The Bagpiper, issue 2

Home of the Scots

t he bagpiper November 2013

s t o c S S H HP

Halloween Edition pg 3 Fables Book Causes Uproar

pg 4 Top 5 Horror Movies

pg 5

Ultimate Zombie Survival Guide

pg 6 Volleyball Team has

disappointing end to season

2Staff

November 2013

Editor In Chief Isaiah Nance Newspaper Editor Brianna Stamps Web Editor Watson Samuelson Sports Editor Kameron Emery Business Editor Alexus Lacy Photo Chief Jesus Gallegos Staff Writers Rosa Flores Guliet Diaz Justice Wallace Yiovanna Alvarado Phantasia Greene Paulina Rodriguez Tori Cornwell Analisia Galicia Keimara Darr Letters to the Editor: The Bagpiper encourages all readers to submit letters to the editor. The letters can be mailed to The Bagpiper at Highland Park, dropped off in Room 225 or turned in to any of The Bagpiper staff.

Submitted letters must be under 300 words and signed by the writer or writers. The Bagpiper will not accept any obscene, personally offensive or irrelevant material, and reserves the right to edit or refuse publication.

Editorial Policy: The diverse opinions expressed in editorials are either those of The Bagpiper staff or individuals. The editorials may never purposely attack or ridicule anyone. Views in this newspaper do not always represent those of the staff, faculty or the school board of Topeka student publication of Highland Park High School. The mission of this paper is to inform students and staff of current events, to entertain and to serve as a forum for thoughts and opinions of students and faculty as accurately and tastefully as possible. The Bagpiper is published monthly and distributed to the students and staff at Highland Park High School.

Opinion

Limited costume choices for girls

By Guliet Diaz The evolution of Halloween costumes for girls has become more degrading throughout the years.

It’s come to the point of girls literally not having a choice on whether they want such a revealing costume or not.

The fact is when you walk into a costume store all the choices for girls are skin-tight nurse dresses, thigh-short bunny costumes, open v-neck policewomen dresses, and

others like it.

But what’s so confusing to me is that unlike girl costumes, the boys costumes are perfectly a mask.

So why can’t costume designers see that not even toddlers are safe from this slutty costume apocalypse?

There was even a case of a toddler costume that was banned at Wal-Mart. It wasn’t revealing, but what caused

Locks of Love

By Yiovanna Alvarado

When you walk in to a salon do you ever wonder what they do with the hair?

Senior Samantha Mercer donated her hair to Locks of Love, which creates wigs for cancer patients from donated hair.

She decided to donate her hair because cancer runs in her family on her mom side.

Mercer said it was respect to

them.

Mercer donated her hair for and also this year.

Mercer cut 14 inches both times.

“I have a lot of family and friends and it is important to help as much as I can,’’ she said.

so much commotion was the inappropriate name they gave the costume, Naughty Leopard.

To be honest, if it was me, I’d much rather wear a full body-covered banana costume over any of those revealing costumes they have at stores.

And there are many reasons why: it’ll keep me warm, looks nice, and is so much more appropriate.

Senior takes second place in cake decorating contest

By Kameron Emery Zirel Castillo, a senior recently took second place in a cake decorating competition at Washburn University.

The event took place on October 24. Each team had cake.

Castillo and her partner, Kelly, already had a design in mind, allowing them to complete their homecoming Castillo is a student in Washburn Tech’s culinary school. Her instructor, who pushed her to compete, introduced her to the decorating competition.

Samatha Mercer Before

After

competition and said she did it for practice.

Castillo is currently practicing for a national competition that she may take place in during the spring.

November 2013

“Fables” book causes uproar

By Brianna Stamps

Think of a banned book. You may imagine something along the lines of cursing, graphic content, and maybe even pictures of blatant nudity. But did you know that books could be banned for less than that?

Books such as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Harry Potter” have been banned for reasons such as explicit or offensive language,or unsuitable topics for young audiences.

Most books don’t just get banned. They must be challenged and if school inappropriate then the book is banned.

The book “Fables” has recently been pulled from Ms. Brandy Robben’s Graphic Novels class.

Jessica Johnston, associate principal, was looking through the books in the book room and came across the graphic novel that she claims had nudity.

She took the book to Dr. Beryl New who sent it to The district then decided to pull the book. In doing this, it left Robben one book short for her class.

Robben felt that there was nothing wrong with the image in the book, but that she wished that she would have been part of the decision making process for choosing the books instead of having to use the books chosen by Topeka West.

“It makes me nervous because if they’re able to pull a book then it could

happen to anybody,” Robben said.

Robben sent home a permission slip to the parents of students informing them that some books that are read in the class contain mature content.

Although Robben gets the empty slot the school currently doesn’t have the funds to pay for a classroom set.

Lynda Crowl, English department chair, says that the situation could have and should have been handled differently. “The procedure is there for a reason,” she said.

Crowl also believes that teachers need to revisit the procedure and change it if they feel it is necessary.

Teacher’s Family Survives Earthquake

By Paulina Rodriquez Earlier this month a heart-breaking earthquake that took that lives of many people struck the Philippines. It hit the islands of Bohol and Cebu, causing 185 deaths and injuring hundreds more.

The earthquake also affected Cherryl Delacruz, math teacher. Most of her family lives on the island Cebu, the same one where Delacruz grew up.

“I was actually Skyping

with them when the earthquake happened. Then the Internet went out. I tried to call but no one answered.

Later I saw what happened when I saw the statuses on Facebook,” said Delacruz.

Her cousin who lives with her family was the first to contact her after the earthquake and assure her that the rest of the family was okay.

This was the strongest tremor felt in the area in

the last 23 years, with a magnitude of 7.2. A week after the quake they were still experiencing aftershocks. Many roads, bridges, and historic churches experienced heavy damage.

Delacruz’s family didn’t have any injured people or any property damage.

“They’re used to the aftershocks now. They haven’t had any the past couple of days, which is good,” said Delacruz.

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Top Banned Books of 2012

by Paulina Rodriguez

CaptainUnderpants

(series), by Dave Pilkey.

Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group

TheAbsolutelyTrue DiaryofaPart-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie.

Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

ThirteenReasonsWhy

by Jay Asher.

Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/ smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group

FiftyShadesofGrey

by E. L. James.

Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit

AndTango MakesThree

by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.

Reasons: Homosexuality, unsuited for age group

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November 2013

Costume Ideas

By Jesus Gallegos

Analisia Galicia in a

renaissance dress

Jesus Gallegos dresse

d as a pirate.

Paulina Rodriguez in a princess

dress

Costumes provided

by Beverly Bernardi Post Conservatory of Dance.

Paulina Rodriguez and Jesus Gallegos posing as jockey and horse.

r; lar costumes this yea One of the more popu ty Duck Dynas

Top 5 Scary Movies Insidious

Sinister

The Conjuring

Chucky

By: Alexus Lacy

Halloween

November 2013

Ultimate Imagine that Topeka is now a barren wasteland. The zombie apocalypse broke out right at 4 a.m. on Halloween. Patient Zero was reanimated after he

1.

Protection whether it be a rusty hatchet, or a fully

something to protect yourself.

Best places to visit on Halloween.

Zombie

died by biting a cheeseburger dropped in radioactive sludge. He then bit several workers spreading the disease.

Within a week, all but 100

Topekans were infected, prepared and never go without the following:

4.

bitten by a zombie, bite the bullet and put one in your head. friends in peril.

2.

with important tasks and can provide security.

3. Transportation that will put a door between you, and the walking horror freaks. If all you can get is a motorbike, take it,

5.

Shoot them in the head and put them out of their misery.

These few remaining people have given their top three must

haves in this apocalyptic nightmare.

1. Reusable water bottle 2. Remington 1100

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2. Katana 3. Motorcycle

1. Katana 2. 2014 Mustang 3. .22 rifle and pistol combo

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November 2013

True Ghost Stories The Creepy Old House

By Tori Cornwell When a picture falls off the wall it usually isn’t a big deal, but in the Spear house it was.

In Link Crew leader Michelle Kirk’s grandparents house there was a painting that would signal when something bad happened in the family.

Her mother painted the picture of the cabin they own in the woods. They hung it in the dinning room in their house.

Several tragedies happened and each time they did the painting fell off the wall. fell her grandfather was mowing the lawn out by the cabin and he had to be rushed to the hospital because he cut his leg really bad.

The second time lightning struck the cabin and burned it

to the ground. The last time it fell was when her grandfather died.

Everyone in the family always had weird feelings about the house.

The painting was not the only unusual thing in the Spear family.

When her grandmother developed Alzheimer’s she saw and heard little kids, who would tell her that she needed to burn the house down.

After a while she was put into a nursing home.

When she died the strangest thing happened. Everyone came back to the house with her things and they heard an electric alarm clock ringing.

The clock was stuck on the exact time her grandmother died.

Halloween Night

By Jesus Gallegos Ashly Burton, sophomore, came back from a party at her aunts house. She made her way upstairs to change out of her costume.

She noticed the lights were holding balloons.

At that instant she started shaking and tried turning the lights on. It disappeared. She turned the lights back off, and the witch appeared again.

Ashly then called for her mother to come check if she could see it too, but the witch was gone.

Fit For the Part

By Isaiah Nance excited to be one of the main Zombie Prom is Highland Park’s twist of a next-toperfect high school girl (played by Sophomore, Brittany Fredenburg) named Toffee that falls in love with a rebel senior boy Johnny. She unintentionally leads him to commit suicide because of the obstacles their relationship is faced with.

Fredenburg says this is the

roles in the play.

“When I got it I was like numb with excitement but honestly I’m nervous that I might mess up” Fredenburg says.

She feels that this play has and interesting mix between romance and comedy and the tragedy in the story is something that would happen to her.

acted in. She says she was

Zombie Prom Will be performed November 7, 8, 9 starting at 7 p.m.

Garyn Kickhaefer (as Johnny) expresses his love for Toffee (Brittany Fredenburg).

You’re on your own Highland Park volleyball had a disappointing end to the season.

During the second game of the Sabetha tournament on Oct. 19, the coaches forfeited the remaining games.

The team arrived at the tournament late causing the coaches and the players.

They proceeded to have a of Highland Park began to act disrespectful towards the coaches, causing them to sit down and not coach the second game.

Assistant coach Kiley Taylor declined to comment.

Seniors Shay’von Ray and

Destini Gillian were said to have stepped up and tried to be leaders for the coachless team during the second game. coach Jackie Cummings forfeited the remainder of the tournament and the team left.

“I feel like they didn’t have faith in us,” said junior Tiffany Smith.

“And we almost won the second game,” said Gillian. the nine varsity players quit the team. The next substate game was played by the remaining varsity and JV players.

This game was lost leaving record of 6-24.

Close, but not close enough Selene Tavares has come to the end of her road in crosscountry.

Tavares missed qualifying for state by about one minute at the regional meet Nov. 26 at North Community Center. Her time was 20:01 minutes and to get into state she needed less than 19 minutes. stomach was hurting so bad I was throwing up,” she said. “I was really bummed.”

This is her third year being on the team, and she said she likes a challenge. “ I really enjoyed testing myself and challenging myself to commit to the sport.”

Tavares has committed a lot of her time to the team.

She works after school so she is never able to make it to practice but she makes up her time by coming at 6:30 a.m. to run.

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November 2013

“One tip I would give to anyone thinking about joining the team is to go for it. It teaches you a lot, also it will help you test your skills,” Tavares said.

GIVE US YOUR

SELFIES

We want your pictures for the Yearbook!

The yearbook staff is creating a selfie page and we need YOUR pictures.

The best pictures will be published. The Highlander staff reserves the right to Go to the website images.balfour.com and reject any inappropriate enter our project number 413276. There is no picture. password. Just give us your name and email address and upload your photos.

November 2013

Aztec Dancers

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A group called Aztec Art Colorado came to Highland Park on

October 17 for a performance, which is sponsored by the local Tonantzin Society. During their performance they showed us some of their ceremonial dances and also allowed students from our audience to join them. They also had a Day of the Dead art project that they did with a few students in NOTO.

A Dia De Los Muertos ( Day of the Dead) painting by a Washburn student, Johnathon Vinsonhaler, and Isaiah Nance