The McCallum HS Shield (Volume 65, No. 6)

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Anika Verma, Texas Tech University

McCallum High School / 5600 Sunshine / Austin, TX 78756 Volume 65 / Issue 6 / May 22, 2018

Abigail Tyree, University of Texas at Austin

Kennedy Schuelke, LoyolaMarymount University

Caki Rebeiz, California College of the Arts

Sam Miller, Cal Poly Brooks Thoden, Iona College

Fiona Denton, Hunter College

Alysia Brown, Texas State University

Oh, the places you’ll go!

Ethan Shackleford, Georgia Tech

IN NEWS

Pablo Kennedy, Boston University

Ruby Dietz, George Washington University

Andrea Barrera-Castro, American University

For many first-generation college students, junior colleges are a viable option because of their affordable price tag and easier accessibility. page 4

FEATURE

Raquelle and Darielle Cyphers, Tuskegee University

Cristian Miranda, George Mason

A complete list of the post-graduation plans of the Class of 2018 page 14 Senior features on Jackson, Johnson, Ray and Zepeda-Sanic page 18

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Junior Staria Cole (Gerald Ford) takes off the coat, which represents the presidential office, in MacTheatre’s spring production of “44 Plays for 44 Presidents.” Sophomore Charlotte Evelyn enters the stage beneath the portrait of Jimmy Carter, whom she is about to play in the next scene. Neither president receives a very favorable assessment in the play. Cole spends her time as Ford tripping over the presidential seal over and over while Evelyn delivers impassioned speeches as Carter that no one pays any attention to. Toward the end of the Carter play, Evelyn is treated like a celebrity, however, to represent the success Carter has enjoyed as a world leader in his post-presidency.

inside

the issue

news

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Counselors, MACares sponsor ‘Angst’ movie showing for Mental Health Awareness Month.

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Community college provides a less expensive education, possible transition to four year-universities.

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a&e

MacTheatre’s final play of the year offers satirical romp through American presidential history.

Meet senior Austen Juul-Hansen, whose distinct painting style explores identity, life and love.

feature

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Longtime Maculty members Ghazi, Urick, Watterson and (Ms.) Whiz are all retiring this year.

SRO Mike Reilly talks life, family, and the mottos he lives by in our monthly Proust Questionnaire.

May

ON THE COVER: As the year comes to a close, most seniors have made the decision on where they will go after they cross the graduation stage at the Erwin Center on May 31. From New York to California, soon-to-be Mac alumni will be traveling all over the country. On the cover: Caki Rebeiz (California College of the Arts), Kennedy Schuelke (Loyola Marymount), Sam Miller (Cal Poly), Brooks Thoden (Iona College), Fiona Denton (Hunter College), Pablo Kennedy (Boston University), Raquelle & Darielle Cyphers (Tuskegee University), Anika Verma (Texas Tech), Alysia Brown (Texas State), Abigail Tyree (UT-Austin), Ruby Dietz (George Washington University), Andrea BarreraCastro (American University), Cristian Miranda (George Mason University), Ethan Shackelford (Georgia Tech). Cover illustration by Charlie Holden.

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the date

Orchestra spring concert @ 7 p.m. in the MAC C day Underclassmen finals start Senior percussion recital @ 6:30 p.m. in the FABT Texas State solo and ensemble contest Baccalaureate ceremony Student and staff holiday — no school Final exams — last day of classes Fine Arts Academy Convocation @ 7 p.m. in the MAC Senior graduation @ the Frank Erwin Center

sports

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Lily Parker sacrifices playing for Mac to pursue her dreams by traveling with a club soccer team.

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The Shield catches up with rising juniors and future cheer captains, Miles Perkins and Mary Roe. Thanks to brother Alec’s timely hitting, senior Eric Worden was the winning pitcher in a districttitle-clinching win over LBJ.

opinion

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The drive to Corpus takes three hours, but the travel time is worth it for a weekend beach getaway.

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Outgoing editor encourages underclassmen to make most of their high school experience.

The Mac reading list could use an infusion of authors of color, which would benefit all English students.

Senior Avery Johnson’s ceramics piece titled “No Remorse” references the limitation of communication over long distances that occurred during World War I and also the solution of that limitation: Morse code. The piece also depicts an anti-war quote in Morse code. To learn more about Johnson’s art, see page 18.

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Bringing a dark topic to light Parent donation enables multiple showings of documentary to raise mental health awareness STEVEN TIBBETTS staff reporter

Ever since 1949, Mental Health Awareness Month in May has been a time for communities to discuss mental health issues and the causes and effects of mental illnesses.

McCallum took part in that tradition this year on May 7 when the school screened Angst in the MAC. Angst is a short, informative film about anxiety disorders and how they affect youth. The film featured testimonies from a multitude of youth about their struggles with anxiety disorders, the ways they could limit the effect of those disorders on their lives, and advice on how to deal with, or help others deal with, anxiety issues.

McCallum counselor Allison Hersh led the screening. Hersch said she got the idea to screen Angst from other counselors who showed the film at their schools. The school was able to stage this event because of a donation from Luxe Property Group, made possible by realtor Elizabeth Riley.

Riley is a member of MACares, a volunteer group of parents of McCallum and Lamar students who support McCallum counselors. “[Riley’s] company put up the money for it, a bunch of money, to buy the rights for the week,” Hersh said. “It was parents who are already volunteering time to support counseling at McCallum; they saw the need and went for it.

We couldn’t have done it otherwise.”

Not only did the donation allow McCallum to screen Angst after school in the MAC; it also gave McCallum the rights to show it during class throughout the week, which a few teachers did in their health and physical education classes.

The large number of students, parents and faculty who watched Angst certainly helped realize the filmmakers’ goal of raising awareness about anxiety.

Mental illnesses affect a large number of teens in the United States.

According to a survey conducted by The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, about one fifth of American teens suffer from a mental disorder at some point in their youth, but only a small percentage attempt to find help in combating their illness.

That is why Mental Health Awareness Month is observed in communities across America, including Austin.

“Austin Child Guidance Center has workshops all month,” Hersh said. “The National Alliance on Mental Illness comes to schools for free, and they do assemblies and talk to small groups of kids.”

Even though the National Alliance on Mental Illness isn’t coming to McCallum this year, Hersh says that there are other ways to help combat the effects of anxiety disorders.

“Try to be kind to each other, try to support each other, in testing, in our performances, in our finals, and with seniors who are transitioning,”

McCallum counselor Allison Hersh speaks to the students and families who came to the MAC to watch the screening of Angst on May 7. Hersh asked everyone what they took away from the film and talked about how McCallum could help students who struggle with anxiety disorders and other mental illnesses.

Photo by Steven Tibbetts.

Hersh said. “And try to continue to build a positive community and to let kids and families know that there are resources if they feel stuck.”

Hersh says her goal for McCallum students who struggle with mental illnesses is that they have somewhere in school where they know they can find support.

“Many kids find support with certain teachers on campus, even if it’s not traditional therapy,” Hersh said. “When we surveyed the students at the beginning of the year, most kids said that there’s at least one adult that they feel has their back and they feel comfortable talking to here at school.

And really all you need is one. My hope for all kids at McCallum is that they have one person at least that they feel like they can talk to, and if they don’t, that they have at least knowledge and awareness of how to seek help and support either from a counselor, nurse, social worker, assistant principal, whoever it is. [I hope] that they know how, and they don’t feel like they’re alone, and they don’t feel like there is no help.”

Hersh also believes that the entire McCallum faculty and administration is willing to help students battle anxiety and mental illness.

“We don’t do this job because it pays well,” Hersch said. “We don’t do this job because it’s really chill and really powerful in society.

Everyone in this building is here because we care about kids’ education and mental health and character. I do think we have challenges of being a really big school. With [almost] 2,000 kids, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle, but hopefully, there is some place for everyone to belong.”

“Hopefully, there is some place for everyone to belong ” —counselor Allison Hersch

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McCallum High School students and their families watch Angst, an informative short film about the effects of anxiety disorders on youth. The film was screened at 6 p.m. Monday, May 7 in the MAC as a way to observe Mental Health Awareness Month. Photo by Steven Tibbetts.

Generic medications for less 512-465-9292 medsaverspharmacy@gmail.com 1800 W 35th St news 03

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Two-year colleges offer many pluses Junior colleges offer smaller class sizes, closer to home at fraction of the cost of four-year schools SOPHIE RYLAND assistant editor

At age 17, Valerie Paton graduated from high school in December of her senior year with a nearly perfect ACT score. Many driven students like her had set their sights on schools like Harvard and Yale, but she instead chose to attend a community college.

“It was a perfect place for me to go,” said Paton, a first-generation college student. “I was young, I needed to stay at home for a little while, I was in a great community, didn’t have a tremendous need to leave immediately, and I wasn’t totally certain about what my pathway would be, school degree or otherwise. So it was just a good personal fit for me as well as [a good] academic fit.”

From her junior college, she transferred to a fouryear college, eventually earning her Ph. D from the University of Southern California. She cites herself as “living testimony” to the successful pathway from junior colleges to traditional four-year colleges.

According to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, 40 percent of students at state community colleges transfer to four-year colleges.

Paton is now a professor at Texas Tech’s College of Education and senior vice provost of the El Paso campus. One of her areas of expertise is how community colleges function in the overall world of higher education.

“The community college [system] is actually fairly unique across the world, and there’s people from all over the world that come and look at the community college system in the United States,” Paton said. “[It] grants the opportunity for all students to attend and to earn an associate’s degree, they can earn a workforce degree, [and] there are three community colleges in the state of Texas where you can actually earn a bachelor’s.”

Texas is one of 19 states in which junior colleges can offer four-year degrees. About 90 junior colleges across the country are now offering baccalaureate programs, where students can earn their bachelor’s instead of associate’s degrees.

Community colleges additionally offer some academic benefits, including smaller class sizes and professors who are focused only on teaching, having no research requirements.

“Community colleges are community-based, community-funded and community-governed, so all very local to your community,” Paton said.

“A Texas community college is 50 percent [the cost] of a Texas public university, so if you can do 60 credit hours in the first two years at the community college, certainly there’s a financial advantage, but I would argue as a community college that there’s a very rich academic culture of small class environments, faculty who have a very singular focus on teaching and a smaller learning environment, and that may be a really good fit for some students.”

Senior Kristal Lopez said that she is choosing to start at Austin Community College in order to explore different opportunities in a lowerpressure, lower-cost setting before she decides upon a life path.

“After applying to many universities in Texas

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Informaion graphic

by Sophie Ryland. and getting my acceptance letters, I realized I couldn’t choose a school, not because it was a ‘tough decision’ but because I couldn’t choose a school when I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to study,” she said. “Because I have not found my passion, I decided it would be best to start at ACC and take my basics. I’m hoping to find my passion along the way, so that I am ready to transfer to the perfect university for me.”

Many community colleges now also offer dual credit, a program where high schoolers can earn both high school and college credit through their local junior college.

“Both my girls started dual credit when they were sophomores in high school; they both graduated with more than 30 credit hours,” Paton said. “Community colleges are built to be ... a flexible entry point for the community for higher ed, so you’ll see them be quite adaptive probably in a way that most universities are not because that’s in fact their mission: to be focused on the local community and responsive to community needs.”

The increased flexibility of community colleges make them ideal for less traditional students, such as veterans, those experiencing food insecurity or homelessness or those returning to or enrolling for the first time in college as adults.

There’s also certainly a financial advantage to two-year-colleges. Austin Community College costs about $5,100 a year. In comparison, UTAustin costs $20,184, and the average Texas private college costs $57,164.

According to The Boston Globe, public fouryear universities’ tuition and fees are growing 19 times faster than the median family income.

Iman Javenmardi, a McCallum graduate, spent his first two years of college at ACC and is now debating whether to pursue his bachelor’s at Texas State University, where he has been accepted, or to remain at ACC, where he is majoring in graphic design. He says money was a large factor in his

Sources: The Texas Association of Community Colleges, The College Board, The Georgetown University Public Policy Institute decision to begin his schooling at ACC. “It saves money to start there first,” Javenmardi said. “It’s a great way to get my feet wet and see what I want to study. ACC classes are $250, and Texas State is up to $1,000 each.

It doesn’t make sense to take those classes at Texas State when you can get those credits at ACC for much lower expenses.”

The Globe also reported that 59 percent of all community-college students come from households earning less than $65,000, while more than a third are the first in their family to attend college.

“I believe it’s important for people to experience ACC before they go to a university so they can be certain what they want to do with their life before they heavily invest on that path,” Javenmardi said. “There’s also nothing wrong with getting just an associate’s degree because in this world it’s all about skill. Time is a very precious and scarce resource; it’s best to start planning out as soon as possible.”

Vocational training is another important facet of two-year colleges. According to the Associated General Contractors of America, 70 percent of construction companies nationwide are having difficulties finding qualified workers. Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Education reported that there will be 68 percent more job openings in infrastructure-related fields in the next five years than people training to fill those position.

The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce found that jobs for associate’s degree holders have grown 46 percent since 1989. According to Current Population Survey data, a high school graduate with no postsecondary education earns an average weekly salary of $652, but when that individual earns an associate’s degree, that salary rises about 15 percent to $785 per week.

Critics of the community-college system point out that only a third of community college students graduate with a degree or certificate within six

years. Community-college students, however, are far more likely to face personal obstacles that make it more difficult for them to complete their schooling. Because of this reality, more and more community colleges offer increased support such as personalized counseling, on-campus food pantries and subsidized day care.

Some drawbacks of attending a community college include fewer classes to choose from, a reduced sense of the traditional “college life” and fewer extracurricular offerings. Some experts also believe that lower-income, minority students are pushed more often to choose junior colleges and vocational-career paths than their wealthier, white peers.

States such as California and Oregon have signed programs into law that provide free tuition to students attending two-year colleges. Critics of the plan say they often attract middle-class students, giving aid disproportionately to students who need it less. In Oregon last school year, the majority of aid went to upper-income families.

A primary federal source for funding vocational education, Tech-Prep, hasn’t been funded since 2011, and 25 percent of states reduced their funding for career and technical education, according to the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education.

McCallum graduate Mary Teasdale, now at ACC at the Highland Mall campus, says that she didn’t have the best GPA in high school, but that going to a junior college was the perfect opportunity for her to get back on track.

“The students and faculty are so nice and helpful,” Teasdale said. “It really makes the stress and worry of college seem less daunting.”

Teasdale said that community college was right for her and recommends it without hesitation.

“I have experienced some stigma about being a student at ACC, from family members mostly,” she said. “They say that it isn’t a real institution or that it’s not worth the money. But it is real, and it is worth it.”

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Stretched too thin Counselors in public schools are understaffed, overworked, all to the detriment of students KELSEY TASCH staff reporter

Cristela Garcia, one of McCallum’s five counselors, considers the day a success if she doesn’t have any voice-mail messages blinking when she walks in that morning. From district deadlines to parent concerns to the schedules of each of her 256 students, it’s hard for her to keep afloat and do the thing that she loves to do the most as a counselor—spend time with her students.

McCallum’s counselors are not alone in feeling that the most crucial part of their job seems to only take up a minority of their work day. Counselors across the nation are underfunded, overworked, and not deemed a priority when the issue of funding comes up, even though counselors play a crucial role in students’ wellbeing and college acceptances. A 2016 survey conducted by PDK Poll

reported that if taxes were raised to improve public schools in the area, 34 percent of Americans would want money targeted towards teachers, followed by supplies, then classes and extracurriculars, with counselors polling at just six percent.

Even with such little recognition, counselors’ roles in students’ college readiness are substantial.

Counselors help navigate the application process from the beginning, handle transcripts and are required, for many colleges, to write a letter of recommendation for each student’s application.

According to a 2009 U.S. Department of Education survey, public high school students were given, on average, only 38 minutes of advice regarding college admission from their counselors. The admissions process can already feel overwhelming to students who have proper resources and adults who can help them through it. To high schoolers who would be firstgeneration college students in their family or who

don’t have experience with technology, counselors are supposed to be an aid and guide them through the process, but that’s often not possible. The schools that would benefit the most from proper counseling are often the ones the most neglected.

Unsustainable counselor-to-student ratios forces counselors to divide their time into small slices, preventing them from making lasting connections with individual students.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling’s survey showed that private school counselors average 55 percent of their time on college counseling, but counselors in public schools are only able to focus 22 percent of their time on college counseling.

“There simply are not enough hours in the school day,” said Jamie Kocian, the only college counselor at LASA High School. “My top priority while I’m at school is meeting with students.

As a result, I frequently complete paperwork and other administrative tasks at home in the evenings and on the weekend.”

Many other counselors come to the same consensus. Elizabeth Chang-Yen, counselor for 10th and 12th grade students at Eastside Memorial High School, said that she tries to squeeze in paperwork “before school, during lunch, after school, during state testing, and during advisory” and meets with her students

during class.

Even though the American School Counselor Association recommends a student to counselor ratio of 250 to 1, and the national average is 491:1, fixing the average ratio of students to counselors might not solve the issues at hand.

Shannon Bergeron, the lead Guidance Counselor at LASA high school, commented on how even with the ideal student ratio, she didn’t have as much time as she wanted with her students.

“I have actually worked at a school where I had a caseload of 250 students. It was a small rural school, where we had two counselors for 500 students,” Bergeron said. “The difference there was that I also had many more duties than I have now. In a larger school, some of the bigger projects can be divided among the counselors. I managed all of those things in a smaller school.

So it’s a trade-off.”

The more counselors there are at a school, the less time those counselors have to spend doing the more unfulfilling parts of their job and the more time those counselors get to do what they are meant to do: be there for their students.

“Although I wear many hats as a counselor, my most important and meaningful role on campus is to be an advocate for my students,” Bergeron said.

“Students always need a voice at the table, so my job is to always be that voice.”

Cookie monsters?

Privacy issues become a concern in wake of Facebook data-mining controversy GREGORY JAMES staff reporter

Infographic by Julie Robertson.

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Facebook, the international social media platform, is in hot water ever since news broke that Cambridge Analytica has been taking people’s data without their knowledge.

Cambridge Analytica is a British political consulting firm that uses data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis for the electoral process. Cambridge Analytica’s clients include then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Facebook, who used the company to secretly collect the information of their users.

As social media evolves, true privacy is slowly slipping away. A small-scale example of the way privacy is compromised day to day involves cookies, or pieces of browsing data that are saved to your computer by your browser. For example, when you visit a website to buy something and then you visit another site, ads will appear for whatever it is that you were interested in buying because of cookies.

In addition to cookies, the information users provide to online services can become a privacy concern. Although uncommon, breaches are on the rise—according to global cyber security company OPSWAT, 10 of the 11 largest data breaches of all time occurred in the past decade.

Breaches of privacy affect students at school as well. The Chromebooks that were rolled out in January monitor student search activities through Google. In 2015, the Education First Foundation

WHAT DOES FACEBOOK KNOW ABOUT YOU? 1. On Facebook, go to “Settings.”

2. At the very bottom of Account Settings, there should be a link to “Download a copy of your Facebook data.”

3. Follow the instructions on the link.

4. FB will send you a document detailing everything FB has on you. filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission alerting them of this practice. The EFF argued that Google had violated the agreement they had signed earlier that year that said they would “not collect, maintain, use or share student personal information beyond that needed for authorized educational/school purposes, or as authorized by the parent/student.” Despite the complaint, the FTC did not stop Google’s data collection because the company was only using the data for its own purposes.

Many companies, including Facebook, Google and Twitter allow users to view the data stored about themselves and even download it, but other companies are more protective of that data.

Curious about what they have on you? On Facebook, go to “Settings,” and at the very bottom of Account Settings, there should be a link to “Download a copy of your Facebook data.” If you follow the instructions on the link, it will send you a document detailing everything they have on you. A quick Google search will show you how to complete this same process for Twitter and Google.

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Assistant principal James Wilson announces retirement Assistant principal James Wilson announced his official decision to retire from his position at the Trustee’s Awards Night on May 17.

“McCallum was a family,” Wilson said. “This is a family, and I have looked forward to coming here every day. I’ll miss the students, staff, co-workers, and the activities because McCallum is nice community and a parent-supported school.

The activities we have are rewarding, and I will miss that. I won’t stay away. I will come back to enjoy the activities; you will see me periodically.”

Wilson said he most enjoyed seeing students shine in their extracurricular activities outside the traditional school day. “[My favorite memories are] when we are able to venture away from the school,” Wilson said. “When students are representing McCallum by doing UIL competitions and the football games are always fun to watch. Everything that McCallum does is an rewarding experience that I am able to be apart of.”

After he retires, Wilson plans on traveling and enjoying his time off.

“A person told me that once you retire you have six Saturdays and one Sunday every week,” Wilson said. “Which means that you can do most things that you have not been able to do during employment. I do feel that traveling, gardening, volunteering, assisting, and McCallum will always be part of me so I will come back to McCallum and kind of assist in anyway I can. I would like to Canada and I would like to travel back to Europe and Alaska. I do love the North Western part of the United States, having lived in California for some time, I loved the scenery and geographic area so traveling to Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming has always been a pleasure.”

Wilson’s advice for students would to be active in the school community.

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“I would say be all you can be,” Wilson said. “Get involved, get active, strive for the best, and remember don’t take no for an answer just do whatever you strive to do and of course you’ve got to burn the midnight over to get good grades and that’s the end result. The sky’s the limit so you can be anything you want to be, you just have to apply yourself and make a commitment.”

—Zoe Hocker

Assistant Principal James Wilson stands outside of the entrance to prom this year.“I think all in all as an administrator in all the years I worked, I see students all the time that remember who I am and I remember who they are and it gives me a good idea that I have made some impression on their lives,” Wilson said. Photo by Celeste Montes De Oca.

Austin residents grieve lives lost in recent Texas school shooting

Samantha, one of the organizers of Friday night’s vigil for the victims of the Santa Fe High School shooting on Friday morning, sits in silence with a prosthetic candle (open flames are not permitted on Capitol grounds). She declined to give her last name. Photo by Joseph Cardenas.

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Friday morning, 10 were killed—eight students and two teachers—and 13 wounded in a school shooting perpetrated by a current student at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, located 30 miles southeast of Houston. He has been apprehended, charged with capital murder and denied bail. Authorities said he carried out the attack with a shotgun and a revolver and that inoperative explosive devices were found close by.

Organizers from Austin’s March for Our Lives event in March planned a vigil to mourn the lives lost in the shooting, which began at 8 p.m. on Friday night. About two dozen mourners walked from St. Austin Church to the Capitol. The event was “a space for Austin to collectively mourn the victims,” according to the event Facebook page.

“I organiz[ed] it because the first step in becoming an effective activist is to be in a good place with your heart and mind,” UT student and organizer Selina Eshraghi told The Shield. “The emotions that you feel after something like this are really complicated and difficult, and I wanted to make sure that we took a moment to grieve and heal together. It was also a way for us to show that we stand with Santa Fe.” Additionally, the students who helped organize the ATX Capitol student walkout protested at the Governor’s Mansion again on Sunday, May 20, the one-month anniversary of the April 20 walkout. From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday, they held a memorial as well as a “die-in” and 22 minutes of silence for the 22 school shootings resulting in injury or death that have occurred in 2018.

The organizers encouraged attendees to bring signs and to wear green, Santa Fe High School’s official color.

“We need to show [the lawmakers] that we are not giving up in the long haul,” said Dennis Binford, a student organizer of Sunday’s protest. “[A] new group of wonderful and amazing stars and role models in our country will be the culmination of the students’ work in doing the right thing.”

Eshraghi lost a friend to gun violence in October. She said that it was difficult for her and her friends to process such a tragedy as the

“We’re sending our children to school; they’re not coming home.”

—Diana Earl, Moms Demand Action Santa Fe shooting, especially because it occurred in the same state.

“I put stuff about the shooting on my [Snapchat] story and was heartbroken when people I knew swiped up to tell me they knew victims or people who were injured,” Eshraghi said. “It hurts to much to have this happen so close to home.”

Member of Moms Demand Action Diana Earl, who was in attendance at the vigil, lost her son in an Austin shooting in 2016. “[I am here] because I want to represent here in Austin the lives that were lost in Santa Fe High School, and for the victims who were injured as well and for my son,” Earl said. “Each time something like that happens, I want to come. I want to represent and show my respect and that I’m grieving with them.”

Earl urges people—especially voters—to turn their grief into direct action.

“The time is very critical, and we need to act, and we need to act now,” she said. “We have six months left for the elections, and I think we need to demand our elected officials to pass commonsense gun legislation, and they need to do it now.”

Eshraghi agreed, saying that after they mourned, they would begin to act.

“We need to start treating guns as the dangerous weapons they are,” she said. “The biggest thing moving forward is motivating people to vote. It’s so important not to get complacent and to use our emotions to push for changes.”

Earl, speaking from first-hand experience, summarized the core of the issue in two simple sentences.

“We cannot afford to keep losing children,” she said. “We’re sending our children to school; they’re not coming home.”

—Sophie Ryland with reporting by Kelsey Tasch and Joseph Cardenas

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An Oval Office odyssey on stage

‘44 Plays for 44 Presidents’ takes audience from Washington to Obama in one night at the FABT ZOË HOCKER

assistant editor As the year is coming to an end, many students are only worried about their final projects and tests. For the cast and crew of McCallum Theatre’s final production of the year, “44 Plays for 44 Presidents,” however, rehearsals and opening night took center stage during the last regular scheduled week of the school year.

The show ran from May 17-20 and hosted a series of vignette-style short plays about each of the previous 44 presidents. Each president’s scene was played by one of the five different group of actors.

Sophomore Sam Richter is an actor in one of the groups, the Cabinet Room, which performs five of the president plays.

“We’re all in little groups of five people,” Richter said. “We have a certain number of plays, and we divided that up amongst ourselves. I do have specific character roles, but I’m a member of the cabinet room. The most well known president I play is Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon is a musical number, so it’s a lot of singing, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s not my favorite president, but it’s a lot of fun.”

Although the show is categorized as a straight play, there are musical numbers to represent certain president’s terms. It is not only different because of the music aspect, but also because of the chaos created by having to run through 44 different plays with each show, freshman Red Room member Ronan Chatterjee said.

“It’s odd,” Chatterjee said. “It’s a lot more interesting than a lot of other straight plays, because there’s always something going on, and there’s a lot of different stuff, so if [the audience doesn’t] like something and thinks it’s boring, then there is always the opposite there. So there’s kind of something there for everybody.”

Sophomore Edward Fotinos plays two presidents but is involved in other scenes as a

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representative of a political group. He feels the show is supposed to make the audience laugh.

“It’s mostly satire because the presidents are all characterized in very humorous ways,” Fotinos said. “You can learn a lot from this show, honestly. Just about the presidents that no one ever thinks about. It’s just kind of interesting to see what their life is like and just kind of learning a little about them while also teaching people.”

Fotinos has his fair share of humorous scenes in the show, including his portrayal of President Taft.

“My favorite president to play is probably William Howard Taft,” Fotinos said. “He’s a pretty heavyset fellow, so I get to wear a fat suit for that one, and I get to sit in a chair and get to get spoon fed applesauce. It’s pretty ridiculous, and Denning made me do this baby voice so it’s like a big baby.

While it is funny, it’s kinda gross. It pretty funny to watch, and I hope the audience enjoys it.”

Starting the rehearsals in April, the cast and crew only had a month to put together the show. Despite having rehearsals from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. every night since the start, Richter feels that the process hasn’t been as busy as he’d thought it would be.

“I thought I’d be more intense,” Richter said.

“I thought we’d have more [rehearsals]. We just finished up West Side Story, which had crazy amounts of rehearsal hours. It was a really long rehearsal process, but this show, it’s like 5 to 7 all the time. It’s a lot less, and I don’t think it’s any worse, but I was a little surprised when I saw how less intense it was.”

During the two-hour weekday rehearsals, the cast learned how to portray presidents and representative roles for political motifs such as The South or Conservatives.

“The actual presidents I play are Zachary Taylor and William Howard Taft,” Fotinos said.

“Those are the only presidents I play, but some of the presidents don’t even have [a character] where someone can play the president. It’s just kind of interesting, because one of the roles I am a lot is a conservative, so it’s kind of interesting saying lines that you yourself don’t believe in

but you just have to do it, because that’s how you’re representing a different group of people.”

Richter also struggled with becoming his characters because of the different style of acting that director Joshua Denning introduced.

“The way that Denning described how to perform was to not be a character, be yourself presenting facts, which was a big change from what we always do, which is like, embody the character and say everything they would say,” Richter said. “This time it’s like, be yourself and say these things, and it’s a little weird to overcome that, especially when you’re playing such a caricature of a person.”

The show ran for three nights and one matinee, closing out the MacTheatre 2017-2018 season.

“This show has a lot of heart,” Richter said.

“That’s what I would say about it. I think that the people who have worked hard, it’s expressed

Top left: Sophomore Sam Richter plays Richard Nixon in one of the five plays he is in. Photo by Dave Winter.

Top middle: Sophomore Edward Fotinos and freshman Ronan Chatterjee fight over a piece of meat to represent the public’s response to the negative campaigning that the Bush campaign directed at Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis.

Photo by Dave Winter.

Top right: Sophomore Lucy Abramowitz and sophomore Meiriona Maddy perform the Franklin D. Roosevelt scene. Abramowitz plays the president in his later years in life. Photo by Dave Winter.

Bottom right: Sophomore Edward Fotinos is spoon fed apple sauce by freshmen Emma Wallace and Ronan Chatterjee during his portrayal of William Howard Taft. Photo by Gregory James.

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The sun sets over Austin last summer.

Stories by Ella Irwin and Abby Robison.

Photo by Zoë Hocker.

A sweet taste of summer ‘Ocean’s 8’ presents all-female spin on ‘The Ocean’s Trilogy’ Based on Steven Soderbergh’s original movie The Ocean’s Trilogy, Ocean’s 8 is an all female spin-off.

The movie has gained a lot of hype around the star-filled cast and the dedicated fan base for The Ocean’s Trilogy.

The women of the film have turned the tables and taken roles historically played by men.

In the movie, Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) assembles a team of women including pop singer Rihanna and comedian Mindy Kaling to help pull off a heist. They travel to the Met-Gala in hopes of stealing a necklace worth $150 million. This movie comes out June 8 and is expected to bring in large numbers at the box office.

Everyone’s childhood favorite is returning to theaters in June Disney’s early 2000s hit movie is soon to have a highly anticipated sequel, The Incredibles 2, on June 15. The original movie premiered in 2004, and Disney has waited 14 years to come out with a continuation of the story. The movie focuses on the mother, Elastic Girl, starting her new job, leaving the rest of the family members to fend for themselves.

Throughout the trailer, you can see the youngest child, Jack Jack, learning how to manage his new powers. The movie is aimed at both younger first-time viewers and also older audiences who remember the iconic original. The trailer broke the record for most views in an hour for an animated movie trailer.

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Blues on the Green last summer drew a large crowd of people enjoying the sunset and live music with their friends.

Photo by Zoë Hocker.

Attend Blues on the Green for a fun outdoor concert series If you are getting excited about Austin City Limits or are a live music lover, this summer you can participate in a long-lasting Austin tradition. Blues on the Green is a summer festival that is free to the public and open to all ages at Zilker Park. The festival is held

on four different dates starting with May 23 that will have headliners including The Black Angels and Night Glitter. Blues on the Green is the largest free concert festival in Austin history so don’t miss out. The festival’s other dates June 13, July 18 and Aug. 8.

Check out P. Terry’s new taco stand for a quick bite Most people associate P. Terry’s with burgers and shakes. This year, however, the restaurant has opened its very own taco drive-through, Taco Ranch. Taco Ranch is located in Southeast Austin at 5033 West U.S. Highway 290 Service Road. The

menu will include burritos, quesadillas and different desserts. The food is inexpensive with tacos around $3. Taco Ranch also has a dine-in option and patio seating. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to get tacos, Taco Ranch is a great new local option.

22 may 2018

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Senior Austen-Juul Hansen poses during a photo shoot featuring fashion designs

by Senior Gaby Fagelman. “She had me model her handmade designs,” Juul-Hansen said. “They were featured in the Icons Only show this year.”

The designs are displayed on Fagelman’s website: designsbygaby.com.

Artistically Speaking: Austen Juul-Hansen

Talented senior makes everyone around her better, starting with herself MIA TERMINELLA guest reporter

Senior Austen Juul-Hansen is leaving her mark on McCallum through art, theatre and her passion for individuality and self love.

“She’s always willing to learn and grow as a person and betters herself constantly,” said senior Anna McGuire, Juul-Hansen’s best friend. “She’s incredibly artistic, kind, witty, intelligent and has a beautiful soul.”

McGuire said that Juul-Hansen has an amazing capacity for expression and for honest and intimate conversations. Juul-Hansen demonstrated both of these qualities when she held an event called “Girls Night” last February that created a comfortable space where women could connect and express their vulnerability without fear.

Juul-Hansen gathered a panel of women for a Q & A about identity.

“Women of all ages came together to celebrate our sexuality and to have an honest and open dialogue about what it means to be empowered in our identity,” Juul-Hansen said.

In total about 40 women from different generations were in attendance in support of Juul-Hansen, including a Planned Parenthood representative and booth.

“The event was so successful and just being in that room with such positive energy was amazing,” Juul-Hansen said. “Seeing young girls engaged and talking about these topics really warmed my heart.”

As a visual art and performance theatre major, Juul- Hansen also expresses her passion through multiple art forms such as painting and theatre.

“Art is so valuable because it allows for creativity and emotion that does not have to be justified or explained to anyone,” Juul-Hansen said.

She spends her free time painting portraits of her friends and herself.

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“I paint because I want to express all of the beauty I see in the world,” Juul-Hansen said.

Aside from painting, Juul-Hansen also spends her free time doing theatre.

“I act because it allows me to decipher my feelings in a therapeutic way,” Juul-Hansen said.

Juul-Hansen has been seen in many MacTheatre productions, her favorites being Titanic, Me and My Girl, and West Side Story.

“Austen and I spend a lot of time together, anytime I get to just sit and talk with her in a coffee shop is some of the best times,” McGuire said. “I feel as though my capacity for self love and love for others has grown in the time that I’ve known her.”

McGuire isn’t the only friend who said that Juul-Hansen has affected them in a good way.

“Austen has made me a better person,” senior Jack Switzer said.

“She’s taught me how to care about myself and feel comfortable in my own skin.”

Juul-Hansen believes that McCallum has provided her with a safe space to pursue her art.

“At McCallum, people are condemned for judging the weird, as opposed to being condemned for being weird or different.” JuulHansen said.

Following her time at McCallum, Juul-Hansen will move to New York, and attend Vassar College. Her major is still undecided but Juul-Hansen is leaning toward studying philosophy, anthropology and English.

“I think it’s beautiful to be able to speak your mind without being critiqued,” Juul-Hansen said. “ It’s amazing how people will share themselves when given the opportunity.”

Top: “The Nature of Desire” is a piece focused on JuulHansen’s personal exploration in sexuality.

Middle: “Kisses” expresses Juul-Hansen’s opinion on femininity and the way it feels to be a woman.

Bottom: The piece titled “In Memoriam to Identity” was inspired by one of Juul-Hansen’s personal battles.

“I created this piece in a time when I felt a little lost within the identity of everyone around me.” Juul-Hansen said.

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Watty wonderful world

Illustration by Charlie Holden

After 23 years, English and songwriting teacher to retire CHARLIE HOLDEN co-editor in chief

Tom Watterson crossed the stage at his graduation from Chagrin Falls High School in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, on May 30, 1978. That year the Chagrin Falls Tigers had a graduating class of 227, one of the largest in the school’s history.

Over 1,000 miles away and 40 years later, Watterson will be watching a class twice that size cross the stage of the Frank Erwin Center—the McCallum Knights Class of 2018, the last class of graduating seniors Watterson will ever teach.

“Graduation is going to be fun because I get to graduate, too,” Watterson said. “And coincidentally, I’m going to my 40th high school reunion the weekend before graduation, so there’s a certain full-circle thing that’s coming along here, that 40 years to the day after my graduation of high school I get to graduate high school again. And that feels kind of good.”

Watterson, who currently teaches AP senior English and songwriting, gets to “graduate” for a second time because unlike most teachers at McCallum, he won’t be returning in the fall.

“Watterson has been talking about [retiring] for two years now,” AP junior English teacher Eric Wydeven said. “[I’m] excited for him. He’s a young, healthy man so he gets to go and enjoy himself now. He’s put in his time. But also I’ll miss him. I think he’s a really important part of this campus and our English department, and he’s a great friend. I mean, Tom [and I], we’ve been eating lunch together for 10 years every day, and I’ll miss that.”

As a teacher for the past 23 years—12 of those at McCallum—Watterson’s departure won’t be an easy one for the friends he’s leaving behind or for himself.

“I’m looking forward to doing something else for a while after 23 years, but there is a great deal of this career that I’m going to deeply miss,” Watterson said. “[Teaching] is all about the kids, hanging out with cool kids, cool creative kids all day, every day for 23 years. It’s not going to be easy to suddenly go live in the world of adults and to no longer have that connection with 130 adoring fans. I feel like I’ve managed to gain some sort of position here that I suspect my identity is more wrapped up in than I even can recognize, and that that’s going to [take] some adjusting to.

At the same time, not having 130 things to deal with every day is going to be kind of nice.”

As someone who has taught more than 100 students a year for more than two decades, Watterson has extensive experience with large workloads. While this less-than-desirable aspect of the career has remained the same, the part that makes the work worthwhile for Watterson has only gotten better over time.

“I will say that the atmosphere of the student body and the attitudes of students have only improved in my 23 years,” Watterson said.

“Especially in my experience here at McCallum.

Kids are just a lot cooler than they were when I first started; they really are. I just remember, especially at Austin High School, just hearing

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slurs against people. Routinely people would be ridiculed for their sexual orientation, for their race, for their physical abilities and disabilities, and I just feel like [we’ve] become a more enlightened society, and I think that kids are sort of at the forefront of that. Kids used to be a lot meaner to each other. And they probably still are, to an extent, but I feel like the atmosphere in the building here is very accepting of one another, and I think that that’s sort of a McCallum thing anyway. But I’ve seen it increase even in the 12 years that I’ve been here.”

Watterson’s respect for open-mindedness isn’t hard to understand because it’s a principle he practices as a teacher and as a father. His son Sam graduated from McCallum in 2016. “[Watterson] just comes in every day [and] he just regales us with his bicycle adventures and the things he’s doing,” Wydeven said. “And now his son is this hardcore punk rocker—sometimes during our lunch meetings we’ll listen to heavy punk rock [and] get a little angsty—[and] as a parent myself, I see the path that Sam, his son, is taking, and there’s some part of me that just admires his approach to it. He seems to stand behind Sam and push him to be whoever he’s going to be, and I think if that was my kid who was going into punk rock, I would be like, ‘Ah! Go get a job, make something of yourself, what’s this punk rock shit?’ And so I think it’s been inspirational to me as a parent, even, just [for him] to say, ‘Just let these folks take the road they’re going to take and encourage them and stand behind them and let them know you’re on their side and let the people be people.’ [I’m] always going to him with questions about, ‘Oh my God, I have this kid, I just don’t know what to do,’ and he’s always got some insight that again leaves it to us to kind of do whatever we’re going to do, but he always provides us with at least a calming, objective view of how we could approach something.”

Wydeven’s experiences also ring true with many students, including senior Abigail Tyree. In addition to being one of Watterson’s AP English students, Tyree is a peer tutor with the Writing Center, a group that Watterson sponsors. “[Watterson] has made [my senior year] really fun,” Tyree said. “His is definitely the class where I feel most like an adult; I’m able to just talk about the things that matter in the book, and it’s not just like, ‘You have to memorize this, this and this to get to the final.’ It’s more like, ‘We’re going to talk about things that are going to impact your life in the future; we’re going to talk about these big ideas that are important.’”

The impact that Watterson has made on McCallum is evident from the amount of people who are conflicted about his departure— himself included.

“I’ve reconsidered a bunch of times, and

there are just some great days where I say, ‘How could I ever leave this?’ And there are some days when I say, ‘Let’s hurry up and get out of here!’”

Watterson said. “So absolutely, I am not running out the door, fleeing like a senior to finally be free of this dump or anything like that. This is not necessarily a joyous occasion. While there is joy in the freedom that it’s going to offer me, there’s [also] a great deal of heaviness.”

Part of this heaviness comes from leaving behind the songwriting program, which Watterson inherited when he came to McCallum.

At the time of publication, the administration hasn’t determined who the new songwriting teacher will be, but part of Watterson’s preparation for leaving has included making certain that the class will continue.

“I’ve been assured that it will still be a class, and it’s really important to me that it is,” Watterson said. “That’s one of the trademarks of McCallum High School, and it would be a real detriment to our general quality of life here to not have the songwriting class.”

Songwriting may no longer be in Watterson’s future, but with the free time that retirement will allow, writing certainly will be.

“I’ve always aspired to write,” Watterson said.

“That’s sort of what I’ve done always along the way, and it will be nice to devote some time to doing some writing, whether that’s freelance or magazine work, or maybe I’ve got a novel in me, I don’t know. I just want to do something that doesn’t necessarily require me to be someplace at the same time every day from 9 to 5.”

Watterson may be retiring from McCallum, but he says that as long as he continues to live in Austin, he’ll have to continue to work. “[My wife and I] love it here, and I’ve lived here for 40 years,” Watterson said. “[But] when you look at what it costs to live here, what our property taxes have turned into—we could be high rollers if we sold our house and moved to another, less expensive town. I wouldn’t have to work. And so on our travels in the coming year

or so we are certainly keeping our eyes open to other possibilities, but what we really want to do is just turn back the clock and make Austin cheap again, because there’s nothing about this town that I don’t like besides the traffic and the expense. But we’d be leaving 40 years of established friendships and relationships behind, and it’s hard enough to leave a job, [but] to leave your town, I think, would be more difficult and painful than I’m able to imagine at this point.”

After 23 years in a career, the decision to retire isn’t one that comes easily, but Watterson’s reasons are compelling.

“It felt right, to a certain degree,” Watterson said. “Having gotten my own son through school, I sort of felt like, ‘been there, done that,’ and it just sort of felt right. And then sadly my wife’s brother passed away at my age last year. And he had never retired, and he and his wife had big plans that they never got to realize, and my wife and I decided that we didn’t want to defer our plans until, you know, we were 70. It’s like, we’re going to have a lot more fun doing the stuff we want to do at 60 than we will at 70. And his passing sort of put things into perspective and said [to us], ‘You know, if there are other things that you want to do in this life, now would probably be the better time to do it as opposed to later.’”

After May 31, Watterson will be able to find those things and pursue them. As for McCallum, things will remain the same. Guitars will be strummed softly in the halls, the patter of mice will be heard when it’s just quiet enough, half-finished paintings will fade on the walls of classrooms and a different procession of blue robes will cross the stage each year—except they won’t be Watterson’s songwriting students playing, or the mice that he crusades against, or the paintings that loom over his cluttered desk, or the seniors whom he has cultivated. In the end, Wydeven puts it best: “There’s only one Tom Watterson.”

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Mary Ghazi

Michael Urick English teacher

Art teacher The Shield: So you’re retiring. What’s that feel like, knowing that you’re going to be leaving in such a short amount of time?

Mary Ghazi: At first it was like a load off my shoulders a little bit, not having to be responsible for grading and lesson plans and things like that happen in the classroom, but as the time gets closer, it’s I’m kind of apprehensive about it. I start secondguessing myself, you know, “Did I do the right thing?” But a lot of teachers, they all know when they make that choice of retirement, when it’s time. You know [because] it feels right, and it does.

It’s time for me to move on and let somebody else who is more energetic and younger come in a teach here at McCallum. It’s been a really good 18 years. I did my student teaching here way back in ’97 with the art teachers that were in place at that time.

TS: Do you have any regrets about retiring?

MG: In a sense, yeah, because it’s like I’m not sure what to do next. There’s so many choices of where I need to be. I do feel that in a sense I have to be employed; there’s something that’s going to have to get me to get up in the morning and be active, but right now I haven’t made an absolute decision about what direction I’m going to go. There’s a lot of options for me. Too many.

TS: What are your plans for retirement?

MG: Definitely I would like to continue working somewhere, in an office, or maybe retail. Before teaching, I had jobs in the retail business. I was an administrative assistant for a loan officer at a big bank, Frost Bank, before I came to complete my degree to teach. So I have quite a bit of different experiences. But I know that I’m not going to be unemployed. That’s not for me. I need to be doing something.

T S: W hat kind of reaction have you gotten from your students about retiring?

MG: The way I phrased it was, “Hey, I’m going to be graduating with you!”

I’ve been here for 17 Mary Ghazi years, and I finally get to graduate. So that kind of softened the blow, but there were a few people that stopped talking; they were a little angry. It was a mixed bag. Some people were excited, some people were happy, but then they said, “Wait a minute, I wanted to take another class with you,” but I just reassured them and said, “Just take the class. There’ll be somebody here to teach it.”

TS: How has McCallum changed since you first started teaching here?

MG: When I got [to McCallum], when I compare the students from 2000, I can see them evolving, even a little bit more liberal. A lot of things that happen on the McCallum campus are not allowed on other campuses. I remember speaking to someone and saying, “Oh yeah, the kids wear colored hair. They dye their hair different colors,” and someone in another district said, “What? Oh no, they would be suspended for that.” And it’s like, no, McCallum is very liberal with the student environment. They want it to comfortable for the students to go here and to study here and to graduate from McCallum. And I think that it’s following the trends of what’s happening outside the school district and within the country too. It’s just stays in step with all of those trends that are happening.

—Zoë Hocker

22 may 2018

Lois Whisennand

Lois Whisennand poses in Christmas apparel with her husband, science teacher Richard Whisennand (he is not retiring).

English teacher, 504 coordinator The Shield: What teaching accomplishment fills you with pride?

Lois Whisennand: What fills me with pride is thinking about the times I have been able to take an impossible situation, be it with a student, another teacher or a parent, and turn it into a positive situation.

TS: Have you had any embarrassing teaching moments?

LW: Several, but the one that stands out is one time, while trying to make a salient point to my class, I leaned against a rolling cart and ended up on the floor, very unceremoniously.

TS: What’s the worst thing about being a teacher?

LW: It can be all-consuming. You have to plan time to be wife, mother and friend.

TS: If you could pass wisdom to your students, what would you share?

LW: The most important thing you will learn in high school is that learning is not just in the classroom, but anywhere and everywhere you are, and that is what makes life interesting and fulfilling.

TS: What do you plan on doing after you retire?

LW: Well, I don’t have a rocking chair on my front porch, so I guess I’ll spend some time with my family, travel a bit, relax a bit and then, who knows? The world is full of possibilities.

TS: Is there anything you would miss from McCallum?

LW: I will miss many, many things about McCallum. The “McCallum family”—which includes teachers, students, administrators and parents—is very unique, and I really doubt that I will ever experience that in any other place.

TS: Why did you become a teacher?

LW: I came from a family of teachers, and I taught twirling and swimming lessons all through high school and college. I knew going into college that you learn the content you might be teaching, but how to be a teacher is not learned. It’s either in you, or it is not.

TS: What’s the most important thing you learned about being a teacher?

LW: That teaching is like a roller-coaster ride, never static. The highs are the best, but you have to come down before you can go back up.

TS: What is most challenging about teaching?

LW: I think it is very unfortunate and sad that teachers nationwide are not paid for their education and expertise in their chosen field.

TS: What was the scariest thing about your first year of being a teacher?

LW: I remember having a fear that I was outnumbered by a sea of students, most of them taller than I was, and that they would never know when I started teaching.

TS: Describe your most effective teaching techniques.

LW: Strangely enough, my most effective teaching technique involves listening to students rather than talking to them.

TS: How would you describe yourself?

LW: I’m the eternal optimist. I can’t wait to see what good things will come my way.

—Abigail Salazar

The Shield: What accomplishment in teaching fills you with pride?

Michael Urick: Well, I loved every day of it. I told myself I would keep teaching until I reached retirement or hated it, but I haven’t hated it yet.

TS: What’s the worst thing about being a teacher?

MU: All the homework: grading all the homework and keeping up with the grades and deadlines.

TS: If you could pass wisdom to your students, what would you share?

MU: Keep learning.

TS: Do you see any differences between your morning classes and your afternoon classes?

MU: The afternoon ones are more tired than the morning ones. The mornings one are kind of shaking themselves awake.

TS: What are your retirement plans?

MU: I’m just not going to work. I’m probably going to go on vacation for a while and relax. I would travel to Mexico because I love their beaches.

TS: Is there anything you would miss from McCallum?

MU: The kids. They keep me feeling young.

TS: Do you have a favorite memory from teaching?

MU: Going to graduation and seeing the kids that I have taught get on with their lives.

TS: Why did you become a teacher?

MU: I’ve always been a teacher in some way or another; it seems like a natural thing for me.

TS: Since you’re an English teacher, what’s your favorite book that you had your students read?

MU: My favorite book is Dante’s Inferno because it’s hard to read, it’s like literature boot camp. It teaches everything within that one book.

Michael Urick TS: What’s the most important thing you learned about being a teacher?

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

TS: What is the most satisfying thing about teaching?

MU: Seeing kids move on year after year. Seeing them improving and getting out of high school and doing greater things.

TS: What are the challenges of teaching?

MU: Being prepared every day, but after 30 years I’m kind of used to it.

TS: Your first year of being a teacher, what was the scariest thing?

MU: Scrambling out enough materials through every day.

I started making these notebooks of lessons plans every year, and now I have 30 years of lesson plans.

TS: How would you describe yourself?

MU: Laid-back.

TS: Any advice for anyone you decides to become a teacher?

MU: Plan ahead in life, plan ahead in your work.

—Abigail Salazar

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Proust Questionnaire: Mike Reilly

Resource officer talks family, career, travel

The Shield: What is your greatest fear?

Mike Reilly: If we are going phobias, I hate heights. If we are going just on a personal level I guess being a failure to my kids would probably be the best example of that because you always want to live up to be everything they think of you and sometimes that’s a hard step to reach.

TS: How old are your kids?

MR: I have a 16-year-old boy, an 11-year-old boy, and an honorary 16-year-old girl that has seen me as a dad since she was about five.

TS: Who is a living person you most look up to?

MR: That would have to be my dad because he worked all of his life away and was away from us. I never held it against him, but I know other members of my family did. You know if you look at everything he was able to do and accomplish and provide for our family, I really strive to be like him because he was really selfless.

TS: What is a trait you most deplore?

MR: I’m a big fan of honesty, so lying is always gonna put you in a worse spot with me than if you were to just be truthful from the get-go.

TS: On what occasion do you lie?

MR: There’s certainly occasions that you lie, for example, “Do these jeans make me look fat?” and stuff like that. If you’re talking to a significant other, the answer is always “No, you look great.” It will do nothing but get you in trouble. Other than that like I said I’m an honest person almost to a fault. It actually gets me in more trouble more than I care to admit because people don’t always like honesty, and they see it as me being a jerk. [I] lie when it’s necessary and does no harm.

TS: What character trait do you value most in a co-worker?

MR: I don’t know, I think I get along with pretty much everyone. Everyone has their own traits that I work well with. The thing I look for the most [is that] I like to laugh because if you’re not laughing, you’re dying.

TS: What character trait do you most value in a student?

MR: I like kids who give officers a chance. A lot of people judge me based on the uniform before they get to know me and just assume I’m the cookie-cutter stereotypical cop that they see on TV and whatnot, and I’d rather them just come out and be open and willing to get to know me as a person and again [let me] get a fair chance at it so I can get to know them as well.

TS: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

MR: I’m horribly bad at putting LOL in texts. I almost always start or end a text with LOL. TS: What has been the greatest moment you’ve had while being at McCallum?

MR: Getting to know the kids. I don’t keep up with many of them, but I get drawings from the kids and thank-you cards. Just being able to provide a good memory of a cop because I didn’t have many of them when I was a kid. I didn’t like police when I was a kid, so being able to be a good memory to the kids and just having them reach out and kinda let me know. For example, my

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Assistant principal Andrew Baxa and Office Reilly man their post in the main hallway between classes.

Photo by Molly Gardner.

handcuffs were a gift from a kid who graduated and they’re engraved with my name and badge number on them. So, my greatest memories are probably just getting to know the kids.

TS: Did you always want to be a cop?

MR: I either wanted to be a cop or a teacher so school cop just kinda seemed to fit. I was going to college to be a teacher, but my college ended the program and didn’t grandfather those who were already in it, so my senior year while I was student teaching, I had to find a new major. It’s funny because when I was in high school I wanted nothing more then [to be] out of high school, and now I’m doomed to work in one for the rest of my life, which I’m actually happy about.

TS: If you could change anything about yourself what would it be?

MR: I’d live in Pittsburgh. My kids live up there.

My ex-wife took them and moved back near her family up there. So I’m forced to deal with them over the phones and PlayStations.

TS: What is your greatest regret?

MR: It would probably have to do with missing my opportunity. I had pretty much a shoe in the door to move up and work for the sheriff’s office in Pittsburgh. They called me on Sunday night needing me to get there on Monday morning, and I couldn’t get there because I didn’t have the money.

TS: Well that’s it.

MS: Did you know I grew up in Europe?

TS: How long did you live in Europe?

MR: I moved over there before I have any memories so I was born in the states but moved to Switzerland shortly after and lived in Lausanne. I lived there four or five years. It was awesome because as I was learning I moved, so I was forced to learn French. I was fluent in French and then towards middle school I moved to Frankfurt. It was a little town called Glashütten, but it’s outside of Frankfurt, Germany, so I went from southern (U.S.) English to French to German, and I was fluent in all of them and then I moved over here to the U.S. and started

high school and had a bizarre accent I guess. I didn’t notice, but others did. I’d try and mimic it, but I don’t even think I could do it anymore.

But if you want to know what it sounds like it, it sounds like you have no friends and people making fun of you. So there were times when I’d pretend I was an exchange student in school.

TS: What was the greatest place you lived in Europe?

MR: If you’re going by looks, you have to go Switzerland because it’s just the most beautiful place you could ever imagine. It’s got the Alps and the lake, and you could do anything you wanted at any time. I mean our whole school went skiing every Friday; that was our day. But if you’re talking people, I created the best friends, and I still have them to this day, in Germany.

But it’s kinda hard to have reunions because we are all over the world now.

TS: Are you still fluent in French and German?

MR: I can get by in German. French I’ve forgotten most of and I regret it because like I said I was kind of picked on because of my accent, so I did what a lot of stupid high schoolers would do, and I said I’m gonna stop speaking the language cause that will get rid of my accent and unfortunately it worked, so I lost a lot of my languages. But

I’m trying to pick up German again because it’s the one I miss the most. I still have weekly talks with my ex-girlfriend where she will practice her English with me, and I’ll practice my German on her. So actually, that would be a good regret if the other one is too serious. I regret forgetting the languages I knew.

TS: Where did you go to college?

MR: I went to college in Pittsburgh at La Roche College. I chased a girl; I had no intention of going to college but followed my [future] ex-wife to college. I was going to be a teacher, I had a job lined up to be a German teacher taking over for my old German teacher in high school, and I was student-teaching for the kids I was gonna take over and then they ended the career, and I had a son at that point so I just went into the work force and did really well in the corporate world and then decided I was ready for a change.

—interview by Molly Gardner This interview is based on a modified version of the Proust Questionnaire, a series of 35 questions meant to gauge the personality and values of the answerer. This page offers an excerpt from our full interview with Officer Reilly. To read the complete conversation, please visit macshieldonline.com.

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SENI8RS

ALL ABOUT

what was relevant in 2014, 2018

2018 the

shield

GRACIE ACEBAL RODRIGUEZ: ACC BRIANNA ACOSTA: ACC MOLLIE ADOLPH:

Stephen F. Austin State University GABRIEL ALCALA- GUTIERREZ: Undecided RAFAEL ALDANA ZAYAS: ACC KEGAN ALEMAN: Gap year LILIANA ALEMAN: ACC BRANDON ALVAREZ: Working FRANCHESCA ALVAREZ- CANALES:

Lauterstein-Conway Massage School MARIBEL ALVERSON: Gap year JULIA ANDERSON: George Mason University DAN ARBUTHNOT: Texas State University JOSE ARIAS LOPEZ: ACC CHARLEE ARNOLD: Wiley College HAYLEY ARROYO: Undecided ATIYEH ASSAF: Gap year ETHAN ATKINSON: UT-San Antonio SASHA AZAR: ACC SHAMARA BAILEY: Undecided AARON BALDAUF: UT-Austin SAYRA GRANADOS BALLESTEROS: Unknown RYAN BARNER: University of Houston MARCOS BARRERA: Unknown ANDREA BARRERA-CASTRO:

American University SOPHIA BASTIDAS: Texas State University EMMA BAUMGARDNER:

University of Montanta ARYA BAYATI MARGHMALEKI: ACC ALEX BAYLOR: University of North Texas KASEY BECK: ACC JAMES BELL: Kansas City Art Institute AILEEN BENITEZ: St. Edward’s University OLIVIA BENNETT: Unknown RODRIGO BERMUDEZ: ACC TYRASHAE BERRY: Texas Southern University CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT: ACC AMANDA BISCOE: Texas A&M University JACK BLANKENSHIP: ACC MOLLY BLANKENSHIP:

Oregon State University KYA BLOUNT: Gap year VIVIEN BLUMOFE: University of Colorado Boulder DANIELLE BOGLE: ACC MATAN BOS ORENT: UT-Austin LEELA BOYER: Texas State University GRACE BRADY: UT-Dallas JACKSON BROOKS: Gap year ALYSIA BROWN: Texas State University ASA BROWN: University of Arkansas AUBREY BROWN: UT-Austin JOSH BROWN: Texas Tech University NATALIE BROWN: University of South Carolina MASON BRYANT: UT-Austin NINA BUFORD: Vernon College ELENA BURATTI: Unknown CAITLYN BURRIS:

Savannah College of Art and Design WILSON CABALLERO: ACC

14 senior coverage

MATTHEW CAIN: Galloup School of Lutherie BRYTON CALDER: New College of Florida ILORI CALDWELL: Gap year STEPHEN CAMPBELL: Texas Tech University ALY CANDELAS: University of North Texas LEAH CANTU: UT-San Antonio JOSEPH CARDENAS: Gap year CHRISTOPHER CARMAGNOLA: Unknown IAN CARSON: Clemson University SILAS CARTER: ACC JASON CASTILLO: Gap year OCTTORIA CATHEY ROBERTSON: ACC TERYN CAZAL: UT-Austin CESAR CEDILLO: Texas State University SAVANNAH CELEDON: ACC LORENZO CELLI -VARGAS: ACC MAURY SUGIA CESPEDES: Texas A&M University ASHLEY CHAMBERLAIN: Texas State University RYAN CHATTERJEE: UT-Austin SOPHIE CHEESAR: Texas State University SARAH CHILDS: Texas Tech University JALIA CHRENSHAW: Undecided CAMERON CLARK: Chiang Mai University CEDRICK CLARK: Chiang Mai University NICKIE COHEN: Gap year CONNOR COLEMAN: ACC KAMRYN COLLINS: Unknown LEAH COLLINS: Working ANNA COMPTON: UT-Austin ISAK CONTRERAS: ACC ALIANA COOK: Baldwin Beauty School JUDAH COPELAND: Harding University ATTICUS CORBITT: Gap year MAX CRAZE: Undecided JAYLIN CRUZ: Unknown DARIELLE CYPHERS: Tuskegee University RAQUELLE CYPHERS: Tuskegee University E M M A B L E U DAG H L I A N:

University of Colorado-Boulder JARED DALE: University of Utah HANNAH DANFORTH: Smith College JASMINE DAVIS: Wayland Baptist University TRYSTON DAVIS: Texas State University CARLOS DEJESUS: Gap year SAMANTHA DE LA BARREDA MAGDALENO: ACC ISABELLE DE LA CRUZ: ACC SKYLAR DE LA CRUZ: Texas State University JENNIFER DELAVINA- HEATH:

Stephen F. Austin State University IVAN DE LEON: Gap year TAIH - SETI DE LEON: Unknown JOSE DEL VALLE: ACC FIONA DENTON: Hunter College DYLLAN DIAL: ACC RUBY DIETZ: The George Washington University KIANA DIXON: Unknown KIM DOMINGUEZ HERNANDEZ: ACC MADDIE DORAN: University of Arkansas LAJAYSHIA DOTSON: Praire View A&M University ABBEY DOUGLASS: Gap year KATHERINE DOWDY: Culinary school

JAMES DOYAL: St. Edward’s University HENRY DUAINE: Unknown JAXON DUNCAN: UT-San Antonio ALEX ESCOBAR: UT-San Antonio BEN ESCOTO: Undecided IDALI ESPINOZA: Texas State University FERNANDO ESQUIVEL: Texas State University JACOB ESTRADA: ACC SIERRA ESTRADA: ACC ASHER ETHEREDGE: Gap year GABRIELA FAGELMAN: Texas Christian University ANTHONY FASSIOTTO: Arizonia State University JB FAUGHT: Texas A&M at Galveston GARRETT FAULKNER: ACC ANI FIERRO: Texas State University NARAYANA FINCH: Northwest Vista College MIA FITZPATRICK: UT-San Antonio JP FLORES: ACC RICARDO FLORES: ACC TANIA FLORES ZUNIGA: ACC AIDAN FLYNN: ACC SEAN FLYNN: St. Edward’s University LILYAN FOULOIS: University of Houston CAYLA FOUNTAIN: Gap year ETHAN FRANKS: Unknown JAVIER GALAVIZ: ACC GERARDO GALINDO MARTINEZ: Art School LAILA GARCES: ACC JOANN GARCIA: Working ALEXIS GARZA: Unknown JAZON GARZA: ACC GRACE GEORGE: The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University SKYE GILL: Texas State University IZZY GILLESPIE: Rhodes College ROBERTO GIRAL: Unknown MARIELLE GLASSE: Hampshire College LEWIS GOMEZ: ACC LAZARO GOMEZ DELGADO: ACC CRYSTAL GONG: UT-Dallas ANGIE GONZALEZ: ACC CRYSTAL GONZALEZ: Unknown ALEX GRANGER:

Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi JACOB GREENBERG: Marine Corps VIVICA GRIFFIN: University of Mary Hardin-Baylor SIERRA GUEQUIERRE: Colby College ISABELLE HABEGGER: Texas State University KENNETH HALL: ACC MAIZY HALL: University of Oregon LOUIS HANDY: Texas Tech University HENRY HARRIS: ACC ABDUL HASSAN: ACC CHAD HEMPHILL: Texas Tech University ELENA HENDERSON: Tarleton State University BAILEE HERBOLD: University of Denver ALEXI HERNANDEZ: Texas A&M at Corpus Christi ESTEVAN HERNANDEZ: ACC CALEB HERPIN: Texas A&M University ALEX HEUSTESS: University of Minnesota Twin Cities IO HICKMAN - SCHRINER: Gap year CHARLIE HOLDEN: University of Oregon

EMMA HOLMES: Texas A&M at Galveston CORDEJA HOPES: ACC JERRY HOWARD: University of Houston CAMPBELL HOWAT:

University of Wisconsin-Green Bay SAI HUNSUCKER- POLLOCK:

University of Houston CHRISTINE HURD: New York University GEROHAN IRIAS ESPINAL: Working MALCOLM JACKSON:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute MARIAH JACKSON: Marine Corps SAVANNAH JACKSON: ACC DEISY JAIMES: Texas State University LEIDY JAIMES: St. Edward’s University ANTONIO JARAMILLO: Gap year JACQULINE JIMENEZ:

Texas A&M University at San Antonio AVERY MARIE JOHNSON: UT-Austin AVERY MATTHEW JOHNSON: Gap year DOUGLAS JOINER: Baylor University DEIDRA JONES: Unknown ETHAN JONES: ACC GABRIELLA JONES: Colorado State University JAVIER JONES: ACC ALEXANDER JULIAN: Navarro College AUSTEN JUUL- HANSEN: Vassar College CHEYANNE KEELER: ACC OSCAR KELBAN: Oberlin College CHRISTINA KELLER: University of North Texas MICHAEL KELLY:

Texas A&M University at Galveston PABLO KENNEDY: Boston University SEAMUS KEOGH: Purdue University OSCAR KIMZEY: Carleton College KATE KNIFTON: UT-Austin CALENA KOVAR: Trinity University RILEY KRETZLER: Ohio Wesleyan University REACE LANE: Sul Ross University VONTREAL LAUDERDALE: Unknown ERIC LAWARE: Gap year BENJAMIN LAWRENCE - SANDERSON: UT-Austin SARA LAYMON: Stephen F. Austin State University MOLLY LEACH: The College of Wooster ALYSA LEFF: University of North Texas ANDREW LE MASTER: UT-San Antonio ISABEL LERMAN: UT-Austin NICO LEUBA- JONES: Sarah Lawrence College JOSHUA LEVISTON: ACC ANDREW LEWIS: Texas A&M University KARL LINDQVIST: UT-San Antonio WILL LOEWEN: Gap year JOSE LOPEZ: UT-El Paso KRISTAL LOPEZ: ACC MARC LOPEZ: UT-San Antonio LETICIA LOREDO: Texas Tech University WILL LUCEY: Gap year GABRIEL LUNA: Working IAN MABON: Military WILLIAM MAGNUSON: Gap year KAYA MANGUM: Unknown

22 may 2018

JAKE MANNELLA : ACC KENNETH MARTIN : Undecided BRIANNE MARTINEZ : Undecided GABE MARTINEZ : Gap year JACKSON MASTERS : Texas State University NOELLE MBAYA: Colorado Christian University DEJAN MCCLARIN FISHER: Concordia University LILY MCCORMICK: UT-Austin GABRIEL MCCOY: Unknown EVALYN MCCUSKER: UT-Austin MICAH MCDANIEL: University of North Texas MADDIE MCELROY: Texas State University ANNA MCGUIRE: University of Oklahoma ESTEFANY MEZA: Unknown CAITLIN MIDDLETON: Louis & Clark College LYRIC MIDDLETON: Praire View A&M University SAMUEL MILLER:

California Polytechnic State University CRISTIAN MIRANDA: George Mason University PIFFY MITCHELL: Kilgore College JAKOB MITCHELL: Gap year CALVIN MOORE:

Western State Colorado University TOMAS MORALES: Unknown JOE MORALES: Undecided FATIMA MORENO: ACC ERIN MORRISON: Gap year JAZMIN MORRISON: ACC MILES MOSBY: Colorado State University NESTOR MUNOZ BENITEZ: Unknown OWEN MYERS: ACC PEDRO NAJAR: University of North Texas SARA NEEL: Texas State University FISCHER NICHOLS: ACC ZOEY NICKLES: ACC JAGGER NIKOLAKOS: Arizona State University JAVIER NINO ESPARZA: St. Edward’s University JP NORTHCUTT- BENSON: ACC BEN NUDELMAN: Texas State University MARI OLDS: ACC MADISON OLSEN: University of Montana CHRISTOPHER ORTEGO - SMITH: Undecided ELLIE OWEN: UT-Austin JUAN PAREDES ADELAIDO: ACC HARRISON PARGMANN : Texas A&M University VINAY PATEL: Baylor University JORDAN PEARSON : ACC BENJAMIN PERALTA: Working MALIK PEREZ: ACC MAX PEREZ: West Texas A&M MAX PERKINS: ACC ANTHONY PHIFER: ACC NOAH PHILLIPS: ACC CHRISTOPHER PIERCE: Undecided FAITH POIRIER: Texas State University LILLY PONCE: Gap year MARGARET PRADERAS: University of Tulsa ESTEBAN PRINCE: ACC ADDIE RACE: Hendrix College QUINN RALSTON: ACC MICAELA RAMACCIOTTI : St. Edward’s University BIANCA RAMIREZ: UT-San Antonio

JAY RAMIREZ: ACC ROXANNE RAMIREZ- FRANCO: Unknown XAVIER RAMON: ACC ISABELLA RANGEL: Unknown RAQUEL RANGEL : Working BETHANY RAUP: Maryland Institute College of Art ERIN RAY: Minerva Schools at KGI RYAN RAYMOND: University of North Texas CAKI REBEIZ: California Institute of the Arts SAMI REBEIZ: Texas State University TAYLOR RENFRO: Southern Methodist University JIMMY REYES: Texas State University DAISY RICARIO: Texas State University ABBI RICHTER: Texas A&M University SAVANNAH GRACE RIDDLES:

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University ALLEXCIOUS RIGGINS: ACC CARLOS RIVAS: Unknown NUBIA RIVAS: UT-Austin DARIUS ROBERSON: Prarie View A&M University JULIE ROBERTSON: University of Colorado Boulder ANTHONY ROBINSON:

Olive Harvey Community College DAVIS ROE: UT-Austin ALEXIS ROMERO VARGAS: ACC ALYSSA ROSALES: ACC COLE ROSS:

Chandler-Gilbert Community College AUBREY ROWAN: UT-Dallas MYKAELA RUIZ- LUJAN: Central Texas Beauty College SELAH RUSSELL: Traveling ALEXANDER SABOLCIK: UT-Austin LOLA SACKETT: Gap year KEANE SAMMON : Hendrix College KENNEDY SCHUELKE:

Loyola Marmount University BEN SESSA: Indiana University ETHAN SHACKELFORD:

Georgia Institute of Technology JACOB SHARMAN: Gap year JACK SHENKMAN: ACC ZOE SILASKI: Gap year IVAN SILVA PEREZ: Unknown JASMINE SKLOSS - HARRISON: Undecided ADDISON SMITH: AVEDA Beauty Institute PIPER ANNE SMITH: Undecided ROXY SMITH: Gap year SARAH SMITH: Texas A&M University DEISY SORTO: Unknown ELLA STANKIEWICZ: University of Tampa MAXWELL STEIN: Louisiana State University SARAH KAY STEPHENS:

Illinois Institute of Technology AMON STEWART: University of North Texas LIAM STOCKELMANN: Texas State University HAYDEN STONE: McGill University SAMUEL STONE: Texas A&M at Kingsville SELIKA SUNAR: Texas State University ADRIAN SWADIS - BARRINGTON: Undecided JACK SWITZER: University of Arkansas ATTICUS TAIT: University of North Texas JAIDA TARPEIN: Unknown

DAEJHA TAYLOR: Gap year GENEVIEVE TEMPLE: Gap year BROOKS THODEN: Iona College AISHA THOMPSON: Undecided TRISTAN TIERNEY : Ithaca College LEROY TORRES: Mississippi State University HAILEE TOULOUSE: ACC MICHAEL TOVAR: St. Edward’s University AARON TREVINO: ACC JOSH TSANG: Gap year CHLOE TWEEDY: Gap year ABIGAIL TYREE: UT-Austin ABIGAIL UGARTE: Unknown AYDAN URIAS: Southwestern University BRANDON VALDEZ: Unknown KOEHLER VANDAMENT:

St. Edward’s University MILES VANDER VENNET:

Western Washington Community College MONIQUE VASQUEZ : Unknown DANIEL VAZQUEZ: Stone Hall College JAIME VEGA MIRELES: ACC ELIAS VELA: Unknown CHRISTINA VELASQUEZ: Unknown ANALICIA VELASQUEZ ESCOBEDO:

Unknown ANIKA VERMA: Texas Tech University KEVON WALTON: Unknown TYRELL WASHINGTON: Undecided DESTIN WATSON: JORDAN WAYLAND: ACC MASON WEEMS: University of Arkansas FRAN WETHINGTON: ACC JESSICA WHELESS: Texas A&M Univerisity ERYN WHITEHEAD:

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor EMELIA WHITESIDE:

Pacific Northwest College of Art GEORGIA WHITWORTH: LIM College TYLER WILKINS: ACC BILLY WILLIAMS: Tyler Junior College MIYA WILSON: ACC DIEGO WINFREE: Gap year JOHN WOOLLETT: UT-San Antonio ERIC WORDEN: Angelina College CLAYTON WRIGHT: ACC KEYRRA WRIGHT: ACC CHLOE YBARRA: ACC DYLAN YORK: Undecided BRITTANY YOUNG: ACC HANNAH YOUNG: Boston University OLLIE YOUNG: University of Cinncinati SCOUT YU: School of the Art Institute of Chicago LEYLA ZAMARRON: Texas State University EMERSON ZAPLATAR:

Southwestern Oregon Community College JENIFER ZARZOZA: ACC JOSE ZARZOZA: ACC EDGAR ZATARAIN: Texas State University JOSUE ZEPEDA- SANIC: Brown University RENEE ZIEGLER: University of North Texas CLARK ZINSMEYER: Texas Tech University

senior coverage 15

2018 the

shield

GRACIE ACEBAL RODRIGUEZ: ACC BRIANNA ACOSTA: ACC MOLLIE ADOLPH:

Stephen F. Austin State University GABRIEL ALCALA- GUTIERREZ: Undecided RAFAEL ALDANA ZAYAS: ACC KEGAN ALEMAN: Gap year LILIANA ALEMAN: ACC BRANDON ALVAREZ: Working FRANCHESCA ALVAREZ- CANALES:

Lauterstein-Conway Massage School MARIBEL ALVERSON: Gap year JULIA ANDERSON: George Mason University DAN ARBUTHNOT: Texas State University JOSE ARIAS LOPEZ: ACC CHARLEE ARNOLD: Wiley College HAYLEY ARROYO: Undecided ATIYEH ASSAF: Gap year ETHAN ATKINSON: UT-San Antonio SASHA AZAR: ACC SHAMARA BAILEY: Undecided AARON BALDAUF: UT-Austin SAYRA GRANADOS BALLESTEROS: Unknown RYAN BARNER: University of Houston MARCOS BARRERA: Unknown ANDREA BARRERA-CASTRO:

American University SOPHIA BASTIDAS: Texas State University EMMA BAUMGARDNER:

University of Montanta ARYA BAYATI MARGHMALEKI: ACC ALEX BAYLOR: University of North Texas KASEY BECK: ACC JAMES BELL: Kansas City Art Institute AILEEN BENITEZ: St. Edward’s University OLIVIA BENNETT: Unknown RODRIGO BERMUDEZ: ACC TYRASHAE BERRY: Texas Southern University CHRISTIAN BETANCOURT: ACC AMANDA BISCOE: Texas A&M University JACK BLANKENSHIP: ACC MOLLY BLANKENSHIP:

Oregon State University KYA BLOUNT: Gap year VIVIEN BLUMOFE: University of Colorado Boulder DANIELLE BOGLE: ACC MATAN BOS ORENT: UT-Austin LEELA BOYER: Texas State University GRACE BRADY: UT-Dallas JACKSON BROOKS: Gap year ALYSIA BROWN: Texas State University ASA BROWN: University of Arkansas AUBREY BROWN: UT-Austin JOSH BROWN: Texas Tech University NATALIE BROWN: University of South Carolina MASON BRYANT: UT-Austin NINA BUFORD: Vernon College ELENA BURATTI: Unknown CAITLYN BURRIS:

Savannah College of Art and Design WILSON CABALLERO: ACC

14 senior coverage

MATTHEW CAIN: Galloup School of Lutherie BRYTON CALDER: New College of Florida ILORI CALDWELL: Gap year STEPHEN CAMPBELL: Texas Tech University ALY CANDELAS: University of North Texas LEAH CANTU: UT-San Antonio JOSEPH CARDENAS: Gap year CHRISTOPHER CARMAGNOLA: Unknown IAN CARSON: Clemson University SILAS CARTER: ACC JASON CASTILLO: Gap year OCTTORIA CATHEY ROBERTSON: ACC TERYN CAZAL: UT-Austin CESAR CEDILLO: Texas State University SAVANNAH CELEDON: ACC LORENZO CELLI -VARGAS: ACC MAURY SUGIA CESPEDES: Texas A&M University ASHLEY CHAMBERLAIN: Texas State University RYAN CHATTERJEE: UT-Austin SOPHIE CHEESAR: Texas State University SARAH CHILDS: Texas Tech University JALIA CHRENSHAW: Undecided CAMERON CLARK: Chiang Mai University CEDRICK CLARK: Chiang Mai University NICKIE COHEN: Gap year CONNOR COLEMAN: ACC KAMRYN COLLINS: Unknown LEAH COLLINS: Working ANNA COMPTON: UT-Austin ISAK CONTRERAS: ACC ALIANA COOK: Baldwin Beauty School JUDAH COPELAND: Harding University ATTICUS CORBITT: Gap year MAX CRAZE: Undecided JAYLIN CRUZ: Unknown DARIELLE CYPHERS: Tuskegee University RAQUELLE CYPHERS: Tuskegee University E M M A B L E U DAG H L I A N:

University of Colorado-Boulder JARED DALE: University of Utah HANNAH DANFORTH: Smith College JASMINE DAVIS: Wayland Baptist University TRYSTON DAVIS: Texas State University CARLOS DEJESUS: Gap year SAMANTHA DE LA BARREDA MAGDALENO: ACC ISABELLE DE LA CRUZ: ACC SKYLAR DE LA CRUZ: Texas State University JENNIFER DELAVINA- HEATH:

Stephen F. Austin State University IVAN DE LEON: Gap year TAIH - SETI DE LEON: Unknown JOSE DEL VALLE: ACC FIONA DENTON: Hunter College DYLLAN DIAL: ACC RUBY DIETZ: The George Washington University KIANA DIXON: Unknown KIM DOMINGUEZ HERNANDEZ: ACC MADDIE DORAN: University of Arkansas LAJAYSHIA DOTSON: Praire View A&M University ABBEY DOUGLASS: Gap year KATHERINE DOWDY: Culinary school

JAMES DOYAL: St. Edward’s University HENRY DUAINE: Unknown JAXON DUNCAN: UT-San Antonio ALEX ESCOBAR: UT-San Antonio BEN ESCOTO: Undecided IDALI ESPINOZA: Texas State University FERNANDO ESQUIVEL: Texas State University JACOB ESTRADA: ACC SIERRA ESTRADA: ACC ASHER ETHEREDGE: Gap year GABRIELA FAGELMAN: Texas Christian University ANTHONY FASSIOTTO: Arizonia State University JB FAUGHT: Texas A&M at Galveston GARRETT FAULKNER: ACC ANI FIERRO: Texas State University NARAYANA FINCH: Northwest Vista College MIA FITZPATRICK: UT-San Antonio JP FLORES: ACC RICARDO FLORES: ACC TANIA FLORES ZUNIGA: ACC AIDAN FLYNN: ACC SEAN FLYNN: St. Edward’s University LILYAN FOULOIS: University of Houston CAYLA FOUNTAIN: Gap year ETHAN FRANKS: Unknown JAVIER GALAVIZ: ACC GERARDO GALINDO MARTINEZ: Art School LAILA GARCES: ACC JOANN GARCIA: Working ALEXIS GARZA: Unknown JAZON GARZA: ACC GRACE GEORGE: The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University SKYE GILL: Texas State University IZZY GILLESPIE: Rhodes College ROBERTO GIRAL: Unknown MARIELLE GLASSE: Hampshire College LEWIS GOMEZ: ACC LAZARO GOMEZ DELGADO: ACC CRYSTAL GONG: UT-Dallas ANGIE GONZALEZ: ACC CRYSTAL GONZALEZ: Unknown ALEX GRANGER:

Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi JACOB GREENBERG: Marine Corps VIVICA GRIFFIN: University of Mary Hardin-Baylor SIERRA GUEQUIERRE: Colby College ISABELLE HABEGGER: Texas State University KENNETH HALL: ACC MAIZY HALL: University of Oregon LOUIS HANDY: Texas Tech University HENRY HARRIS: ACC ABDUL HASSAN: ACC CHAD HEMPHILL: Texas Tech University ELENA HENDERSON: Tarleton State University BAILEE HERBOLD: University of Denver ALEXI HERNANDEZ: Texas A&M at Corpus Christi ESTEVAN HERNANDEZ: ACC CALEB HERPIN: Texas A&M University ALEX HEUSTESS: University of Minnesota Twin Cities IO HICKMAN - SCHRINER: Gap year CHARLIE HOLDEN: University of Oregon

EMMA HOLMES: Texas A&M at Galveston CORDEJA HOPES: ACC JERRY HOWARD: University of Houston CAMPBELL HOWAT:

University of Wisconsin-Green Bay SAI HUNSUCKER- POLLOCK:

University of Houston CHRISTINE HURD: New York University GEROHAN IRIAS ESPINAL: Working MALCOLM JACKSON:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute MARIAH JACKSON: Marine Corps SAVANNAH JACKSON: ACC DEISY JAIMES: Texas State University LEIDY JAIMES: St. Edward’s University ANTONIO JARAMILLO: Gap year JACQULINE JIMENEZ:

Texas A&M University at San Antonio AVERY MARIE JOHNSON: UT-Austin AVERY MATTHEW JOHNSON: Gap year DOUGLAS JOINER: Baylor University DEIDRA JONES: Unknown ETHAN JONES: ACC GABRIELLA JONES: Colorado State University JAVIER JONES: ACC ALEXANDER JULIAN: Navarro College AUSTEN JUUL- HANSEN: Vassar College CHEYANNE KEELER: ACC OSCAR KELBAN: Oberlin College CHRISTINA KELLER: University of North Texas MICHAEL KELLY:

Texas A&M University at Galveston PABLO KENNEDY: Boston University SEAMUS KEOGH: Purdue University OSCAR KIMZEY: Carleton College KATE KNIFTON: UT-Austin CALENA KOVAR: Trinity University RILEY KRETZLER: Ohio Wesleyan University REACE LANE: Sul Ross University VONTREAL LAUDERDALE: Unknown ERIC LAWARE: Gap year BENJAMIN LAWRENCE - SANDERSON: UT-Austin SARA LAYMON: Stephen F. Austin State University MOLLY LEACH: The College of Wooster ALYSA LEFF: University of North Texas ANDREW LE MASTER: UT-San Antonio ISABEL LERMAN: UT-Austin NICO LEUBA- JONES: Sarah Lawrence College JOSHUA LEVISTON: ACC ANDREW LEWIS: Texas A&M University KARL LINDQVIST: UT-San Antonio WILL LOEWEN: Gap year JOSE LOPEZ: UT-El Paso KRISTAL LOPEZ: ACC MARC LOPEZ: UT-San Antonio LETICIA LOREDO: Texas Tech University WILL LUCEY: Gap year GABRIEL LUNA: Working IAN MABON: Military WILLIAM MAGNUSON: Gap year KAYA MANGUM: Unknown

22 may 2018

JAKE MANNELLA : ACC KENNETH MARTIN : Undecided BRIANNE MARTINEZ : Undecided GABE MARTINEZ : Gap year JACKSON MASTERS : Texas State University NOELLE MBAYA: Colorado Christian University DEJAN MCCLARIN FISHER: Concordia University LILY MCCORMICK: UT-Austin GABRIEL MCCOY: Unknown EVALYN MCCUSKER: UT-Austin MICAH MCDANIEL: University of North Texas MADDIE MCELROY: Texas State University ANNA MCGUIRE: University of Oklahoma ESTEFANY MEZA: Unknown CAITLIN MIDDLETON: Louis & Clark College LYRIC MIDDLETON: Praire View A&M University SAMUEL MILLER:

California Polytechnic State University CRISTIAN MIRANDA: George Mason University PIFFY MITCHELL: Kilgore College JAKOB MITCHELL: Gap year CALVIN MOORE:

Western State Colorado University TOMAS MORALES: Unknown JOE MORALES: Undecided FATIMA MORENO: ACC ERIN MORRISON: Gap year JAZMIN MORRISON: ACC MILES MOSBY: Colorado State University NESTOR MUNOZ BENITEZ: Unknown OWEN MYERS: ACC PEDRO NAJAR: University of North Texas SARA NEEL: Texas State University FISCHER NICHOLS: ACC ZOEY NICKLES: ACC JAGGER NIKOLAKOS: Arizona State University JAVIER NINO ESPARZA: St. Edward’s University JP NORTHCUTT- BENSON: ACC BEN NUDELMAN: Texas State University MARI OLDS: ACC MADISON OLSEN: University of Montana CHRISTOPHER ORTEGO - SMITH: Undecided ELLIE OWEN: UT-Austin JUAN PAREDES ADELAIDO: ACC HARRISON PARGMANN : Texas A&M University VINAY PATEL: Baylor University JORDAN PEARSON : ACC BENJAMIN PERALTA: Working MALIK PEREZ: ACC MAX PEREZ: West Texas A&M MAX PERKINS: ACC ANTHONY PHIFER: ACC NOAH PHILLIPS: ACC CHRISTOPHER PIERCE: Undecided FAITH POIRIER: Texas State University LILLY PONCE: Gap year MARGARET PRADERAS: University of Tulsa ESTEBAN PRINCE: ACC ADDIE RACE: Hendrix College QUINN RALSTON: ACC MICAELA RAMACCIOTTI : St. Edward’s University BIANCA RAMIREZ: UT-San Antonio

JAY RAMIREZ: ACC ROXANNE RAMIREZ- FRANCO: Unknown XAVIER RAMON: ACC ISABELLA RANGEL: Unknown RAQUEL RANGEL : Working BETHANY RAUP: Maryland Institute College of Art ERIN RAY: Minerva Schools at KGI RYAN RAYMOND: University of North Texas CAKI REBEIZ: California Institute of the Arts SAMI REBEIZ: Texas State University TAYLOR RENFRO: Southern Methodist University JIMMY REYES: Texas State University DAISY RICARIO: Texas State University ABBI RICHTER: Texas A&M University SAVANNAH GRACE RIDDLES:

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University ALLEXCIOUS RIGGINS: ACC CARLOS RIVAS: Unknown NUBIA RIVAS: UT-Austin DARIUS ROBERSON: Prarie View A&M University JULIE ROBERTSON: University of Colorado Boulder ANTHONY ROBINSON:

Olive Harvey Community College DAVIS ROE: UT-Austin ALEXIS ROMERO VARGAS: ACC ALYSSA ROSALES: ACC COLE ROSS:

Chandler-Gilbert Community College AUBREY ROWAN: UT-Dallas MYKAELA RUIZ- LUJAN: Central Texas Beauty College SELAH RUSSELL: Traveling ALEXANDER SABOLCIK: UT-Austin LOLA SACKETT: Gap year KEANE SAMMON : Hendrix College KENNEDY SCHUELKE:

Loyola Marmount University BEN SESSA: Indiana University ETHAN SHACKELFORD:

Georgia Institute of Technology JACOB SHARMAN: Gap year JACK SHENKMAN: ACC ZOE SILASKI: Gap year IVAN SILVA PEREZ: Unknown JASMINE SKLOSS - HARRISON: Undecided ADDISON SMITH: AVEDA Beauty Institute PIPER ANNE SMITH: Undecided ROXY SMITH: Gap year SARAH SMITH: Texas A&M University DEISY SORTO: Unknown ELLA STANKIEWICZ: University of Tampa MAXWELL STEIN: Louisiana State University SARAH KAY STEPHENS:

Illinois Institute of Technology AMON STEWART: University of North Texas LIAM STOCKELMANN: Texas State University HAYDEN STONE: McGill University SAMUEL STONE: Texas A&M at Kingsville SELIKA SUNAR: Texas State University ADRIAN SWADIS - BARRINGTON: Undecided JACK SWITZER: University of Arkansas ATTICUS TAIT: University of North Texas JAIDA TARPEIN: Unknown

DAEJHA TAYLOR: Gap year GENEVIEVE TEMPLE: Gap year BROOKS THODEN: Iona College AISHA THOMPSON: Undecided TRISTAN TIERNEY : Ithaca College LEROY TORRES: Mississippi State University HAILEE TOULOUSE: ACC MICHAEL TOVAR: St. Edward’s University AARON TREVINO: ACC JOSH TSANG: Gap year CHLOE TWEEDY: Gap year ABIGAIL TYREE: UT-Austin ABIGAIL UGARTE: Unknown AYDAN URIAS: Southwestern University BRANDON VALDEZ: Unknown KOEHLER VANDAMENT:

St. Edward’s University MILES VANDER VENNET:

Western Washington Community College MONIQUE VASQUEZ : Unknown DANIEL VAZQUEZ: Stone Hall College JAIME VEGA MIRELES: ACC ELIAS VELA: Unknown CHRISTINA VELASQUEZ: Unknown ANALICIA VELASQUEZ ESCOBEDO:

Unknown ANIKA VERMA: Texas Tech University KEVON WALTON: Unknown TYRELL WASHINGTON: Undecided DESTIN WATSON: JORDAN WAYLAND: ACC MASON WEEMS: University of Arkansas FRAN WETHINGTON: ACC JESSICA WHELESS: Texas A&M Univerisity ERYN WHITEHEAD:

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor EMELIA WHITESIDE:

Pacific Northwest College of Art GEORGIA WHITWORTH: LIM College TYLER WILKINS: ACC BILLY WILLIAMS: Tyler Junior College MIYA WILSON: ACC DIEGO WINFREE: Gap year JOHN WOOLLETT: UT-San Antonio ERIC WORDEN: Angelina College CLAYTON WRIGHT: ACC KEYRRA WRIGHT: ACC CHLOE YBARRA: ACC DYLAN YORK: Undecided BRITTANY YOUNG: ACC HANNAH YOUNG: Boston University OLLIE YOUNG: University of Cinncinati SCOUT YU: School of the Art Institute of Chicago LEYLA ZAMARRON: Texas State University EMERSON ZAPLATAR:

Southwestern Oregon Community College JENIFER ZARZOZA: ACC JOSE ZARZOZA: ACC EDGAR ZATARAIN: Texas State University JOSUE ZEPEDA- SANIC: Brown University RENEE ZIEGLER: University of North Texas CLARK ZINSMEYER: Texas Tech University

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Parting remarks

BROWNIES

TEACHERS

SWEATPANTS CULTURE

THE PEOPLE FOOTBALL THE ART TRACK

THE RATS

THE TALENT

COMMUNITY THE LACK OF JUDGMENT

THE TALENTED ART PEOPLE

What will you miss most about MAC?

The Shield surveyed 118 seniors to see what made their high school experience memorable

FREE EDUCATION

SPIRIT

THEATRE

When did you start going off campus for lunch?

12th

What is the worst place to park?

The Mac

9th

Senior Lot

Grover

11th 10th

I don’t drive

What time do you get to school?

—Evalyn McCusker

“Bisbee let me build a trebuchet for my Physics 1 final.”

—Abigail Tyree

“Seeing Mr. Lehman look both ways before crossing an empty hallway.”

—Alyssa Leff

“Watterson describing how far up you need to shave when you’re bald.”

—Aubrey Rowan

16 senior coverage

“God’s Plan,” Drake

8: 30—gotta have time to #grind 8:50—early enough 8:58 After 9

BEST TEACHER MEMORY

“When Mrs. Carrasco helped me win Word Assassin.”

What song best sums up your senior year?

“Mr. Martinez was talking “Bringing tacos every Thursday about how he hated cats and for my government teacher” told us a story about how —Kristal Lopez there was a cat in his yard.

He got really mad at it and he “Ms. Summerville shading her threw his sonic slushie at it students, and rightfully so.” and missed, then he got even —Anna McGuire more mad because he didn’t have his drink anymore and “Mr. Anderson reenacting a the cat was still in his yard.” night at one of his mosh pits.”

—Sarah Childs

“When Mr. Anderson banned kazoos.”

—Micah McDaniel

“Mr. Pass juggling on a slack line.”

—Ella Stankewicz

“Let the Good Times Roll,” Griz

“Final Countdown,” Europe

“18een,” Khalid

— Emma Bleu Daghlian

“I pulled up to a stop light and made eye contact with Ms. Koslan.”

—Xavier Ramon

“Congratulations,” Post Malone 22 may 2018

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BEST McMEMORY

When did senioritis first set in?

50.8%

“When I ripped my pants at homecoming freshman year.”

Middle of senior year when all of your relatives start asking you,“Where are you going to college?”

—Will Loewen

22%

“The bus ride on the way to the state marching band competition”

First day of senior year, as you pull into the senior lot about to take pictures and think, “Dang. I have a whole year left.”

—Aubrey Rowan

16.9%

“Walking down the hallway before the Medina Valley game.”

Junior year, second semester, on your SAT testing morning.

7.6%

—Jack Switzer

Freshman year

2.5%

“Whenever the power went out during the storm on Halloween sophomore year.

Ms. Adamez ordered us all pizza, and we played games and told ghost stories.”

—Abbi Richter

“Traveling to Europe with Ms. Carrasco, Ms. Watson, and Mr. Anderson for two years in a row.”

—Alex Escobar

“Painting the senior lot the night before school started.”

—Roxy Smith

“Playing with my team in NRG Stadium.”

—Judah Copeland

“Prom. I not only got to see all of my friends dressed up and have fun dancing really bad, but I also ended up being the prom queen’s date.”

—Ethan Shackelford

Which meme sums up your senior year?

Senioritis? I love school!

15%

49%

Which word best describes McCallum?

INSPIRING

INCLUSIVE

DIVERSE

36%

18%

Favorite freshman teachers to favorite senior teachers

ICONIC

ACCEPTING

RATS

ECCENTRIC GREAT

UNIQUE RAD CULTURED ARTSY

LIBERAL

WEIRD

OPEN 22 may 2018

senior coverage 17

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Four seniors blaze unique trails Zepeda-Sanic to finish journey from Guatemala to Ivy League Josue Zepeda-Sanic is not a typical high school student. He has been accepted at Brown University on a full scholarship. But it’s not just the destination that makes Zepeda-Sanic stand out. It’s his journey to get there.

When he immigrated from Guatemala, Zepeda-Sanic did not know a word of English.

While most students would be able to join an English as a second language course, Zepeda-Sanic’s school at the time offered no such class. Instead, he joined an English class and learned basic English through total immersion. AVID teacher Elida Bonet, who has known Zepeda-Sanic his entire high school career, said that he definitely stood out to college admission counselors.

“I think that when you see a story of somebody who has overcome so many obstacles, personal and economic and is able to continue being focused, and I think that’s the main thing, that nothing was handed to him, that he worked hard for it, and I think that’s what grabbed them.”

Bonet said. “This was a kid who overcame many obstacles and always had his goal.

He always aimed high for himself and he pushed himself to do it.”

Brown was not Zepeda-Sanic’s first choice. He was rejected by his two top choice schools, Harvard and Stanford, but he did not let this disappoint him. Instead, Zepeda-Sanic considered the various schools to which he had been accepted (UT-Austin, Tufts, Brown

University, Columbia University, the University of Chicago and Georgetown University) and thought about how comfortable he would feel on each campus. He had visited all of them and had narrowed the list of six down to two. The way he chose Brown over University of Chicago was unconventional.

“I flipped a coin best of three and actually UChicago ended up winning, but I felt really scared and really anxious, so that’s how I knew that UChicago wasn’t the one,” Zepeda-Sanic said. “And then I mentally committed myself to Brown, and I felt good.”

Zepeda-Sanic plans to study political science at Brown. But unlike traditional schools, Brown really stresses concentration areas rather than majors, so he also plans to focus on Latin American studies, to minor in African American studies, and to work on a small concentration in art, specifically 3D sculpture.

—Gregory James

Mariah Jackson’s postsecondary dreams to take flight ... literally Varsity softball coach Rachael Matz described senior Mariah Jackson in a single word: indispensable.

“I had been really pushing her to do some club softball to walk on to a team somewhere because I knew how fast she was,” Matz said. “Then she told me she was accepted to Arizona State, and I asked if she had thought about it, and she said, ‘Well actually coach … I joined the Marines!’”

Jackson felt joining the Marines would give her valuable life experiences and more college options.

“Reactions from my friends are always positive,” Jackson said. “It’s like, ‘Oh my God, that’s great!’ Obviously they’re a little worried, but it’s mostly positive. My family was like, ‘Just don’t get shot,’ but [when they] came around to it, they were like, ‘You know what, just live your life, do you. Do something exciting.’”

Jackson followed that advice and then some.

“I’m going to be a parachute rigger, which means I’m

For world traveler Ray, firsthand experience is the best teacher Erin Ray has spent a majority of her high school life traveling the world; she has been to Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Norway and Sweden. Ray said the reason she was interested in traveling was because her favorite childhood book, Horowitz, is based in London, and she wanted to go there.

“It was a fun read in middle school,” Ray said. “It was an action series and made the locations seem more exciting.”

Ray’s latest trip took her to Shanghai, China, for the bulk of the fall semester in her junior year, but her trip was cut short because of the stress she had relating to the school.

“The school systems in China are extremely stressful, long and entirely based on memorization,” Ray said “School is from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday with an extra four hours on Saturday.”

Although the school was stressful, Ray felt that there were many benefits to going, including the delicious food and being able to travel around China and Korea during her breaks and weekends. “[In China] my favorite thing was the food,” Ray said. “The cafeteria had a wide selection of different types of meats,

18 senior coverage

vegetables, fruits and more. I learned how bad the lunch was in America compared to other countries.”

Ray spent her sophomore year as an exchange student in Ireland, where she traveled around Europe. She enjoyed the weather in Ireland because it was cloudy and occasionally snowy, which was something she had not experienced growing up in the Texas heat.

Ray has plans to travel again when she goes to college and is taking a gap year. She is worried, however, that she will once again have to get over her fear of not being able to communicate with people on her travels.

“I was scared of being alone,” Ray said, “but no matter where you go, or who you talk to, no one is truly so different that you can’t find any connection.”

—Kya Blount and Grace Brady

For talented artist, no single media, style will do Avery Johnson is a senior visual arts major.

Throughout her four years of high school, she has explored many mediums of art, including drawing, ceramics, photography and jewelry.

Of all of the arts classes she has taken, she enjoyed ceramics and drawing the most.

“I’m very mixed about my favorite being drawing or ceramics because they’re very different, and I love both of them a lot,” Johnson said. “My drawing art style is always super dark. Most of my drawings have some sort of gory element. My ceramics style is completely different than that; it’s a lot more happy. My drawings are more focused on my emotions, whereas ceramics is more of things I’m interested in.”

In the past four years her style has developed

going to be fixing parachutes and packing them up,” Jackson said. “Basically, I’m ensuring that nobody is going to die.”

The closest Jackson has ever been to skydiving is iFly, but she will earn her skydiving certificate and license at training camp. As a parachute rigger, she will never have to enter a combat zone, which helped her family to feel more comfortable about her joining the military. “[Choosing this job was] for my family because they didn’t want [me] in combat,’” Jackson said.

“I’m going to respect [their] wishes, but I’m going to do something exciting.”

Jackson will attend training camp in Paris Island, N.C., where all female Marines train.

After that, she will be deployed to another location for assignment.

Matz believes that Jackson has many traits that will help her succeed in the Marines.

“You have to know there won’t always be someone there for you to lean on; a lot of it has to be you, a lot of self-reliance,” Matz said.

“Mariah is not someone who needs to be coddled. She doesn’t need to be picked back up; she’s not the personality that needs tons of help. When there’s something tough she withdraws into herself, so she will be really prepared in that sense.”

As far as postmilitary plans go, Jackson plans to attend a university where she won’t have to pay tuition because of her military service and major in landscape architecture.

—Maddie Doran in many ways.

“Freshman year, most of my pieces were just straight up portraits with no meaning,” Johnson said, “In sophomore year, my portraits and my drawings started to get more and more in-depth.”

As a part of her ceramics class, Johnson had to create a concentration showcasing her artwork with a specific theme.

“My concentration is all about communication and the development of communication” she said. “I’m really fascinated with how language is developed and how we can talk and speak to one another.”

For one of the pieces in her concentration, “Speak,” Johnson won a Scholastic Gold Key National Medal.

“Last year I took American Sign Language at ACC, and instantly I fell in love with the language and the culture behind it. I wanted to focus on the things that seeing and hearing people think that the blind and the deaf can’t do. I wanted to showcase that, ‘Yes, they can do that.’”

In the coming fall, Johnson plans on majoring in advertising at UT Austin.

“I didn’t want to just solely do art” she said.

“I wanted to do something to get my foot out of the door because with art it’s really hard to make a living. I thought that advertising would be the best option for me because it’s incorporating things that I really like— psychology and design.”

—Emma Baumgardner

22 may 2018

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Parker tapped for development academy After sensational freshman season in 2017, speedy forward plays exclusively for Lonestar in 2018 HANNAH ZUNIGA guest contributor

When sophomore Lily Parker was invited to play for the Lonestar Development Academy (DA) in its inaugural year, she knew it was an opportunity that every soccer player dreams to receive. But there was a catch. DA players were told by coaches that they cannot participate in any high school soccer activities. This forced Parker to make a tough decision between her McCallum team and Lonestar.

“I remember the meeting with the coach and it was difficult,” Parker said. “It was upsetting for both me and the coaches, but more for Honeycutt and Watson because they didn’t understand the new program.”

Parker played varsity soccer in 2016-17 for the McCallum, and her coaches and teammates agreed that she was a great asset to the team.

Incoming varsity head coach, Stephanie Watson, was understandably not happy when she heard Parker was not going to be on the team, but she still eagerly looked forward to the new season.

“Anyone with that kind of speed and foot skills, like Lily [had], would be obviously missed by anybody,” Watson said. “It is really hard to say if our team would be different, because our team this year was a lot different than our team when she was playing. We didn’t know how her dynamic would be with the team this year. The

forwards this season were all first-time varsity players, and Lily played with a completely different team.”

The varsity team had players who had never played alongside Parker, so there were some players that did not notice a change without Parker. One of Parker’s teammates, sophomore Karen Esparza, says that returning varsity players did recognize the difference without her.

“She was a very good player on the team and provided great foot skills,” Esparza said. “This season we definitely lost a really good player on the team. She was [also] really funny and we suffered because she was a great player on and off the field.”

DA is a team that travels a lot more than a typical club team. Tournaments and games can be played out of state. This year, DA traveled to places like Kansas City, Colorado, Florida and even North Carolina. Traveling is a big part of the commitment when playing for DA, which also means you spend a bunch of time with your teammates. According to Parker, players tend to form strong friendships with each other because of all the time spent together outside of school.

“This team is a bond you can’t get with just anybody,” Parker said. “I’ve been to so many different places for games and tournaments and made so many memories from it.”

While traveling players obviously spend a lot of time on the field, it is the time off of the field that they use to get to know each other well and

Lily Parker celebrates with her teammates after scoring one of the four goals she tallied against LBJ last year in a game that McCallum won, 5-2. Photo

by Dave Winter.

when memories are made.

“Once we went to Colorado for one of our games,” Parker said. “The game was canceled, so we ended up playing in the snow all day. We’ve also been to the beach together in Florida, the mountains in Phoenix, the woods in North Carolina, and into the city of Las Vegas.”

The DA opens doors for opportunities in future soccer careers, which are hard to get in high school soccer. For high school soccer, it is more about the bond between the players and the experiences they have together, rather than working towards a future soccer career.

“We weren’t over-trained, and we traveled to a lot of places that we wouldn’t have been able to

do during high school season,” Parker said.

Other club teams stop their club season for a few months so players wanting to participate in their high school team can, but not at Lonestar.

“I feel like if we had that three-month break for high school season we would not be where we are now, which is qualifying for the DA national championship,” Parker said. “We adapted to each other and didn’t have to switch up coaches or players. I still very much miss the social part of McCallum, I am very grateful that Coach Watson let me stay in the class.”

Parker is still in the eighth-period soccer class every B-day. Although many coaches and players miss her on the team, Watson enjoyed coaching her during her freshman year.

“I remember there were times where I asked Lily why she didn’t just dribble around the defender,” Watson said. “She would tell me she couldn’t when it was very clear she had the foot skill too, but just wasn’t confident enough.”

Although Parker had to sacrifice something she really enjoyed, she received benefits that she wouldn’t have gotten with McCallum soccer.

“DA is a lot, but I am very lucky I am on a team with talented girls that can always perform and outplay the other team,” Parker said. “These girls push me harder than I would myself, and I’m fortunate for that, I still love soccer and it is my passion, nothing has changed.”

knmanagement.com/careers

knmanagement.com/careers 22 may 2018

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Medina Valley edges Mac in bizarre bi-district game Two umpire calls in the bi-district playoff game brought much excitement to the bi-district playoff contest between the host Knights and the visiting Medina Valley Panthers on May 5. Unfortunately, both calls went against the home team as the Knights lost the game 5-4 to end their season.

Trailing 5-0 at Hyde Park High School, the varsity staged a furious comeback in the bottom of the fifth inning. Senior shortstop and clean-up hitter Eric Worden belted a three-run home run to drive home Koehler Vandament and Trinidad De La Garza. Senior designated hitter Cole Ross followed Worden’s homer with one of his own. Following a single by starting pitcher Mason Bryant and a double by right-fielder Alec Worden, the Knights had runners on second and third with two outs and a chance to tie the game or take the lead.

Senior first baseman Alex Baylor hit a foul ball that Mason Bryant made contact with, prompting the umps to make an offensive interference call that ended the inning. The interference call was the second umpire call that hurt the Knights with runners in scoring position and two outs.

In the top of the third inning when Medina Valley had the bases loaded with two outs, Bryant induced a swinging third strike from Panther DH Dylan Fillinger on a breaking pitch that bounced in the dirt. Because the pitch hit the ground, Fillinger ran toward first where he would have to be forced out.

In video footage posted to Twitter, Knight catcher Charlie Joe Owen appeared to choose an easier force out option by stepping on home plate finalize the third out by forcing the runner coming home from third base. The home plate umpire ruled, however, that Owen did not touch the plate which allowed both Panther base-runners to score and give the Panthers an early 2-0 lead.

In the sixth and seventh innings, relief pitchers Richard Fulgham for the Panthers and Eric Worden for the Knights retired their opponents without any more runs scoring, and the game ended Panthers 5, Knights 4.

—Dave Winter

END OF YEAR

sports round-up

Senior boys soccer player named to All-State team

Senior defender Jerry Howard was named earlier this month to the Texas Association of Soccer Coaches All-State Soccer Team as an honorable-mention defender.

“He along with others have brought an incredibly positive and competitive mindset to the team,” said his head coach Nick Martin, who added that Howard’s strong emoji game in the team’s chat group will be sorely missed after he graduates.

—Dave Winter

Senior rows to nationals

With first baseman Alex Baylor up to bat, Mason Bryant was called out for offensive interference at third base with the bases loaded and two outs. Photo by Joseph Cardenas.

The Texas Rowing Center, which fields a crew that includes several McCallum students, defeated its top regional rival, Oklahoma Riversport, to win the team title at the Central Youth Championship on May 5 in Oklahoma City. Senior Kate Knifton qualified for Nationals in three events: women’s youth pairs, four and eight.

Twenty-two rowing clubs from the central United States came together in Oklahoma City to race on a 2,000-meter course. The last regatta for most, the Central Youth Championships are highly competitive, especially because the top two boats in each varsity and lightweight final move onto Youth Nationals.

Entry into Youth Nationals is an important goal to these rowers, as winning it is the equivalent of winning a national championship. The Central Youth Championships is one of the more competitive regions.

With so many good races and times put up by all members of TRC, they managed to beat out their major competition, Oklahoma Riversport, for the overall team points trophy and the women’s points trophy.

“Our entire team is not only Texas state champions, but also regional champions,” varsity girls coach Falesha Thrash said. “All of the hours and meters paid off; for the first time in the history of the team points at this regatta, [the Oklahoma City team] has been defeated, and we earned the 2018 championship title.”

Nationals will be held in Sacramento, California on June 8-10.

—Sarah Slaten

Ultimate Frisbee team places second at state tournament

Senior Calvin Moore leaps to catch a pass during the game against Concordia on May 6 at the USA Ultimate sanctioned tournament. Photo by Jared Dale.

22 may 2018

The McCallum ultimate Frisbee team advanced to the championship game of the state USA Ultimate sanctioned tournament on May 6 in Dallas. They went 4-0 in the roundrobin games. They started the day off by beating LASA 15-0 in the first round. They then played against Concordia in the semifinals, winning 13-7, but then unfortunately lost to Marcus 11-6 in the championship game. The team still earned second place in the state tournament.

-Julie Robertson

Senior Kate Knifton and St. Stephens senior Denise Devlyn row their pair in the Texas Youth Championship on Sunday.

They placed first, qualifying them for nationals. Photo by Sarah Slaten.

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The cheer team does “The Hawk” on the sidelines of the Lehman football game on Sept. 8 at Bob Shelton Stadium in Kyle. The 2018-2019 cheer captains are Miles Perkins, Mary Roe, Amanda Moore and Madison Catalano. Photo by Zoe Hutchens.

Rising juniors Perkins, Roe...

...put the LEAD in CHEERLEADER

The Shield: What three characteristics do you feel are most important for cheerleaders to possess?

Miles Perkins: Positive attitude, [being] strong-minded and creative, along with being very accepting of everyone.

TS: Why did you try out for cheerleader?

MP: I tried out for cheerleader because I thought it would be something different, and I loved cheering. I always cheered in the stands, and I wanted to expand on that.

TS: What are you most proud of as a cheerleader?

MP: I feel really proud that I am able to cheer on a team that I really love.

TS: What is your definition of a “cheerleader?”

MP: Loud, supporters who cheer on not just football players, but their school, and have school pride.

TS: What do you think are the most important things that make a team successful?

MP: I think a great leader and everyone being positive and having fun are extremely important.

TS: What is your greatest quality?

MP: I feel that I am really good at talking with other people and enjoying my time with them and helping them out.

TS: What is your favorite memory?

MP: Probably when we found out [the football team was] going to the semifinals. I felt really happy because we made history and [because] we made it that far.

TS: How does it feel to be a captain for next year?

MP: It feels really good because I’m the first guy captain, and I will be helping out the new squad start from scratch and building up to hopefully something great.

TS: Do you feel that cheerleading is hard or easy?

MP: For me, cheerleading at first was really hard because you are learning all this new material, and I feel like it was hard work that pays off in the end.

—interview by Abby Salazar

22 may 2018

Sophomore Mary Roe jumps during the Seguin pregame on Sept. 14.

Photo by Dave Winter.

Sophomore Miles Perkins dances at the Taco Shack Bowl Pep Rally.

Photo by Dave Winter.

The Shield: What three characteristics do you feel are most important for cheerleaders to possess?

Mary Roe: Definitely leadership; that’s probably one of the main ones. Cooperation with each other and being flexible, not physically, but being able to do things at different times and being able to adapt to situations and the environment you’re in.

TS: Have you cheered before high school?

MR: I cheered in middle school during eighth grade, and then I used to take classes with Cheer Athletics.

TS: Why did you try out for cheer?

MR: One of my friends was in it, and she convinced me to. She made it seem really fun, and I wanted to a part of a group of people who I really enjoyed being with.

TS: What are you most proud of as a cheerleader?

MR: I’m most proud of having this group of people who support me and can work together, and also just how hard we work, especially during the summer; we have a lot of camps and a lot of training we have to do to get prepared for football season.

TS: What’s your definition of a “cheerleader?”

MR: Somebody who you can be around whenever and wherever and instantly feel happy and positive and good about yourself.

Somebody who, when you surround yourself with them, they make you feel better, and someone who is a leader and helps others.

TS: What do you think are the most important things that make a team successful?

MR: Definitely being able to cooperate with each other and getting the most out of everything we do because we do a lot as cheerleaders and have fun and not think of it as a chore but an opportunity that you get to experience.

TS: What is your greatest quality?

MR: Positivity and being able to kind of lead the new cheer squad in a new direction and positive direction.

TS: What is your favorite memory?

MR: Football season last year was really fun, especially since we got to make it so far. I enjoyed the bus rides there and back, especially when we left a game that we won and being so hyped.

TS: How does it feel to be a captain for next year?

MR: It’s very exciting; I have a lot of new ideas that I’m excited to bring next year.

TS: Do you feel that cheerleading is hard or easy?

MR: It is definitely hard, it’s a lot of work.

Once you dedicate yourself, it’s so fun; you just have to have the right mindset.

—interview by Abby Salazar

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Brothers savor game of a lifetime

Fortunate to be teammates, senior Eric, junior Alec savor shared role in title-clinching win over LBJ The Shield: Before this year, how many times have you two been one the same team?

Eric Worden: We’ve been lucky, because [Alec] usually can play up, so about 5-10 times.

TS: So what has it been like playing together this year?

Alec Worden: It’s definitely a better dynamic for me because there is a personal connection there.

EW: It’s been really great because nobody really knows me better than him, so it’s always nice to have that person to bounce stuff off of and give me in-game feedback.

TS: What do you think is Alec’s greatest trait as a baseball player?

EW: He makes contact a lot, so I can always count on him. If people are on base, he’s not gonna strike out and leave people on, and he can usually get runners in like in the LBJ game. He’s really reliable in the outfield. I can trust him to make a play behind me.

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TS: What would you say is Eric’s greatest strength?

AW: His knowledge for the game, how he adapts to situations, and when he’s hitting, his ability to drive the ball very far.

TS: Eric, let’s talk a bit about that LBJ game. Bottom of the sixth. Two outs. You’re on third base, your brother’s up, and you’re losing 3-2. So what are you thinking?

EW: I was thinking that there was an opportunity because I was at third with no outs, but then there were back-to-back strikeouts, so so it’s kind of deflating. So Alec comes up, and I see his first swing, and I was thinking he’s gonna get ’em. I could just tell. And then he hit the ball, and it was to the guy, and right as I am running home I look back and I see the ball go under his glove, then I just see Reace running around third and then slide head-first home.

It was exciting; I was pumped, and everybody was pumped. We were ahead in the game, and hopefully we could pull it out.

TS: So Alec tell me what you were thinking. You were in the hole, nobody was out, your brother is on third, and suddenly you’re up with two people out and you’re the last chance to take the lead.

AW: Well I just watched t h e pitcher a n d how he attacked those batters.

I knew that this was our secondto-last chance of coming out of the game with a victory, and I knew we couldn’t get beat. So I just focused on making cont ac t b e c au s e that usually causes good things to happen.

TS: So how does the LBJ game rank in the Worden family’s greatest baseball moments?

EW: I feel as an overall game, it is pretty up there, but not for personal performance. As

for the team aspect, one of the top games.

AW: As an overall team, and the outcome, [it’s the] best game, but for me I’ve sometimes done more than that., but I love how that one ended for us. That was a great feeling.

TS: When did baseball start for you? What’s the Worden family baseball origin story?

EW: We basically both started since we were able to walk. We grew up in it, playing it, and our dad coached us when we were around 2.

So we have been playing baseball since then.

My older brother plays, and my cousin Everett got drafted from McCallum. It kind of runs in our blood.

TS: Did you play a lot of sandlot ball when you were younger?

EW: Yeah, every day we’d be playing Wiffle ball in the house. We either had practice or games, so we were constantly doing something.

TS: What’s the best moment you can think of from the Wiffle ball days?

AW: Probably the first time that I hit it to the street against him, which is an accomplishment.

EW: It’s like the equivalent of a home run basically.

TS: What’s the best baseball movie ever?

AW: The first Sandlot.

TS: What makes it the best ever?

AW: How it is organized. All the characters and actors meshed on screen together.

TS: What would you say Eric?

EW: The Sandlot or The Perfect Game, which is Little League kids from Mexico. They form their own team, and it’s their journey to the Little League World Series. The star pitcher ends up throwing a perfect game in the last game.

TS: If Alec is on the other team, and you are pitching to him, how do you get him out?

EW: Keep it low and away, don’t give him anything inside or high to turn on because I feed him in the cages every day, and I know what he’s good at and what his weaknesses are.

TS: What if you’re up to hit against Eric?

AW: I’ll expect his off-speed pitches, like his curveball or change up, and react to his fastball, which is probably going to be way harder to hit.

To see our exclusive video interview with Eric and Alec, please visit our website at macshieldonlin. com.

Top right: Alec Worden, Coach Victor Trevino (Austin Banditos) and Eric Worden stand together after Eric signed his letter of intent to play baseball at Angelina State University. Photo courtesy of Eric Worden.

Center and bottom right: Eric Worden pitched six innings to earn the victory and Alec Worden created three of the team’s four runs at the plate (including the game-winning two-run play on this swing) during McCallum’s 4-3 victory over LBJ on April 24. The victory clinched the team’s eighth straight district title. Photos by Julie Robertson.

Left: The Worden brothers stand together after winning the outright district title on April 24. Photo courtesy of Eric Worden.

22 may 2018

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A red-hot beach and a ‘blue ghost’ Corpus Christi is a perfect destination for a weekend getaway to the beach

The USS Lexington, built in 1942, was deployed in the Pacific to fight the Japanese during World War II. The Japanese called the ship “The Blue Ghost” because they thought they sunk the ship on multiple occasions. The Lexington became a training ship in the 1960s and in 1991 was converted to a museum, parked on the Corpus Christi Bay. Photo by Max Rhodes.

Te x a s h a s a wide var iety of environments, from the mountains out west to the plains in the middle of the state, and the Gulf Coast in the Southeast. The

by Max Rhodes coast stretches over 300 miles, and most of the way is bordered by barrier islands, which can be hundreds of miles long and only about a mile wide. There are several cities along the coast, but the biggest (excluding Houston, of course) and the closest to Austin is Corpus Christi. Now, when the opportunity to travel in Texas is brought up, it’s hard to compete with the big cities like Dallas, San Antonio and Houston, but there are plenty of things to do in and around Corpus Christi, and it is very close to the beach.

Corpus Christi, or just Corpus, has a population of about 325,000 and is just over 200 miles from Austin, or a three-hour drive. It’s a bit far for a day trip, but leaving on Friday afternoon and getting there in the evening would allow about a full day and a half on the coast, which isn’t too bad. If you can make it for dinner, Snoopy’s Pier has classic fried shrimp or fish, hush puppies and fries and has only recently started accepting credit cards. It is located right next to the causeway from Corpus to Padre Island. As for staying the night, you could book a hotel in Corpus, but my suggestion would be to rent a condo right on the shore. It’s a bit more expensive, and more of a drive from town, but it’s worth it to get to the beach without having to get in the car. Nobody wants sand and saltwater on their seats. Also, the condos have kitchens, so you don’t have to eat out every meal. There are plenty of condos to choose from: the Gulfstream, Island House and Surfside are closer to Corpus, but there are several more along Mustang Island to the north of Padre Island.

Still technically part of Corpus, the area where Highway 358 meets 361 on Padre Island has a few restaurants, gas stations and a CVS

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and is a nice place to get dinner or groceries.

If you’re planning to stay for a while, that CVS has anything you could ever need, from milk to tooth brushes to beach toys.

If you rent a condo right on the shore, I’d suggest heading down to the beach early(ish) in the morning. It’s certainly better than at 3 o’clock in the afternoon when the sun is beating down and there are so many canopy things on the beach that you can hardly see the water. There are many public beaches along Mustang and Padre islands, but if you want a nicer beach, the Padre Island National Seashore is just a 15-minute drive south from the condos. It is a protected beach, so the dunes are as they would naturally look with no parking lots or high-rise buildings. The only thing you don’t get protected from is the heat, so I’d still go in the mornings or evenings.

If you adhere to this advice, you are faced with the dilemma of what to do during the day.

Fortunately, the sprawling metropolis of Corpus Christi and the smaller town of Port Aransas are not far away.

One interesting thing to do in Corpus is visit the Texas State Aquarium. In addition to big fish tanks, the aquarium also has exhibits with birds, and shallow pools with horseshoe crabs and stingrays that you can pet and are indigenous.

It is a non-profit organization, and it helps with environmental conservation.

Right next to the aquarium is the USS Lexington. This aircraft carrier was built in 1942 during World War II and was part of the Pacific War effort against the Japanese. The ship was deployed in 1943 and earned the nickname “Blue Ghost” by the Japanese, as it was pronounced sunk on multiple occasions. It was put into storage for about 10 years after the war, then converted to a training ship in the mid ’60s. It was decommissioned for good in 1991 and became a museum in 1992. It’s a very cool museum, with a movie theater and lots of planes on the runway. And if you’re feeling adventurous, the area below deck is a maze of small doorways and passages with various exhibits of how the sailors used to live while

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Scenic route (approximately four hours)

Quickest route (approximately three hours)

Corpus Christi at sea. They even have a mediocre restaurant if you’re desperate for sustenance.

Back on Mustang Island, the town of Port Aransas has a population of 4,000 and is about a 45-minute drive from downtown Corpus, or a 30-minute drive from the area with the CVS and the condos. Port Aransas, or just Port A, is a nice little beach town with some good restaurants and plenty of fishing opportunities, if you’re into that. Now, one thing I must mention is that I haven’t been there since Hurricane Harvey, so I don’t know how much of the area is still damaged. I do know that the townspeople certainly appreciate any visitors they get.

If it’s hot out, a good place to stop is Coffee Waves Port Aransas. They have iced coffee,

pretty good gelato and most importantly, air conditioning. If you want something more substantial, a good place to eat is called simply The Brewery. They have burgers, fried fish and the like. Another place is The Tarpon Inn, a historic hotel and restaurant built in the 1880s.

If you need some beach accessories, there are several stores around town, all with an abundance of T-shirts, hats and beach towels. A few of these places have a big shark by the entrance, which makes for a good photo opportunity.

Corpus Christi and Port Aransas definitely deserve a visit, and make a pretty good summer weekend trip, especially if you’re in need of some fried shrimp, soft sand beaches, retired WWII combat ships and cheap beach towels.

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Savor your senior year from the start Take the time to stop and appreciate the moments and the people that make your Mac experience JULIE ROBERTSON

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editor in-chief

day that I was most proud of myself in high school was probably the day that I got to school 30 minutes early to try to convince my AP U.S. History teacher to exempt me from my final. You had to have a yearly average of 80 in the class and take the AP test to be exempt. I had taken the AP test and my average was a 79.8. The class was certifiably the hardest class I had ever taken in high school, and the thought of having to take the final after taking the AP test really crushed me inside. So I rehearsed all the reasons why I should be exempt from the final on my drive to school, listening to music to pump me up to beg to get out of this final. When I got to school, I successfully talked my way out of it. I had a fantastic day from then on.

In all, junior year was my hardest year of high school. My course load was insane, ACT testing was in full swing, and college mode was activated. I was busy all the time between journalism, my outside-ofschool tutoring, and sports-correspondence games that I felt like I was running a million miles a minute, and I was never going to be able to stop. When that year ended, and senior year loomed on the horizon, I realized how excited I was to be finishing high school. I just wanted it to be over because I was so tired of all the work I was putting in and constantly being exhausted. But now, as a senior with only a few days left of high school, I could not be more thankful for my time here.

I get it. Some people have horrible high school experiences. I know many that did. I also know people that cared too much about high school, and made it more of a popularity contest than just trying to be yourself. I found that I was happiest with a few best friends, not a bunch of people that I felt lukewarm about. I would like to address all of the underclassmen, however, because I have learned so much about myself in the past few years, and I would like to share some of the lesson I learned along the way.

It will all be OK. Honestly. The amount of time I have spent

stressing about something that, in the long run, matters next to nothing, are too many to count. Stressing about school work can seem important in the moment, and I am not saying not to try at all in high school because it is important to make good grades. But don’t stress yourself to the point of tears about school. We all have cried over an assignment or the fact that we have a test in every single class tomorrow, but the sun will rise, and you’ll get through it. You’ll learn something from it, whether you’re successful on the exams or not.

But enough about handling school and stress. Let’s talk about a truly essential subject: relationships. No, this is NOT cheesy. Do not tell me that you haven’t had that crush in high school who you are really into, but the relationship is just not going anywhere, and you feel like everything is falling apart and the world is over. But news flash: it really is not! Do you know how many people stay together after high school and go on to get married? Not many couples make it. You still feel like you need to have these experiences to know what you want, but to be honest, you don’t really have to have them in high school. High school is a weird time where no one is that mature, and everyone is trying to figure out who they are. If you did find someone, great for you. For those of you who are worried because you feel like you need that relationship, however, remember the opportunities you’re going to have to meet people in high school is pretty much over. College or not, you will meet so many people, and those people in high school you worried about won’t even be relevant anymore.

McCallum has played a huge part in making me who I am, and for that I am truly grateful. I had been in private school for seven years before coming back to the public school system, and my experiences here I will cherish forever. I had the most amazing teachers in my four years here that not only challenged me, but wanted me to succeed and helped me to get there. Please always appreciate your teachers.

They come in before school, stay up late grading your essays, planning for the next class, and making sure you get the most out of your 90 minutes in their class.

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Remember how lucky you are to be at McCallum. The diverse community that this school fosters is so unique, and most other high school students will never be able to say that they had the same experience. The students have unique stories that I challenge you to learn. You never know when someone else’s story my impact your own for the better.

Enjoy your family while you are still living at home. The idea that I will be on my own next year without my family for months, while exciting, is also scary because it’s the first time that it has been like that for me. Some of you may be extremely excited to be leaving your family because of issues, and that is totally fine. But for those who have close families, savor them. Enjoy eating dinner with your family and hanging out with them when you can. Thank them when they come to your sports events and theatre productions. They are your network, your support system. They love you. Realize that.

And finally, my message to those who are about to be seniors: this is your last year. Your last Taco Shack. Your last LBJ rivalry game.

Your last pep rally. Your last homecoming. Your last Thundercloud sandwich at lunch. Your last fall or spring musical. Your last time seeing Mr. Garrison ominously patrol the roof of McCallum at lunch.

Your last time trying to parallel park on Grover or find a spot in the senior lot. Your last telling Mr. Winter your name and grade for a Macjournalism Instagram post. It’s your last time going to parties with your friends and laughing so hard you cry. It’s your last time being a kid. It’s your last time having not many responsibilities and coming home to dinner and folded laundry from your parents. It’s your last chance to hangout with your parents Sunday night and get ready for the week. There are countless “lasts” of senior year and before you know it, it is going to be your last semester, your last month, your last week, and then eventually your last day of high school. This is a time in your life that makes you who you are. Let your senior year be about you, and living in the moment to the fullest extent, no matter what your plans are for the future.

ighty Sen18

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Blue and Orange

OnRamps offers college credit without AP exam RYLIE JONES

guest contributor As a student who has taken both OnRamps and AP classes at McCallum, it’s become clear which has been the better choice for me. OnRamps students get college credit through the University of Texas just by taking the course, without having to take an AP exam. Students can choose to accept or deny credit as they go through the year based on their grades. Students who take the course are able to transfer their credit from UT to any college of their choosing, and a UT credit looks a lot better to most colleges than an ACC credit.

During the 2017-18 school year, OnRamps has been introduced to McCallum students through three classes: English for juniors, and Physics 1 and 2. Pre-AP English l and OnRamps English III teacher Diana Adamson and Physics l and II teacher Nick Bisbee have gone through training to become OnRamps teachers, and most of the work and teaching goes on through the UT website.

The OnRamps classes work better for me. I am introduced to challenging curriculum that forces me to expand my horizons and approach assignments in ways I am not used to. My OnRamps English class has made me a better student overall as it helps me manage my time through assigning small portions of a big project over an extended amount of time, and it has made me a much better writer, because I am forced to write essays using styles and perspectives I have never tried before. Overall, I am extremely glad I chose to take OnRamps courses.

What better way is there to prepare for college than taking actual college courses?

It is also helpful to go into the year knowing that if I pass my class, I will get college credit. I’m not a good test taker, and since I don’t have to take an AP exam to get college credit, that is a huge plus for me.

Instead of spending my time studying for AP exams on top of my other courses, I can spend time writing my final essay for English or focus on finishing up my physics coursework.

It is sort of a letdown, however, that I don’t get

Not a Reading Rainbow EMMA BAUMGARDNER staff reporter

My life outside of school is dominated by white female literature. My mom, who fell in love with Jane Austen novels so much that she named me after one, taught me how to read with the critical lens of historical context. Virginia Woolf, one of my favorite female writers, is revered throughout the literary world as a champion of the modernist stream-of-consciousness style.

She, along with other women writers of the aristocracy, undertook what little privilege they had due to their class and race to produce literary works that are still recognized today. Many white women, the most famous being the three Bronte sisters, had to write under male pseudonyms in order for their work to be published and recognized in the literary world. Despite all of this hardship, white female authors were the lucky ones. Today, white women authors have become more widely recognized and accepted throughout the literary canon. Now that the gender gap is slowly closing, more of an effort must be made to expand the literary canon to authors of color. Out of the 43 books McCallum students read in English class, including AP and regular English classes, eight were written by authors of color. This imbalance is caused by a combination of factors, specifically the problems that authors of color faced in a publishing world that was dominated by white men for most of modern history. Diversity in authors of the books taught in school expose students of all genders and races to the ideas and perspectives needed to better understand the world around them. Being white myself, hearing about issues faced by communities of color from authors of color leads me better able to understand issues that I will never have to face.

The canon of literature is dominated by books

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that are riddled with themes describing the great American experience. Depictions of war, poverty and southern idealism run rampant in English classes throughout the country, leaving little room for books about the marginalization of minorities. When these themes are included, they often appear in works by white authors, who gloss over the issue of racism with vague descriptions and subtle allusions.

Some say that it is not the author of the book that matters, but the content of the book itself. While I agree that content should be a determining factor in assessing the literary merit of a piece of writing, it also is a gross oversimplification to ignore other factors that affect the literature we read. Without questioning lack of author diversity, it becomes easy to brush the problem of the over-representation of white male authors aside. Authors of color face opposition in the writing and publishing world. For this reason, it is harder for authors of color to gain the same level of recognition in the canon of literature as white authors.

For example, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, a highly revered book in the literary world, originally caused controversy for the light it shed on European mistreatment of the Congolese. It wasn’t until half a century after it was published that the book was criticized with claims that it dehumanizes the Congolese with racist depictions. Nigerian author Chinua Achebe wrote his book Things Fall Apart to tell the story of European colonization of Africa from the perspective of those who experience it, rather than using the narration of a white outside observer as Conrad did. Whether or not you agree that Heart of Darkness has racist undertones, the need to include authors of color in the literary canon is apparent when white authors have written the narrative of progressive literature for most of history.

On Ramps is a rhetoric-based junior English class that is more focused on writing, rather than reading literature like other English classes. It also offers UT credit, and the students get taught by English teacher Ms. Adamson and a UT professor. “UT’s year is done, so were done with the On-Ramps part of it, and we’re working on our final project for the class, which is just reading a book and writing a report on it,” junior Skel Gracie said. Photo by Caroline Cox. to read and analyze the literature that my peers did their junior year. Sometimes I feel sort of left out of discussion outside of class when my friends talk about the book they are reading in English, or the project they’re finishing for physics. However, I feel like the pros of taking the OnRamps courses outweigh the cons, because preparation for college

and college credit is more important to me for the most part than being a part of every discussion with my friends.

With that being said, I still feel like taking OnRamps courses was the right choice for me, as I have improved my writing, my time management skills, and my overall skills as a student preparing

Expanding the literary canon to include more authors of color would benefit all students One of the books that stood out to me the most out of all of the prescribed AP literature I have read in my time at McCallum was Beloved by Toni Morrison, who in 1993 won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was the first black woman to receive this award. The reality that she is one of the only three black female writers whose work is taught at McCallum is astounding. Morrison, with her complex narrative and vivid imagery, was a powerful wake-up call for me to realize how little of a voice black women have in the literary canon.

The simple truth is that authors writing about issues that pertain to race, class, and gender all offer unique perspectives, but authors that have experienced these issues firsthand have more individualized authority to tackle them. Students reading literature that speak to truths they often face in their daily lives are more inclined to make personal connections to the books they read. Over half of McCallum’s English students are students of color, but only 19 percent of the books taught in class are written by authors of color. This disparity is a problem that needs to be addressed. For high schoolers forming opinions on the world around them and making decisions that will greatly impact their future, representation in their education matters. Today, there is more of an effort being made to promote diversity in authors and their stories both in the classroom setting and in the literary world in general, but more still needs to be done. There never was and never will be a shortage of talented minority authors, only the lingering refusal to accept that the literary canon was formed by a system that is biased toward white male authors. The ability to correct this bias starts in school. Even though McCallum’s English department is better than most at teaching books from a diverse pool of authors, there is still a long way to go.

Sources: 2017-18 McCallum reading list and a spreadsheet obtained through the Office of the Superintendent through an open records request. Graphic by Sophie Ryland.

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We deserve a future Gun violence has stolen 10 more lives, and extinguished the plans of eight more students; it’s past time that our elected officials do something meaningful in the aftermath of tragedy Friday, the day we were sending the newspaper to print, we ran around McCallum tracking down seniors to find out what their plans were for next year as it’s tradition that every senior’s future plans are featured in the center spread of our final issue of the school year. The same day, at Santa Fe High School in south Texas, a gunman who was also a student at the school killed 10 people— eight students and two teachers.

Those students had future plans, too. Their teachers might have been shedding a couple of tears watching them cross the stage after the countless hours they have put in to help them pass a class. They might share a final hug after graduation with whispers of good luck in their ears. Bright futures were ahead for these students. But they’ll never get to realize them. Celebrating our seniors and their bright futures while mourning the dead students who have no futures is not only saddening but infuriating.

Here we are writing another editorial about students dying because of a lack of gun control only a few weeks from the last school shooting. We are tired of writing that thoughts and prayers are not enough and that we want stricter gun control now. At this point, we don’t know what else to say to get our leaders to listen to us.

The feeling of, “You do nothing until you yourself are affected,” has never been more strongly felt than it is right now. We live in a naive country that refuses to accept the fact that school shootings aren’t going to end with just thoughts, prayers and wishful thinking. The wakeup call for change should have been felt at Columbine, 19 years ago. That should have been the end of school shootings and the end of guns being easily purchased and the final credits to this horror movie that we have been living in for far too long now.

The facts are all there; this is more than just a “godly” issue as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claimed it was at the NRA convention in Dallas a couple weeks ago. After that statement and Friday’s shooting, Abbott is now saying that he is calling on lawmakers to find common ground and pass meaningful gun regulation. This reversal of opinion from the highest ranking leader in this state is deeply disappointing. The governor was silent after Parkland. Not

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Illustration by Charlie Holden.

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

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heard from after Sandy Hook. San Bernardino? No comment. So now as he finally thinks it is time for gun laws and finally time for some partisan corporation, we wonder, is this only because he felt as if we were directly affected as Texans?

Students, not just in Texas but throughout the nation, are the ones who pay the ultimate price for unchecked gun violence. These students will never get the chance to share their talents with the world because they were not able to survive one of the final weeks on school. All the students involved in the shooting and their futures have now been clouded with the image of classmates and an administration in absolute panic at a situation over which they had no control. These students trusted their leaders and looked to them as role models, not expecting to see them in fear. But now, these students have seen the weak link: a lack of gun regulation.

We now walk the fine line between paralyzing fear and the guilty relief of seeing the name of a school that is not our own on the news and thinking, “at least it’s not us.” We no longer think it will not be us but that it is only a matter of time until it is us. We now want to implement active shooter drills and learn the signs of a “potential mass shooter” because we want to be prepared when it happens. Not if, but when.

The eight students at Santa Fe High School won’t experience the change. They won’t get the chance to see what may happen if we learn the warning signs and have an active shooter drill. But they most certainly will never know what real gun regulation looks like. And we might not either because our elected leaders do not know how to drop partisan opinions and make it happen.

But for now, we will see fewer seniors at high schools across the country walk to the stage to accept their diplomas because another person has gotten his hands on a gun too easily. Do not let the time you think gun regulation needs to be implemented be when you are suddenly reading memorial invitations when you should be reading graduation announcements.

editors-in-chief CHARLIE HOLDEN AND JULIE ROBERTSON assistant editors ANNA COMPTON

MADDIE DORAN

ZOE HOCKER

MADISON OLSEN

SOPHIE RYLAND

adviser DAVE WINTER

reporters EMMA BAUMGARDNER, JOSEPH CARDENAS, GREGORY JAMES, MAX RHODES, ABIGAIL SALAZAR, KELSEY TASCH, STEVEN TIBBETTS 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

26 opinion

educational process.” Content that may stimulate heated 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 may be edited.

Letters that are critical of the newspaper staff’s coverage of events or that present information that may stimulate heated debate will be published.

Letters that contain malicious attacks on individual reporters, the adviser or the

principal will be rejected.

Anyone interested in purchasing an ad should contact adviser Dave Winter at (512) 414-7539. The Shield is a member of the Interscholastic League Press Conference, the National Scholastic Press Association the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the Southern Interscholastic Press Association.

22 may 2018

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PHOTO GALLERY: Look back at our #TuesdayTop10 chronicling the arrival and distribution of the 2018 Knight yearbook OPINION: AP tests have created a testing gap that has discriminated against students with testing difficulties for generations FEATURE: Senior Tristan Tierney to return to home state for musical theatre education

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Like us on facebook.com/ MacJournalism Follow us on Twitter: @macstudentmedia Follow: @macjournalism on Instagram 22 may 2018

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A PROMising night

According to students who attended on April 28, Blanton tradition a chance to dance, reflect, relax Seniors Maxwell Stein and Ella Stankiewicz walk down the Blanton stairs to head to the dance floors. “Prom at the Blanton was cool,” Stein said.

“Though we didn’t get to see the art, I had a good time.”

Sophomore Eliana Schumann and senior Izak Contreras share a laugh together. “I was expecting a typical school dance, but [prom] exceeded my expectations,” Contreras said. “I had a great time dancing, and it was a great experience.”

Destin Watson and Marc Lopez play a round of UNO with peers. “The DJ was playing whack music, and since gambling is illegal, we decided to bust out UNO,” Watson said.

Sarah Kay Stephens and William Magnuson smile after the announcement that they had won prom king and queen. “Being crowned prom queen was a total surprise,” Stephens said. “I believe that a nerd having the honor of being named queen is testament to the eclectic and inclusive nature of McCallum.”

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Photos by Celeste Montes De Oca. Seniors Chloe Tweedy and Kegan Aleman slow dance together at the Blanton on April 28 at the 2018 senior prom. “Before prom, he was bragging about how well he could slow dance,” Tweety said. “When he proved himself right, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was with my best friend, having one of the best nights of my life.”

Juniors Jonathan Forbes and Johanna Jones share a hug while catching up with each other. “We hadn’t seen each other in so long so it was nice to reconnect,” Forbes said.

McCallum’s Class of 2018 gathers around on the dance floor to watch senior Jimmy Reyes have a dance-off with his peers. “I think getting to dance with all my friends was the best, and being in all the dance circles was fun,” Reyes said. “I really enjoy dancing, so any excuse I get I always go for it.”

Seniors Emelia Whiteside and Joshua Tsang pose after stepping off the dance floor. “[At prom] you get to celebrate the end of your journey through high school,” Tsang said.

22 may 2018