KNITTING KNOCKOUT

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT dec. 2022 Needlework helps create sense of acomplishment

anvi TALYAN

Having a tendency to fidget, Lauren Secoy, senior, found the perfect hobby to occupy her hands: crochet.

“My hands always like having something to do,” Secoy said.

Secoy was first introduced to the craft when she was 12, after receiving a crochet kit from her grandma and inheriting crochet hooks and yarn from her great-grandmother. She had first struggled with it, but picked it back up during her freshman year after wanting to create a gift for her family.

Since then, she has created items such as scarfs, hats, bags, mittens and a sweater.

While Secoy does keep many of her creations, she said she enjoys gifting them to her family members for birthdays and holidays.

“I make scarves and bags because I think they work well as gifts, and they’re pretty beautiful,” Secoy said.

Though Secoy can’t always find time to crochet during the school year, she said that she likes to spend time during breaks doing the craft.

Secoy usually listens to podcasts or books while crocheting. Some of her recent favorites have been “The Porch” and “Set Apart," along with an audiobook of Sherlock Holmes stories.

Like Secoy, many other students and staff use crafts as an opportunity to de-stress or relax.

Fellow crocheter Bryan Craft, senior, started to crochet last year to create Christmas gifts, after

seeing TikToks that gave him ideas. Craft’s first project was a jellyfish, and since then he has created flowers, gloves, mushrooms and a sweater. For smaller items, such as his mushrooms or flowers, Craft said he usually takes three to four hours. Craft said he can have trouble finding time for the hobby during school, but he usually ends up crocheting two times a week. “It’s when I get the opportunity to and when I really “I make scarves and bags because I think they work get inspiration,” Craft said. Though Katie Bauman, history teacher, doesn’t crochet, well as gifts, and they’re pretty beautiful." she is able to find the same comfort with knitting. “I use knitting as a way to decompress after a long day,” Lauren Secoy, senior Bauman said. Bauman began knitting when she was pregnant, as she wanted to knit her soon-to-be daughter a baby blanket. After giving birth, Bauman put a pause on her knitting, but was able to pick it back up once she had more time. Bauman said she taught herself how to knit, starting off with simple items like dishcloths and working up to more complicated projects like cardigans and shawls. Usually Bauman has three to four projects in the works, but she said that she is putting her focus on knitting leg warmers for her niece’s Christmas gift. “It gives me a sense of accomplishment that I get to actually wear the work that I create, or gift it to friends and family,” Bauman said.

Two of Lauren Secoy's, senior, favorite projects is her sunflower bags and Mario figures. The bags were inspired by two of her friends whose favorite flowers are sunflowers. "When the first one turned out well, I decided to make more and use them as gifts," Secoy said.

She said they were made of many individual squares, which were easy to make one at a time.

Bryan Craft, senior, said that his first sweater is his favorite creation, and that he is in the process of creating his second one. “After all that time I spent, I felt really accomplished knowing that I had created a piece of clothing,” Craft said.

The sweater was Craft’s biggest project, which he said took about 40 hours to complete.

How to Start a Crochet Chain

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To begin, put the yarn around two fingers and pull the yarn through the twist. Pull the shorter of the two pieces of yarn until left with a knot. Then, put the crochet hook into

Next, wrap the longer piece of yarn under the hook. Then, using the hook, hook the yarn through the loop you made before. the knot and pull one side of the yarn until the knot is completly around the crochet hook. Photo-

graph by Jocob Robinson

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3

By then, you project should look something like this. Continue the same process until you get your desired length.

Katie Bauman, social studies teacher, has been knitting for more than nine years. Because of her experience, she’s learned that more expensive yarn, such as wool, works best for her projects she plans to wear.

Her favorite thing to do with knitting is working with colors, specifically ombre, and lace work, as seen on the sweater she wore Wednesday, Dec. 11.

Coffee Wars

Akhila Swarna reviews coffee shop’s most popular drinks

akhila SWARNA

The Wolf

Drink: Iced Vietnamese Coffee Price: $3.75

The walls of the Wolf Cafe are filled with decor from rock ‘n’ roll posters to canvases of with art. The vibrant cafe makes the Wolf a comforting place and a must-visit location. With hints of rich caramel flavor, the iced Vietnamese coffee is pleasing to taste with its sweetness and slight caffeine hint, but for my coffeeaddicted taste buds, the flavor is too subtle.

Duck Donuts

Drink: Iced Caramel Macchiato Price: $5.34

While I did appreciate the kind service and spacious store interior, the coffee lacked espresso flavor. The majority of the drink was filled with vanilla-flavored milk and only a slight, buttery caramel taste from the caramel drizzle. The only coffee was a splash of espresso shot added to the top which didn’t pack much punch.

Kaldi’s Coffee

Drink: Iced House Vanilla Latte Price: $5.50

When coffee is combined with convenience, I am immediately impressed. Kaldi’s Coffee in Ellisville is a drive-through only store that allows coffee-lovers like me the opportunity to get a custom-made coffee without any hassle. The iced housemade vanilla latte was powerful enough to appease my coffee-addicted taste buds. The vanilla taste was subtle, so my coffee was simply a regular latte.

12 SPEAK OUT

Legislation signed by President Biden in June of this year discarded the universal free lunch program that was common in schools during COVID-19. Now, only students who qualify as needbased receive free lunches. But, some Missouri lawmakers are arguing the state can afford to provide free lunches for all. SHOULD THE STATE PROVIDE FREE LUNCHES FOR EVERYONE OR ONLY NEED-BASED STUDENTS?

“I think we should provide it for everybody because everyone eats lunch here. I think the food should be free like it was like for COVID.”

“I think they should do it for need-based students only. They shouldn’t go throughout the day with an empty stomach and you need food to do work and succeed. And, people that don’t get food should get that opportunity.”

“It’s a waste of money to have them be free for everyone. A lot of people end up wasting food from the free lunches.”

“Selfishly, as the father of three in the Rockwood School District, it was nice when my own personal kids got to get their lunch without me having to dump money in their account. So, selfishly, I loved when everyone had a free lunch.”

SAM DENDREAU, freshman

NAVIN RAMAMOORTHY, sophomore

GABRIELLA POWITZKY, senior

A social media threat was AirDropped to students during lunch on Thursday, Nov. 17, which prompted administration to evacuate the building. Students left the school during fifth hour after Dr. Hankins came over the announcements and gave the order to evacuate. The following day, another social media threat was shared to students, which prompted another evacuation. Photograph by Emily Jorgensen

Drill procedure needs improvement

The rhythm of panicked feet hitting the floors in a hurry to exit the building filled the hallways. The incitement of this chaos was a message sent out to parents and students on Friday, Nov. 18: “[RSD] ALERT: Marquette High School is evacuating and dismissing early due to a social media threat that is under investigation.”

This alert came after students throughout the school were AirDropped threat that targeted a specific classroom.

Throughout lunch and up until the threat’s referenced time of 12 p.m., students were frightened by a terrifying prospect: the threat of a school shooting.

The day prior, the school was evacuated for a separate threat of a bomb which originated from social media.

Seeing the panic on our peers’ faces on back-toback days was haunting. We were lucky these evacuations were threats and threats only.

The resulting reality is we need to increase our emergency preparedness and that requires stronger, more effective drills.

The evacuations occurring on Thursday and Friday were different from our practiced intruder drills.

The district follows the 4Es: educate, evade, escape and engage. Yet, every intruder drill this school year only focused on the second “E,” evade or avoiding the threat by locking and barricading classroom doors. However, these threats warranted a step beyond “evading,” as the best course of action was determined by the district and the Chesterfield police to escape the building in an orderly fashion. Principal Dr. Stephen Hankins EDITORIAL said the remainder of drills for first semester have been canceled, which included one fire drill. Second se-

BOARD mester’s drills, however, will continue according to schedule. We would like to see more preparation including more drills and practicing all of the 4Es and not only evade during intruder drills. Emergencies do not take convenience into account. To be prepared we also have to conduct drills during inconvenient times such as during passing periods, lunch and academic hours and not only Ac Lab. We may never feel safe in schools due to the constant threat to our safety, but we can certainly make strides toward better preparedness. The threat to student safety is an illness in our society, and one we must always be prepared for.