite countries in Africa seeing thousands of cases prior.

“I think [the vaccine shortage in Af rica] is just unfortunately one case of a lot of cases around the world; it’s not just monkeypox itself,” co-president of Public Health Club Fiona Yan (11) said. “There’s a lot of inequities and working on bridg ing the gap is something that we need to

be focusing on outside of just the public health in the United States.”

In the U.S., which has reported al most 12,000 cases starting from May 17 with no deaths, the Biden administration declared monkeypox a national health emergency on Aug. 4. While federal of ficials estimate that 1.6 to 1.7 million Americans are at risk of contracting mon keypox, thus requiring 3.2 million shots to be distributed, only 440,000 doses are currently available.

The U.S. owns 16.5 million doses of the vaccine at the vaccine manufacturer Bavarian Nordic, but the Department of Health and Human Services waited to place their orders, during which time the company had already received requests

from other countries. The next batch of the vaccines are expected to become available in October.

Although monkeypox treatments are already available and countries are work ing to combat the virus, the slow govern mental response draws parallels with the AIDS epidemic, which also mostly im pacted the LGBTQ+ community.

“When something affects only one portion of society, if that population isn’t the same identity as the people in charge, it gets ignored,” upper school business teacher Patrick Kelly, who runs a YouTube channel teaching anatomy and physiolo gy, said. “We could be throwing more re sources at it.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan, holds press release

visit has not changed U.S-Taiwan rela tions.

Upper school history and social science teacher Chuck Witschorik com mented that the situation is complicated because increased tensions between the U.S. and China could hinder conversation on important global issues.

“What remains to be seen is can di plomacy win out in the long run? Can the United States find a way to support democracy in Taiwan and continue to di alogue with the People’s Republic of Chi na?” Witschorik said.

yee

William Ruto declared president in Kenya’s 2022 election

Former Deputy President William Ruto was declared the winner of Kenya’s presidential election on Aug. 15. Ruto re ceived 50.5 percent of the vote, surpassing his leading competitor Raila Odinga, who received approximately 49 percent of the vote. The announcement of Ruto’s win was met with mixed reactions from vot ers and officials, as four out of seven elec toral commissioners did not support the results due to the “opaque nature” of the vote-counting process. Odinga’s running mate Martha Karua also questioned the certainty of the count.

“It is not over till it is over,” Karua tweeted following the announcement.

Ruto praised Kenyans for voting in his acceptance speech, where he prom ised that no one would be “left behind” under his “inclusive, democratic, progres sive government” in an interview with Cit izen TV Kenya.

U.N. gives grain from Ukraine to starved African regions, Russia launches missiles near nuclear power plant

A U.N.-chartered ship arrived in Ukraine on Aug. 12 to retrieve grain that will be distributed among famine-strick en regions of Ethiopia. U.N. officials hope that the shipment will help begin to resolve global food shortages caused by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine, one of the world’s leading breadbaskets. The ship, called the Brave Commander, will be packed with over 23,000 metric tons of grain at the Yuzhny port in southern Ukraine before continuing to the Horn of Africa, where it will dock in Djibouti.

Meanwhile, in the Nikopol dis trict of southern Ukraine, Russia fired 80 missiles on residential neighbor hoods on Aug. 10 and approximately 40 more on Aug. 12. The missiles were launched from the Zaporizhzhia pow er plant, a plant just miles away from the Nikopol district that Russians have controlled since March. Ukrainians risk hitting nuclear reactors if they fire back.

Three-day conflict between Israel and Gaza militants ends in cease-fire

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew to Taiwan on Aug. 2 to meet with lawmakers and President Tsai Ing-Wen to reinforce U.S-Taiwan relations, raising tensions be tween the U.S. and China.

The Chinese government immediate ly announced military advancements in retaliation for Pelosi’s visit. China began live-fire military drills in six zones sur rounding Taiwan on Aug. 4, simulating a blockade through sea and air. China also suspended imports of over 100 categories of Taiwanese goods the day before her ar

rival to increase economic pressure.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry re leased a statement that Pelosi’s visit vi olated the policy held by the U.S., under which the U.S. acknowledges that Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China. According to the Ministry, a visit by a for eign government official recognizes Tai wan’s sovereignty and “severely threatens peace and stability.” Pelosi is the highest ranking official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.

In an effort to maintain the U.S.’ glob al mission towards democracy, the Biden administration committed to protecting Taiwan against any Chinese attacks. The Biden administration says that Pelosi’s

Taiwan split from China in 1949 after a civil war, and China officially cut off con tact with the Taiwanese government in 2016, after President Tsai refused to recog nize Taiwan as a part of a larger Chinese nation. Tensions came to an all-time high following Pelosi’s visit.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

Israel and Islamic Jihad militants from Gaza settled for a cease-fire on Aug. 7 after three days of airstrikes. The conflict began when Israel launched missiles on Aug. 5, targetting an Islamic Jihad lead er to thwart anticipated attacks from the group. Gaza now faces a devastating after math, with 48 Palestinians dead and over 300 more left injured. Multiple residential buildings and military bases were also de stroyed over the three-day period.

Despite the conflict ending in a cease-fire, Israel claimed victory, having killed two major Islamic Jihad leaders. In addition, no Israelis were killed or se riously injured, and few buildings were damaged. The airstrikes also gave Yair Lapid, Israel’s interim prime minister, an opportunity to bolster his reputation after being criticized for his incompetence in leading military operations.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

ILLUSTRATION BY SABRINA

SOURCE:

EXPANDING INFECTIONS Monkeypox cases across the U.S. have been increasing con sistnently throughout the summer. Last week, there were hundreds of new daily cases.

“[What remains to be seen is] can the United States find a way to support democracy in Taiwan and continue to dialogue with the People’s Republic of China?”

DR. CHUCK WITSCHORIK HISTORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE TEACHEROFFICE OF COMMUNICATION

CONTENTIOUS

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Taiwanese Presi dent Tsai

officials

press conference in Taipei

August

‘Forcing beliefs on each other’

Overturn of Roe v. Wade compromises women’s rights and deepens nation’s political rift

Pulse of the People covers timely social justice stories relevant to our community. In this issue, we explore the local and national effects of the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade.

“[The overturning of Roe v. Wade is] the start of a lot of undoing.”

Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) co-president Aastha Mangla (12) ad dressed her fellow GSA members with these words during their meeting on May 10. Members would then go on to discuss the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade and its implications for the queer commu nity. At the time, only a week had passed after Politico leaked a draft of the U.S. Su preme Court’s voting to overturn Roe v. Wade in February of 2022 regarding the Mississipi Abortion laws case.

“It is unprecedented to withdraw rights. That’s not generally the way Amer ican law moves — to restrict rights after they’ve been granted,” upper school His tory Department Chair and Youth Activ ism club adviser Mark Janda said. “I just thought, ‘Wow, this has ramifications that we cannot even fathom.’”

Two months later, both Aastha and Janda were proven correct when the Su preme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade with the decision of Dobbs v Jack son on June 24.

Immediately, the nation exploded into celebration in some areas and anger in others. Dissenters took to the streets to protest the decision. The local scene was no different, as student activists took to social media and public protests to ex press their opinions.

Amidst the ongoing discourse, Irene Yuan (‘22), who identifies as a Christian, maintains her moral view against abor tion but sees abortion as a personal is sue that should not be tangled up in law, nor should people make generalizations about a group of people based on inter acting with one person’s beliefs.

“People are entitled to fight for what they believe in,” Irene said. “The whole is sue with Roe v. Wade being overturned is more about people forcing their beliefs on each other.”

Although Dobbs v. Jackson resolved

IRENE YUAN (‘22) FORMER AQUILA MANAGING EDITOR

an ongoing national dispute regarding the extent of the government’s power over women’s reproductive rights, it also deep ened an existing rift in the country.

“Politicians do a good job of taking

advantage of this fear and this discomfort and these perspectives for their own po litical gain,” upper school Spanish teacher and GSA adviser Abel Olivas said at the GSA meeting. “These laws, that maybe they don’t even support, give them power, so it’s really manipulative.”

Upper school AP US Government and Politics, US History and Civics teach er Carol Green, however, hopes for her students to discuss controversial matters, especially this recent development, with empathy and openness to foster knowl edge and mutual understanding.

“A lot of controversy that occurs in politics and government is based on the fact that people value things differently,” Green said. “It’s not even necessary that everyone has different value systems, it’s just that we place different emphasis on different values. And then oftentimes, we want to achieve similar goals; we just have different means of achieving those goals.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

Want to start a business? It’s pawsible.

Student-run company em-barks on unique entrepreneurial journey

As Rohan, Arin and Zubin enter their senior year, Tufftoy, now a profitable busi ness that sells customizable and durable dog toys, has not only broken through the saturated dog toy market but also won first prize and a $20000 grant at the 2022

“Dobbs overturning Roe is a question about abortion and reproductive rights, but a way to step back from that is to have that discussion in terms of privacy”

DEDIVORP

B C AROLGREEN

CAROL GREEN AP US GOVERNMENT AND CIVICS TEACHER

“Some people will have the opportunity to get safe abortions but other people won’t, so they’ll have to spend extra money to go to states that do have abortions”

DEDIVORP

SHAN SOOD

ISHANI SOOD (11) WFWi CHAPTER PRESIDENT

“People thought that Roe v. Wade was an established precedent. That wasn’t the truth. That will cause people to lose trust in the institution and in our processes”

C O MMUNICATION

finding a manufacturer to identifying new marketing techniques and gaining more contacts, urged them to enter the pitch competition. Amidst their success, the three seniors are still, however, three seniors in high school with unique re sponsibilities. But a year of navigating the business world has given them invalu able knowledge. Zubin cautions students against starting a business on a large scale and advises them to instead focus on their limits as high schoolers.

“[Have] an idea that’s feasible,” Zubin said. “You [need to] not only have a scal able business but also a business that is easy to understand.”

How do high school students start their own businesses? Age, limited re sources and other restrictions pose chal lenges to young entrepreneurs. Despite these obstacles, seniors Rohan Gorti, Arin Jain and Zubin Khera did just that in their junior year.

INCubatoredu National Pitch Competi tion in July in Chicago.

“When we started our journey with TuffToy, we were very shy and scared to reach out to new people to build our net work,” Arin said. “The first big confidence booster was when we made a call to a manufacturer, and they actually respond ed. After making one call, we realized that if we do this ten times, we’d grow.”

Small moments milestones, from

So, how do high school students start their own businesses? The founders of TuffToy believe that there is no specific procedure besides resilience.

“Don’t be afraid of failing,” Rohan said. “We failed at everything, and even tually [everything] came together. Even if TuffToy didn’t work, we would have all come out of this with a lot more knowl edge than we would have if we didn’t do it. Experience some failure, and something will click eventually.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

TUFF TOYS Arin Jain’s (12) dog Cosmo poses with toys from the TuffToy line.

PITCH CHAMPIONS Seniors Zubin Khera, Arin Jain and Rohan Gorti hold up a check of $20,000 written to TuffToy after winning the National Pitch Competition in Chicago in July.

“The whole issue with Roe v. Wade being overturned is more about people forcing their beliefs on each other”

“Every business is different, every industry is different and every product is different, so there’s no step-by-step process”

ARIN JAIN (12) TUFFTOY CO-FOUNDER

desiree luo & ananya sriram

MARK JANDA

ACTIVISM CLUB ADVISER

ILLUSTRATION BY ANGELINA HU

DESIREE

A DECISION THAT SHOOK THE NATION The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson on June 24. “The most important [thing to keep in mind], especially in [this] political climate, is separating belief and position,” Irene Yuan (‘22) said.

Celebrating 25 years of upper school history

Harker

Baggy sweatshirts and pants with large pockets. Frosh playing at a pool ta ble. A volleyball team posing with cones of ice cream. A class of 90 students look ing into a camera, bright smiles on their faces. This is the upper school yearbook from 1998, a black and white snapshot of Harker life. In 2022, students still fashion baggy sweatshirts and jeans and graduat ing classes still crowd together for photos, but now, the pictures line the pages of a yearbook filled with color. Still filled with the vibrancy and school spirit it had years ago, the upper school is turning 25.

The Harker upper school began with 90 students in 1998 who comprised the class of 2002 and a smallsized faculty of 12 to 15 members. De spite Harker already having lower and middle school campuses since the school’s founding in 1893, the upper school only formed 105 years later at the Saratoga campus it still resides in today. Howard and Diana Nichols, then president and head of the Harker School, spearheaded the creation of the upper school, despite it being a tasking process. With the faculty team, they worked to create the foundation of the school, from the curriculum that students study to the mission statement in the front of the student handbook.

“It was a roll ercoaster, and it was really hard work,” upper school his tory teacher and member of the upper school founding fac ulty Donna Gilbert said. “We were setting up policies, setting up structures, and then coaching and doing all the clubs while teaching all our classes, doing pro fessional development, setting up the [Advanced Placement] (AP) program, and all the classes had to be [University of Cal ifornia] (UC) approved.”

Teachers often had to lead multiple activities and extracurriculars to main

tain the balance of the school. Gilbert was a member of the first judiciary commit tee, today known as the Honor Council, coached the tennis and soccer teams and also co-founded the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) with fellow upper school founding faculty member and current Spanish teacher Abel Olivas. A year after the campus’s founding, a new wave of teachers joined, along with teachers that previously worked at the lower and mid dle schools. Following the construction of the upper school, lower and middle school students slowly moved out of the Saratoga campus, with the lower school moving to their current Bucknall lo cation in 1998.

While teachers constructed the basis for the school, students participated in daily activities that mirrored ones still offered at the school today. They attended the first matriculation ceremo ny at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, led by Mr. and Mrs. Nichols.

Students also at tended school

I used to pick the honeysuckles from the fences by the edge of the field.”

The connection between students, during both tough times and everyday life is an aspect of Harker student life that re mains unchanged after 25 years.

“I’m still friends with a lot of my Har ker friends, and thinking back, that’s pret ty magical,” Harker alum Warren Zhang (‘13) said. “The single thing I would call out is just solidarity. It’s more of a sense of if you look left, and you look right, you see everybody else is doing their best, and I think that kind of just sort of deep reali zation that I guess I just need to keep going. It’s kind of like the pack mentality [and the] powerful class dynamic is some thing like that.”

The upper school has grown as an institution over the years, evolving from a still-devel oping school to one with a wide variety of opportunities.

Yet even with these severe changes, the Harker commu nity has contin ued to maintain the original spirit of the faculty and students at the school.

“Just how we’ve evolved in Silicon Valley as a school feels amazing,” Gilbert said. “I feel like the curriculum is [now] this amazing potpourri of wonderful things [that the students are able to] select from.”

Pen vs. pencil: A battle between writing utensils

ella yee

A timer begins for the multiple choice section of the AP Statistics exam. In Pauli na Gicqueau’s (12) opinion, pencil is the obvious choice here, at least if you want to earn the score you have worked so hard for all year. But what if you have pages of history notes to finish before an impend ing deadline? Using a pen clearly provides the speed and comfort that pencil lacks, according to Ariana Gauba (10).

There are other situations, though, where selecting the superior implement between the two is worthy of debate. For people like Aryana Bharali (10), nothing beats the trusty Ticonderoga. Known for their glossy yellow exteriors with metallic green accents, these writing instruments render mistakes inconsequential, which Aryana identifies as their greatest asset. If she makes a spelling mistake, all she has to do is flip her pencil upside down to use the conveniently attached pink eraser and easily correct her mistake.

dances, the first one taking place in the auxiliary gym along with guests from other schools. Like students 25 years later, they enjoyed the daily activities at school, from spirit to relaxing after school.

“Usually after sports practice or something after school, I would hang out in [the] field area,” Harker alum and up per school director of Journalism Whitney Huang (‘08) said. “I remember there used to be honeysuckles, and my friends and

The school has continued to make developments in the past years, including opening the Zhang Athletic Center in 2017 and the Rothschild Per forming Arts Center in 2018. Additional ly, the annual Harker Research Science Symposium began in 2006, and the Busi ness and Entrepreneurship also program launched in 2013.

After years of fine tuning the system, the upper school has become a home to multiple faculty and staff members for years and a place for many students to navigate their high school lives.

Happy 25th birthday Harker.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

As Summer Adler (10) notes, me chanical pencils take this convenience to the next level by eliminating the need for sharpening. Some boast ergonomic grips to prevent hand fatigue, lead rotat ing mechanisms to guarantee sharp tips or special dispensing technology so that lead can be advanced with just a shake of the hand.

Despite these advantages to writing in graphite, staunch pen loyalists, like John Cracraft (12), exist in almost every group of friends. John points out how pens are ahead of mechanical pencils in ease of use. Though they do not need to be sharp ened repeatedly, mechanical pencils still require lead refills from time to time, a step that is unnecessary when using pens. Pens also reign supreme when it comes to variety. Available in assortments from ballpoint to rollerball, capped to retract able and black to multicolored, pens are sure to satisfy even the pickiest of writers and artists.

The decision between pen or pen cil ultimately comes down to a matter of personal preference. Different members of the Harker community have different preferences for stationery for different scenarios.

“When I’m taking informal notes, I like to use pens because I feel like the flow of writing is easier than [it is] with pencils,” Ariana said.

“I like to draw as a hobby, and I start with pencil if I’m doodling in a notebook or an Apple pencil when I’m on my iPad,” Ethan Liu (11) said. “But I think you can’t really finish a drawing without [using a] pen.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

“I think pens are better. The permanence requires a certain confidence”

CHRIS SPENNER UPPER SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHEROFFICE OF COMMUNICATION

ananya sriram

ANANYA SR I RAM

After Bay Area local Charlie Major retired 20 years ago, he didn’t take a conventional retiration route involving traveling and relaxing. Instead, he start ed a new cheesecake business, setting up Charlie’s Cheesecake Works right here in San Jose, where he still owns and oper ates the store to this day.

Major spent most of his working career in an industry that could not be more different from baking: manufactur ing. Coincidentally, it was in one of the machine shops where he worked at that he met a friend who sparked his interest in cheesecakes.

“We always [said that] when we retired, we would get together and go make cheesecake for fun,” Major said. “I retired in 2002 [and] went looking for a business. The gentleman that was try ing to sell the business said [he had] a cheesecake shop [to sell].”

That was almost 20 years ago, and Major hasn’t looked back since. Although he loves the baking industry, he initially took on the business with little experi ence, diving into the deep end. Coming from a standard day job, he realized that baking took more time and dedication than he originally thought.

“Baking is a timed event, so there is no downtime,” Major said. “Once you start baking for the day, you’re busy until you’re done. It’s not like a job. It’s hard to find time to even use the restroom sometimes because everything is timed. There’s timers going off all the time, [but] you can’t just let it go.”

As the store’s owner, Major partici

pates in and oversees all parts of making the cheesecake from start to finish: pre paring the all-natural ingredients, baking multiple sizes and flavors of cheesecakes, and finally serving them to customers.

To keep himself and the team on track and organized, Major has a daily timetable that lists out tasks and sched ules, planning out times the day before. The process for making the cheesecakes involves making the batter, flavoring and distributing the batter, baking, topping, freezing, then cutting and placing them in boxes to sell.

His store provides a variety of fla vors and options for customers, offer ing not only 40 unique flavors — seven standard and 33 special — they also of

fer three different sizes, including mini cheesecake “poppers.” The upper school has even sourced from Major’s bakery, ordering dozens of these multi-flavored poppers for special events.

“In making a cake, you make the plain cake batter, then you can add choc olate or strawberries or raspberries,” Ma jor said. “The first couple years, we made what people asked for, and seven [fla vors] popped up recurringly. They were the ones that people were always asking for, so those are the standard seven.”

Major aims to establish relations with his customers and create a welcom ing environment in his store. His walls, decorated with race car photos and movie posters, add a personal touch.

Ultimately, Major’s favorite part of running the cheesecake business is meet ing and spending time with new and old customers every day. He credits some of his most incredible memories to custom ers that have returned to his store and shown their appreciation for his cheese cake business.

“The thing about this business I didn’t expect was the customer side of it,” Major said. “I have met so many amaz ing people here. I got a phone call from a woman that said, ‘I want you to know, everyone in my family loves this cheese cake. They said it’s the best they’ve ever had, so they told me I have to go back to you again. I just wanted to call and say thank you.’ I think about that, and I think, ‘how many people do that?’”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

A highlight reel of volleyball digs. Transition videos featuring Webtoon cha racters redrawn in a more angular, satu rated style. Clear, crisp photos shot at a boardwalk. Upper school students have created social media accounts dedicated to all of the above, ranging from fitness to art to photography and more.

The international exponential growth in the number of accounts on beloved Gen Z social media platforms Instagram and TikTok in recent years can be ascribed to not only personal pages but also dedicated hobby and business handles.

Varsity boys volleyball team mem ber Adrian Liu (11) thought of social media platforms to promote his plays after looking through clips from past games and summer nationals. At first, he turned to YouTube after seeing his te ammate upload a similar highlight reel, but then eventually decided to use Ins tagram as his main platform for posting volleyball content.

“On my YouTube recommended [page], I saw that my teammate had a highlight reel and was like, ‘I’m gonna do that too,’” Adrian said. “But after I posted on YouTube, it was getting zero views. So I was like, ‘I’m going to make an Instagram account and promote it on my main to get a few more views and ho pefully get myself out there a bit more.’”

Like Adrian, Rumi Gupta (10) crea ted Instagram and Tiktok handles dedi cated to her drawings after seeing her friends post similar content.

“A lot of my friends posted their art, so I was like, ‘Okay, I might as well post my art too,’” Rumi said.

ferent fandoms to share my art there. I then got more of a platform because peo ple love fandoms.”

Social media served as a conduit for Rumi to not only further develop her sty le but also meet other artists whom she looks to for inspiration.

“I don’t even know where my art would have turned out if I didn›t start [social media],” Rumi said. “There were just so many characters to make fanart of and other artists and whole communities that shaped my own style.”

Shreeya Merchia (11), founder of photography, videography and marke ting service SM Productions, also pointed out the beneficial aspects of social media apps like Instagram, comparing the plat form to a public digital diary.

Rumi credits the COVID-19 pande mic as a watershed moment in her ar tistic journey, specficially one where she began to develop a personal artistic style. Using this style, Rumi redrew Webtoon characters like Kim Dokja from Omni scient Reader and posted her creations on Instagram and Tiktok, accumulating over 15 thousand and 100 thousand followers, respectively.

“I started doing art more on my own since there wasn’t a teacher, which hel ped me find more of a style,” Rumi said. “When I did art at home, I also had more freedom to go online and look for dif

“You want to be able to share more,” Shreeya said. “If you have an Instagram account dedicated to what you’re doing, then people don’t have to look if they don’t want to see it, but it’s a platform where you can share it and you can get some feedback from other people.”

Shreeya noted Instagram as a safe starting point for other students looking for places to share their interests.

“If you want to put your passions out there or start a business, Instagram is definitely a great place to go,” Shreeya said. “Make sure you try and get every aspect of Instagram so that you can be consistent with posting.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

BY ALENA SULEIMAN

CHEESECAKES WITH CHARLIE Charlie Major, who started the Bay Area cheesecake store Charlie’s Cheesecake Works 20 years ago, poses with a classic-flavored cheesecake.

Upper school melodist composes cadence

Paul

of music.

journey as a composer and musician

account the style of a specific ensemble while composing and arranging for them.

With choirs, he needs to under stand the group’s as well as each indi vidual’s strengths and the overall flow of the song. In order to do this, he must be aware of each singer and guide them through the piece.

Downbeat member Alan Jiang (12) was quite impressed with Woodruff’s arrangement of “Walking on Sunshine,” which Downbeat performed in multiple shows throughout the previous school year.

“We got the piece at the start of the year, and it was a very basic, straight

New perspective: Tara Westover’s memoir “Educated” preaches lessons from a troubling childhood

Tara Westover grew up as an unreg istered citizen on a mountain in Idaho with parents cynical of the government. She lived in the wilderness of the moun tains, with extremely traditional parents, an upbringing that is unique and unrelat able. Rather than throw me off, this only made me all the more captivated by her story.

In her book “Educated: A Memoir,” Westover narrates her story, a story of bravery, of courage and of leaving her family’s generation-old lifestyle to pursue a “normal life” and to escape an abusive cycle. Though I’d never read a memoir or biography before, one of my friends mentioned that she had read this book before. I decided to take her advice, and I’m glad I did.

Euphonic voices fill the air with joy ful tunes as upper school composer Paul Woodruff sits at the piano, observing the students implementing his modified ar rangement of the classic, “Walking on Sunshine.” He watches the singers em body the energy and cheerfulness of the melody, giving life to the musical piece he composed.

Woodruff started to write his own musical tunes at the age of eight with encouragement from his violin teacher at the time. Yet, his college education was primarily based on STEM, specifically following math, and that’s what his ca reer path followed until he was hired to compose music at Harker 12 years ago. Even so, his scientific mindset still influ ences the way he sees music, instilling in him an appreciation for the raw beauty

“I see patterns in music, and I can see music in patterns,” Woodruff said.

“[There’s] a synergy there. I love the mathematical complexity [of] putting stuff together. Scientists that have stud ied this say that there’s a big connection in the brain between math and music. Those were the two things that I enjoyed most when I was a student, and I still see them as being very much connected.”

Through Harker music teacher at the time Toni Woodruff’s recommenda tion, Woodruff came to Harker as a pia nist for the lower school choir.

His first arrangement as a Hark er composer, “Gummy Bears,” featured both the lower school’s choir and orches tra. Now, Woodruff works primarily at the upper school as a music coach, and he collaborates with jazz band, orchestra and choirs.

Woodruff makes a point to take into

forward arrangement,” Alan said. “Half way through the year, he worked on it with [upper school music teacher Jen nifer] Sandusky, and he came back with a modified, more engaging version that we ended up performing at ICHSA [a competition for high school a cappella groups] and at all our concerts.”

From the lower school choirs and orchestra to the upper school, Woodruff has provided Harker with an array of music to work with for various occasions. His musical knowledge has aided many ensembles, and his meticulous work does not go unnoticed.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

Westover’s memoir captured my at tention from the first page. Opening with a dramatic memory of her childhood, I immediately recognized that her story would be special. Her early life could not be any more different from mine, yet I still resonated with some of her reflec

Harker alumna Agata Sorotokin (‘15) is composing an original choral work for Cantilena intended for the vocal group to first perform on April 21, 2023.

The piece, which was commissioned by the Hudkins family, will integrate text from fragments of ancient Greek poet Sappho’s poems, specifically, fragments 128, 147 and 160. The work will also feature snippets of a poem called “Look to this day”, which is attributed to an cient Indian poet Kalidasa, and may in clude poetry from contemporary poet Peter Cole.

Upper school vocal music teacher Susan Nace says the compositional pro cess will be collaborative, with several meetings held between Cantilena and Sorotokin.

“When you’re doing a commission,

there’s a lot of conversations that occur between the composer and the conduc tor or the performers,” Nace said. “And we will be having a lot of times to gath er with Ms. Sorotokin. She’ll play some thing for us, she’ll send some music to us, we’ll try it out and then we’ll say, ‘Well, what would happen if you did this, and what would happen if you did this’. So it’s a collaborative back and forth kind of thing.”

Sorotokin, who was a Cantilena member while at Harker, was named a 2019 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.

“It’s an incredible honor [to be com posing this piece],” Sorotokin said. “And it’s also, honestly, on a human level, very meaningful, because, these mentors— snippets of conversations or gestures or just the actual work that we did really stays inside [me] and kind of becomes a seed for future projects. Having this chance and these years to use those seeds and to let them kind of grow and then suddenly coming back to these peo ple, it’s hard to imagine anything more meaningful than that.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

tions and thoughts.

As someone who has never lived outside of the city and who has been blessed with access to modern technol ogy and a “normal” education, through reading Westover’s journey, I learned to feel grateful for my environment, de spite some of its challenges. I tend to take much of what I have for granted, but the stark comparison with Westover’s upbringing allowed me to appreciate my life more.

Throughout the memoir, Westover’s perseverance and strength is incredibly inspiring. Despite the many attempts her parents made to try and stop her from pursuing a role in the supposedly dan gerous society, Westover relied on her own desires and ultimately grew very successful. Not only did she study and work hard, but she also remained emo tionally strong through decades of abuse.

Westover’s resilience and courage, as described throughout “Educated,” is greatly inspiring, and I believe all stu dents have something to gain through reading her memoir.

Singer-alumna creates vocal composition for Cantilena

sabrina zhu

“Through reading Westover’s journey, I learned to feel grateful for my environment, despite some of its challenges”

IN THE MIDST OF COMPOSING As a composer who works at all campuses at Harker, Woodruff is passionate about sharing and working on music. Woodruff started to write his own musical tunes at the age of eight with encouragement from his teacher at the time.

vika gautham, shareen chahal, & olivia xu

“[Woodruff] came back with a modified, more engaging version [of a song] that we ended up performing at all our concerts”

ALAN JIANG (12) DOWNBEAT MEMBER

CLASSICAL HARMONIES Sorotokin, who was a Cantilena member while at Harker, was named a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.

anika maji & sarah mohammed

CLIMBING THE HILL The cover of Tara Destover’s “Educated” depicts the sharp tip of a pencil. Throughout the memoir, Westover’s strength is incredibly inspiring.

DESIGN BY SARAH MOHAMMED

“When you’re doing a commission, there’s a

of

that occur between the composer and the conductor or the performers”

SUSAN NACE

SCHOOL

MUSIC TEACHER

SUSAN NACE

NEW FACES ON CAMPUS... MEET OUR NEW TEACHERS AND STAFF

New Head of Upper School hopes to enrich school life

science and law and worked as a parale gal before realizing his passion for educa tion and schooling. He served previously as history teacher at the Spence School in New York City and as Head of Upper School at various other institutions.

Following the announcement of for mer Head of Upper School Butch Keller’s retirement, Barsky was selected as his suc cessor at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. Barsky recalls the warmth of the Harker community he experienced as a candidate during the job search process.

Associated Student Body Treasurer Abhi Namala (12) appreciates Barsky’s kindness and efforts to listen to students.

“He really likes taking the kids’ opin ions. He took our suggestions, and he wrote it all down on a notepad, which I thought was really interesting to see. It shows that you know, he actually does val ue the students’ opinions,” Abhi said.

Peloton and the Bhagavad Gita. Veg an chocolate chip cookies and political science. Head of Upper School Paul Bar

sky’s interests run far and wide, but this year, he’s dedicated to stepping into his new role at the Harker School.

Barsky has a background in political

“From the moment that I first started to speak with Ms. Gargano, I realized that this was a truly special community,” Bar sky said. “What struck me when I came onto campus was how creative and smart the faculty were, and how the students seem to complement the many talents of the faculty. I was very excited to see a school that truly believed in excellence on a number of different levels, in everything from science, to performing arts, to hu manities to character education.”

JILL YAGER

DANCE TEACHER

“It seems that Harker does a beautiful job of celebrating their students in as many different ways as possible, so I’m very excited to to be in a community that is welcoming, kind and thoughtful”

FAVORITE SINGER TO DANCE TO: Beyonce

BOOK: It

SWATI MITTAL

SCIENCE TEACHER

want all my students to feel comfort able, confident. By the end of semes ter, when they leave, they should be happy about the course”

FAVORITE FOOD: Thai food

FAVORITE ARTIST: Taylor Swift

JACO WONG

Barsky looks forward to getting closer to the student population and learning about Harker’s culture by attending club meetings and schoolwide events and is excited to help build a strong community, especially after the pandemic. He hopes to further enrich student and faculty lives over the coming year.

“Something that I want to really bring to Harker is a deep awareness for social emotional growth and to make sure that you have all you need to be happy,” Barsky said. “[I want you to] realize the impor tance of having meaning and purpose in your life. Those for me are really important things to bring to campus.”

YI JIANG

MANDARIN TEACHER

“I want to motivate my students to be lifelong learners. I hope they are en couraged to explore the language and Chinese culture”

FAVORITE CHINESE HOLIDAY: Autumn Festival

FAVORITE MOVIE: Porco Rosso

WALTER HAN

MATH TEACHER

MATH IN ACTION Upper school math teacher Walter Han smiles with his book. Han looks forward to joining school life.

sabrina zhu

FRESH EYES Paul Barsky, Head of Upper School, smiles with a jar of vegan cookies in his office. He hopes to engage with the school’s culture and support student and faculty.

sabrina zhu

olivia

computer. Mittal is working part-time to teach Programming classes.

JAZZ HANDS Sitting on the floor of the dance room, upper school dance teacher Jill Yager reaches out her hands. Yager leads the Harker Dance Company.

LEARNING LANGUAGES Upper school Mandarin teacher Yi Jiang poses with her poster. Jiang studied Chinese linguistics before starting to teach.

FAVORITE

FAVORITE

KEVIN OLIVER

JOURNALISM TEACHER

FAVORITE FOOD: Bacon

FAVORITE TV SHOW: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

WES HOWARD ATHLETICS TRAINER

“[I love] just working day to day with the athletes. I was a sports fan growing up and played sports as a kid, and have worked in sports my whole life: it’s pretty awesome. I don’t regret any of it”

FAVORITE SPORTS: Football and hockey

FAVORITE MOVIES: The Lord of the Rings series

KELLY MCKEOWN COUNSELOR

“I love to learn new things about how to support people. I don’t have answers; I don’t tell people what to do. I just help them think about their own best next step”

FAVORITE FOOD: Sushi

FAVORITE MOVIE: Guardians of the Galaxy

JAMES TATE

HISTORY TEACHER

“I like the daily class routine of look ing at a juicy primary source or hav ing a good Socratic conversation, since critical thinking is important to thinking about history”

FAVORITE HISTORICAL TEXT: Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan

FAVORITE FOOD: Gnocchi

A Philadelphia native, Brian Da vis grew up supporting the Philadelphia Eagles football team. This year, on a new journey, he sets off with another eagle community in sight: the Harker Eagles. For this school year, Davis will assume the newly added role of Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at the lower, middle and upper school campuses.

Prior to joining Harker, Davis served as the Associate Director of Equity and In clusion at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco, where he also taught ethnic studies and led the yoga club.

His interest in DEI blossomed as a result of attending public schools on the east coast, where he observed the lack of resources as a result of geographical loca tion. Reflecting on his own experiences as

a youth inspired Davis to elevate others and help them achieve their goals.

“For me, I was always taught to appre ciate what I had,” Davis said. “As a result of doing that, you might miss an opportunity to recognize what you also deserve. Part of this work in DEI is not only diversity and equity, but also inclusion. I understand how to make sure that other people utilize the resources that they do have, because I had that dearth of capital.”

Harker’s value on education and in vestment in students’ growth appealed to Davis; now serving all three Harker campuses, Davis strives to support cur rent DEI initiatives through assessing the programs’ effects on student wellness and security. He also seeks to build a long term plan for the school to expand DEI efforts and amplify their impacts, taking in input from all students.

“Students are very powerful,” Davis said. “I was a student activist myself, and I recognize what happens when students have a seat at the table. Students’ experi ence guides the work because that’s what we are here for: to really make sure that you feel accepted.”

Looking ahead to the school year and beyond, Davis hopes that he will grow into the Harker community and that students across all campuses will feel welcome at school, regardless of their personal expe riences or identity.

“I’m here to make sure that every stu dent feels welcome, loved and respected, whether you’re in kindergarten [or] 12th grade,” Davis said. “I want students to come to me with suggestions, ideas, feed back, opportunities, or other opinions that they see that they would love to be a part of or bring to Harker.”

HUGS WITH HISTORY Upper school history teacher James Tate poses with a cutout of John Adams. Tate teaches AP United States History.

STRENGTH IN SPORTS Wes Howard, upper school athletics trainer, examines a student’s leg. Howard previously worked with the Sharks for two decades.

EXPLORING THE WORLD Upper school history teacher Bronwen Callahan stands with textbooks. She teaches world history.

TEACHING TALON Upper school journalism teacher Kevin Oliver holds the 21-22 TALON book. Oliver also coaches cross country.

started realizing that everything that I loved, like

music

“[I’m looking forward to] the students and athletes. It’s great to be around people who are pursuing their passions, and I’m really lucky that their passions overlap with mine”

WELCOMING

“I’m

welcome,

respected,” Director

Brian Davis

HELPING HAND Upper school counselor Kelly McKeown smiles in her office. McKeown hopes to serve as a support system for students.

TO THE STARS

Space creates a common goal

GO WITH CAUTION

Limit the dangers of space

When the James Webb telescope im ages were released in July, the vastness of outer space amazed me. I realized that each of those minuscule sparkles and swirls in the sky represents a whole galaxy full of possibilities — yet that image only represents a single slice of the universe.

In American culture, space has al ways had that element of enigma and intrigue: endless planets to explore, new lifeforms, unknown dangers. These ideas have littered popular media and have led to the creation of some of the most be loved franchises of recent history.

But space not only represents a vi tal aspect of pop culture, it also dares us to dream with boldness. Space calls on us to search for meaning and life and reaches across all the division and parti san boundaries to bring hope and help us work towards a common goal.

We should continue exploring space, continue pursuing knowledge that lies beyond our own atmosphere, not just because of the hope and dreams which it represents, but also for the extensive, tangible benefits which space exploration creates for our society.

Although the money used for the Na tional Aeronautics and Space Administra tion (NASA) could also be used to directly help people on Earth, NASA actually has an estimated revenue of $7 billion, creates

In American culture, space has always had that element of enigma and intrigue: endless planets to explore, new lifeforms, unknown dangers

more than $64 billion in economic output and supports over 300,000 jobs, but NA SA’s benefits are more far reaching than just this.

What do memory foam, CAT scans, GPS navigation and anti-gravity treadmills have in common? They were all developed for NASA. Though space exploration may seem like something that would rarely af fect the average person, we interact with NASA technology every day. For exam ple, the cell phone cameras we use take high-quality videos and use less power because of the advent of CMOS sensors, which were invented for NASA’s Jet Pro

The first images taken by the James Webb Telescope have recently returned to Earth on July 12 and quickly spread among an eager public. But before we let those swirling galaxies hypnotize us, we should first acknowledge the dangers of space exploration in order to protect against possible hazards.

With venturing into the unknown comes the risk of polluting extraterrestrial ecosystems, and of accidentally carrying harmful substances back to Earth. The first scenario falls under forward contam ination, or bringing microbes from Earth into space, and the latter constitutes back ward contamination.

A report published by NASA in 2015 identified 25 knowledge gaps, or unan swered questions, regarding the decon tamination of samples retrieved from

Musk launched a Tesla roadster into space four years ago, scientists worried that the unsterilized car could potentially hit Mars, contaminating it with bacteria from Earth and disrupting the planet’s ecosystem.

The question of overseeing the private sector increases in urgency as companies

DEFINITION

backward contamination: bringing extraterrestrial microbes or life to Earth

can more easily launch small spacecraft; in line with this trend, Musk has stated a goal of sending people to Mars by 2024. While NASA conducts thorough steriliza tion of its spacecraft and has extensive knowledge on PP procedures, it doesn’t have regulatory power to control licens es for private spaceflight and ensure that safety guidelines are followed elsewhere.

pulsion Laboratory. Often, optimizations made for space lead to better lives for peo ple who live on Earth.

Although we still need to exercise caution when exploring space, potential dangers are not necessarily reasons to stop or limit exploration. We should con tinue ongoing discussions of ethical topics such as risks to the lives of astronauts or the issue of claiming extraterrestrial land.

Space ethics is and will be a vital field that requires more research and development as time goes on, but technology develops slowly — these ethical risks, especially those associated with transporting hu mans to distant planets, or even planets in our own solar system, are far-off from our present capabilities.

As a whole, the benefits of space ex ploration are far-reaching and can posi tively affect almost anyone — not just as tronauts — whether it’s through inventing new technologies or creating a common goal that extends beyond humanity and

space. Scientists have not yet detected signs of extraterrestrial life, but as mis sions bring back more and more material taken from Mars, comets and asteroids, we should process these substances care fully to protect Earth from potentially hos tile life or toxins.

On the flip side, what about the effect human actions may have on extraterres trial life? The growth of private space flight brings the issue of regulating these mis sions so that they follow planetary protec tion (PP) procedures. For example, when tech entrepreneur and SpaceX CEO Elon

In further considering the impact hu mans might have on extraterrestrial bio spheres, we can also turn homeward. We do not have a stellar record when it comes to preserving ecosystems and biodiversi ty, even on Earth. According to a 2019 In tergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report, almost one million plant and animal species face the threat of ex tinction as a result of human activity such as logging, poaching and mining. While this doesn’t guarantees that we will af fect space in the same manner, it reminds us that our desire for growth can com promise our considerations for the life around us, a mistake we shouldn’t repeat when extending our presence to space.

Space exploration can bring benefits such as new technology and a better un derstanding of the universe, but we should not let our excitement, or arrogance, blind us to the harm we could impose. If we conduct our exploration through an eth ical lens and with a humble outlook, we can ensure that the benefits we gain truly advance humanity forward by promoting a respect and appreciation for our place in the universe.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY NASA.GOV

We should continue exploring space not just because of the hope and dreams which it represents, but also for the extensive, tangible benefits which space creates for our society

Before we let those swirling galaxies hypnotize us, we should also acknowledge the dangers of space exploration in order to protect against possible hazards

margaret cartee

emma gao

Editors-in-Chief

Mohammed

Managing Editor

Arjun Barrett

Editors

Gao

Yee

Editors Desiree

Ananya Sriram

Lifestyle Editors

Ariana Goetting

Alena Suleiman

Opinion Editor Margaret Cartee

STEM Editors

Edward Huang

Kinnera Mulam

Sports Editor Katelyn

Photo Editor Jessica Tang

Responses for school safety require an update

EDITORIAL: THEOFFICIAL OPINIONOFTHE WINGEDPOST

This June, Harker encountered an unarmed intruder on campus — one of the rare times when a shelter-in-place was not a drill. With this incident and the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, where 19 students and two teachers were killed, the threat of a school shooting has become more salient.

Adviser Whitney Huang, CJE

Aquila Editors-in-Chief

Isha Moorjani

Zhu

Aquila Managing Editor Arjun Barrett

Columnists

Arjun Barrett

Emma Gao

Desiree Luo Kinnera Mulam

Ananya Sriram

Humans of Harker Editor-in-Chief

Chang

Humans of Harker Managing Editors

The

of

Michelle Wei

Olivia Xu

Reporters

Copy Editor Anika Maji Fern Biswas Felix Chen Vika Gautham Angelina Hu Lavanya Subramanian

Visit The Winged Post online at www.harkeraquila.com Follow us on Instagram with the handle @harkeraquila

While we as students have little impact on nationwide gun reform, we can still turn our attention inward and con sider what we can do as a community to decrease the risk of gun violence at Harker with proactive measures and in crease our preparedness with more thorough drills.

Proactive measures to prevent school shootings usu ally focus on treating student mental health. A primary cause of students turning to violence is bullying: accord ing to a 2004 study conducted by the United States Secret Service and the United States Department of Education, 73% of school shooters had a grievance against their target, and 71% felt threat ened or bullied.

If Harker students are feeling bul lied they can talk with Harker’s counselors and receive emotional support. To resolve the situation, they can anon ymously contact the Division Head or Dean of Students with the name of the aggressor, the names of anyone else involved with the bullying, including the victim and when the incident occurred.

Harker has many counselors and caring adults at school who can support students who feel unsafe or other wise need help, and, through events like Challenge Day, we have an abundance of options if we feel distressed. Howev er, choosing to seek help can be a challenging decision to make, which is why some schools have turned to screening.

Screenings are exams which try to detect mental dis orders and assess mental health. Conducting these screen ings can identify students who need help the most. It can also accurately and effectively connect students to mental health services. Although screening can be used to pre vent potential violence, it is important to acknowledge that most people with mental health issues are not violent, and supporting mental health efforts has benefits beyond lim iting school shootings.

Ultimately, we need to have more comprehensive dis cussions on the general mental health of the student body, working to provide discreet, safe options for students who are struggling with mental health. Preventative measures like screening can be effective in keeping a healthy envi ronment and maintaining school safety, but drills are still important in order to keep ourselves safe in a school shooting.

The main way we prepare for a vi olent threat on campus is a lockdown drill. Unfortunately, these drills can be ineffective, for a variety of reasons.

Each time there is a lockdown drill, we have the opportunity to practice our defense in case of a real school shoot ing situation, yet students don’t often take these drills seri ously. For the sake of protecting ourselves and others in a shooting, we have to practice with focus and intent.

Last school year, Harker practiced the annual lock down drill in April — what would have happened if we had a shooter threat the last fall, and half of the student body had never experienced such a drill at the upper school?

In the aftermath of countless mass shootings and an intrusion on our own campus, we cannot be passive by standers and wait for a more dangerous situation to hap pen to us in order to enact change. Our system for respond ing to school shootings needs an update.

Issue

do not necessarily reflect

content of The

decisions are made by

policy of The Harker School.

Post in no way

opinions

in this publication reflect those of the student writers and not the Harker board, administration, faculty or adviser.

Letters to the Editor may be submitted to Manzanita 70 or emailed to harkeraq@gmail.com and must be signed, legible and concise. The staff reserves the right to edit letters to conform to Post style. Baseless accusations, insults, libelous statements, obscenities and letters that call for a disruption of the school day will not be considered for publication. Letters sent to The Winged Post will be published at the discretion of the editorial staff.

The Winged Post is the official student newspaper of Harker’s upper school and is distributed free of cost to students. It provides a student voice forum for members of our community. Students hold the copyright to work published in Harker journalism publications.

We wanted to welcome all classes to the 2022-23 school year—from our frosh, new to the upper school campus, to the senior class who began the first week of their last year with Senior Sunrise on Davis field. The year has already begun with a spark of changes, including and the welcoming of our upper school head and DEI director during the lively matric ulation ceremony. We also had fun on last week’s exciting in-person class trips and frosh orientation.

It is such a joy to be introducing our inaugural issue of Winged Post for this year. Our staff has worked hard on this paper during our editors week, which took place on campus Aug. 15 to Aug. 19 in-person during the day and virtually at night. From conducting interviews with student organizations to collaborating

together on editorial discussing campus safety, we hope to create a diverse set of perspectives originating from within our collective campus.

This issue, we feature our new faculty on campus, club and organization kickoff events, and stories on national and global issues, addressing topics in health and STEM. We hope to keep our com munity informed on events happening at our school as well as those taking place around us.

Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions for us to help inform our community and make our pa per more inclusive, equitable and accu rate. We are grateful for your support and the time you take to read and digest our work. Our email is harkeraq@gmail.com, and our inboxes are always open. We are excited to hear from you and excited to make beautiful issues for you this year!

A&E

A&E

DOUBLETRUCK

Aguilar-Zuniga

CORRECTIONS

that

which can be found in the

the

SALLY ZHU

“We can still turn our attention inward and consider what we can do as a community to decrease the risk of gun violence”

editorial board

sarah mohammed & sabrina zhu

BY SABRINA ZHU

Monkeypox: Everything you need to know

kinnera

The monkeypox virus has reemerged this year with a global outbreak, and with around 15,000 recorded cases in the U.S. and 2,000 in California, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a global emergency on July 23.

Individuals infected with monkeypox typically develop symptoms like rashes, blisters, fevers, exhaustion and headaches within three weeks of being exposed to the virus. Symptoms can last anywhere from two to four weeks, and the Center for Dis ease Control and Prevention (CDC) ad vises infected persons to quarantine and avoid close contact with others for the full duration of the illness.

Unlike COVID-19, which spreads through air, monkeypox can only be trans mitted through items touched by an in fected person or direct contact with an infected person’s blisters. As a result, the risk of a monkeypox infection in a casual environment is significantly lower than COVID-19. To avoid exposure to the virus, the CDC suggests sanitizing and washing hands frequently as well as limiting skinto-skin contact with others.

According to upper school nurse Jennifer Olson, there are currently no re ported monkeypox cases at Harker, so no regular resting for the virus will take place until further notice.

MONKEYPOX SYMPTOMS

BLISTERS

Persons infected with monkeypox will develop rashes and blisters on their skin, usually lasting for two to four weeks.

“All positive cases should be reported to the campus nurse,” Olson said in an email interview with Harker Aquila. “If someone is actively symptomatic with a rash, they should stay home until cleared by their physician, or if they have a diag nosed case, they should stay home until symptoms and rash have resolved.”

LGBTQ+ community has emerged due to the majority of cases stemming from gay and bisexual interactions, even though anyone can contract the virus from direct physical contact.

“I recently read an article that used monkeypox as a slur towards the LGBTQ+ community, and I think that there’s defi nitely going to be a lot of stigma around monkeypox, especially since one of the main ways to contract it is sex,” Women in STEM (WiSTEM) Officer of Commu nications Ananya Das (10) said. “I think the fact that it’s so visual will only make it worse because you can’t disguise mon keypox as a different fighter disease.”

ROBOTICS CLUB SUMMER CAMP

Harker Robotics held its annual in troductory summer camp from Aug. 8 to Aug. 12 in Nichols Hall, with club leader ship teaching curriculums to rising ninth graders about the basics of designing and building robots.

The summer camp gave the incom ing frosh the opportunity to learn from a variety of robotics subteams such as design, software, electrical, media and outreach. They spent each day following two subteams of their choice, attending morning and afternoon lectures led by each subteam’s directors.

“The goal is for the freshmen to get trained with the machines and software before the year actually starts, because the robotics season itself is a lot more hec tic,” Harker Robotics Executive President Emma Biswas (12) said.

According to Robotics Advisor Mar tin Baynes, the summer camp allowed newcomers with no prior experience to familiarize themselves with robotics with out being overwhelmed.

Approved in 2019 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine is only available to high risk individuals due to the low sup ply. Studies show that the vaccine pro duces the same immune response as the older smallpox vaccine last administered in 1972. For those who received it, the smallpox vaccine boosts resistance for the monkeypox virus but does not provide complete immunity.

Along with the rise in monkeypox cases, a new stigma associated with the

Unlike COVID-19, monkeypox has visible effects on those infected, with the pox producing rashes and blisters all over the body. Medical Club Vice President Nikhil Devireddy (12) believes the visual confirmation will amplify the already prevalent fear of monkeypox.

“It’s not something that’s silent but deadly like COVID-19 was,” Nikhil said. “Therefore, I think people will be safer with it, and they’ll take more precautions to ensure their safety because of how vis ible the symptoms are to the public.”

The WHO has only recently declared monkeypox as a global emergency, and at the current transmission rate, the virus is a long way from evolving into a pandemic similar to COVID-19.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

“There’s an awful lot to learn which the freshmen may not have been exposed to previously,” Baynes said. “We’re not presuming any kind of robotics back ground.”

Operations President Ada PraunPetrovic (12) echoes the sentiment that club members designed their subteam curriculums to be as friendly as possible to frosh students who are unfamilar with robotics.

“There is definitely a lot to learn, and most people are still learning well into their sophomore and junior year,” Ada said. “We’re not simplifying topics per se, but we introduce [frosh] to the already simple ones.”

For example, the design subteam introduced freshmen to just the basics of computer-aided design (CAD), coaching them through the design process of sev eral robotic subsystems without giving them the task of designing an entire robot within the week.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

ROBOT CONSTRUCTION Harker Robot ics officers fix a build issue with the robot during the freshman summer camp on August 10. The summer camp introduced rising freshmen to the basics of robotics to prepare them for the upcoming season.

EDWARD HUANG

“There’s an awful lot to learn which the freshmen may not have been exposed to previously”

MARTIN BAYNES HARKER ROBOTICS ADVISOR

“People will be safer and take more precautions because of how visible monkeypox symptoms are”

NIKHIL DEVIREDDY (12) MEDICAL CLUB VICE PRESIDENT

Fighting towards a cooler future for youth

“The seas are rising but so are we.”

Waving signs streaked with color, protesters filled the sidewalks of down town San Jose as they marched through the city. Drivers showed their support through rhythmic honking to the chants.

The Silicon Valley Youth Climate Strike 2022 took place on Earth Day, April 22, and hosted over 100 people. Green Team members and Harker students were amongst the attendees and joined the crowd as they walked a mile from San Jose City Hall to Plaza de Cesar Chavez.

“Climate strikes are really important not only to show other people like policy makers that we are committed, but also to show our community about what they can do and about how they can help be a part of this movement,” Green Team Treasurer Shreyas Chakravarty (10) said.

Green Team has taken other environmental activism steps such as their divestment proj ect. Divestment is a move ment to encourage corpo rations to divest from the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies globally and switch to sustainable sources. Currently, 12 cities have joined the Divestment movement.

During this summer, Students for So ciety (SFORS), a climate change-focused student organization, also worked on their environmental contributions. The six-person Harker branch of the organiza tion hosted an inaugural recycling event on July 30 at Homestead High School to promote proper recycling. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agen cy (EPA), the current recycling rate in the

encourages students to explore other op portunities and organizations; however, Ada explains that research is a key part of climate activism, since not all climate change-based organizations are aware of current environmental problems and news.

“When you actually do research into what’s going on with climate change and what’s going on with the political scene and climate change, you would be shocked to find out how bad things really are — and it’s not stuff that’s often talked about,” Ada said.

HOW CAN STUDENTS START GETTING INVOLVED WITH CLIMATE ACTIVISM?

thing is to learn about

U.S. is 32%, but the organization aims to increase the country’s recycling rate to 50% by 2030.

Like SFORS, the nonprofit Change the End prioritizes climate action per Co-Founders Ayla Apsey (12) and Ada Praun-Petrovic’s (12) goals to raise aware ness for the cause. While Change the End organizes activities for stu dents to attend and volunteer at, Ada

In addition to Green Team, SFORS and Change the End, there are multiple other local environmental activism or ganizations that anyone in the Harker community can join. Shreyas, Ada and Rhiannon all encourage students who are interested in climate activism to get in volved now.

“People who are interested in making a difference on a smaller scale don’t really know where to start, don’t have a guide for how they can help, and the answer is to just jump into it,” SFORS Chief of Human Resourc es Rhiannon Sikand (11) said. “Say something or do something because no one else is going to do it for you.”

In an era where we spend over a third of our lives using our devices, the security of our digital devices affects us more than ever. Cybersecurity is a rapidly-evolving field: as hackers use more powerful hard

ware for brute-forcing and discover new vulnerabilities they can exploit, research ers design more cryptographic algorithms and defense mechanisms.

A new type of cyberattack known as supply-chain poisoning has the poten tial to disrupt global technology access

then you’ll know why it’s

DEDIVORP

and you’ll just find yourself

DEDIVORP

in a matter of hours. Much of the world’s software is built upon freely available, open-source code, and the security of those open-source projects automatically affects every app that uses them. Depen dencies can have their own dependencies, causing a “dependency tree” including thousands of open-source projects that each must be completely secure.

Feross Aboukhadijeh, an opensource developer, recently founded Sock et, a startup specializing in defending cus tomers. Aboukhadijeh argues that the rise of these attacks is directly linked to grow ing dependence upon open-source code.

“In the past, developers used to write more of the lines of code in their app them selves, and they only reached for a handful of open-source components,” Aboukhadi jeh said. “In today’s world, [even a basic] website usually includes thousands of dependencies from open-source contrib utors, so the number of people that you have to trust has gone up.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

KINNERA MULAM

SIGNS UP Protestors march in the Earth Day Silicon Valley Youth Climate Strike 2022. They walked a mile through San Jose downtown.

“There’s lots of important foundation mileage being done [during preseason]. I’m trying to increase my training mileage, get PR’s, and avoid injuries.”

Fall sports kick off preseason in early August

Upper school fall sports, boys water polo, cheerleading, cross country, football, girls tennis, girls volleyball and girls water polo, kick off preseason in early August.

Afternoon practices began for boys water polo on Aug. 8 at the upper school. After two weeks practicing from Monday to Saturday, the boys water polo team played their first scrimmage against Saint Ignatius on Aug. 20. Head coach Lee Mcbride feels optimistic about the coming season despite the challenges that come with maintaining a high level of play.

“[I’m] excited to spend time with [my] teammates, and everyone is super supportive. My favorite part is sprinter rides, there’s something oddly

DEDIVORP

“We have a complicated offense. We’re hungrier this year. [There’s] a lot of unproven talent. I want to break the Harker record for passing yards

touchdowns.”

“Our goals are focusing on the smaller details that add up to make a big difference.” Coach Mcbride said. “It’s hard to maintain a high level of competition. The boys are experienced and we’re fortunate enough to be returning [with] the majority [of last year’s team]. We’ll be up for the challenge.”

Girls water polo began preparing for this season on Aug. 8 as well. Following regular practices, the team played their first scrimmage against Archbishop Mitty at the upper school, winning with a score of 10-3 on Aug. 19.

Conditioning and gear distribution for the football team began on Aug. 1. Preseason ramped up with practices everyday from Monday to Saturday beginning Aug 8, and the team played their first scrimmage away against Harbor High School on Aug. 26. One of the football captains, Freddy Hoch (12), reflects on challenges the team may face continuing into the season.

“The main anticipated difficulty is that we are low in numbers,” Freddy said. “It’ll be tough because people will have to play offense and defense for extended periods of time, so we’ll have to be well conditioned.”

After one week of tryouts beginning on Aug. 8, the girls volleyball team results were released the following weekend.

The varsity, junior varsity and freshmansophomore teams all played their first

scrimmages after matriculation on Aug. 19 against Sobrato High School at home. Claire Kampmeier (12) offers insight into how the season looks for her.

“Time management [will be difficult] especially with college apps and school, but it’s worth it for me to play,” Claire said. “The team dynamic is great. We all have really good energy that matches each other.”

The first day of school marks the first day of practices for cheerleading. The team’s season extends beyond fall, continuing through winter and into spring for the spring rally. Sarah Westgate (11) looks forward to working with the new cheerleading Coach Chantell Rodriguez to build a solid foundation for the team.

“We have a new coach and we’re all excited about her and what she’s going to bring to the team,” Sarah said. “My personal goal is to become more of a leader this season. I’m really excited to just get back into the swing of things.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

The APEX repeater profiles the Harker athletes who compete at the highest level in their respective sports. This installment features Anjali Yella’s (11) experience as a member of the girls basketball and track team.

soft crunch of her landing, she finishes the jump with a wide smile. Returning back to where she started the previous long jump, Anjali Yella (11) repeats the motion again.

Last year, Anjali participated in both winter basketball and spring track seasons. Most of her friends are accustomed to cheering Anjali on the basketball court in the midst of a game when she runs up the court leading a fast break, dribbling past opponents. And with the help of track, her basketball achievements continue to build.

This past season, Anjali trained in the track and field team and competed in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter dash and long jump events. Although most of her records reside in the 400m event, she favors the 100m for its quick start to finish time. At races, she relies on her experience, preparation and competitiveness to race with success. And even if she does not place well, Anjali uses a loss as motivation to pull ahead.

fourth in the 200m at the Central Coast Section (CCS) Track competition, she proved that her efforts in training paid off through her performance.

“[There is] more pressure [for track] because it’s your race,” Anjali said. “I like feeling dependent on myself and feeling like this is what I put into [the race].There’s no other stats involved in track and field. It’s your race. I like that better. It’s more definitive.”

Aug. 27 - Girls Tennis vs Sacred Heart at 4:15 P.M.

Sept. 2 - Varsity Boys Water Polo vs Skyline at 7:00 P.M.

Sept. 6 - Varsity Girls Water Polo vs Homestead at 6:45 P.M.

Sept. 7 - Freshman Girls Volleyball vs Milpitas at 3:45 P.M.

Resounding footfalls, cushioned by the spikes of her shoes sinking into the coarse sand, thump closer and closer. Swirls of dust rise, followed by a swish as she springs off the ground with her arms slicing the air in an arc. Sailing several feet, with every limb outstretched, she remains suspended in air. A second later, with the

“I like to see people beat me,” Anjali said. “If they do, then that only motivates me to work even harder. There’s nothing that compares to when you’ve been working hard and then you finally beat someone and get first place. It’s definitely worth all the work that you put in once you get to that point.”

Anjali’s sense of accomplishment is fulfilled by picking herself up after losing and regaining a first place title. After placing second in the 400m race and

Fellow track team member Andrew Fu (12) recognized Anjali’s work ethic through practicing with her.

“She’s a really hard working basketball player, and work ethic definitely carries over no matter what sport you do,” Andrew said. “She follows our coach’s advice and does her best for every meet. She’s had a bunch of personal records (PRs) this year.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

Sept. 7 - Junior Varsity Girls Volleyball vs Willow Glen at 4:45 P.M.

Sept. 7 - Varsity Girls Volleyball vs Willow Glen at 6:15 P.M.

Sept. 9 - Varsity Football vs San Jose at 7:00 P.M.

Anjali Yella (11) jumps into bi-sport life

From competitive individual to team player

“When you’re playing at a high level, you have to learn how to lead people in a way where you can encourage them but [also] hold them accountable”

ANJALI YELLA (11)

GIRLS BASKETBALL MEMBER

JESSICA TANG

JESSICA TANG

ON DEFENSE Bowen Xia (10) tackles Daniel Lin (11) from behind during an obstacle drill during practice on Aug. 13.

RACE AHEAD Anjali Yella (11) sprints forward in preparation for a long jump. She played basketball and ran track last year.

BLOCK IT OUT Abby Lim (10) raises an arm to block Kyra Hawk (12) in a passing drill. Varsity girls waterpolo practiced the morning of Aug. 13, one of two Saturday practices.

VORP DED B Y ALANABRILL

“[It’s challenging] keeping up with the more experienced girls and weight training, but I am excited to play games and grow closer to my teammates.”

ALANA BRILL (9) MEMBER OF GIRLS WATERPOLO

ROHAN GORTI (12) MEMBER OF FOOTBALL

DEDIVORP

ANDREWSMITH

ANDREW SMITH (11) MEMBER OF CROSS COUNTRY

VORP

ALLISON YANG (10) MEMBER OF GIRLS GOLF

Y ALLISONYANG

W.N.B.A player convicted for smuggling illegal narcotics

katelyn zhao

W.N.B.A’s Phoenix Mercury player Brittney Griner was found guilty for smuggling illegal narcotics into Russia on Aug. 4.

Griner originally traveled to Russia for the purpose of playing for the UMMC Ekaterinburg team during the W.N.B.A. off-season.

After being detained at the airport in Khimki, Russia on account of accusations of her having two vape cartridges with hashish oil on Feb. 24, Griner was held in custody until Jul. 2, with her pretrial detainment time being extended four times. In between her arrest and trial, the U.S. State Department issued a statement asking for contact with Griner and labeling her case as a wrongful detainment.

Varsity girls basketball team member Claire Miao (11) offers her initial reaction to the arrest.

“I first heard about the news a while ago, and my first reaction was that I did not know who she was prior to her trial,” Claire said. “I was really surprised because Russia has been a controversial topic lately, and I didn’t think that a W.N.B.A. player would be detained. In the US, it wouldn’t be broadcast as much.”

Once the trial started in July, Griner pled guilty on drug charges, with her legal team hoping for the case to end soon. Although Griner testified that she did not intentionally put the drugs in her luggage, she did not deny the fact that she was in possession of them in Russia.

“I think she she definitely should

supporters turned to the W.N.B.A. to determine another issue that Griner could have avoided. It is widely known that W.N.B.A players do not make equal pay as their counterparts at the N.B.A, so, potentially, Griner played for a Russian team to earn more as an international player.

“I feel like with the whole #FreeGriner trend, there’s a valid reason and I see why people are saying it because she was going to go play in Russia for the offseason,” Claire said. “People are saying that if the W.N.B.A. players made more money she wouldn’t have to be in Russia, and this would not have happened. But that isn’t enough of an argument, she could have

appeal for her conviction. Griner advocates raised the suggestion of a prisoner swap prior to her trial, but it was only in mid August that officials confirmed that they were engaged in diplomatic negotiations.

“For future drug scandals, I guess it sets a precedent, and people will have to be more educated about international laws,” Claire said. “ I don’t think Griner was wrongfully detained because she broke another country’s law. I was surprised that she was convicted since a lot of the N.B.A. was lobbying for her. The W.N.B.A has more buzz surrounding it now, which is a learning lesson for traveling players.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article

Warriors rebound, winning championship

from. They responded.

Even with this stress in mind, the Warriors brought this game to victory, ending with 107-97 over the Celtics. However, this game wasn’t all an easy win. The first two quarters kept Golden State fans on edge, with the lead alternating between the Warriors and the Boston Celtics several times. As both teams held on, Curry — who would eventually be named the Bill Russell Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) for this finals series — began to gain momentum, ending the half with a game-high 19 points. Despite a brutal Boston crowd, Curry continued to dominate throughout the second half of the game and finished with 43 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists.

the X-factor for the entire series. He’s one of the best two-way players, and he started getting those [offensive] rebounds for the Warriors, which allowed them the second chance that Boston was getting.”

Golden State’s much needed game four victory set them on the right track to

“I feel like game four was a turning point for a combination of reasons: Wiggins started dominating on rebounds, and Jaylen Brown started fading off. In my opinion, Wiggins was really the X-factor for the entire series”

LeBron James

@KingJames

We need to come together and help do whatever we possibly can to bring BG home quickly and safely!!

Our voice as athletes is stronger together.

@uninterrupted #WeAreBG

kerry washington

@kerrywashington

The world needs to be talking about #BrittneyGriner. Action NEEDS to be taken.

Marc J. Spears

@MarcJSpears

WNBA statement on Brittney Griner: “Brittney Griner has the WNBA’s full support and our main priority is her swift and safe return to the United States.”

A11Even

@KyrieIrving

What is truly happening with our Queen @brittneygriner @POTUS @VP ? Please give us an Update.

arjun barrett

Alfredo Alves will replace Butch Keller as the new varsity boys basketball team head coach in the upcoming season following Keller’s retirement.

Alves previously coached the varsity girls basketball team from 2009 to 2016, after which he became an assistant to Keller in coaching boys basketball. After Keller’s retirement at the end of the 202122 school year, Alves took on the roles of assistant upper school athletics director and head coach of the varsity boys team.

A spirited sea of green erupts in boos as the Golden State Warriors players emerge from the locker room for warmups. Point guard Stephen Curry appears first, donning a black Warriors jersey. He filters out the noise and nails three-pointers from every corner of the court with unparalleled precision as Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr tosses him ball after ball. As the timer to tip-off ticks down, shooting guard Klay Thompson joins Curry on the court, followed by the rest of the team.

Down 2-1 in the series to the Boston Celtics, the Warriors knew the stakes of game four: they had to win, or face a 3-1 deficit that would be difficult to recover

While Curry’s electric performance captured everyone’s attention, Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins also stepped up and played a critical role in the Golden State victory. In addition to playing impressive defense against Celtics forward Jayson Tatum all night, Wiggins had an enormous impact on the offensive glass, finishing the night with a double-double — 17 points and 16 rebounds.

Warriors fan Rishi Cherukuri (12) had his doubts about his team’s chances going into the series. But after their game four performance, he felt a shift in momentum and could sense victory within reach.

“I feel like game four was a turning point for a combination of reasons: Wiggins started dominating on rebounds, and Jaylen Brown started fading off,” Rishi said. “In my opinion, Wiggins was really

finish off the championship. After a home victory just a few days later with game 5, they returned to the Celtics arena again, only one win away from reclaiming their NBA champions title, which they last won in the 2017-2018 season.

Facing even tougher Boston crowds, the Warriors pulled through a tight game on June 16 to defeat the Celtics 103-90, at last securing the championship ring for the season. Following the game, Curry won his first finals MVP award, and Kerr became the first-ever person to win four NBA championships as a player, and four NBA championships as a coach.The Warriors kick off the next season with their opening night on Oct. 18.

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article

“This is something I’ve been looking forward to,” Alves said. “What was big for me growing up was my coaches, playing basketball with my dad, teaching me the ways. I’ve got big shoes to fill, but I love the community here and the kids are awesome. I definitely see myself being at Harker for a really long time.”

For the upcoming winter season, Alves aims to bring the team to its fullest potential by training the players to improve their shooting accuracy. He also wants to support younger student athletes who hope to play at the varsity level in high school.

“I want to have my teams be at more lower school games, more middle school games,” Alves said. “I think that says a lot for a player if you see the varsity team coming out to watch you.”

Visit harkeraquila.com for full article.

Brittney Griner sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia for vape cartridges

“For future drug scandals, I guess it sets a precedent, and people will have to be more educated about international laws. I don’t think Griner was wrongfully detained because she broke another country’s law.”

Alfredo Alves becomes varsity boys basketball head coach