ROBOTICS
FALL PLAY
NEW COACH
The Ritenour Robohounds continue to compete year round.
Staff and students prepare to make “The Odd Couple” a success on stage
Robert Kennedy takes over the girls basketball program
SPOTLIGHT Page 7
SPOTLIGHT Page 4-5
SPORTS, Page 8
THE PEPPER BOX RITENOUR HIGH SCHOOL
ISSUE 3, VOLUME 96
9100 ST. CHARLES ROCK ROAD, ST. LOUIS, MO 63114
NOVEMBER 2018
Helping the growth of the school
Custodian Juana Murillo is a face of Ritenour that helps keep positivity throughout the halls By: DANIELA SAENZ Pepper Box Staff “What motivates me are the students,” custodian Juana Murillo said. Murillo is a common sight all around the school, always flashing a smile and asking students how they are doing. She can also be seen watering and caring for all plants in the building, making sure that they are as full of life as the students in the building. “The plants give you life, like oxygen, so I want to keep them alive,” Murillo said. Murillo likes taking care of all of her responsibilities, and said that her favorite activity is actually going to work every day. “I also like to go to my house and rest for a bit, but then I have to work again, like cleaning my house, or doing chores,” Murillo said. Murillo is originally from Michoacan, Mexico, and she is 52 years old. She has been working at the school for 12 years, and her children have actually been students at Ritenour. “I have been married for 32 years and I have two daughters. One is 30 years old and the other is 24 years old. I also have a grandchild, but we don’t really see each other since we all have to work, so we don’t have that much time to see each other,” Murillo said.
Before Ritenour, Murillo held a number of jobs, including at a bakery making bread when she first moved to the United States. “When I started making bread I wasn’t that good, but I eventually learned,” Murillo said. In Mexico, her father owned a butcher shop. She also said that she owned an ice cream shop, a tortilla shop, and also rented movies. She also worked at a laundromat, but she said that the job she likes the most is this one. One of the reasons she loves this job is that she feels she can teach life lessons to students. She remembers one time in particular when a student tried to play a trick on her, but she turned the lesson around. “One time there was this student that placed a lot of liquids on his plate, like ketchup, mayonnaise, and juice, and before that, he had placed glue on the tray so when I would pick up the plate, all that mess would fall on me. When he left and I saw that he had left that mess there I called a principal and I told them to call him back, and when he did, I asked him to pick it up. When he did, he got soaked up in all that,” Murillo said. “After all that happened, he had graduated and he came back saying to me how much he thanked
Daniela Saenz Custodian Juana Murillo waters a plant in the lower lobby of the auditorium. Murillo has worked at the high school for 12 years, and says it is the best job she has ever held.
me for that time, and that he learned a lesson from that and he left.” She also says that she tries her best to correct some of the wrongdoings that some students do, even if it means she might lose her standing amongst those students. “I feel that some children might not like me because I try to tell them what they are doing wrong and try to correct them. They are going to become adolescents, but
when they start to like, ‘play’ or they are messing with each other maybe in a playful way, their games might be too heavy for them, and I tell them that’s not right, you should have respect for other people. Also, maybe others, like me,” Murillo said. Murillo’s coworker Baxter Dukes is proud to work with Murillo, and the two have been working together for many years. “She’s a coworker, and she’s
a good person” Dukes said. “She’s great.” Whether it is taking care of plants, cleaning up in the halls, or teaching students lessons, Murillo is happy to take on anything that is in front of her over the course of a day. “I like cleaning, I like my job, I like it very much. Also, I like it so much because I can talk to many people,” Murillo said.
Fake news sites try to sway recent election In a repeat of the 2016 election, fake news sources attempted to convince voters By QUYNH TRINH Pepper Box Staff As the 2018 election approached, there was a hike in fake news being spread on social media. Facebook reported 32 fake pages created between March 2017 and May 2018. Among these fake pages are the “Aztlan Warriors”, “Black Elevation”, “Mindful Being”, and “Resisters”. It has been observed that these pages, rather than pushing for certain candidates, were causing anger over divisive issues such as race and immigration. They have created over 9,500 posts, and spent an estimated $11,000 on 150 ads. These fake accounts were carefully disguised, using VPNs, Internet
IN THIS ISSUE
phone services, and third parties to purchase ads. Working these back roads, it becomes difficult to trace the transactions back to its source. Former long term substitute teacher Seth Tripp believes that the amount of effort fake news sites exert into spreading stories is nothing new in politics, it is just a more technologically based form of misinformation. “It’s dishonest. But honesty has never been the name of the game in politics. These bots or Russian hackers or PAC’s are just using the tools at their disposal. There is not much of a check on information that is distributed via social media. Unless somebody flags an article, then there is not
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even somebody checking it’s validity. But even if you do, you get into a free speech issue. Ultimately it is underhanded, but it is unfortunately the way that politics is done in the digital age,” Tripp said. This is not the first time a plague of fake news has interfered with the election. During the 2016 election, making headlines were stories that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump for president and Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS, and even though fact-checks would expose that these stories were entirely fabricated, many people took them at face value. Then there were stories about Clinton’s poor health, claiming she had a brain injury and was losing her
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ORAL HISTORY OF THE PLAY PAGES 4-5
mind, while simultaneously running a human trafficking ring that was using a pizza parlor as a cover up. This story became known as the “Pizzagate” scandal, which was also proven to be false. Science teacher Krisstin Swyres remembers hearing this news and laughing in disbelief. “I literally just laughed and figured that it was an intended distraction from the opposing party. They talk trash and try to make the other side look bad,” Swyres said. Investigators ruled Russia and Kremlin as the culprits of the fake news released during the 2016 election, and suspect they are behind the stories circulating during the 2018 election as well. Fake news has even gone
STUDENTS AS MENTORS PAGE 6
as far as influencing people to commit acts of violence. Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen, and Gavin Wright are Kansas militia members who collaborated to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somali immigrants. They planned to carry out this attack the day after the 2016 election, but were arrested after another member of their group tipped the authorities. All three men were Facebook friends who liked and shared Russian propaganda with each other. Their attorneys recently blamed the Russian operated news for the planned attack. Social studies teacher Michael Murray shared his thoughts about the onslaught
SEE FAKE NEWS - 2
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NEW BASKETBALL COACH PAGE 8