Portfolio by SME Harbinger Guides

NEWS

A freshman not forgotten East mourns the death of Jay Crnkovich, a freshman who spent just two weeks at the school BY

» timshedor

Freshman Jay Crnkovich lay inside his casket, surrounded by Hot Wheels and dressed in his favorite button-up Hawaiian shirt. Nearly everyone he had ever known or worked with was there, from the lunch ladies to the principals. They formed a long line past the coffin, sharing condolences and fond memories with his two middle school sisters, his father and step mom. Jay had lightened each of their lives with his 1,000 watt smile and ever-present optimism. He gave them a new perspective. He showed them what life was like from a wheelchair. “Jay loved everyone he met,” step-mom Annie Crnkovich said. “And everyone who met Jay loved him.” ….. Jay’s middle school sister, Mindy, was one of three who stood up to make a speech. She explained how much she missed him and how she would come to miss hearing his voice, at least the voice his wheelchair projected. Jay was born with cerebral palsy, a condition that causes the body to lose control of its muscles. He needed a special wheelchair with a feeding tube system and a Vantage, a machine that enables cerebral palsy victims to communicate. Icons scrolled up the screen in front of him, and Jay waited one-point-two seconds per icon. When he found the right one he would push his head against a button and the machine would speak in a monotone, steel voice. It was this voice that called to someone nearby to scratch his leg when it itched, or change the channel to Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement.” It was the voice that asked to go for a walk down to the Village. It was the voice that greeted the Perkins morning waitress when he stopped in for coffee with his birth mother. “Jay made everyone smile,” Annie said. “Sometimes he would get so excited his face would turn beat-red.” He helped keep his family optimistic in the rough times. They needed to be with him constantly. He couldn’t swallow, and they needed to make sure that he wouldn’t choke on his drool when they tucked him into bed. They bathed him every day and dressed him in the mornings. He needed to sit in the garage while they mowed the lawn. They tried to help Jay live a normal life. He wore a Hawaiian shirt when they took a trip to Disney World last summer and watched him ride the carousel and pet the animals of Animal Kingdom. He ate breakfast with the whole crew; Goofy and Pluto were his favorites.The hotel had a swimming pool, and Jay took advantage of his opportunity every day to paddle around. His parents carried him through the water as he tried to flex his unbending legs. They called him “the Frog.” ….. Special needs paraprofessional Joel Crown stood up at the funeral. He said a few words about Jay and told the funeral goers, “When you see a person like Jay, be patient. It takes a while to get there.” Jay and Crown first met at Highlands Elementary School during fourth grade, when cerebral palsy had limited Jay to answering questions with a “yes” or “no.” Crown realized that all the basics had to be dropped, spelling, grammar and literature. They had to begin with the fundamentals. He needed to communicate. “There was something in his horrible little body,” Crown said. “There was something inside him that wanted to be normal.” In the beginning, they worked one-on-one. Crown wore a Hawaiian shirt as he taught Jay, with Diet Coke in hand. They worked together during the weekdays. Every chance he got he would visit Jay’s house. They spent their evenings talking on the front porch. Jay made progress quickly, and Crown was able to bring him into a regular classroom. Soon Jay made friends his own age, not just the special education staff at Highlands. Alisha, Elizabeth and Annie fought to push oct. his wheelchair. Chris waved to him on his way to the 2007 pool. Kids would sit next to him at lunch or say hello

when they saw him sitting on his porch. “Jay loved to talk to people,” Annie said. “He just wanted to be around them.” The more they worked together, the more Jay admired Crown. He wanted to be just like him and got his own Hawaiian shirt and strapped a Diet Coke can to the back of his wheelchair. He wanted to grow up to be a teacher. It didn’t matter if it was summer, Labor Day or Saturday. Jay wanted to be at school. He liked seeing his friends in the hallways and talking with Crown in their sessions. They began to make more progress with his machine. Jay was now able to form full sentences and Joel could program new icons into Jay’s Vantage like the Andy Griffith whistle or “I want to go for a ride in the PT Cruiser.” They soon shared jokes that Crown had programmed into the Vantage. “What did the judge say when the skunk walked into the courtroom?” “I don’t know. What?” Crown said. “Odor in the court! Odor in the court!” And then Jay would show his toothy 17inch smile and chose the next icon. “That’s a good one!” …... All three principals from Jay’s former schools, Highlands, Indian Hills, and East, were at the funeral. His paraprofessionals from East were there too, including his teacher Maureen Johnson. They had worked together one-on-one in math and science, sometimes even cooking. Johnson had replaced Crown because he forced himself to quit working with Jay. Middle school was approaching and Jay Freshman Jay Crnkovich sits in his Vantage wheelchair at home. He uses the wheelwould need to meet new people. Crown chair to communicate through symbols he selects photo courtesy of joel crown feared that if Jay became too dependent on him, Jay would never experience life as an department brainstormed ideas to commemorate Jay after individual.He lost many of his friends to Indian Hills. Their they learned of his death. They planned to lower the flag social lives matured and they had less time for him. They to half-mast, and to make a banner in his honor. They set stopped eating lunch with him and forgot to visit. But he out a giant card in the library for the school to sign and still remembered them as he bounced excitedly in his seat share their memories of Jay. Last Friday the coffee shop when the van passed Highlands on the way to East. donated all profits, $520, to the Dream Factory and the » His charm and smile brought new friends at East. He ate United Cerebral Palsy Foundation of Greater Kansas City, first lunch with junior Curtis Wells. They would sit in the organizations that fight against Jay’s condition. coffee shop and talk about cars or Well’s summer vacation He had died quietly in his sleep. He didn’t complain. He to Michigan. Sometimes paraprofessional Joyce Emery didn’t cough. He didn’t make any noise to cause alarm to would talk with them about her childhood on the farm. the nurse sitting only 10 feet away. When it was time for him “He was never sad,” Wells said. “When I would come to to get ready for school his nurse tried to dress him, but he lunch with him he would bounce in his seat, real excited. wasn’t breathing. The family never requested an autopsy, He was happy just to talk to someone.” but they believe it was heart failure. He had a passion for music. His counselors thought he Jay had been at East for only two weeks, but he was needed a music course to break up his day and relax him glad to be there. He wanted to finish high school before he after spending so much one-on-one time in the classroom. passed away. He was allowed to sit in the corner of the choir room during “He wasn’t ready to die,” Crown said. “It was a school fourth hour. He didn’t sing along, but he didn’t make a fuss. day.” Just sitting in the room with so many other students was He was buried on his father’s birthday in Highland enough for him. Cemetery. His family wanted Jay buried in a place that “At first the kids didn’t know how to react,” Tracy remembered the best times of his life at Highlands Resseguie, the choir director, said. “Then they would say Elementary School. When he had good friends, unlike ‘hello’ to him if they walked by. They appreciated why he when they matured and drifted towards their own interests was in class and they weren’t bothered by that.” in middle school and high school. Soon Jay grew comfortable too and greeted Resseguie He was buried in the perfect spot, next to the broken with phrases like, “Mr. Resseguie, you the man,” or “Hey fence. Neighborhood kids run through the cemetery to go Mr. Clean,” referring to his bald patch, complete with an to the field nearby to play ball. They have to pass his grave icon of the cleaning wizard himself. to get there. ….. “Jay would have wanted it that way,” Crown said. “He Some of Jay’s friends at East showed their support at would have played with them if he could.” his visitation, including friends from Pack of Pals. The day He was buried on a sunny day. The sky was clear and few before he died Jay had been to the Pack of Pals picnic, a clouds stood in the way. It was a little hot, but the mourners SHARE project that allows special needs kids to interact didn’t sweat. They were wearing Hawaiian shirts. with volunteers. The friends he met at the picnic and the special education Additional reporting contributed by Sarah Luby

“Levin”

FEATURES

his dream

Sophomore Adam Levin has been playing his guitar for seven years and is finally getting to where he wants to go BY

» timshedor

It was love at first sight. Sophomore Adam Levin held the Gibson as if it were made of solid gold. He examined the fret board with his fingers. He toyed with the tuning machines. His eyes bored through the lacquered body. It was meant to be. The new guitar was a status symbol – his eighth guitar in seven years. He had finally settled on it after his fifth trip to Guitar Center. It was the guitar suited perfectly to his rapidly growing talent. He had worked hard to deserve this dark burst Les Paul and he was ready to play to the world.He started on the small stage of Aspen streets and then started to play in downtown KC. By that time he was in league with 40-year-old blues artists, playing with them in animated, cursing blues bars.He’s played through cigarette lights and thick, tasteable smoke. He now stands young among his band mates; the ones with combed beards and lurking gray hair. But Levin is far from the weakest member. His licks are faster than the rest and he’s able to stand straight instead of slouching uncomfortably, unlike when he started playing with the group three years ago. He’s come a grown from the nine-year old with a shallow starter acoustic. “I got into guitar because I didn’t like piano,” Levin said. “I knew I wanted to play an instrument so I played the instrument nobody else wanted to play.” He started taking lessons with Jimmy Dykes, a guitar teacher at the Toon Shop. Dykes started him with a small book of basic chords. Levin played and played his first G chord. Next C. Soon he could play most of the open stringchords. Then came B minor. The mother of all bar chords. “It was a defining moment for me,” Levin said. “ ‘Am I gonna quit? Or am I gonna see how far this goes?’ So I worked hard and played that B minor chord. I toughed it out and lo’ and behold, here I am today.” After that, it was smooth playing. During the family vacation to Colorado, 9-year-old Levin sat outside a lonely shopping center with his Melody guitar and strummed along to the rhythm of “Rocky Raccoon” with his guitar case open on the ground. The first day’s take? $6.

ADAM’S COLLECTION These are five of Levin’s seven guitars

12-String Taylor

19 feb.

2008

Harmony 1st Guitar

“ I w a s n’t doing

Sophomore Adam Levin strums his Gibson Les Paul at Expereience Sports Bar during his second half-hour set. He has ben playing with D.C. Bellamy since he was 13. » marygalvin

anything,” Levin said. “I was just a cute little kid playing guitar. I came home and I told my mom ‘I made six bucks!’ And she was like ‘Why don’t you try playing in a busier area?’ But six bucks was still awesome.” He took his mom’s advice and played near Paradise Bakery, a popular Aspen eatery. His parents sat on a bench across from him and listened to hours of “Sweet Home Alabama,” (A crowd pleaser, Levin said). He made $70. By the end of the summer his pockets were stuffed with $200. He played there every summer for the next four years. Levin continued to refine his art in the basement after summer vacations ended. Inside an insolated room where The Clash, the Ramones, and Led Zeppelin looked on, Levin practiced 45 to 90 minutes a day over his Fender Twin amp, a habit that continues today. “My mom comes down sometimes and tells me to turn it down because she’s afraid my ears will go deaf,” Levin said. “I guess she’s right, but I feel like I have to get a certain sound when I play.” He started playing along with Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, studying the pentatonic scale found through the song. Practicing for hours at the 2 min, 46 second long blues classic, bending the G-string and copying the onefour-five blues progression. Levin memorized the song from beginning to middle to end. Seeking more blues, Levin found The Allman Brother’s Band. After listening to “Live At Fillmore East” CD, Levin had another turning point. “The first time I listened to the album, the hairs on my neck stood up,” Levin said. “My whole body felt electric. It used to be that I would play a bunch of notes because it sounded good. Now it’s more a spiritual thing. Blues is more about expressing yourself between which note you pick.” After enough practice, Levin’s parents asked the owner of Danny’s Big Easy, a downtown Kansas City bar, to let Levin play one night. He was allowed him to sit in with that night’s stage band.

Epiphone Les Paul 2nd Electric

“It wasn’t really a great time,” Levin said. “I was with » marygalvin some guy named JJ and I played only two or three songs. But it was the first time I played.” Levin received more respect as he played more shows at Danny’s and the Westsider, a local coffee house with a Thursday open mic. Although he had some street cred’ he was about to receive a big career boost. His sister began to date Walker Tippit, a lead guitarist in a band lead by D.C. Bellamy, a player with 35 years of professional experience and a veteran of Chicago blues. Tippit introduced him to Bellamy, a “good un’ ” according to Living Blues Magazine, and they invited Levin to play with them. The first show went well. “When Adam first started [playing with the band], he was alright, just a little shy,” Bellamy, who released an album under the Rooster Blues label, said. “But now he’s rockin’ n’ rollin’. When he gets up there he knows what he’s doing. And he’s confident.” But Bellamy tested Levin’s stamina on round two. A trombone section was brought into the bar as Levin stood and played for nearly two straight hours. The crowd cheered him on in a breakdown: “The roof! The roof!” they chanted. “The roof is on fire! We don’t need no water! Let the motherf------ burn!” After that, Levin was playing regularly with Tippit and Bellamy and his dark bust Les Paul. Bellamy will invite him to come to the stage and join the band for as many songs as he wants. Levin plays to the max, savoring every bend and twiddling-diddling on the high frets. But he stays humble, bowing out for the keyboardist and the other guitarist to command their own solos. The band is seamless with their respective instruments, especially for a group aging from 16 to nearly 60. Levin doesn’t even hiccup when Tippit tips him off to his third solo. “I love to see a young guy continue on and nothing to cause him to stray from his goal,” Bellamy said. “And his goal is to play that guitar. I won’t be long until Adam is one of the up and coming guitarists coming out of Kansas City.”

American Fender Stratocaster

Epiphone Hummingbird 1st Acoustic

» marygalvin

OPINION

Isolated Time spent in a psychiatric ward teaches student he doesn’t belong there

»renli

anopinionof

The ER doctors said there was nothing else they could do. I’d already been tested for lyme, mono, drugs, alcohol, had two MRI scans and an EEG test for seizure activity in the brain. I’d seen more than two dozen doc»timshedor tors, been to five hospitals and had eight blood tests but no one knew what was wrong with me. It was all in my head. How could this be psychological? I’d have daily seizure-like fits, at 11, 3 and 7. I couldn’t walk in a straight line and had extreme behavioral changes for over a month. Did I want to live like this? But they said it was all in my head. They said I needed to see a psychiatrist, but the next opening was two to three months away at most offices. I needed help immediately. A nearby psychiatric ward had a vacant bed and a psychiatrist would meet with me on a daily basis. We drove from the ER straight to the ward. My parents filled out the paperwork and admitted me at 2:03 a.m. on Friday morning. I woke up without a clue. The room was starch white and the sheets were itchy. The bathroom was a small corner with a toilet and shower. Last night was a blur, but I smelled food down the hall. I was hungry for anything. A man nurse stopped me. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Your bed isn’t made yet.” So much for the welcome wagon. After I made it he made me straighten the sheets out so that there weren’t any peaks. He checked me off on his clipboard, and I hurried down to breakfast. The food was gray. I only had a spoon, because forks could be used as weapons with suicidals. We couldn’t have pencils either. Those things were contraband. But in the middle of breakfast I had a seizure and had to leave my mush. My head lolled and my feet shot out sporadically. My hands flipped lazily on the table. I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t stop myself. The nurses came after a few minutes

and dragged me to the blue room, a musty old padded corner. “Are you pulling one, Timothy?” they asked. “You better stop.” What could I do? I couldn’t control my limbs, let alone talk to an angry nurse. My head was still twisting side to side and my whole body was fidgety. They threw me on the floor and left. Then a big nurse came by. A really really big nurse, topping out at close to 300-lbs. “You are too old for this, Timothy! You stop this right now! Stop it!” She left too. Then a psychiatrist came by. He talked to me, but I really couldn’t say much. After 15 minutes, he left and I never saw him again. He takes the weekends off. In the end, the seizure lasted about 15 minutes. I got out of the blue room and read my schedule. “Goals Group: 9:45-10:00 p.m.” For “group,” everyone in the adolescent wing sits around a long table, listens to each other’s problems and talks to a counselor about it. There were kids with anger issues, suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and drug abuse at 12 years old. “Where are the other two?” asked our counselor, referring to the absent girls. “Sleeping,” a girl with curly hair said. “I think my roommate’s going to kill me. She used to ride my bus in middle school. I called her fish-lips and now she’s suicidal. I had a dream last night that she smothered me with my own pillow. I hope she doesn’t kill me.” “Oh yeah that girl is psycho!” another girl said. She was in for depression and had started taking the happy pills yesterday. “You’re definitely gonna die,” she laughed. “But the other girl is nice. She’s just a big sleeper during the day.” “Group” is supposed to be therapeutic, but it just made me angry. I really didn’t belong here. I was sane. I’d kept a decent GPA and was in two honors classes. My college résumé was stuffed with things like SHARE, church activities, soccer, band and newspaper. I didn’t want to kill myself or anybody else, and I didn’t see little green men running around. I was a

“

good kid. I didn’t belong here. The schedule read “Quiet Time: 12:0012:30 p.m.” I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Everyone else went to their dark, artificially-lit rooms and lay flat on their beds. I counted 47 dots on the ceiling. I ate a cold tray lunch when I got back up. It tasted like old cheese, but I was too hungry to care. I finished what looked like mashed potatoes but smelled like cranberries, with a stagnant after taste. “Board games: 6:30-7:30 p.m.” I didn’t know what time it was, but I sure didn’t want to miss free time. In the dayroom, Carrottop (suicidal thoughts) drew anime, Hallucinations counted all 49 cards in the room’s only deck and the drug dealer stenciled a caricature of the kid in front of him. The girls were chatting over an old Wiggles coloring book. “I miss my boyfriend,” Curls said. “I named his penis Freckles. They took my ring when I came in here. We’re engaged.” She was 15. “I know whatcha mean,” Big-sleeper said. “I luuuuv my fiancé.” She was 16. Happy-pills ran up to the chalkboard and wrote a poem:

In the dayroom, Carrot-top (suicidal thoughts) drew anime, Hallucinations counted all 49 cards in the room’s only deck and the drug dealer stenciled a caricature of the kid in front of him.

”

“Sex, drugs & rock n’ roll Speed, weed & birth control Life’s a b---- and then you die So F--- the World and let’s get High” She thumped her chest, threw up the deuce and said, “Peace out ya’ll.” She sat down to finish coloring her page from the Wiggles book, but bounced back up to erase it before 300-lbs. could see. “So what’s wrong with you?” Curls asked me. “I have seizure-like fits. Except it’s not a seizure. We don’t know what it is.” “Oh yeah?” Curls said. “My brother died from a seizure. And he died in a hotel room, which is funny because he was born in a hotel room. I was too. Anyway, my parents didn’t get him his meds because they were on the run from the po-

lice.” She finished tracing the rim of the Wiggles’ kick drum. And suddenly, the psychiatric ward looked a whole lot brighter. My sister was still alive, and my dad is nice enough to put the cap back on the toothpaste. When my family saw me during visiting hour, they brought me cards from friends, family and school groups. I had a good life. I have a good life. I read those cards three times a day. The cards were a great gift, but nothing beat getting “off unit” status on Sunday, which meant I wasn’t confined to the three-hallwayed adolescent “unit.” I could get my own breakfast and walk down the hall to the gym. But most importantly, I could use a fork and eat lunch with everyone else. As glamorous as I imagined eating lunch with people was, it really wasn’t that great. They only talked about leaving, which I confess I had been imagining too. The outside world is the equivalent ofporn in a psychiatric ward. “This is my eighth time. I won’t be here for long,” a younger kid said. He hadn’t changed his clothes once since he arrived. “I suck up to my nurse. She’s already given my psychiatrist two good reports about me,” Happy-pills said. “Maybe I can get my mom to transfer me to Two Rivers. It’s nicer there,” the 12year-old addict said. “I just want to go to Mickey D’s,” the Dealer said. But the average stay in purgatory is five and a half days. Later that day my parents “rescued” me. I told them all about the ward during our hour-a-day visits. They probably thought like I did and figured that this place wasn’t going to help me. They brought me home on Sunday to blue streamers, “Hope You’re Feeling Better” balloons and another stack of cards from friends. I woke up on Dec. 5, 42 days, two hours and one minute after my first episode, and I could walk in a straight line. I didn’t have an episode all day, only a massive headache. And the next day the headache was gone. After the five hospitals, two dozen doctors, medication experiments and long nights, my body is fixing itself. We may never know what came over me. I have this story and a DVD my parents filmed to document a seizure to remember the past issue two months, but I’ll never watch it.

PAGE 2 NEWS / MARCH 30, 2009

REMEMBERING East mourns the deaths of junior Bryan Barrow and ‘08 graduate Connor Lehr

After fatal car crash, junior leaves behind leagacy of strong faith and kindness

// SMEHAUBERK

// TIMSHEDOR They stepped into the bleached room, the only noise was the artificial respirator, pumping into junior Bryan Barrow’s body to keep his organs alive. His closest friends and family didn’t know how to react to the boy in the white bed, a boy who standing was rarely still or quiet. But this boy hadn’t moved a hair. At 10:30 p.m. that Friday night, Bryan’s Volvo hit Brush Creek’s pines near 51st Street and Ward Parkway. He was wearing his seat belt when the red R40 side-swiped one tree at approximately 60 mph and then fishtailed into another. The fire department cut him out of the passenger side when they arrived at the scene. According to Kansas City, Mo. Police Department Captain Rich Lockhart, the most likely cause of the crash was excessive speed, but his family also believes he was on his cell phone or became distracted and simply lost control. His spinal cord had severed at C2, just a few centimeters below his golden blonde hair. The paramedics had tried to revive him. Heart stopped. Blood pressure dropped. No movement. It would be a miracle if his organs could be recovered and donated, as the heart on his driver’s license dictated. He was officially proclaimed “brain dead” the next morning. “Bryan wanted everyone to be strong and courageous,” Bryan’s mother Anne PetersonBarrow said. “Bryan’s way is to be strong and courageous. If he had survived the accident, he would have been paralyzed, and that wasn’t his way. It was always Bryan’s way.” *** As soon as Bryan’s parents arrived in

the St. Luke’s ER at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 14, they started making calls. They called his best friend - his brother Erik. They called his youth pastor. They called every family member, his best friends, his skating crew. Only Bryan’s scarred face and thin upper foam of his neck brace shown outside the encompassing white sheet. His hand lay outside the blanket, the chain of his friend’s cross wrapped around his fingers. Twenty-seven hours before, he ate his favorite peanut butter and waffle breakfast before he got ready for school. He passed the devotional book at his bedside table, buried under two well-worn Bibles, on the way to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth in the mirror and faced the taped note. It read “Why I believe what I believe.” “It literally was a statement of faith for him,” Hillcrest Covenant Church youth pastor Nate Severson said. “He would read that every day, so he would be reminded...to take what he believed and live it out. I’ve never had a kid tell me he loved me as much as Bryan does. Every time I see him, he’d come up and give me a big hug, and he’d say ‘I love you man,’ and I would say ‘I love you back.’” After the “High Impact” youth retreat last June, where Bryan adventured in the deep Colorado mountains, where Severson helped reprioritize Bryan’s life with God first, Bryan started attending Sunday morning services in the youth center and meeting with a small group on Sunday nights. The small bedside devotional helped challenge his faith during the small group’s weekly meetings. Severson had left for a mission trip on that Friday. A few hours after he landed in Anchorage, he got the call and was at the hospital bedside by 8:30 p.m. Saturday night. *** Junior Adam Levin came to the bedside, next to Bryan just like the last 17 years. He had lived right next door, and had been friends with Bryan since birth. But Bryan didn’t look like Bryan. His ordinarily messy and tangled blonde hair was slicked back. It wasn’t supposed to be Bryan. The lacerated and combed Bryan wasn’t the Bryan who watered the flowers outside everyday. He wasn’t the 10-year-old Bryan who mooned cars at Franklin Park. He wasn’t the summertime Bryan, the one who ran with Super Soakers and splashed in the hot tub. “I don’t feel like I’ve just lost a friend,” Levin said. “A lot of my memories growing up here are with Bryan. When I think back on childhood, I’m going to think about Bryan. It’s like I’ve lost part of my life.”

But it was still Bryan in the pale white room. He was the one who loved and cared for his friends, and his friends loved him back. A few kissed him on his forehead, the only place without a scrape. Others just held his hand. The rest stayed across the room, too afraid to face this Bryan. He was everyone’s friend. He greeted those he knew in the hall with a unique voice, from a high, Furby-like pitch for junior Dustin Ballard, to a fluctuating nasal tone for junior Brooks Williams. When he saw his former Spanish teacher Rose Detrixhe, he would give her a hug instead of an “Hola.” “Bryan was always there,” Williams said. “He was such a helping friend, such a caring person. He was really selfless and worried about his friends or family. He was all about being happy and enjoying life. He just wanted to have a good time.”

“

“I don’t feel like I’ve just lost a friend. A lot of my memories growing up here are with Bryan. When I think back on childhood, I’m going to think about Bryan. It’s like I’ve lost part of my life.” -Junior Adam Levin

”

*** Cousin Lars-Erik Brunk came to Bryan’s bedside. Lars-Erik didn’t see his future Colorado State roommate. He didn’t see his former competition, his former role-model, his friend. Summertime was sublime for Lars-Erik and Bryan. They vacationed in Wisconsin with their grandma Ulla Brunk and their grandpa Bertil Brunk on the family yacht over the still, blue, deep waters of Lake Geneva. Garfar, affectionate Swedish for grandfather, and a young Bryan bonded over the black and ivory keys in Geneva by singing an improvised melody. He was only kneehigh, but he followed every onomatopoeia, “Da doo doo da doo” melody, his garfar sang and harmonized perfectly to the family gathered around. “He had this fantastic way of looking at you,” Ulla said. “He could be just as sophisticated as he was goofy and just as charming. You couldn’t help but respect him.” Bryan shared time between the Brunks in Geneva and the Barrows in Fulton, Mo. He would alternate between the crystal waters

and the thick forests, loyal and loving to both sides of his immediate family. In the thicket of Fulton, it was a slice of heaven. The A-Frame that served as a reunion hall for the family overlooked the original homestead: 600 acres of forest, plants and rocks, all waiting for Bryan to explore and pull out snakes or other critters. “Bryan had a love for the outdoors and had an appreciation for God’s nature,” Anne said. “He was not one to be inside; he had to be out, just living life to the fullest. He was a real down-to-earth kid.” *** Bryan’s skating friends held a candlelight vigil at the bedside. He was surrounded by the small votives on that night, but the next day Bryan’s body would travel into the recovery room for surgery to donate his organs, and then later settle at Johnson County Memorial Gardens on the following Wednesday. His friends and other skateboarders had organized a barbeque and skating competition yesterday, with all profits donated to Bryan’s memorial scholarship fund, granted to a graduating student who the family feels best embodies Bryan’s qualities. A week before the crash, Bryan came home with a grin from ear to ear and a DVD in his hand. He had earned a sponsorship from Ride Forever, the skate shop he had loved to work at for the past six months. The sponsorship gave him access to free gear, a new board every month and a few minutes in The Ride Forever Studio highlight video of their best skaters. Those five minutes would have sealed a future Vans sponsorship, Bryan’s next major goal, just before an A in fourth quarter physics. But that sponsorship had been his goal for the past school year and it almost always came before homework or parties. He was determined. Cracks, pops and ollies sounded from the driveway on Linden Drive, regardless of how many times he fell. “In jewelry class, I’d be like ‘what’s this new scrape from?’” Ballard said. “‘Oh, I just went down this 14-foot stair,’ [Bryan would say]. He was crazy.” His first hospitalization was on his thirteenth birthday. It was raining, and he wanted to go with Erik to the skate park. His mom wanted to go out for ice cream. The ICU held him for two days after he smacked his head on the slippery concrete, but he left with only a few stitches and a minor concussion.

Continued on page 3

PAGE 3 NEWS / ISSUE 13 “In the ambulance on the way to Children’s Mercy, I thought to myself ‘I hope I never have to go through this again,” Anne said. “I worried about him all the time when he was out skateboarding, or doing anything.” Even when he wasn’t on his board, he was a natural athlete and played soccer for East during his three year high school career. His cleats moved like a dancer’s feet; it was like he was choreographed. A lucky fan would be able to glimpse his mouth, biting down on his tongue in determination, just like he’d done since preschool. Next season will be dedicated to Bryan and his legacy of fancy footwork on the grass. “He had this smile,” head soccer coach Jaime Kelly said. “And whenever you saw

this smile….it always kind of made you laugh and bring a smile to your face.” *** Before Bryan’s gurney moved down the hall, his family and friends held hands around the white, suddenly warm room. Severson led the prayer, hoping for a miracle that Bryan’s organs could be donated despite his condition and the doctor’s forebodings. His garfar sang “Tryggare Re Kan Ingen Vara,” the Swedish hymn “Children of the Heavenly Father,” as his last parting “Do do da da do do do.” The rest took turns saying their last good-byes, Bryan’s dad, Bruce, leaning in closely to tell him which friend was coming next. “I just walked in, and you gotta take

deep breaths before you walk into that room, because you can’t control tears from coming out of your eyes when you walk in there and see your best friend lying on the bed, completely, just gone,” Levin said. “There’s no way to describe that feeling. I didn’t know what to say. I had to sit there for a few minutes and just look at him. Held his hand, and touched him, and finally, I don’t even remember what I said. I said good-bye and told him I loved him and then I left. I can’t even remember what I said to him, it’s just overwhelming to see that.” The doctors’ return from the recovery room came with the bittersweet news. They were able to save each organ and find a needy body. His liver was going to a 60-year-old. His first kidney to a 57-year-

old, his second to a 52-year-old. His pancreas: a 45-year-old. His heart was going to a 22-year-old who would have only had a few days left to live. Bryan was the boy who gave everything, from a sympathetic ear for his friends to love and loyalty for his closest to a few vital organs for strangers. He couldn’t return the “I love you’s” and forehead kisses, but he didn’t need to. “It struck me a couple days ago…he only got to live 17 years,” Severson said. “And then I thought, ‘He got to live 17 years.’ And I was thankful God let me be a part of that. He got 17 years and he lived it to the fullest and I guarantee he’s got no regrets.”

Former East student remembered for his sense of humor and athletic ability He loved all sports, basketball, golf, ping pong, but he especially loved tennis. He was on the tennis team at East, and lettered for three years. At his funeral, a crate held tennis balls and sharpies with a sign asking to “sign a ball for Connor.” On a table were pictures of him playing, along with his letter jacket and racquet. He kept us all kind of on a light note,” East tennis coach Sue Chipman said. “He was a pretty good competitor. He didn’t make that top six, but he was a good kid to have around.” He also loved being with his friends, always laughing, a smile on his face. His friends, his co-worker, his aunt talked about Connor at the funeral at the packed Rainbow Mennonite Church, including one friend who said he had a picture in his head of Connor in his Jeep with the tinted windows. One night it was raining and they realized his sunroof was open. Still, he was laughing. “He was incredible, and such a good guy,” sophomore Anousha Shirazi said.” He always had a smile on his face. We talked about our problems, and when I was with him I felt like everything was going to be okay.” Senior Ali Brewer remembers him as “the definition of a

// SMEHAUBERK

// PAIGECORNWELL

For Connor Lehr, things were looking up. Connor, who attended East last year, had moved to Lawrence and was in the process of applying to KU. He had spent a month at Valley Hope for drug treatment. His legal problems were being resolved. In the weeks before he died, thinks were looking up Connor died March 19 from what his mother, Carrie Lehr, believes was an accidental overdose resulting from a mixture of pain medication and antidepressants. He was 19-years-old. Connor was born on Oct. 19, 1989 and spent his life in Prairie Village. He attended Prairie Elementary, Indian Hills Middle School and then East. ‘08 graduate Quinn Conrad, now a freshman at Kansas State, remembers Connor as an athletic kid, even in elementary school. “I think the first time I met him was on our first grade basketball team,” Conrad said. “All I remember was that he was pretty athletic and kind of cocky about it, but cocky in a confident way not in a mean way. I was a nerd in elementary school and played tons of video games, so when we played together and found out we had a lot in common we just became closer friends.”

“

He was incredible, and such a good guy. He always had a smile on his face. We talked about our problems, and when I was with him I felt like everything was going to be okay. -Sophomore Anousha Shirazi

”

chill guy.” They had met through mutual friends three years ago and hung out during the summer. If she didn’t answer his calls he would leave a message saying the bare minimum in his low voice: “Ali (pause) call me back.” The last time she saw him was at a gas station. He was in his Jeep, blaring rap music, laughing. They didn’t talk, but he called her later and asked, “was that you?” “He was going through a lot of stuff, and it was a problem,” Brewer said. “There were a lot of times I felt kind of helpless. I wanted to help him, but I only could have done so much.” But his mother believes he was improving. He had struggled with drug abuse, but had been to Valley Hope, a drug treatment center, for a month, where he met “a lot of nice people,” according to Carrie, and his legal problems for theft and drug possession were being resolved. “[Drug abuse] negatively affected his life,” Carrie said. “At his age, it was hard to believe he had a problem. At 19 I

REMEMBRANCES

Visit the Harbinger Web site at www.smeharbinger.net to leave your thoughts for the Barrow and Lehr families or share memories of Bryan and Connor. The online guestbook is available in the comment section at the bottom of the page for the respective stories. Registration is not required to comment. think he believed he was invincible.” He hadn’t graduated with his classmates last year, because he “didn’t quite make it to school,” according to Carrie, but he received his GED during first semester of this year, and wanted to go to his beloved KU. A KU blanket was draped over his casket; a picture of a jayhawk was the first image on a slideshow of pictures of him as a toothy toddler and a beaming preteen. “He was looking forward to going [to KU],” Carrie said. “He had a bright future.” His mother is remembering the positive times during his childhood, before the drug use started, which Carrie thinks may have began when he was 16-years-old, after he started driving his own car. She wants to focus on the good memories, not on the problems he was facing before he died. “I’m sad he wasn’t able to rise above his drug use, and see the problem,” Carrie said. “I’m sad he lost his life due to drugs.” He made mistakes. But things were looking up. “He had many troubles, but it brought him closer to God, and for that, we are thankful,” the Rev. Harry Schneider said at the funeral. “It was not Connor’s intention to put you through this, and yet, here you are, forced to face the undeniable fragility of life.” Carrie hopes that teens will learn from his death. “If anything good comes from Connor’s death, I hope it will teach others to value friends, family and think twice before drinking or doing drugs. I’m hoping kids will learn how dangerous drugs are, and how precious life is.” She wants him to be remembered as a good friend, a good person, an “overall good guy.” His friends will remember him as someone they could depend on. “I loved him dearly,” Shirazi said. “We’ll all miss him.”

PAGE 8 OPINION / SEPT. 2, 2008

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD After collecting as much money as possible from childhood bets and savings, one staff member began the search for his first car, which ultimately led to a “periwinkle four door”

an opinion of

and so we ventured to other lots, a la Dealership number two, which had advertised a $4,000 Corolla in Thursday’s classifieds. We had called a salesman in advance, but the rest of the office didn’t know that when we walked in. Spring-loaded, a salesman pounced into commissionearning action as soon as he caught our scent. He held open four doors at once; pulled up the most comfortable chair he could find and would have baked cookies if he knew we were coming. He was devastated when we told him someone was already waiting on us. Fifteen minutes later, an eternity in the used car business,

Tim’s Ride

“

Then we found the Corolla: a dirty ‘92 jalopy that looked like it had just come out of a “Die Hard” film.

“

/ TIMSHEDOR

“I’ll take you to get a car.” Those magic seven words from mom signaled the end of my minivan days, and the start of a new, high-flying era of after-10 curfew and unlimited QuickTrip runs. But like all things that come from the golden land of Detroit, there was fine print under this new lease on life. You have to pay for it. I cashed grandpa’s birthday checks. I redeemed every I.O.U. since 2nd grade. I broke my Bugs Bunny souvenir bank. I felt like I had just betrayed my childhood innocence, but this was a moment I’d been waiting for since birth. We went to our first lot and enlisted the first salesman who put his best, polished and gleaning foot before us. As soon as we told him I was buying my first car, his face brightened and he had just the thing. Right then and there I knew it was the one. As soon as he said “Corolla” I nearly swooned out of the plush seat. It was infamous for great gas mileage, was known for reliable mechanics and even had side air bags. Overcome by this newfound desire for Japanese manufacturing, I demanded we see it immediately. He showed us a 2000 that had been traded just last night! It hadn’t been detailed yet and was covered in dirt, leaves and Lord knows what. It didn’t matter. One spin around the lot and I knew it had to be mine. But my Mom warned against falling for the first car,

our man showed up. He didn’t look me in the eye and had the type of handshake that said you’re-wasting-my-timebecause-I-don’t-get-any-commission-on-a-$4,000-usedcar. Nonetheless, he drove us three lots over to the used car junk yard and showed us a 1999 Dodge Neon that had just been traded in last night! At an overpriced $6,000, it came complete with stick shift, roll-down windows and an interior design that deserved to be the pilot of “Extreme Car Makeover.” Then we found the Corolla: a dirty ’92 jalopy that looked like it had just come out of a “Die Hard” film. The tag valued it at $4,500, but I don’t think it could make the trip out of the lot. We skidooshed off the lot and went to Shawnee, Merriam and Missouri lots in pursuit of “other cars.” But the others couldn’t compare. Escort, Taurus, Camry, nothing was like

1996 Oldsmobile He shows off some of the features that make his car unique

my first and only love. Every dealer laughed us off when we asked for a car under $5,000. But I didn’t care what they thought. Nobody else mattered; it was just me and my Corolla against the world. We even visited a fly-by-night salesman, decked in a blinding lime green shirt and novelty sun hat. He showed us a car that had been traded just last night! It was a ’92 Honda Accord that looked like a D’Lorean on a diet. It very well could have been the Corolla’s ugly cousin. Yet, I was almost convinced because it came with the salesman’s word and a free coke! I admit, I did cheat on my Corolla. I spent an evening with a 2001 purple Malibu with full ashtrays and a sub woofer, a car that had been traded just last night! But after finding oil in the brake pads, the family mechanic said forget about it. Just when I thought I could come home with flowers and chocolate to make things right, tell my baby I loved her and would never leave her again, Dealership number one called. The Corolla was spewing black smoke and they wouldn’t sell it to anybody. It was off the market. I almost wept. I was heartbroken. I felt alone in this dark and sketchy world of excessive hair gel and “Great deals!” In dire desperation I looked through millions of Craigslist ads and tore up every classified since Apr. 5, 2008. Nothing. It looked as though I would be bumming rides from friends and taking the bus to school for the rest of my life. I would live in the basement eating Hot Pocket lunches and Ramen dinners. I would never get a job or ever aspire to something more than a car-less bum. Yet there was hope. Dealership #1 called once more. They got a car that had been traded just last night! It was a 1996 Oldsmobile Ciera. The periwinkle blue fourdoor looked, sounded and smelled like a car my grandma would drive before me, but that didn’t matter. It was $4,000, and our mechanic’s approval. I knew the Corolla would have wanted it this way. It was better for both of us.

The Tape Deck “I don’t have an iPod, and buying a new stereo is upwards of $150. So I knabbed some garage sale deals, made some mix tapes and learned how to work a cassette deck, a skill highly underrated .”

The Gas Tank Key

“In a time of raising gas prices and teen theft statistics, a gas key is worth the extra space on my key ring.”

The Bench Seat

// MAXSTITT

“I love this part of my car. It’s so legitimate. The front seat can hold three bulky bodies without forfeiting the safety of a seat belt and its surprisingly comfy. I feel like singing the anthem to “That 70’s Show” whenever I’m driving with this bad boy filled.”

A&E

‘Bartlett’barely

makes the grade BY

Bueller vs. Bartlett which movie has the better:

Main Character

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

Ferris can fit in no matter where he is. His personality conveys legendary cool, and he is full of charisma. He doesn’t answer to another set of rules, but rather writes his own. Bartlett, instead, always faces troubles and bends to outside opinions.

Plot

‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’

Ferris is a street-wise kid who knows all the tricks. Today he decides to take the day off school. When Ferris takes the day off, so must his best friends, Cameron and Sloane. Cameron is reluctantly persuaded to borrow his father’s Ferrari (which is never used). And together they hatch a plan to get Sloane out of class. Suspicious principal Ed Rooney knows all about Ferris, but can never catch him. Ferris’ sister Jeanie is also frustrated that Ferris always gets away with his tricks and she doesn’t. Furthermore, Ferris is an ‘angel’ in his parents eyes. It’s Ferris’ day off, he’s out to enjoy himself, and he does!

“Charlie Bartlett”

Charlie has a quick wit, and he isn’t afraid to use it. He keeps the jokes rolling and doesn’t rely on Ferris’s clever stunts. Bartlett makes a name for himself throuh his own style.

» msn.com

» photos courtesy of movieweb.com

march 2008

starscale

{ } poor {

}

In case you’ve never seen...

Instead, it moves flawlessly from scene to scene, giving viewers a fun thrill and never asking personal questions. It strays true to its roots as a classic high school comedy, making the film clean-cut and simple.

Lines

As a movie hailed as “the next Ferris Bueller,” I came ready to see “Charlie Bartlett.” I wore a leopard-print vest, fitting jeans and a black beret. I hummed “Danke Shoen” on the way in. I even convinced two sidekicks, a guy and girl, to tag along. Matthew Broderick would be proud. But as for Bartlett, Broderick would frown. Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin), sporting a suit and tie, is a fancypants rich kid who has been kicked out of nearly every private school in the country. His last resort: public school. The first day he is beaten by the school thug, watches some kids share a joint, is denied at the cheerleaders’ table and has to sit over the bus wheel well next to Len. His mom (Hope Davis) seeks counseling immediately from the family psychiatrist who gives him some drugs and gets high, shown through a drawn-out montage that ends in underwear and Ray Charles. After this Ritalin-driven adventure, he gets an idea to open his own pyscho-therapy shop in partnership with the school bully (Tyler Hilton), selling the drugs he receives from the psychiatrist. Now he’s Mr. Popular. Things begin to head down-hill after he hits it off with the principal’s daughter (Kat Dennings) at a party and then unknowingly leads a rebellion. Charlie Bartlett is a movie whose themes revolve around high school popularity, but most teenagers won’t be able to see the R-rated flick. It’s not one to take your mother to, as it’s filled with pill-popping, boob-dropping teens and dad will have too much fun. So unless you’re 17 or older, you’re going to have to bring out the fake driver’s license. The movie was fun to watch in the beginning, when Charlie wore his hair like Ferris, talked like Ferris and spat witty jokes like fire. There were funny scenes like the “My First Period” monologue in drama auditions, rag-time duets with mom and his first kiss in the boys’ bathroom. But in the last third of the movie, when Ferris-Charlie slowly dissipates, Charlie gets busted and the movie becomes an anti-drug campaign. From here, the main plot is lost. Bartlett goes from rebellious trouble-maker to reformed student in three scenes. He should have been dealing Gummi-bears for the first hour to match the just as cuddly ending. I’m not a pessimist, but I would like a movie where the main character gets screwed over like the script intends him to be. Overall, Bartlett procured few laughs. It tried too hard to be a serious comedy, with too many sub-plots: a father in the penitentionary, an alcoholic principal, and a run-away mommy. Although, I did have a hearty laugh at the last song, when everybody makes amends, no one does drugs and they all live happily ever after. So please, before we go to the level of the great Mr. Bueller, let’s make a lighthearted movie that makes high school look fun, instead of a dirty adult flick.

{

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

» timshedor

} fair {

} solid {

} excellent {

} masterpiece Star ratings based on writer’s opinion

PAGE 14 FEATURES / FEB. 17, 2009 here’s a glossy Hammermill Press Literature 10 book that rests among a dozen others on English teacher Elaine Kramer’s shelf. It’s a beautifully decorated four pounds full of pictures and excerpts and reading material designed for the college-bound student. She argues that she all she needs in her classroom is the cart of dictionaries, but she’s taught from less. She used to teach her high school students out of a tiny paperback. One designed for the beginning reader. Down the hall, English teacher Spring Gehring-Lowery grades papers as two of her students sketch a game of movie hangman. She’s a friend to them after school. They stay until four, and sometimes later. She still has kids coming in at 3:30, just to sit and talk with her. After teaching at inner-city schools, Kramer and Gehring-Lowery bring lessons and teaching styles to East. “Why do I teach?” Kramer said. “For the money….[but] we live for the Ah ha! moments.” Kramer taught at north-side Chicago suburban high school, Evanston Township, in the early 1960s. It was public, and racial tensions were building as the school entered the Civil Rights era and the population neared 40 percent black, 60 percent white. The town of Evanston was founded on discrimination. In the late 1800s, business men built grand, overflowing estates along Lake Michigan. They brought their community with them, by building the “L” train line for a fast commute, and shacks for their servants on the other side of the tracks. Two generations later, and in the midst of the Civil Rights movement, Kramer came to the Evanston Township high school with a few months of student teaching and a year and a half of Catholic school teaching under her belt. The whole campus, a four-building, 8,000 student megalith, was like a condensed Shawnee Mission District. “I could encourage individual students, but that was about all I could do,” Kramer said. “I helped individuals.” At the main buildings, Kramer heard fire alarms once a week. And during the day, someone was in a hallway brawl, sniffing dogs were a common sight and the girls never went to the bathroom alone. During class she kept her door locked. Someone from off the street once walked into Kramer’s room and stood between a student and the bar of his desk, boxing him into his seat. The rest of the room watched as he pounded, too afraid to cross in front of him and press the panic button. He got away. And when the school day was over, she never stayed late. The shop teacher stayed late once, and when he left a student was waiting for him, two by four in hand. She was accompanied by a police escort to the faculty parking lot, surrounded by three rows of barbed wire over a 10-foot high fence. The faculty need protection. During a massive gang brawl, the Vice Principal stepped in to break it up and stepped out with a slash leading from the last few inch-

Teachers bring styles to East after working at inner-city schools

// PHOTOILLUSTRATIONBYANDYALLEN

//TIMSHEDOR

es of his ear to the middle of his throat. He returned to the school as soon as he could leave the hospital. “Everyday it was an exciting story,” Kramer said. “[The violence] was so big; it was just a juggernaut that rolled over everyone.” Kramer taught out of a new curriculum with the help of on-site Northwestern professors. Before teaching in a main high school building, she taught in a lab designed for fresh, creative teachers to experiment new methods. Her curriculum was boundless, and with assistance from the professors she started a reading program. “[The students] came from homes where they were no books,” Kramer said. “There were no role models. There was no uncle who was a manager…or a CEO. So why would there be an expectation to be…that? There was no Barack Obama to inspire them. There were only old white men, running the county, controlling the power. Thank God there were a few people…like Martin Luther King.” Her black and white paperbacks stayed true to good grammar, but they told stories about fighting parents, abusive partners, and gangs. And it worked. By the end of the year, the students read almost two levels higher, some at an eighth grade level. The classroom only allowed for a handful of students, but it was enough to allow Kramer a one-on-one teaching style. When she began teaching at East 16 years ago, she would have used the same black and white paperbacks if the curriculum allowed. East required a white-bound grammar book, but Kramer still incorporates her former lessons; she has her students memorize a paragraph on integrity from “Othello” every year, “Good name in man and woman... is the immediate jewel of their souls. He that filches...my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor

indeed.” Every so often she can still make her own additions to the program, like teaching against fighting or dishonesty on cheated homework, an offense she considers worse and more prevalent at East than violence. She still wishes dearly for a former white and black paperback. *** Forty years later and on the other end of the country, Gehring-Lowery taught at a high school in inner-city Houston. Cypress Ridge had opened just a few years ago, and she was teaching English 11. She was new to Cypress, but her first years teaching were nonetheless memorable. The school boasted a terrific fine arts program, winning football seasons and journalism programs. But it lacked a strong PTA, a Booster Club or the auction fund-raisers. She remembers pointing out blood on a column the janitor missed after a fight that day. She once found a student, head bleeding profusely under a toilet seat in the boys’ bathroom, just after watching boys in blue scurry out. Before she began locking her door during the day, a student from just down the hall walked in and cold-cocked a student into a fractured jaw. She tried to chase him down, but he only ran a few feet before he returned to his home room. “It was tough to watch,” Gehring-Lowery said. “It was really saddening and maddening at times, to watch these kids throw their lives away on gangs that didn’t really care about them.” Some students she taught ate their only meal in the cafeteria. Others were the first in the family to speak English. Most joined gangs for protection. “Unfortunately, [violence] was a part of the school,” Gehring-Lowery said. “We had a zero tolerance policy, but when you’re at a school with gangs like that, it’s not that vio-

lence is acceptable or effective, but it was a part of life.” The new principal at Cypress brainstormed with the faculty for a turn-around, for a positive reversal of the gang violence, and started a system that rewarded one ticket from one teacher to one student for every “random act of kindness.” A store was set-up like an arcade rewards counter for students to cash in for prizes like Cyprus sweaters and Laffy Taffy. The project sold-out. In the second year there were fewer fights, students were happier and the high school was headed into a better direction. She continued to work with her students, taking a more individualized approach. She would sometimes take rebellious or angry kids out in the hall with her foot in the door, and talk it out, a technique she still uses today. Ninety percent of the time it was a problem outside of school, and it would only take a few minutes. “It’s about individuals,” Gehring-Lowery said. “When they join the gangs, they lose their personal pride and lose sight of their potential. You can’t just walk into a classroom and demand respect. You have to earn it by caring about [the students].” She uses the same styles at East today. Students still return to her class after-school, some staying as late as 4 p.m., just to talk with her, play hang man, or work on Julius Caesar essays. “It’s like comparing apples and oranges,” Gehring-Lowery said of East and Cypress. “They each have their positives and negatives. The kids are wonderful and have a lot potential. East is just different in that the students don’t have to worry about all the things Cypress Ridge had to deal with. There’s more of an academic focus here, and that’s terrific. I’ve been blessed to work in both places.”

PAGE 6 EDITORIAL / SEPT. 29, 2008

Spreading to

With Missouri schools starting green cleaning programs, green legislation should start . . .

phy on a much larger scale, the city of Santa Monica, California, reportedly eliminated 3,200 pounds of hazardous material after using safer alternatives to traditional products. Although is East is smaller, the same principle can be applied to create a cleaner environment. However, Missouri is only the fourth state, after New York, Illinois and Maine to implement such a bill. The Shawnee Mission District should support the same plan. Our paper towels are recycled, but we can expand to more and better alternatives. Legislators should propose a bill that requires schools to only purchase cleaning products certified by Green Seal, a non-profit organization that certifies products as being “green” after meeting safety and other requirements. This law should go into effect at the end of the school year, if not immediately. However, if the newly purchased products exceed the standard budget used by the regular supplies, schools should be allowed to override this law and purchase whatever product is within their guidelines, green or not. Yet some schools have benefited after using green products. For example, Georgia’s Riverside Military Academy saved $280,000 after replacing 20 regular cleaners with one Green Seal certified cleaner. Such surpluses could be used by

Harbinger the

a publication of shawnee mission east highschool 7500 Mission Road, Prairie Village, KS 66208

sept. 29, 2008 issue 3, vol. 50

The Harbinger is a student-run publication. The contents and views are produced solely by the staff and do not represent the Shawnee Mission East or SMSD faculty, or administration.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/ STEPHENNICHOLS

ASSISTANT EDITORS/

NEWS PAGE EDITORS/ SARAHMCKITTRICK MADDYBAILEY

BERNADETTEMYERS PAIGECORNWELL

OPINION SECTION EDITOR/

ART AND DESIGN EDITOR/

OPINION PAGE EDITOR/

MEGSHACKELFORD

HEAD COPY EDITOR/ TIMSHEDOR

NEWS SECTION EDITOR/ MICHAELSTOLLE

MACTAMBLYN JOESERNETT

EDITORIAL EDITOR/ ANNIESGROI

FEATURES SECTION EDITOR/ MELISSAMCKITTRICK

10 0 AGAINST FOR

ABSENT

CONORTWIBELL DAVIDHENDERSON

Green Seal works with manufacturers, companies and lawmakers to make production more eco-friendly and to promote “green legislation” such as the green cleaning laws going into effect in Missouri schools.

The Standard

source: Green Seal

Want to have your opinion heard?

send a letter to the Harbinger Editorial Board smeharbinger@gmail.com

FREELANCE PAGE EDITOR/

SPREAD SECTION EDITOR/ ASSISTANT SPREAD EDITOR/

TAYLORHAVILAND

PHOEBEUNTERMAN

DUNCANMCHENRY

A&E EDITOR/

JEFFRUTHERFORD

A&E PAGE EDITOR/ RACHELBIRKENMEIER

MIXED PAGE EDITOR/ AUBREYLEITER

SPORTS SECTION EDITOR/ SPORTS PAGE EDITORS/

Mission Statement

“Green Seal is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding the environment and transforming the marketplace by promoting the manufacture, purchase, and use of environmentally responsible products and services.”

Green Seal identifies the most environmentally friendly brands of everything from fuel-efficient vehicles to hand soap and gives them their seal of approval.

MACKENZIEWYLIE SARAHLUBY

SAMLOGAN

All About Green Seal

ote

FEATURES PAGE EDITORS/

CAMSMITH ANDREWGOBLE

// TAYLORHAVILAND

East to fund for updated curriculums, advanced technology and improved clubs. The plan should also allow schools to retain their current stock of regular supplies and use them until depletion instead of switching to all-green products immediately. In this way, the school saves money by utilizing the remaining resources, yet is still on track to providing a healthier and safer environment for teachers and students. Exclusively purchasing green cleaning products can only help the Shawnee Mission District. It benefits the students and teachers by increasing health rates and decreasing cleaning costs.

The majority opinion of the Harbinger Editorial Board

With block scheduling, a new principal and construction, who has time to worry about cleaning products? Yet cleaning products are exactly what we should be worrying about. According to the Green Schools Initiative, 30 percent of all cleaning chemicals cause health and environmental problems. Carcinogens, neurotoxins and asthma agents are all components of the six billion pounds of chemicals the cleaning industry consumes annually, ironically turning our “clean” school into a toxic dump. East, as well as the rest of America, is crushed by this hazardous onslaught. The best response to this danger is to purchase only green cleaning supplies, products that have a neutral pH balance and are without aerosols. The state of Missouri passed a bill last July requiring all schools to purchase green cleaning supplies, beginning in the 2009-2010 school year. The law offers only opportunity for positive change in the environment. After making the green cleaning supply switch, schools have reported a 3 percent rise in daily attendance. The increased attendance rates are the results of higher health rates, students are less sick and are more participatory in school as well as extra-curricular activities. Using the green clean philoso-

state state

ONLINE EDITOR/ ASSISTANT ONLINE EDITOR/ ELIZABETHMCGRANAHAN

ONLINE SECTION EDITOR/ CAMILLEKARRO

PHOTO EDITOR/ TYLERROSTE

ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR/ MACKENZIEWYLIE

PHOTOGRAPHERS/ CHLOEFISCHGRUND MAXSTITT

KATIEEAST PATRICKMAYFIELD DANIELSTEWART CCCREIDENBERG ANDYALLEN

COPY EDITORS/ SAMKOVZAN KEVINSIMPSON ANNIESGROI

EDITORIAL BOARD/ STEPHENNICHOLS BERNADETTEMYERS PAIGECORNWELL MACTAMBLYN ANNIESGROI SAMLOGAN GRIFFINBUR MICHAELSTOLLE MELISSAMCKITTRICK TIMSHEDOR

STAFF WRITERS/ LOGANHELEY KATHLEENIRELAND LANDONMCDONALD GRIFFINBUR BOBMARTIN JORDANPFEIFFER

STAFF ARTISTS/ DANIELSTEWART TAYLORHAVILAND NICKLUCAS

ADS/BUSINESS MANAGER/ ANNABERNARD

ASSISTANT ADS/BUSINESS MANAGER/ KATHLEENIRELAND

CIRCULATION MANAGER/ SARAHMCKITTRICK

ADVISOR/ DOWTATE

Harbinger the

ISSUE 4 / SHAWNEE MISSION EAST / PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KS

Oct. 13, 2008

Universities are realizing that students are

// TIMSHEDOR

more than numb 3rs

As low SAT and ACT scores creep into the nightmares of hard-working high school students afraid of being denied college admission, relief comes as a simple solution: ignore the test. According to a recent report from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the use of standardized test scores as a significant part of the college admission process is unfair to new applicants. The report rebukes the 60 percent of colleges that attribute more importance to test scores than an applicant’s grades in all courses, essay writ-

ing/sample or class rank. It calls for other, more varied alternatives. The report, issued late September this year, was drafted by a commission made up of members associated with colleges such as Harvard, Georgetown and the University of Connecticut. It discusses the standardized test scores used by colleges to determine aptitude of students before admitting them. “[The scores] may not be critical to making good admission decisions at many of the colleges and universities that

use them,” the report said. For colleges in Kansas, legislature has ruled that the state schools must attain one of three criteria. An applicant must have a 2.0-GPA in 14 core classes, rank in the top third of their graduating class, or score a 21 or higher on the ACT, or above a 980 on the SAT. East boasts the best average ACT score in the district, 24.9, a healthy 3 points above the national average.

Continued on page 2

NEWS: Changes to SHARE Garage sale >PAGE 4 SPREAD: Video games at East >PAGES 12-13 SPORTS: Sophomores step up >PAGE 19

PAGE 2 NEWS / OCT. 13, 2008

Recent study indicates that colleges should look more at the individual and less at ACT/SAT scores //CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

2000

2005

Grades in college-prep courses/ strength of curriclum

80 percent

78 percent

74 percent

Admission test scores

47 percent

58 percent

59 percent

College application essay

21 percent

20 percent

23 percent

Class rank

39 percent

34 percent

31 percent

7 percent

8 percent

Extracurricular activities

East enrollment on a downward trend Though school enrollment has dropped from 1983 to 1835 students since last year, administrators say this is not a problem. “[East] is landlocked and so the possibility of anything like an increase is unlikely,” said Dr. Krawitz. “While we are experiencing a decrease now, I think that the enrollment will plateau here in a year or two.” Associate principal Steve Loe agreed, saying that though suburban sprawl contributed to the drop, it’s definitely not the only reason. “You really can’t say it’s all the Blue Valley schools taking them. We have people moving out of state, we have kids saying East is not the best fit for them and so on.” According to counselor Beth Giles, the majority

of students dropping are moving to private school or are moving out of state entirely as opposed to the suburbs. “Some times the enrollment numbers are off because we have kids drop after they’ve already enrolled,” Loe said. “For example, we had about 1886 initially enrolled for this year but with drops it lowered.” Giles said that the majority of students are dropping before school ever starts and may have enrolled before they knew they were moving. “We’ve really only had 10 drop since school started,” she said. “It’s really just a trend in demographics,” Dr. Krawitz said.

East’s Enrollment Students Enrolled at East

// GRIFFINBUR

2150 2100 2050 2000 1950 1900 1850 1800

Year

2008

1995

2007

// National Association for College Admission Counseling

Factor

2006

College Attributing Importance to Admission Factors

and style and formatting of questions through a nominal improvement by an average of 20 to 30 points on the SAT. Some colleges have become “test-optional,” or not requiring standardized test scores in an admission application. Wake Forest College in North Carolina has become test-optional. The school requires that applicants complete a writing intensive application and submit a letter of recommendation from teachers and counselors and a high school transcript. “[We] have always said that the SAT is not the only measure that should be used when making admissions decisions,” College Board representative Alana Klein said by e-mail. “We have long advised that the best use of the SAT in the admission process is in combination with high school grades. The SAT and high school grades are both very predictive of first-year college success and, because they are slightly different measures, together, they are extremely powerful.” Other colleges have required similar procedures. Lawrence University in Wisconsin accepts a “Common Application,” a form that is recognized by nearly 500 schools and can be submitted simultaneously to multiple institutions by an applicant. “Internally we had always known that the best indicator of a student is their high school transcript and we thought the test optional choice we would be sending that message much more clearly,” Associate Director of Merit Scholarships at Wake Forest University Paul Gauthier said. “It’s too early too see [significant] change, but we do see some individuals that would not have applied here in previous years. It’s a more diverse campus.” “[We became test-optional because] we really felt that there was more to a student than a number,” Directory of Conservatory Admissions Nathan Ament said. “[The SAT] is a good measurement, but it shouldn’t be the only measurement.”

2005

“There are tests [including the College Board’s AP exams and Subject Tests as well as the International Baccalaureate examinations] at many institutions, are more predictive of first-year and overall grades in college and more closely linked to the high school curriculum,” the report said. The AP and IB East courses are considered college level courses by course speed and workload. At the end of the year, students test to receive college credit for that course. “I overwhelmingly hear from students who were prepared in both systems and are much more prepared than the average person they have college classes with,” IB Coordinator and AP teacher Rebecca Murphy said. “We see it as the ultimate college preparation.” To help students prepare for the standardized test and subsequently college, the commission urges high schools to make test prep-classes mandatory. Research has shown that such studies can benefit test scores if students are aware of administration procedures

2004

“I’ve had some students over the years that are willing to not perform at their best because they know they can get the minimum ACT and be admitted, and so they won’t have to worry about it in their minds,” East Counselor Barbara Johnson said. She attributes East’s test-taking success to hard-working students, rigorous courses and good teachers. “But here’s the downside to that line of thinking: If you aren’t learning and testing yourself and performing at your best in high school, you aren’t preparing for the next stage of college. That doesn’t develop their study habits, and therefore that transition is much more difficult.” These scores are still submitted to colleges. The report argues against the use of the SAT and ACT in the college admissions practice, but it does not fully condone the practice. It recommends to the 72 percent of colleges that require standard test scores to adjust the admission balance to focus more towards high school curricula schools and use the scores only as a secondary measurement of a student’s abilities or potential.

// www.citydata.com

the

ISSUE 8 SHAWNEE MISSION EAST PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KS DEC. 14, 2009

2000 -2009 the pieces that defined the decade at East

>>MattGannon

n the last decade, East has witnessed its fair share of championships, the rise and fall of its favorite traditions and the heart-breaking moments that have sombered even the most spirited Lancer. While the nation saw its soldiers go over-seas, the students of East watched five juniors fall from a cake in the middle of Mission Road. While Brittany Spears covered the tabloids, East varsity cheerleaders sat in the stands and watched the JV girls replace them. While two Presidents entered office, two new principals led the school. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s these moments that have defined the past decade and prepare the school for the next one.

>>continued on pages 16-17

NEWS: Locker room thefts (pg. 4) FEATURES: Sign language club prevails (pg. 15) SPORTS: Transfer succeeds on Varsity (pg. 25)

SMASH

PAGE 24 A&E / FEB. 2, 2009

// ALEXLAMB

Back when I saw “Raging Bull,” I immediately considered it the greatest sports film of all time, following the rise and fall of a flawed athlete better than any movie had before. It’s funny, then, that the sport of the film to finally steal that prestigious title is predominantly fake, even though Darren Aronofsky’s indie gem “The Wrestler” feels more real than any sports movie preceding it. Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a professional wrestler still battling it out in the ring 20 years past his heyday. No longer a big-time star, Randy is now over 50, resides in a trailer park (which he can’t even always pay the bills for) and works at a supermarket during the week. But on the weekends, The Ram lives, albeit in small venues staged in empty schools, with a pack of loyal fans rooting him on. After a savage match nearly kills Randy, the doctors inform him that he can’t ever wrestle again. Since he can no longer partake in the only thing he sincerely cares about, Randy attempts to make a normal life for himself. He does what he can to be the father he never was to his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) while she grew up, tries to pursue an actual relationship with the aging stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) he loves, and fills his now empty weekends by working at the supermarket’s deli counter. Rourke gets everything right in his portrayal of Randy, and he uses his real-life experience in the ring to become this worndown veteran of wrestling. During the ‘90s, Rourke dropped acting for five years to take up a boxing career. He eventually had to get plastic surgery, and has looked more like a thug ever since, hardly recognizable from his ‘80s pretty boy persona. Over the past few years he has slowly been making a comeback, most noticeably with his role as the hulking Marv in 2005’s “Sin City”. “The Wrestler” solidifies this comeback. Rourke’s acting here is just remarkable, the best of his career, and his performance is the finest I have seen all year. He’s already won Best Actor at the Golden Globes, and I have no doubt that he will be awarded the same honor at the Oscars. Instead of portraying Randy as a “lovable loser”, Rourke plays him as a real man that makes real mistakes. Randy’s life is full of pain and hardship, more so outside of the ring rather than in it. He may get battered by a hillbilly wrestler, but the real poignancy can be seen in his everyday activities, such as when Randy plays with the children of the trailer park, letting them overpower him as he pretends to be an attacking monster. In moments like these, the warmth of a man whose job revolves around beating other men up shines through, and the audience is left wondering how such a kind soul ended up in such a violent sport. Yet when Randy apologizes to Stephanie for how much he was absent in her life and the terrible job he’s done of being her father, to see this big, tough wrestler quietly crying and

STAR SCALE | |Stay home |

HIT

not asking to be forgiven, just to not be hated, is heartbreaking. Randy’s heart is always in the right place, and he really tries to alter his ways, but he just isn’t able to change his old habits, which only makes him more sympathetic in all the trouble he must suffer through. Backing up Rourke also with fantastic performances are Tomei and Wood. Cassidy, a mother by day, stripper by night, receives little attention at the club from anyone other than Randy. Because of the depth provided by Tomei and her world-weary eyes, the audience understands Cassidy’s motives and sees through her stage persona into the scared woman who lies beneath. Wood delivers a rousing performance in the few scenes she has as daddy’s forgotten girl, and like the rest of the movie, she makes her performance real, without any Hollywood flavor or cliches. When she tears into Randy for his character flaws, her outrage and harshness are absolutely trueto-life for someone in her position. However, It’s director Aronofsky that gives “The Wrestler” it’s underlying subtlety. In his past movies, drug-addiction masterpiece “Requiem for a Dream” in particular, he effectively used lots of quick cuts and fascinating up-close shots to jolt the senses. But in “The Wrestler,” he has dropped this technique for a more documentary-like approach, using 16mm film and behind-theshoulder shots following Randy around. This works amazingly for the movie, and immediately brought me into Randy’s world, as I felt like I was right there with him. In any sports movie, the sequences of the sport have to be handled very carefully, and the three wrestling matches are done extremely well. The wrestlers discuss what moves they want to use on each other as they warm up in the back room, and it’s revealed just how fake and how real the sport of prowrestling actually is. The explicit brutality is shown in all its bloody detail, ranging from mangling barbwire to a winceinducing staple gun, but it never feels violent for violence’s sake, always proving that while wrestling isn’t a legitimate sport, the wrestlers themselves are legitimate athletes. The final moments of “The Wrestler” are achingly beautiful, raw and honest in their pure emotional power. The ending plays out flawlessly, and I left the theater with the most touching film experience of the year, truly impacted by this thought-provoking masterpiece. Any movie that can affect my emotions and pluck at my heatstrings is special, and “The Wrestler” is one for the record books.

| Rental at best |

// CELEBRITYWONDER.COM

‘WRESTLER’ DELIVERS KNOCK-OUT PERFORMANCE

MICKEY ROURKE

G N I R E H IN T

|Worth seeing |

Mickey Rourke wasn’t always in front of the camera. Before making his Hollywood premiere in 1981’s “Body Heat” he was putting up the red gloves in L.A.’s Fifth Street Gym, the same house that saw Muhammed Ali and Sugar Ray train. He faced world champions in an extensive amateur career, and fought his way to a 20-6 record, highlighted by a 12 consecutive first round knock-out streak. He went pro when he returned to the sport in ‘91 after a hiatus for acting, but retired after seven bouts, a million dollars and the cover picture of World Boxing Magazine. // IMDB.COM

|Instant Classic

PAGE 15 FEATURES / ISSUE 12 // MOLLYTROUTMAN

Epiphany-to-Paper

// TRENTCOFFIN

TRENTCOFFIN

s e s s e r p Seniohr reoxugh songs, self t ic and video mus

Comic sketches, discarded animations, recording equipment, a computer, pencil sharpener and speakers crowd senior Trent Coffin’s desk. Original comic books fill the bookshelf in one of the two rooms of the finished attic. In the books, arms turn into licorice and lollipops, aliens fire gamma rays and Christmas sweaters attack. It’s a world of color and fantasy, all drawn from Coffin’s steady hand. “Real life isn’t like that you know,” Coffin said. “Real life isn’t all sunshine and daisies.” Coffin was born with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and Tourettes disorder. While managing his challenges can be tough, expressing himself through comics, videos and music is no challenge at all. “[Art is] a catharsis pretty much,” Coffin said. “It’s kind of like me talking to an invisible therapist.” Coffin remembers that while other first graders were playing t-ball, Coffin enjoyed busily drawing, reading and writing. Watching Spiderman and Dexter’s Laboratory cartoons inspired Coffin’s original characters Stitch Boy, a living rag doll, and Happy Boy, a five year-old child with plans for world domination. Whether in Hell or in the classroom, every panel in Happy Boy comics depicts Happy Boy with an oversized smile. His friends, Sad Boy and Pretty Girl, defeat the devil, destroy entire cities and alien ships, but color pictures in their first-grade classroom. Stitch Boy is a film character that has grown alongside Coffin’s other artwork for two years. Attending school with human kids, the son of Raggedy Ann and a scarecrow deals with the complexities of being different from his peers. Coffin also deals with the complexities of being different from other kids at school. Randomly wanting to blurt meaningless phrases, and having trouble focusing on monotonous tasks, Coffin works every day to keep his tics at bay. “Because his tics are so outward and so physically visible to everybody I think [his Tourettes and ADHD are] a much tougher challenge,” Coffin’s mother Lori Gillin said. “We focus more on Trent as a person and really always told Trent, ‘there is nothing that you can’t do.’” Coffin believes this also and acts as an inspiration to other kids at the Joshua Center, an association that helps families to learn about ins and outs of Tourettes and ADHD . He works hard not to let his Tourettes affect

his work even though his case is slightly more severe. Stress is one of the leading factors that can activate the capricious symptoms of Coffin’s Tourettes and ADHD. Creating comics and writing songs has become as an outlet to some of the stress that comes with his challenge. “Despite [the fact that] I have these disorders, I’m maturing and I’m learning what’s socially acceptable and what’s not.” Coffin said. When Coffin was seven-years-old, his parents took him to the Joshua Center. Before long Coffin was able to stand in front of the class and educate the other children of the reasons behind his tics. Growing older, Coffin focused on taking an interest in others. He soon formed a network of friends who were also interested in art and comics. Having already produced and sold a comic book in stores, Coffin has learned the intricacy of what it really takes to run a business deal. The comic was about Johnny Salem, a witch hunter and protector of humans and good witches. After creating the comic it took $152 for Kinkos to print 10 copies. Next he paid Beep Bop comic store to put his comic on their shelf, but he made only $5 off of the comic. “It wasn’t a very good business deal but it was a good experience for me to get my stuff out there and actually see what people thought,” Coffin said. Creating purely for the fun of it; Coffin figures there will be plenty of time in the future to make money off of his art. In the future, Coffin hopes to build his own animation business in California, New York or in Kansas City, with Stitch Boy as a possible feature film characters during his career. Although he hopes his characters will be as popular as the Simpsons or the Power Puff Girls, Coffin wants to remain behind the scenes. “Animators don’t usually get [a lot] of press,” Coffin said. “But you do see their movies or TV shows which kind of lets you see them without seeing them.” Preparing for his career, Coffin looks forward to the next four years at the KC Art Institute. The Board of Trustees at the Institute granted Coffin a generous scholarship for his artistic skill and work ethic. “I’m going to the Institute because it’s an art school that’s really renowned and it’s convenient,” Coffin said. “The reason why I do art is because I love it and it’s fun and it’s a good way to make a living. I know that’s what I want to do.”

not an average

issue 2 features page 19

WALK IN THE PARK

Student Council Execs carefully plan ambitious ideas after receiving Principal Krawitz’s approval

>>TimShedor

legends of the hidden temple roller derby

Facing off in a high-stakes in-line competition, East’s biggest rival will face the Lady Lancers this spring in a roller derby. The ladies must keep South’s finest from completing a fullcircle around the rink in this irrevrant and potentially agressive challenge that makes Powerderpuff look like Marshmallow fluff. “It’s a pretty physical sport,” Exec President Joe Craig said. “It can get pretty tough.”

After a monotony of “Singled Out” get-to-know-you games, a seniors-only mixer borrowing heavily from the underground Nickelodeon TV hit will feature a near-replication in the gym of host Kirk Fogg’s cutaway jungle wonderland, trivia, daring team feats, and of course, a dramatic finale. “Singled out was too old fashioned, we weren’t getting much participation,” Exec Treasurer Chris Melvin said. “[This year] I think a lot of kids remember watching the show. It’s more competitive, more about being a team, and it’s not as awkward.”

romp A long time ago, ROMP (a acronym-play on Prom with a little flair to set it apart from MORP) was the year’s premier goofy dance, but it was cancelled after attendee’s“irresponsible behavior.” With a little trust in the senior class and a big push from StuCo, the upperclassmen-only dance is coming back late winter.

crush

Roses are red, violets are actually violet, and this Feburary, love is orange. Alongside the Valentine flower fundraiser, StuCo will sell a letter’s delivery, accompanied by a complimentary Crush soda, to your own crush at a dollar a pop. The twist? Receivers are able to find out who sent them their letter...but only after paying the sender’s set amount.

stop the bop

MMbopdobiedobiebop! The Hanson boys continue their Phish-like resurrection by gaining buzz with a StuCo-hosted passing period anthem based on their ‘90s runaway hit “Mmmbop.” Although this decade around, the song’s stuck-in-your-head-foreternity catchiness will betray the blondies. Students are encouraged to pay cash until the $500 goal, donated to the Johnson County Christmas Bureau for the Can Drive, is reached to “stop the bop.”

drive-in movies

Coming soon: a 16-foot-tall Jack Nicholson. This Halloween StuCo may host several nights to take your Homecoming date on a real date by posting a ginormous screen in the junior lot and previewing the classic monster movies and a more modern horror flick. Here’s Johnny.

theMaybe

Meter

>>photoillustrationbyLindseyHartnett

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot? or just Rock, paper, scissors?” It’s a question as old as the chicken and the egg, yet one that is a favorite excuse, most often irritatingly interjected before “best two out of three” is called. But come this official open-to-all tourney, there will be no excuses.

A tradition that heralds from last year, this year’s bonfire will host all current athletic teams and the illustrious and ever-candid Drum Line (rumor has it they’re covering ‘Lil Wayne’s “A Milli”). But instead of last year’s one, this year will be bookended by two fires, one in the fall and one in the spring.

bonfires

music fridays

For the kid who never wanted to grow up or wait for the E-flat bell that loves to take its sweet time: an end-of-the-week passing period schedule based on musical serieses. One week it may be Disney, the next a movie theme like the William Tell Overture. Just another reason to whisper TGIF after every class, starting second quarter.

OUT

rock, paper, scissors tournament StuCo’s brainstorm forcasts what may (or may not) be the next big idea

issue 7 news page 3

the

a forecast into this year’s surprising winter season >> TimShedor

Senior Seminar This year, with reversed block days and the anchor class assuming the start of the week rather than the end, the universal study hall that is seminar continues to adapt with an open-ended experiment. Starting next semester, seniors with aboveC semester grades, zero unexcused absences and no 09-10 suspensions will be able to determine the fate of their own eighth period. For most, this means unprec-

edented freedom. Not enrolled in a seminar class, outwardbound students are free to leave campus or continue to visit teachers-as long as they don’t loiter on East grounds. “I think it’s a great opportunity for [seniors],” Principal Dr. Karl Krawitz said. “It provides them a little bit more freedom. In second semester, seniors are already starting their transition away from high school.” All seniors applying for seminar exemption must submit completed eligibility criteria forms by Friday.

S w e a t y, bright and wild, this year’s MORP will retain legendary status for years to come. The dance was boosted by the neon graffiti from East’s premiere urban artists, hype from “Stop the Bop” ‘s insanity, and most of all, the intimate and uniting cafeteria dance floor. After the positive responses a cafeteria-hosted Homecoming received earlier this year, as well as the freshmen mixer in Sep-

Cafeteria Dances tember, the lunch room was selected by Student Council to host the mixand-match dance too. Expect to frequent the cafeteria for other official dances this year, like the Down

Sportsmanship Scrutiny Last year’s athletic functions witnessed the full gamut of fan support - from the infamous baby powder throwing at the Northwest game (see left) to the fan ejection at the basketball state playoffs. According to Principal Dr. Karl Krawitz, the Kansas State High Schools Athletic Association demanded a tighter leash from East’s administration over the school’s fan base, namely

>>Anna Petrow

at the boys’ varsity basketball games. And although the administration didn’t agree with some of KSHSAA’s statements, the bottom line was clear: if East fans didn’t refrain from boos, foul language and disruptive behavior, the KSHSAA may bar fans from sporting events. Such a ban would not only instigate an uproar from the student body, but would also

>>Mackenzie Wylie Syndrome Dance, WPA and the upperclassman-only ROMP.

cost East precious revenue that comes from ticket sales and concessions at games. This season could become a make or break for East basketball under the KSHSAA officials’ watch. “I really hope…that we go to these things proud of who we are, and standing for what we represent and not necessarily at someone else’s expense,” Krawitz said. “I have every belief that our students…have accepted that.”

and

the

Choir Concert

>>Rachel English

Singing from the halls of Village Presbyterian Church, the choir of yesteryear was sandwiched between the great arch of the main sanctuary. Yet the organ, vaulted ceiling and textured atmosphere of the church dwarfed the then-under-construc-

tion home auditorium. This year, the highly-rated winter choir concert returns to the remolded Dan Zollars Auditorium on Dec. 8. Although the acoustics are still confined by the lack of proper equipment, the seating will be much more comfortable and much more available than last year’s performance.

Veteran East winter warriors again face another back-to-back snow-day-less winter as the November heat wave crawls into December. The official call for a snow day comes from superintendent Gene Johnson, who confers with members of the Board of Education and the Blue Valley and Olathe District superin-

Snow Days tendents before canceling a day of school. Other barometers that mark inclement weather include the reliability and stability of transportation, if sub10 or -20 degrees are present and whether or not the snow in parking lots will be plowed before the 7:40 a.m. bells.

>>Karen Boomer