Lakota East Spark 2016-17 Issue 6

Spark Lakota East High School lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 15, 2017 $5 newsstand

SPORTS: FANTASY LEAGUES GREAT OHIO ROAD TRIP ENVIRONMENTALLY YOURS

SENIOR PROFILES Seniors leave Lakota East and talk about their experiences over the past four years.

CONTENTS May 2017 | Issue #176

NEWS 6 Legally Illegal Spark editor Sophia Spivey became a Confidential Informant.

10 Alternative Achievement Lakota pilots a new alternative program, the Career Readiness Academy.

FEATURE 14 FC Kicks it in Cincy FĂştbol Club came to Cincinnati in 2015.

14

20 Senior Profiles Series of stories on the graduating class of 2017.

PACKAGE 28 Changing Landscape The urbanization of West Chester concerning the environment.

36 Climate Change Effects of changing environmental regulations.

CULTURE 44 Great Ohio Road Trip Businesses in Liberty Township.

Business in Liberty Township.

52 Findlay Findlay Market Market 52 54 American American Sign Sign 54

Museum Museum SPORTS SPORTS 62 The The World World of of Fantasy Fantasy 62

44

64

The growth of fantasy league The growth of fantasy league participation and its controversy. participation and its controversy.

64 A A Game Game of of Popularity Popularity 66 The popularity of fantasy sports.

The popularity of fantasy sports.

OPINION OPINION 70 Head Head to to Head Head 66 Should the legal drinking age be Are gap years beneficial to high lowered to 18? school graduates?

71 Editorial Cartoon

opinion | letter to the editor

Spark 2016-2017 STAFF

Editors-in-Chief Erinn Aulfinger Michelle Chu Emma Stiefel Lauren Wilson Design Coordinator Julia Sanders Photography Manager Maya Wells Photography Editor Richard Giang News Managing Editors Sophia Spivey Emma Stiefel News Editors Julianne Ford Lina Kaval Culture Managing Editor Lauren Wilson Culture Editors Noor Ghuniem Richard Giang Feature Managing Editor Alyssa Hetterich Feature Editors Dani Dudash Lexy Harrison Karmi White Package Managing Editors Erinn Aulfinger Cristina Francisco Package Editors Michelle Chu Sidney Li Sports Managing Editor Allie Church Sports Editor Dustin Horter Opinion Managing Editors Victoria Negron Cara Satullo Opinion Editors Vivian Kolks Charis Williams Art Managing Editor Sarah Aftab Art Editor Tyler Bonawitz Graphics Managing Editors Sophia Chryssovergis Cassia Chryssovergis Graphics Editor Michael Croy Business Director Sarah Mullins Public Relations Director Cara Satullo Public Relations Assistant Victoria Negron Landon Meador Webmaster Michelle Chu Broadcast Manager Emma Stiefel

Advisor Dean Hume

2 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Spark, The year 2016 was a historical year for many reasons. It seemed like breaking and urgent news was happening constantly. It was a huge year for current events and we find that Spark addressed all those issues and kept it current and informational for Lakota East and the community. We especially appreciated Spark’s coverage of the 2016 election both in print and online. Spark took national news and localized it, inspiring interest in even those who couldn’t vote.

No one can tell the future, but we can definitely say that Spark excels at connecting us to the present.

We hope that next year the Spark will continue to uphold this standard.

Thanks to the current seniors, the bar has certainly been raised and we are looking forward to seeing how the class of 2018 will exceed expectations and raise it to new heights. We are especially thrilled to see how Spark will embrace and deliver in the digital channel, while still remaining current and true to the Spark standard. We are looking forward to seeing how the paper will change with the new staff while still missing the work of the old!

We also certainly appreciate Mr. Hume’s experience and leadership in continuing the great Spark tradition in school. He is an excellent community leader, as well as an inspiring teacher. There is no doubt in our minds that Spark, combined with its staff, is in the right hands.

Congratulations seniors and good luck current juniors and sophomores!

We can’t wait to renew our subscription!

– David and Sally Kolks

The Spark encourages letters to the editor. Letters can be sent to the publication at lakotaeastspark17@gmail.com or delivered to room 118 at the Lakota East High School Main Campus. Letters must be signed, and the staff reserves the right to edit the letters for length, grammar, invasion of privacy, obscenity or potential libel. The opinion editors will contact writers for confirmation.

SPONSORS & PATRONS Patrons Lori Aulfinger, Amy Stiefel, Robert Zelina Sponsors Carolyn Landers, Wendy Mayo, Sara Humphrey

ON THE COVER photo illustration lauren wilson In this issue of Spark, we cover seven students from the graduating class of 2017. From dreaming to become a doctor to working as a future politician, each have their own stories and ambitions for the future, with one last word to tell to their peers before embarking on a new journey.

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA @lakotaeastspark @lakotaeastspark lehsspark lakotaeastspark17@gmail.com

THE SILENCE OF NOISE

ERINN AULFINGER

I

photography maya wells

turned a city street corner and, unexpectedly, found myself caught in the middle of a political protest.

The streets streamed with clashing voices and ideologies, as I was thrust into a jumble of discord and pleas for change. It was November 2016, one week after the recent presidential election had rocked the nation, and the Indianapolis streets were a diverse dichotomy of support and outcry. A red truck revved past honking its horn as flags streamed out behind it, leading the way for others to follow. Awestruck children tethered onto their parents’ arms were aware of the clamor, but confused as to its cause. A group of women bathed in the diluted light from the Indiana Statehouse huddled together, knuckles white with fear and resolve. Growing up, I’d been sheltered from this blatant questioning of power, raised in a community that appeared to maintain a comfortable distance from messy, controversial topics, content to live their lives with their heads down and mouths shut.

It was just after eight o’clock, but the night seemed to come alive with an energy that almost visibly snaked through the crowd, linking us all together despite our different points of view. Posters and voices screamed their messages into the smoggy city air, muffled by the daily squeaks and sounds of life that normally call Indiana home. To me, it was electrifying, and people’s eyes seemed to speak the loudest, proud with a determination to spur change. I had never seen the world shout so loudly.

According to a 2013 collaborative study with Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue and The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation, as many as 63 percent of the 834 protests researched in the study neither achieved their intended demands nor resolved their expressed grievances in the shortterm. In fact, only 37 percent of protests did result in some kind of achievement, mostly in the areas of revamped political, legal or social rights, thanks to the masses raising awareness and driving action.

The fast-paced, technology-obsessed society we live in gives us the opportunity to share our ideas with the world in a nanosecond. Convictions and complaints stitch together in an amorphous cloud of anger, frustration, belligerence, intentionality or indifference. This access to spreading ideas results in many words but little action. People have the opportunity to complain about their struggles, yet many do nothing to reinforce their words by doing something about their areas of complaint. It’s a lot of noise but little true impact.

The same 2013 study reports a steady increase in the total amount of protests every year from 2006 to 2013, with the largest number reported in high income countries such as the U.S. After the 2016 election, USA Today reported an estimated one million people demonstrating against the newly elected president the weekend of the inauguration across all 50 states and in 32 other countries.

This was followed by five million people worldwide who participated in the Women’s March, according to police estimates, speaking out their concern over women’s rights and other issues, and sending a “bold message to our new government on their first day in office.”

This historic collaboration of people from around the globe was powerful and loud, yet after the event, most of the inspired masses were left confused with no clear call to action telling them the next steps toward driving the changes that had spurred the march.

Living in this country affords us the constitutional right to speak out. This is an important right that should not be taken for granted nor used superficially. Our voices should be loud, but our actions should be louder.

Here it was November 2016, and large crowds of people were visibly questioning the world and fighting with words in the protest, yet America ranks 120 out of 169 countries in voter turnout, according to a 2012 study from the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. They shouted from the rooftops challenging the presidential decision, yet the 2016 election had the lowest turnout for a presidential election in 20 years, according to CNN. We apparently like to shout and complain but not necessarily to do something about it.

In a similar vein, the use of social media to share one’s opinion has given rise to an arrogant refusal to listen to anyone else’s opinion. A 2016 Pew Research Center study of U.S. adults found that around 50 percent view social media’s political opinion sharing to be angrier, less respectful, and less civil than debates in other areas of life. The relative anonymity of online forums allows for more bullying and less listening, resulting in a noisy cacophony that undermines joint efforts to make the world a better place.

In this country, there are many voices fighting for their place to be heard. A symphony of ideas drowning in the whispers of the majority. The world is so loud that without people working together toward constructive action and improvement, there is no power in words or declarations or protests. So little power, it’s almost as if no one is speaking at all.

news | school

INCREASING

INTERALLIANCE

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he sits in her chair at the library instructing fourth, fifth and sixth graders on how to begin their assignments. These assignments, however, are not ordinary class work but coding tasks on the computers in front of them. After the class has concluded and the students have gone home to their parents, Lakota East senior and INTERalliance president Emily Niehaus sits down and begins to think of new ways to improve the community through the use of technology.

Recently, INTERalliance has expanded at East in many different ways. For example, a record 66 East students attended TechOlympics, a weekend tech expo held from Feb. 24-26 this year.

All of these opportunities are made available to Niehaus and other students through Lakota East’s chapter of INTERalliance. According to Niehaus, INTERalliance aims to generate more interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers.

“In terms of how INTERalliance has grown, it’s mostly in the number of people that go to TechOlympics,” Niehaus said.

“TechOlympics is one of the biggest things we offer as a chapter.”

Not only is the number of students attending TechOlympics growing, but INTERalliance is also working to improve the community.

“The programming course at the Midpointe Library has been a huge undertaking,” Niehaus said. “We calculated that we’ve put in over 400man hours over the past two years, and we were able to teach over 70 students.”

The course runs on Wednesdays throughout the school year and aims to teach fourth through sixth grade students the basic components of coding.

While the library project aims to familiarize younger students with coding, TechOlympics works to better educate high school students about technology and the business world. Both work to accomplish the goal of INTERalliance.

“I want to call it more of a mission, to encourage high school kids to pursue STEM careers and even more than that, stay

within greater Cincinnati,” Niehaus said.

“INTERalliance’s goal is to show you that you don’t need to leave Ohio to get experience in those fields” INTERalliance Associate Director Luke Lampe says INTERalliance’s goal is making sure that a strong “pipeline” of information technology (IT) professionals is available to improve workplaces in Cincinnati.

“I believe that this mission will always be what we use to guide our decision making,” Lampe said. “The greatest changes you will see will be in more diverse programs, a stronger chapter model, and better resources for everyone involved.”

According to Niehaus, the way that East’s chapter interprets the mission of INTERalliance is by focusing mainly on TechOlympics.

To Niehaus, TechOlympics is the “essence” of what INTERalliance is due to the mock interviews, the business professionals that students can interact with, and the social aspect of getting to meet students from different schools.

Another large aspect of TechOlympics is competition. The showcase project, for example, is a major competition that happens at TechOlympics. It involves creating a program

More and more East students are showing interest in computer science and INTERalliance, which has been steadily growing over the past several years. story and infographic michael croy on a computer or coming up with an idea that is socially relevant to the real world.

Sydni Venter is one of the people who was involved with East’s winning showcase competition at TechOlympics this year. She and her team developed a simulation designed to show elementary students what to do in the event of a school shooting.

“We saw a problem with the way schools teach younger students different kinds of drills,” Venter said. “We made a game-like simulation in order to teach younger students different kinds of drills.”

Venter was able to go to Wyandot Early Childhood and take pictures and measurements of the school in order to make the game similar to a real-life situation.

While playing, students see from a firstperson perspective and are able to move around using the arrow keys on a keyboard. Sometimes the game will direct the students to an exit and other times the game will place students in a classroom and tell them to press a button that will move a cabinet in front of the door.

East senior and INTERalliance member Alex Suer was another one of the students who worked on the project. His goal is to one day finish the simulation and give the students at Wyandot access to the program in order to

The greatest changes you will see will be in more diverse programs, a stronger chapter model, and better resources for everyone involved.

4 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

– Corie Mauer, East junior

better prepare them for a lockdown situation.

The team’s project placed first in the showcase competition this year, but to Suer it was due not to the quality of the product but its relevance.

“We didn’t win because our product was better, but because it was worthwhile,” Suer said. “We had a lot of errors and mistakes but we kept going.”

TechOlympics has seen a lot more East students recently. According to computer science teacher and INTERalliance director Dave McKain, East is very well represented at TechOlympics.

“Getting 65-plus students to go to [TechOlympics] is huge,” McKain said. “There are usually about 500 students there, so we have more than ten percent of the population.”

Everything at TechOlympics and in INTERalliance is made possible through the INTERalliance Leadership Council (ILC), a group of students from schools with INTERalliance chapters who essentially run INTERalliance through several committees.

One member of the ILC is East junior Kamil Sacha.

Sacha works on the IT committee, which aims to maintain the INTERalliance website. To Sacha, working with so many people and building community is a large aspect of being on ILC. “You become very used to working with everyone and get to know everybody really well,” Sacha said. “We have a retreat at the beginning of the year and we all get to know each other more so it’s easy to work with others.”

East is continuing to have success at TechOlympics when it comes to getting more people than the year before to attend because “each year the record for TechOlympics attendance is broken,” according to Sacha.

While INTERalliance has a very strong presence in ILC, there are also students involved who are not on ILC. One of these students is East junior Gaige Laverty, who began his involvement in INTERalliance before TechOlympics in 2017. “[TechOlympics] was so much fun,” Laverty said. “There were colleges from all around that had their technology on display.”

Laverty feels that INTERalliance “provides a lot of opportunities that you wouldn’t get otherwise” because “it brings companies together and [ILC] has brought people in after school to help with things like resumes.”

While ILC is what makes INTERalliance continue to grow and expand, it is overseen at East by McKain. McKain has enjoyed his time being the instructor of the group and getting to watch his students succeed by working for major companies as interns.

“For me, the most fulfilling thing is watching students get internships,” McKain said.

East students in INTERalliance have received internships at large corporations like General Electric (GE) and Procter and Gamble (P&G). McKain said that in past years “we’ve had about five to eight [receive internships], but this year we had eleven students receive offers.”

One area McKain would like to see more growth in is the IT career camps. These camps are available to students who have

just completed their freshman or sophomore year and involve spending a week at a local university like Miami, Xavier, The University of Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky University.

While staying at any of the universities, field trips are taken during the day to different businesses like GE and P&G to get a tour that “most people don’t get,” according to McKain.

While at the businesses, students are put on teams with a mentor in order to compete in competitions that are facilitated by the businesses.

The entire week culminates in the Technology Optimized Business Enterprise competition (T.O.B.E.) which involves each team delivering a business or product to pitch to a panel of judges who score the idea.

“It’s a great opportunity to get out there and get behind the scenes in some of these major corporations,” McKain said. “It’s a great way to make connections with some of those higher ups.

East Principal Suzanna Davis has witnessed the recent the growth of the organization from the students and faculty being so excited about the program.

“You start to hear about things more and they become the dialogue of the school,” Davis said. “It’s not this group over here of ten kids doing something; you now see it on social media and people are talking about it.”

Davis is extremely impressed with the recent growth and quality of INTERalliance.

“I’m not kidding you when I say they’re rock stars,” she said. “INTERalliance of Greater Cincinnati is an outstanding organization.”

TechOlympics is a large aspect of INTERalliance at Lakota East. In 2017, East made several noteworthy accomplishments.

11 Students have been

East junior Chris Holden directed the entire Wiki Races competition

offered internships at companies like P&G and GE

66 students attended TechOlympics in 2017, more than any other year for Lakota East

source lakota east computer science teacher dave mckain

East INTERalliance

news | personal narrative

LEGALLY ILLEGAL W alking into the Sunoco gas station, my palms were already shaking as I swiftly grabbed a cold can of Four Loko from the fridge and walked up to the register.

With each step I started to sweat even more, worried about what would happen when the cashier realized I was underage. As the sales clerk scanned the bottle she looked at me with skepticism.

“You don’t know what this is, do you? This is alcohol, hun.”

I am a Confidential Informant (CI) for the Ohio Investigative Unit (OIU). CIs are minors who work in different fields for compliance checks. The CIs ages 14-16 work tobacco checks, while CIs ages 17-19 work alcohol compliance checks. An alcohol CI’s job is to walk in and try to buy liquor to see if the clerk is doing their job. Compliance checks ensure that convenience stores and bars aren’t selling alcohol to anyone under 21 and are actually IDing individuals.

There are several items that an applicant has to turn in and fill out in order to become an official CI. The CI applicant takes home a CI File Check Sheet packet and has an OIU agent come to their house at a later date to review the information in the packet. The CI packet includes important information such as a copy of the applicant’s driver’s license or ID, program instructions, and a copy of their birth certificate.

When the agent goes to the applicant’s house, the potential CI takes a written exam to prove that they read over the packet. A score of 70 percent or higher is required on the exam for the applicant to officially be admitted as a CI. One of the main requirements of employment

is that the CI not use any tobacco or alcohol.

When it comes to compliance checks, the CI has to use their real ID and be truthful about their age when asked at a convenience store or bar. One of the main components of compliance checks is truthfulness, so the CI is supposed to look their age and use minimal makeup, if any. The OIU wants to take away any excuse the clerk may use when going to court; by having minimalistic makeup the clerk can’t make the claim that the CI looked as if they were 21. An alcohol CI is also supposed to have clothing and a hairstyle that is consistent with their age group.

If the CI does buy alcohol, both the CI and the agent that entered the premises will relay a description of the clerk to back-up agents outside the premises. Those agents will then enter the establishment, identify themselves to the clerk and advise them that a compliance check was conducted. At this point the agents will either issue a citation or make an arrest. As that occurs, the CI completes their statement form and gives it to one of the agents.

According to OIU Agent in Charge Adam Johnson, a clerk that sells to the CI will be given a court date “on the charges of sale or furnishing of beer or liquor” to an individual under the age of 21. Johnson said that there are situations where a clerk won’t have to go to court over selling to a minor, but not when it comes to compliance checks. And clerks aren’t the only ones who get penalized for selling alcohol to a minor: the owner of the alcohol permit also may receive a citation, which can lead to high fines as well as their permit being suspended or revoked.

“Now the permit doesn’t get revoked on

Spark News Managing Editor Sophia Spivey investigated how minors buy alcohol by becoming a Confidential Informant. story sophia spivey art tyler bonawitz a first time offense,” Johnson said. “If it’s something where we have a problem with a carryout or a gas station and we end up citing them for selling to underage individuals four or five times in a two year period, the fine will continue to progressively get higher to the point where I’ve seen several $1,000 fines levied against permit holders.”

Since clerks are trained to check IDs, if they do so with the intent of actually checking and sell they have a chance of not having to go to court. When an underage individual uses a fake ID, it is a hit or miss situation; if the ID is noticeably fake, then the clerk may be charged, whereas if it looks legitimate they may get off without a trial.

In these situations agents sit and wait outside of convenience stores for minors to come out with alcohol so they can bust them. According to one of the OIU agents, sometimes it takes a few minutes for them to catch a few minors buying alcohol, while other times it may take several hours.

The CI turns the evidence as well as remaining money over to an agent after getting inside the vehicle. Anything from alcohol and tobacco products to bags and receipts is stored by the agent as evidence, as well as the audio recording of the transaction. All of the evidence is entered on the Compliance Check Field Report, which must be completed before another check is conducted.

With every compliance check the CI will make $10 an hour with a minimum of $40 for the check. They will also receive a minimum of $40 in the event that they appear in court or in front of the Liquor Commission. After every shift or court appearance an agent will pay the

“Compliance checks ensure that convenience stores and bars aren’t selling alcohol to anyone under 21 and are actually IDing individuals.”

– Sophia Spivey, Spark News Managing Editor

CI in cash. The compensated CI will then sign a receipt so that it can be put on file for the district or satellite office.

I

t was 5:30 in the afternoon, and I was more than ready to get to work as I received a text from one of the agents letting me know he was outside my house and ready to take me to our first location. When we reached the University of Dayton (UD) area, we met up with the other agents and discussed the plan for the night.

We went to Kroger, United Dairy Farmers, Shell, two Sunocos and a local convenience store called The Deli. Every time I attempted to buy alcohol, audio was recorded on an OIU iPhone so that it could be used as evidence if a case went to trial. For the majority of cases, an audio recording is sufficient evidence, but occasionally the CI is brought in to testify.

Before I entered any store, an undercover agent entered the premises beforehand so that they could make sure the store was safe to enter and to keep an eye on me during the transaction. According to one of the OIU agents, during a compliance check with a CI, the agent’s main concern is the CI’s safety.

Even if an agent sees a drug deal occur, they aren’t allowed to interfere because the CI may be harmed.

On the night I was working as a CI, all of the nearby convenience stores were warned that the OIU was going to be sending in CIs to make sure that they check IDs later in the week, so I didn’t successfully buy any alcohol that night. The main goal of these compliance checks is to ensure the store clerks are checking people’s IDs and not selling to minors.

I felt so close to buying alcohol when I attempted to buy from The Deli. As I swiftly walked in after the agent, the clerk insisted that the agent buy something before she would cash out my purchase. After her insisting countless times that he buy something before me, he decided to buy a pack of Reese’s. Since he couldn’t leave the premises before me he pretended to get a phone call and take it inside.

As I handed her the Four Loko, she looked him directly in the eye and asked for my ID. She stared at my ID for a good five to 10 minutes and kept repeating the same word.

“Interesting… Interesting…”

After she realized that the undercover agent wasn’t going to leave she finally gave up on the idea of a sale and asked my age. When I told her I was 17, she pretended to get irritated.

“What is the drinking age? It’s 21. Are you 21? No, you’re not. Get out of my establishment and never come back!”

When I got in the car with the other agent, he said that he was surprised that she didn’t sell to me because they caught her selling almost everything single time they conduct a compliance check there. He said that she makes majority of her money off of minors because

The Deli is in the center of UD campus houses.

As we left our last stop, Kroger, my nerves finally started to calm. Before we pulled out of the parking lot I was paid $48 and handed a receipt to sign for their records. On the drive back home the agent told me all about how they normally find so many places that sell to minors, but we were hindered since they were warned we were coming. He spoke of how one night they went to eight different locations and every single one of them sold to the CI. I arrived back at home at 9:30 at night. As I got out of the car the agent told me that they will most likely reach out to me again when they conduct a compliance check closer to my house.

In order to make it easier on both the CIs and agents, a CI is normally used for a compliance check close to their house.

Even though being a CI is an unpredictable job, it gives minors an opportunity to see firsthand what goes into making sure the legal drinking age is upheld.

Every second of the compliance check was a rush, and I look forward to doing it again.

Underage Drinking Breakdown There There are are many many consequences consequences that that come come with with underage drinking ranging from impactsphysical on cognitive abilities to jail time. underage drinking, including impacts. infographic infographic cassia cassia chryssovergis, chryssovergis, sophia sophia chryssovergis chryssovergis and and sophia sophia spivey spivey

Alcohol Impact Impact on on Cognitive Cognitive Abilities Abilities Alcohol Occasional and and moderate moderate drinkers drinkers Occasional Impared Impared decision decision making making

Memory Memory impairment impairment

Recklessness Recklessness

The The Effect Effect of of Alcohol Alcohol on on the the Brain Brain

Heavy and/or and/or chronic chronic drinkers drinkers Heavy

Inability to to think think abstractly abstractly Inability Loss of of visuospatial visuospatial abilities abilities Loss Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome syndrome Wernicke-Korsakoff Memory loss loss Memory Loss of of attention attention span span Loss

Black out out Black

cerebral cerebral cortex cortex

Blood Alcohol Concentration

parietal parietal lobe lobe

Regions Regions of of the the brain brain that are vulnerable that are vulnerable to to abnormalities abnormalities related related to to alcohol. alcohol.

frontal frontal lobe lobe

corpus corpus callosum callosum

thalamus thalamus

occipital occipital lobe lobe

hypothalamus hypothalamus

cerebellum cerebellum

hippocampal hippocampal regions regions

For For adults, adults, aa BAC BAC of of .08% .08% is is illegal. illegal.

For For those those under under the the age age of of 21, 21, any any BAC BAC is is illegal. illegal.

temporal temporal lobe lobe

Varying Varying Brain Brain Size Size One One effect effect of of alcohol alcohol on on heavy/chronic heavy/chronic drinkers drinkers is is aa diminished diminished brain brain size. size.

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sources americanaddictioncenters.org, pubs.niaaa.nih.gov, drugfree.org, cdc.gov, dui.drivinglaws.org and cdc.gov

news | alcohol

UNDER THE INFLUENCE Many underage students acquire alcohol without thinking about the consequences that have the ability to seriously harm a teenager’s future. story sophia spivey | photo illustration maya wells art tyler bonawitz | infographic lexy harrison *denotes name change

B

efore even walking into the party, she decided she wanted to get drunk. Picking up the shot, throwing it back and then moving on to a nice cold beer, she suddenly felt new, at peace with herself. Next thing she knew she was dancing on the coffee table screaming “I’m so drunk” at the top of her lungs. All that was in her mind was the thought of being free from all the pain. For that night all she needed was to be distracted and blur into the numbness.

Lakota East senior Emma Blake* drinks to escape from the constant roller coaster ride of emotions she has faced throughout high school.

Blake was first introduced to alcohol when she went to a party with one of her coworkers a few years ago. When Blake drinks she feels a wide range of emotions, but it doesn’t matter to her because when she drinks “the judgment is all gone.”

“Depending on the situation you could be experiencing any amount of different emotions,” Blake said. “I generally feel happy and act without thinking depending on my level of intoxication. My favorite thing about alcohol is no one will judge you. They will cheer you on no matter what. People become nicer when they’re drunk; there is less judgment and more acceptance.”

Of 308 East students surveyed, 70.2 percent said they have drank alcohol. Another Spark survey found that eight percent of 330 East students have bought alcohol.

According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) survey, 138.3 million Americans aged 12 or older reported current use of alcohol, and of those 7.7 million people ages 12 to 20 reported drinking in the past month. One in 10 adolescents aged 12 to 17 were current alcohol users in 2015 as well. On top of that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that approximately 4,554 underage deaths happen each year due to excessive alcohol use.

West Chester Police Chief Joel Herzog knows how underage drinking can lead to a wide range of consequences, from alcohol poisoning and death to fake ID felonies. Herzog believes that teenagers are more susceptible to becoming drunk due to the fact that they play party games and aren’t accustomed to alcohol.

“Since 90 percent of addictions begin during the teen years, substance use can greatly affect a person's life. If a person does misuse or become dependent on drugs or alcohol, they often have a hard time realizing their life dreams.”

– Cathy Taughinbaugh, Certified Recovery Coach and Pro Corner author

“I don’t know if they are more susceptible to alcoholism, but I do believe they are more vulnerable to over intoxication due to the type of drinking teens do [such as] games, beer bongs and chugging,” Herzog said. “The fact that it is a new experience for teens and they do not understand that it takes time to become over intoxicated leads to continuing to drink until there is alcohol poisoning.”

According to Oxford Police Chief John Jones, underage drinking has a wide range of consequences, because it is a first degree misdemeanor. The maximum penalty for a minor is a $1,000 fine with six months in jail.

The underage individual’s punishment typically consists of an alcohol class and community service.

Individuals under the age of 15 that decide to drink alcohol are six times more likely to become alcohol dependent than adults who begin drinking at age 21, according to the CDC. The organization also found that underage drinkers may be more susceptible to poor school performance, risk of suicide and homicide, and risky sexual behaviors.

TriHealth Addiction Counselor Judith Gissy considers the underage drinking ban “the most broken law in the United States.” Gissy said that drugs such as alcohol can be damaging to an adolescent’s developing brain.

“We don’t have all those answers, particularly

with adolescents,” Gissy told Spark. “We do know that an individual’s brain is not fully developed until the age of 25, so use of a drug during those formative years can be dangerous.

We also know that use of a mood-altering drug permanently affects the brain, in that it creates permanent ‘pathways’ to the dopamine receptor sites in the brain that do not go away, even when the person abstains from using the drug.”

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States is imbibed by individuals ages 12 through 20.

East alum and Indiana University junior Rosa King* spent the past summer in London and was legally allowed to drink there because the legal drinking age is 18. She is 20. King didn’t worry because she knew she would be in no…continued on lakotaeastsparkonline.com

SPARK ONLINE: Go to www.lakotaeastsparkonline. com to read more about the effects of underage drinking.

May 2017 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 9

Two Career Readiness Academy students at its space at Lakota West.

ALTERNATIVE ACHIEVEMENT

This year Lakota piloted a new alternative program, the Career Readiness Academy, for students who might struggle to succeed in a traditional high school environment. story and photography emma stiefel

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ix bells, structured courses and hallways filled with thousands of teenagers: a typical high school day. This is the only academic environment most Lakota East and West students know, but it’s one some, like East junior Christine Kendrick, have more trouble working in than others.

Kendrick has social anxiety and couldn’t focus on learning while surrounded by so many other students. She had fallen behind her peers and was in danger of not graduating until her counselor suggested that she move to Lakota’s new Career Readiness Academy.

The program, which was piloted this year, is designed for high school students who struggle

in traditional high schools. Its 75 students work through online courses at their own pace for three hours every day and complete 15 hours of work at home.

“The academy is a flexible learning environment for students who need a flexible school day,” Career Readiness Academy Principal Nicole Isaacs said. According to Isaacs, students who originally attended East or West may choose to transfer to the academy for a variety of reasons: they might be credit deficient, work full time, struggle with mental illness, or be recovering from cancer or other serious diseases.

East Principal Suzanna Davis is excited that

10 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

the academy gives Lakota high school students another educational option many may need. Of 335 East students surveyed, about 10 percent knew about the Career Readiness Academy, and about 18 percent of 332 East students surveyed would be interested in attending an alternative high school program.

“It’s another option for students that perhaps need that different type of environment,” Davis said. “It’s a whole other way of going about the educational process. I think the more diverse options we can offer students the better, because we’re trying to cater to the multitude of learners that we have.”

Before this year, Lakota students could

news | district

attend Wokini, another alternative program which was run by Butler Tech and focused on credit recovery. According to Lakota Senior Director of Curriculum and Instruction for secondary students Fran Morrison, the district created the Career Readiness Academy because it wanted to run its own program and serve a broader group of students than just those who are credit deficient.

“We evaluated [Wokini] and felt that with some of the resources we have on our own staff we could really provide a high quality program that would maybe meet a broader need than just credit recovery,” Morrison told Spark. “We could help all of our students that need a different pathway to graduation.”

Unlike Wokini, according to Morrison, the Career Readiness Academy will focus not just on credits and grades but also on preparing students for careers and helping them with non-academic needs.

Next year the Career Readiness Academy will move into the Wokini building next to West’s freshman campus; it is currently located in its own space in West’s main campus. In the new building, the academy will be able to accommodate 50 more students, for a total of about 120.

The academy will also get two more teachers, in addition to the three who work there now, and a full-time guidance counselor.

Each teacher will have their own classroom dedicated to the subject they teach, in contrast to the academy’s current open layout. Isaacs also said that the academy will add more internships, college visits and mental health services next year.

“As we move into a new building, [we want to] continue to build a culture of growth,” Isaacs said. “We’re positive, we’re focusing on the individual and their learning needs.”

Most of the students currently at the academy will return next year, according to Isaacs, though they have the option of returning to their original high school. She’s seen many already benefit from being in a nontraditional school environment.

Since she moved to the Career Readiness Academy, for example, Kendrick has started doing better in school.

“It’s actually pretty good,” Kendrick said.

“My grades have improved a lot. I’m able to focus a lot more and the teachers help more because there’s not very many kids.”

Kendrick is at the academy from 11:15 to 2:15, while other students attend the a.m. session from 7:45-10:45. While there, they take notes and quizzes for their classes at their own pace. Most work on three courses at a time and finish them quickly, allowing students who were behind to get back on track for graduation.

All of the academy’s courses, except for statistics, are provided by Apex. Its three teachers assist students one-on-one or in small

groups and can alter the online curriculum to fit the academy’s needs.

“A lot of what we do here on a dayby-day basis is supporting students as they work through a curriculum that [Lakota has] augmented to fit our needs,” Career Readiness Academy English and history teacher David Mosure told Spark. “As teachers we have the flexibility to add things or take things away from Apex.”

But the Career Readiness Academy helps students with more than just academics. The school has its own community liaison, Jennifer Etheredge, who connects families to resources outside the district such as job fairs, mental health services and medical care. She currently works with most of the students at the academy and is trying to get more signed up.

“I think the [biggest need is] support and hands-on help if they want to apply for a job or if they come to me and say, ‘I don’t know what I’m good at,’” Etheredge said. “Just connecting them to resources to help them become the leaders that I feel they can be.”

Teachers also help students set and achieve personal goals in addition to assisting them with school work. “[Support] is not always coaching through an English class,” Mosure said. “Sometimes it’s helping students set goals, thinking beyond the next few weeks, thinking beyond high school. A lot of it might be helping students work through things in their personal life that might be getting in the way of their academic success.”

T h i s supportive approach has already had an impact on the Career Readiness A c a d e m y ’s students, according to Isaacs.

She’s seen their attitudes towards school and themselves change and

listened to many tell her that they never felt successful until they came to the academy.

Five students have already graduated from the academy, and more who may not have been able to graduate if they stayed in a traditional high school have caught up to their peers.

Career Readiness Academy junior Rose Powell, for example, was a year behind before she came to the academy from East, but is now almost done with her sophomore-level classes.

She plans on taking eleventh grade classes over the summer so that she can finish high school a semester early. After graduation she plans on studying early childhood development in college, something she didn’t think she’d be able to do before she came to the Career Readiness Academy.

In addition to hearing about her students’ successes, Isaacs also has personal experience with how important alternative schools like the Career Readiness Academy can be; her own parents attended one after she was born when they were 15.

“I’m very excited about the upcoming year and the growth in the students and the building and the staff,” Isaacs said. “It’s an amazing moment when I see a light bulb go off in a kid’s head and they start to feel proud and confident about their schooling.”

BEST PHO IN WEST CHESTER 7844 Kingland Dr. Suite E, West Chester, OH 45069 513-779-8448 www.pho96.com Like us on facebook: facebook/pho96

feature | fc cincinnati

Defender and Lakota West graduate Matt Bahner scans the field.

FC KICKS IT IN CINCY

Fútbol Club came to Cincinnati in 2015 and continues to impact the community. story julianne ford | photography used with permission from matt bahner

I

t’s a Saturday at the Nippert Stadium and the crowd is going wild, splashed with the colors orange and blue. The smell of hotdogs and cotton candy surrounds the stadium. The screams of the soccer players can be heard throughout the field.

Futbol Club (FC) Cincinnati (FCC) is a United Soccer League (USL) club located in downtown Cincinnati. The games are held at University of Cincinnati’s (UC) Nippert stadium. The club was established in August of 2015 by Carl H. Lindner III. According to the acting president and general manager Jeff Berding, the staff works together to provide the best experience for Cincinnati.

“Being a general manager includes a lot of responsibility,” says Berding. “Not only are you responsible for the players who play for the organization, but it is also important that the front office is on the same page and that we are moving in the same direction. With so many different areas involved in our organization,

it is vital that a clear vision is presented to everyone so we are working towards the same goal on a daily basis.”

The team consists of 26 players with the average age of 27-years-old. Lakota West graduate Matt Bahner is currently signed to the club. He plays defender, whose job is to keep the other team from scoring a goal. Bahner who graduated from UC in 2012 is excited to return to his alma mater while representing his city.

“Playing at one of the best stadiums in the country, [Nippert], with our huge fanbase at [UC], doesn’t get much better than that,” says Bahner. “I am very thankful the club was willing to add me to the organization.”

The club recently submitted a bid to Major League Soccer’s (MLS) headquarters in New York. If accepted this bid would put FCC in the MLS conference. FCC has been placed among 12 other teams competing for four remaining spots as the MLS looks to grow from 20 to

14 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

28 teams in the upcoming years. According to Berding, FCC’s main goal is to help influence Cincinnati in a beneficial way and the MLS provides that opportunity.

“The goal over the next five years is to continue to grow as an organization and continue to work to make a positive impact in our community,” says Berding. “The city is on the rise and we want to be the best franchise we can be and make the Queen City proud.

Ultimately, we want to be in the MLS, the top level of American soccer.”

FCC has also been working with UC to update Nippert Stadium to accommodate their large fan base. In total the club has put $2 million into updates and other improvements.

“The Nippert Stadium renovation has been great,” says Berding. “The field is wider and longer, giving our players more room to create opportunities to score as well as improving sightlines for the fans. We built our team to play exciting, dynamic soccer to give our fans a great

The city is on the rise and we want to be the best franchise we can be and make the Queen City proud.

– Acting president and general manager, Jeff Berding

show and I think we have done that.”

The clubs fan base has a major impact on the club as a whole. FCC was expecting a large fan base but the support they received from the city far exceeded their expectations. Opening day of 2017 attracted a crowd of 23, 144, surpassing the previous USL home-opener attendance record of 20, 231 set by Sacramento Republic FC in 2014. “[FCC] believed we could average 10,000 fans per match and now we are averaging nearly 20,000,” says Berding. “In one year, we have grown from 6,000 season ticket holders to 11,500 which is one of the highlights for the club. We have always known that Cincinnatians support Cincinnati endeavors and to have the turnouts we have seen have been tremendous.”

Along with the growth of the club the players and coaching staff are growing as well.

FC Cincinnati stands during the National Anthem.

New head coach Alan Koch started at FCC as the Director of Scouting and Analytics and Assistant coach in December 2016. Koch was announced to be the second head coach in February 2017.

“We are lucky to work for a great club in a great city and my staff and I will work very hard to achieve success,” says Koch. “I want to have a positive team culture that allows the players to go out and play with freedom.”

FCC has a major impact on many soccer players in the southwest Ohio area. One player includes East Junior and varsity Center Midfielder Jak Birdsong. Through his club team Cincinnati Cup, Birdsong had the chance to train with the FCC team and their staff on a few occasions.

“It was cool [playing with FCC],” says Birdsong. “The thing that was different about

FCC [compared to club soccer] was the coaches who were on a different level. It’s a lot faster pace at higher level. They have higher standards. I think it would be cool to play for Cincinnati [in the future].”

While FCC is still growing in popularity it is clear that the club wants to provide the best experience for their fans. From the new stadium updates to growing team culture it is clear that FCC will have a lasting impact on Cincinnati.

“FC Cincinnati prides itself on being a family-friendly organization,” says Berding.

“We work hard to give all [of] our fans a great experience at our matches with very affordable ticket pricing options. We hope that if you haven’t already done so, you’ll take the time to come and see a match. We think you’ll get hooked.”

HER-STORY After 27 years of exploring her passion for history through teaching, East teacher Jennifer Reid will retire to focus on her other pastimes. story vivian kolks photography emma stiefel

East history teacher Jennifer Reid in her classroom.

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he classroom is covered with countless magazine covers, small watercolor prints and larger-than-life black and white photos of Albert Einstein, Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. that encourage students to “think different.” It may appear from the outside to be another classroom, but unbeknownst to the average passer-by, this room holds over five hundred years of United States history.

Keeper of this collection of United States history is East teacher Jennifer Reid who, after 27 years of teaching social studies, is currently enjoying her last year before retirement.

Surprisingly, Reid originally had no interest in history. It was only during college when viewing a promotional video for a private school with a friend that Reid, who was majorless at the time, first considered the possibility.

“There was this guy talking about U.S. History and how there’s this caldron churning with diverse points of view and [how] we [have to] pull forward out of all of this controversy, and I just remember that he was talking in such a dynamic way about how he taught U.S. History,” says Reid. “And I sat up and said, ‘That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to teach history.’”

Since then Reid has taught a variety of social studies and history classes including government, world history, current issues and at one point during the Cold War era,

a class on the Soviet Union and China.

“One thing about U.S. History is that the history doesn’t change, it just gets added to,” says Reid. “What I notice is, I have less time each year for each unit.”

Even from the very beginning of her career, teaching history has granted Reid a unique perspective on the present as well.

Reid completed her student teaching in 1989 during the George H.W Bush administration, the fall of the Berlin Wall and months later witnessed the dissolution of the USSR. “We witnessed the fall of communism, right before our eyes, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, when all the Soviet republics broke away, and [all of] that was current events back then,” says Reid.

Current events have played a heavy role in how Reid molds centuries worth of material into something that students can relate to their own lives and she tries everyday to make some reference to the present that can relate to the curriculum. A favorite quote of hers from William Faulkner is prominently displayed on a classroom bulletin board declaring that “the past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.”

“I really believe that if you understand what’s happened in the past, particularly the 20th century [and] 21st century, and if you have a fairly good handle on what happened and what the issues were, it [can go] a long way

16 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

in informing decisions that we need to make today in terms of our position on issues,” says Reid. “[This] shapes our opinions, it gives us far more insight to make decisions, helps us decide who to vote for, helps us decide what our values and morals are as members of society.”

Reid’s unique teaching style, which is based off of a system called Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, is revolved around stepping stones that separate a lesson into different activities with different goals in order to help students develop skills like analysis and creativity. After all, teaching history is not just about the content, according to Reid, but also the skills developed in class.

“So when you’re thinking and creating ideas that are unique, not just out of the textbook, you are thinking at the highest level, which is creating,” says Reid. “People that can analyze, evaluate and create and come up with things. So that is how, that is the framework I use to design daily lessons or unit lessons. As I go I try to get kids engaged so it’s not just me talking all the time.”

East junior and former Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) student Julia Hartinger was one that benefited from Reid’s teaching style, especially when it came to taking the APUSH exam.

“With all the essays that [we] wrote and ...continued on page 26

teacher feature | feature

East math teacher Mary Liz Lamb in her classroom.

RIDING INTO THE SUNSET At the end of the 2016-17 school year, AP Calculus teacher Mary Liz Lamb will retire.

story gabbie behrmann | photography maya wells

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hrough their long school career, some students can barely remember all of the teachers they had from kindergarten to senior year. They come in on the first day of school, learn their teacher’s name, and forget about them when summer vacation starts. But there is one teacher that some may never forget.

One that has “all the experience,” a teacher that flips through her senior year yearbook in the middle of class just for fun, and even one that enjoys riding her Harley Davidson in her spare time.

After 31 years of teaching every math class imaginable and creating lifelong memories for her students, AP Calculus teacher Mary Liz Lamb will be retiring at the end of the 2016-17 school year.

“I’m really excited about retiring, but I’m also really sad,” says Lamb. “I’m really going to miss the kids, but I am looking forward to spending more time with my husband. “ Although it’s been a couple years, Lamb still remembers the first time she started teaching.

In the beginning, she was nervous and young.

But since then, she has become a lot more relaxed and comfortable with teaching the material.

“I think my students appreciate that my

classroom is relaxed,” says Lamb. “It’s not threatening, and I think I’m really good at explaining concepts different ways.”

East senior Ekene Azuka, who has had Lamb as a teacher for the current school year, agrees. She explains how Lamb cares for her students, in a “motherly” way.

“She’s very sweet and just like a mom,” says Azuka. “She cares so much about everybody genuinely. And it’s not in a way that is like ‘I care so I’m going to be super hard on you’, it’s more like, ‘I understand your situation and I’m going to help you through it.’”

Azuka isn’t the only one who feels this way about Lamb, Judy Buckenmeyer, who has been teaching math for 32 years and teaching at East for 16 years, also has observed Lamb’s caring nature.

“She has a soft spot for students,” says Buckenmeyer. “She’s willing to help anyone. I can always count on her if I have a question or a favor.”

With East’s student population being so large, there are a lot of diverse people and personalities around the building. East senior ...continued on page 26

[Lamb is] very sweet and just like a mom. She cares so much about everybody genuinely.

– Ekene Azuka, East senior

feature | in-depth

MISSING MOMENTS As the baby boom generation ages, the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease is expected to triple. story erinn aulfinger | photo used with permission

H

is hands were a roadmap.

Paved with memories and freckled with love and laughter. He was a strong man that lived his life as a business owner, loving husband, father and grandfather.

Lakota East junior Leah Boehner recalls holding her grandfather’s hand to keep him grounded throughout his battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.

“I always held his hand,” says Leah.

“Especially in the later stages, that’s all you could do. When he came back from [spending time in the Good Samaritan Hospital Psychiatric Ward, there] was just a world of a difference [in his personality]. His head was down and he wasn’t looking at anyone. He had this cup of coffee and was just staring at it and I lost it. I had to [leave the living room] bawling my eyes out. From then on, all I could do was hold his hand.”

Despite not being officially diagnosed until November 2012, Leah’s mother, Dena Boehner says she and her father, Robert Edward Lee Maertz, knew something was wrong when he began to obsess over his finances, and forgot how to get into his online banking account, something he had done regularly as a business owner. Maertz also started confusing Dena’s sister with his wife, who had passed away ten years earlier. They had previously taken him to a neurologist, who had passed off the problems as “old age” and told them to return in a year.

They returned later to the family doctor, a friendly man who did not stress out her father as much, and he confirmed a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

According to a 2016 study by the Alzheimer’s Association, 5.3 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease. However, as the baby boom generation reaches age 65 and older, the age range with the greatest risk of Alzheimer’s is expected to increase. By 2050, the number of people age 65 and older with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to triple to 13.8 million. Estimates based on U.S. Census high range projections of population growth predict upwards of 16 million newly diagnosed citizens.

Jessica Alber, a postdoctoral fellow and rising faculty member in Alzheimer’s research at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, says that while Alzheimer’s used

to be referred to as merely ‘hardening of the arteries’ or ‘senility,’ it can be more accurately diagnosed in the 20th century.

“Currently, clinicians diagnose ‘probable [Alzheimer’s disease]’, and diagnosis can only be confirmed at autopsy,” Albert tells Spark. “However, the development of new brain imaging techniques has allowed for the assessment of the two characteristic proteins, amyloid and tau, in living humans, which provides us a lot more information about the specific diagnosis.”

In 1901, Alois Alzheimer studied the first known case of Alzheimer’s in which a 51-yearold woman named Auguste had symptoms of confusion and irritability. Her autopsy five years later led him to believe these symptoms were a result of plaque and tangles in her brain.

It was not until 1976 that Robert Katzman, a San Diego neurologist, termed the phrase Alzheimer’s Disease and suggested it was not a normal part of aging.

Alber says the lack of clarity around Alzheimer’s diagnosis stems from the differentiation of symptoms amongst patients including, but not limited to: memory loss, difficulty finding the correct word, or keeping track of time. This variety in symptoms, she says, reinforces that the disease is not limited to one distinct cause.

Professor of Neurology and Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine, Claudia Kawas says Alzheimer’s disease can develop from a combination of factors.

“I think people always want [Alzheimer’s] to be [caused] by one thing and it’s never one thing,” says Kawas. “All of human biology has to do with what we bring to the table genetically and [our] environment and experiences. We find all these [factors] are relevant. If you have a family history of Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease your risk is increased, but not as much as people think. About 60 percent of those who develop Alzheimer’s don’t have a family history.”

As a result of the disease’s nebulous origin, Alzheimer’s patients and families often face difficulties dealing with their diagnosis.

Director of Communications and Public Policy at the Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Cincinnati Steve Olding says the Association provides local support for patients and their

18 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

families free of charge.

“We work hand in hand with the family caregivers [to help create] short term and long term plans in dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is unique in the fact that there is not a real particular time frame [for the disease]. For some individuals, it might be five years from the point of having problems with memory to the point of needing a nursing home. In other cases it might take 15 years,” says Olding. “Around here, we say if you’ve seen one case of Alzheimer’s disease, you have seen one case, because it affects the individual and the family dynamic differently.”

For Dena, watching her father’s Alzheimer’s progress was painful for both of them. Usually independent and active, Maertz had to stop daily activities like driving after a few minor accidents. Dena says Maertz began to struggle to remember words and she would have to divert this frustration by allowing him to feel helpful with small tasks. “[I had to] let him feel helpful still. He was a strong independent man, he owned his own business and he was a hard worker, so he felt like he had nothing anymore,” says Dena.

“Even if it was something simple like folding laundry, I would say ‘Dad I really need your help.’ He just wanted to feel like he was useful.”

Early Stage Program Coordinator for the Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Cincinnati Shannon Braun primarily works with people that are newly diagnosed or in the early stages of the disease, which is defined as the person being aware of their diagnosis. She says one of the biggest challenges across the board is stopping driving for those affected due to their ability to get lost as well as their slower reaction times. “[Driving] is such a key part of our independence,” says Braun. “Most people as they age naturally limit their own driving, but when it’s Alzheimer’s that’s making you change those plans, it seems more sudden, like you are not ready to stop driving yet.”

Like Dena, approximately two-thirds of caregivers are women, according to the 2014 Alzheimer’s Association Women and Alzheimer’s Poll. Women were reported to spend 102 hours a month caregiving compared to 80 hours provided by men. Of caregivers,

Robert Edward Lee Maertz was diagnosed with Alzhiemer’s in 2012.

women were more likely to experience higher levels of burden, depression and impaired health than their male counterparts, which is thought to arise because females tend to spend more time caregiving, take on more caregiving tasks, and are more likely to care for someone with a greater number of behavioral problems.

According to Alzheimer’s Disease International, more than 40 percent of family caregivers rate the emotional stress of their role as high or very high. Dena says she had to become a “mother figure” to her father after his diagnosis.

“We totally switched roles. He was now the scared, insecure child that needed his every move watched, and I was in the position of

making sure he was taken care of properly and making sure all of his needs were met,” says Dena. “When I was growing up, my dad always took care of us. He was the person we went to if we needed help, and then we had to make every decision for him.”

Braun accredits the “loss of the person” as the most difficult aspect of the disease for caregivers. She says it is lonely and isolating to have to make decisions for a spouse or loved one who typically would have helped to make these decisions.

“It’s a grieving process, and just when they think they’ve gotten the hang of it, it’s a progressive disease so it continues to change and decline,” says Braun. “They never feel like

they’re on top of [the disease]. They are always scrambling. They are grieving a loss, while also trying to hit a moving target. It’s very overwhelming and all consuming.”

Olding says the case-by-case structure of the disease makes it challenging because every caregiver is different in regard to dealing with its emotional and psychological stress.

“It’s one thing to be taking care of a loved one with cancer [in which] you are taking care of that individual, but there is still that connection in regards to them knowing you,” says Olding. “It’s much tougher for an Alzheimer’s caregiver where, after a certain amount of time, your loved one…continued on lakotaeastsparkonline.com

We totally switched roles. He was now the scared, insecure child that needed his every move watched, and I was in the position of making sure he was taken care of properly and making sure all of his needs were met.

– Dena Boehner, East junior Leah Boehner’s mother

W

ith the windows rolled down and the remains of winter outside, she sped down the highway while deep in thought. Music played softly out of the speakers, and she noticed a sign saying that she was exiting Ohio. A few hours earlier, Lakota East senior Payton Souders had decided to drive to Washington, D.C. from school.

“I was just like, ‘I need to deal with this now, and it’s going to take extreme courage to do this,’” says Souders. “I just needed to do something that was going to force me to share how I was feeling.”

Skipping school in the middle of the week had not been part of her plan that morning, but after a difficult evening the day before, she “snapped.” Without telling anyone else, Souders drove to visit her brother Drew Souders, who works in Washington, D.C. She texted him on the way, telling him that a package was going to arrive at his apartment at 4:00, and he had to be there to sign it. He replied, saying that he was unsure if he could be home in time but would try. Thankfully, she says, they arrived right around the same time.

“It was one of those moments [of] complete and total emotion,” says Payton. “He saw me and just ran out, gave me a hug, didn’t even care why I was there at first. He was just glad to see me.”

Later that night, Payton told her brother, and her parents over the phone, the reason behind driving to see him: her depression, which she could no longer contain.

“It caught us off guard,” says Drew. “She’s always been kind of happy-go-lucky, the outgoing one in our family, and we kind of all lean on her for positive energy. I think that was part of the issue to start with.”

Still, they quickly overcame the shock and have been supportive ever since. Her father

Bill Souders and both of her older brothers have suffered from depression, allowing the “hereditary piece to pop out,” according to Bill.

“Back in my day it was something you’d be ashamed of,” says Bill. “Now what it really is is a chemical imbalance in your brain: you don’t have as much serotonin as people.”

Drew says his father has always been honest and open about his struggle with depression to his family. Bill had gone through depression after college, and although “depression is a taboo topic in public in general, he never treated it like that.”

This happened around January of this year, but Payton says that she has been struggling with depression for several years. She remembers diary entries recording the more difficult days and sometimes finding it difficult to get out of bed.

“There’s a certain darkness that surrounds a person,” says Payton. “It’s different for everybody, but for me, it’s more of a constant presence. It’s not necessarily something that springs up on you, it’s more like a force dragging you down.”

And although her father and brothers had struggled with depression, Payton had been “ashamed” of it, resulting in her hiding her depression until she felt like it was time to overcome the stigma. With senior year being a period of lasts and transitions, she saw it as a “first in helping myself.” “[Depression has] just been something that I’ve tried to suppress for so long,” says Payton. “[But I realized] sharing it is better than keeping it to yourself.”

Lakota East senior and Payton’s best friend Julia Kuhr is one of the people Payton has confided in about her depression since the day ...continued on page 26

Even though Lakota East senior Payton Souders was diagnosed with depression, she still finds the positives in life. story michelle chu | photo illustration lauren wilson

PAYTON SOUDERS

T

here was a certain stillness about the room, almost as if history had ensnared it within the pages of a textbook to withstand the test of time.

As he leaned back in the desk chair with a sigh, the portraits of the men before him seemed to stare. The weight of their eyes was both reassuring and ominous. The familiar sound of show tunes broke the terse silence encasing the room, the voices crackling reassuringly on the record player. He took pleasure in the brief glimpses of his personal additions to the office: a bust of Napoleon, a Florida Gator’s poster and a photo of his family.

Lakota East senior Nathan Duran hopes to one day sit among history in the Oval Office as President of the United States, making an impact in the world of politics.

Duran’s interest in politics originated from his love for social studies. The 2012 election peaked his interest in policy, and he began to follow the issues more closely. After taking Advanced Placement (AP) Government his junior year, Nathan says his love for history solidified his plans to major in political science in hopes of eventually running for office.

Duran says his political views developed from talking to others, his family and doing his own research. According to Duran, “no news is not biased” and by reading news from both sides of the political spectrum he can better understand all perspectives and form his own opinions.

“If you look at my phone I have three pages of news apps [and] I check them throughout the day,” says Duran. “My family has always had the news on and I’m one of those weirdos who watch C-SPAN [a public service channel that exclusively covers congress and the president]

because I find it interesting. I see politics as the history of today.”

East’s AP and College Preparation Government teacher Tisha Menchhofer-Grote had Duran in her class as a junior and says he is well-versed in his knowledge of current events. “[Nathan was] absolutely the number one student to talk about current events,” says Menchhofer-Grote. “He is up [to date] on everything. He knows more than I do when it comes to current events.”

Nathan’s mother Audrey Duran says their family dynamics have also played a role in shaping his political views.

“We have certain strong values that are important to us and we have discussed those,” says Audrey. “We will have just enough debate and discussion on an issue that he can develop his own perspective on it without feeling like he has to agree with the family’s view.”

She says their family travels to Boston, Virginia, and D.C. gave Nathan a natural interest in history. Audrey values Nathan’s ability to stay true to his opinions, while also being open to “tweak” his views after learning a different perspective.

“He has a strong value system. On the one hand, [Nathan] sticks to his values, but he will listen to the other side,” says Audrey. “Even when our family was in the throes of a debate, he was always the one who would listen to both sides.”

Nathan describes himself as a moderate conservative, and plans to focus his platform on lowering taxes and reforming immigration laws. He says immigration is the issue that he is most passionate about because his grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba. He believes that immigration ...continued on page 26

Lakota East senior Nathan Duran plans to run for political office in the future. story erinn aulfinger | photo illustration lauren wilson

NATHAN DURAN

J ust after rushing to drive someone home on a last minute notice, Lakota East senior Rebecca Addison shows up for her interview with a smile and bubbly laughter.

“Sometimes things happen and you just gotta go with it,” she says as she sits down.

This carefree attitude and willingness to help defines Addison’s attitude. She is always smiling and laughing, even when she’s stressed out. This desire to help shaped her college major choice, a double major in neuroscience and psychology, at the University of Kentucky.

“While I’ve been in high school, a lot of my friends have been diagnosed with mental illnesses or disorders, and I’ve seen the impact that that has on them emotionally,” says Addison. “That pushed me to want to understand why that happens and what I can do to help both from a friend standpoint and a scientific standpoint.”

Addison’s personality has made an impact even on East physics teacher Brandon Bright, who she says is “always open to being there to listen and to give you his personal experience.”

“In the classroom she’s a great student.

She’s very studious and applies herself even when she doesn’t like the material or doesn’t get the material,” says Bright. “She doesn’t give up on it and she always puts herself into it anyways, even though physics wasn’t something she liked or even tolerated.”

Addison has had Bright for two years and continues to spend her study hall in his classroom despite not having a class with him this year. Bright still remembers her attitude in class as social and hardworking.

“She’s been a pleasure to have in class, and she’s one of the few students that I think is a really good student, and also a really nice person [that is] not always the same in class as

she is in person,” says Bright. “She manages to also be social and outgoing and it’s nice to see her be able to balance those things.”

Addison has also been in choir for two years, which she believes is the most important thing she started in high school.

“I didn’t join until junior year, but once I got in I started making the best friends I’ve had in high school so far, and I love them all so much,” says Addison. “They helped me push out and expand my borders and I started joining other clubs because of the people I was interacting with in choir.”

East Choir director Becky Huddilston refers to Women’s Black, the choir Addison is in this year, as a “girl’s club” where “[women] feel comfortable and accepted.”

“It’s an amazing experience, and as much as people talk about how they hated the freshman choir robes, I really wish I’d gotten to wear one,” says Addison. “I got closer to people that I’d known for a while but never really got close to, and I got to meet new people as well.”

Huddilston refers to Addison as a “bright, shining joy” that, along with other girls in Women’s Black, “keeps [her] going through the end of the day.”

Addison skipped second grade, making her one of the youngest graduating seniors, which has come with challenges. But she would not prefer to have stayed back.

“I think emotionally it would have been better for me to stay back, because I know that because of a host of things I’m not as emotionally mature as I would have liked to be at the end of my senior year,” says Addison.

“I’ve got great friends in both [the junior and senior classes], but I think that because I’ve grown up with the people that are in this class, I wouldn’t have changed it at all.”

Lakota East senior Rebecca Addison has a positive and carefree attitude that radiates to the people around her. story melanie cain | photo illustration lauren wilson

REBECCA ADDISON

L

ooking down at the small book with a confused look on his face, he rapidly flipped through the pages, finding hand-drawn images with life lessons and anecdotes sprawled across the pages. Before his sister boarded a plane for Singapore, she gifted him a hand-crafted book titled “Growing Up,” which held memories she’d collected over her adolescent years in hopes that it would help her brother find his way through high school.

Now, all “grown up,” Lakota East senior John Ferguson discovered himself within the pages of the book, the walls of a high school, and 60,000 feet in the sky. Traveling has allowed him to better understand the inner workings of his mind.

“I’m really comfortable [being] alone,” says Ferguson. “I remember having to fly by myself for somewhere around 48 hours total because my mom missed our flight to Burma. I live for that though. I love being able to travel by myself, it gives me time to just think.”

Ferguson is not a stranger to traveling as his parents have made it their goal to make sure him and his sister, Angela, possessed worldly understanding. According to John’s mom Chen Ferguson, she and her husband “believe that children’s horizons will be expanded through travel. The tradition of taking trips during the school year started when John was in second grade. Visits to smaller, regional locations soon became international trips.

Growing up in a home with parents from opposite sides of the world (his mom is from China and his dad Andrew Ferguson is an American) led John to not only be tolerant of different cultures, but also to embrace them.

This is exactly what he plans on doing while taking a gap year in which he will be traveling

around China through the State Department before he attends Harvard University in the fall of 2018.

“I’m really excited about it because I either have the opportunity to take a senior year at Lakota East or take a huge risk and go to China with not many things lined up,” says John. “I literally have a one way ticket to go there and just see what happens and what opportunities arise. I think that is what’s most exciting for me, the unknown aspect of it all.”

Traveling to China won’t be John’s first experience with taking risks and seizing opportunities. He’s also started his own charity, The Shoe Project, which donates shoes to children in need.

While The Shoe Project was originally a business prospect, it evolved into a nonprofit as John traveled and saw a huge opportunity to give back to the community. When he approached his parents with the idea, they were immediately supportive as they knew it would give John a chance to give back to both his local community and the world.

“Some of his ideas have definitely made us nervous,” says Andrew. “But we felt like this was a great idea as it combined his passion and interest at that time when he was on the tennis team and was very into style and design.”

Any time John gets the chance to travel, he brings a few pairs of shoes along with him as a way to be immersed into the community.

However, when John is not traveling, the shoes find a place in the hands of local kids in need.

Last year, John ran a shoe drive at Lakota East, which collected 5,000 pairs of shoes that were split between Reach Out Lakota and a partner organization based in Tennessee called ...continued on page 26

Lakota East senior John Ferguson created a charity to donate shoes to people in 40 countries. story karmi white | photo illustration lauren wilson

JOHN FERGUSON

T he little boy who once dreamed about stethoscopes and syringes can now envision himself wearing a lab coat working in a virology lab. Lakota East senior Sam Pannek always had an interest in becoming a doctor, but it was not until high school that his childhood dream started to become his reality.

Pannek’s pursuit of medicine started his sophomore year during his Principles of Biomedical Science class. His teacher, Jim Williams, assigned the class a project to come up with a medical innovation. Pannek chose to do his on diabetes, spending hours researching possible cures and ideas, and fell in love with the project.

“When we started the project, Sam really showed his strengths as a student. It was like a switch flipped in his brain, and he became almost obsessed with medical innovations,” says Williams. “He knew he was going to show how he could make a difference in the medical field.”

Later that year, Pannek argued with one of his friends about whether or not there are any beneficial gene mutations. He ended up researching the topic to prove his point and discovered a mutation that makes people resistant to HIV/AIDS. The discovery led to an idea to create a medication to cure HIV/ AIDS. Pannek joined East’s Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) club his junior year. They brainstorm ideas ranging from curing diseases to improving or inventing medical machines, so it was a great way for him to make his idea possible.

For the past year and a half, Pannek has been trying to perfect the HIV/AIDS cure

with the help of HOSA and his project group members Lexie Adams, Chase Harris and Maddox Linneman.

“First, we had to study the logistics of viruses because we could not get in a lab yet.

We researched how viruses work, how they bind [to cells], and the different types of viruses. From there the problem to solve was how the medication was going to be given to people,” says Pannek. “One idea was a pump, similar to an insulin pump, and the other was a transdermal patch, like a nicotine patch.”

The group’s project placed in the international HOSA competition last year and recently won first place at the state competition at the University of Toledo, advancing to the national competition in Orlando in June. The four are using HOSA and the newspaper articles about HOSA to show doctors and professors their ideas about treating HIV/ AIDS. “Sam doesn’t get enough credit for how intelligent he is,” says East senior Lexie Adams.

“He has been a great person to work with over the years and always makes us laugh.”

Recently Pannek has been given the opportunity to research infectious diseases this summer at the University of Cincinnati.

“Being 18 and working in a virology lab studying HIV/AIDS is a dream come true,” says Pannek. “Working in a lab is like solving a puzzle and very interesting. I did not think I would have the opportunity to be working hands on in a lab until I was at least twenty and well into college.”

In the fall, Pannek will be attending the University of Cincinnati and majoring in biomedical sciences. He then plans on ...continued on page 26

story| alyssa hettrich | photo illustration lauren wilson

Lakota East senior Sam Pannek has been working to find a cure for HIV/AIDS and continues to do research.

SAM PANNEK

T

he idea seemed to pop into her head.

Images of the pearly gates of heaven and an underwater oasis are now manifested into works of art, turning what would have been a typical event into one of grandeur and pure creativity.

Coming from an artistic family, Lakota East senior Ethan Ramsey knew that when his mother, Danelle Ramsey, was inspired to create The Balloon Tree Company, which creates custom balloon decorations, the rest of the family was destined to be involved.

“When my mom gets a hobby, we all get a hobby,” explains Ethan. “Whether it be photography, balloons or stained glass, [it] becomes a family event.”

Keeping the family together has been a big part of how Danelle raises her children. Her house is the place for parties, dinners and any other family gathering.

“We aren’t Italian, but it’s similar to a big, Italian family reunion,” says Danelle. “I love having everyone together and I think it’s really good for keeping our family close.”

The family’s talent and passion for balloon decorations has paid off in a number of ways. Whether it be creating scenes for his church, Princeton Pike Church of God, or his sophomore biology class, Ethan has given back to his community with his creativity.

“He kind of has an artistic side, but maybe not in the way other people do,” Ethan’s father David Ramsey explains. “He came up with an idea and then created it with balloons. Balloons became the way he took his artwork.”

Faith and service are very important to Ethan and his family. Ethan devotes his time to his faith whenever he’s not in school or with his friends. Gabe Smith, a friend of Ethan’s, cites his sense of humor and honesty as being

some of the best things about him.

“Ethan is one of the most hilarious guys I know, but he also knows when to be serious about something,” says Smith. “I hope he is successful in anything and everything he does.”

Recently, Princeton Pike Church of God competed amongst other “Church of God” churches in a variety of categories, including skits, choir and performance. Of those, Ethan used his creative abilities to help the congregation earn third place.

For David, embracing faith and looking to it for guidance is something he hoped his children would embrace; however, he wanted them to be able to find their own beliefs— regardless of if they matched his.

“Our church is very important. We’ve tried to let our children see that,’’ says David. “Even though it’s something that mom and dad do, it’s not because mom and dad [believe in Christ], it’s what Ethan sees as being truth to him too.”

Ethan will attend a University of Cincinnati branch campus in the fall in order to further formulate his plans for his future. Danelle supports him and believes people should take time to decide what they want to do.

“As teenagers, the world is so open,” says Danelle. “Making a decision about something that will affect the rest of your future is intimidating, [and] I am proud of him for waiting.”

As far as the balloon company goes, it’s something that will continue as it has become a family unifier and a source of fun. “[The business] started as something fun and as a way to make a little bit of money,” says Ethan. “I really enjoy it and can’t wait to see where it will go. My goal is to get a degree in business and see where my future will take me.”

Lakota East senior Ethan Ramsey started a balloon business with his family. story alyssa hettrich | photo illustration lauren wilson

ETHAN RAMSEY

HER-STORY ...continued from page 16 her multiple choice tests as well as practice [exams] that we did, when [it was] time to take the AP test it felt like I was really prepared,” says Hartinger. “She gave us the tools that we needed to pass it and I ended up getting a four which is great because that transfers to most colleges that I’m looking into.”

East senior and also former APUSH student Caroline Patterson was another one of Reid’s students that appreciated the structure of the class.

“We had actual debates, and I thought that was super helpful to picture different viewpoints,” says Patterson. “To be able to argue something takes a lot of knowledge.

But it just really helped me to understand the information a little bit better.”

Patterson, who moved to Ohio from Florida at the beginning of her junior year, attributes most of her friendships at East to Reid, who took the time to help Patterson feel welcomed by connecting with students who had similar interests, “giving me all the friends that I have right now,” according to Patterson.

“She had so much [of an] impact on me and took her time to help me out,” says Patterson. “She didn’t really have to, she wanted to. That really meant a lot to me.”

Having spent the past 27 years devoted to her passion for history, Reid is looking forward to spending more time on her other hobbies and interests which include reading, cooking, gardening, singing and playing the guitar. Far from slowing down, Reid is also looking to expand Jen Reid PhotoArt, her small business where she creates watercolor prints from photos. Some of her prints are proudly displayed in her classroom and include landscapes, houses and her own summer cottage up in Michigan. There will, however, be one major difference in her daily routine.

“I won’t be setting the alarm for five o’clock,” Reid says. “I’m looking forward to mornings that are a little bit more lowkey.”

No more mornings where the sun is up before she is, the coffee maker currently in her classroom will have a more permanent place at home, or up in her cottage in Michigan where she plans to spend most of the summer and fall. But despite moving on to pursue other interests, history will always hold a special place in Reid’s heart. “[My goal has always been] not to teach history for the sake of what happened in the past,” says Reid. “But to teach history so that we can know how to make good choices today.”

RIDING INTO THE SUNSET ...continued from page 17 Blake Dodson explains that Lamb’s personality is one in a million.

“She’s really outgoing, she’s not what you’d particularly expect from a teacher. Her screensaver is her posing next to her Harley Davidson,” says Dodson. “She loves talking about riding her motorcycle. She’s a really unique person.”

Lamb and her husband have been riding their Harleys for about seven years. In 2015, the couple rode for three and a half days, 400 to 450 miles a day, all the way out to Sturgis, South Dakota for the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally.

They stayed there for close to a week, and even went to see Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

“I’ve always loved riding,” says Lamb.

“But I was always the passenger. In 2010, I took a riding class to be able to ride just in case I needed too, and I enjoyed it so much I continued to do it. It’s so empowering and stress just flies away.”

When it comes to motorcycles, Lamb could teach you about riding all day. But in the classroom Lamb does things just a little bit differently. She sings songs to help her students remember difficult concepts. Azuka says that the most recent one they learned was “Libby’s Labels,” which is based off of an old commercial reminding them to alway putt their labels on math equations.

“I’m serious about what I teach but I also love what I teach,” says Lamb. “I enjoy what I do so we have fun in class.”

The fun tips and tricks students learn in class not only stick with students in high school, but they also follow them to college. Buckenmeyer explains that Lambs unique teaching skills go beyond the classroom.

“She uses a lot of question and answer techniques that really help the students,” says Buckenmeyer. “I know she provided notes that a lot of students relied on beyond high school; they took it with them to college.”

Along with silly songs and helpful tips, East senior Briana Antiri loves the way Lamb expresses herself. It shows who she is as a person, she says.

“She’s very expressive,” says Antiri. “If she’s happy, she’ll throw her arms out [or] if she’s frustrated she’ll make noises, and she laughs when she makes silly mistakes. You can always tell what she is feeling.”

Even though the material can be challenging, Lamb still finds a way to make class time fun.

Dodson remembers the first time he really got to know her by using an unlikely object: a red marker. A red marker isn’t usually wouldn’t make any difference in anyone’s relationship

26 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

with someone, but with Dodson, it has made all the difference.

“The first couple of times I wrote on the board I used a red marker, and thought nothing of it,” says Dodson. “She commented the second time I used it, and went out and bought more red markers just so I would write on the board more. Now every time I go up, I use the red marker.”

Things like these, says Azuka, makes Lamb “more of a human and less of a teacher.”

Even though Azuka has only had Lamb as a teacher for one year, she is sad that she won’t be around East when she comes back to visit from Vanderbilt University.

“I’m really sad she’s retiring,” says Azuka.

“When I come back to visit other teachers she won’t be here. A bunch of kids won’t be able to benefit from her teaching skills, or her amazing personality and that’s sad.”

Dodson agrees with her. He knows that Lamb is very “knowledgeable and experienced,” since she has been teaching these classes for a long time. Her fun stories and unique personality will be missed.

“I think she will have fun in retirement,” says Dodson. “I hope she’ll do well. She even said that when the new AP test is released she’s going to go through and do all the problems herself.

She’s [just] that dedicated.”

PAYTON SOUDERS ...continued from page 20 she drove to D.C.. Kuhr calls Payton her “go-to person” for exploring new restaurants. “[Payton and I] always go and find new restaurants to eat at, and we’ll have long conversations about life,” says Kuhr. “She’s that person who fills a lot of holes for me. We can talk about family, talk about friendships.”

This fall, however, Payton will be far from her friends and family when she attends the University of Virginia, her dream school since freshman year. Still, now that she has opened up about her mental health, Payton is less worried about the future.

“I see depression as the enemy, and I’m just little old me; I have to find a way around it,” says Payton. “Some days it beats me, some days I beat it, but I need to come out on top.”

NATHAN DURAN ...continued from page 21 reform should begin with giving citizenship to the illegal immigrants in the country and securing the borders to eventually loosen up restrictions to allow for more legal immigration.

In February 2017, Nathan traveled to D.C. for Wintercon, a Junior Statesmen of America (JSA) conference, to present his immigration bill. Of the 200 proposed bills, Nathan’s was one

of approximately 10 that passed. It proposed a three step process to mend public opinion on illegal immigration and eventually establish a positive immigration outcome through small back taxes and deporting felons.

Although he can understand the drawbacks of the time commitment and responsibility it would take to be president of the United States, Nathan believes these struggles would be outweighed by the power to make a difference.

“Hopefully [my mark on history] is [to make the world] a better place. I want to be a memorable president [and] enact a lot of change,” says Nathan. “If you aren’t doing anything, you are going backwards. I want people to remember me in 200 years, [just like] Thomas Jefferson [and] George Washington. I want to be remembered in a positive way.”

JOHN FERGUSON ...continued from page 23 Soles4Souls.

“They took the shoes we had collected to 40 countries,” says John. “It was incredible to get pictures back and see the [kids’] smiles.”

Creating an organization opened up a world of opportunities for John, one of which was being able to meet other young entrepreneurs

like Mason junior Kaleab Jegol. The passion they both held for giving back would be the foundation of their friendship.

“The one quality that stood out about John was his determination,” says Jegol. “The more I’ve gotten to know him, the more I see how all this work he’s done and the achievements he’s acquired were all built on this dream of changing the world, going to Harvard, and then using that education to do more.”

One of John’s dreams would soon come true. As he waited for the Harvard admissions letter to load, he couldn’t believe his eyes when the screen lit up with “ACCEPTANCE” written across it.

“I was just astonished,” says John. “No one can say they have a good feeling about getting in because you don’t. It’s an honor because you can get a good education anywhere you go, but after meeting some of the people I will be going to school with and hearing about the things they’ve accomplished, they’re just absolutely ridiculous and inspiring.”

This might have been surprising news for John, but his dedication to school was noticed by his teachers, including East Advanced Placement U.S. History teacher Jennifer Reid, who got to know John in class.

“John was always focused in class. I could

WE BUY, SELL, TRADE, AND CONSIGN USED AND NEW SPORTING GOODS

tell he took his academic work very seriously,” says Reid. “Also, he told me about his goals and ambitions. He has a clear vision of where he wants to go academically and professionally.”

Although John does not have an exact idea of what he would like to study in college, he does know that he wants to change the world in whatever way he can.

“There are 24 hours in one day, and there are so many things I want to experience,” says John. “Back home I have paper up all around my room with ideas and things I want to accomplish. I just want to connect and change the world in whatever way I can. If I can do that, if I can make a difference, I would be happy.”

SAM PANNEK ...continued from page 24 attending medical school and specializing in infectious diseases, which will give him the necessary skills to follow his dream of helping people.

“I am honored to be surrounded by the right group of people in order to further my HIV/AIDS education and research,” says Pannek. “I know that someday there will be a cure for HIV/AIDS.”

package | environment

East sophomore Hannah Alsdorf noticed pollution while riding her horse, Alaska.

CHANGING LANDSCAPE

The urbanization of West Chester has altered the landscape and area that requires East sophomore Hannah Alsdorf and her parents to be more environmentally conscious with their home and animals. story kyra johnson | photography aidan hutt

T

he day was warm and sunny when she shifted with the gait of her horse Alaska.

East sophomore Hannah Alsdorf was routinely riding around her family’s property in the summer when a plastic bag drifted onto the property.

This did not alarm the experienced rider, but it was enough to spook her horse into throwing Alsdorf off her back. She flew through the air before landing hard on her hip. The impact left her in pain for several days.

“Horses are flight animals,” Alsdorf says. “[Alaska] knows I’m on her back, but she was paralyzed with the fear that she has to run from what she thinks will attack her.”

According to Alsdorf, passengers in traveling cars will throw trash, including water bottles, beer cans, plastic bags and various paper products, onto the property. While the Alsdorfs are impacted by litter, they are also concerned with the business development in the area.

28 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

“Our farm is right on Cincinnati-Dayton road, practically where all these businesses are popping up,” Alsdorf says. “It’s definitely a concern that people would want to come buy our land since it’s such a large plot of land. We don’t want to lose what we have here.”

The family lives on five acres of land which provides enough space for the family, a horse, a pony, a dog, a rabbit, several chickens and crops.

According to Ohio’s Environmental

Council, before Ohio was settled, it was mostly forested land, but after settlement in 1788, many of the trees were cut down to create room for farming and used for construction.

By the 1800s, only 20 percent of the forest remained. Since then, three billion tons of coal have been mined in Ohio. Now, the Liberty Township area is expanding its business reach, allowing more shops and businesses to place their services in the area.

The land between Bethany Road and Wyandot Lane facing Cincinnati-Dayton Road that remained after the structures were cleared is to be used for Bethany Station, according to the Liberty Township Board of Trustees. It is currently a commercial lot filled with “mom and pop” shops, small businesses or familyowned businesses.

Bethany Station is not the only new business sector in the area. As part of the first stage of development for Liberty Center, the Foundry along with other outdoor establishments were opened to the public in 2015. According to aerial illustrations of the future plans by JLL and Daimler, Liberty Center will extend from I-75 to Cincinnati-Dayton road.

Liberty Center is one of the upcoming projects for Butler County besides the reconstruction of Bethany Station. According to the Butler County Engineer’s Office, there are also plans to widen OH-747 to five lanes from Princeton to Millikin in August 2018.

Alsdorf ’s parents, Earl Alsdorf and Trisha Alsdorf have lived in the area since they were born and have experienced the changes in the community first-hand.

“There wasn’t hardly anything around,” Earl says. “It was farm fields [and] family farms.

There [weren’t] any stores and gas stations. It wasn’t very busy.”

When Trisha was younger, she considered the area to be safe. When the community grew, Trisha was reluctant to allow her oldest daughter to cross Bethany Road on her way to school as a freshman.

“I could play ball in the middle of the street [when I was younger],” Trisha says. “Now, Hannah is only allowed to walk home across Bethany when she’s with a group of kids at the end of the day.”

Earl says that there was a time when only

ten cars would go down the road he lived on in a day. When he wasn’t playing with neighborhood kids, Earl was growing crops with his parents. Now, he grows crops with Hannah, including, pumpkin, watermelon, beans and corn. Planting begins in the spring and is harvested in the summer.

“Normally during the summer, [plants have] really grown, and we go through [to harvest] once or twice a week when it gets later in the day and is cooler,” Hannah says. “Everybody [in the immediate family] goes through and pulls weeds or, if the beans or the corn are ready, we go through and harvest it by hand.

If everybody works on it, then it goes really quickly.”

The Alsdorf farm is just one of the many farms that make up half of Ohio’s farmland.

These farmers also face impacts by the environment. Ohio is one of the worst states for air quality and air pollution, according to a 2016 Environmental Protection Agency report.

Although plants and crops may be impacted by these environmental factors, the Alsdorfs continue to monitor the food they grow and try to control the water, fertilizer, and little to no pesticides that go into their crops.

“Every night, there is one thing on our plate that we grew,” Hannah says. “Usually it’s green beans; we love green beans.”

For Trisha, growing the food that she prepares for her family keeps them from ingesting “harmful additives and preservatives” that can be found in produce from the store.

While they do purchase some food items from the store that they cannot grow themselves, they do their best to eat what they grow.

According to The Ohio State University environmental psychologist Nicole Sintov, environmental importance opinion continue to shift. For the past 10 years, Sintov has been studying the “interactions between humans and the built and natural environment.”

“People are more aware and more interested in general,” Sintov says. “I think that more academic disciplines are engaged in sustainability now than when I first started.”

Sintov has seen an increasing amount of fields that are blooming around the concept of environmental health.

“I think it’s a mainstream culture thing.

There’s more media about sustainability issues and more science that has created more media,” Sintov says. “We have the data [about climate change and] there has been an exponential increase in scientific papers published on climate change and related issues.”

The Alsdorfs try to remain aware and do whatever they can to “limit their negative impact” on the environment.

“Every time we go to get rid of a plastic bottle we empty the bottle of whatever was in it, clean it and save it for a future project or [for catching] lightning bugs,” Hannah says. “We always try to reuse whatever we can.”

Like the Alsdorfs, who are environmentally conscious and control the food they cultivate, organic farm Our Harvest assistant farmer Stephen Dienger ensures that the farm is not using pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, and growth hormones.

“We are trying to utilize our environment and give back to it and not just take,” Dienger says. “When soil is depleted, we put in compost, and we do soil tests to tell us what’s lacking.

Then we can use different natural amendments and composts that would help replenish that.”

Dienger became involved with Our Harvest through his sister. They both work for Our Harvest for the “social justice” aspect as well as the environmental aspect of the job.

“We keep losing farms and farmers and the country used to be just tons and tons of farms,” Dienger says. “They’re really just becoming one big mega farm.”

Despite the trend of farms combining, the Alsdorfs say they plan on holding onto their land for years to come. The land is tied to “their blood and personal family values.”

While Earl and Trisha have seen an increase in businesses developing in Liberty Township, the Alsdorfs will continue loving their land and treating it like family regardless of the changes around them. “‘If you think business is more important than the environment, try counting your money while holding your breath,” Hannah says. “I think people value money over the environment when in reality, the environment should be our first priority without ever thinking of business or the concept of currency.”

If you think business is more important than the environment, try counting your money while holding your breath. I think people value money over the environment when in reality, the environment should be our first priority without ever thinking of business or the concept of currency.

– Hannah Alsdorf, East sophomore

Organic farmer Guy Ashmore prepares his land.

G-M-OVER IT Genetically modified organisms have impacted the environment and local farms based in local areas near West Chester. story megan finke | photography used with permission | art sarah aftab

W

aking up at the crack of dawn, walking out onto the front porch, and watching the sun rise over the 48 acres of organically grown produce is farmer Guy Ashmore. Whether it be rain or shine, he has been running the farm for almost 27 years.

In 1978, That Guy’s Family Farm owner Guy Ashmore and his brother, Glenn Ashmore rented their first farm and were conventional farmers growing crops, such as corn, soybeans and tobacco.

Guy slowly transitioned his family farm from a conventional farm to a fully certified organic farm by the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) Certified Organic.

This process was fully accomplished in 2005 when the use of chemicals changed into the

use of manual labor.

Executive Director of the OEFFA Carol Goland told Spark that the current number of organically certified farms in Ohio totals to 461. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, organic farming has increased 300 percent since 2002, when the count of domestic certified organic operations started.

For Guy, he began switching over to organic farming in 1998.

“At that time our children were small and we liked it, because they could all help us and [without having] to worry about chemicals or pesticides.” Guy says. “We like it, because we think we are better on the environment, water and soil.”

As the family farm continues to grow, the

30 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

Ashmore’s crops range from lettuce and brussel sprouts to sugar snap peas. Their season runs through a large portion of the year, leaving the family with little room for down time. Guy says that the Ashmore farm has a longer rotation of planting different crops on different fields.

At first, That Guy’s Family Farm only sold its organic crops at farmers markets, where the Ashmore’s had the opportunity to meet potential customers and other farmers. Now, they have reached out to wholesale markets.

“We sell [our produce] to one farmers market by Mason and Deerfield on Saturdays,” Guy says. “We used to do more markets, but now we are doing more wholesaling, so we sell to places like Dorothy Market.”

The competition in the organic markets and farming is not as intense as the genetically modified organisms (GMO) market would be.

According to the Institute for Responsible Technology, a GMO is the result of a laboratory process where genes from the DNA of one species are extracted and artificially forced into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal.

Guy says the farmers would rather support each other than compete in order to help themselves and the people around them.

According to Guy’s friend and organic farmer Dale Filbrun, farmers markets, particularly in Southwest Ohio, have a diversity between farmers that can range from dairy farmers who

environment | package

If you look at the data for billions for food and animals before and after the switch to GMO, there is absolutely no change.

-Peter Davies, Cornell University plant biology professor

use GMOs to farmers who have never touched an organism that has been modified.

Filbrun owns a certified organic grassbased farm called Morning Sun Farm in West Alexandria, Ohio and currently sells to West Chester Farm Market. “[Guy and I] first met 21 years ago in Waynesville at a farmers market,” Filbrun says.

“We both started in farmers markets at that time, and we’ve both been doing it ever since.”

Currently the two are not selling their products at the same markets, but over the years, they have both kept the same mindset on organic farming. According to Filbrun, it is to sell things that are healthy for everyone and everything.

Some organic farmers like Guy have made a complete transition from using chemicals on their crops to going completely organic.

Organic farming and farming with the use of GMOs have caused discussion within the farming community. Whether it be in the selling aspect, safety, finances, or basic struggles each farmer has to face.

GMOs have been considered to have the ability to adapt to their environment and the genes being able to prevent insects and rodents from destroying crops. But organic crops don’t have DNA that is modified to survive. Guy says that the biggest issue in his farm and crops are having to face insect pressure and wheat pressure that are being provided by the weather.

“We face many of the same issues that most farmers face,” Guy says. “With the weather, it extremes insect pressure, but we don’t really have too much insect pressure. Our biggest difference would be wheat pressure.”

Besides the factors of insect and wheat pressure, water can also be an issue for both organic and conventional farms. Director of Clean Water at Ohio Environmental Council Adam Rissien says polluted runoff comes from a farm and explains how the result of the process can affect bodies of water.

“Polluted runoff comes from the farm, so typically there is rainfall, and it will wash sediments with nutrients. [This] will then run off of the field into the ditches,” Rissien says.

“The water also goes through the soil and [is] collected through underground pipes called till-

drains. They transport dissolved phosphorus out through the till-drains and into the ditches and sometimes into creeks as well.”

Although GMO farmers face problems such as insects and wheat pressure like organic farmers do, Cornell University plant biology professor Peter Davies says that there hasn’t been one report of illness from any type modified organism in the past 100 years.

“Humans have been modifying crops for the past 100 years. These crops have been growing for years, and there has been no documented case of any type of illness forms of cancer or Algiers,” Davies says. “If you look at the data for billions for food and animals before and after the switch to GMO, there is absolutely no change.”

Davies says that the 2010 report by European Union Commission Directorate-General for Research issued a statement saying “the GMO crops are just as safe as non-GMO crops and that every scientific organization and medical organization says they are safe [too]. This includes [that] the science is well established as safe and okay for the environment.”

In addition according to Cornell Alliance For Science, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine issued a report stating that the scientists involved in this research “found no substantiated evidence that foods from genetically engineered (GE) crops were less safe than foods from non-GE crops.”

As That Guy’s Family Farm made their transition from using chemicals to becoming completely organic, finance was a big portion of the change that had to be well considered.

The loss of herbicides resulted in the need for more workers to tend for the crops, because the chemicals were not there to do so.

“We probably replaced that cost of buying herbicides with the labor cost,” Guy says.

“Because they have to do more manually, cultivating and by hand, it’s kind of maybe an offset.”

Besides the manual labor increase, the price of organic seeds is greater than the price of seeds that are genetically modified. With the increase of organic farming, Guy says that the price of seeds has gone down. Therefore, the situation is everybody helps one another in order to get the best and cheapest seed.

“Buying certified organic seeds is more expensive. It has become cheaper since there are more people farming organically. It’s kind of way to buy certified organic [as] people are supposed to support other certified organic farmers,” Guy says. “We decreased the business and that increased everybody’s participation.

The seed cost came down over the past ten years but it is still about 10 to 15 percent higher.”

The transition for Guy and his family took years, but once it was complete, their unsettlement in their stomach to growing GMO crops went to rest. They realized they were doing what they have always wanted to do. Guy says that their family farm’s goal is not just to help people live healthy lives but help the environment, their local community, and the economy.

“I think we wish more people would get connected with eating local because it is better for the environment, health and the economy,” Guy says. “It’s being a farmer for a profession.

It’s challenging but really rewarding.”

POLLEN ALERT Health concerns arise due to the environmental exposures found in the earth’s air pollution in various areas, including the U.S. and China.

story samadhi marapane | photography aidan hutt infographic grace phair

East junior Laura Rodriguez notices differences between pollution levels in China and the U.S.

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he woke up in the morning and began to get ready for school. Starting with brushing her teeth and ending with putting her makeup on, she’d stumble downstairs for breakfast.

However, before stepping through the door of her apartment in Beijing, it was routine to check how polluted the air was for that day. For East junior Laura Rodriguez, this action was as ordinary as checking the temperature.

In 2014, the Rodriguez family moved back to Ohio after moving to Beijing in the winter of 2013, where air pollution continues to be a constant threat to the health of the Chinese public. Rodriguez’s mother, Laura Colina says that their move was because her and her husband wanted to “experience [living] in another continent,” and that once he was offered a job there, they decided to go.”

The U.S. embassy in Beijing regularly posts air quality measurements to the Twitter page @ beijingair, and the Rodriguez family used this resource to check the pollution levels and their exposure to pollution amounts.

“On bad days, you couldn’t see in front of you, and it just looked foggy, even though you’d know it wasn’t fog,” Rodriguez says. “If you were out all day and got home to shower, it felt like you could almost see [the pollution].”

Colina says, on “normal” days, everything would smell like smoke and there were bad days where they couldn’t see 30 feet in front of them. “[The air pollution] is very bad, and it is something that is hard to describe with words,” Colina says. “In the whole year we lived there, we probably opened our window twice.”

Air pollution can be evaluated by the diameter of particulate matter (PM), or fine particulates, which are man-made or natural microscopic matter suspended in the earth’s atmosphere. The American Lung Association conducted the 2016 State of the Air report revealing that while Butler County was one of the 17 Ohio counties among the cleanest counties in the nation, it received an F in number of days with unsafe ozone levels.

In addition, the American Lung Association says that 52.1 percent of Americans live in counties with frequently unhealthy levels of either ozone or particulate pollution. This makes fine particulates one of the deadliest types of air pollution. Cincinnati was ranked in the 25 most polluted cities for year-round particle pollution with 2.2 million people at risk.

Science and Environmental Health Network director Ted Schettler says environmental factors such as PM can lead to learning disabilities, attention deficits, hyperactivity disorders, and behavioral problems in children.

Colina says the Rodriguez family had to learn to change some habits around the house after moving.

“We had two air purifiers in the house that were constantly running,” Colina says.

“Then we had to teach our daughters to wear masks, especially on bad days, and never open windows.”

According to Schettler, the exposure to fine particle air pollution can get into the brain in different ways.

“One way is when you breathe it in through

32 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

your nose,” Schettler says. “The air pollution can actually travel along the olfactory nerve, which is the nerve that goes into your brain and enables you to smell things.”

Fine particulates are considered deadly because of their ability to be absorbed in the lungs, causing an inflammatory reaction which is transferred to the brain when inhaled. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2016 archive, fine particles can cause asthma, bronchitis, and acute and chronic respiratory symptoms that can lead to premature death in some cases.

“Victoria, my youngest daughter, had pneumonia twice and spent several days in the hospital,” Colina says. “My husband and Laura developed a [Beijing cough] due to the exposure. After a few months in Cincinnati, it went away on its own.”

According to University of Cincinnati environmental health professor Susan M. Pinney, studying environmental exposures other than PM is much more of a challenge.

The levels of environmental exposure are a lot lower, and the general population is exposed to a certain amount.

In a 2010 report by the Scientific American, occupational exposures are a cause of roughly four percent of cancer deaths and environmental exposures are a cause of roughly two percent cancer deaths.

Vice President of the Epidemiology program for American Cancer Society Susan Gapstur says that the information they find about environmental factors being a possible cause of cancer is often based on people

environment | package who are exposed to very high amounts of the specific exposure.

“In our studies, our collaborators look at fine particulates and their components,” Gapstur says. “We’re still learning about the role of air pollution on cancer risks, but the International Agency for Research on Cancer has found that fine particulates are, in fact, a cause of lung cancer.”

According to research conducted by Nanjing University in China, air pollution could be a cause of one in three deaths in China making the air as deadly as smoking. Rodriguez says one of the things that shocked her the most about China was the number of Chinese adults seen smoking. According to the World Health Organization, the country has more than 300 million Chinese smokers. However, Pinney says that not everybody who smokes gets lung cancer.

Pinney is a part of a research group that studies smoking and lung cancer, as well as one of the genetic variants that causes some smokers to have or not have lung cancer.

Pinney says this is “a gene to environment interaction.”

“This is what we call a susceptibility variant, when you have a variation of a gene, and it’s a little different so when you smoke; you’re at a higher risk of getting lung cancer,” Pinney says.

“Sometimes it’s more that genetics make you more susceptible. The environmental exposure is there, and you are exposed to it but the genetics don’t affect the exposure.”

Pinney says that the genetics influence how quickly the exposure passes through your body and what happens when the exposure gets inside.

“For example, for some smokers, it’s more likely to cause methyl groups to connect to their DNA than other people,” Pinney says.

“So it’s a probability, that their genes [are] more likely to have these methyl groups than somebody else’s.”

According to Pinney, air pollution is the most common environmental exposure but the public’s knowledge on the spectrum of health effects from everyday objects is often not as familiar.

However, intervention by federal laws such as the Clean Air Act help to raise public awareness. This legislation according to the EPA allows them to establish the National Ambient Air Quality Standards “to protect public health and public welfare and to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants.”

Schettler says that it would be useful to look at how environmental exposures, which can include chemicals and pollutants, affect reproductive health. He says that heavy metals like lead, mercury, cadmium and other exposures can result in infertility and delayed pregnancies, and in some instances, preterm birth.

Pinney says reproductive epidemiology can be traced back to occupational exposures and

Effects of Pollution on the Body Air pollutants, water pollutants and soil contaminants each cause complications in the body.

brain

headaches

eyes, nose

irritation to certain areas throat

dry throat

heart lungs

stomach

stress to the heart and lungs, triggering cardiovascular and respiratory illness long term complications: wheezing, chest pain, loss of lung capacity, accelerated aging of the lungs, an irregular heartbeat, heart attacks, asthma, bronchitis, emphysema skin

irritation to certain areas, cancer nausea, stomach aches

intestines reproductive system liver

typhoid, cholera, dystentery nausea, stomach aches damage to the liver, jaundice

sources sparetheair.com, theworldcounts.com, conserve-energy-future.com

puberty development. Also, Pinney says that there is environmental exposure in consumer products. Because of the different threats found in everyday objects, Pinney tells Spark the advice she’d give to teenagers growing up in this environment is to be knowledgeable about how humans affect the environment and how the environment affects us.

“I think people need to think about what they’re doing to themselves [when using products that may contain harmful exposures],” Pinney says. “What we need to do is teach people to be smart about the health concerns involved.”

Other steps taken to monitor air pollution is installing particle pollution monitors. The American Lung Association report also includes steps such as driving less, making sure schools use clean school buses and not burning wood.

In Liberty Township, one has to notify the Ohio EPA to burn wood for ceremonial purposes and they may not burn for more than 3 hours. In addition, firefighters who will train with fire also have to notify the EPA. After moving back to Ohio, both Rodriguez and her mother changed their views on the environment itself.

“We became more aware of the environment and the effect we humans have on it,” Colina says. “Now we try to recycle and reuse as much as we can.”

The difference between living in the two countries was also apparent to Rodriguez.

“When I moved back, I would say, ‘oh my gosh, the sky is so pretty!’ even when it was normal to everyone else,” Rodriguez says.

“You just can’t see the sky in China, so it was so different. You could finally see a blue sky with clouds.”

FUTURE AWARENESS LEAF Club advisor and AP Environmental Science East teacher Mark Folta teaches his students how they can impact the environment in a positive way with a school garden. story jessica jones | photography aidan hutt infographic sophia chryssovergis | art sarah aftab Mark Folta works to churn the compost in the East courtyard.

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racks of dirt lie on the floor where the wheelbarrow carried soil and plants through the halls. The soft sound of water filters for his turtles and for his fish run in the background.

The door to the remodeled courtyard entices people outside. As he sits in his classroom, he thinks of ways to express to his students on how to care for the environment.

For 30 years East science teacher Mark Folta has been teaching biology and health, 24 years of those years at Lakota after teaching at a school in Virginia Beach. Currently, he teaches Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental Science students how to bring science into everyday life through labs and hands-on experiments. Folta’s passion and interest in nature began when he was younger as his

parents took him to national parks and fishing trips.

“We’re able to talk about current issues [through environmental science],” Folta says. “[Students are] able to learn about our limited amount of resources. The environment is all around us, and it’s important to live sustainably within your own lifestyles.”

The Lakota Environmental Advocates Forum (LEAF) Club at East was created by students two years ago and focuses on promoting and practicing care of the local environment. The current 24 members meet two to three times a month to discuss upcoming projects and plans.

Club President Debi Kaur says LEAF Club allows her to have experience in the environment that she can implement into her life as an adult.

“It makes me feel good that we have the means of doing something [through LEAF Club],” Kaur says. “It feels like I’m helping humanity.”

LEAF Club also helps Folta maintain the courtyard next to his classroom at East. Folta says that this courtyard was designed to grow produce that the school can sell at lunch and to capture water using rain barrels. The captured rain is used to water the plants in the courtyard.

He says that the AP Environmental Science classes grow produce to give to the cafeteria so they can distribute the healthy options to students.

Cafeteria staff member Deana Brown says that they use the produce from the courtyard in the salads that are available at lunch.

34 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

“[The produce] adds something different to the lunches [the kids] eat,” Brown says.

Last year the students grew tomatoes, carrots and some lettuce that was sold in the cafeteria. This spring they plan to have lettuce and spinach ready and possibly peas. In the fall of the 2017-18 school year, they plan to have carrots, tomatoes and peppers, along with some broccoli and watermelon.

According to Kaur, one of LEAF Club’s biggest projects was the “massive” tree planting project in October 2016 that came from a $2,000 grant from the Taking Root Foundation.

The project conducted by the club resulted in over 40 trees planted along the baseball field and I-75 in efforts to increase reforestation in urban areas.

Taking Root Foundation Executive Director Matt Stenger said that they gave the grant to Folta, because it fell into line with their mission to inspire and empower to conserve and improve the [Cincinnati] region’s unique and threatened tree canopy.

“Trees make for safer and more sociable neighborhoods,” Stenger says. “[They] reduce domestic violence, property [vandalism], violent crime, stress and traffic speeds. [Trees] promote healthier social interaction, better school performance and more active lifestyles,” Stenger says.

LEAF Club member Kailyn Bost says the tree planting was a great way to get closer to the club and to help the environment at the same time.

“I know that I want to help the environment in the future,” Bost says. “Planting the trees

environment | package was a great introduction to what LEAF club can do.”

University of Cincinnati professor of Environmental Communication Stephen Depoe says that when a new building or subdivision is built, farmland or forests are wiped out and “people don’t even realize what was there before.”

“It’s great that you can symbolically recreate some aspects of what was there [was] before,” Depoe says. “It is also teaching people that you can replenish [the environment]. It’s a long term strategy, because trees take time to grow but [the] wise use of our resources [dictates] that you have to put things back. You can’t just take things out of the ground.”

The massive tree planting project idea came from the 2016 Earth Day when LEAF Club planted approximately 10 small trees in the courtyards to add aesthetic value and absorb excess carbon. Many of the trees that were planted in the courtyards and during the October project were Norway Spruce and Bald Cypress.

Miami University Professor of Ecology Chris Meyers teaches courses on community conservation and is the founding director of Project Dragonfly which promotes inquirydriven environmental reform.

“Reforestation is fantastic,” Meyers says.

“There are so many different, great things that trees provide, including [protecting] the soil with their massive root systems.”

Partaking in projects in the courtyard outside Folta’s classroom, to planting trees around East’s grounds, LEAF Club has been doing what they can to live up to their mission statement of promoting environmentalism to the school.

“Since everyone is required to take a freshman science [course],” Depoe says. ”There should be a unit on not just environment in general, but [it] should focus on East as a place that has environmental impact.”

Meyers says that a lot of success comes from really engaging the largest power of schools and community institutions, but for the most part, students tend to stay in the four walls of the classroom. “[They] don’t often have a chance in the curriculum to really engage with real community issues around the environment,” Meyer says.

“There are so many ways [of getting involved that] can serve both student learning goals and community goals.”

Folta says his passion for conserving the environment has led him to teach students about limited resources and by giving them information that they will be able to use down the road.

“Hopefully the students will see why buying a hybrid car is a good thing and realize the impact that even small [actions] can have,” Folta says. “Sometimes the easiest thing someone can do to help the environment is to plant a tree.”

Benefits of Busing The public bus service, offered by many school districts nationwide, provides benefits to the environment and the community.

Environmental Benefits

50

60

70

80

90

50

100

40

90 100 110 120

20

130 140

10 0

80

30

120

20

70

40

110

30

60

130 140

10 0

346666660

6 2 3 9 9 9 9 8 8 0 0

miles

miles

Total daily car mileage saved by students riding school buses

Total annual car mileage saved by students riding school buses

cost $ 10,920,000,000 gallons

E

3,000,000,000

F

3,000,000,000 gallons

Total annual car fuel savings by students riding school buses

3,000,000,000 gallons of fuel and $10,920,000,000 was saved by students riding school buses

Community Benefits

26,000,000 out of 50,000,000

It would take 36 cars to transport students currently riding on one school bus

52%

School buses transport 26 million of the 50 million students who attend school each day source americanschoolbuscouncil.org

package | environment

CLIMATE CHANGE

Changing environmental regulations can possibly impact policy enforcement, the coal industry, economy, emissions and national agencies.

story kayleigh bearden | photography lauren wilson infographic landon meador | art sarah aftab

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itting by the Ohio River in his patrol car with the windows down, he is listening to the police scanner and paying close attention to a group of five young jet-skiers. He makes sure they aren’t going too fast or being reckless. For father of three East students and police officer at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Michael Sterwerf, it’s just another day at work.

Sterwerf focuses on law enforcement functions along the Ohio River, a job that he believes will likely change due to President Donald Trump’s administration.

“My job includes looking for people driving erratically or under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” Sterwerf says. “My job is ultimately to make sure people are safe and not polluting the local waterways.

According to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Trump overturned the Stream Protection Rule on Feb.

16 by signing the H.J. Res. 38. This allows coal companies to legally dump coal mining waste and debris into rivers and streams in the U.S. This could mean changes for Sterwerf ’s job.

“Overturning the Stream Protection Rule will alter my job,” Sterwerf says. “My responsibility for making sure the waterways aren’t being polluted [will be changed.]”

According to Earth Island Journal, the 313 million people who live in the U.S. send over 180 million tons of coal mining waste into the ocean every year. Before the bill passed, Kentucky Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a public statement to the media that the rule would “will cause major damage to communities and threaten coal jobs.”

Ohio University Environmental Geography Professor Geoffrey Buckley believes loosening those regulations will have negative

consequences in the future.

“I think one of the key things to keep in mind when it comes to emissions,” Buckley says. “[Is that] loosening those regulations will have a detrimental impact on the country.”

According to the mayor of Madisonville Kentucky, David Jackson, overturning the rule could mean more mining jobs. When the Stream Protection Rule was enacted, a mining plant near Madisonville had to shut down. It led to 600 people in the county losing their jobs, Jackson told Spark.

“If people want to protect the environment,

Trump’s Industrial Revolution Trump’s 2018 proposed budget will be directly cutting over 50 EPA programs and continuing to dismantle the program as a whole. This effort is to revive factory jobs and bring back the use of coal in America.

50+ programs cut including Energy Star

Funding for scientific research well be cut in half

31% of EPA funding will be cut

3,200 jobs eliminated

$427 million cut towards pollution cleanup programs

What is Energy Star?

Energy Star is an EPA voluntary program that helps businesses and individuals save money and protect the environment through classifying what qualifies as energy efficient. sources whitehouse.gov, energystar.gov

36 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

I think one of the key things to keep in mind when it comes to emissions [is that] loosening those regulations will have a detrimental impact on the country.

– Geoffrey Buckley, Ohio University Environmental Geography Professor we should burn coal [in the U.S.] where we voucher programs, among other things, have more regulations and burn it more according to The Washington Post. responsibly,” Jackson says. “Then we could Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has send our natural gas to other countries such as introduced a bill to terminate the EPA entirely China or Germany who have less regulations.” by 2018. Gaetz said in a leaked e-mail obtained One of Trump’s planned executive actions by The Huffington Post, that he suggests will be directed at U.S. foreign policy. The removing regulations that the EPA requires.

Environmental Protection Agency says it may The Ohio State University environmental relate to the Paris Agreement, an international sociology professor Kerry Ard believes it is accord to reduce the impact of climate change. unlikely that Gaetz’s plan will be adopted at a Trump has looked at the possibility of pulling federal level. the U.S. out of the agreement.

“I think the talk about abolishing the EPA Ohio University political science professor is hopefully ridiculous. I think that they’re just Nancy Manring believes pulling out of the not going to be able to implement a lot of their Paris Agreement will directly affect the U.S. programs,” Ard told Spark. “They’re going to “If [the United States] pulls out of the have to scale back on a lot of the things that Paris Agreement, we will lose our credibility. they are responsible for until a new president It will hurt our competitive advantage in terms comes in and changes it. But it’s an institution of building the economy of the twenty-first that is here. There are people’s lives that are century,” Manring says. “The United States connected to it. People’s livelihoods and careers [and] the world is going to feel the impacts are attached to the EPA.” of accelerating climate change. For one of In a tweet from December 2013, Trump has the largest producers of greenhouse gasses called climate change a hoax, “Ice storm rolls in the world to not participate [would] hurt from Texas to Tennessee—I’m in Los Angeles Americans on many levels.” and it’s freezing. Global warming is a total, and Buckley thinks that pulling out of the Paris Agreement could “set off Police officers at the an alarm with different Ohio Department of countries by saying we don’t Natural Resources, have faith in science.” like Michael Sterwerf, Along with the possibility patrol the Ohio River. of pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, during his presidential campaign, according to Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s transition team at the agency, Trump said he would like to abolish the EPA or “leave a little bit.”

On March 16, Trump proposed lowering the EPA budget by 31 percent, or in other words from $8.1 billion to $5.7 billion, and cutting 3,200 positions. This was to pay for increased defense spending, the border wall, and school

very expensive, hoax!” As of April 19, he has had 4,386 retweets and 3,125 likes for the tweet.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has shown he doubts climate change has been caused by human activity. In an interview with Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), Pruitt said he “would not agree” that humans and carbon dioxide from human activity was one of the main causes of global warming.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe stated in a speech that it is arrogant of humans to think that they would have the power to change the global climate.

“And so what I said on the Senate floor today, I said how arrogant is it for people to say that man can do something about changing climate. Climate has always changed,” said Inhofe in his “snowball” speech.

Whether or not the climate changes, Sterwerf hopes that his job will never change as a police officer will never change.

“I’ve had this job for a long time, and I know that it will probably end up changing,” Sterwerf says. “I enjoy my job and hope that it doesn’t change, but I guess we’ll see.”

package | environment

GARDENING FOR GOOD Throughout the Cincinnati region, there are more than 50 parks that improve the quality of living in the areas nearby with the constant care, upkeep, and easy access for everyone. story lauren maier | photography lauren wilson | infographic meredith peters

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eff Schoeny worked at an insurance company but flipped houses as a hobby. While working on an apartment, a man came to Schoeny and said he wanted to purchase the apartment he was working on. Four hours before closing the deal on the lot, the man called the realtor and said he wasn’t set on a strong career path.

Schoeny then sold the apartment building in the same day. The profits from selling the building went towards his business tree service, Shawnee Tree. After moving to Ohio for a few years, arborist Jeff Schoeny was able to support

and nurture trees across his local area.

According to Environmental Protection Agency, climate change affects the development of the 740 million acres of land dedicated to forests. Whether it is by temperature, rainfall, weather or other factors, climate change influences the environment.

Studying the earth, the environment and the water is what drives Schoeny to help the environment around the area to thrive. He grew up in Colorado and as a native, Schoeny went to University of Colorado, Boulder. While

Amount of Forest Left Up to 28,000 species of trees can go extinct in the next quarter century due to deforestation.

40% Ohio

10% of the world’s forests are now protected areas.

33% United states

By the year 2030, we might only have 10% of rain forests left.

30% World

Deforestation Prevention Legislation has been passed over the years to try and Trees cut down prevent deforestation. to make room for NCAA tournament Forest and rangeland Renewable resources planning act

2017

National forest management act

1940

North forest commission

1980

U.S. environment protection agency Multiple-use sustained yield act

sources theworldcounts.com, education. seattlepi.com, nationalgeographic.com

38 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

learning about water conservation and the importance of it to the west side of the U.S., he did a lot of hiking and rock climbing in his free time. He graduated but didn’t see himself raising a family there because of the cost.

He moved to Ohio and combined his love for environmental conservation and climbing to become an arborist by helping trees and saving them from outside components involving elements that factor in to help or destroy a tree.

He also gets rid of dying trees in a yard or help properly fertilize areas that need help. Many factors lead to the death or unhealthiness of the trees, especially in suburban areas.

“The fluctuation with the weather [is] pretty undeniable,” Schoeny says. “If you talk to anyone from the West, they can talk about the undeniable drought that they are going through.”

This issue with climate change makes his job more challenging with the dying trees piling up. According to Time Magazine, American forests are suffering from mass tree deaths in cause of the outbreak of Mountain Pine Beetle in Colorado, which has killed about 7.4 million trees in the past decade.

“It’s becoming more and more important to plant trees that are able to thrive in our specific environment. ” Schoeny says. “Say like a pine tree, it does really well in drained and acidic soils, and we tend to plant a lot of these white pines around Ohio because they jump right out.”

Schoeny says that developers love fast growing trees because they stand out and act as a privacy barrier. However, when houses are put in, they dig up all of the clay soil because Ohio cannot provide the correct environment. Along with other states, Ohio has a large population of suburban culture which means many neighborhoods have increased. According to the 2000 U.S. National Census, in the past 13 years the U.S. population has increased by 52 percent, leading families to expand and move to the suburbs.

“We put these [pine trees] in the back of our yards where the drainage collects,” Schoeny says. “[Due to] that terrible blue, orange clay soil, they get less to eat, are weakened overall, and become prone to boars.”

The Emerald Ash Boars have been attacking the trees in the Midwest region in the past 10

Jeff Shoeny working at his tree service business, Shawnee Tree.

years. With the trees dying, developers use nonnative trees to replace the dying trees.

According to Schoeny, these non-native trees end up growing 10 to 14 diameters. He adds that the more native trees they plant, the more environment friendly they will be.

Throughout Cincinnati, the parks have been growing and impacted the neighborhoods near them. With 49 parks in 52 neighborhoods, assistant manager for the Cincinnati Parks board Erin Morris has dealt with the programs held throughout the natural history in the area.

“We have a park sometimes and land [but] nothing new has been done in a while,” Morris says. “Things have been deteriorating, which is often a cause of when people aren’t taking care of their homes [that] often take effect [in] the neighborhood park.”

The care and quality of the community for the parks around them reflect on the quality of the park as the park is a reflection of the neighborhood it is associated with, says Morris. When money is added to the parks, the community reflects the positive change.

“Once we decide to get grants, we put money back into the parks,” Morris says. “We call it ‘park-economics.’ Everything around [the park] also increases, [as] there is less crime” Cincinnati has been working on a project called “Taking Root” in order to make the

city green and healthier than it has been in the past. The project plans to complete this by 2020 with Smale Park’s opening in 2012 as it was the gateway to a greener city. Head of land management and urban forestry Jim Burkhardt oversees this upcoming project as he believes it is important to conserve.

The project is in place to plant two million trees in Cincinnati and the greater tri-state region by the year of 2020. Burkhardt says trees and meadows are a “key factor” in decreasing carbon dioxide in the air. There are currently 80,000 trees in Cincinnati. This project in the end, will create a more “green and energy efficient city.”

“The main goal is to create a canopy of trees throughout the city,” Burkhardt says. “They took aerial shots of the city and determined the tree concentration throughout the city [while] targeting certain areas where there aren’t enough trees.”

The urban parks help to create a cleaner city, says Burkhardt. He adds that because of the urbanization of Ohio, there are many roads and concrete sidewalks which prevents the earth from proper draining and leads to small floods. The bigger park systems in the outer Cincinnati region help with these issues.

“It is amazing what a meadow does because of their extensive root system,” Burkhardt

says. “Water rolls off of concrete and causes flooding, but with meadows and parks, the plants [thrive and] absorb the water that would have been runoff ” In Liberty Township, the Liberty Town Center opened up in the fall of 2015 with numerous green spaces and trees along the sides of the stores.

“Planning around the mature [trees that have been there longer] would be great,” Schoeny says. “But normally, that’s not possible.

Unfortunately, they have to scrape the entire lot.”

On Liberty Township’s website, there are listings of events and fundraisers that visitors can go to help the environment such as, “Spring Cleanout Extravaganza.” This involves volunteers in the area to help pick up and clean up the community around them. Getting involved in neighborhood’s park and recreation group or community is a step into making the community more green.

“Plant native Ohio species,” Schoeny says.

“Look at the amount of light in a location, plant something appropriate to the location and think of where to plant them. I don’t know if that’s intrinsically programed into our DNA but living around something that is green has a calming effect on people as a whole. It softens things architecturally. ”

package | environment

SOLAR SUSTAINABILITY As renewable energy is constantly changing and impacting our environment, West Chester residents are able to look at the economic benefits of having renewable energy for their own households.

story rachel vogelsang | photography aidan hutt | infographic jack parr

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e stood watching the process unfold on his roof in complete excitement.

For local liability engineer Tom Murphy, installing solar panels on his roof was the reason he was willing to stay in Ohio despite his wishes to move for a change of scenery.

After a two-day process in the rain, SunRock Solar workers installed 24 panels on his roof.

Murphy says he was inspired by the long term savings of solar panels as it benefitted him, with a 60 percent drop in electrical costs and the significant benefit to the environment.

“I partnered with a company that pays me $300 for every 1,000 kilowatts that I produce,” Murphy says. “So far I have produced 70,100 kilowatts every year, so I got $2,100.”

According to a 2016 report conducted by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), renewable energy sources provided 16.9 percent of the electricity generation, an increase from 13.7 percent used in 2015. This includes solar energy which converts sunlight into a usable form of energy.

Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reports 13 percent of Ohio’s electricity is solar.

This increase in solar energy is continued through companies in Ohio such as General Motors, Ikea and Walmart.

This move towards an alternative energy economy has been debated among legislators.

In 2016, Ohio governor John Kasich vetoed a bill resulting in the suspension of the freeze on Ohio’s renewable energy standards. Ohio’s clean energy mandate resumed and electric utility companies are required to meet the 2017 standards that include using 3.5 percent of electricity from renewable energy and expected to reach 25 percent by 2025.

“It helps me because of the solar energy credits,” Murphy says. “The reason I got my solar panels was the economics of it. It is all about the economics. I do agree with Kasich’s decision to continue to promote the use of solar energy, because this helps me financially.”

Solar energy can be harnessed by the use of solar panels that can either be ground-installed Solar energy use in the U.S. has increased by 1400% since 2007, going from 500 megawatts to 7200.

There are 291, 513 solar panels currently installed in California, one for every 130 people.

1400% 4143

130

megawatts

people

Solar energy is the most popular of new energy, accounting for 40% of all nonfossil fuel electricity generating capacity in 2015.

40%

66% of installed world solar PV power has been installed in the past 2 and a half years.

Solar Surge Solar energy is becoming increasingly popular as a renewable energy option for today’s growing world.

123% Solar energy jobs in the U.S have increased 123% since 2010, with 209,00 current workers.

sources seia.gov, iea.org, instituteforenergyresearch. org, energy.gov

66%

The U.S installed 4,143 megawatts of solar PV in 2016, enough to power 6.5 million homes.

102% 80%

Prices of solar energy have decreased by 80% since 2007, falling from $3.37 per watt to $0.70 per watt.

40 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

The average annual growth rate of global solar energy capacity is 102%.

or roof-mounted. These panels have a wiring that feeds the panel to the service entrance.

Some homeowners will have a battery backup so it feeds the solar panel energy. Along with these components, homeowners have a transfer switch that protects their house against using other energy sources as it cannot have multiple resources at once.

Murphy says that besides using solar panels, his house “was built as an energy star [including] a low flush toilet.” Former West Chester resident and environmental scientist for Environmental Quality Management Sam Bugg also built an eco-friendly home in Denver with 27 panels on his roof.

“We wanted to make [our home] more energy efficient [and] reduce the impact on the environment with recycling and composting programs,” Bugg says. “It was a fun process to see how energy efficient we could be.”

As Bugg’s yard has no room for these panels, the roof was the only space available in order to capture the sunlight necessary to provide electricity to the home. He hopes to install mini wind turbines on top of his shingles in the future, allowing his house to be more energy efficient.

According to a 2015 poll by SEIA, 79 percent of the people surveyed believed that the U.S. should put more emphasis on solar energy. Nine percent believed that the solar energy should be less emphasized in the U.S. while 12 percent of people believed that the emphasis should remain the same.

“I feel really good that I am getting to generate clean power that is not polluting the environment,” Bugg says. “The power of my home is being done by the sun [as] we are not burning any fuels, gas [and] coal. It is selling that clean energy back into the grid and power system. It is a great thing to have a fixed monthly energy bill that does not go [too] high or low.”

Icon Solar Company solar consultant Mark Carucci goes to customer’s houses and analyzes their property based on how much energy that the home needs. He then decides how many solar panels could possibly fit on their property.

“As a company, we set up appointments to determine the average kilowatt usage that the house determines,” Carucci tells Spark. “We

Tom Murphy installed 24 solar panels on his West Chester roof.

try to see how many panels can fit on the roof, because the panels can offset the bill, so we fit as many as we can.”

Using a local company, both Bugg and Murphy believe solar panels are worth the expensive initial price.

“The hardest thing about [solar panels] is that you put all the money up front [to] lease the equipment,” Murphy says. “[With] every kilowatt hour, you can add $20 to the cost of the house [which] increases the house value.

It cost me $38,000, [and] at the time, the government had a grant that was $3.60 for every kilowatt that is running and approved, so that was about $18,000.”

Along with the expenses of solar panels, there are other disadvantages that create future problems. Murphy says that he would preferred to buy “bigger and higher solar panels,” because they are more efficient. Home Depot head of electrical department John Bennett believes solar panels and energy doesn’t positively impact the environment.

“The returnable pay from the initial

investment can take many years to see a benefit in their investment,” Bennett says. “The cost depends between the two [processes of installation]: it is less expensive for the roof structure, but there is a potential of the shingles having to be replaced.”

There are other renewable energy sources that the U.S. uses including wind, geothermal, hydropower, and biomass energy. According to a 2015 report conducted by Energy Informative, wind energy is also one of the fastest growing renewable energy sources increasing by 25 percent per year in the U.S. Stanford School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences professor Anthony Kovscek says that wind energy is one of the “cheapest” renewable forms, because it doesn’t have a carbon impact.

More people are also using hydropower energy, accounting for seven percent of energy production in the U.S., according to the United States Geological Survey. Hydropower started out as a wheel in a stream that would turn to work machinery but has transformed

into hydroelectric power plants to capture the energy made from water movement.

While there have been developments in hydropower production, Kovscek says that it is reaching its “full capacity” because of the limited amounts of stream and lakes located in the U.S. but are still “developing in places like South Africa where further development would help their energy sources.”

“All of the energy sources depend on where you are located,” Kovscek says. “You have to have a diversified use of energy sources. This reduces the risk of not having enough energy [and] also allows the energy systems to become more reliant.”

Although Kovscek lists many benefits to the environment from renewable energy, Murphy made the decision to get solar panels for economic reasons due to the tax credits he receives.

“I am not a tree hugger, and I do not believe in global warming,” Murphy says. “I do not pay a gas or electric bill, and I have saved myself hundreds of dollars.”

March 2017 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 2

THE GREAT OHIO ROADTR What was once farmland has now turned into a growing community surrounded by booming businesses. story madison ragsdale | photography morgan kile | infographic michael croy

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weeping farmlands, grazing cows, and corn fields are what met the eyes of those passing through Liberty Township in the 1980s.

This 29 square-mile, agriculturally-dominated area drew the attention of Christine and John Matacic, a couple who was looking for a place to settle down with their two young daughters, Catherine and Janice.

“We knew we wanted a little elbow room [from our neighbors], and we had a 40-acre corn field next to our house for 15 years,” Matacic says. “The farmers would come out and plow the fields, and we’d tell them, ‘Hey, you need some water, you need a restroom break, you come on over.’”

Elected to her fourth term as Liberty Township Board of Trustee President, Christine Matacic has seen the township landscape shift from farms to suburbs in recent years. What was once farmland is now brick houses, paved roads, and growing businesses.

By the time the township’s newest addition, Liberty Center, is completed, the number of businesses in Liberty Township are projected to have doubled, according to Liberty Township Economic Development Director Caroline McKinney. With growth and development continuing to pick up steam, the business and community life in the township is subject to change from its prior path.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the township remained a countryside, containing only 9,200 residents in 1992. The township now has a population size of 38,613, according to the 2015 U.S. Census Bureau. With this population growth comes exponential economic development, much of which is comprised of small businesses. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 5,299 businesses started up in Ohio in the second quarter of 2015, creating 23,315 jobs. McKinney adds on, saying small businesses are the “bread and butter of our community.”

“It’s the small businesses that often expand and turn into our medium-sized businesses,” McKinney says. “You never know what small, mom-and-pop shop, twenty years from now, may be a significant player in your community or in the region.”

A strong focus of small businesses can help develop a community, according to McKinney. The Liberty and West Chester Townships are currently being targeted as desirable areas for small businesses to open up shop. According to West Chester-Liberty Chamber Alliance President Joseph Hinson, the reason for this attraction is the townships’ many amenities.

“What we see is businesses continuing to recognize our strategic location,” Hinson says, “[They acknowledge] our strong school system [and] easy access, [so] small, medium, and large businesses want to be here, because this is the place to be.”

Matacic agrees, saying that the township has seen more businesses entering the community of late. Small businesses “are the engine that drives the economy,” and having a “vibrant business climate” is crucial to the growth of the area.

Small businesses also have substantial potential to grow due to resources that are offered by the Chamber Alliance. One of these resources is the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) program, a non-profit organization supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration, which helps small businesses get started and make wise ongoing decisions. It is essentially a counsel of retired or working executives who guide a business down a strategic path for growth.

“When we talk with SCORE, there are more small businesses in the West Chester-Liberty area that are up and running and accelerating to the next level, than any area in southwestern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and southeastern Indiana,” Hinson says. “There are a lot of opportunities for these small businesses to be impacted by SCORE.” Even though new businesses are experiencing growth and may increase competition in the area, the businesses that have been in the area for a few years continue to serve their customers and the community.

“Just last weekend, my family and I waited thirty minutes to grab a table at Putter’s,” McKinney says. “What those small businesses offer are some of the mainstays of Liberty

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Township, [and they] aren’t changing, so there are still huge opportunities for those folks as well.”

This growth has altered aspects of community life that earlier generations enjoyed in the area. According to Matacic, the township has “lost some of that country, home feeling.” Over the past few years, the growth of business has led to a more “hustle-andbustle” community.

“When I first became a trustee back in 2002, we were very rural,” Matacic says. “It had very little development. [My mother was recently] talking about her father’s pig farm. He had 1,000 head of pig at different stages. Just talking about that, it brought back those feelings that I had when we first moved to Liberty Township. Now, you don’t have that.”

Despite this change, Matacic also commented that a new form of community spirit is affecting the area, a “neighbor-helpingneighbor” attitude that is resurfacing in a new format.

“The change is happening, but we can’t put

our head in the sand,” Matacic says. “We have to take a look at reality today, and what’s coming down the pike, but how can we preserve some of those values. You work to preserve little pieces of heaven here on earth.”

As more businesses enter the township, the struggle becomes balancing the recent growth with the long-established community life. The area encourages the opening of new businesses, while at the same time putting value on the older aspects of life in the region. According to Matacic, the “community is evolving,” and as it evolves, there are “newer needs and newer things that have to happen.”

“I know as a township, we have tried to do some preservation of [the farms in the area],” Matacic says. “I’m seeing some of that [original neighbor-helping-neighbor feeling] come back in the younger generation. It’s not that ‘Let’s rally around and rebuild the barn because it burned down.’ It’s still neighbor-helpingneighbor, just in a different format. It’s the evolution of this area, and we’re going to see new things happening.”

YOUNG’S DAIRY FARM Transitioning from a private family farm to a public farm, Young’s Dairy Farm now provides its customers with services that range from food and entertainment to ensure a well-spent time. story stephen mckay | photography used with permission from young’s dairy farm

E THROUGH TH TUNNEL

HAND-SCOOPED petting z

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n Yellow Springs, Ohio, sits a family farm where approximately 1.2 million people come to visit each year. There are 36 holes of miniature golf, a driving range, nine batting cages, two restaurants, an ice cream store, a corn maze, a slide, a playground, and a petting zoo at this farm. This place is Young’s Dairy Farm.

Dan Young, CEO and chief ice cream dipper of Young’s Dairy Farm, has seen the farm grow from a typical private family farm to the public attraction it is today. In 1958, the farm started to sell their milk directly to the public and since then they have made their

farm even more available to the public.

“In the late 50’s early 60’s is when we started selling stuff,” Young says. “The main decision was just to evolve our business from just a farm.”

For Young, this farm is not just part of his occupation, but this is his home. He has been a part of Young’s Dairy Farm for most of his life as the farm has been owned by the Young family since 1869.

“The most important, significant thing to me about Young’s is our business and that it creates memories for the visitors that come here,” Young says. “We’ve been able to create

a sustainable business that supports the family, but also the other 320 people that work here.”

One of those 320 people are employed at Young’s Dairy Farm is Dillon Allison, who has been a part of the farm for seven years. His job is involves taking care of the ordering and inventory for the restaurant at the farm.

“I can remember coming [to Young’s] as a kid to pet the goats or get something to eat,” Allison says. “[Guests] can come here to get a bite to eat or a scoop of ice cream, but mainly I think its that [Young’s] has something for the kids to do especially if they have a weekend in the summer.”

OVERHEAD SHOT

hand dipped with a cherry on top According to Young food service still makes up about 83 percent of sales for the farm despite the recent fall of the food industry and restaurants going out of business. “[Customers] eat a lot when they’re here,” Young says. “They also feed the goats, watch us milk a cow, play miniature golf, pick a pumpkin, and everything else.”

Hartman Hamlin, a sixth grade student at Independence Elementary School who has visited Young’s before, also liked Young’s restaurant and enjoyed his experience there.

“The food was good and the workers were nice to you and it was just a good time,” Hamlin

says. “What stood out to me is that it’s actually a barn, not a new type of place.”

While it used to be a small family farm, it’s 1.2 million visitors don’t miss the farm while driving down Springfield Xenia Road with its big white sign out front. In addition to its new sign, Young plans to add some new things to the farm within the next 20 years such as one more entertainment attraction and improving some of their older building, but they definitely still plan to be a place for the family. “[When] we started selling stuff to the public a little bit and adding things,” Young says. “We eventually figured out that that’s what

we were, a destination for folks to see.”

With three trips to Disney for things like guest service classes under his belt, Young has put a lot of his heart and soul into his family’s farm and he believes that the farm will always be successful. Young also says that being a part of Young’s has taught him a lot about the world and about the value of having a work ethic and attitude.

“As long as we’re paying attention, I really believe [Young’s Family Farm] will always be successful,” Young says. “I believe in the don’tgive-up [attitude] when things are bleak and [you have to] think your way through it.”

FINDLAY MARKET In 1855, Findlay Market opened to the public and since then has been sellings its fresh produce to customers, while also providing a home to over 94 different vendors. story morgan green | photography lauren wilson | infographic megan kerlin

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he walks around a farmers market, looking at

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the fresh fruits and vegetables offered there, but that was not why she decided to come visit the market. She decided to visit because of the intense diversity of people and the environment at Findlay Market, that she couldn’t find anywhere else.

Chloe Huggins, a sophomore at Lakota East High School, loves the friendly and caring atmosphere that is present at Findlay Market—a market that has 94 different merchants listed on its website and has been open for 162 years serving the neighborhood and the people of Cincinnati.

“Everyone just wants to talk to each other and it is so nice,” says Huggins, referring to the variety of people that she met and got to talk to whilst visiting Findlay Market on a Sunday.

Huggins decided to visit because the market is a landmark in Cincinnati and draws many different types of people in every day. According to her, one of the best aspects of Findlay Market is the fresh produce sold by vendors who care about you and the quality of food that you are receiving, along with the positive atmosphere.

Communications manager Kelly Lansner loves the unique experience that Findlay Market offers to people visiting. “[Findlay Market] has a positive, unique experience that you can’t get anywhere else while you’re shopping for food,” says Lansner. “You have the ability to talk to individual merchants, so you are talking to the person who is picking out the cheeses or you are talking to the person who made the fresh pasta the night before. People establish those personal connections.”

The market which opened in 1855, also adapts to the” needs and wants of the people who are living in the area” according to Lansner. She says this because in April 2001, Findlay Market came close to closing because of the Cincinnati Riots and how they caused a declining population in the same neighborhood that the market is located in.

Findlay Market eventually decided to stay open for its customers. Findlay Market houses about one-third prepared food vendors and two-thirds grocery vendors in order to provide for the “diverse neighborhood” the market is located in.

“We will host, during the warm months, anywhere from 30 to 40 farmers, and then we have pop up vendors that set up outside on the weekends when it’s warm, and we’ll have

CO.

anywhere from 20 to 30 of them—and that’s a variety of arts, crafts and prepared food vendors,” says Lansner, referring to the buzzing weekend crowd that the market attracts.

According to Lansner, the diversity of Findlay Market is one of the market’s biggest draws.

“Besides the food, the number one thing people value here is it being a place of diversity, a place for everyone to come together,” says Lansner.

The variety of consumer goods available to customers is also another attraction. However, with this variety of goods also comes an increase in vendors.

“In the last three to four years we’ve been at 100% occupancy, so there really isn’t a ton of room for new full-time merchants,” says Lansner.

According to Paul Picton, the president of Maverick Chocolate Company, getting a space to sell at Findlay Market was very difficult. Picton works with his wife and son to make chocolate bars, truffles, hot chocolate, and more all straight from raw cocoa beans to the finished products.

“Around 30 different businesses were interested in one of the three spaces that the market had available in the Fall of 2013,” Picton says. “[Maverick Chocolate Company] won the competition because we actually make our chocolate on the premises. Most of the other companies would only be selling something made elsewhere,” says Picton.

Picton adds on that his business has seen the average weekday sales double since the Cincinnati Bell Connector opened in Sept. 2016, and he also attributes this to customers coming from downtown or other parts of the city.

Like Maverick Chocolate Company, Churchill’s Fine Teas also notes the new customers that the streetcar brings to their locally owned business.

Effie Smith, the manager of Churchill’s Fine Teas, says people from Cincinnati that have never visited and people from out of town have come into the shop.

“We have definitely noticed a lot more new faces since the streetcar has opened,” Smith says.

“There are more people coming from downtown businesses for lunch and stopping in.”

Churchill’s Fine Teas has had their range of customers change from out of town to locals change over the seven years that they have been open at Findlay Market. Smith says that Churchill’s Fine Teas started out with “probably more local people shopping here,” and over time they grew to serve their traditional English loose leaf tea online to customers around America.

“It’s fun when one of our regular online customers comes in to visit and are excited to see the space where they get all their yummy tea,” says Smith.

As Chloe Huggins walks around Findlay Market she smiles as she takes in the positive environment surrounding her. “[The venders] are not just trying to sell you a product,” Higgins says. “They’re trying to get to know you, and that’s what I love about Findlay market.”

Findlay Market Merchants With mulitple merchants in each, Findlay Market has a variety of shop categories ranging from cheese and dairy to specialty groceries.

Farmers Market

Artisan Gifts

Baked Goods

Niemeyer Farm tree fruits, berries, honey Apple Ridge Farm fruits and vegetables

BANDI Wear pocketed belts and headbands The Beautiful Bags Lady shopping bags

Taste of Belgium belgium waffles Cake Rack Bakery broad range of desserts

Beer & Wine

Catering

Cheese and Dairy

Market Wines over 500 year old wines and variety of beers LL Spirits specialty cocktails

Gramma Debbie’s Kitchen old fashioned comfort food OTR Candy Bar artisan and bulk candies and soda

J.E. Gibbs Cheese butter, eggs, cheese, lunchmeat Dad’s Favorites cheese spreads

Delivery

Desserts & Chocolate

Flowers

Pho Long Thang vietnamese cuisine Daisy Mae Market fresh produce in Cincinnati area

Maverick Chocolate handcrafted chocolates Tweedles Mini Donuts ready to order mini donuts

Wildey Flower Farm cut flowers and holiday greenery Zinncinnati floral and event design

Fresh Seafood

Meat & Poultry

Prepared Foods

Heist Fish and Poultry fresh and frozen seafood and poultry products Frank’s Fish & Seafood Market fresh and frozen items

Bender Meats full line of lunch meat and fresh pork products Grassroots Farm & Foods beef, pork, chicken, and eggs

Fresh Table ready-to-eat offerings with eclectic menu choices Mama Lo Hizo burritos, tacos, Mexican lasagna

Produce & Organic Produce

Specialty Groceries

Backyard Orchard peaches, apples, and pears Salatin’s Orchard apples and cider

Mama Made It mama’s kettle corn and gourmet popcorn Churchill’s Fine Teas premium teas

sources findlaymarket.org

HERITAGE VILLAGE Heritage Village has been in Sharonville since the 1800’s and has provided the community with a historical background. It is open to the public for tours and events. story and photography abby pieratt | infographic connor richman

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single figure crept along the desolate, darkening gravel path, maintaining his eerie stature, getting ready to pounce on unsuspecting twins Rachel and Erin Gregg, now sophomores at East, who have been volunteering in Sharonville’s Heritage Village Museum together since 2008. In frightened delight, the two scurried along the walkway, throwing up gravel and laughter in their wake.

“I am not sure if I have ever run that fast in my life. It is super amazing that even if I knew the man under the mask, he was still able to portray his character to every single person,” says Rachel.

Though the headless horseman is not a typical resident of this living history museum, the same attention to guest experience immersion holds true to authentic reenactments and historical impersonators and guides.

Tucked neatly between the pages of a history textbook is the assorted patchwork quilt of a bygone America. Rough, burdened riverboats sing through the fair blue background as they pass wooded cabins, gothic farmhouses, and eventually a whisper of oncoming industry and affluence. During the 19th century, the rapidly changing way of life mirrors the 21st century’s culture. However, while Heritage Village gently nestles itself up to bustling Route 42, it is an oasis to escape the concrete jungle and instead discover a concrete mentality.

Located inside Sharon Woods, Heritage Village is comprised of 13 original, authentic buildings, homes and out-buildings from the Southwestern Ohio region, as well as equipment used in daily life, all from the early-late 1800s.

A couple of main buildings include, but are not limited to: Kemper House and Kitchen, Elk Lick House, Chester Park Train Station, Hayner House, Somerset Church and Vorhes House were all moved to Sharon Woods after the Village opened in 1972, with Elk Lick being its first historical structure to be put in place.

Hayner House stands resolutely at the head of the Village as a gravel path winds a short distance toward the other sites. Displayed like a portrait behind a white picket fence is Elk Lick, whose 1818 gothic style compliments the

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RAILROAD CROSSING Greek-revival style of Hayner and those of the approaching Chester Park Station and federalstyle Vorhes House. Parallel to the village is a whistling creek with a marooned flat boat, a new addition to the Village that represents the journey settlers made to reach Cincinnati in particular; something not found all around Ohio.

According to Erin and Rachel’s mother Shelley Gregg, who served as a historical guide and marketer for Heritage Village from 2007-14, it is this uniqueness and devotion to local history that is so rare because it teaches “us, especially those of us who have lived in Cincinnati our whole lives, that it’s a piece of us.” shelley /daughters talk about how it is a piece to them then how they started volunteering there Dana Gagnon, the community outreach associate director for Heritage Village Museum also believes in its regional focus, along with its ability to make the Village a place “where history comes alive” as the museum’s motto states.

“When you come out to a museum that has hands-on activities [and see] the actual building from the 1800s, it feels like you are going back,” Gagnon says. “And that is a really strong advantage for those different kinds of learners of all ages because when they go back to the book, they now have some concrete experience

to connect to the abstract text in the book.”

Starting as a volunteer 15 years prior, Gagnon also continues to enjoy living out the life of a settler in this tranquil environment; oftentimes in full period attire.

“The setting of the Village being Sharon Woods means instead of looking at a car dealership out the door and pretending I am in a building from the 1800s, you can really become completely absorbed in the setting,” Gagnon says. “We have exciting times when we are filled up with members and live actors, battles and scenarios, but I also really love being out there on a quiet afternoon and stepping back.”

Not only is the Village open to private exterior tours and guided interior tours, but the Village also hosts annual and seasonal events including but not limited to: Civil War Weekend, the second annual Spring in Cincinnati 1803 Muster and Social, Haunted Village and Holly Days. The latter two focus on family-friendly holiday celebrations.

The Civil War Weekend includes a daily battle that directly reflects a researched Civil War skirmish. The two opposing sides camp on the north and south side of the Village in order to instruct guests in the daily life of the soldier.

Recently added to the Heritage Village, Spring in Cincinnati includes Linigle’s Company of Ohio Militia reenactment of a muster drill and also serves as a social and

offers demonstrations for guests.

Other special occasions include: first person reenactment narrations, and 1840 election reenactment and three summer camps. This expanse of local programming, as well as the small entrance fee of $5 per adult or $3 per child ages five to 11 during the regular season of May to September, and the Village’s location by the interstate allows for easy accessibility, according to Gagnon.

Through this accessibility, people of all ages are able to delve into learning that is specific to their community, according to Bill Dichtl, the executive director of Heritage Village Museum.

“We have a connection to some cool history,” Dichtl says. “[Ohio’s] Senator Morris [owner of the Elk Lick and presidential candidate] isn’t a big name, but he played a significant role in history [and] you don’t get to see that.”

Oftentimes, this is truly what the Village provides, in the perspective of Dana Gagnon.

A concrete understanding of the treasure of real, specific local history while stepping into the story of the past and out of the concrete jungle.

“I love Heritage Village because rather than just read about history you get to experience it,” says Rachel. “It is amazing to walk into real houses and use the visuals to imagine how different life was and how much we take for granted in the present.”

HOLIDAY AUTO THEATR Holiday Auto Theatre continues the tradition of drive in movie theaters. story and photography katey kruback | infographic lucy hartmann

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estled off the corner of Old Oxford Road in Hamilton, sits a local drive-in. Everything from the twinkling sign out front, the oldschool concession stand, the music straight from “Grease,” and the neon-colored lights drive home the theme of nostalgia throughout the drive-in. This 1950s theme is exactly what owners Todd Chancey and Mark Althoetmar wanted to create at Holiday Auto Theatre.

“It’s definitely a labor of love, not a business we bought to get rich,” Chancey says.

“It’s just not possible. We want to preserve this time capsule of Americana as a homage to the 1950s [because] too many of them don’t exist anymore.”

In 1958, according to the Smithsonian, there were 4,063 drive-ins open across the U.S. Now, there are only 322 in the U.S., and 411 worldwide.

As the years go by and drive-ins disappear, indoor movie theaters thrive, becoming more plush with each year. Now, many theaters have reclining chairs, online pre-pay, 3D and 4D movies, online seat reservations, and sometimes food and alcohol served right to your seat.

Despite the increasing luxury in indoor theaters, people still go to drive-ins including Tyler Tackett who is a father of four. Tackett says he loves drive-ins, because they cater well to larger families.

“My wife wanted to see ‘Beauty and the Beast,’” Tackett says. “We knew everywhere else was going to be really crowded, and I knew the kids wouldn’t sit through it, so we came to [the Holiday]. With two for one movies, priva and the 50s nostalgia—what a deal.”

At the AMC West Chester 18 indoor movie theater, an adult ticket is $9.49, and a child’s $7.99. At the drive-in, an adult can get in for $8.75 and a child $5.50, with two movies.

Marcus Hynfield, a drive-in employee, has

been coming to the Holiday since he was four and first saw “The Incredibles.”

“This was my first movie theater,” Hynfield says. “I come whenever I can. It’s like home to me. I love sitting under the stars, watching little kids running around in their pajamas being super cute and having a blast, maybe throwing a frisbee or playing baseball while they’re waiting for the movie. You can even bring pets here. I’ve been coming here for most of my life, and it has always felt like a family-friendly sort of place.”

When customer Becca Buff thinks of the drive-in, she thinks of fond memories and time well spent with family, even if there is a strictly designated “parent van” and “kid van” for movie-watching enjoyment. “[At the drive-in,] I feel like you enjoy the movie more together, whereas if you go to an indoor theater, even if you go with people, you’re still there alone,” Hynfield says.

Chancey still remembers his first and best time at a drive-in.

“I went to see ‘Jaws’ with my parents as a kid in 1975 in Orlando,” Chancey says. “It was very PG, not gory, but it scared me to death.”

As his best drive-in memory was a time with his parents as a kid, Chancey and Althoetmar have worked hard for ten years to recreate that feeling for others. Whether their guests come as friends, family, or dates, Chancey and Althoetmar want to ensure that the Holiday is always a safe, clean, fun and family-friendly environment, ripe for making memories.

“I still get the same feeling I got ten years ago when we bought the drive-in,” Chancey says. “We try to make sure that everyone who comes to visit has a great experience. We try to talk to the guests as much as we can, and it’s nice to see guests enjoying what we’ve done to help them enjoy the drive-in.”

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Silver Screen Stats The Hamilton, Ohio drive-in movie theater is one of the very few drive-in theaters left in the U.S. The number of drive-in theaters has been rapidly declining. The drive-in is a great place to see an inexpensive movie in the summer, comforted by cozy blankets in the trunk of the car.

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The Decline of Drive-in Movie Theaters in the U.S.

Number of theaters

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Most of the speaker boxes at drive-in theaters have been removed. Now, people listen through their car radio.

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The cost of the projector alone could be as much as $90,000

AMERICAN SIGN MUSEUM Gathering and creating a selection of signs, the American Sign Museum continues to display its colorful and authentic pieces. story ainsley campbell | photography and infographic meredith niemann

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lightly hidden on Monmouth Avenue, there is a beautiful light-filled world of history and art all in one. Upon arrival, one sees an understated building showing a few examples of talent and beauty. Inside, there is a quiet, yet distinct hum and a wonderful array of light and colors. It is a retro heaven one could only imagine, right in the heart of Camp Washington.

Inside a seemingly non-descript building, the flashy signs tell a unique story--all thanks to the founder Tod Swormstedt. For Swormstedt, the creation of the American Sign Museum was a “midlife crisis project” of sorts. His editing work at Signs of the Times magazine led to a collection of signs that continues to grow today.

“I took a lot of history in college. I’ve always had an interest in history, and I’m a collector,” Swormstedt says. “There wasn’t a sign museum anywhere, so I got the idea one night to start a sign museum.”

The idea to build the museum in Cincinnati was not his first choice. It took a lot of planning to get the museum to it’s current location.

“My first thought was Los Angeles, Chicago, or New York,” Swormstedt says. “I also looked at St. Louis, there’s a big museum called “City Museum” which is a museum of a bunch of little museums.”

Las Vegas seemed to be a viable option for the museum founder because it is a “sign mecca.” After years of negotiation however, it did not come together as he had hoped.

“The feasibility study said that one of the good places to put it was Las Vegas, for all the reasons you might imagine,” Swormstedt says.

“They had stored a bunch of signs that they had taken down in Las Vegas and we tried to work with them and we got close but it really didn’t pan out.”

Even though the museum did not place roots in Las Vegas, many of the visitors to the “neon boneyard” in the Nevada city make their way to Cincinnati to see the American Sign Museum.

“Vegas has a neon boneyard and the people who love that come here all the time,” Guest Services Director Kevin Wallace says. “We have tons of people from California say ‘Oh my gosh we love the boneyard. We had to come and see you guys.’”

Wallace entered his role at the museum after

leaving his job selling translation services. He came in knowing very little about signs and enjoys being able to come to work and learn something new everyday.

“I knew next to nothing about the sign industry before I showed up, so learning the industry has been pretty interesting,” Wallace says. “I like learning so if I can get in there and figure something out I didn’t know before, it’s always a good time.”

As of March 19, the American Sign Museum was number eight on the list of things to do in Cincinnati, and number 3 on the list of museums. The majority of visitors to the museum are tourists to the Cincinnati area. For those living in the area, it is a hidden treasure to be found via Google and well-worth the effort.

“What ends up happening is, you’ll have a family from Cincinnati who comes into the museum, but it’s their friend from Los Angeles who Google-searched ‘things to do in Cincinnati’,” Wallace says. “We don’t have a ton of money to be doing marketing and advertising, but this year we are trying to step it up a smidge.”

While the museum sees many out of state visitors, the visitor numbers continue to grow.

Since 2014, the number of visitors to the museum increased by approximately 7500 people.

Lakota East sophomore, Joe Phelan, visited the museum approximately two years ago after moving to Ohio from Georgia.

“I really enjoyed the tour because it was rather more unique than other museums with different aspects of the city i’ve never seen before,” Phelan says. “I saw signs that were from the old cincinnati and the era when it was an elite industrial city along with signs that we can find downtown Cincy today.”

Many events and projects utilize the unique space for weddings, proms, and corporate events. One Wednesday, a local class was rained-out on their feild trip to the zoo. The museum saved the day and provided a great space for the kids.

“They had a bus full of kids that needed to kill like 4 hours of their day somewhere, and he called us desperate,” Wallace says. “We gave them a full tour, we had a demonstration on how neon is made, and we did a scavenger hunt.”

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Sign Museum, Swormstedt is the founder of CoSign, a local project which has gone national, which connects local artists to business owners in order to create unique advertising opportunities and “create an identity” for the participating business.

Swormstedt worked in collaboration with the Haile Foundation, an organization dealing with the arts and development in the inner city. The project gave the artists an outlet to increase the visibility of their work and also to learn from the sign makers.

“A sign is not just a pretty picture, it has a function,” Swormstedt says. “So there are rules of a sign understood by sign people which artists may not understand.”

This project has taken place in Northside and Covington locally, and national reach is developing with the current expansion to the downtown market of Iowa City. To make this work, there is an in-depth process that begins with the business owner and ends with a beautiful sign. The artist who creates the winning design is awarded $1000.

Each participating business receives a tool kit with a flash drive to transfer designs, brochures, templates, and a CoSign manual.

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evidence of the signs improving business, Swormstedt is working with University of Cincinnati’s Vikas Mehtava to analyze and track the economic information for the businesses.

Participants of the Iowa City project attended a comprehensive CoSign workshop at the museum, learned how the project works, and went on walking tours of the previous locations to see the signs that are in existence.

The project in Iowa City is expected to be finished August of this year.

During one of his tours, Wallace elaborated on the museum’s collaboration with Hollywood set designers in order for movie and television sets to have more accurate visual narratives for their time periods. He specifically mentioned a partnership with the producers of the movie Carol, a film primarily filmed in Cincinnati.

The American Sign Museum offers great amounts of history and culture through beautiful eye-catching signs and Swormstedt believes it contributes to the importance of a business.

“What it does is it makes businesses a lot more aware of signs,” Swormstedt says. “ [It shows them] why they are important to their business, it creates an outlet for artists with this commercial outlet for the artist’s talent.”

THE MURPHY THEATRE Located in Wilmington, Ohio, The Murphy Theatre is one of 25 historical theaters left in Ohio according to Heritage Ohio Inc. As it continues to be preserved within the community, The Murphy Theatre also presents movies, concerts and plays to its audience. story caroline bumgarner | photography used with permission of the murphy theatre

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n Wilmington, Ohio during the era of musicals and cowboy movies, Jennifer Hollon, 72, lived just two blocks up the road from The Murphy Theatre. She would frequently spend Saturday afternoons catching a double feature.

In between films, Hollon and her friends would wait in line underneath a grand chandelier in the foyer to buy a 5 cent Coke and even some popcorn from the small concessions window.

They could bring the treats back to their plush red seats and enjoy them during the intermission when cartoons and news played on the screen.

“You would have cartoons, because the cartoons were an enormous part of going to the movie,” Hollon says. “And the cartoons were the Road Runner and kinds of things like that, they were as popular with the adults as they were with the children.”

According to Heritage Ohio The Murphy Theatre is one of 25 historical theatres left in Ohio. Hollon who is a board member says

the Board of Directors’ challenge has been to try and preserve the theatre because it is an architectural part of the community’s history.

Charles W. Murphy founded the theatre after owning the Chicago Cubs for just enough time to make them World Series champions.

Murphy moved back home to his hometown of Wilmington, Ohio and began the construction of the theatre on two plots of land. According to Murphy Theatre Tour Guide Dan Kennelly Murphy began construction in 1916 around the same time as the city courthouse was being built.

“They had started the foundation and they were pretty well on the way for getting the building started,” Kennelly says. “[Charley] looked around and said ‘not big enough, make it bigger’ and they started working to make it bigger.”

The increase in size meant there was two million bricks and 175 boxcars of materials.

Italian craftsmen were brought in to do the

plaster work and gold gilding. This amounted to 250,000 dollars or approximately $4.41 million in today’s economy. As a result of this larger building, The Murphy was able to open the theatre to the cast of broadway plays allowing them to “polish their performances” before going on to New York.

Hollon’s ties to the Murphy are deeper than just visiting as a kid. Her great, great grandfather, Edwin Bath, was the director and member of the Wilmington Community Band, which was one of the acts that performed on The Murphy Theatre’s opening night July 24, 1918. Back then admission was 15 cents for adults and 10 cents for kids.

In the 20s, Hollon’s father H. Richard Bath had the opportunity of being onstage with Edwin and the band during live performances.

Later on Richard had his own musical group, the Dixieland band. Between 1985, when Murphy’s descendants sold the theatre, and 1987 when the community bought the theatre,

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Richard and the Dixieland band members put on fundraisers to contribute to the purchasing of the theatre.

The Murphy became a non-profit in 1989.

In 2015, the theatre was given one million dollars from the state strictly for capital, or structural, improvements. Board president, David Wagenseller says that the building has been “neglected” over the years and they have to put the money to use with safety as their number one concern. Hollon is well aware of these crucial restorations.

“I’m sure other communities who have historic theatres like ours share the problems we have in maintaining them,” Hollon says.

“The wonderful thing about the Murphy Theatre is its architectural presence that has been saved for these 100 years.”

While Director Timothy Larrick takes care of all the theatrical elements of the Murphy, Wagenseller says his focus is on the finances, the information was only available to Board

members, to keep the theatre growing.

“A lot of people think in a non for profit ‘we just mosey along and as long as we keep our doors open we’ll be fine’ that’s not the definition of a non profit,” Wagenseller says.

“But that’s been the mentality for a long time.”

Non for profits use their surplus revenue to further their cause Wagenseller says. This means the more money the Murphy is able to bring in the more they can use to ensure the future existence of the theatre.

As the theatre has evolved so have the types of shows it offers. Currently the focus of the theatre is live performances, musicians and other acts as well. Wagenseller explained that in 2016, the Murphy had the well known band Lone Star, “pack the house” for three days. All the proceeds went to the Wounded Warrior Program. The Board has even bigger plans for the future. Wagenseller says he wants to appeal to the local college by hiring more comedians and the board tossed around the

idea of bringing Jack Hanna of the Columbus Zoo to do a show for kids.

Executive Director Maretta Alden says her favorite event is the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“It’s late at night, we block off the street, we do the time warp dance and everyone dresses up in costumes,” Alden says. “There are people from as young as five here all the way up to people who are 88 and there is no stress it’s just fun.”

Even without Jack Hanna, The Murphy Theatre appeals to their younger demographics and families. East math teacher Patrick Kreider lives in Wilmington and took his wife and two kids to see the movie Elf five years ago. “[The Murphy] does all sorts of concerts and comedy acts; they have everything,” Kreider says. “[They] do a good job bringing shows in for the local community. We watched the movie and had a great time. It makes you feel like you’re stepping back in time.”

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sports | fantasy leagues

THE WORLD OF FANTASY Fantasy league participation has increased immensely over the last two decades, but with its growth has come controversy over its legality.

story stephen mckay, allie church | additional reporting lexy harrison | photo illustration emma stiefel

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antasy sports have become a nationwide phenomenon. With the popularity of the game on the constant rise, fantasy sports have almost become a science that has been broken down to the tiniest bit by analysts and players all over the country. Millions of people across the nation and world are now playing, but this is only the beginning.

With the amount of fantasy sports players growing from 500,000 in 1988 to 57.4 million in 2016 according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA), more people are getting involved in fantasy leagues and competitions than ever before. Avid fantasy sports participant and 43 year-old Jay Tice has seen firsthand the changes in the industry.

“More people are playing [fantasy sports] now,” Tice, a 16-year fantasy sports player, says. “In the beginning it seemed to be geared towards young men. The popularity has exploded over the last decade.”

Another reason for the rise of fantasy sports is that fans have generated the need to be as close to the game as possible and fantasy sports provide one way for them to stay connected to the game, says Miami University psychology professor Beth Dietz says.

“As a way to further identify with sports, we can try to take a more active role by participating in fantasy sports,” Dietz says. “Playing fantasy sports is the closest that most people will ever come to playing sports.”

When a sports fan has a fantasy team, they tend to watch their players and pay attention to actual games more, because they want their team to win, including Lakota East sophomore and fantasy player Kyle McDonough.

“You can watch the games more and keep up with players more,” McDonough says. “You get really excited when your team scores in real life.”

A lot of fantasy sports players like to join

60 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

leagues to compete against friends, family or coworkers. According to the FSTA, some of the top reasons for playing fantasy sports are to compete against friends, to enhance the sports experience, and to be in leagues with friends.

For students at East, based on a survey of 137 students who participate in fantasy sports, 51 participate for competition, 50 play to stay connected with their favorite teams, 20 joined to make money, and 42 simply for enjoyment.

It was playing with his friends that attracted McDonough.

“You play with your friends a lot, and that’s what mostly drew me in,” McDonough says.

“You can play with your friends in a friendly competition online, and on the chat boards [you can] trash talk, and it’s just fun.”

Nowadays entire television shows have been dedicated towards breaking down fantasy sports and helping players try to win their leagues. Podcasts, talk shows, and articles can

easily be found on websites such as ESPN, CBSSports, NFL.com, and Yahoo Sports. The FSTA estimates that the fantasy sports industry revenue amounts from $40 to $70 billion per year in tangible and intangible activities.

“There are now TV shows and radio channels dedicated to just fantasy sports,” Tice says. “[Fantasy sports] has become a big business now.”

Technology has also become a huge part of fantasy sports. According to FSTA, 39 percent of fantasy sports players primarily use a mobile device for their game compared to only 25 percent in 2012. Most fantasy sports companies have phone apps that players are able to play using their smartphones and mobile devices.

Games such as survivor pools and pick ‘ems, in which the player picks the winner of each game for a particular sport and see who gets the most picks correct have also become popular among fantasy players.

Other games like daily fantasy sports such as DraftKings and FanDuel have also been on the rise; however, some legal issues have gotten in the way of these sort of games. Daily fantasy sports were temporarily banned by the state of Nevada in October 2015 and declared the games as gambling, and this is only one instance of bannings like this occurring.

The National Council on Problem Gambling found that six million American adults are addicted to gambling. A study published in Addiction Behavior discovered a correlation between college students who participate in fantasy leagues and those who experience gambling-related problems later in life. In their sample of 1,556 students, 11.5 percent participated in fantasy sports, and 43.6 percent of those who played did so for monetary gain.

According to the FSTA, in 2006 Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). The act makes transactions from banks to online gambling websites illegal, in order to promote the decrease of online gambling. The bill explicitly exempts every fantasy sport, however, that “has an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the participants, their skill at physical reaction or physical manipulation (but not chance), and, in the case of a fantasy or simulation sports game, has an outcome that is determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of sporting events, including any non-participant’s individual performances in such sporting events.”

In other words, as long as the value of the prize awarded is not determined by the number of participants, the outcome reflects the skill-level and general knowledge of those participants, and the fantasy results are not based upon scores of real-world games, they are protected under the UIGEA. Most traditional fantasy leagues, therefore, comply with federal law.

Some states, however, have enforced stricter regulations than what is established by the federal government. According to Forbes, most state laws consider fantasy leagues illegal if they involve entry fees, a monetary prize, and more chance-based winning over skill. Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC) media relations officer and Small Businesses of Fantasy Sports Trade Association (SBFSTA) treasurer Eric Balkman says that multiple states, including Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Washington, Tennessee and Louisiana have established such rules. “[Fantasy sports] are always more interesting when there’s something on the line,” Balkman says. “It’s unfortunate that some states have never allowed pay-to-play fantasy sports ever since the UIGEA Act in 2006. That’s opened the gate for a lot of people to enjoy this hobby and enjoy fantasy sports, and for people who can’t do that in states that their legislature deems it illegal, I think it’s really unfortunate to them.”

As a part of the FFPC and SBFSTA, Balkman and his coworkers are working toward counteracting these states’ decisions to make paid fantasy leagues illegal. Their goal is to convince state government to change the laws so that small fantasy league businesses that were affected by the passing of these laws can once again thrive.

“The FFPC and SBFSTA are doing a lot of work to try to help these states come to the realization that this is a hobby and something people should enjoy, and we shouldn’t let our government take that away from them,” Balkman says. “The SPFSTA is to ensure if you want to have a daily or season fantasy start up company, you’re going to be able to do that.

All these companies that were competitors are now trying to work together collectively to make sure we’re all staying in business. We understood that action needed to be taken right away and when you are talking about a lot of businesses not being able to operate anymore, that was a wake up call for the industry.”

Because of the tension within the fantasy sport industry due to pay-to-play daily fantasy

sports, the SBFSTA was formed by combining nearly 40 small fantasy businesses. There is a misconception, according to Balkman, that these daily fantasy sports represent all of fantasy leagues. However, Balkman says that in reality, daily fantasy sports only make up about 10 percent of all fantasy league play, with the rest made up by seasonal fantasy sports participation.

“This was all good under the UIGEA act, but unfortunately some attorney generals took a negative opinion towards daily fantasy sports and as a result seasonal fantasy sports got lumped in,” Balkman says. “No one wants to kill small businesses, but that’s what was happening.

We had already seen 81 out of 180 daily fantasy sports operators either stop operating games, go bankrupt, or couldn’t afford to stay in the industry that has undergone changes within state legislators that doesn’t allow them to be active there.”

Balkman says that there was initial concern that regulations against fantasy leagues would be established in Ohio, but as of right now, no laws have been passed.

“Initially we were worried about [Ohio], because we saw early copies of the bill, and barriers to entry were high, and we wanted to make sure we had as many operators [trying to make pay-to-play fantasy sports legal] as possible there,” Balkman says. “We’re proud of this state, and when the bill is introduced, there will be a lot of opportunities for small businesses to continue to operate in Ohio.”

Multiple fantasy league companies were contacted by Spark, but none would comment on the legality of their businesses.

With money and legal issues overshadowing some forms of fantasy football, the popularity of the game has still not taken a hit. According to an Ipsos research report, 74 percent of the 30.6 million fantasy sports players in 2010 played on software that did not include a cash or material prize for winning a league.

“When there is nothing left to talk about with a friend or family, you can always revert to talking about fantasy sports,” Tice says. “It is kind of like talking about the weather.”

We understood that action needed to be taken right away, and when you are talking about a lot of businesses not being able to operate anymore, that was a wake up call for the industry.

– Eric Balkman, Football Players Championship media relations officer and Small Businesses of Fantasy Sports Trade Association treasurer

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST With the growth of fantasy league sports across the nation has come variations of how people play, including survivor pools. story jack parr photography maya wells, lauren wilson

Lakota East sophomore Evan Bachman plays survivor pool more than traditional fantasy leagues.

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very fall, millions of Americans go through a common struggle that can only be understood by experience. The pressure of drafting the right combination of players, the agony of deciding which players to start each week, and the pain of that hail-mary interception in a blowout that happens to decide the championship are all part of the chaos of fantasy football.

For fans that are tired of watching their star player hurt his knee in the preseason or losing a game by a point because of a meaningless rush yard at the end of the game, a new option for fantasy fun has emerged: survivor pool fantasy football.

One of the fastest growing fantasy football game modes, survivor mode allows fans to still have an authentic fantasy experience without all the stress that comes with the traditional game mode.

Lakota East sophomore and avid football fan Evan Bachman says that the laid back nature of survivor leagues made participating in a pool an easy decision.

“Survivor mode is less stressful and less time consuming than traditional fantasy football,” Bachman says. “You only have one decision to make each week compared to a bunch of them in traditional leagues.”

The idea behind survivor pool leagues is generally more simple than traditional leagues and doesn’t require a substantial time commitment. The player selects a team that they think will win their matchup each week, and the season ends when the selected team loses their game that week.

Owner and operator of officepoolstop. com Fred Williams compared survivor pools to other types of fantasy football on his website, a fantasy company containing different types of fantasy games for sports fans to enjoy, and attributes the increasing popularity of survivor pools to their simple and easy nature.

“Survivor pools are easily the most popular [mode of fantasy leagues],” Williams says. “[Because of] its simplicity, you only have to worry about picking one team each week.”

Survivor pools were responsible for the

62 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

most participation of any game mode on officepoolstop.com last season, accounting for 59 percent of total players on the site.

While becoming popular itself, survivor mode is only a small part of the fantasy football market that has developed into a massively successful platform in today’s world.

With game modes ranging from traditional fantasy style to survivor pools to pick’em pools, fantasy football allows sports fans to exercise their love for football and competition in many unique styles.

Sports psychologist and founder of SportPsyscologyToday.com Michael Edger believes that fantasy football is so successful because it adds a personal connection to football and doesn’t require a lot of skill and knowledge to win. “[Fantasy football] adds an intrapersonal level to the game,” Edger said. “Everyone can play and everyone has a shot of winning.”

For many fans, the appeal of fantasy football is that they don’t have to be big fans in order to play and have fun. This is especially

fantasy leagues | sports

There is a great amount of luck [in survivor pools] compared to standard fantasy leagues. You could be the captain of the football game, head cheerleader, or science teacher and still compete.

- Michael Edger, sports psychologist and founder of SportPsyscologyToday.com

true of survivor pools, in which luck plays a big part,because no one truly knows which team is going to win any given game.

Edger says that survivor pools are gaining popularity because people aren’t turned away by the philosophy that they have to know a lot about football in order to win, which can prevent a lot of less devoted fans from committing to a traditional fantasy league.

“There is a great amount of luck [in survivor pools] compared to standard fantasy leagues,” Edger says. “You could be the captain of the football game, head cheerleader, or science teacher and still compete.”

Another area of separation for survivor pools from traditional leagues is the high-stakes situation present every week. In a typical fantasy league, there are 12-14 weeks in a season, and participants can make the playoffs by only winning half of their matchups. In a survivor pool, one wrong pick can be devastating and player’s seasons are on the line every Sunday.

“I really enjoy playing in survivor pools

because you never know what is going to happen every week,” Bachman says. “It makes you want to check the scores every Sunday to see if your season will continue.”

The high-pressure environment of the weekly pools attracts people to join a survivor league. Bachman says that the suspense of knowing his season could be over every time he make a pick makes survivor pools exciting and entertaining to participate in.

“In traditional fantasy football, it doesn’t hurt to make a mistake,” Bachman says. “In a survivor pool, if you pick the wrong team, you lose which makes it very exciting.”

When fantasy football users select players for their team in the traditional mode, the focus is centered on stats. The goal is to try to produce the best combination of players with the most impressive statistics possible. During the weekly matchup, the scoring is solely based on individual performance and the winner of the game has no significance.

Survivor pools provide the fantasy user

with the unique opportunity to take areas like team chemistry into account rather than just focusing on individuals, helping to give the fan a better connection to the game, says Edger.

According to manager and operator of officefootballpool.com John Cranston, survivor pool leagues are more relatable for fans, because it gives them a real team to cheer for every weekend, rather than a combination of players from different teams.

“Survivor football is picking teams you think will win the game,” Cranston says. “Stats don’t matter as much as they do in typical fantasy leagues.”

With enough strategy to stimulate the die-hard fan and enough simplicity for the beginner, survivor pools have something to offer for everyone, says Cranston.

“People enjoy survivor football for the same reason they like traditional fantasy football,” Cranston says. “They want to prove their football expertise and that they know more about it than their friends.”

sports | fantasy leagues

A GAME OF POPULARITY Football is the most popular fantasy sport, followed by baseball, auto racing, basketball, golf, college football, hockey and soccer. story stone shields | photography lauren wilson | infographic bryn mangold

W

hich WR2 do I start? What pitcher is going to get me the most innings and give up the least amount of runs? Whose car is going to be the fastest at this week’s race? Will Dustin Johnson continue to win or will someone get hot and start winning golf tournaments?

Projections and trades. More projections and more trades. No matter the fantasy sport at hand, avid fantasy gurus across the world are dealing with these thoughts on a regular basis. And it’s not just football anymore; almost all sports have outlets to get involved and play fictitiously.

According to ESPN fantasy representative Tre Harris, the control fantasy players get to have over their team and league is what makes it so addicting.

“You get to draft your own players and create your own imaginary lineups,” Harris says. “You have complete control and people love that.”

Fantasy sports, a simple idea that started in the 1980s and has since grown into a million-dollar industry, began when sportswriter Daniel Okrent invented the first fantasy league while dining at a restaurant in Manhattan with some buddies. He originally invented a fantasy baseball league. Even though fantasy football is the most popular currently, fantasy baseball was actually what put this new level of athletic competition on the map.

However, in the 21st century, fantasy football seems to sit as the

crowning jewel atop the fantasy world. According to The Sports Esquires, 36 percent of fantasy participants are enrolled in a fantasy football league in the fall. This the biggest percentage of any fantasy sport, leading baseball by 17 percent.

To Lakota East sophomore and fantasy football participant Shane Murphy, it is obvious why football ranks highest among all fantasy sports.

“It seems to be the most organized of the fantasy sports,” Murphy says. “After all, football is the most popular sport in America, so it makes sense that it is also the most popular fantasy sport.”

Harris agrees, noting that fantasy play allows fans to become even more involved in their favorite sports.

“Football in itself is extremely popular and people truly love the game,” Harris says. “It is only natural for people to want to be even more involved with the sport.”

Baseball is the second most popular fantasy sport, attracting 19 percent of fantasy participants according to The Sports Esquires. Based on the approach each sport takes to exactly how participants play, baseball requires more skill and decision-making than fantasy football.

In football, different schemes can be drawn up. If a certain team is going up against a stingy offensive line, chances of trying to win the battle in the trenches and run the ball aren’t high. More than likely the

Social Media in Sports As social media usage has grown over the last century, more sports fans have participated in NFL Fantasy Football and NCAA March Madness through apps.

How March Madness Works

1

Your Bracket SCHEDULE

SCORES

Fill Out a Bracket

NCAA MARCH MADNESS LIVE

Once the first games are scheduled, you can pick your winners of round 1 and fill out the brackets until you have guessed the March Madness Champion.

a Group 2 Create Make a March Madness group CHAMPION

Most Used March Madness Apps

ESPN TOURNAMENT CHALLENGE

with your friends or family and bet money on each game

3 Watch the Games 00

15

Watch each round and follow your bracket to see if you have the best bracket and win money!

64 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

Out of 328 East students surveyed, 123 use an app or participate in NCAA March Madness.

It is competition, and people are innately competitive.

Anything you put time into, manage or develop is going to inspire passion and motivation.

- Michael Edger, sports psychologist and founder of SportPsyscologyToday.com team will opt to be more pass-heavy and their running back won’t get very many point scoring opportunities.

These inconsistencies aren’t in play in the realm of baseball. In baseball there is a set lineup, as well as a set pitcher. All starting players receive equal point scoring chances. It is up to the fantasy participant to analyze the statistics and make a decision on their lineup.

12 percent of fantasy participants are in fantasy auto racing leagues according to The Sports Esquires. According to FindingDulcinea, fantasy auto racing was inspired by the popularity of fantasy football and baseball. With fantasy leagues now being established for almost all major sports, every demographic of sports fans can be exposed to the fantasy world. According to Nascar Fanbase Demographics most racing fans are caucasian southern males between the ages of 18 and 44. In contrast, the sport of football is enjoyed by a larger demographic of people.

According to Fox Sports, players select a roster of drivers to earn points based on actual race results. Scores are sorted within a league of players to determine weekly and championship winners.

The final largely popular fantasy sport is fantasy basketball reeling in ten percent of fantasy participants according to The Sports Esquires.

Players like Lebron James, Steph Curry, James Harden, and Kevin Durant attract the eye of the public, including East sophomore Shane Murphy, but for him, the fantasy aspect just isn’t as appealing. He says that he would rather just watch them play instead of participating in a fantasy league, since he isn’t as in tune with all 30 teams in the association.

How Fantasy League Football Works

The other 23 percent of fantasy participants are involved in fantasy golf, college football, hockey, and soccer. According to Quicken Loans, fantasy players put so much time into fantasy football that it is hard for them to be dedicated players in other sports. Over 22 million fantasy participants each year spend over an hour a week managing their rosters.

Fantasy golf does not have a high rank in regard to participation. This is partially due to it being a new industry, with multiple companies only recently launching fantasy golf as a platform for fantasy play. Draftkings, a popular fantasy company, began their league in 2014. Lakota East sophomore and Sectional golf champion Kyle Schmidt says that from his experience, he has seen that golf lacks popularity as a sport in general.

“Unfortunately the sport of golf isn’t really loved by a large group of people, and only a select few truly enjoy it,” Schmidt says. “It makes sense that fantasy golf is trumped by the other fantasy sports because golf simply doesn’t possess the popularity that football, basketball and baseball do.”

One thing runs true for all fantasy sports: there are a number of different reasons people compete. According to sports psychologist Michael Edger, money is a big factor but not the only reason people play.

“It is competition, and people are innately competitive,” Edger says.

“Anything you put time into, manage or develop is going to inspire passion and motivation. For some people that motivation is the money and extrinsic rewards. For others it is intrinsic, winning and being recognized as the best at what you do.”

Most Used Fantasy League Apps

10 20 30 40 50 40 30 20 10 1 Join a League

FANTASY

LEAGUE

Your Team: New York Giants

Name Adams, Andrew Adams, Jerell Apple, Eli Beckham Jr, Odell Berhe, Nat Blake, Valentino Bowie, Michael Grant, Curtis

Pos. S TE CB WR S DB OT DT

ESPN FANTASY SPORTS

2 Draft Your Team

Use the Fantasy Draft Kit to pick a team. The kit has all the research you need to get the best players, including rankings, projections and sleepers.

FANTASY FOOTBALL

3 Play and Win!

Field a roster consisting of several offensive players (QB, RB, WR, TE) as well as a kicker and team defense. Then sit back and watch your team with Fantasy Game Center. As the players earn statistics and score touchdowns on the field, so does your fantasy team. matchup - just like your favorite NFL team.

Out of 250 East students surveyed, 90 use an app or participate in NCAA March Madness.

10 20 30 40 50 40 30 20 10

sources nfl.com, ncaa.com, east survey

Fantasy Leagues by the Numbers Participation in fantasy league sports and the amount of money spent per participant has greatly increased over the past two decades. infographic allie church

Participation Statistics Compared to the general population of the United States, 18% of adults and 32% of teenagers participate in fantasy league sports.

34% female 66% male

Estimated Number of Participants (Millions)

Number of People Playing Fantasy League Sports in Canada and the United States 60 50 40 30 20 10

2003

2004 2005

2006 2007

2008 2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Year

Spending Statistics National Basketball Association

Fantasy League Revenue

Spending Over a 12-Month Period

National Football League

Traditional Fantasy Sports

Major League Baseball

Daily Fantasy Sports

Automobile Racing

Materials (premium websites, apps, magazines, draft kits)

Other

2012

Average Annual Spending Per Fantasy League Player $556 2015

2016

East Participation Statistics Out of 248 students surveyed, 72 participate in Fantasy League Sports 196 do not participate in Fantasy League Sports

Out of 137 students surveyed, 20 participate to make money 50 participate to stay connected to their teams as fans 42 participate for enjoyment 25 participate for competition

sources fantasy sports trade association, ibisworld

column | opinion

EASY STREET VIVIAN KOLKS P

icture a seventh grade girl. She’s not the most socially adept nor the most attractive.

Freckles and braces and a less than stellar fashion sense means that she isn’t the most popular at school, but she tries to be friendly and kind. Her mom works in the afternoons, so sometimes she walks to the nearby coffee shop after school to do homework. Today is one of those days. She’s wearing one of her favorite t-shirts and a cute little denim skirt from the kid’s section at Old Navy. Like I said, her fashion sense is not stellar.

That day for some reason there’s a group of boys, all older and bigger than her, walking in the opposite direction that she is going.

They see her, barely five feet tall with a huge backpack, and presumably see a target. They turn around and start to follow her, walking and faster and faster, matching the girl’s quickening pace. They wolf-whistle and yell comments that she can barely hear over her own rapidly beating pulse. It’s only when she bursts through the door of the coffee shop that they stop following her, stopping only to leer at her through the windows before finally moving on, much to her relief.

Hi. I’m Vivian Kolks. It’s nice to meet you.

Street harassment is a type of sexual harassment which under the 1964 Civil Right Act is defined as a form of sex discrimination where the incident itself would not have occurred if not for the gender of the person being harassed. The one ironic thing about sexual harassment is that even though the word “discrimination” is included in the definition, it has been discovered that the one thing that the actual act of harassment does not include is bias for any specific type of person, sexuality or race. Women are targeted specifically because of their gender, but beyond that there is no specific race, age or sexual orientation that escapes the uncomfortable scrutiny of unwanted eyes and jeers.

The best way to conceal a problem as prevalent as this is to hide it in plain sight. Popular culture normalizes jokes about a woman passing a construction site or getting yelled at from a car.

“Across all age[s], races, income levels, sexual orientations, and geographic locations, most women in the United States experience street harassment. Some men, especially men who identify as gay, bisexual, queer, or transgender, do as well,” reads a 2014 survey commissioned by Stop Street Harassment (SSH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and ending gender-based street harassment.

The survey found that an astounding 65 percent of all women had experienced street harassment. Among all women, 23 percent had been sexually touched, 20 percent had been followed, and 9 percent had been forced to do something sexual. The idea that men are somehow left out of the loop is disproved by this study since 25 percent of men surveyed had been street harassed.

The best way to conceal a problem as prevalent as this is to hide it in plain sight.

Popular culture normalizes jokes about a woman passing a construction site or getting yelled at from a car. Every time a situation like that first coffee shop encounter occurred, whether I was walking my dog, shopping or reading on a bench, it felt like I was helpless and exposed. I felt uncomfortable with my actions and overly self conscious, as if there were hundreds of eyes staring at me, judging my clothes, my hair, the makeup I was wearing. In a situation where the harasser is in a group of friends or in a car while the target stands alone on the side of the street, it isn’t hard to tell who’s in control. But there’s a way to fix that.

On their official website, SSH warns people that there “is no right way to deal with

harassers.” Out of the thousands of incidents that happen per year, there is no proven and routine scenario, and often times victims of unwanted attention have only seconds to evaluate their situation. But rather than ignoring the catcall or avoiding the follower, a person experiencing sexual harassment can either respond by calmly and assertively letting the harasser know that what they are doing is not okay, reporting the incident to authority figures, or stepping in and doing any of these in order to protect another person who is suffering from harassment. All of these present a better solution then letting the incident pass in silence.

That’s why I vow to remain so blunt and upfront with my words, because it’s not enough to teach everybody how to evade an incident. It’s time to teach our children from the start that such a situation should never be created in the first place. The statistics that portray men and women alike as being targeted by harassment, specifically because of their gender, prove that no one is free from uncomfortable scrutiny. There is no overabundance of kindness; if you see a person walking by on the street, smile. Tell them kindly that they look nice today. There shouldn’t be any fear of repercussions for respecting basic human dignity. If those boys had been friendly to her, I have it on good confidence that that seventh grade girl would have been just as friendly back.

opinion | column

MINORITY’S MAJORITY

JULIANNE FORD I

’ve never been shy about expressing how my Christianity shapes who I am as a person.

As I have become more aware of the world, I have realized that my political views have an equal say in what kind of person I am, despite the fact that my faith and my views are very different. In government class this year, I took a political spectrum quiz. I was surprised to find that even though I am a nondenominational Christian, my views are 96 percent in agreement with Jill Stein, a Green Party supporter. This test means that, in my own words, I’m as liberal as liberals can be and a minority among Christians.

According to Pew Research Center an astounding 76 percent of white evangelicals lean Republican, compared with just 20 percent who lean Democratic.

In my experience, people see being openly religious and liberal as an oxymoron. During the election season, my grandma came over to my house and we started talking—like grandmas and granddaughters do—about a boy. Out of nowhere she asked which presidential candidate I supported. I didn’t respond; I knew she would be angry if I did. With my silence came her answer. She knew I supported Hillary Clinton. She raised her voice and I didn’t know how to voice my opinion to her. My grandma, who leads Sunday school at her church, started arguing with me about how my views were wrong.

As a result of being religious, people naturally assume I don’t believe in gay marriage or abortions. Contrary to this assumption, I strongly support marriage equality and believe women have the right to control their own body. Today people believe in the stereotype that all Christians and other religious groups are conservative or lean right. However, I am living proof that this stereotype is incorrect.

A common definition of a liberal is one who is open minded. Jesus’ philosophy was similarly based in compassion, equality, inclusion, forgiveness, tolerance and peace,

and His most important sermon was on love.

In His time, Jesus was the most open minded and accepting one could be. By definition, then, Jesus is a liberal.

The Bible, when read front to back, essentially encourages liberal values. “Do not judge, lest you too be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” Matthew 7: 1-2. The liberals I side with tend to believe in equality for all, and

my political views clash with my religious ones, and that isn’t right. Who I vote for has nothing to do with Jesus’ unconditional love.

Saul in the Bible persecuted Christians and hated Jesus and His followers. He even received a warrant that allowed him to kill Christians. But through it all, Jesus loved him and had someone go to Saul’s house and pray for him. Subsequently, Saul changed his views completely and started preaching about what he once hated.

Today people believe in the stereotype that all Christians and other religious groups are conservative or lean right. However, I am living proof that this stereotype is incorrect. they believe no one should be judged for what they have done or are doing. That was what Jesus was preaching throughout His entire time on Earth. Jesus went around hanging out with prostitutes and criminals, something that many Christians would frown upon today.

One of Jesus’ most important messages is about not judging others for anything that makes them different, but in my experience Christians aren’t this accepting. The conservatives I know don’t support people that are drastically different than them, for example: people of different races, financial backgrounds and sexual orientations. I had a friend recently text me wondering if our youth leaders would look at him differently if they knew he was gay. I did what every Christian should do and responded that they would love and accept him no matter what, just like Jesus would have preached.

Being openly liberal in a conservative area leads to people misunderstanding where I am coming from. I am told all the time that

68 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

This is the kind of chain reaction I want to start in the world today. By being unconditionally kind and accepting, and by remaining true to my liberal values as well as my Christian ones, I want to make the world a better place. As proven by His love for Saul, His determination to help all that suffered and His devotion to the world, I believe that Jesus believed the same. I also believe that society should strive to love and accept anyone, despite their perceived faults.

As Matthew 5:44 says: “I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

CONFORMING CRISIS JESSICA JONES G

rowing up, I went to church every Sunday and enjoyed it because that’s what my family did. I didn’t think to question what I was being taught at the time. However, as I grew up I began to question a lot of what church was doing for me. I eventually concluded that religion just wasn’t for me because I don’t like giving all my faith and trust into something I don’t know is real. I live in a very Christian community, and as an agnostic there is always an underlying pressure to follow what the community does despite my own beliefs.

A person who has an idea forced onto them might experience a mental alteration called cognitive dissonance. In psychology, this idea refers to the discomfort experienced when a person has two or more contradictory attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. The theory suggests that we have an inner desire to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony, but this will inevitably fail if a conflicting idea is forced upon us.

It is a trending theme with parents or other adults to try to influence the way young adults think. However in the teenage years it is important to begin to form one’s own morals and values, and when other ideas are forced it can lead to a developing moral getting squished in the mind.

Not only is this happening in homes everywhere, but it is also seen in pushing societal norms. The way our society works is that there is usually one trait or behavior that is seen to be acceptable and normal and it is forced on the members of the group. However, if one person begins to do something outside of those norms they are ridiculed to a point where it would be hard to stand their ground.

A key example for this is LGBT conversion therapy, which is a psychological/ spiritual counseling used to change a person’s sexual orientation. For decades it has been rejected by mainstream medicine, but there are some who still believe that it is a viable way “fix”

homosexuality.

Research has shown that this does not work and actually causes great harm to those it is practiced on. The therapy fuels selfhatred and can cause mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. The forced idea that what they are feeling is wrong causes those affected to live a life that is not completely fulfilled.

One man who went through conversion therapy for years recalled that the therapist he

the world which might differ from the authoritative views they have grown up with. I, personally, have no problem with expressing my opinion when asked for it (given that I have enough information about the subject), but this can lead to backlash from those around me and pressure to think a different way, particularly by family. This situation is what tends to cause discomfort.

Some may want to please their family, but also want to keep their own ideas, so they

It is a trending theme with parents or other adults to try to influence the way young adults think. However in the teenage years it is important to begin to form one’s own morals and values, and when other ideas are forced it can lead to a developing moral getting squished in the mind. saw would tell him that his chances of getting into heaven were “shrinking everyday.”

He would also get copper strips tied to his wrists and heat would be sent through them whenever he was shown pictures of two men holding hands. Eighty-four percent of 400 conversion therapy survivors said that they are still affected by the harm caused by the therapy.

This is just an extreme example of the damage that can be caused by imposing on the free thoughts and actions of individuals.

One that is greatly felt by more people and seen more in today’s time is the actions pursued by peers and guardians of children.

Not all of these actions are negative. Some are needed because it teaches us how to act in a humane society. However, people should be allowed to determine their own opinions and morals when it comes to ideas that have more options like religion and politics.

Teens especially feel the effects of cognitive dissonance because they are just beginning to develop their own view of

have battling beliefs.

There is nothing wrong with sharing opinions; it leads to a diverse society.

However, there is a difference between sharing values and morals and forcing them on others, and our world needs to learn it. By forcing something, the diverse society that is formed by sharing is destroyed and that cannot be allowed to happen. We need to learn to be respectful of those whose views are different from our own because it opens us up to learning and discussion.

HEAD TO HEAD I

t’s Friday night. Phones are buzzing with party invites. “Bring your own beer” is the only requirement as teenagers happily gather.

Red Solo cups filled with hard liquor are passed around. Without any parents, they let loose and drink to their hearts’ content.

Teenagers are constantly bombarded with a pressure to attend parties with alcohol by watching various films, shows and music videos that portray it as the “cool thing to do.” With the typical high school experience including parties, dating, drugs and alcohol, high schoolers are

pressured to try things—whether it’s legal or not.

According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health report, 86.4 percent of 18 year olds have drank alcohol. 26.9 percent of those binge drank in the last month. Lowering the minimum drinking age to 18 will lead to more issues.

While drinking alcohol might be a relaxing and fun social experience, there are numerous negative consequences that go far beyond the Friday night parties. Ranging from hangovers to more absences in school, the effects completely outweigh the enjoyable hours of drinking.

In February 2017, an underage Miami University freshman student died in her dorm due to alcohol poisoning. Alongside, sororities and fraternities have dangerously included alcoholic drinking with their recruitment process or “rush” with alcoholic celebrations. Former Cornell University President David Skorton reports that drinking and drug use are two to three times more prevalent in the traditional Greek society groups than anywhere else in the student population at Cornell.

Having mandatory assemblies about the effects of underage drinking will teach students how risky alcohol can be. Also, implementing a zero tolerance policy will help alleviate the numbers.

In March 2017, Illinois joined the list of the previous three states of New Hampshire, California and Minnesota that tried to lower the drinking age to 18 years old with proposed bills. If the bill passes, they would be able to legally drink beer and wine in restaurants with a parent’s consent, though this wouldn’t apply to hard liquor or drinking at bars.

If these states were to pass the bill

DRINKING AGE

to lower the minimum age for drinking, this would allow more minors to have easier access to alcohol as it is easier to pass themselves off as being closer to 18 than 21 years old. Minors who do drink alcohol at a younger age have a higher risk of brain damage due to toxic chemicals from alcohol.

As alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, heavy and long term use can reduce the size of the hippocampus in the brain by 10 percent, according to a 2009 report by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

If minors were legally given the ability to drink, slowed reactions, lack of coordination, decreased heart rate, and other abnormal brain activities are prone to happen.

The key parts of the brain are more susceptible to the toxicity of alcoholism, according to University of California, San Diego neuroscientist Susan Tapert. Not only does alcohol affect the brain, it can negatively impact the growth of teenagers, such as imbalancing the development of organs, muscles, bones and reproductive system.

In a 2014 National Center for Biotechnology Information report, increasing the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 had a 16 percent median decline in car crashes. While it might not seem like much, it’s a major decrease from past decades. However, they continue to drive after drinking about 2.4 million times a month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While drinking alcohol can be a good social experience, being sober can even be better. Not only are minors able to remember the details of their nights out, they can avoid many issues.

There are various other ways to have fun that don’t involve alcohol in any way. Pop. Fizz.

Clink. Think before you drink.

Minors who do drink alcohol at a younger age have a higher risk of brain damage due to toxic chemicals from alcohol.

A bill proposed in Illinois has sparked debate over whether the legal drinking age should remain 21 or be lowered to 18. columns sidney li, lexy harrison photography cara satullo

B

ooze, beer and shots. These are words that the youth today are a bit too acquainted with. Underage drinking is a dilemma that has been debated for the past century due to the many dangers of alcohol. In order to eliminate illegal teenage drinking, the solution is to legalize teenage drinking.

The controversy surrounding the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) in the U.S. dates back to 1920 when the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol was completely prohibited. After 13 years, Prohibition ended and anyone at least 18 years old was allowed to drink. Then in July of 1984, former President Ronald Reagan raised the drinking age to 21 years old for three main reasons, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): drinking and driving, underage drinking, and public health problems.

Since this change, many people have spoken in favor of lowering the age back to 18 according to a Rasmussen Report survey, 40 percent of Americans believe the drinking age should be lower.

Underage drinking, whatever age that may be, has always been a problem in the U.S. Teens and young adults have easily found ways to drink despite knowing the dangers and consequences.

This form of rebellion is timeless, as displayed throughout American history. Prohibition proved failed to eliminate crime and other social problems. Instead, according to the History Channel, organized crime and the bootlegging of liquor skyrocketed.

History repeats itself and denying people the right to drink will only compel them to indulge in underage consumption. To fix this phenomenon, the drinking age needs to be lowered back down to 18-years-old to allow younger people to be exposed and familiarized

Because teenagers are banned from drinking, they overindulge and go on booze sprees, which are far more dangerous than day-today sips of wine.

to alcohol instead of being tempted to drink it behind closed doors. According to NBC Chicago, a bill was recently proposed in Illinois that would allow those at least 18 years old to be served wine and beer with their parents’ permission in restaurants, excluding hard liquor. This is a step in the right direction when it comes to addressing underage drinking.

More than 90 percent of all alcohol consumed by underage drinkers is consumed during binge drinking, according to the Institute of Medicine. Because teenagers are banned from drinking, they overindulge and go on booze sprees, which are far more dangerous than day-to-day sips of wine. Excessive drinking is responsible for more than 4,300 deaths among underage youth each year, according to a study by the CDC, and people 12 to 20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States, with more than 90 percent being consumed in the form of binges. The new bill should help put a stop to this risky operation. Allowing teens to drink mild alcohol in a controlled environment will keep them from indulging in the dangers of binge drinking.

According to University of California, San Diego neuroscientist Susan Tapert, drinking alcohol before or during puberty can negatively affect the growth and development of the human body. However, lowering the drinking age to 18-years-old will not affect these younger teenagers as they will have already finished puberty since, according to Medicine Net, puberty occurs between the ages of 10-14 for girls and 12-16 for boys.

To further support this case, a survey by the CDC found that in the past 30 days alone, 33 percent of high

schoolers recalled drinking and 20 percent said they drove in the car with someone who had been drinking. Additionally, according to the CDC, in 2010, there were approximately 189,000 emergency room visits by people under the age of 21 for injuries and other conditions linked to alcohol. To reduce these incidents, lowering the MLDA will make drinking not secretive and rebellious, but a normality.

opinion | guest column

RAMBLINGS ON NOSTALGIA SEAN SAWYER A

s you can hopefully extrapolate from the title, this is about nostalgia. Usually to experience nostalgia, however, you have to have life experience and maybe have constructed something resembling a grand narrative arc for your worthless life.

I’m nostalgic sometimes for the days when school was simpler, and life was easy, and I didn’t have this constant, gnawing fear that nothing means anything and that the search for happiness is a futile endeavor.

Yes, I understand that life is difficult from time to time, and occasionally a dose of nostalgia provides some much needed comfort. If you haven’t done it for a while, try it. Remember what you were doing a few years ago. If you get to the part of your life when you couldn’t talk, you’ve gone too far.

At least think about when you were cognizant first.

Maybe it’s something personal, so personal it almost feels like a perversion to even think of sharing it. Maybe you don’t even want to think of it at all; otherwise you’d just be wasting a valuable memory. Or maybe it’s something you haven’t thought of in too long, something that you might have forgotten if you hadn’t grasped at it just now.

That’s nostalgia, one of the most interesting emotions humans can muster.

Nostalgia has a surprisingly interesting history. In 1688, Johannes Hofer, a medical student writing his dissertation, coined the term nostalgia by mashing together the Greek words nóstos and álgos, meaning “homecoming” and “pain” respectively.

Nostalgia was at first thought of as a mental disorder, closely related to melancholy, what is referred to as depression today. Hofer associated it with the Swiss mercenaries working throughout Europe in the endless petty feuds of the Early Modern era. Soldiers purportedly displayed symptoms ranging from stomach aches to death from this strange new disease.

As time went on, people began to

conceive of nostalgia as a mere emotional state rather than a disease, a shift aided by the rise of Romanticism. The slightly obnoxious Romantic habit of claiming, stockpiling and ultimately legitimizing every strong emotional experience they could get their hands on was extended to nostalgia.

A longing for the good old days became fashionable around this time, with the good old days in question presumably being the ones where 95 percent of the population

Anyway, Trump intentionally keeps both the definition of “Great” and when exactly America was “Great” vague, because everyone has their own internal conception of it.

Now that I’ve made a big show of both celebrating and rebuking nostalgia, I have to present the boring nuanced perspective, the synthesis of thesis and antithesis in this improvised, bastardized, partially deliberate misunderstanding of the Hegelian dialectic

Nostalgia, applied sparingly, can be quite the nice personal treat when you’re having a bad go of things. But realize that your nostalgia is very much like the rest of your personality: a memory that is personally significant is rarely significant to anyone else. existed in a state of quasi-slavery tied to whatever parcel of land their distant ancestor signed them into, could be conscripted arbitrarily into the local pissy noble’s army, and relied exclusively on a capricious fusion of temporal and religious power called the Papal State for every social service. And don’t forget that this group also controlled the only thing of value anyone had—their soul. Truly those were the good old days.

That’s what makes nostalgia, this ostensibly warm and fuzzy thing, a problem.

We try to recreate it when it wasn’t even that good to begin with. This is a part of Donald Trump’s appeal (you knew I had to talk about him eventually), although he certainly isn’t the first to use an imagined past to inspire people to action. All slogans are by nature vague, but “Make America Great Again” is about as nebulous as it gets. The only conceivable slogan more meaningless would be something like “Probably Some Good Things, Guys” or maybe “Stronger Together.”

72 lakotaeastsparkonline.com May 2017

(In fairness, though, I suspect even Hegel didn’t understand Hegel).

Nostalgia, applied sparingly, can be quite the nice personal treat when you’re having a bad go of things. But realize that your nostalgia is very much like the rest of your personality: a memory that is personally significant is rarely significant to anyone else.

Enjoy your nostalgia, but keep it to yourself.

The world has more than enough of it to fuel the incomprehensible engine of human choice without yours.