Vol. 99 / No. 2 / Jan. 2021
The student-run newspaper of McKinley High School
Established in 1920
MCKINLEY
GOES HYBRID
by Shane Kaneshiro, reporter McKinley High School’s students and teachers have been transitioning into a hybrid schedule since early in the second quarter. About half of the students opted to be 100% distance learning, while the other students are on a blended schedule, assigned to come in on
either an A, B, C, or D day. “It went better than I expected,” Principal Ron Okamura said. “You can get over 200 students daily coming to campus, which is manageable.” During the first week of blended learning, freshman Stacy Cabusas, who is a hundred percent distance learner, said she doesn’t expect the hybrid schedule to change how the students will participate with syn-
chronous learning. “I feel like it’s going to go the same way it has been for first and second (quarter). Some people are going to show up during classes. Some people don’t listen. Majority probably will listen,” Cabusas said. Freshman Christian Caoili is coming to school in person and said the system for blended learning is workPlease see HYBRID on page 2.
RS 21-0399. January 2021
HYBRID Established in 1920 All content and more can be found at mhspinion.com. Print archives can be found at issuu.com/mhspinion.
Reporters Althea Cunningham Kayja-lyn Kauahi-Kahookele Shane Kaneshiro Jerome Linear Justin Nguyen
Adviser Cynthia Reves
Mission The Pinion staff strives to provide and maintain accurate, entertaining and informative news for the students, staff and alumni of McKinley High School. We strive to show diligence in creating all our content so we can make a positive contribution to the public.
Continued from page 1.
ing for him. “We have more experience in actually going to school, as opposed to sitting behind a screen and that being ‘school,’” Caoili said. “A school year isn’t a school year without going to school IRL.” Junior Erwin Laroco said he chose hybrid to get a break from being at home. “The comforts of my home were starting to somewhat cave in on me,” he said. “So by doing hybrid I am able to get a breather away from my home.” Junior Shane Eng also chose to be hybrid and is enjoying it. “It feels good to be back on campus,” Eng said. Teachers and staff have been creating safety measures of six feet social distancing and schedules for the students to follow when they come back. The teachers have also been working to keep their students engaged within their classrooms. Science teacher Jared Winquist said, “It’s challenging for the teachers to balance the students that are in class and those that are at home, to keep them both engaged.” As the school community continues to try to learn and be safe, Okamura encourages Tigers to do the right thing. “If you are feeling sick, if you’re having any type of symptoms, sneezing, runny nose, coughing, fever, aches, no taste, no smell, ... don’t come to school,” Okamura said. “As much as (you) want to come to school, don’t come to school.”
Publication Information The Pinion is published by the Newswriting class and printed by Reprographics Learning Center.
The Pinion McKinley High School 1039 South King Street Honolulu, HI 96814
“A school year isn’t a school year without going to school IRL.” -Freshman Christian Caoili
Email comments or questions to pinion@mckinleyhs.k12.hi.us Since School Year 2014-15, The Pinion has published a print issue at the end of every quarter. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s first issue came out in November and only in pdf format. In January, we are combining issues 1 and 2 for print. The Pinion is a student-run newspaper, but for these two issues the adviser designed the pages. 2019 alumnus and former Pinion staffer Thompson Wong designed the centennial spreads. THE PINION / 2
Front page: Prophet Aunu (left) and Erica Buquing participate in a physical science class taught by Jared Winquist. Page 2: Christian Caoili is happy being a hybrid learner. Page 3 Left column: Miriama Moafanua (front) and social studies teacher Victoria McKay participate in a hybrid class; Brooke Kaneshiro (front) and Kahai Kanei-Mendes chose hybrid learning; The cafeteria implements safety precautions; Students social distance during breaks. Page 3 Right column: Erwin Laroco chose hybrid learning to get out of the house; Zachary Kaneshiro follows the arrows in F-Building; Students gather at a safe distance during breaks. Photo credit: Byron Kim and Marc Rogel (Advanced Photo Class), Althea Cunningham (Pinion reporter) January 2021
NEWS
NEWS
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Celebration O
n October 14, 1920, The Pinion staff published its first issue. Over the next 100 years, The Pinion was weekly for a time, then daily for many decades. To celebrate the centennial year, we talked to Principal Ron Okamura about the tradition. “I really truly feel that this is one program and one product and one, I guess, tradition that needs to continue here at McKinley High School, no matter what,” he told us. “ The things that you put into the paper are of great significance because you highlight a lot of things that are going on in the school that a lot of students don’t know about.” We also interviewed former staffers to see how much has changed since their time on staff. Look out for more in our Centennial Series over the year.
WENDELL KIMURA REMEMBERS ‘GOOD OLE DAYS’ OF JOURNALISM by Jerome Linear and Justin Nguyen, reporters Wendell Kimura was among the many people who were part of The Daily Pinion in the past and have witnessed its changing history. Worldviews on the topic of journalism differ now from how journalism was viewed in his time. He said journalism in 1954 was more objective. According to the former staffer, the current state of journalism is more subjective than before. “If we made any really erroneous reporting, it was called ‘yellow journalism’ and it was looked down upon,” Kimura said. As well as the objectivity of journalism, the potential future of journalism is also viewed negatively by Kimura. He said careers in journalism might not be too bright today. He said technology has negatively THE PINION / 4
impacted journalism careers. “There used to be a time when you could work in newspapers and magazines … but today with social media, it might be quite difficult,” Kimura said. Another change in journalism from 1954 is in the materials journalists use to get their stories out. “Paper and pen,” Kimura said in explaining his tools. “We didn’t have much technology then.” Despite how journalism has changed in some ways for the worse, Kimura retains positive memories from his experience. Kimura was a sports editor for The Pinion. Kimura worked with about twenty other Tigers to publish The Daily Pinion, an experience he said was sometimes “quite a hectic situation.”
“We had a wonderful staff of reporters, artists, photographers, researchers, layout persons and editors who worked diligently to publish The Pinion every day. We all worked as a team under the guidance of our wonderful teacher and supervisor, Mrs. Virginia Ransburg,” he said. Overall, Kimura views journalism as a great part of society and very practical for one’s own life. He may have a preference for older generations of journalism; however, he still sees journalism in general as good and said his experience on The Pinion staff had a positive impact on his own career as a lawyer.
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1954 “It was a great experience, learning how to write and write very concisely and to the point. You know, and it helped me in my career,” Kimura said. “I think it helps in sharpening your way of thinking and getting things done in a very concise manner.” FEATURES
CO-EDITORS MADE FRIENDS FOR LIFE by Althea Cunningham, reporter Patricia (Jinbo) Oishi said one of her favorite things about Newswriting was knowing the news before it came out in print and seeing the collaborative work of all the reporters and their articles. “It was exciting to be part of that circle of activities and you could recall what you did to bring the print to fruition,” Oishi said. Part of bringing the paper to fruition was literally making the print paper they passed out. They used typewriters to make the articles, and then they used large amounts of rubber cement to place the
articles on a paper. Working with a typewriter could be difficult because someone might write too much or too little, and adjustments were constantly made. They were also heavily dependent on a T-square, a tool used for aligning articles and columns. “Of course you had the rubber cement. That was a real lifesaver,” Oishi said. “I remember we had to go around the edges of each article to remove the excess that came out of the article once you placed them on the paper. So we always ended up with a big wad of rubber cement.”
Oishi found stories by listening to her teachers and friends during casual conversations. She tried to notice any fun, important, or interesting information that came up. There were lots of stories to tell during Oishi’s time because of the historical events happening, like the Vietnam War, Martin Luthor King Jr. and the civil rights protests, and the Cold War. “McKinley was brought into the forefront for being not only an internal high school newspaper but something that would reach out to impact the world as well, ” Oishi said.
by Jerome Linear, reporter Kate (Fukuki) Nishijima said joining The Pinion made her learn a lot of things, such as working in a team. “We really enjoyed working together as a team, so it was a teamwork approach,” she said. Nishijima said she was proud to be working with The Pinion and also McKinley High School. “Pride goes along with passion,” she said. “You have to have passion with whatever you do.” One time she and
FEATURES
the other co-editors got called to the principal’s office because of an article that displeased him. She said the principal said the article was a sensationalist type of writing. She and her team, although not the writers of the article, got lectured about writing things that were wrong about the school, such as a step being wobbly or something broken that hasn’t been fixed. “The lesson that I learned is that you want to have the free-
dom to write,” she said, “but you also want to take responsibility for what you write and how you write it.” Nishijima joined Newswriting because it was an elective. She thought of it as a way to get into college more easily. She had a passion for science at a very young age and realized joining Newswriting was a way to get more writing experience. “Writing is so important in college and in life,” she said.
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Leona
Kate
Shirley
Patricia
1967 Clockwise from left: Leona (Chang) Hirayanagi, Kate (Fukuki) Nishijima, Patricia (Jinbo) Oishi, and Shirley Ige graduated in 1967. Their experience as co-editors of The Daily Pinion bonded them for life. “Because it was a daily paper, every day was hectic trying to make the deadline for Mr. Daniel Sison, who ran the printshop. We had a great group with everyone pitching in with stories, photos, proofreading, typing, captions, headlines, layout and paste-up. What a production, but I loved every minute of it! “ - Shirley (Ige) Fukimoto “We were usually late in delivering the copy to the poor long suffering print shop teacher, Mr. Sison. We caused him to rush to meet his deadline.” - Leona (Chang) Hirayanagi
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YUEN MADE PINION EXPERIENCE INTO JOURNALISM CAREER by Justin Nguyen, reporter
1983
Stacy Yuen graduated in 1983 and worked as a journalist for part of her career. Her journalism experience with The Pinion was different from the experience she had as a Hawaii Business Magazine reporter. She recalled using typewriters for The Pinion. “We actually cut our stories out using a knife and pasting it on another piece of paper with rubber cement,” she said. “So to look back at those days and to look at
how you guys are doing it now, it was much more manual.” Yuen knows what it’s like to proofread both on a screen and on paper. She said she thinks it is more effective to print out the paper and proofread it rather than proofreading it on an screen. She advises other journalists to do the same proofreading technique as her to help improve the quality of articles. “You do a lot of things on the com-
puter. You type up your stories on the computer and you read them on the computer,” Yuen said. “Proofreading something on the screen is not the same, and you’re not going to catch mistakes that you would catch in printing it out.” Overall, Yuen said she views the changes as positive. “It’s an amazing transformation from those days to now,” Yuen said.
SUZUKI-UYENO REMEMBERS THE FUN by Shane Kaneshiro, reporter Nicole Suzuki-Uyeno graduated in 2000. She said she had fun passing out The Pinion throughout the school and saying hi to her friends. “You put so much time and effort into taking the pictures, writing the story, getting the story, interviewing everybody. And then having that camaraderie with everybody, like all of your classmates,” she said. “That was the most memorable.” She also remembers when Al Gore spoke at MHS. THE PINION / 6
Uyeno said what she learned from working on The Pinion helped her after graduation. She started college as a communications major then switched to occupational therapy. “A lot of those skills really helped me throughout college and even now professionally, too,” SuzukiUyeno said Suzuki-Uyeno learned to write for The Pinion in a way that would show both sides of the story. “The news that we reported, we had to be unbiased. We had to
present both sides of the story, regardless of how we felt about the story, about the topic itself,” she said. “You want them (the readers) to be informed.” Suzuki-Uyeno said the current Pinion staff should have fun with The Pinion even at home during the pandemic. “I would just keep at it. You guys are doing a great job. I know it’s hard to do all this from home,” she said. “Please keep it up and have fun.”
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2000 FEATURES
S
ynonyms for pinion include wing, feather and quill. The top image is from the second issue of The Pinion in 1920. Over the years, The Pinion header sometimes included wings and sometimes did not. For the centennial year, we brought the wings back. 2019 graduate and former Pinion staffer Thompson Wong designed the second image you see here and on our front page and online platforms.
WONG UPDATES DESIGN by Althea Cunningham, Shane Kaneshiro and Kayja-Lyn Kauahi-Kahookele, reporters Thompson Wong graduated in 2019 and was a member of The Pinion staff his junior and senior years. Over those two years, Wong held many positions. He was a reporter, assistant editor, and design editor. He said being an editor means you take more responsibilities and work harder. He helped the editor-in-chief organize layouts and pick articles that worked for the current issue. “It’s obviously more responsibility,” said Wong. As design editor, Wong modernized The Pinion’s design to a more magazine style. “Moving the design language of The Pinion to a more modern format was especially difficult. We had to find inspiration and try to create our own style and that takes a lot of work,” Wong said. Wong also created The Pinion header for the cenFEATURES
tennial year. He wanted to recreate the original header from the 1920’s but modernize it to fit in with the current design layout. The Pinion helped Wong gain experience and now he is majoring in communications. Wong said he joined The Pinion because he wanted to improve his writing as he had mostly done creative writing before. His advice to current Pinion staffers is to “have fun and put in as much effort as you can because this class can really help you in the future.” Wong said he reads articles in a different way after working for The Pinion. He reads more news articles than before he joined The Pinion and he views things in a journalistic way. “Every time I write an essay, I always have Ms. Reves (The Pinion adviser) in my head just telling me don’t use sentence fragments and stuff like that,”
Wong said. The Pinion gave Wong memorable experiences. One of his favorite memories was after the first Work Party of his junior year where only a few people stayed to continue working after the fun was over. “As always, we usually did it late,” Wong said. “We worked on the first issue up until night came, then came back the next day and worked until the sun was out again!” This was the first time Wong felt he was dedicating himself to working so hard. “It was the first time that I had really thrown myself
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2019 into the work, and I loved it. From that point on, I knew that I wanted to keep doing more for The Pinion,” Wong said. “Just putting in the effort, working and finishing it made me feel like I was doing something really great.”
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NEGATIVE MARKS FOR
READING PLUS by Qing An Chou, guest writer McKinley Tigers have encountered many new experiences this year, and that includes the Reading Plus initiative. Students must complete six assignments per week. This reading program was used by a small group of students last year, but this year it is replacing Accelerated Reader for everyone and will be required for 20/20. English teacher Irene Tanaka said Reading Plus is “a more accurate way to represent a student as a reader.” Tanaka said she thinks Reading Plus can help teachers see what exactly students need help with, “[Y]ou have to do a little bit at a time [...] for results to show.” For some students, Reading Plus takes less time to complete and they enjoy that they don’t have to self-report anything. Despite these benefits, the program is so unenjoyable that its requirement should be reconsidered. Art teacher Eren Padilla and math teacher Shuko Matsubara said they are finding many of their 20/20 students struggling to complete the required six assignments per week. Lots of their students are finding difficulty in the SeeReader® activity, where students answer questions after reading an article of their choice, while they speed through the ReadAround activity, where students need to score a certain amount of points to master vocabulary. Many students join me in their dislike of this program. McKinley senior Tiana Reyes said the Reading Plus stories are more boring than the selections for Accelerated Reader. “It’s hard to even be slightly interested in the stories they have,” Reyes said. Senior Leena Tani said when she reads at her normal speed, “the thing just scolds you for reading fast.” She said, “It’s like it just assumes [we’re] all bad at reading and that’s a bit demeaning.” For a program that is said to promote reading, punishing students for reading at their own pace is discouraging. “I’m scared that Reading Plus would make me read slower and not as good as I used to,” Tani said. This concern is not uncommon. “[A]re you kidding?” was a reaction from a student who found out she was put on hold for reading too fast even though she passed the reading comprehension questions
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January 2021
Reading Plus warns students if they are reading “too fast.”
of the activity that she was doing. Senior Xinyan Zheng said she wanted to upgrade but couldn’t. “I wanted to get a higher reading rate but they were like this is too fast you can’t. ” This is an experience many students have encountered. Senior Brian Wu believes that the “questions [don’t] relate to [article.]” The reading comprehension questions don’t seem to actually measure reading comprehension Wu is also concerned about the Reading Plus scoring algorithm. In the SeeReader® activity, students who score consistently low are placed in support mode where they give you two more reread opportunities. When asked if the support mode was beneficial to him, this is what he had to say: “[I] [don’t] understand the point of it. [I] pause the reading, tab out and come back and it resumes without me,” said Wu.“[I] hate how to pause something, [it’s] the [space bar] instead of a more stable key.” It is unrealistic to assume that all students can face zero distractions while doing their Reading Plus assignments without having to pause once in a while. “There is no such [thing] as ‘comprehension,’” said another McKinley senior. ”There is only skimming and [guessing on] five questions.” This too accurately summarizes many students’ experience with Reading Plus.
EDITORIALS
ABANDON MODERN ARCHITECTURE by Justin Nguyen, reporter Modern architecture in Hawaii includes the IBM Building and Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort’s Rainbow Tower, both of which opened in the 1960’s. Architecture has a huge impact on citizens and we should be aware of its effects. This form of architecture follows the philosophy of “form follows function” and aims to remove unnecessary details in a minimalistic fashion. If a feature does not add function to the architecture, it’s likely to be eliminated to stay true to the modern architecture philosophy. The main characteristics of modern architecture include attempting to expose the true nature of natural materials rather than trying to change it to make it look better. It also emphasizes the use of horizontal and vertical lines. This form of architecture is ugly. It’s essentially an eyesore. This might be subjective since some people can find different things better looking than others, also known as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” However, we can get objective beauty standards through philosophizing. Let’s examine philosophers. Thomas Aquinas, a popular philosopher, proposes that
FEATURES EDITORIALS
the main factors of objective beauty are “integritas, claritas, and consonantia” which is Latin for integrity, clarity, and composition or harmony. Integrity means its ability to not be deficient of itself. Clarity means it should clearly display human reasoning and intelligence. Composition means it should be composited of parts that correspond well with physical objects or a metaphysical means. Aristotle’s philosophy would add to the last part by saying metaphysical means should imitate nature. Modern architecture is not likely to imitate nature. Its emphasis on being squarish and having low detail does not reflect how most of nature is very detailed and not emphasized on being rectangular or cubed. With this in mind, we can argue that if one’s goal is to have a beautiful environment, then modern architecture wouldn’t help meet that goal. If we want Hawaii to look better, then modern architecture and its architectural philosophy should be halted. The modern style of architecture also leads to a negative effect on its environment. Modern architecture usually correlates with higher light pollution. Our Planet compared the night sky of a city to the night sky of the countryside. They noticed that
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stars and other night sky parts that one would see with the naked eye are less visible in cities. Light pollution is often a result of the overuse of light. Modern architecture often takes advantage of artificial light in many instances other than for seeing more clearly in the dark. According to The Decorative Surfaces, artificial light is often used for aesthetic purposes, compliance with state-enforced light minimums, or to help the consumer feel comfortable in the space by making an unattractive space into a more attractive one. Aesthetic-based artificial lighting and comfortabilitybased artificial lighting wouldn’t be necessary in the first place if people replaced that lighting with details to the building rather than attaching a light source to it. Both can do the job of helping the aesthetic; however, having detailed buildings create less light pollution. According to Numbeo, the light pollution rate in Hawaii is currently moderate. If we continue using unnecessary artificial lights such as the IBM Building, this problem may worsen. It’s not something that an everyday person thinks about, but architecture is significant in society. We should be more considerate about how it affects our lifestyle in Hawaii.
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USE YOUR VOICE
INTELLIGENTLY DON’T VISIT HAWAII NOW by Jerome Linear, reporter The airports in Hawaii are open since Covid-19 has not been so severe through the past couple of months and many people from the mainland are coming to Hawaii during the Covid-19 pandemic. When airports opened and tourists started to come, the outbreak of the coronavirus started to happen all over again. Even though travel is allowed, there are many reasons why you shouldn’t come to Hawaii now. The number of Covid-19 cases rising is a concern considering the small number of hospital beds in Hawaii. The number of hospital beds in Hawaii is only around 2500. There are 60-150 positive cases discovered almost every day in Hawaii. Some require hospitalization. Covid 19 has had a big impact on the world and on Hawaii. Hawaii is a small state and having tourists coming to Hawaii will only make our situation worse. As you should know, Hawaii has many islands such as Lanai, Oahu, Maui, etc. All of these islands are suffering from Covid-19. Lanai has a population of around 3000 and Lanai’s Community Hospital has just four patient beds, three emergency room beds, and 10 long-term care beds. Tourists need to hear this, So do me and the people of Hawaii a favor and spread the word and not the virus.
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by Iwalani Campbell, guest writer This year’s presidential election was a big deal, pitting incumbent Donald Trump against Joe Biden. Although many students can not vote yet. they must take away the energy and feeling from this election. The next presidential election, four years away, is a long time to forget the desire of voting we had this year. I urge fellow students to be active in all government decisions even when it isn’t a trend. Each student should be a voter, a knowledgeable voter. In this era of information overload, it can be difficult to differentiate facts from opinions. The first thing you do when voting is find background information for candidates. Make sure to look at many sites to ensure there is no bias from either the left or right. By doing so, you can have an open mind and make rational decisions. AdFontMedia’s chart is a good way to check biases on media outlets and see if they are reliable. When searching the internet for information, use trusted sources, not simply the most readily available ones i.e TikTok or Twitter. Keep in mind that social media uses algorithms to show you what you want and like. People will get confirmation biases if they do not look outside their bubble. If you do use social media as a trusted source, always remember to do your research. Additionally, if candidates are already politicians, make sure they are committed to their word by checking which laws they passed. Actions speak louder than words and by tracking their votes you can tell what side they are actually for
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or if they are just in the pockets of lobbyists. Of course, long-time politicians may have bills or votes that they regret. You should also take into account that time passes and people can learn and progress. Lastly, we all know how important presidential elections are but we should not overlook other elections. We have three parts in our government, the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. For all the components of the government to work effectively, we need to vote on not just the president. The legislative branch has the power to make a president a lameduck or override a veto. The legislative branch also has the power to approve nominations, impeach the president and control the budget. In Hawaii, we have a very similar set up as well. The executive branch is the governor of the legislative branch made up of representatives, and there is the judicial branch with both lower and upper courts. If you don’t vote in state elections, your voice cannot be heard at the closest level of impact. State government affects us more than we think. They are in charge of large projects like rail, TMT, budget, etc. The officials who run the state government have a lot of responsibility and power. Being active in state politics can also be writing testimony. You can use capitol.hawaii.gov to follow bills you might want to submit testimony for. Many of the students at McKinley High School may not be able to vote any time soon. However, Hawaii law allows 16-years-olds to preregister, so once you turn 18 the paperwork is out of the way and you can vote. Please keep in mind the ramifications and responsibility of voting. Always remember to determine a fact from an opinion.
EDITORIALS
By ProSymbols from the Noun Project
By Blair Adams from the Noun Project
LET THERE BE LIGHT McKinley High School’s athletic field is still unfinished. Community support is important for this project to progress. The Ala Moana-Kakaako Neighborhood Board on October 27 heard testimony from MHS students, alumni, staff and coaches arguing for the completion of this project. One testimony is reprinted below. This meeting was designed as a listening session, so the board made no recommendation, but the issue will come up again. Bob Morikuni, athletic director, said, “We will need more testimony again, , ... so get ready for that.” Aloha, my name is Laiza Cabote and I am a junior at McKinley High School. I was last year’s varsity soccer team captain and this year’s student council treasurer. To start off, I just want to say thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak on this matter. It really means a lot to me as someone representing my school. First, I want to talk about my personal experiences as a student athlete. Soccer season occurs during the winter and the days are shorter, so sometimes our practice is cut short because it’s unsafe to play in the dark. Because of that, we lose valuable practice time that would be useful during our games. Having lights at night would greatly help us get that little bit of practice we need as it would significantly make a difference while playing. In addition to this, the completion of the field would allow us to host home games at night because we mainly host them during
SPORTS
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the day when the heat is scorching hot. It would significantly enhance our playing season by a lot. I think I can speak for the other sports in the entire school when I say that we have all been waiting excitedly for the completion of the stadium at McKinley High School. We’ve been looking forward to the day we get to host games at our school and show off our beautiful field. I know that it would encourage people to be more proactive in supporting our sport events. I know that the completion of this stadium with lights will make our community come together, strengthen our Tiger pride, and encourage Tiger spirit amongst everyone at school. The completion of the stadium will not only benefit students of McKinley today but for future graduates to come. Thank you.
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Art by Althea Cunningham.
Be sure to check out our website, mhspinion.com and our Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds. We’d love to hear back from you on any of these platforms. THE PINION / 12
January 2021