The Shield (McCallum HS), Volume 66, Issue 5

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McCallum High School / 5600 Sunshine / Austin, TX 78756 / April 26, 2019 Issue 5 / Volume 66

SWEET SEASON

Boys soccer wins area championship page 29

After 16 years as principal, Mike Garrison to retire at summer’s end page 18

MORE INSIDE THIS ISSUE Alumni, colleagues honor memory of longtime Mac English teacher Michael Urick page 9

Young and old converge on Capitol to demand leaders do more to reverse global warming page 22

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After alleged threats to the school caused increased absences, McCallum hosted school safety presentations for students.

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Anna Daveres-Smith’s play brings the powerful story of the school-to-prison pipeline to the Zach Theatre stage.

Former students, colleagues honor longtime English teacher Michael Urick by remembering what made him special.

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the issue

DANCING FOR A DREAM: Sophomore Marlee Foster dances as Hermia in McCallum’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo by Risa Darlington-Horta.

people

After a survey revealed that students were stressed out, a group started ‘Wind Down Wednesdays’ to help them relax.

a&e

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In order to direct their one-act plays, theatre student had to learn how to maintain friendships while commanding respect.

We get down to VASE-ics with Mac artists who share the best and worst aspects of taking work to the annual art competition.

sports Kyla Gibson reveals how she started and what she loves about competing in shotput, discus events for track team.

Wiley and Crofut are the first senior athletes to sign on the dotted line to play their sport at the next level in the fall.

opinion

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Kylie Jenner, Alexis Ren and Sommer Ray. Has social media bragging made us too materialistic for our own good?

Now that all AISD schools named after Confederates have changed their names, we ask: was the renaming worth it?

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save

April/May

COVER: The boys soccer team gets hype before their third-round playoff game in San Marcos. The San Antonio Southwest Dragons would prevail, 2-0, ending the boys best season since 2006. Photo by Gabby Sherwood.

BBQ OR BUST: This issue’s Rhodes Traveled takes us around small-town Texas in search of the best barbecue our state has to offer. Photo by Max Rhodes.

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Varsity baseball vs. Lanier @ Northwest (senior night) Regional track meet @ Heroes (San Antonio) Senior prom @ Sterling Event Center JV1/2 baseball @ Lanier @ 11 a.m.

Volleyball booster club meeting @ library Late start CSA and PTSA meetings @ library Project Grad meeting @ library @ 5:30 State track meet @ Mike Myers cont. of State track meet @ Mike Myers Project Grad meeting @ library @ 5:30

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Reponse to response training mixed Some see training as helfpul; others believe it heightens anxiety ELISHA SCOTT staff reporter

The events of Feb. 14 at McCallum are still lingering in the minds of many students. As rumors spread that the friend of a recently arrested MAC student was going to open fire on the school, panic ensued, leading to low attendance and caution throughout the school.

In the aftermath of that incident, the administration stated that it is not going to stand around and wait for the next active shooter scare.

Instead, they would take action to better prepare students, staff and everyone else on campus in case a future situation like the events of Valentine’s Day occurs in the future.

“We’re always thinking about campus safety,” assistant principal Andy Baxa said. “We’re also thinking about what we can do to make our campus more secure moving forward,” On Thursday, March 7, exactly three weeks after the rumors spread, teachers, administration, office staff and custodians filed in to the cafeteria at 8:45 a.m. for mandatory critical response training. The training was lead by Amber Gardner and Grant Burnett, two officials from the AISD emergency management bureau, joined by Lieutenant Rodney Anderson of the AISD Police Department.

The training was a response to the threats made to McCallum on those few nerve-racking days in February. Although the training did not exclusively focus on an active shooter situation, it was a major part of it. The Shield has previously critiqued the fact that we only perform fire and lockdown drills once a month, during the same 22-minute time period at the end of first and fifth periods; because there has never been any training for an active shooter situation, the events of Feb. 14 left students and teachers even more concerned for their safety.

“My initial reaction was confusion and nerves because no one really knew what was going on,” sophomore Harper Cummings said. “I didn’t know what to do [in the case of an active shooter] and I don’t really now [either]. I don’t think you can really know what to do until it happens.”

In response to these threats, AISD set up this training to better inform the staff of what they are to do in these situations. The officials talked through a PowerPoint presentation listing off the different scenarios and subsequent procedures before receiving questions from the audience of teachers.

“Critical incident response training is required statewide and nationally now,” Gardner said.

“We provide it for staff members, specifically so that they are brought up to speed on what’s happening currently and how they can prepare.”

Monday through Thursday of the following week, each grade, on their assigned day, filed into the MAC theater to hear the presentation.

Students were shown the same PowerPoint before being able to comment and ask questions.

“It’s just very important to try to be proactive on these trainings and just get everyone’s minds in the emergency preparedness world,” Burnett said.

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“This is the age we live in now [so] you can’t freeze when these things arise; you need to have a plan.”

Many teachers found the training to be helpful, informative, and they were glad to see something being done to further the safety of the school. It allowed them to ask any questions they had and address their concerns.

“I think that in the wake of situations that have occurred that it’s in the district’s best interest to do everything they can to prepare us for any situation that occurs,” world history teacher Greg Anderson said. “The training that we received today did give some additional pointers but what they’ve been showing us and asking us to do has, in my five years at McCallum, been very different and much more proactive.”

Following the threats, some teachers talked to their students about what they would do in an active shooter situation. Some even took this opportunity to talk to administration about possible changes they wanted to see to the future of safety training at McCallum. “[My students and I] had a couple of conversations after recent events,” Anderson said. “I take it very seriously and their safety is very important to [me], And [so is discussing] the dangers of rumors and the dangers of loose talk on social media, especially in this day and age, [because they] can be just as dangerous as an actual threat as we saw play out.”

The school has already made many changes to the campus and its environment. After a massive on Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead and more seriously injured and traumatized, McCallum

The administration wants students to know, however, that the best thing they can do is to say something when they see or hear any suspicious activity so the appropriate people can handle it in a timely manner. It is important for them to know as soon as possible when the school might be in danger so action can be taken to prevent it.

“We want [students] to come to us with any threats even if you don’t think it’s credible or don’t know if it’s credible,” Baxa said. “The biggest thing we do as a campus is educate, make sure everyone knows to be mindful and to be vigilant, and notify us because [the students] are the first line.”

The merits of see something, say something were illustrated on March 15 when a student alerted McCallum administrators that another student had made a threat on the McCallum campus via social media. The AISD police investigated the threat, identified the student and detained the student for questioning.

Although Officer John Yoder declined to comment further due to concern of breach of confidentiality, he gave the same advice to students.

“The best advice I can give [students] is, if you TOP: On March 7, Grant Burnett gave see something, say something,” Officer Yoder said.

McCallum a safety training. “It’s just Some staff members, however, took issue very important to try to be proactive on with the actions taken to prepare students for these trainings and just get everyone’s hypothetical attacks on the campus. They don’t minds in the emergency preparedness believe it’s necessary to focus on training because world,” Burnett said. “This is the age we it raises anxiety levels. live in now [so] you can’t freeze when “I feel OK about [the lack of active shooter these things arise; you need to have a training] because I think the chances of that plan.” Photo by Dave Winter. happening have been proven to be well below 1 percent,” U.S. history teacher Oakley Barber RIGHT: On March 6, Junior Marisa said. “I think that all this attention we’re giving Goodson asks Burnett a question. Photo to active shooters and school shootings, while to

by Elisha Scott. some degree sensible, is also contributing to this implemented its own program: LOCK. Students epidemic of anxiety.” experience the LOCK program every day when Barber believes that being prepared is important they choose to take an outdoor route to class and but that we shouldn’t continue to dwell overly on find the door they’re trying to use is locked. these events and threats, as it instills fear and “We have taken steps over the last couple anxiety in students about coming to school. years to make our campus more secure,” Baxa Baxa wants to spread a similar mentality to said. “That started last year when we started students when it comes to balancing anxiety instituting the LOCK and preparedness. He is program [for] more “The biggest thing we do as a taking action to prevent awareness. If you rumors and threats campus is educate, make sure see something, say from affecting the something [and] make everyone knows to be mindful McCallum community sure we keep our doors the future, but he also and to be vigilant, and notify us in locked.” doesn’t want students LOCK requires that because [the students] are the to worry for their safety outside doors be locked because it does create first line. at all times during school so much negativity and hours unless designated —assistant principal Andy Baxa chaos. to remain unlocked, “The biggest advice that all classroom doors I’d have for students automatically lock when closed, that students be is just try to go about your life, live your life, made aware of who to call (an administrator) in don’t live in fear of what’s going to happen, the case of suspicious activity and also that they be enjoy your day, enjoy your time,” Baxa said. made aware of emergency procedures. Although it’s “But at the same time, be mindful of your left students all over campus knocking on doors for surroundings, be mindful of who and what’s someone to left them back in, the LOCK program going on around you and be nice to people.” was deemed necessary by the district and by the Anderson believes that addressing safety MAC administration. issues is a necessary step toward safety “I’ve actually already seen very positive but regrets the heightened anxiety that he changes on this campus,” Anderson said. “The acknowledges is a consequence. policy of locking doors [and] of the teachers “I’m sorry that this is even a thing that we wearing their badges,” Anderson said. “These have to talk about,” Anderson said, addressing seem like very simple things but they make a big the students. “I’m sorry that this is an aspect of difference; if you don’t have identification, you your youth, of growing up in this time period have not been approved to be in the building.” because it shouldn’t be that way.”

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Teachers’ rally cry: ‘Fund Our Schools’

Red-For-Ed Rally convenes at Capitol to advocate for teacher and staff raises, use of Rainy Day Fund GRAYSON CRUISE staff reporter

Hundreds of teachers and public education supporters rallied on a Monday at the State Capitol building. The crowd grew larger every minute as more joined in the Red-for-Ed rally, which reached Austin on March 11. Buses gathered around the Capitol, carrying with them teachers and students from as close as neighboring Austin ISD schools to as far as hundreds of miles away.

State officials have made public school finance the priority of this legislative session in Texas, and educators said that they want to emphasize that real-school finance reform begins with a significant increase in public education funding.

The legislative Budget Board has determined that at present, the state pays for only 38 percent of the Foundation School Program--the basic school finance plan--while local property taxpayers pay 62 percent. Adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending in Texas has dropped by 20 percent since 2008, which is the largest drop of any state during that period, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The event kicked off at 11 a.m. with a series of speeches then moved to lunch and a second rally that afternoon at 1:45 p.m. Everyone down at the Capitol had just one thing on their minds: future students simply needed better-funded teachers and custodians.

There were also precursor events, like a band playing on the Capitol’s front steps, and carpools with fellow teachers. Meanwhile, within the walls of the Capitol, reporters gathered in the Speaker’s Committee Room with the leaders and speakers that would be primary voices at the rally throughout the day.

Speakers included Harlandale ISD bilingual teacher Aissa Velazquez, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers Louis Malfaro and president of the Texas State Teachers Association Noel Candelaria.

In the morning, they spoke to cameras, not people in order to reach those who could not make it to the rally in person that day.

Afterward, when the bustle and band quieted down, educators and presidents alike took the spotlight and set the stage for their ralliers.

Everybody cheered as Candelaria and Malfaro, among others, took the stage. They all collectively spoke in protest of the average Texan teacher salary of $53,000, which is $7,300 lower than the national average. They expressed their concern about the $5,000 pay raise that will be afforded only to teachers and librarians if the bill is passed as currently written. Speakers vehemently pled with legislators to expand the scope of the raise to include all staff workers and custodians because, as they pointed out, all employees work together for students.

Furthermore, everyone at the rally expressed opposition to the system of “merit pay,” which changes teacher and staff pay to be based off a system that considers factors like test scores and student attendance. Finally, they were advocating the use of the Texas Rainy Day

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SOUND-OFF AT THE STEPS: Whether the speakers were rank-and-file teachers or the presidents of statewide teachers organizations, the speakers shared similar experiences of hardships how to overcome them. The sign game of those in the crowd was strong. Photo by Grayson Cruise.

Fund, a emergency fund that attendees believed should be dipped into to address current critical issues.

“Millions of the country’s public schools kids are educated in Texas, and by next year, this state is expected to have $15 billion in rainy day funds available to invest in public schools,” Weingarten said. “Ask any educator or any parents what $15 billion could mean for kids, for teachers and for schools, and they’ll tell you it means: safe, welcoming, high-quality public schools for every kid in Texas, not just some.

It means holding charter schools accountable when they don’t meet the needs of kids. It means art, music and language programs, school counselors and nurses, new textbooks and salaries for educators that mean they don’t have to work two and three jobs.”

He added that legislative accountability is essential when it comes to school reform.

“Here in Texas and everywhere around the country, we want our public schools to be at the center of our communities; we want our teachers to be able to teach,” Weingarten said. “We want our elected leaders to fund our future, and to mean it when they say they want to invest in our kids. And we’re going to hold them to it.”

Teacher pay was a central topic to those in attendance. Most non-teacher staff members, like Sybil Hunter, who works in Houston ISD, are only paid on actual school days and cannot find other jobs during the summer to pay needed expenses such as bills and groceries. Hunter said that as a result they are often left stuck and dependent on other Please continue reading on the next page.

PRESIDENT ON PEDESTAL: Texas Amercan Fedederation of Teachers President Louis Malfaro stands upon the pedestal outside the Texas Capitol, speaking into the microphone. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten to his immediate right. Photo by Grayson Cruise.

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continued from previous page family members or friends to aid them, if they weren’t doing that in the first place, what with the already low-pay they get.

Hunter said that some legislators also are ignoring the important role played by all school employees, not just educators.

“It takes a team to educate our kids, so to promote pay raises just for teachers doesn’t recognize the hard work of bus drivers, counselors, nurses, teacher aides and all the other folks who are critical in making sure our students succeed,” she said. “My co-workers and I struggle with wages that are nowhere near what it takes to survive in Houston, and yet we don’t ever get the support and recognition we need to keep giving it our all every day in schools.”

According to the Brookings Institute, as many of 40 percent teacher in Texas work second or even third jobs n order to feed their families and make enough money to live, especially in the bigger cities.

The poor pay also dissuades qualified teachers from choosing or remaining to be teachers.

Traci Dunlap, an Austin ISD kindergarten teacher, has had to get a second job in the past in order to work as a teacher and is once again considering it due to the low pay.

Dunlap also reminded legislators that misuse of standardized testing is yet another issue that should be addressed because it erodes the values of the teaching profession and the ability of kids to think both critically and creatively. Instead of actually teaching them how to be successful, she said, she spends her time preparing them for future tests.

“I’m not even teaching a grade tested by STAAR, yet I’m spending the majority of my time assessing students with tests and even prepping them for the standardized tests to come,” she said. “My colleagues and I also face the prospect of being paid according to how well our students perform on the STAAR test, which isn’t designed to evaluate teachers. We need a real pay raise, not merit pay.”

Those at the rally were very respectful of speaker Aissa A. Velazquez, a Harlandale ISD bilingual teacher, and her personal story. She said her poor salary has made her school health insurance unaffordable for her and her family, forcing them to deal with several medical hardships.

“My health insurance plan was so expensive and coverage was very little, to the point where we dropped it,” she said. “Even with insurance, our family always faced bills in the mail because of the high deductible. Our premium kept rising, year after year, and the higher it went, the less our policy covered.

Our family was facing a monthly premium of $1,400 and a $5,000 deductible. We were being robbed. Now, we are saving that $1,400 a month in our own family health savings account, and we are hopeful in the Lord that all will continue to go well for us.”

After all of the speakers were done stressing the significance of the Rainy Day Fund and its usage in helping public educators and their staff all across the state, the rally was over, and those attending had an hour to break and get inside the Capitol, which proved no easy task.

At around 1:45 pm, inside the Capitol’s rotunda, Malfaro and Candelaria led the avid supporters who were crowding the rotunda with various songs and chants that advocated change with school funding and helping Texan children grow up with the resources they need.

It was a breathtaking sight (and sound), with over 200 people all singing in unison. Everyone had lost their voices by the time it was done, and with that, the rally was over for most at the Capitol.

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Lunch At The Capitol: While rallying, teachers from all around the state gathered for lunch in various places around the Capitol, listening to each other’s stories and reasons for being at the march, taking photos and eating with their new friends.

Texas American Federation of Teachers president T. Louis Malfaro stands at the pedestal in the Speaker’s Committee Room.

To the left of him are speakers—Austin ISD kindergarten teacher Traci Dunlap and Houston ISD support professional Sybil Hunter.

“Everything is bigger in Texas,” Malfaro said, “including the number of kids in our public schools, and the number of students who are disadvantaged and need extra support, so we need a big, bold investment in our future.

And we’re also asking legislators to recognize that what’s good for educators is good for the students they teach, so that means making sure our school employees can earn a dignified living and can afford to be healthy and ready to inspire our kids to achieve.”

Posters for Protest: Staff members, teachers and students stand with one another, waving cleverly made signs to show just how much they want higher pay for those working in schools, showcasing specific aspects of existing issues and how they should be changed.

Photos by Grayson Cruise.

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Just Fund It, Texas

Grassroots club has a simple message for the state legislature: direct more money to education BELLA RUSSO staff reporter

In a time where it seems like activism is dominated by Instagram rants and hordes of recycled, witty protest posters, Just Fund It TX, a grassroots, student-led campaign has turned to love letters to get their point across. Best of all, the new collective’s message is simple: Texas public schools could really use more funding.

“Whenever people talk about funding and legislation, it’s always so complicated and jumbled together that no one really wants to participate in it,” junior Gwyneth Yeager said, “So our goal isn’t to figure out how to solve the problem; that is the legislature’s job. Our goal is just to make them aware that we need more funding. We’re trying to make it as simple as possible, so that people can actually join our cause and help us.”

The collective traces its origins to 2018’s heated district budget debate. Many of its founding members were drawn to the debate because they were worried that their extracurriculars would suffer as a result of funding cuts. Delani Jah, a sophomore orchestra member, and Emily Freeman, a senior color guard member, were two of the students who spoke to the Board of Trustees about how a decrease in funding would negatively affect the school. After campaigning against rumored funding cuts to McCallum programs, however, the students of Just Fund It TX realized that the issue ran much deeper than AISD. “There are 5.4 million people in Texas public schools,” Yeager said. “That’s a 10th of the students in the entire country. It’s a lot of people,” Yeager said, “And we are being grossly underfunded.”

The National Education Association rated Texas 36th in the nation for per-student funding. For the 2017-2018 school year Texas spent an average of $9,471 per student. This puts Texas pretty close to the center in terms of national ranking, as high spending averages fall in the $23,000 range, and low averages land around $7,000. This analysis, however, doesn’t represent how much funding Texas schools actually need. If Texas schools were to receive more funding, the group believes public schools could benefit from smaller class sizes, the ability to attract and retain high-quality teachers and the opportunity to better engage students with arts, music, computer science and other vital programs. With the state’s controversial recapture system redistributing funding to districts with lower property taxes, many believe that education funding needs to be a target of legislative reform.

Just Fund It TX hopes to shed some much needed light on the complicated, often confusing Texas education funding system in order for all Texans to make their voices heard during the debate. Although the club is still relatively new to the game, the grassroots collective has already built a website, created multiple social media accounts, under the handle @justfundittx, and developed a number of campaigns on each platform to spread awareness and advocate

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TAKING CONTROL OF THEIR FUTURES: Members of Just Fund It TX club: sophomore Denali Jah, sophomore Natalie Suri, junior Gwyneth Yeager, sophomore Meg Rowan and senior Emily Freeman. Photo by Bella Russo. for more school funding. Their biggest and most popular project so far is a love letterwriting mission. The goal of the project is to send as many postcards to Texas legislatures as possible. Each postcard includes a handwritten message of why the Texas public school system is important to them, what they love about it and what they think could improve with more funding. To draw attention to their cause, club members have begun distributing blank postcards, each printed with student designed artwork, around the Austin community and to school districts across the state in the hopes of flooding the Texas State Capitol with love letters during the current legislative session.

“A lot of [politicians] just don’t want to listen to you if they already think [they’re] giving you this much, and you don’t even appreciate that,” Yeager explained, “So we’re just trying to show them how we really do appreciate everything that is happening in public schools, but we need so much more.”

The group draws inspiration for its constructive protest methods from the nonviolent activism of America’s historical social movements.

“All of the most effective protests have been peaceful, like black rights, gay rights,” sophomore Marlon Gattis said. “All of the failures recently

Graphic by Bella Russo.

have been these massively angry protests that lead nowhere. It’s refreshing.”

Along with the letter writing campaign, Just Fund It TX also has a petition on change.org that has now collected more than 4,000 signatures from individuals across the country. The group has a number of ways for others to get involved.

On their website, prospective volunteers can find step-by-step instructions on how to support the cause, including hosting a house party, presenting at a community meeting or writing editorials for local newspapers. For now, Just Fund It TX has its largest club presence at McCallum, but one of the collective’s biggest

goals is expanding into other AISD campuses.

The group hopes that by establishing a strong base in Austin, their cause will then spread across the entire state.

“We’re hoping to reach out to more Austin schools, and by that point, there will be established clubs [in each school],” Denali Jah said. “Getting those clubs set up within the next few years is something that we want to happen.

We’re not necessarily super hopeful that it will happen in our graduation time, but it needs to be an establishment that will continue past us, if not already by our graduation.”

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Reagan rename takes different direction Trustees vote to remove Confederate monikers, changing Lanier to Navarro, Reagan to Northeast JAZZABELLE DAVISHINES staff reporter

After more than a year of deliberation and debate, the much anticipated and highly contested name change of two AISD high schools with Confederate namesakes has finally occurred. On Feb. 26, 2019, the AISD Board of Trustees voted to rename John H. Reagan Early College High School.

It was originally named for John H. Reagan, a former Texas congressman and chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas.

However, Reagan was also the Secretary of the Treasury in the Confederate Cabinet and a staunch supporter of slavery in the United States.

On March 25, the board voted to change the name of Lanier High School to Juan Navarro High School. Navarro is an alumnus of the school who was killed while serving in the United States Armed Forces in Afghanistan in 2012.

The naming of buildings and organizations in honor of historical figures who were in support of the Confederacy or otherwise held racist beliefs has been a debate for several years now. Austin has seen multiple changes as a result of the conversations, such as when the University of Texas at Austin removed

statues depicting Confederate officers.

Some say that history should not be erased, while others argue that the preservation of history is possible without condoning racism.

“This name change has been a challenge for our school,” Reagan English teacher Joe Dunlap said. “It will be expensive, and there are many alumnae who are not happy about changing the name of their old school; however, it is the right thing to do.”

While the merit of the decision has been debated, the cost of renaming the school is a fact. Changing marquees, jerseys and more will be expensive. One proposal to minimize the cost at Reagan was to eliminate the first name and middle initial from the title, leaving just Reagan High School as the name; this idea, however, was rejected. Another suggestion was to name the school after president Barack H. Obama, but this idea was also eventually rejected.

After a great deal of deliberation, the board reached a conclusion. The final decision for the new name was Northeast High School.

A name based on location, rather than a person, is a different direction from other renamings. Several other schools that have been renamed in the district, such as Sarah Lively Middle School and Navarro High School, were also done so because of Confederate

ABOVE: The marquee of Reagan High School.

Photo by Jazzabelle Davishines.

RIGHT: John H. Reagan in office as Postmaster-General of the Confederate States. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. ties, but Reagan is the first school so far to receive a name based on location rather than a significant person.

“During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, there was a wave of Confederate monuments and statues created in opposition to African American’s struggle for equal rights,” Dunlap said. “Reagan High School was built in 1964, and named after a cabinet member of the Confederate government. It is way past time to erase this reminder of a shameful past.”

There was only one vote against the name

change on the board, coming from board member Ann Teich. Despite this disagreement, the motion was passed. However, the controversy surrounding the change, due to both emotional and historical ties to the historic name of the institution, may affect future discussion concerning renaming AISD schools.

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Talking it out

Austin Police Department, McCallum open up for a series of roundtable discussions BELLA RUSSO staff reporter

The divide was obvious, as it was meant to be.

T-shirts clashed against uniforms, backpacks against handguns, solemn teenagers against badge-clad cops. They gathered in the McCallum library, each side sitting in a row of opposing chairs. Less like a press conference and more like an investigation, the students asked question after question. The cops shared their stories.

For two hours, the room full of students, law enforcement officers, a handful of teachers and a few cameras listened.

This conversation, held in the McCallum library after school on Monday, April 2, was the first of three roundtable discussions between teens and police to take place at McCallum.

The project is an initiative funded by the Austin Police Department in an effort to shine a positive light on the relationship between students and cops. In order to portray this relationship, APD reached out to AISD with the idea of collaborating with student filmmakers on a series of short films, and McCallum, with its impressive AV program, was chosen as the pilot school for the project.

The project that APD first pitched to McCallum looked much different than the roundtable that was held in the library that Monday. Although the project’s intention was to be a collaboration between students and law enforcement, head liaisons Lucy Griswold and Heather Ramsay agreed that if McCallum was to participate in the APD project, there were some changes that needed to be made in order for the process to be as genuinely collaborative as possible.

“Initially, APD proposed that we create a series of videos that taught teens what to do in interaction with law enforcement,” Griswold said. “We thought that if McCallum was going to be a part of this project, we wanted to look closer at the reason why teens fear those interactions with law enforcement rather than just simply accepting the narrative that exists that teens need to act a certain way, and that’s how to smooth out the friction that exists.”

Junior Ivy Ortiz remembers seeing the public relations video that was shown during one of the first focus groups held to recruit students to participate in the project. The video showed a group of teenagers, mostly people of color, playing a basketball game. All of a sudden, a group of cops pull up to their neighborhood court. The game stops. The police officers step out of their cars and line up like in an action movie; for a second, it looks like there will trouble. Then, like magic, one of the cops picks up the basketball that one of the teenagers had let drop to the ground, and the game begins again. This video was one of the reasons that motivated Ortiz and many others to apply to be a “Safety and Inclusion Fellow” in the first place. Many of the students in the focus group had witnessed this exact situation, except it had lost all its magic in real life. In their experience, when cops showed up to their basketball games, the interactions were not always as amicable.

“If I saw a cop, I wouldn’t start shooting

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Austin Police Department officers work together to respond to a poster activity. The roundtable participants wrote down their perceptions of teenagers and police officers and then came together to discuss those perceptions. Photo by Bella Russo. hoops with them. They’re shooting kids,” Ortiz said. “It’s normally not [in cops] interest to get invested with students, and so we need to show that this doesn’t happen. That’s not a real thing.”

The 13 students who became the project’s Safety and Inclusion Fellows said they knew that demands had to be made to make the collaboration genuine and worthwhile. Together, they began the process of reshaping the project to include the voice of its students. The structure of a roundtable, one where teens and cops would be given the platform to share their experiences and perspectives, came into shape. Griswold said that the goal was not ultimately to get the two sides to agree, only to provide each party with an understanding of the other. In an effort to amplify the voices of the teenagers participating in the project, head liaisons Lucy Griswold and Heather Ramsay stepped back and gave all control of the roundtable to students.

“Rather than create public relations content for APD, we wanted to create a documentary film or documentary short, and the goal of that was to develop understanding rather than to reconcile these differences,” Griswold said. “We changed the product from an advertising piece to a documentary film. We wanted to build a project where police and teens came as equals and where the messaging was in the students’ hands. Students set the agenda, students facilitate the conversation, and students have editorial control over what we make.”

The event opened with a poster-writing activity where the officers and students wrote down their perceptions of themselves and each other on separate posters, and then switched posters and responded to those perceptions.

Then the much-anticipated roundtable conversation took flight, and the students and officers were given the opportunity, guided by student questions, to discuss their motivations, life experiences and personal beliefs.

“Everybody was relaxed and open; I felt like there were some serious barriers broken, [and] we got to express things that we normally don’t talk about,” Officer Marcos Johnson said. “We opened up and talked about personal experiences, and I’ve never gotten to do that before, especially during a panel.”

Even though the purpose of the event was to get to know the other side of the story, the fellows said they still felt it necessary to make sure that the discussion remained an accurate representation of the relationships that most teens hold with police officers. They had asked that the officers wear their uniforms, even if that meant by policy that they also had to be armed, to make it clear that they were entering the conversation as two sides: teens and police.

The students also debated whether or not to even introduce themselves to the cops.

When on duty, cops weren’t friends or neighbors, but badges and walkie talkies and guns. In the end, a short circle introduction was the extent of the niceties. The group also told the officers that it was OK to feel uncomfortable at times when responding to certain questions, and that they did their best to put in place a structure where everyone could talk in turn without anyone’s voice being overshadowed. All of these details were chosen by the students to ensure that all aspects of the conversation remained focused on what was

important: that they develop an understanding among themselves.

The final product from McCallum’s collaboration with APD will be a studentdirected documentary film from members of the AV program showcasing the roundtable conversations. Currently, there is even talk of the district renting out the Alamo Drafthouse to showcase the film. The collaboration won’t end with McCallum, though, as APD plans to use the roundtable model and its structure to other schools to allow similar discussion.

“I want there to be a basic understanding of cops,” Ortiz said, “because I don’t understand them [and] I don’t trust their actions.”

Ortiz said she hopes that through discussing and sharing their experiences with law enforcement to officers, both groups will have a greater empathy for each other.

Other fellows agree that understanding why cops do what they do and why teens do what they do is important for both sides, and with this understanding comes safety and comfort and trust.

Griswold doesn’t expect that three roundtables is enough to fix the relationships between law enforcement and kids. After all, “the smartest people in the country are working to fix that problem,” she said. Instead, Griswold sees this as an opportunity for students to assert their voices in the community who might not have a platform to otherwise.

“I see this as a chance to elevate studentproduced work that centers the student’s positions,” Griswold said. “And then I also think that there’s a lesson to be learned. I don’t want to downplay the potential and the possibilities of sitting down and talking things out. I think there’s power in that. I think it’s this kind of lesson in how change happens in our society that students can only get by participating in their community in a project like this.”

Freshmen Michealian Trachtenburg and Andrea Vazquez participate in the Monday round table with Photo by Bella Russo APD.

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Photo courtesy of Jennifer St. Lawrence

When Urick was in high school, he had a job working concert stage security. “I enjoyed working on stage with bands like Led Zeppelin ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers...and many others,” he said. File photo from the Knight archive.

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1998

Photo from 1998 Knight.

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2008

Photo from 2004 Knight.

Photo from 1998 Knight.

Photo from 2008 Knight.

Remembering Michael Urick

Alums recall his love of music, Hawaiian shirts and his knack for bolstering his students’ confidence MIA TERMINELLA staff reporter

Sometimes the simplest gestures have the most profound impact. Ezra Ferrell learned this in her senior English class when turning in a poetry project. For the final assignment, students were required to go up in front of the class and present the idea behind their work.

After presenting, students placed the final product in a bin. When Ferrell went to put her paper in the bin, however, her teacher, Michael Urick, placed his hand directly over it so Ferrell would have to place the poem directly in his hand. While the presentations resumed, Urick read the entirety of Ferrell’s two-page poem, wiping away a few tears. After class ended, Urick stopped Ferrell and said he knew that she was going to do great things.

“I will never, ever forget that,” Ferrell said.

“The memory has helped me through hard times. I think about him every time I see a Hawaiian shirt.”

Urick, former McCallum English teacher, passed away this March. He retired this past June after teaching English for more than 30 years at McCallum. He told The Shield last May that he loved every day of his teaching career.

“I told myself I would keep teaching until I

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reached retirement or hated it, but I haven’t hated it yet,” he said.

Urick said in the same interview that his favorite memory from teaching was seeing his students graduate and move on with their lives. He said his greatest lesson from three decades working in education was the value in taking it easy.

“Don’t stress out because it’s not worth it,” he said. “It seems like there is little drama every day, but it’s not enough to ruin your life.”

Urick left a lasting impression on generations of McCallum students and colleagues.

The response to his obituary post on the MacJournalism Facebook page reached 27,910 Facebook users after being shared 290 times. The post garnered 125 comments and 398 reactions.

All of these numbers are record numbers for the Facebook account. When followers were asked to share stories and remembrances of Urick, the responses kept on coming and coming.

Many remembered his fondness for Hawaiian shirts, which he once described as “subtle, but still flashy enough to catch a kid’s attention.”

Others described his love of music. Still, others spoke of how he inspired confidence in the way he responded to the work they submitted in his class.

Alum Hunter Townsend, for example, said that Urick was the first person she saw truly get excited about anything she had written.

Townsend wrote about going for a run in the middle of the night, and Urick’s feedback has stuck in her mind.

“I can vividly remember the moment he handed the paper back to me,” Townsend said, “and how he was smiling when he said he felt like he had been running right alongside me.”

According to McCallum alumni, Urick’s actions were small but meaningful. Many also remarked that Urick taught them even more about life than about English. Alum Juestin Franklin said that Urick would always say, “Stay the person you are, and never let the world change you,” a message that he said has stuck with him.

Urick’s impact was not limited to his students.

English teacher Diana Adamson said that Urick made his mark in life through his good nature and sense of humor. She also talked about how Urick’s interests shined through when she talked to him.

“He had a lot of interests outside of school that would be surprising to people,” Adamson said.

“Like music, God, he knew a lot about music.”

Adamson in particular emphasized Urick’s devotion to his teaching.

“He really did do his best, even when he got older and was sick,” Adamson said. “He still came in, and his dedication was the most important thing.”

Another one of Urick’s former colleagues, Carol

Graham, knew Urick for more than 40 years.

Their paths first crossed during the ’70s and ’80s in the Austin music and nightclub scene, then crossed again when Graham was teaching Urick’s stepson at Lamar, and then once again two years later in 1997 when the two became coworkers at McCallum. Graham took Urick’s previous position as the DTLT, or “technology liaison” for the school.

“There were all of the Hawaiian shirts, the shared love of fishing, talking about old Austin and our shared students,” Graham said.

She described Urick as a Renaissance man, saying he experienced many careers and reinvented himself multiple times. She also said he was very well-read, a lover of music and art and cared deeply about many individuals.

Urick’s compassion touched many. When asked what they would say to Urick now, many responded by thanking him for teaching them to believe in themselves.

“May your soul find peace as you move on into the next journey,” Graham said. “May God bring comfort and strength to all who have shared in your Earthly journey.”

Alum Florence Briceno wishes that “the perpetual light shine upon him,” and she would like to thank Urick “for four years of dedication in teaching life’s lessons.”

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Javier Niño leaves a classical legacy McCallum 2018 graduate Javier Niño, a freshman at St. Edwards University, passed away Wednesday Feb. 27 in a car accident. Niño was studying to be a computer engineer, a lifelong dream he described in the biography that appeared on the inside cover of the 2018 Knight yearbook. He was one of 44 people chosen to be featured on last year’s cover for their notable achievements beyond the McCallum campus.

Another notable achievement of his was his classical guitar major at McCallum. Niño attended Eastside Memorial High School for a year, but auditioned and got into the Fine Arts Academy and began taking private guitar lessons. After his passing, Austin Classical Guitar, with the support of Niño’s friend and fellow 2018 graduate Aaron Baldauf, created the Javier Niño Memorial Scholarship Fund on April 3 to help pay for other students to take lessons and continue their classical guitar education.

“Javi was a leader among his peers,” Matt Hinsley from Austin Classical Guitar wrote. “He distinguished himself academically and musically.

This fund is created in his honor to assist other students who show promise to take a similar path.”

—Kristen Tibbetts

Javier Niño smiles after graduating as a classical guitar major in 2018.

Photo courtesy of Grace Brady.

Surrounded by supporters and the Austin capitol, O’Rourke describes his views and emphasizes the importance of the upcoming election. Photo by Gregory James.

News in a

After launching ’ 20 bid, O’Rourke rallies in Austin

FLASH

Beto O’Rourke announced his 2020 presidential campaign on March 30 from his hometown of El Paso. After holding rallies in El Paso and Houston, O’Rourke continued his campaign for the presidency in Austin in front of a crowd that filled three blocks along Congress Avenue. The crowd responded with loud applause when he voiced his opinions on topics such as immigration, women’s health, gerrymandering and universal health care.

“I sure hope he has a chance, and I’m really excited to hear what he has to say, and I think all of these people out here would agree,” rally attendee Sheila Berry said.

O’Rourke expressed optimism and determination for the long campaign ahead.

“I want to make sure that given the

challenges and the threats to our democracy before us, that we do not meet them with only half measures or only half the country.

It’s going to take all of us and everything that we’ve got,” he proclaimed.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler and District 49 Texas Representative Gina Hinojosa both gave speeches in support of O’Rourke, and singer Tamica Jones warmed up the crowd with a vocal performance. Student organizers from Houston Tillotson and the University of Texas also spoke at the event.

It was a historic night for the O’Rourke campaign. He has his work cut out for him as he is one of more than two dozen Democratic presidential candidates trying to distinguish themselves to voters.

—Evelyn Griffin and Gregory James

Shield dream team qualifies for UIL State After sweeping the competition in the UIL District 25-5A Academic Meet in Lockhart on March 30, sophomores Bella Russo, Ellen Fox and junior Kristen Tibbetts traveled to San Antonio Saturday April 13 for the regional meet and brought home three individual medals and a team third place.

In the district meet at Lockhart High School, Fox placed first in copy editing and in editorial writing and also qualified for region in headline writing by placing third in that event. Russo placed first in feature writing and qualified for regionals in two other events with third-place finishes in copy editing and news writing. Tibbetts captured first place in news writing and qualified for regionals in feature writing after finishing second. Senior staff reporter Diamante Diaz, who was unable to attend the region meet, was the district headline writing champion and finished second in news writing.

The regional meet was much more competitive with around four times the number of students in each event. Tibbetts and Russo finished first and second for feature writing and will move onto state,

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Kristen Tibbetts, Ellen Fox and Bella Russo smile outside of McCallum after their team placed third at the Region UIL meet at UT-San Antonio on April 13. Photo by Stella Shenkman. which will be held at the University of Texas in Austin Friday on May 3. Tibbetts, who received fourth place in news writing, qualified as an alternate in that event.

“I’m happy that the people who won have been a big part of our success all year,” adviser Dave Winter said. “Their winning at UIL is a chance for everyone else to know what I already know about them, how great they are.”

—MacJournalism news team

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Art imitates in life path to prison play Students see play at Zach Scott theater, see the American education system in a new light.

KELSEY TASCH assistant editor

On two Saturdays in March—the 9th and the 16th—McCallum students filed into the rows of the audience, tickets and name tags in tow. Within the walls of the Kleberg Building at the Zach Scott theatre, Notes From the Field was about to begin. Notes from the Field is a play written by Anna Deavere Smith, and consists of 16 characters played by an all-black cast of four actors.

Notes from the Field is a theatrical performance about the school to prison pipeline. It explores 16 different experiences, from real-life interviews conducted by Deavere Smith. The play was wrought with emotional monologues, expressive movements and interactions and an engaging use of minimal stage props.

Ethnics Studies teacher and chaperon on the trip Lucy Griswold described the schoolto-prison pipeline to The Shield before the play began. Often, students who are labeled “deviant” in school find that that label sticks with them through the rest of their life.

“The school-toprison pipeline is a term that is used to refer to the reality that students who have a run-in with law enforcement or with school - b a s e d

authorities are significantly more likely to end up under the watch of the criminal justice system later in life,” Griswold said. “Even something like a suspension increases a student’s probability of incarceration later in life, significantly.”

Sculpture and photography teacher Carey West was the one who first brought the opportunity to students. West is one of four Creative Learning Initiative leaders on the McCallum campus. As a CLI leader, she searches the Austin creative scene for ways to show students the intersections between art and learning. In years past CLI had focused on excursions to the Blanton and then last year they did the school mural on the exterior brick wall of the gym. She wanted to expand the experience of the arts a little further.

“When I’m looking for opportunities for students to experience the arts I want to look for something that’s going to not only be an experience in the arts,” West said. “But also spark interest in the community. I want the students to have interest beyond just ‘it’s an arts event.’”

The group of students who saw the play

ranged in age from freshman to senior.

Sophomores Zakiya Robertson and Ingrid Limas were two who went to see the play on March 9.

They both agreed that the play felt very real and truthful: there was no sugarcoating.

“It was even more real because it was real accounts from people who were witnesses to these events in America,” Robertson said. “I was going to say [American] history, but [this stuff happened], like, yesterday.”

The scene that stuck out to Limas was of a teen girl unnecessarily and violently dragged out of a classroom by a campus officer. To Robertson, it was of a woman who climbed the pole and removed the Confederate flag from where it flew at the South Carolina state house.

These scenes played out on a bare, black stage, the audience squaring it in from three sides, and three projector screens displayed above the stage, diagonally and off-tilt, one for each side of audience.

The scene that Limas described, where a high school girl was dragged out of class by a campus officer, happened in South Carolina in 2015. The student had been asked to leave the classroom because she was on her cellphone and when she didn’t comply, the officer removed her with excessive force. Niya Kenny, a senior in that same classroom, watched the scene unfold. She stood up for the unnamed student and recorded a video of the officer assaulting her, which quickly became viral. Actress Michelle Alexander played the character Niya Kenny. Kenny was 18 years old when she was charged and taken to jail for disturbing schools.

“It just really stuck out to me,” Limas said.

“Just reacting like, ‘Woah, why’d you do that?’”

The scene where the woman, Bree Newsome, took the Confederate flag down concluded the second act of the play. The stage had been transformed, a

platform placed in the middle, with a chair on top of it, and the Confederate flag projected downwards onto the stage. Bree Newsome was also played by Michelle Alexander.

“Hearing that one, I [felt like] wow, that was really intense. She must’ve been so brave.”

Robertson said, “There were police surrounding her, yelling at her, telling her to climb down.

That was really interesting. It made me wonder if I would or could do that.”

Chaperone and AVID teacher Zulmy Galindo agreed: “That one was incredible. I can’t imagine being surrounded by people, being surrounded by police officers having their guns out and trying to climb a pole. Trying to take off the Confederate flag,” Galindo said. “You’re on the spotlight. The fact that she knew she could potentially be shot, but she decided to keep doing it because the power of the movement was bigger than herself. That was incredible.”

Galindo also noted that from her perspective, none of the things going on in this spectrum or dominating news cycles are new; we are different.

“We have technology now, we have cell phones, we are able to actually see what’s going on. People are videotaping these different acts,” Galindo said. “It’s waking us up a little more.

It’s not hearsay, it’s not written on the news.

We can see it. Its heartbreaking.”

Lastly, Galindo brought up one statistic that stuck with her even after she went home that day.

“Our country spends more money on the prison system than on education. I went home to look it up, and it’s over half,” Galindo said.

“Is our priority education? Is our priority the youth? You show people your priorities through how you spend money.”

The play itself had a deep influence on all of its audiences. After both acts concluded, the audience and cast engaged in a community discussion where people shared how they had been impacted by seeing Notes from the Field and how they might have seen or influenced aspects of the school-to-prison pipeline in their lives or the lives of their close friends and family.

Robertson expressed who she thought the intended audience for this play was.

“Probably like the youth or cops. Cops should go see it.” Robertson said, “There was a lot of old white people. I don’t know if that was the target. I think the target was young people because we’re the generation that are going to start leading this country, this movement.”

“If you want to get more educated on the subject, if you want to open your eyes more, go do it. Go see this play.”

ABOVE: Actress Carla Nickerson and actor Kriston Woodreaux in Notes From the Field at ZACH Theatre. Photo by Kirk Tuck. Reprinted with permission.

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Proust Questionnaire: Steven Strong SCORES teacher reflects on overcoming fear, dealing with difficult family situations

LASZLO KING-HOVIS staff reporter

The Shield: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Steven Strong: My personal idea of perfect happiness is getting to a place in my life where I am consistently confident in myself and the world around me enough to feel good about where I’m at, while also understanding that I can also do better. I think you can have perfect happiness while also being able to improve.

TS: What is your greatest fear?

SS: I don’t know that I have one greatest fear, because I’m not really afraid of anything at this point. I’ve had a lot go on that has caused me to feel fearful that I have conquered. So I feel like I’ve gone through enough things that I was afraid of that I’m no longer afraid of to be like, “Well, anything else that I could be afraid of, I shouldn’t be, because I could just get past that as well.”

TS: What is the most overrated virtue?

SS: People are so money-hungry; that’s an Steven Strong stands outside Portable Four, one of his many locales throughout the day. “I easy one to go to: greed. I see it wreck families work in the SCORES department,” Strong said, “but through that I’ve been able to bounce and lives and people around me a lot, their around and be in multiple different classes, which is cool.” Photo by Laszlo King-Hovis. constant worry and desire and pursuit of being rich or getting money. I get it because it done many horrible things without much she has been saying it for years about anything. is stressful without money, but when you tear change or desire or will to better herself and Some things are actually classic, but sometimes others down to make yourself have money or hold herself accountable for the horrible things you’re just straight up just using the word to use it. We’re both vegetarian, my sister and I, so if attain money, then you’re not who you were she has done.

People always tell me, “Oh you should I’m like, “Let’s go someplace that has a veggie when you were born. I don’t think people were born greedy; they learn about money and what forgive; you need forgiveness,” and I get that, burger,” and she’ll go, “Classic veggie burger.” We but people who deserve forgiveness are people use it now to the point where it’s just to use it, it can do for them and become greedy. who are getting better in themselves. to make fun of the fact that we ourselves are still TS: What is your current state of mind?

If you’re the same person you’ve always been using it even in situations where it’s not needed.

SS: I am hopeful, and I’ve reached that a lot in my current way of life right now, because I’ve when you’ve done horrible things, I don’t see She just moved back to Austin, so it’s probably recognized that I’m not where I want to be and that as a positive thing at all, and I don’t see that going to be a more prominent thing.

I say “wack” a lot too. I think “wack” is an I’m not close to where I want to be, but I believe as a way to earn anybody’s respect, especially I will be, whether that takes five years or 15 or not mine. I think that it’s important to say that underused term; I think it describes a lot of 20. I do believe I will get to that state of perfect out loud, because there are people out in the things. It can be pretty loose: you can call happiness and where I am consistently cool with world and at McCallum who don’t have very something super horrible “wack,” but you close family members, can also call something kind of not super cool what I have going on. whether it’s your dad, “wack” as well. You’ll always know which one TS: On what occasion do “If you’re able to laugh at your mom, your sister, you mean based on the context. I say “wack” all you lie? your cousin, and being the time, and I think more people should too.

SS: I don’t lie very anything or at yourself or real about that, even if People call me out on it though, and go, “You much. If I had to look at something funny, and it’s not super common, say wack a lot,” and I’m like, “Well if you don’t, at other people and is huge. you’re wack. Stop being wack and accept that what I think they lie you’re just cool with taking TS: What quality wack is a word.” about and then look at do you admire most in TS: If you were to die and come back as a thing or myself, I think I’m too a second to be funny or another person? an animal, what would it be? honest at times. My dad enjoy something funny, SS: I think humor is SS: Maybe, this is just spur-of-the-moment was the most honest one of the main things I thought, because it’s raining right now; maybe person I ever knew, that’s huge. and he instilled that in —Steven Strong notice really quickly and I would come back as a raindrop. I’ve always really intensely because wanted to go skydiving and experience freefall. me. I think honestly is I’m very goofy and very It would be pretty cool to be in a cloud and then something I hold to a really high standard. There are times when it lighthearted and free, and when I’m around just freefall down to the ground and just exist may be best to not be totally honest, but overall people who just have no humor, it’s really hard in wetness. I guess the whole water cycle would in life, if you consider yourself an honest person, to be around them and really awkward. Whether be fun to go through, I think. It would be an I think that’s a good way to live, and I think that it is similar humor as mine or not, that’s not adventure. You would never stop, I guess, how people will receive that and respect that a lot super important. If you’re able to laugh at would I die from that? anything or at yourself or at something funny, TS: If you could have one talent, what would it be? more than knowing that you’re a liar.

SS: I wish I could sing. ... I rap and stuff; and you’re just cool with taking a second to be TS: What living person do you most despise?

SS: Despise is kind of a strong word; the funny or enjoy something funny, that’s huge. I I could learn to play the guitar if I put in the living person that I would dislike the most and think everyone should be able to kick back and effort for that. I could take vocal lessons, but I still wouldn’t be that great of a singer. That’s not want to have anything to do with the most have fun and laugh. something I wish I could do because you could TS: Are there any words or phrases you overuse? is my biological mother. I have many reasons SS: I say “classic” a lot. I blame my sister for it; literally just do it anywhere, anytime; you don’t for that, but I think it’s mostly that she has

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need to have any equipment, it’s already there in your throat. There are times when I’ve written songs and I’m like, “Man, this would be dope if I could actually sing it.”

TS: Where would you most like to live?

SS: Austin will always be home, but I don’t want to stay here my whole life because I’ve been here my whole life, and I think there’s a whole world out there.

In terms of living, everywhere I go from this point on, I would like to live temporarily.

There’s nowhere I would like to commit to staying for a long duration or even the rest of my life, but some places I would like to go to to try living would be Australia, maybe try out Sydney or Melbourne. New Zealand would be awesome to live in for a year or two just to see how beautiful it is, maybe someplace in Asia or Thailand just to get that experience, but nowhere long term. I think, ultimately, I will always come back to Austin.

TS: Where and when were you most happy?

SS: I look back at my sophomore year at McCallum a lot as a really happy time for me.

I’d just won the school talent show, I wasn’t in the Fine Arts Academy, but almost everyone in the show was in [it]. It doesn’t mean much to me now, but at the time I was a sophomore here and I was like, “Man, I don’t do anything very well or very professionally.” So I wrote a song, made my own beat for it, and I won the audience vote, and that was a really big deal to me at the time because...I wasn’t very confident at the time. I was really happy then; it was the first time I felt like my social life was doing pretty well. I think I’ve been happier since but in a wiser way.

TS: What is your most treasured possession?

SS: I’m not really big on material items, so I don’t know of one thing that I look at, and I’m like, “Oh I love this so much over another thing.”

I recently got my dad’s baseball catching mitt that he played with, and he played in college and high school and all that. He was a pitcher, so I recently found his in one of his old rooms, and I took it with me. He passed away when I was in high school, and it’s cool to have that with me. I know how special it was to him when he played, and now it just means a ton to me.

TS: What is your greatest achievement?

SS: There’s a lot, honestly. My greatest achievement is overcoming my rough childhood, whatever that means. I was very, very, very, very depressed as a little kid, and I don’t think I would be here right now if I had been able to have my way as a kid. Overcoming those negative feelings and negative occurrences that were put upon me that were out of my control and understanding that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I didn’t see it, but now I see it and [am] trusting life and myself. I went through a lot of therapy and stuff people can go through to get help, and it does help, but ultimately that belief in yourself that you can get out of that situation is what really pushes you. I think that’s my greatest achievement, believing in myself enough to get out of some horrible situations that could’ve ended me. I’m very proud and happy to be where I stand today.

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Sometimes it helps to just breathe

Social and Emotional Learning Committee creates Wind Down Wednesday to help release stress ABIGAIL SALAZAR staff reporter Created to help students and faculty members find new ways to release stress and any other negative energy they might have, the Social and Emotional Learning Committee launched a new activity in the library called Wind Down Wednesday.

“The adults here know how to de-stress, and we wanted to help teach students, as well as other adults, how to de-stress and take things down a level,” said assistant principal Tamara Stone, who heads the committee. “We figured that Wednesday would be the best day to do it because it’s in the middle of the week and that’s when things usually get stressful.”

Wind Down Wednesday held its first session Feb. 6 at 8:40 a.m. in the library.

Dance teacher Natalie Uehara, who is also on the SEL Committee, was the first person who helped lead the weekly meeting.

“I decided to do a morning stretch and focus because it is something that I usually do in my dance classes on a regular basis anyways,” Uehara said. “It is something that I do for myself for my routine of mindfulness, so it was kind of just natural for me to do that.”

According to the 2017 Educator Quality of Work Life Survey, a poll administered by the American Federation of Teachers to 5,000 teachers and staff across the country, 61 percent of teachers are stressed on a daily basis or for a majority of the time.

“Stress is a big thing that everyone deals with,” Uehara said. “Students deal with different kind of stress than teachers. Teachers are pulled in a lot of different directions, they have deadlines, lots of compliance things we have to do that are districtwide, and they have a lot of concerts and shows to put on. We just have a lot of things on our plate. Students also have a lot on their plate, when they are trying to manage personal life, social and emotional development, which is a huge thing in a teenager’s brain, as well as keeping their grades up and graduating.”

An August 2015 New York University study confirms that Uehara is correct. The NYU study on Top High School Student’s stress reveals that 49 percent of all students deal with stress on a daily basis and that nearly 31 percent of students have felt somewhat stressed on a daily basis.

Wind Down Wednesday is also accessible to students. Multiple students have joined in at least one Wind Down Wednesday session, and many have felt that the activity and the exercises led have helped them relax and de-stress. It has been especially beneficial for seniors, as they are feeling the pressure and stress of college applications and graduation.

Senior Liliette Rodriguez has been to some Wind Down Wednesday sessions and believes that they have helped her relax and minimize any negative energy she may be experiencing.

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On Feb. 7, the Social and Emotional Learning Committee launched “Wind Down Wednesday” to help combat stress and any negative energy.

Dance teacher Natalie Uehara led the morning stretch and focus that started at 8:40 a.m. and lasted 10 minutes. Photo courtesy of Jane Farmer.

SEVEN WAYS TO DESTRESS AND RELAX

Guided Imagery Body Scan Breath Focus

Source: HelpGuide.org

Focus on one part of your body at a time and Take long, slow mentally release and deep breaths. any physical As you do so, tension. disengage your mind from distracting thoughts.

“I can say that I definitely feel more relaxed and not so tense,” Rodriguez said. “Sometimes it helped me calm down my nerves in the morning if I’m worrying about a test that’s coming up later on in the day. I really enjoyed the exercise where we followed a path and breathe at certain points. I enjoyed these the most because I think we sometimes forget to breath when we are stressed, and I believe that doing something as simple as taking a deep breath or even just standing up and stretching can really help de-stress you and make you not feel so tense about things or whatever is bothering you.”

A Social and Emotional Learning survey

Mindfulness Meditation Sit comfortably, focus on your breathing and bring attention to the present, not the past.

Yoga/Tai Chi Think of soothing scenes, places or Offers mental experiences to focus to help help you relax distract you from and focus. racing thoughts.

that students took back in October found that both students and staff feel overwhelmed and that there wasn’t much self care. In response to that survey, the SEL Committee launched Wind Down Wednesday in order to fight the stress that many respondents said they were confronting.

“After we had analyzed the surveys that everyone took back in October last year, we found out that self care for both students and teachers was a big need on the campus,” Uehara said. “So we wanted to provide an opportunity for students and staff to come and do mindfulness activities once a week to help combat stress and negative energy.”

Journaling Music Allows you to clarfiy your thoughts and feelings and can be a problem solving tool.

Play relaxing music in the background.

Instrumental music is usually the best.

Graphic by Abigail Salazar.

Wind Down Wednesday allows both students and faculty to get a sample of many different ways there are to help a person destress and relax.

It is just a small opening into a huge opportunity for everyone to find something that works for them and to help people realize that they are not alone in dealing with stress in their life.

“Wind Down Wednesday is just a little taste of what can be done to help a person de-stress,” Stone said. “There is a sense of community in realizing we are all having these issues and that we all get stressed out on occasion.”

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Artistically speaking: Marlee Foster Choir major, songwriter, musical theater student loves being onstage and singing her heart out ELLEN FOX

staff reporter Her mother will tell you that Marlee Foster sang before she talked. From a very young age she knew she loved music, especially the kind she could make herself with her own voice.

“It just became a part of me I couldn’t live without,” Foster said. “I could never imagine not singing.”

Although she loved singing and practiced a lot, she wasn’t able to focus much on choir in middle school because she attended a very small middle school, St. Francis. When she heard about McCallum and the choir program here, however, she immediately saw it in her future and decided she would apply.

“For me, it was like ‘OK, this is an arts school,’ and I didn’t know of any other schools like that, and, I don’t know, I felt like where I belonged was a school where everybody was committed to their own talent. I applied to be a film major and then also to be a choir major because I love writing stories too, so then I decided I wanted to be able to sing every week, all the time, so I became a choir major.”

For Foster, it was the right decision. “[Choir is] a very social thing, so it’s brought me closer to so many people, and to so many different artists,” Foster said. “There’s so many During last December’s Cabaret, Foster stands center stage singing “My Stongest Suit“ from Aida the Musical. “[Cabaret] was really great, because talented people in choir and just hearing their that was when I first got to meet so many people; all the different choirs come together to put on a big show,” Foster said. Photo by Marley Angle. voices just makes me so happy because I get to the stage and crying because I’m a sentimental also be daunting. Foster said she tries to use that be a part of something full of so many talented person and our conductor I could tell was like energy to deliver a better performance.

‘What? Why are you crying?’ but you know … I “There’s always a current of nerves that’s people. It’s just amazing.” always underneath everything, and there’s no Foster says that her choir experience has was just so happy to be there.”

In addition to performing in choir and musical way to get rid of it,” she said. “It’s not like you been exceptional, and being able to sing every other day meant a lot to her. But with all the theatre, Foster also writes her own pieces, her can get rid of the nerves entirely; they’re always opportunities beyond choir at McCallum, she highlights being “Echos,” a song about falling in love there, but for me they help me to perform but being left behind and holding on to something better. I just think, ‘These people have come felt that she should do even more.

“Being here, all the performance majors are you can’t have, and “Headache,” which is about here to watch me perform and to watch me having strong emotions and how holding them in do well so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’ woven together so choir, feels like a headache.

Whenever I’m onstage, the best part is when you dance and theatre are “I’ve been a song writer just take in the audience, and you realize you’re connected, so I’m also “People have their own since I was really little,” performing for them and so you have to give it getting a musical theater Foster said. “I love writing your all. That’s when I can hit those high notes certificate. I love being on different ways of venting songs; it’s kind of like and then I think, ‘Yes, I know this is what they stage; being here you get to and mine is songwriting. people have their own want.’ It’s this awesome connection between the be a part of everything.”

—sophomore Marlee Foster different ways of venting, audience and you that’s really special.”

On her way to getting and mine is songwriting.

While Foster is not sure how she wants to her musical theater … Sometimes it starts off continue with music after high school, she knows certificate, Foster has been in the ensemble for two musicals, spring 2018’s with a melody in my head, and I’m like ‘Aww, that’s that music will always be a big part of her life.

“For me, choir is to learn more about music, West Side Story and fall 2018’s Starmites. She also really pretty,’ and I try to put words to it; other played the role of Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s times I come up with a phrase or a saying, and I and to learn more about singing, and I know I write a melody to go with it. It’s all about building want to [sing] until the day I die, so it would be Dream last winter. awesome to do it as a career,” she said. “I know “I got a lead in Midsummer, which was until you have a completed song you’re proud of.”

She writes her songs with one important detail even if I go into something else I’ll still be singing, surprising because I’m not a theatre major or anything,” Foster said. “[Playing Hermia] was in mind: the audience’s perception. She performs I’m never going to stop singing. ... I also love really fun! I got to hang out with more people, her songs at Coffeehouse, a fundraiser for composing music and writing songs; learning and that was the first straight play I’ve done, so Excalibur, the school literary and arts magazine, more about voices is something that choir has it was fun being able to just act more,” Foster said. where songwriters and poets can go on the stage helped teach me so that way I can write better music for myself and for other people to sing.”

Being in choir has also allowed Foster to and share their art with an audience.

“Whenever I finish writing a chorus or At the end of the day, it’s one thing that drives have some great experiences, her favorite being Cabaret and the New York trip the choir took something and I listen back and it’s really good, all of Foster’s dedication to music: the ability to it makes me so happy because I think, ‘Wow connect. To Foster music and choir especially last year to perform at Carnegie Hall.

“During Cabaret all the different choirs come people are actually going to like this,’ and I just is all about connection, whether that be a together to put on this big show and with that feel so happy,” Foster said. “Even though I write connection between a composer and their music In her first lead role in last November’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Foster danced, I just got to meet so many people and perform the music for me, I also write it for other people or a singer and their audience.

“Singing is like a gift that you get to share with acted and sang. “[Midsummer] was the first with so many people, and it was just so fun,” to enjoy, so when I know that they will, it’s just an audience, and whenever you get to share that straight play I’ve done, so it was fun being Foster said. “Also, the New York trip last year, we such a great feeling.”

Despite her enthuasiasm for performing, she gift with so many different people it’s always an able to just act more,” Foster said. Photo by went and performed at Carnegie Hall, and that was magical. Not gonna lie, I was walking off admitted that getting in front of a crowd can experience that nothing can compare to.”

Risa Darlington-Horta.

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Members of the color guard pose for a photo after winning the Area West Texas Color Guard Circuit Championships at Hendrickson High School in Pflugerville on March 23. Their score was the highest numerical score in the state. “I knew we were going to do well,” director Jeff Rudy said. “I thought we had a really good chance of winning, but there is never any guarantee.” Photo by Patrice Jones.

Winter guard brings ‘home’ big win

Outscoring 78 other guards in the state, guard captures area championship for fourth straight title ELLEN FOX

staff reporter At the Texas Color Guard Circuit Area West Championships in Pflugerville on March 23, the McCallum color guard swept away the competition, winning first place for the fourth competition in a row with the show entitled, “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.”

The guard not only beat the competition in Pflugerville; it also posted the highest score in the state of the 79 schools that competed in the Scholastic Regional A division at all three of the regional area competitions statewide. Although it’s hard to compare across divisions because the standard varies, McCallum’s numerical score (92 points) was the highest of any guard competing.

The award-winning Wizard-of-Oz-themed show has collected more than a few gold bricks along the path to the most successful winter guard season in McCallum history.

“We’ve won all our shows, with the exception of our very first contest, but we also didn’t have our show completed and at that time, our uniforms or our floor done,” said senior co-captain Claire Rudy, who also happens to be director Rudy’s daughter. “I’m really proud of our group and getting to see how everyone pulled together in the end. It became a lot more about finding a deeper and more personal connection to the show, and it was amazing to see everyone bring their all and start fighting for how they wanted to be.”

There was no state competition for the guard’s competition category this year, so the area championship was the guard’s last chance to compete in 2019.

The morning of the area competition started

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with the drive to Hendrickson High School, followed by some warm-ups. Those interviewed said that the environment was lively due to of the excitement and nerves in the air. Before they could perform, guard members had to bring out their floor that they built at the beginning of the competition season. Jeff Rudy said he was confident in the guard’s abilities, but as the performance unfolded he understood he was witnessing something special.

“About halfway through the show, I knew that they were having a really good run,” Rudy said.

“As it got closer and closer to the end, I thought, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna do this.”

Director Rudy said the quality of the team’s performance could be seen in the judge’s scores.

Each component of the performance is judged twice: first on the show’s concept and second on how well the guard executed the concept.

McCallum’s execution scores were higher than the concept scores in all categories.

“If you listen to the equipment tape ... at the end of it, there’s this real emotional scene where Claire says goodbye to the Scarecrow, then she runs over to Auntie Em; [we] added that character for last two weeks of the season,” Jeff Rudy said. “It’s real emotional. One of the judges was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to cry,’ and she did, and it was funny on that tape.”

The emotions of the show come from the theme, ‘Home.’ The instructors created a show that combined Sara Bareilles’ cover of the song “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” originally by Elton John, and elements from the actual story of The Wizard of Oz. “If you listen to that song, we kind of did a twist on it,” Rudy said. “Originally when we had it, we were gonna go with these Dorothy costumes;

they were gonna be brown, and everything was in earthy tones and subdued, because it fit the mood of the music better. However, then we had a problem with our uniform company, and we ended up not going with those uniforms, and we found these others that were actual Dorothy costumes.”

Along with the Dorothy costumes making up the bulk of the guard, there were two distinct characters: the scarecrow, played by senior Henry Stanford, and Auntie Em, played by Emily Freeman. Due to a shoulder injury earlier in the season, Freeman was unable to perform, but she still found a role in which she could lead the other members of the team.

“Not being able to perform was difficult, but it was interesting to still be a part of the show in a different way,” Freeman said.

Senior co-captain Sydney Bunce says that throughout all the awards, she has never lost sight of what matters most: her commitment to the color guard family: “I do it for the underclassmen,” Bunce said. “More than half of our team is made up of freshman and sophomores, and being able to help them learn and grow and see their faces when they announce our scores makes all the hard work and any of the frustration worth it.”

Bunce said that it has been rewarding to see the winter guard program evolve, and she feels that they truly were at their best during the area competition. “[While we were waiting for the scores to be announced] I was thinking about how hard we’ve all worked to get where we are and how much the program has changed since my sophomore year when it started,” Bunce said. “The energy that we all put into this show has really paid off, and I knew no matter what our score was that it was the best show we could’ve had.”

At the end of the show, Dorothy, played by senior Claire Rudy, jumps into the Scarecrow‘s (senior Henry Stanford’s) arms before going home to her aunt (senior Emily Freeman).

“What our instructor writes for us to perform really inspires the guard to have a show that means something to them,” Rudy said.

Photo by Patrice Jones.

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A story you can sink your teeth into

In special food edition of Rhodes Traveled, our intrepid reporter goes on quest for best barbecue Snow’s BBQ in Lexington has been named the best barbecue in the state by Texas Monthly and received praise from several other publications. As barbecue joints go, it’s relatively new, opening just 17 years ago, but that by no means detracts from the quality of the food.

Although not home to any barbecue restaurant, Dime Box has some other attractions on your meat-fueled journey.

If you’re looking for something to eat in Texas, there are plenty of options.

You can get some great tacos down south, enormous steaks up in the panhandle, pretty

by Max Rhodes decent burgers just about everywhere and of course, barbecue. There is a friendly debate across the southern United States over who has the best barbecue. Some say the Carolinas are better, others insist Missouri, but deep down they all know that you can’t beat Texas. Now, there’s a reason for this: In the 1830s, there were many German immigrants in the state, and they settled in towns such as Fredericksburg (second installment of Rhodes Traveled, anyone remember?) and New Braunfels. These Germans brought with them a method for cooking meat where they would smoke it for upwards of 24 hours. That, along with some of the best quality Texas beef cattle, is the reason we have indisputably the best barbecue in the country.

You can find good barbecue all over the state, and fortunately for us, some of it is not far from Austin. In fact, there are some good places right in the middle of the city, but that’s for another time.

For this issue, I’ll cover four places, all fairly close: Louie Mueller in Taylor, Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, City Meat Market in Giddings and Kreuz Market in Lockhart. Keep in mind that there are dozens of excellent barbecue joins a day’s drive from Austin; these are merely a few of my favorites.

Now I know what you may be thinking: Max Rhodes, the travel blogger, is writing a food review? Don’t worry, this is still about travel, just instead of the destination being a museum

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for soda or a retired combat ship, it’s food. The roads shall still be traveled.

As with any travel play, we have to start with the logistics. You could definitely hit all these places in one day, but you may be so full you’d never want to eat again. So, you could either portion yourself and only eat a little at restaurant (which can be more difficult than it sounds), or just go on separate days. Either way, you can’t go wrong. A round trip with a stop at each place would be about 170 miles and take about three hours, not including time for eating, sightseeing or sleeping after eating too much.

First up is Louie Mueller Barbecue. Located in the small town of Taylor, it’s about a 40-minute drive from Austin (25 if you hit the lights right). Louie Mueller was opened in 1949 and has been named the best barbecue in Texas by Texas Monthly, The New York Times, and the Food Network. The beef ribs and brisket they serve here are about as good as it gets. While you’re in Taylor, you can explore the historic downtown and check out some of the antique stores, if you’re into that. After you’ve had all of the Taylor you can take, it’s a quick 30 miles to Lexington, home to our next barbecue destination.

Lexington is home to a church, a gas station and one of the best barbecue restaurants in the state. Snow’s BBQ, like Louie Mueller, has been praised by Texas Monthly and the Food Network for having some of the best smoked meat in Texas (and therefore the whole country). Unlike Louie Mueller, Snow’s is only opened on Saturdays, which may be a factor to plan your trip around.

This is probably my favorite barbecue place I’ve been to, as it arguably offers the best brisket money can buy. They sell out quickly, however, so try to get there before noon. After you’ve eaten your fill, there isn’t a whole lot to do in Lexington, so I’d suggest heading out.

Louie Mueller barbecue in Taylor has lauded by The New York Times, the Food Network and several others. You’d be hard-pressed to find better barbecue. Photos by Max Rhodes.

If you need a little time before the next barbecue place, which is in Giddings, you could take a little detour to Dime Box, Texas. Located right next to Old Dime Box, there’s plenty to do here, such as look at the large dime in its box.

Giddings is a mere 17 miles away, and has an impressive population of 5,000 compared to Lexington’s 1,000 (and like 250 in Dime Box).

The City Meat Market is our point of interest, which differs a little from the previous two restaurants. It was built in 1941 and is located in an old, stone-walled building. The brisket doesn’t quite stand up to the other places, but the pork ribs are good, and their specialty is the sausage. The old building is pretty interesting too, as are the locals who eat there. Outside of the restaurant, you can check out the historic courthouse and the grounds. You may want to keep your eye on the clock because it’s an hour drive to the next place.

This barbecue train has one more stop, and it’s at a little town called Lockhart. This town is home to a few legendary barbecue places, including

Blacks BBQ, which you can also get in Austin, and Kreuz Market Barbecue. Kreuz Market has quite a history: it was started in 1900 as part of a grocery store and slowly grew in popularity until 1997 when they had to move to a new location. During this move, the owners made sure to bring some of the original coals that had been burning since 1900 to the new location.

This place is definitely known for its brisket, although the pork ribs and the sausage are also good. The meat is served on a piece of butcher paper (and a tray), just like when the restaurant was founded. Apart from the excellent food, this location, having been built in the last 20 years, has a valuable asset: air conditioning. It gets hot y’all.

If you’d like, there’s another historic courthouse in downtown Lockhart, but if not, Austin is merely a half-hour drive away. You know, not every city is just a few hours drive from some of the best barbecue restaurants in the country. So before it gets too hot, I’d suggest taking advantage of this and going on your own barbecue road trip.

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This month: April

The weather is hot and so are our recommendations of the best places to eat, shop and laugh Entertainment: Esther’s Follies

Kinokuniya has a wide variety of Studio Ghibli merchandise ranging from “My Neighbor Totoro” lunch boxes to puzzles and towels. Photo by Olivia Watts.

Shopping: books, comics and more Kinokuniya is a chain of bookstores that originated in Japan in the early 20th century. Kinokuniya has American books like Becoming by Michelle Obama and Japanese books like Attack on Titan. It also has many options for Manga including Sailor Moon, Rwby, My Hero Academia, Legends of Zelda, Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul and some American comic books as well.

Aside from books, Kinokuniya sells merchandise for both American and Japanese characters, like the popular cartoon cat Pusheen. There is an assortment of accessories, patches, keychains and pins with cute characters, such as a cat in a sailor hat riding a narwhal, that could be used to decorate jackets and backpacks.

Kinokuniya also stocks Studio Ghibli

movies and merchandise, including the popular film My Neighbor Totoro. When you walk in the front door, in fact, a giant Totoro stuffed animal is waiting to greet you, followed by Totoro lunch containers, plushes, puzzles and towels.

The front of the store has an open atmosphere because of the many windows and the high ceilings. These elements, along with the many cute characters, give off a cheery feel. The back of the shop contains a model classroom, which occasionally serves as an art gallery and exhibit space.

Kinokuniya is located at 6929 Airport Blvd., Suite 121 and opens at 11 a.m. The store closes at 8 p.m. on weekdays (Monday through Thursday) and 9 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

Eats: Steel City Pops

frozen offerings in Austin.

You can eat at the restaurant or take your selection in to-go boxes of a half dozen or a dozen. Steel City Pops also caters, so if your next big event will be outside on a hot day, you can rent a popsicle cart, but you must order a minimum of 100 pops.

Steel City Pops has an open, airy atmosphere due to windows on two walls of the restaurant.

There is a bar with stools to sit on opposite the counter and outside seating under a wooden covering for when it’s not too hot. Most of the colors in the restaurant are neutral whites and grays, which contribute to a clean look. Just above the counter, which stretches across the room, TVs display all of the options on the vast and delicious menu.

Steel City Pops is located at 3001 Guadalupe Street, and is open from noon to 10 p.m.

Sunday through Thursday and noon to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Since the weather will start getting hotter soon, why not cool down with a popsicle?

Steel City Pops was founded in Alabama seven years ago and now has 15 locations in Texas. They have the traditional fruit ice pops, ice cream pops, Paleo pops and their famous cookie pops, which have an entire cookie inside. Each restaurant location has its own unique menu determined by the fruit available. You can either order a premade combination or mix and match toppings to make your own. Each month has its own specialty popsicle, and this April is the caramel peanut butter cup popsicle.

Another popular choice is the chocolate Paleo pop, which is made with a variety of ingredients, including avocado, coconut milk and honey. It’s sweet, creamy and a little rich, but one of the most delicious

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Looking for a laugh? Try Esther’s Follies! in downtown Austin, located in a crazy colorful, human aquarium building that stands out against dirty Sixth Street’s array of neon signs and booming music. It’s the type of structure that makes you question who the people were who designed and approved the architectural design. Though the building itself is unique and spectacular, even by Austin’s standards, the real show is on the inside.

Behind the large plate-glass windows and behind the stage, the real magic happens.

Literally. Named after actress and competitive swimmer Esther Williams, “Esther’s Follies” is a one-and-a-half hour show full of magic tricks, musical numbers and strong opinions ranging from politics to pop culture, all tied together by a collection of comedy sketches.

The show was created a little over 40 years ago, and, similar to NBC’s Saturday Night Live, every weekend, performs a new set of sketches. That means you’re free to see it multiple times and gain a new experience with each visit.

Just like SNL, the cast of Esther’s Follies spends Monday through Wednesday of each week brainstorming, writing and practicing an original show to perform on the evenings of Thursday through Sunday.

If smiling and laughing somehow isn’t your thing, Esther’s Follies has a little bit of something for everyone. The cast of 13 dedicated men and women, led by “the mom of the Follies” Shannon Sedwick, includes a full-time illusionist, many actors with BFAs in both theater and music and a member of the self-proclaimed “greatest emo puppet band.”

Though everyone will find this show entertaining, you may want to consider if it is the best option for younger children.

The poster for “Esther’s Follies” holds the same energy as the downtown Austin location and the show itself. Including a multitude of colors and smiling faces, the spirit of the show is captured in this still.

Photo supplied by Emma Carlsgaard.

Esther’s Follies is no stranger to explicit and suggestive humor. They excel at tasteful, mature jokes without being downright dirty. So while this show might not be appropriate for a child, teenagers and adults alike will deeply appreciate it.

There are three possible ways to enjoy your show: general admission, tier two and tier one. These levels dictate nothing but the area where you can choose your seat, so for just $25 per general admission ticket, Esther’s Follies is the perfect way to spend a weekend evening.

The chocolate Paleo pop at Steel City Pops is dipped in chocolate, sprinkled in brownie crumbs and drizzled in chocolate. Photo by Olivia Watts.

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SOPHIE RYLAND

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co-editor in chief

hen Winsley Melancon was displaced from New Orleans in 2005 by the devastating Category 5 Hurricane Katrina, her life changed. She was living in the Austin Convention Center, well aware that she could not return to her old school nor her old friends.

When her mother went looking for a new school for her, a bus driver recommended McCallum.

Immediately upon arriving at the McCallum campus, principal Mike Garrison, then just starting his second year as the school’s principal, welcomed her with open arms.

“She tells me she took a walk to Sunshine Drive and saw the campus and fell in love,” Melancon said. “When she walked into the doors she saw Mr. Garrison walking and introduced herself. She explained to him that I needed a new school to attend. He said to her, ‘This may not be what your child is used to; however, we’ll treat her like family!’”

Melancon started at Mac the next Monday and quickly found a home; Garrison, who had heard from her mother about how much she loved music, introduced her to the band director, Carol Nelson.

“We were able to get Winsley a donated trombone from the choir director at Covenant Presbyterian Church,” Nelson said. “I gave Winsley trombone lessons, and she made a First Division on a Class II Trombone Solo in the spring semester. Winsley also went on the band trip with us to Winter Park, Colo., on scholarship.”

Winsley says Garrison served as a source of comfort and a mentor for the rest of her time in high school.

“Garrison and his amazing faculty made sure I got all the counseling I needed from my trauma I experienced,” Melancon said. “They also never treated us different; when I did wrong, he would tell me to shape up, because he knew I was so much better. I’m forever grateful for his kindness, starting with my mother. In two short years at McCallum I made lifelong friends and amazing memories. I’m sad that there will be an entire new generation that doesn’t see his greatness!”

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arrison, who has similarly worked with other high school students in his tenure as principal, announced Thursday that he will be retiring at the end of the school year. He has spent 40 years in education; 17 as a teacher, seven as an assistant principal and 16 as principal.

“I’ve been eligible to retire for probably about six or seven years; I have reached that point in the TRS [Teacher Retirement System],” Garrison said. “So it is always there; it’s always on your mind. [Now] I get to spend a little more time with my family. Strike off on new adventures, new opportunities, while I’m still young enough and healthy enough to do something else after education. I do look forward to that opportunity to be creative and find something new to engage in.

No matter what I find, it will never be as rewarding as anything in education. Working with teachers, students, parents; there’s nothing like that.”

Garrison grew up in Bulverde, Texas, as the second oldest child out of 10 children.

After coaching and teaching, he took his first administrative job in Pasadena ISD, then moved to Austin in 1998, where he was an assistant principal at Dripping Springs and Bowie. He started as principal at McCallum in 2003.

He said that it was difficult to send the email

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ABOVE: Garrison poses for a picture for a The Shield article to introduce him to the community. “Bottom line: we are going to promote and encourage any extracurricular,” Day 1 Garrison told The Shield. “It ties you to the school more; it ties you to the community more. That’s my goal. I would like everybody to be involved in something because there is so much that McCallum offers.”” Photo

by Emily Panzer.

LEFT: Garrison went without goggles at this year’s Pink Week pep rally.

Photo by Gregory James. notifying staff of his decision, as he will miss night of a MacTheatre show, cheering at an working with the McCallum community, but he athletics event or personally attending to one has faith in the school continuing without him. student’s needs, he unfailingly demonstrates his “It’s sad, because we’re family here, and I’ll commitment to the Mac community with his time miss seeing these guys on a day-to-day basis and and attention. His model of being completely working with them,” Garrison said. “But I know present for whatever the moment calls for is a they’re going to be fine. They’re all sharp people, lesson in leadership.” professional people; they Parent Charlotte Sobeck remembers love students and love “He knows names of kids that Garrison as a calming McCallum. It won’t be the same, but it will go on, and are well-behaved, and he knows presence during the shooting threats that it’ll be McCallum High names of kids that are poorly School. Kind of like when occurred in February.

“The morning after a the senior class leaves, it’s behaved. And he cares about the not the same, but it every single one of them, and he threat of gun violence at McCallum, I went up to keeps going on.” the school out of concern Carol Nelson, who has is really great at looking past known Garrison for as for my son’s safety that behavior and at the person.” day. Mr Garrison was in long as he has worked —Diana Adamson front of the school taking at McCallum, said that himself, to calm she was shocked at the English department chair time, announcement, and it the worries of parents and kids,” she said. “I felt was a deeply emotional much better after talking to him. He is accessible, experience going to talk to him about it.

“I just came in [to Garrison’s office] to say, patient and kind, great leadership qualities. He ‘What?’ Then I hugged him,” Nelson said. “Then is quick to let parents know what is happening he was running over to the Kleenex. I said, ‘Thank at school as well as online in a way that does not you,’ and he said, ‘No, it’s for me!’” drive fear deeper, but instead, helps us let it go Parents and students say that Garrison is a and know he is doing everything possible to keep supportive leader, one who attends as many school McCallum kids safe and calm so they can focus on events as possible, and is deeply involved in the their education, as it should be.” community.

Many students interviewed praised Garrison “Mr. Garrison is everywhere,” parent Amy for his friendliness and good attitude.

Hufford said. “Whether it’s attending opening “Although his title says principal, throughout

Garrison bids goodbye

Popular leader praised for making McCallum community an extended family for students, teachers RIGHT: Garrison greets students entering school on his first day at McCallum, a practice he continued throughout his tenure as principal.

Photo by Emily Panzer. BELOW RIGHT: Garrison poses for a profile for a The Shield article to introduce him to the community. Photo by Emily Panzer.

LEFT: Senior Elijah Griffin wishes Principal Mike Garrison the best of luck and congratulates him on his pending retirement the day after Garrison announced his decision in an email to the faculty. Photo by Selena De Jesus. my four years at Mac I’ve always seen him as a friend, thanks to the constant jokes he cracks and the good vibes he gives off,” senior Paul Raper said.

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ne quality students noted in particular was the effort he makes to ensure that each student feels noticed and welcomed.

“I think he genuinely care[s] about people; he go[es] out of his way to say hi to you,” junior Shanta Graves said. “He always ask[s] questions about how your day was going, and it seem[s] like he [is] interested in getting to know each student he [sees].”

English teacher Diana Adamson said that while he takes a deeply individual approach to leadership, Garrison also knows when to stay hands off.

“He supports his teachers, which allows us to support our students,” Adamson said. “I don’t even know the words, because he’s allowed us to be the ones who are right there, but at the same time he knows every kid in the school. He can stand in the hall, and he knows names of kids that are well behaved, and he knows names of kids that are poorly behaved. And he cares about every single one of them, and he is really great at looking past behavior and at the person.”

Other teachers also spoke to Garrison’s good judgment and temperament.

“He listens well to teachers as well as students,” math teacher Richard Cowles said. “I think he is impeccably fair. He doesn’t let the politics of life interfere with him making sound, consistent

26 april 2019

decisions. You can tell that he genuinely likes high schoolers; he wants to see you, he wants to say hi, he wants to have a good relationship with you. He doesn’t see himself as the sultan of the school; he sees himself as someone that works with the school.

And I think that’s a very good attribute of any principal.”

Cowles also said that he feels like he can count on Garrison as a friend, not just a boss.

“Another thing that Mr. Garrison does is that when you come in, he’s interested in hearing how you’re doing and having a conversation,” Cowles said. “He doesn’t want to talk school only.

I feel comfortable going to him and sharing about when my son has a good game in baseball, [or] my daughter does well in basketball or different things

ABOVE: Garrison pushes the ceremonial bell onto the field before the annual Battle of the Bell versus Travis on November 9, 2018, where McCallum won 63-0. Photo by Gregory James.

LEFT: Principal Mike Garrison walks through the rows of cots as McCallum prepared to become a shelter for Red Cross volunteers on Aug. 29, 2017. The volunteers stayed in the gym for two days before relocating to the Great Hills Baptist Church. Photo by Dave Winter.

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like that. Whenever we get together, nothing takes arrison reassured the community that he is 30 seconds. It always takes five minutes, because we committed to fully serving out the rest of his talk about our lives. You know he’s a friend, and not days at McCallum, and even when he leaves, all principals are friendly. He has a general concern he is not completely abandoning the school. and affection for all people. That’s hard to replicate.”

“My last days are sometime in the summer; I’m One of Nelson’s favorite memories of Garrison still here. I’m all in until the last day,” Garrison was when the principal, early on in his tenure, assured. “Even then, from afar, I’ll still be in.” chased a streaker during the band’s halftime show Garrison said that the hiring of the next principal is up to the district. He believes that they will consult at House Park.

“He dropped his pants, and he started running staff and community members for feedback on what through the band, and Mr. Garrison took out after qualities they’d like to see in the next principal, but him, and he chased them all the way,” Nelson recalled, he does not know whether they will hire somebody laughing. “Mr. Garrison ran straight through; the immediately or place someone in interim. His advice for the successor? boy then climbed over a fence, and Mr. Garrison “He unfailingly demonstrates “McCallum is very, very stopped there. After that, unique place with lots of the parents would say [to his commitment to the Mac really great students, lots of him], ‘Hey Mr. Garrison, community with his time really dedicated staff. Just you got your tennis shoes make sure that you bring and attention. His model of on?’” your love and caring attitude Adamson said that being completely present for to McCallum, the school and while she will deeply miss the community, because it Garrison, she understands whatever the moment calls for will be deserving of that,” his decision to leave, and Garrison advised. “And the is a lesson in leadership. appreciates the time he new principal, whomever it —McCallum parent Amy Hufford may be, will get the support has spent as a leader for McCallum. of everybody here in the “This is a job that’s community. Hopefully, they hard,” Adamson said. “It’s getting harder all the have a have a good long run like I had here at McCallum.

Ultimately, while it was a difficult choice to time, and you have to get out when you can. I don’t want to see anybody be so old that they can’t enjoy leave, Garrison says he feels confident in both his it. He has been the best principal. I’ve worked own future and that of McCallum. for several; he’s truly been the best because he’s “It is just a hard decision,” he said. “I’ll miss it, allowed us to be our best.” but it’s time.”“

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SOPHIE RYLAND

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co-editor in chief

hen Winsley Melancon was displaced from New Orleans in 2005 by the devastating Category 5 Hurricane Katrina, her life changed. She was living in the Austin Convention Center, well aware that she could not return to her old school nor her old friends.

When her mother went looking for a new school for her, a bus driver recommended McCallum.

Immediately upon arriving at the McCallum campus, principal Mike Garrison, then just starting his second year as the school’s principal, welcomed her with open arms.

“She tells me she took a walk to Sunshine Drive and saw the campus and fell in love,” Melancon said. “When she walked into the doors she saw Mr. Garrison walking and introduced herself. She explained to him that I needed a new school to attend. He said to her, ‘This may not be what your child is used to; however, we’ll treat her like family!’”

Melancon started at Mac the next Monday and quickly found a home; Garrison, who had heard from her mother about how much she loved music, introduced her to the band director, Carol Nelson.

“We were able to get Winsley a donated trombone from the choir director at Covenant Presbyterian Church,” Nelson said. “I gave Winsley trombone lessons, and she made a First Division on a Class II Trombone Solo in the spring semester. Winsley also went on the band trip with us to Winter Park, Colo., on scholarship.”

Winsley says Garrison served as a source of comfort and a mentor for the rest of her time in high school.

“Garrison and his amazing faculty made sure I got all the counseling I needed from my trauma I experienced,” Melancon said. “They also never treated us different; when I did wrong, he would tell me to shape up, because he knew I was so much better. I’m forever grateful for his kindness, starting with my mother. In two short years at McCallum I made lifelong friends and amazing memories. I’m sad that there will be an entire new generation that doesn’t see his greatness!”

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arrison, who has similarly worked with other high school students in his tenure as principal, announced Thursday that he will be retiring at the end of the school year. He has spent 40 years in education; 17 as a teacher, seven as an assistant principal and 16 as principal.

“I’ve been eligible to retire for probably about six or seven years; I have reached that point in the TRS [Teacher Retirement System],” Garrison said. “So it is always there; it’s always on your mind. [Now] I get to spend a little more time with my family. Strike off on new adventures, new opportunities, while I’m still young enough and healthy enough to do something else after education. I do look forward to that opportunity to be creative and find something new to engage in.

No matter what I find, it will never be as rewarding as anything in education. Working with teachers, students, parents; there’s nothing like that.”

Garrison grew up in Bulverde, Texas, as the second oldest child out of 10 children.

After coaching and teaching, he took his first administrative job in Pasadena ISD, then moved to Austin in 1998, where he was an assistant principal at Dripping Springs and Bowie. He started as principal at McCallum in 2003.

He said that it was difficult to send the email

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ABOVE: Garrison poses for a picture for a The Shield article to introduce him to the community. “Bottom line: we are going to promote and encourage any extracurricular,” Day 1 Garrison told The Shield. “It ties you to the school more; it ties you to the community more. That’s my goal. I would like everybody to be involved in something because there is so much that McCallum offers.”” Photo

by Emily Panzer.

LEFT: Garrison went without goggles at this year’s Pink Week pep rally.

Photo by Gregory James. notifying staff of his decision, as he will miss night of a MacTheatre show, cheering at an working with the McCallum community, but he athletics event or personally attending to one has faith in the school continuing without him. student’s needs, he unfailingly demonstrates his “It’s sad, because we’re family here, and I’ll commitment to the Mac community with his time miss seeing these guys on a day-to-day basis and and attention. His model of being completely working with them,” Garrison said. “But I know present for whatever the moment calls for is a they’re going to be fine. They’re all sharp people, lesson in leadership.” professional people; they Parent Charlotte Sobeck remembers love students and love “He knows names of kids that Garrison as a calming McCallum. It won’t be the same, but it will go on, and are well-behaved, and he knows presence during the shooting threats that it’ll be McCallum High names of kids that are poorly School. Kind of like when occurred in February.

“The morning after a the senior class leaves, it’s behaved. And he cares about the not the same, but it every single one of them, and he threat of gun violence at McCallum, I went up to keeps going on.” the school out of concern Carol Nelson, who has is really great at looking past known Garrison for as for my son’s safety that behavior and at the person.” day. Mr Garrison was in long as he has worked —Diana Adamson front of the school taking at McCallum, said that himself, to calm she was shocked at the English department chair time, announcement, and it the worries of parents and kids,” she said. “I felt was a deeply emotional much better after talking to him. He is accessible, experience going to talk to him about it.

“I just came in [to Garrison’s office] to say, patient and kind, great leadership qualities. He ‘What?’ Then I hugged him,” Nelson said. “Then is quick to let parents know what is happening he was running over to the Kleenex. I said, ‘Thank at school as well as online in a way that does not you,’ and he said, ‘No, it’s for me!’” drive fear deeper, but instead, helps us let it go Parents and students say that Garrison is a and know he is doing everything possible to keep supportive leader, one who attends as many school McCallum kids safe and calm so they can focus on events as possible, and is deeply involved in the their education, as it should be.” community.

Many students interviewed praised Garrison “Mr. Garrison is everywhere,” parent Amy for his friendliness and good attitude.

Hufford said. “Whether it’s attending opening “Although his title says principal, throughout

Garrison bids goodbye

Popular leader praised for making McCallum community an extended family for students, teachers LEFT: Garrison greets students entering school on his first day at McCallum, a practice he continued throughout his tenure as principal.

Photo by Emily Panzer. BELOW RIGHT: Garrison poses for a profile for a The Shield article to introduce him to the community. Photo by Emily Panzer.

RIGHT: Senior Elijah Griffin wishes Principal Mike Garrison the best of luck and congratulates him on his pending retirement the day after Garrison announced his decision in an email to the faculty. Photo by Selena De Jesus. my four years at Mac I’ve always seen him as a friend, thanks to the constant jokes he cracks and the good vibes he gives off,” senior Paul Raper said.

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ne quality students noted in particular was the effort he makes to ensure that each student feels noticed and welcomed.

“I think he genuinely care[s] about people; he go[es] out of his way to say hi to you,” junior Shanta Graves said. “He always ask[s] questions about how your day was going, and it seem[s] like he [is] interested in getting to know each student he [sees].”

English teacher Diana Adamson said that while he takes a deeply individual approach to leadership, Garrison also knows when to stay hands off.

“He supports his teachers, which allows us to support our students,” Adamson said. “I don’t even know the words, because he’s allowed us to be the ones who are right there, but at the same time he knows every kid in the school. He can stand in the hall, and he knows names of kids that are well behaved, and he knows names of kids that are poorly behaved. And he cares about every single one of them, and he is really great at looking past behavior and at the person.”

Other teachers also spoke to Garrison’s good judgment and temperament.

“He listens well to teachers as well as students,” math teacher Richard Cowles said. “I think he is impeccably fair. He doesn’t let the politics of life interfere with him making sound, consistent

26 april 2019

decisions. You can tell that he genuinely likes high schoolers; he wants to see you, he wants to say hi, he wants to have a good relationship with you. He doesn’t see himself as the sultan of the school; he sees himself as someone that works with the school.

And I think that’s a very good attribute of any principal.”

Cowles also said that he feels like he can count on Garrison as a friend, not just a boss.

“Another thing that Mr. Garrison does is that when you come in, he’s interested in hearing how you’re doing and having a conversation,” Cowles said. “He doesn’t want to talk school only.

I feel comfortable going to him and sharing about when my son has a good game in baseball, [or] my daughter does well in basketball or different things

ABOVE: Garrison pushes the ceremonial bell onto the field before the annual Battle of the Bell versus Travis on November 9, 2018, where McCallum won 63-0. Photo by Gregory James.

LEFT: Principal Mike Garrison walks through the rows of cots as McCallum prepared to become a shelter for Red Cross volunteers on Aug. 29, 2017. The volunteers stayed in the gym for two days before relocating to the Great Hills Baptist Church. Photo by Dave Winter.

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like that. Whenever we get together, nothing takes arrison reassured the community that he is 30 seconds. It always takes five minutes, because we committed to fully serving out the rest of his talk about our lives. You know he’s a friend, and not days at McCallum, and even when he leaves, all principals are friendly. He has a general concern he is not completely abandoning the school. and affection for all people. That’s hard to replicate.”

“My last days are sometime in the summer; I’m One of Nelson’s favorite memories of Garrison still here. I’m all in until the last day,” Garrison was when the principal, early on in his tenure, assured. “Even then, from afar, I’ll still be in.” chased a streaker during the band’s halftime show Garrison said that the hiring of the next principal is up to the district. He believes that they will consult at House Park.

“He dropped his pants, and he started running staff and community members for feedback on what through the band, and Mr. Garrison took out after qualities they’d like to see in the next principal, but him, and he chased them all the way,” Nelson recalled, he does not know whether they will hire somebody laughing. “Mr. Garrison ran straight through; the immediately or place someone in interim. His advice for the successor? boy then climbed over a fence, and Mr. Garrison “He unfailingly demonstrates “McCallum is very, very stopped there. After that, unique place with lots of the parents would say [to his commitment to the Mac really great students, lots of him], ‘Hey Mr. Garrison, community with his time really dedicated staff. Just you got your tennis shoes make sure that you bring and attention. His model of on?’” your love and caring attitude Adamson said that being completely present for to McCallum, the school and while she will deeply miss the community, because it Garrison, she understands whatever the moment calls for will be deserving of that,” his decision to leave, and Garrison advised. “And the is a lesson in leadership. appreciates the time he new principal, whomever it —McCallum parent Amy Hufford may be, will get the support has spent as a leader for McCallum. of everybody here in the “This is a job that’s community. Hopefully, they hard,” Adamson said. “It’s getting harder all the have a have a good long run like I had here at McCallum.

Ultimately, while it was a difficult choice to time, and you have to get out when you can. I don’t want to see anybody be so old that they can’t enjoy leave, Garrison says he feels confident in both his it. He has been the best principal. I’ve worked own future and that of McCallum. for several; he’s truly been the best because he’s “It is just a hard decision,” he said. “I’ll miss it, allowed us to be our best.” but it’s time.”“

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During the student-directed production of “My Mother*%^#ing College Life” on April 1 in the Fine Arts Building Theater, senior Joi Green (left) performs a passionate monologue. In the same show, junior Edward Fotinos and sophomore Aydan Howison sit silently onstage while sophomore Dashel Beckett delivers a monologue behind them. Photos by Stella Shenkman.

Senior directors enhance their ‘Rep’ Week-long festival includes wide array of student-directed one-act plays JAZZABELLE DAVISHINES staff reporter

For the past two months, McCallum Theatre worked to create five different productions, four of which were directed by McCallum students. The Rep is an annual week-long festival of one-act plays directed by and starring MacTheatre students.

The Rep is a unique show experience; students direct their fellow classmates, rather than being directed by a teacher or supervisor.

“There is a weird dynamic because in class I am their director,” said Josephine Clarke, one of the student directors. “I am an authority figure that they need to respect and take seriously when I ask them to do something, but as soon as we’re outside of class, I go back to being a friend, who can joke around with them and won’t be hard on them or anything.”

Going back and forth between viewing a peer as an authority figure and seeing them as a fellow student presented challenges for the casts of these productions.

“It sometimes is hard to switch between those two, and for the cast to make that switch,” Clarke said. “Because in that room, I’m not just their friend who is playing around, I am trying to make a product. I’m trying to make art. It’s about finding that balance: I am still your friend, who loves and

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supports you, but I am also not an authority figure, and I need you to take me seriously.”

On April 1, the freshmen of MacTheatre performed their rendition of “The Little Prince,” the tale of a pilot who crashes in the Sahara Desert and meets some mysterious royalty.

This production was also recently performed at the UIL One-Act Play Festival. On the same evening, the eighth-period theatre class performed its student-directed production of “My Mother*%^#ing College Life,” a fresh take on the modern college experience directed by junior Eliza Dean-Polacheck with assistant director junior Sam Richter. On April 2, the seventh-period theatre class performed its student-directed production of “Shakespeare in Mind,” a series of vignettes that put a contemporary spin on some of the Bard’s classic plays, directed by senior Nicholas Heinen with assistant director sophomore Magnus Bohls.

On April 3, MacTheatre performed the first of two student-directed musicals. Directed by juniors Tosh Arora and Sam Richter, “The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip” is a whimsical tale of parasites from the sea that wreak havoc on the small village of Frip, leaving the fate of the town up to one girl.

Every year, there is one student-directed musical that also has a book, music and lyrics written entirely by a student. The process of creating an original work independently as a team of students can be a daunting endeavor.

“Writing the music is difficult because you have to come up with someone entirely from scratch,” senior member of the writing team Matthew Hernandez said. “It’s also challenging to collaborate with the book team, which is hard because you’re not involved with what they’re

doing, and you have to create one piece together.”

On April 4, the thespians performed the second student-directed musical, “The Waiting Room.” Directed by Josephine Clarke and assistant directed by Meiriona Maddy, “The Waiting Room” is the original musical written entirely by MacTheatre students. “I directed a musical last year, ‘One Good Day,’” Clarke said. “But this is a totally different experience because this show is student-written. So we’re taking these songs that I’ve heard plunked out on the piano so many times, and words that I’ve read so many times that they’ve lost so much meaning, but then I give it to the cast, and they run with it, and they do so many unique things that I never pictured.”

The student directors also faced specific challenges due to time restraints. The rehearsal process for the student-directed shows is significantly shorter than most mainstage productions. This gives directors less time to solidify their visions and bring them to the stage. Time contraints can also limit actors by giving them fewer rehearsals and less time to learn their lines and music.

“The amount of time we had was very short,” said junior director Tosh Arora. “The score is really difficult and intricate, and the music doesn’t help the actors to learn their parts.”

The experience of participating in a studentdirected production provided a unique opportunity for student leadership and teamwork in theatre. MacTheatre students can work together independently to create their own productions, which they otherwise would not be able to do.

“I think the most exciting thing is getting to work with the breadth of my class,” senior director Nicholas Heinen said. “It’s nice to be able to interact with everyone in the class for once.”

Freshman Finnegan Higginbotham starred as the Aviator in the UIL One-Act Play, “The Little Prince” on April 1. Photo by Stella Shenkman.

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LEFT: “Strings” by sophomore Bridget Russo is a dedication to her triplet sister, Bella (a newspaper staffer). Russo said she pulled multiple all-nighters to complete this piece with embroidery thread on a canvas. Photo courtesy of Bridget Russo. RIGHT: Freshman Ruby Borden’s piece “The Antagonist Within” features a battle between a woman with fiery red hair and an equally fiery monster, representing her struggle with her inner demons. Both two-dimensional and three-dimensional pieces can be submitted for VASE in a variety of media. Photo by Olivia Watts.

Anything but VASE-ic

The annual state visual arts competition is a test of an artist’s creativity, patience and endurance OLIVIA WATTS staff reporter

The face of an old woman, a bust painted to look like marble, a vase with a face, a teapot full of eyes and a woman fighting a dragon.

What do all of these things have in common?

They all placed in the district VASE competition, and they were all created by McCallum students.

VASE stands for Visual Arts Scholastic Event, which takes place across the state of Texas at the high school, middle school and elementary school levels. The middle school level is called junior VASE, while the elementary level is just called TEAMS. Texas is divided into 20 districts; Austin is located in District 13.

Entering VASE isn’t as hard as it might seem to those who are new to the subject. For some students, VASE is voluntary, but for others, like freshman Ruby Borden, it is required to attend for their fine arts major.

“I’m a major, so I had to, but I also decided because I entered VASE as a middle schooler and I really enjoyed it, and I like seeing all the artwork at the end and walking around,” Borden said. “That’s also why I stayed later, to see all the art.”

Despite being a freshman, Borden brought two complex pieces to VASE. “[For] my painting, I used just acrylic paint on canvas, and then [for] my sculpture, I did mixed media. So I did epoxy, wire, paper mache and cardboard.”

Borden’s painting was called “The Little Moments,” and her sculpture was called “The Antagonist Within.” Each has a unique, carefully designated purpose.

“So [for] the painting that I did, I wanted to do something lighthearted and joyful, because

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teenagers have this stigma where it’s depressing and deep art, and I want to do the opposite of that,” Borden said. “My sculpture I did was about fighting with our inner demons and overcoming things.”

Sophomore Vanessa Lee, who entered VASE for the first time this year, explains the VASE process.

“The teacher suggests if you would like to go or not, unless you’re an art major, then, the teacher gives you some paperwork asking different questions on your piece and why you decided to join VASE,” she said.

The art teachers who sponsor their students assist them with the entry process, the preparation of their pieces and everything in between.

“I think it starts with encouraging them,” McCallum ceramics and sculpture teacher Carey West said. “[We help] them find a piece that they think is suitable, then we sign them up digitally and help them through that process, check their UIL qualifications, and then, when it gets closer to the event, we start helping them prepare the pieces. Up to the point where they get interviewed, we’re there to fix any problems, or get them on the right track or make sure they’re in the right place. After that, it’s all up to them in the interviewing and judging.”

This year, the high school level VASE for Austin ISD took place on March 2 at San Marcos High School. State VASE will take place on April 26 and 27 at the same location, lasting a majority of the afternoon and involving a good amount of patience from the artists.

“You go on a bus to a high school,” Lee said, “and you wait outside until the judge lets you inside, and then they grade you on your piece and they ask you a few questions. After you finish being judged, you wait in the cafeteria of

the school. Then the bus will take you back to your school; then you can go home.”

According to the artists involved, sometimes the waiting around can actually be more fun than the contest.

“I got to see a few of my friends from my old school, and I miss talking to them,” Lee said. “I actually reconnected with my friend. We took drawing class together back in middle school.”

A variety of 3D pieces can be entered in VASE along with 2D pieces. This includes ceramics, sculptures, fibers and many other media. Junior Graham Protzmann took advantage of the 3D categories by entering his ceramic piece, which will be advancing to state.

“I did [VASE] last year when I was in Ceramics 1, and it was pretty fun. My friends who are art majors did it, and it just seemed like fun,” Protzmann said.

Protzmann is actually a tech major, which only added to his surprise over his state advancement news.

“It was cool because I wasn’t really expecting it at all,” Protzmann said. “[My piece] was a set of three ceramic things. There was a bowl, a plate and a jar, and they were all glazed in the same way. It was a couple of pieces from different projects, and then I glazed them all the same way to make them a set. [The technique] was a kind of glazing thing that I’d never tried.

I asked the teacher how it would turn out, and she didn’t know either. I just wanted to see what would happen.”

Freshman Gage Sanchez is another one of many artists from McCallum who had a piece or two make it to state. Both of his pieces, he said, captured the essence of everyday life by romanticizing the constants in his life.

“I had a painting in acrylic, with my dog,

and a clay sculpture of my friend’s head with a city on top,” Sanchez said. “I used regular clay, polymer clay, epoxy, acrylic paint.”

For Sanchez’s pieces “Urbanization” and “Just a Bit of Contrast,” he explained that the pieces held an additional meaning for him.

“My sculpture was more about global change, how it’s affecting kids and how kids could learn to change just slightly in their day to help our world,” she said.

Another McCallum student advancing to state VASE is sophomore Bridget Russo.

“I did an embroidery piece where I just sewed on a canvas of my sister, and I did a mosaic-style piece where I cut pieces of paper out that were different colors and glued them to look like this photo I took in Spain of some fountain,” Russo said. “You get scored one through four, and both [of my pieces] got fours. From the fours, [the judges] pick which ones go to state. Both of them got a silver seal, which means they’ll both advance to state.”

Of course, art’s purpose and importance varies from artist to artist and from piece to piece. Lee said her art was a way of communicating her appreciation of loved ones. “[My piece] was a prismacolor portrait of my two best friends,” Vanessa Lee said about her piece entitled “My Sisters.” “I was just thinking about who I wanted to draw next, and I hadn’t drawn my friends yet. It was my way of showing them how much they mean to me.”

Students said they appreciated the experience of having their personal art analyzed, celebrated and appreciated. After all, the face of an old woman, a bust looking like marble, a vase with a face, a teapot full of eyes and a woman fighting a dragon all have more in common than they seem.

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PROTESTING FOR THE PLANET Students make voices heard at State Capitol, demand legislative action on climate change STELLA SHENKMAN staff reporter

At McCallum, it is not out of the ordinary for the student body to participate in organized walkouts to fight for topics in which they believe. Last year, it was gun control, but this spring, it was climate change. On the Friday before spring break, high school students from all around Austin walked out of their first-period classes to meet on the State Capitol lawn alongside activists, young and old.

The event featured many guest speakers such as Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, who is running for the District 10 seat in the Texas House of Representatives (District 10 includes a strip of north Austin and expands east all the way to Cypress and Tomball).

Gandhi was the first speaker to address the crowd.

“For a long time,” Gandhi said, “Young people like you all have relied on adults like us to take action, to safeguard our air, to safeguard our water, to safeguard our soil… but in many respects, we have failed you.”

The candidate went on to discuss his concerns regarding climate change.

“We have not done enough,” he said. “Now we know that we must address global warming. We know that we must address it now and within this decade. We know that we are seeing many once-in-a-lifetime events such as hurricanes and natural disasters every other year. We know that the economic impact of climate change will

SCREAMING SASHA: Junior Sasha Ashton, who attended McCallum her freshman year before transferring to the Khabele School, used her diary when speaking at the rally.

“I definitely hold a lot of anger and resentment for the actions that have been taken ... to gain wealth and to live a comfortable life in the face of what’s immoral,” Ashton said. “I have to use that anger and channel it into action.” Photo by Zoe Hocker.

22 climate change

disproportionately affect our communities right here and rural communities right down the road, where farming is the major industry.”

Gandhi went on to address the rally organization directly, praising them for their action.

“You all know that we have to move forward now,” he said. “We can’t wait for action, and that’s why we are here today.”

Gandhi was followed by speakers including students, parents and representatives from 350 Austin, an anti-fossil fuels organization. 350 Austin’s Barbra Fetonte said she believes that climate change is not only an environmental concern, but a political conflict as well.

“I want young people to have as long of a life as possible,” Fetonte said. “Global warming is the key. It causes drought, flooding and fires. With that, you get fires in Syria and civil wars that cause refugees, which causes people to not want to accept refugees at their borders.”

Fetonte expressed frustration that climatechange policy is so often weighed in business terms when in fact it’s a quality-of-life issue.

“It’s not about the money,” Fetonte said. “It is about people wanting to be able to just live a good life. We don’t want mansions; we just want to be able to feed our families, to be able to take pride in our world, and to care for each other.”

This wasn’t Fetonte’s first rodeo either. She has been an activist in the community her entire life, dating back to the Vietnam War protests and civil rights movements.

“I have fought for things all of my life,” Fetonte said. “But this just seems to be one of the most important. It’s not like we need a 10-bedroom house. I just want a place where I know my family will be safe. I am not asking for a lot.”

Fetonte’s life has been devoted to activism, even her marriage depended on it, according to her husband Danny Fetonte. “[Barbara] would not go out with me until she saw that I was serious about activism,” he said. “It took me sixth months to get a date with her, but now we’ve been married for 40 years.”

Activism has played an important role in Danny Fetonte’s life, and he said he is glad to see younger generations continue the fight.

“This is wonderful, seeing high school and college kids stand up,” he said. “My wife and I did it back in the day too. People think that activism doesn’t do anything, but you can change things if you stand up and fight.”

He added that he hopes that younger generations of activists do not lose hope.

“The people here are perfect examples,” he said. “Don’t become cynical, don’t give up, it’s our planet. The young people have the right to fight as much as anyone, you still have a whole life ahead of you here.”

Danny Fetonte also works with 350 Austin, an organization that protests corporations that it believes are polluting the environment.

“The Fayette Coal Plant is leaking coal lash,” he offered as an example of corporate negligence.

“The main products of coal lash are lead, mercury and arsenic.”

Fetonte went on to explain his frustrations with the policy changes that occurred following the

A PAIR OF PROTESTERS: Married couple Danny and Barbara Fetonte stand and watch students speak on climate change on the State Capital Lawn as they share a sign in support of the young activists. The two have been married for over 40 years, and throughout their partnership say they have shared a passion for activism. Photo by Stella Shenkman. transition to the Trump administration.

“The Obama administration cited [the plant] for having massive piles of coal lash around,” he said. “Because every time it rains, it leaches into the groundwater. When Trump came in six or eight months later, he got rid of the fines and he got rid of the regulations. I talked to [officials at the Fayette Coal Plant] recently, and they said ‘Well we are following all of the regulations,’ but there are not even any regulations on monitoring the lead content.”

Danny Fetonte, among with many others at the rally, claim that the City of Austin is not doing enough to ensure that pollutants are disposed of properly.

“They’re not enforcing that these things are supposed to be sealed,” Fetonte said. “So it does not go down into the ground.”

According to a Jan. 20 Spectrum online news article, the Environmental Integrity Project tested water near the 16 coal-fired power plants in Texas and found that the water tested did not comply with standards established by the Safe Drinking Water Act. In the same article, the Sierra Club’s Chrissy Mann claims the water was contaminated by poorly stored coal ash.

Danny Fetonte added that he believes the health risks that come with chemicals being leaked into drinking water are extremely serious and that local government should do more to address gaps left by weakened federal laws.

“This country is crazy with making money fast and being irresponsible,” Fetonte said. “Just because Trump got rid of all of the regulations on how to handle coal lash does not mean that City of Austin or the LCRA [Lower Colorado Authority] should go along with it.”

LCRA spokeswoman Clara Tuma said in a statement to Spectrum news that the claims that coal ash from the Fayette Power plant is polluting the nearby water supply is simply false.

“Fayette Power Project’s monitoring and reporting confirm that FPP is appropriately... monitoring [the safety of the water and] is in compliance with EPA’s Coal Combustion Residuals Rule. Repeated testing has not indicated that groundwater at FPP poses a public health risk, and EPA rules do not require LCRA to take further action at this time.”

The larger issue the Fetontes say is the misplaced priority of profits over people.

“The money should not be a question when you’re dealing with people’s lives, especially children,” he said. “We’re telling LCRA and the City of Austin that no kids’ lives are worth the money.”

For some participants, this issue is deeply personal. Activist Richard Halpin has had climate change affect his life in a big way.

“My father-in-law and mother-in-law were swamped in Houston with the flood of Harvey,” Halpin said. “[My wife and I] had to go down there in the flood and move them out of [Houston] in a wheelchair, then move them into our home where my father-in-law died from results of the flood.”

Halpin has been protesting against climate change for more than 40 years and believes that results will come from education.

“I want to see that the biggest change is more people who are educated to act,” Halpin said. “I want more people to realize that their lives are at risk, their children’s lives are at risk and the whole world we live in is at risk. I want them to take the solutions that we have at our fingertips and make them pervasive.”

Underscoring the event was a sense of desperation, with students skipping school to beg lawmakers for action and older protesters articulating their deep concern for the future.

“It feels like we are all frogs in a pot,” Halpin said. “And the heat it turning up.”

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WORSE THAN HOMEWORK: As speaker Morgan Young shares his story with the crowd, a young activist cheers and lifts a sign comparing climate change to another perceived unchecked societal evil. Photo by Zoe Hocker.

RESPECT YOUR MOTHER: A pair of young protesters display their gratitude to their earth through a shared sign. Students arrived as early as 8:30 a.m. at the Capitol lawn.

The strike organizers offered the crowd coffee and breakfast snacks, playing music on speakers to help welcome incoming participants. Photo by Stella Shenkman.

THE GROUP GATHERS: Students of all ages skipped school on March 15 claiming the chance to teach others about climate change was a more pressing educational issue. Photo by Stella Shenkman.

RIGHT: The student leader of the 2019 Climate Strike Rally, VL Gaffney makes her rounds ensuring that the event is going smoothly.

“We cannot afford four more years of climate inaction,” Gaffney said. “There can be no ‘Bernie or bust.’ That means whoever gets on the [Democratic] ballot needs to get into office; do not split the ballot.” Photo by Stella Shenkman.

26 april 2019

DOCUMENTING THE DEMONSTRATION: Sophomore Quinn Lawrence-Sanderson joined the rally alongside a group of McCallum’s Audio Visual Club members collaborating with The Shield’s staff reporters in order to produce a minidocumentary short film about the climate change rally. “I did go to the gun-control rally last year,” Lawrence-Sanderson said.

“This rally was the second I’ve ever attended.”

Lawrence-Sanderson may have been too busy with recording sound for the students’ film to rally himself, but he says that putting in the work was satisfying. “It is really special to be able to use film as a way to express the importance of these issues.” LawrenceSanderson said. “It’s really gratifying to know that I play a part in spreading their message.”

Photo by Stella Shenkman.

WHAT’S HAPLIN? Activist Richard Haplin poses with his homemade sign demonstrating his climate-change concerns. “Let’s get past the crazy,” Haplin said. “Let’s wake up and do something smart with each other to make the world a better place.” Haplin’s passion for climate change came into sharp focus after the death of his father-in-law dies. Haplin said he passed away as a result of Hurricane Harvey. Photo by Zoe Hocker.

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Sweeney manages to make impact

From basketball team manager to leader of the golf team, senior ‘an extremely team-oriented guy’ JANSSEN TRANSIER staff reporter

“It all sort of just happened.”

That’s how Emmett Sweeney describes how his deep involvement in McCallum sports started.

“It wasn’t my mission to be really involved at McCallum, but a lot of my friends were in sports or involved at McCallum somehow, so it ended up that way,” he said.

Sweeney’s involvement in sports isn’t limited to just being a spectator; he played on the McCallum basketball team as a freshman, then returned as the team’s manager the following year. Rather than be frustrated with his new position, he said he decided to lean into it.

“For me, if I’m there, I may as well do a good job,” Sweeney said.

After a successful season as manager his sophomore year and another season of actually playing on the team as a junior, Sweeney decided to return as the manager for his final year at McCallum. He said the decision came down to where he felt he could make the most impact.

“Honestly, it was between being on the team and playing a minute a game, or be the manager and actually be involved in the team,” he said.

One person who has firsthand experience with Sweeney’s time on the basketball team is senior Norman Boyd.

“As a player he always brought a lot of energy and excitement,” Boyd said. “I remember one time we were playing Bastrop, and everyone fouled out, so Emmett and the other people on the bench had to close the game, and we ended up winning.”

According to Boyd, Emmett’s strengths aren’t just as a player.

“As a manager he has a lot of stuff to keep track of, he does the book during games, helps set up the court and everything and also does a really good job of being at every single game and supporting us,” Boyd said.

Basketball isn’t Sweeney’s only sport here at McCallum; as a freshman, he joined the McCallum golf team.

“My grandfather was a very skilled golfer, so that definitely inspired me to play. My grandfather began golfing at a young age, and continued improving when he joined the Air Force,” Sweeney said. “While he was in the military he won a lot of tournaments, and by the

Senior Emmett Sweeney holds up both Mac scorebooks in an effort to correct the score in a basketball game at LBJ. “Before the game, we decided that we were gonna have two separate people on our team keep track of the score,” Sweeney said. “Midway through the game we noticed that we were missing a point, so we stopped the game and told the referees. We argued with them for a while, but they ended up not giving us the point.” Photo by David Winter. time he retired from the Air Force at age 50, it was too late in life to pursue a professional career, but he still won lots of amateur tournaments.”

Sweeney’s grandfather definitely passed on some of his skills to him, but according to Sweeney, the most important thing he taught him was a love for the game.

“He taught me to just have fun with the game, and that when you’re having fun, you play better.

Watching him play until the age of 95 really showed me that this was a sport I could get at and play my whole life,” Sweeney said. “After he passed away, I really wanted to play like he was still watching.”

One person familiar with his golf skills is coach Nancy Nitardy. She has nothing but praise for both his playing ability and his team presence.

“From the first time I met Sweeney, he was a really fun, positive kid,” Nitardy said. “He had and has a great energy about him. What I really admire about Emmett is that, while he’s a great player, he’s really great about helping the other kids. Even the coaches and parents from other teams come up to me and tell me about how great he is to play with. He’s an extremely teamoriented guy, and I’m gonna miss him.”

According to Boyd, Sweeney has always had such an affable personality.

“I’ve known Emmett since third or fourth grade, and even then he was super outgoing and energetic,” Boyd said. “I honestly haven’t seen that change all that much since elementary school; he’s still a lot of fun to be around.”

Sweeney recommends participating in

different activities in high school.

“I think it’s important to get involved in the high school experience, because it makes it a lot more fun, and, not that I want it to end, but it makes it go by faster,” he said. “You also meet so many new people, and it’s a great way to make friends. There’s just so many things that I went and tried, and I met a lot of different people because of that.”

He then added another key piece of insight for future Knights.

“If I could give a freshman coming into McCallum one piece of advice, I would tell them to just be themselves,” he said, “because in high school, you’re gonna lose some friends, and you’re gonna gain some friends, but there’s no point in being someone you’re not.”

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A weekend in the life of MAC sports

Soccer season extended by boys, girls playoff runs; softball, baseball and track also in full swing GOMEZ GOES FOR GOAL: Freshmen Mia Gomez dribbles the ball away from San Antonio Veterans Memorial defenders in the Knight’s 1-0 victory over the Patriots on Friday March 30. Thanks to Gomez’s early second half goal, the Knights advanced to the second round of the 5A state playoffs. They lost that game to the San Antonio Southwest Dragons, 1-0, on April 9. The playoff win was the Knights’ first since 2009. Photo by Risa Darlington Horta.

PITCHIN’ IN: Nick Compton pitches in the Knights’ 20-0 win over Reagan on Friday April 5. The Knights won their eighth straight district game and earned their fourth straight district sweep of the season. The team got to 11-0 in district before losing to Dripping Springs on April 18, but then beat Lanier on Tuesday and will win the district title with a win Friday. Results were not available at press time. Photo by Grace Nugent.

ABOVE: RIGHT ON TRACK: Senior Deron Gage runs in the 100-meter dash at the 92nd annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays at Mike A. Myers Stadium on the UT campus on Friday March 29. In addition to Gage qualifying in the 100 meters, he and three other Mac athletes— Major Faught, Jonathan Porter and Elijah Griffin—qualified for 4x100 relay on Saturday morning. “Due to the strenuous qualifications, some schools only get one or two athletes that make it,” coach Joshua Amy told Macjournalism. “It is an incredible achievement that these guys also made a relay event. This is a prestigious honor for any track athlete. They competed against the fastest kids in the state.” Photo

by Risa Darlington-Horta.

SOFTBALL GOES EXTRA INNINGS AGAINST LBJ: Senior Diamante Diaz fields a ball during warm-ups before the varsity softball team’s game against LBJ on Friday March 29. Diaz would pitch seven innings and strike out 12 Jaguars in an instant classic as the arch-rival teams went toe to toe for nine innings before the Jags prevailed, 109, on a walkoff ground ball with the bases loaded. Melany Reese hit a two-out, tworun single to make the score 9-4 Knights in the top of the sixth. Julia Crofut had an RBI, a run scored and three walks in the game.

Photo by Caleb Melville.

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MAC TAKES DOWN A CHAMPIONS: In a tightly contested 1-0 win over Boerne Champion at Canyon Lake High School on Friday night Adrian Martinez brings the ball upfield. The Knights scored the game’s only goal on a Marcel Lopez Reed pass to Martinez for a one-touch goal.

Coach Nick Martin said it was a great win earned under intense pressure from a worthy opponent.

Martin added that goalkeeper Vaughn Burger had a strong match. “If you can make two or three good saves a match, you’ve put the team in a position to win. And he did.” The team went on to beat San Antonio Southside 3-1 on April 2, but eventually fell to San Antonio Southwest 1-0 in the third round. Photo by Lily Dashner.

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He’s called ‘Ace’ for a reason

In his second year on varsity, Abraham Dietz embraces new role at the top of the rotation The Shield: When and how did you get started with baseball?

Abraham (Ace) Dietz: I started in second grade in this little league tournament, then played for Northwest Little League, then I went to Pony, then I played club for ABC, then I played some select ball in middle school and then tried out for McCallum and got on. Over the summer I play baseball also, so it’s like a year-round thing.

TS: What first caused you to get started with baseball?

AD: I used to play soccer, and then I started not liking it, so I moved on. My dad wanted me to play baseball, because I’m lefthanded. And then I liked pitching; that was the main thing I liked. So ever since then, I’ve liked pitching.

TS: What do you like about pitching?

AD: One thing I like about pitching is that you can control how the game goes, how fast the pace is. It can be up to you how the game goes, so I like that.

TS: When you’re not pitching, do you play other positions?

AD: I used to play outfield, [but] I sometimes play right field or center field. I bat sometimes, but usually I just focus on pitching.

TS: How long have you been on varsity?

AD: Two years; this is my second year. Our new varsity coach is Coach Grant, and last year I was with Coach Alvarez.

TS: How would you say the season’s been going so far?

AD: The season’s been going pretty well; we just have to adjust. We lost a lot of our seniors last year, and we have a lot of young players on varsity, and we’re learning how to play together.

TS: What’s it been like to have a new coach this year?

AD: I like it, because it’s one of the first times I’ve actually had a coach that has baseball knowledge and in-game situations. He knows a lot about pitching and batting and all that stuff.

TS: What are some of your individual goals, and what are some of your team goals for this year?

AD: An individual goal is to have one of the lowest ERAs in the district, and one of my team’s goals is to win as a team and to eliminate errors.

TS: So you’re kind of the ace pitcher this year, right?

AD: Yeah, I’m the starting pitcher.

TS: What’s it like to move up the rotation?

AD: I like it, because you can teach. Yzmael [Izquierdo] is the second ace, and he’s a sophomore, so I like to tell him, “This is how you’re supposed to do it; you’re very young at pitching, so don’t put a lot of stress over it, just relax and have fun.”

TS: What’s been the highlight of your season so far?

AD: My highlight of the season would be probably when we beat Dripping Springs.

TS: What did you like about that game?

AD: I pitched really well, and we fought back when we were down.

—interview by Steven Tibbetts

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Dietz throws a pitch during the Knights’ alumni game, where the varsity beat the alums 12-10 to start off their season. Dietz has been the No. 1 starter for the Knights throughout district play, and has been extremely reliable in that role. He pitched seven-inning complete game victories in Knights’ comeback victories over LBJ on March 12 and Dripping Spring on April 16, giving up only one run in each start. Photo by Dave Winter.

Generic medications for less Dietz and sophomore catcher CJ Owen talk at the mound during the Knights’ 12-10 victory over the McCallum alumni team on Feb. 16 at Northwest Park. Dietz won most recently on Tuesday in the Knights’ 8-1 victory over Lanier.

As the No. 1 starter, Dietz is 6-0 in district play. For the season, he’s 7-1 with a 1.685 earned run average. He leads all pitchers with 46 strikeouts. Photo by Dave Winter.

512-465-9292 medsaverspharmacy@gmail.com 1800 W 35th St 26 april 2019

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Taking her shot (put)

Junior Kyla Gibson, varsity shot put, discus thrower, shares her origin story, her season highs

Gibson competes in the Dripping Springs meet on Feb. 28, where she threw her personal record. On March 9, she beat her record again during the Saint Andrews meet by throwing 26 feet, 9.25 inches.

Photo by Gabby Sherwood.

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TS: When did you first start shot put and discus?

KG: I started freshman year. I had never done it before. They were like, “Hey, you look pretty strong; let’s see how you do.” From then on, I got pretty decent at it.

TS: What was your inspiration?

How did you get into it?

KG: An old coach who used to go here, Coach Stancik, and Coach Brodbeck. I did volleyball, and Coach Brodbeck told me, “You seem pretty strong, and you have a lot of strength in your legs. Let’s try it out.” After that I was like, “OK, it’s not that bad.” I talked to my mom, and she told me that she used to [compete in] these events. It’s kind of cute [that] we both did it at the same time.

TS: You said you’ve been on the team since freshman year. Did you start on JV and move up from there?

KG: Yeah, I started on the JV [team].

In sophomore year, Coach told me, “Congratulations, you’ve been moved up. You’ve proved yourself.”

TS: What are practices like?

KG: We usually warm up with the runners, so we do dynamic stretching.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and sometimes Fridays, we go into the shed downstairs, grab our shots and do more dynamic warm-ups. We throw behind us to see how far we can throw; we practice the movements and then we get in the ring and go all out.

TS: I know the meets are really long, so how do you warm up beforehand?

KG: Well, we have to be here at 6 a.m. sometimes, and we don’t get to the event until like 7 or 8, depending on how far away it is. We have about 30 minutes to warm up, and then they’re like, “Alright, varsity girls, lets go!”

TS: How is the event scored?

KG: There’s a guy or girl with a clipboard there. The only time that [the throw] doesn’t count is if it goes outside of the ring or if you step into the ring.

You have to enter through the back and exit from the back. If you don’t, they yell “scratch,” and it doesn’t count. It can either be your worst throw or your best throw, so it kind of sucks.

TS: What is your goal for this season?

KG: I’m trying to reach 30 [feet] this year. Last year my final throw, my PR, was 26 something, and [this year] I’m starting off at 26. So I’m going to the weight room and lifting; hopefully I’ll get up to 30.

TS: I heard that at the [Dripping Springs] meet you threw your personal record. Can you walk me through that event?

KG: I was honestly surprised.

Like, I hadn’t thrown in months. I was watching the other girls throw [in practice,] and some of them were throwing 30 feet easily. I was thinking, “I’m the smallest one here, both height and size-wise. But it doesn’t matter.”

My coach was there, and he told me just to throw: “Put all of your muscles into it, and you’ve got it.” So I got up there and I was like, “Alright, that wasn’t bad.” I was just aiming for the first line, and I ended up getting it a little bit past. I was like, “OK, I reached that goal, so maybe I can make it to the middle.” What also helped me was that all the people that were throwing really well in practice did not do as well during the actual meet. I was told that I PR-ed, and I looked online to see my scores from last year, and I increased by like two feet. I was like, “I haven’t even lifted or worked out for that event in awhile.” So, throwing two feet more… I was ecstatic.

TS: What’s something that people might not know about the differences between shot put and discus?

KG: One thing that people don’t really know is that the footwork is kind of the same. In shot put you can do a spin, but I do a kickback. The spin is complicated, and I’m gonna fall. The footwork is actually similar, but shot put is more with your legs, and discus is more with your whole body.

TS: Would you say you enjoy shot put more?

KG: Yes, definitely. One good thing is that I’ve made a lot of friends with people from different schools, so I can be like, “Hey, I don’t know what I’m doing,” and they’ll be like, “Me either.” [laughs] TS: What advice would you give to the freshmen going into these events?

KG: Something that I’d tell freshmen or anyone who hasn’t done it is that it’s all OK. You’re not going to be the strongest; you’re not going to be the tallest, not going to be the biggest, but don’t let them underestimate you. A lot of people who are really small could throw like 34 feet! Just don’t worry about the others; you’ve got it.

TS: What has been your proudest moment from this season and previous years?

KG: In freshman year, it was placing in district. I had never done it before, and then I ended up getting second.

Last year, I ended up placing seventh in district and wasn’t expecting it at all.

For this year, it was PR-ing.

TS: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

KG: If you do track, try to do shot put!

—interview by Kristen Tibbetts

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25-5A Sports Round up After historic first-round win girls soccer loses in second round of 5A state playoffs

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE: Kennedy Austin runs in the 100 meter dash at the district track meet on April 6. Austin finished fifth in the event. Mariko Deloach was fourth and Lily Myers finished sixth. Photo by Anna McClellan.

Boys, girls track members qualify for area meet Both the boys and girls track teams competed at their respective district track meets on April 4 and 5. For the boys, Deron Gage won first place in the 100 meters and 200 meter.

Alvino Carbajal placed first in shot put, Ian Shaw placed second in the high jump, with Takai Satberry placing third.

“They came out and worked as hard as they could,” boys track Coach Joshua Amy told MacJournalism.

Several girls track team members also qualified for the area meet with Top 4 district performances. Selena De Jesus finished fourth in discus, and Mariko Deloach finished fourth in the 100 meters to qualify for area.

For the JV girls, Atziry Veliz Esparza finished third in the 300-meter hurdles, Julia Blackmon tied for third in the high jump, and Charlotte Odland finished third in the triple jump, Destani Page placed fourth in discus, and Lily Dickey and Ale Luera placed fourth and fifth in the 400-meter dash.

“We had a small but mighty team,” girls track coach Susan Ashton said. “They worked very hard for these results.”

The boys and girls relay teams also placed at the district meet. The boys the 4x100 (Elijah Griffin, Jonathan Porter, Major Faught, Deron Gage), the 4x200 (Elijah Griffin, Jonathan Porter, Julian Rosales, and Major Faught) and the 4x400 (Julian Rosales, Demetrius McClarin, Chris Riley, Cruz Escobar and Santiago Ortiz) relay teams all qualified for the area meet. For the girls, the 4x100 relay team of Hannah Zuniga, Kennedy Austin, Lily Parker and Mariko Deloach placed second, and the 4x200 relay team of Mia Gomez, Austin, Deloach and Parker placed fourth.

Four members of the boys track team also advanced to the 92nd annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, held at the Mike A. Myers Stadium on the UT campus. The team of Deron Gage, Jonathan Porter, Major Faught and Elijah Griffin competed in the 4x100 relays and Deron Gage competed individually in the 100 meter dash.

“They competed against the fastest kids in the state,” Coach Amy said.

—Gregory James

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After a historic first round playoff win 1-0 against San Antonio Veterans Memorial High School on Friday March 29, fell short against their second round opponent, Southwest San Antonio, by the same 1-0 score on Tuesday April 2.

The only goal in the game came off a shot early in the second half that floated just beyond the reach of goalkeeper Lindsey Plotkin’s outstretched hands.

“We knew it was going to be a low-scoring game,” head coach Stephanie Watson said. “We knew it was going to be whatever team hat could sneak one in, and we had a couple opportunities to do that, but we just couldn’t capitalize on them.”

The team finished the season 20-4-1 and were co-district 25-5A champs with a 13-1 district record. The team was also bi-district champions by virtue of its first playoff win since 2009.

In that game against San Antonio Veterans Memorial, Mia Gomez scored on a breakway early in the second half. The Knights were unable to finish other chances in that game, but their defensive effort proved great enough to keep Veterans Memorial from scoring to tie the game.

“I think they played really well together,” Watson said.

“I know they came off the field feeling really proud of themselves.”

—Karel Tinkler

On De La Garza’s walk-off hit, baseball edges Drip, 2-1 in crucial district contest The varsity baseball team took a huge step toward clinched its ninth straight district title in a row with a 2-1 win over Dripping Springs Tigers on Tuesday April 16 at Northwest Park.

The team was trailing going into the bottom of the seventh inning 1-0 but a double steal by Cole Davis and Jacob Castillo tied the score at 1, then a single from Trinidad De la Garza sent Castillo home with the winning run.

Following the 2-1 win, the varsity lost 9-6 at Dripping Springs on Friday April 19. The Knights were leading 6-1 going into the bottom of the third, but the Tigers rallied after that to split the series and give the Knights their first district loss.

The Knight’s defeated Lanier on Tuesday to set up a district-clinching rematch on Friday night at Northwest.

Results were unavailable at press time.

—Gregory James

DOGGONE DRAGONS: Just like their male counterparts, the girls soccer team lost to San Antonio Southwest in the playoffs. Mia Gomez, pictured here, was a big part of the Knights success, netting 32 goals in the season, including one that sent the Knights to round two.

TRINI IN THE CLUTCH: After Trinidad De La Garza hit an RBI single that scored Jacob Castillo with the game-winning run, the varsity baseball team celebrates a 2-1 walk-off win over Dripping Springs. Photo by Grace Nugent.

Softball wins senior game, sweep series with Lanier

SENIOR SEND OFF: In the last game of the season, the varsity softball team beat Lanier, 22-6. Photo by Caleb Melville.

The varsity softball team finished its season with a win against Lanier 22-6 on Friday April 19. The team honored its six graduating seniors before the game. In the win, senior Julia Crofut had two home runs and senior Diamante Diaz struck out five batters for Lanier.

“These coaches have been people I could always turn to, and these girls have come out to be like sisters in every way,” Diaz said. Abigail Elizondo led the team with four runs, and Crofut had a team high seven RBI’s. The team finishes the season with a 4-21 overall record and a 4-8 district record

—Caleb Melville and Gregory James

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Boys soccer advances to third round Despite loss to San Antonio Southwest, 2019 Knights make deepest playoff run since 2006 STEVEN TIBBETTS sports editor

B

y the time McCallum’s varsity soccer team stepped onto Rattler Field in San Marcos to face off against the San Antonio Southwest Dragons, the Knights had already gone farther in the playoffs than any McCallum soccer team had in the past 13 years.

“We went further than we have since 2006 and the furthest we’ve ever gone in my tenure as a coach,” head coach Nick Martin said.

So when the final whistle of McCallum’s season blew and the team fell 2-0 to the Dragons, the Knights were still proud of their season overall.

“We accomplished so much that we were all happy,” senior Anthony Bataille said. “Obviously, we wanted to go further. We all played very well and it was just a great game.”

At the beginning of district play, the Knights looked like a team that might struggle to even make the playoffs, let alone win a couple of playoff games. Through six district games, the Knights were only able to get one win. The Knights then caught fire over the next six district games, however, winning five and securing a spot in the playoffs. This turnaround in the Knights season came because the team started playing more collectively and less individually.

“We all started clicking, playing as a team,” senior Adrian Martinez Castro said. “At the beginning of the year it was kind of individual, but then we started playing as a team, so we got better.”

Martin agrees that unselfish play is what ultimately allowed the Knights to achieve so much this year.

“When you have a group of players who want to make everyone look good and not playing selfishly, you’re going to have a successful team and we had that this year,” Martin said. “And that makes all the difference.”

Sophomore goalie Vaughn Burger believes that the player’s good relationships with each other allowed the team to succeed with a teamoriented style of play.

“I think our relationship, we’re all friends, it helped,” Burger said.

Despite their success in the second half of district play, it wasn’t until the Knights won their first playoff game, a 1-0 victory of BoerneChampion that included a goal by Martinez and a shutout by Burger, that the team knew they were capable of a special season.

“The first round of playoffs was when we really knew, ‘We can do this. We can go further,’” Bataille said. “This was supposedly the second best team in San Antonio, and we knew that.

We went out there and we beat them, and it felt good. It was like, ‘Alright, we’re good, we can go far.’”

For Martin, the playoff win was just one of many special moments the team enjoyed throughout the season.

“Destroying Austin High in the beginning of the season was great,” Martin said. “Winning our first playoff game was great. Winning our second game was great. There wasn’t one moment; there were many wonderful moments throughout the season.”

Goals by Bataille, junior Lucas Ramos de

26 april 2019

DANCY DRIVES TO GOAL: Off a pick set

by Tobe Chanow, senior Gabe Dancy makes a run at the goal against Bowie on April 20. Photo by Anna Bausman.

Boys lacrosse ends season with loss The McCallum Knights boys lacrosse team finished its season at Lamar Middle School against Bowie on April 20 with a 9-6 loss. The Knights, down 6-0 in the second quarter, eventually started their run when senior Gregory James scored the team’s first goal on a fast break. The team ralled from there with a goal by Griffin sophomore Tobe Chanow to make the score 6-2 at half.

Despite four more goals, two each by Chanow and LASA senior Jonathan Yu, the Knights were unable to catch up to the Bulldogs, who scored three more times after the halftime break. After the game, the team recognized its seniors who have been with the team for three seasons now.

—Gregory James

Adrian Martinez dribbles past a San Antonio Southwest Dragons defender during McCallum’s third-round playoff game at Rattler Field in San Marcos on April 5. The Knights fell to the Dragons 2-0, which ended their season. Despite the loss, this year’s team had a successful season, going farther in the playoffs than the team has since 2006. Photo by Gabby Sherwood.

Barros and senior Marcel Lopez Reed, carried the Knights to a 3-1 victory over San Antonio Southside in their second round playoff win, which secured the team’s best result since 2006.

For the seniors, the loss to San Antonio Southwest in the third round of the playoffs meant the end of not only a great season but a great career with McCallum soccer. The seniors who were on the varsity team last year were a part of a miraculous mid-season turnaround, which helped the Knights reach the playoffs for the first time in four years. And this year, they lead the team to its best season in 13 years. What the seniors are going to miss most, however, is not the results but each other.

“I’m going to miss the guys, the great guys,” Bataille said. “It was just a fun team, good players. And going to practice with them, having the games with them, I’m going to miss all of it.”

Martin is also going to miss this year’s seniors.

“I’m going to miss them as individuals,” Martin said. “You get to know them over four years, and as players they’re wonderful, but as people they’re even better. I will miss being

around those guys because they’re all very good people individually.”

For the rest of the team that will be back with McCallum soccer next year, their focus has shifted from this year’s success, to the prospect of next season.

“I don’t think we will be where we were, because all of these great seniors are leaving, but I think we’re looking forward to some good talent coming in,” Burger said.

Martin is also looking forward to seeing some new faces on the varsity team next year.

“I always like seeing who is going to step up and improve from JV or a varsity sub because when the seniors leave they always leave holes, so somebody has to step up and fill that space,” Martin said.

“So I always like to see who is going to step up and have their game improve to such an extent that they can take that person’s space.”

If the Knights can successfully fill those holes left by the graduating seniors, the team will have a chance to achieve similar or even better success than this year’s impressive season.

SULTANS OF SWING: The golf team poses with Coach Nancy Nitardy and Austin ISD athletic director Leal J. Anderson after placing second at district golf tournament.

Boys 2nd at district The boys golf team finished second at the district tournament on April 2 and qualified as a team for the regional Championships. The team of seniors Emmett Sweeney and Diego Gonzales, sophomores Zach Masterson and Ethan Vandament, and freshmen Henry Sandlin competed at the regional championships in McAllen. Girls’ golfers Luci Borowski and Hallie Neff also qualified for regionals.

—Gregory James

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Answering call of college athletics Defying obstacles and odds, Crofut, Wiley earn opportunity to play their sport collegiately ALEXANDRA DOWD staff reporter

For every serious athlete in any sport, getting a college scholarship and commitment is a dream come true. As athletes dedicate their high school careers to athletic excellence, it becomes their top priority, perhaps even above academics or social activities.

Many athletes have to sacrifice the chance of a normal high school life to achieve this dream, passing it off as part of the sport; however, very few of these students end up playing in college.

According to statistics available on the National Collegiate Athletics Association website, of the estimated 8 million students who play high school sports, only about 480,000 of them continue playing in college.

At McCallum, so far this year, there are only two seniors officially committed to play sports in college: Julia Crofut and Lindsey Wiley.

McCallum’s athletic director Thomas Gammerdinger said there will be more.

“I know there will be a handful of others, but they just haven’t decided yet.”

Senior basketball standout Norman Boyd received several offers to play college basketball, but he opted not to accept them and will instead attend the University of Arkansas.

On March 20, Crofut signed her official commitment to play softball for Texas Lutheran University, a Division 3 school. Crofut signed her letter in a library ceremony while surrounded by her supporters in the McCallum community.

She was part of the relatively small number of students to make it to the next athletic level; according to the NCAA website, of the 480,000 students who make the cut to play college athletics, only 2 percent or one in 54 high school athletes play at Division 1, or D1, schools. For many student athletes, including Crofut, landing a D1 scholarship is the ultimate prize.

“I had started out with looking at D1 obviously,” she said. “I mean, go big if I wanted to.”

But with great athletics comes great complications. As Crofut realized, larger colleges with more competitive athletic programs are very selective in the scholarships they offer, and they are less likely to accommodate the needs of athletes who aren’t nationally ranked. These detractors cause many athletes to consider the still competitive but less intense nature of D3 sports programs. Crofut had a chance with a D1 college, but it did not work out.

“They were only willing to give me a couple thousand dollars,” Crofut said. “I needed a little more of a foundation, and [the D1 organization] was further away. Texas Lutheran was the closet and was offering me the most money. [TLU] was the best choice for my education.”

Crofut and Wiley have been playing their respective sports since they were very young and grew up with athletics in almost every aspect of their lives. Crofut began by playing baseball with the boys at Northwest because she was too young to play softball.

Though it started out as fun and games, like most serious athletes, the older Crofut got, the harder she trained and the more competitive she became. Wiley’s experience in youth athletics was similar to Crofut’s.

30 sports

OUT WITH A BANG: Crofut circles the bases after homering in the Knights’ 22-6 win over Lanier on April 19. Crofut hit two home runs in her final high school game. Photo by Caleb Melville.

ALL IN AT ANDERSON Wiley celebrates taking a point in the Lady Knights’ 25-20, 25-21, 18-25, 14-25, 15-11 triumph at Anderson on Aug. 24. Because Wiley plays libero, a defensive specialist position, she wears a different colored jersey. Wiley signed her commitment letter to play college volleyball at Prairie View A&M on April 12. Photo by Gregory James.

Both athletes reported that their commitment was tested on the college recruiting trail. Both girls laughed in relief when recalling their preparation for the recruiting process.

“Oh God! What didn’t I do?” Crofut said. “I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, probably three days a week for workouts, then I’d go to school.

Then, after school, I’d go to practice and a hitting lesson or something. Then, maybe a lesson with fielding after that.”

The recruitment process doesn’t just take a toll on the physical body, it is also equally tough on the mind. Wiley, who is committed to Prairie View A&M for volleyball, talked about the mental toll of the process.

“I took and sent out a lot of videos,” Wiley said. “Every game I played came with a video.

Along with practice, I went to lots of camps where I talked to coaches, emailed them and got my name out there.”

Though the recruitment process is both physically and emotionally taxing on the athletes, both players said the payoff is worth the effort it took to earn it. Student athletes also maintain that they learned life lessons through their experiences in sports. Both Crofut and Wiley claim that it has helped shape them into the people that they are today. Crofut credits softball with helping her gain a larger sense of responsibility. “[Being a student athlete] just kind of gave me a responsibility in knowing what I need from my body and knowing how my schedule is so uptight,”

Crofut said. “I needed to time manage everything and be really good at it. I have always heard that in college you really need to have that, or you’re just going to drown, especially as a student athlete.”

Wiley agreed that working hard toward playing sports in college has shaped her character in positive ways.

“It’s made me really determined and hardworking in everything I do,” Wiley said.

Athletes gain many skills from their commitment to sports. However, it doesn’t mean the future will hand them no struggles. The jump from high school to college sports includes many changes.

Jaimie Duffek, the softball recruiter and a member of the National College Scouting Association, told The Chicago Tribune that it is very difficult for many athletes to make the transition to college sports because “everyone is talented.” The increased speed and ability of the opposing players makes it hard to thrive.

Because of this heightened competition, Wiley views college athletics as a completely different world than the one she experienced in high school. After college, out of the 2 percent of high school athletes who are able to compete in D1 sports in college, only a very select few continue their sports career at either a professional or even an Olympic level.

While very few college athletes turn pro, many athletes, including Crofut and Wiley, plan to continue their love for sports through other occupations related to the sport they play or by playing the sport as an extracurricular. While

87 percent of college athletes graduate with a degree, the NCAA reports that psychologists say many also leave with the feeling that there’s a hole in their life after they stop playing the sport that has been such a big part of their life.

“I couldn’t see my life without it,” Wiley said, and most athletes feel the same, so the excitement of graduation is also combined with the fear of losing their sport. Many athletes find a way to keep sports in their life. Crofut and Wiley both plan to major in kinesiology, the study of the body. Wiley wants to then go to UT for a doctorate in physical therapy, while Crofut says, “Right now, I want to stick with being a coach.”

Becoming a college athlete at any level is no easy feat. Due to the stress and work required to achieve this dream, many student athletes are discouraged. To those people, McCallum’s commits have some advice.

“I would say don’t give up,” Crofut said. “I’ve had a lot of coaches talk about my physical shape, my mentality and how I wasn’t good enough. They’d say that I would never make it, and I’m sure that’s everyone. I would just say it’s a process and no matter who’s negative in your life, you need to figure out your goal. If you have figured that out, and it makes you happy, I’d just say don’t give up on it.”

Wiley echoes Crofut’s advice, but keeps it short and sweet: “Get your name out there,” Wiley said. “Know your skill level, and have a backup plan.”

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It could have been any one of us.

Shield staff member reflects on passing of senior Carson Smith SARAH SLATEN staff reporter

Until my coach sent out a picture of Carson Smith, I didn’t know who he was. I had been trying to put a face to the name for a day, and this was the first time I actually realized who he was.

So, I didn’t know Carson Smith, and I won’t claim to. He rowed at Texas Rowing Center with me, but, apart from sharing the same club, I didn’t know him. We had never interacted, I hadn’t ever even talked to him. Like most of Austin, I only knew about Carson after his passing on Jan. 27.

Carson Smith was stabbed by two Murchison students (13 and 15 years old) on the night of Friday Jan. 25, and was rushed to the hospital soon after. He was kept on life support for two days to ensure that his organs could be donated.

On the night of Jan. 27, after friends and family had the opportunity to say goodbye, he was taken off life support.

So, I won’t claim to know Carson, and Carson Smith (front) strokes his Novice Eight boat to victory at Head of the Hooch in 2017. Carson was a senior at Anderson High School and a varsity rower at I won’t claim that my grief over his death Texas Rowing Center before his death on Jan. 27. Though Carson played other sports, he naturally excelled at rowing and loved every second of the adrenaline was horrible. I was upset and horrified and rush that comes with the sport. Carson was stabbed by two middle school students on Jan. 25. He died in the hospital on Jan 27. Photo by Falesha Thrash. stunned, but, again, I didn’t know him. A lot of my friends knew drink. He still spent was very open to adoption and was thankful I was crying at the funeral. I was crying him personally, and summers with his that her child was going to a good family. It because his parents were outliving him. I was they were suffering “This time, it wasn’t some huge extended family, was an open adoption, and Carson was loved crying because his little brother wouldn’t much more than I was. random name or face on the playing hide and seek unconditionally by both families. He was very remember him. I was crying because he was I cried, sure, and I was with his little cousins, close with both of them, and loved spending someone like me. It was the first time that it understandably upset, news, it was someone who I or just picking them time with all of his family. They remembered really hit me that Carson was a kid just like me. but compared to one of actually recognized.” up and spinning them him as a funny and loving child, that family That it could’ve been me, that it could’ve been my friends who spent around the room. meant everything to. Both families thought of one of my friends, and that it really had been the entire weekend in At the funeral, one of Carson as a gift, and will think of him fondly, someone I knew this time. his hospital room with his family, I was faring his little cousins started crying at the beginning, even with the circumstances surrounding his It seems like some people at McCallum, pretty well. though troubled by a when they were showing pictures of him. I tried passing.

I was, however, still affected by it. Though I not to watch, trying to block out both the crying teen’s death, majorly His parents didn’t “He was a happy, loving highdidn’t actually know him, we were in the same and the pictures, focusing on watching people speak at the funeral. His dismissed his it, circles and knew the same people and shared the entering the chapel, knowing that I would, no uncle did, along with schooler, who cared about his especially with the same space. This happened to someone close to doubt, start crying if I looked at the pictures of the friend that put the family and sports, and was rumors surrounding his me, someone who I did know about. This time, it a happy and hopeful teen, one who thought that Smiths in contact with death. These rumors, wasn’t some random name or face on the news, he had his whole life ahead of him. involving drugs and Carson’s birth mother. in the process of applying for it was someone who I actually recognized.

His birth mother and her husband have two A representative for an college. He believed he was vaping, may or may not Carson was only 18, one year older than children. Carson was very close with the eldest organ donor association be true. I do not know, me. He was in his senior year and had been one, a little girl he loved unconditionally, but spoke as well, thanking going to have a future, and it and, so far, nothing has busy playing all kinds of sports and preparing the youngest one won’t remember his older Carson and his family was brutally taken from him.” been confirmed. Again, to go to college I was not close to him, brother. All he will for their generosity the next year. He have of Carson, of his and kindness. Five of and I don’t know any had been applying “I was crying at the funeral. I brother, of someone Carson’s organs (heart, lungs, liver and both more about his death than anyone else. So, I for college. He had should’ve played a kidneys) are now helping other people live their cannot confirm or deny the rumors. But I can do was crying because his parents who written his college my best to properly respond to them. very important part in lives to the fullest. essays reflecting were outliving him.

On the Monday after his death, our whole Somebody died, someone who easily could’ve his life, are stories from about the meaningful his family. team, every junior who rowed at Texas Rowing been any of us. He was a happy, loving highlessons he learned I was crying because his little Carson had a huge Center, wore royal blue to commemorate schooler, who cared about his family and sports on his grandfather’s brother wouldn’t remember family, and he loved his passing, and to show our support for his and was in the process of applying for college. ranch. He had been it. He was adopted by family in their time of grief. The blue, the He believed he was going to have a future, and it planning for the him. I was crying because he a loving couple, Robin brighter of our team’s colors, represented was brutally taken from him. future, expecting was someone like me.” and Doug Smith, who Carson’s sunny and upbeat personality. It was I am not saying that anyone should do that he would have weren’t able to have meaningful and emotional to come to practice anything special. I’m just saying that we should one going forward. children themselves. His that day and just see a sea of blue, to see the try to think about what actually happened. A He was legally an adult, one who could vote mother, who was going into medical school and overwhelming support and respect that our teenager was killed. Someone who was like us. and join the military,but not one who could didn’t have the resources to take care of a child, team had for him.

And we should just think about that.

26 april 2019

opinion 31

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ifying m r o l g a t p

Graphic by Stella Shenkman.

STELLA SHENKMAN

Let’s s

sm iali er

If you were to wake up tomorrow morning with your world in apocalyptic chaos—and you were posed with one question: what will you take when you escape? What are your “bare necessities?” Imagine those items, and imagine all that you would be leaving behind. So much of what we imagine as our everyday needs are really just nonsensical luxury camouflaged as something we cannot live without.

We all have materialistic dreams, no matter how hard we might try to suppress them in exchange for a grateful, minimalist lifestyle.

You might believe that your life would be just that much better if you had the new iPhone, or how you would feel so much prettier with that expensive eyeshadow palette. But in reality, it does not matter how much money you have or the material things you have been showered in: you will always want more.

From the beginning of time, humans have had the tendency to require validation from others in exchange for their own happiness. The theory is, if you have other people looking up to you, than you will have achieved the ultimate appearance and “cool factor.” In reality, however, there will always be someone who appears more successful, richer or cooler than you, no matter what you have.

Modern American teens are notorious for having an obscure view of their “needs.”

Technology, clothing brands, cosmetic products and many other luxuries have transformed from delicacies to necessities. Society has continued to reform its standards to require a level of materialism in the lives of citizens, forcing people to be left out without the newest phone, or “cringy” if their appearance fails to match the current style.

This consumerism obstructs the views of young people still trying to navigate and learn about the constantly changing world around them.

As the modern market enthralls its buyers, enticing them to keep up to speed with modern

to

staff reporter

We will ALWAYS want what we cannot have trends, it also sets up an unhealthy standard that says that people “need” these products, when in reality, once you attain that product, you will not be satisfied. You will once again be pulled into the miserable cycle of not having enough, and relying on having that next product or material good.

At McCallum in particular, students are less

focused on popular mainstream influencers such as the Kardashians or Jenners. On an Macjournalism Instagram poll, 79 percent answered “no” when asked if celebrity endorsements influence their purchasing choices. When I see my peers, however, I cannot help but notice similar expensive brands endorsed by celebrities. Those celebrities

may not be as prominent as the Kardashians; however alternative, influencers such as rap artist and designer Tyler the Creator inspire many teens to purchase those mainstream brands.

But is it such a bad thing that teenagers are indulging in similar brands? Surely there will always be brands that dominate fashion and material culture, although I believe it is important to notice when those trends shift into becoming harmful.

“Supreme” is a very popular clothing company among teenagers. With its signature red logo on its products, it has quickly become an important symbol of wealth, and teens “flex” (or show off) their clothes, etc., to one another.

Aside from clothing, the company also produces expensive designs for items as simple as a shovel, or even a crowbar for as much as $400. It is believed that this company’s success is due to its product exclusivity and price, making many of their items not only expensive but scarce. These designs are worn by many artists and model influencers, thus becoming increasingly more appealing to teenagers and young adults alike.

A social influencer can be defined as a person with a significant amount of followers on a social media platform. These people can use their social media account to make revenue from ads, attracting followers, and, in some cases, even be paid by the platform to post consistently.

This idea that we must participate in the buying of items—including those of us who cannot afford to buy multi-hundred dollar clothing items—in order to belong with our peers is a perfect example of why materialism can be fatal to the unity of our community.

Materialism consequentially often ends in a feeling of isolation from your peers and the furthering division of social circles. If you root your identity in the materials you possess, soon you’ll find yourself without an identity and without a strong connection to those you hold close.

Graphic by Sophie Ryland.

26 april. 2019

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Graphic by Sophie Ryland When it comes to college admissions, students often struggle to balance necessary activities like school, work and sleep with extracurricular activities; since life is hard enough, why participate in certain activities purely for the sake of appearances and applications? Being active in school activies, or any activities, should be their own reward. Enjoy your life. Don’t pad your resume.

Don’t lose sleep over admissions Resume-padding hurts more than it helps, both for applications and mental health

SOPHIE RYLAND co-editor in chief

“I’m only joining to make my college application look good.”

“This will be a great resume builder.”

“Colleges love when people are involved in groups like this.”

You may have heard these statements at some point at school, when people are telling their friends about the latest club, volunteer organization or other extracurricular activity that they’ve joined.

But this kind of thinking is a bad idea on multiple levels. Take it from me, someone who began the college admissions process not understanding at all how it works, but then read countless articles, questioned admissions officers and finished all of the applications, financial aid and scholarships while balancing classes, extracurriculars, family, social life and mental health.

First of all, if you’re simply doing something because you’re concerned about college admissions, here’s the thing: colleges don’t care if you were a member of a million extracurriculars. All this tells them is that you were overly concerned about the appearance of success, and that’s not an attractive candidate.

26 april 2019

Just like it is in dating, the harder someone works to impress someone, the less likely they are to be interested.

What admission officers want to see is that you were deeply involved in a few activities that you truly cared about and that you continued to learn and develop that interest into something meaningful for you.

Do you care deeply about climate change?

Then by all means go ahead and join Environmental Knights and fully participate as much as you can. Worried that you don’t have enough volunteer hours on your resume?

Instead of jumping into something you don’t really care about, and as a result won’t make the most of, consider what interests you and plan accordingly.

Ultimately, what admissions officers are really looking for are passionate, hard-working students who take the time and make the effort to get involved, and this is best conveyed with meaningful participation in a few choice activities, not entry-level membership in 20 unrelated clubs.

Plus, when it comes to college admission, your biggest priority should be finding the best place for you. If you’re presenting a false version of yourself—someone who deeply cares about x sport, y club and z volunteer project, when in fact you only did those things

just to say you did them—then they’re not admitting you for you as a fit for their school.

And why would you want to go to school who doesn’t want you (or even know you) as you are?

There’s another thing to consider—if you don’t like it, why are you doing it? We only have four years in high school. There’s enough tedium between class, homework and standardized tests; why would you want to force yourself to devote precious hours of your free time to something you really don’t care about? It doesn’t make sense to overextend yourself for the sake of activities that don’t bring meaning or value to your life.

I quit several extracurricular activities over the course of my time in high school, due to illness, schedule conflicts and being overcommitted, and this often raised concern among the people who cared about me. They would often ask if I was worried about how this would look on college applications, but for me the truth was simple.

I figured that as long as I was still involved with many of the things that truly mattered to and interested me, admissions officers would see it for what it was: I had to prioritize and I chose those things that made me the most fulfilled so that I could fully invest myself in them.

I firmly believe that quitting can be a beautiful and necessary thing; no one should push themselves past their limit for something that is not deeply important to them.

I was not accepted at every school I applied to, but for the ones I was, I felt excited and confident that I was a good fit for them, and vice-versa, as I had presented a truthful version of myself for them to judge.

By choosing carefully and only joining organizations whose missions and values you connect with, you will 1) be happier 2) work harder for that organization 3) make a real difference and 4) find real meaning in how you’re spending your time.

And that is what will make an impression on an admission’s officer. More importantly, it will keep you happy and sane throughout the trials and tribulations you will inevitably encounter over the course of your high school career.

At the end of the day, resume-padding just isn’t worth it. You’ll make yourself miserable if you stretch yourself thin across extracurricular activities you aren’t actually invested in.

Make yourself a better college candidate, and a happier high school student, and do what you want to do, not what you think you should do.

opinion 33

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What’s in a name? In this case, a lot.

Despite concerns over cost and a lost of school pride, changing the name of schools named after former Confederates is necessary and will help communities grow and move forward Recently, the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees voted to change the names of several AISD schools such as Reagan Early College High School (now Northeast Early College High School), Fulmore Middle School (now Sarah Lively Middle School), and Lanier High School (now Navarro High School), in an effort to cut ties from the Confederate leaders after which they were originally named.

Confederates soldiers like Zachary Taylor Fulmore and Sidney Lanier, all the way to the generals Albert S. Johnston and Robert E. Lee and the Postmaster-General John H. Reagan, have long had their names plastered across AISD campuses. These schools needed to be renamed, and the fact that action is finally being taken in 2019 is a promising step for the future.

These figures should be taught in history classes so students can fully understand the story of the Civil War and how the country was as fragmented and racially divided, but these figures should not be honored or immortalized with their name looming over the front entrance of AISD schools. The proposed and passed name changes look to honor innovators and educators that have shaped their communities and have left a positive mark on them.

Newly named Lively Middle School, named after teacher Sarah Lively, who taught at the school for 47 years, is one of the five schools that will be getting a name change for a combined cost of

Graphic by Bella Russo

$70,000. This price tag is significant but worth it because the names are remnants of a bitter conflict in the nation’s history that should not be honored anymore—removing the connection between these remnants and our schools’ identities is worth a small bite out of the budget.

The schools also need to be renamed

because they are generally outdated.

They are all named after people who lived and died in the 1800s to early 1900s. Choosing more modern figures to serve as namesakes can better represent the diverse and contemporary populace that AISD serves.

Ultimately, to honor members of an army, and for a time, an independent

shieldstaff

the

A.N. McCallum High School 5600 Sunshine Drive Austin, TX 78756 (512) 414-7539 fax (512) 453-2599 contact.macshield@gmail.com

editors-in-chief ZOE HOCKER AND SOPHIE RYLAND

assistant editors GREGORY JAMES

country that supported slavery and was traitorous to the United States by naming a school after them, especially at schools that serve a significant minority population, is insensitive and unjust.

Supporters of keeping the names argue that the names represent the school’s history are a source of school

pride. While this is no doubt true, it is also true that in time the new names will take on the same significance especially because they are honoring a more positive legacy. If McCallum were to be renamed to something else, we would resist the change, but eventually, we would accept the new name especially if it honored someone who was deserving of the honor.

Like all students, minority students deserve positive role models, not ones who would have opposed their very presence at the schools they attend. Lively was a teacher who had a profound impact on her students, while Navarro was an Army officer that was killed in 2012 in Afghanistan. These name changes seem to honor deserving figures who made a significant contribution to the campuses that now bear their name.

The only name change that does not make sense to us is the change from Reagan to Northeast High. Instead of paying tribute to someone deserving from the community, the district decided that the school should just be named after the literal location of the campus. Reagan students have a right to be upset about their school’s renaming; they should have had a say in their school’s new moniker. Besides this particular choice, the name changes are positive changes for the schools and the communities they serve.

These name changes for Fulmore and Lanier make sense and although Reagan’s name change is not perfect, it is a step in the right direction to updating a name long outdated.

MAX RHODES

KELSEY TASCH

STEVEN TIBBETTS

reporters

adviser DAVE WINTER

GRAYSON CRUISE, JAZZABELLE DAVISHINES, DIAMANTE DIAZ, ALEX DOWD, ELLEN FOX, LASZLO KING-HOVIS, BELLA RUSSO, ABIGAIL SALAZAR, ELISHA SCOTT, STELLA SHENKMAN, SARAH SLATEN, MIA TERMINELLA, KRISTEN TIBBETTS, JANSSEN TRANSIER, OLIVIA WATTS The Shield is published by journalism students in the newspaper production class.

Although students work under the guidance of a professional faculty member, the student staff ultimately determines the content.

Students may not publish material that is obscene, libelous or that which will cause a “substantial disruption to the educational process.” Content that may stimulate heated

34 opinion

debate is not included in this definition.

The Shield operates as an open forum for exchange of ideas. Opinions expressed in editorials are the ideas of the staff. Opinions expressed in the columns are that of the writer’s alone.

Letters to the editor are encouraged and must be signed. Positive identification may be required when a letter is submitted. Letters

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19 april 2019

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Plenty of Momentum

McCallum Youth Dance Company performs their interpretive spring dance concert BELOW: The ballet class performs “Beneath Biosphere”, choreographed by director Rachel Murray in collaboration with the McCallum Chamber Orchestra.

Murray explained that she created the dance to explore global warming. The dancers were asked to portray their feelings surrounding global warming by expressing their thoughts in writing before translating the words into movement. Photo by Stella Shenkman.

LEFT: Junior Daryl Hale and sophomore Sophia Tissembaum of the intermediate dance ensemble lie on the stage floor as part of their piece “(re)place” in the spring dance concert. The dance was choreographed by Alex Miller, a guest choreographer. Miller is a contemporary dancer and the owner of a local dance company.

Her goal is to bring the community together through large-scale mixed media productions. Photo by Risa Darlington-Horta.

ABOVE: Freshman Annabel Winter (middle), joined by members of the emerging dance troupe, performs in “Between Light and Darkness” choreographed by director Natalie Uehara. Uehera said her choreography was about encountering both darkness and light, as well as the journey through both. Photo by Dave Winter.

RIGHT: Junior Daryl Hale and sophomores Terell Hall and Avery Miller perform alongside the rest of the intermediate ensemble in their dance “lots of lead.” The piece was choreographed by a guest choreographer: local artist Lisa Anna Kobdish. Kobdish performs in Austin with KDH Dance Company and organizes for the Austin Dance Festival. Hale said the dance was based on “the momentum of the movements and energy.” Photo by Stella Shenkman.

36 photo essay

LEFT: Senior Chloe Shields completes her time with the McCallum Youth Dance Company by performing a solo in the barefoot dance entitled “January” choreographed by MAC dance alum Sara Walls. Walls said the dance was about the strength of human souls and how willing people can be to push on alone when all else seems to be lost. Photo by Risa Darlington.

26 april 2019