Issue 7

the

NW PASSAGE March 8, 2018 Vol. 49

NORTHWEST PASSAGE IIssu ss uee 0 7 V o l . 49 Vol. 49 M aarc rch 8

TA BL E OF

CONTENTS

The Power of Speech

7

ACLU voices concerns over school board’s open forum policy

9-12

Hard to Chew Open lunch options make it difficult for seniors to eat healthfully

Fears, Mesh, Stay Fresh

16

Dawson Mesh and Henry Fears are elected Student Council president and vice president

STAFF: PUBLICATION OVERSIGHT: Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief

OUR PASSAGE: The purpose of the Northwest Passage is to relay important and interesting information to the community, administration and students of the Shawnee Mission Northwest High School. As a news magazine, the Northwest Passage will cater to the interests and concerns of the student body. Outside concerns and activities will only be covered if they somehow affect the school or students. The Northwest Passage is a 20-page news magazine. The paper will be distributed every four weeks during fourth hour. Subscriptions will be available to the community for $25. The Northwest Passage firmly supports the First Amendment and opposes censorship. The content of the newspaper will be determined and created by the entire staff. When questions concerning word choice, legal problems or ethics arise, the editorial board and adviser will discuss the problem to find the solution. In these cases, the editor-in-chief and editorial board will have the say in all decisions. Letters to the editor will be accepted and encouraged. The staff reserves the right to edit for grammatical mistakes, length and good taste. Letters may attack policy but not people. In no way will ideas or viewpoints be changed.

The editor-in-chief and editorial board reserve the right to refuse any letter.

+PHOTO BY PAGE MORGAN

STAFF WRITERS:

CONTENT MANAGEMENT:

Design Editor Photo Editor Photo Editor Copy Editor Copy Editor Ads Manager Online Copy Editor

Rachel Albers Madeline Manning Erin Henton Asher Norberg Samantha Joslin Will Gross Annalissa Houser

ADVISERS:

Adviser Assistant Adviser

02 March 8, 2018 | Vol. 49

Cadence Elder Jack Lynch

Susan Massy Wes Mikel

STAFF DESIGNERS:

Jake Ditto Anastasia Kling Rory Dungan Kate Lawrence Nicholas Lorino Sonni Meyers Matthew Owens Sam Rice Kaili Sitz Cate Taggart

Erin Albers Kennady Bustamante Rylee Garrett Kasi Maniktala Alden Norberg Grace Roeder

Invisible Illness

Since not all struggles can be seen, treat everyone with kindness and respect.

When my mom was first diagnosed with cancer, my whole family sat at a booth in Applebee’s, prepared for a normal dinner.

This dinner was anything but normal. My mom began to cry and told us she had breast cancer. She assured us everything was okay, but it wasn’t. From her hair falling out in clumps to her being too sick and embarrassed to leave the house,

everything seemed to fall apart. She spent the next year “curing” the cancer, but there is no cure.

Her cancer was in remission and then returned in 2017, hitting us all harder than ever. That year was hard on my sister and I. We cried with her, smiled with her and focused on the important things. I never expected her to get cancer again, so I took a lot of things for granted. I went months without talking to her and seeing her.

When she got sick again, I realized some things are more important than others.

Family is more important than anything and focusing on the moment is essential.

My mom suffers from stage four metastatic bone cancer, and nobody even knows. Although this isn’t the first time she has been diagnosed with cancer, this is the worst diagnosis yet. She has not lost her hair but continues to become more sick. She has been through radiation and chemotherapy before. These made her feel worse and influenced her decision to refuse chemo this time. Even daily activities like sneezing can break her ribs and fracture bones.

+BY CATE TAGGART

It was hard seeing my mom weak from radiation and chemotherapy; seeing my mom in the hospital, connected to machines, 20 pounds thinner than she used to be; seeing her pretend not to be in pain when she tried to sit up. It was rough seeing my mom try to recover from a double mastectomy.

My life was falling apart and I was still supposed to turn in my geometry homework every night. I was a complete wreck and no one noticed, because I didn’t let them.

Because her disease isn’t noticeable, she does not receive sympathy from others who are unaware of her condition. If a sickness is not visible, no one really cares.

While going through this, I learned that asking for help doesn’t hurt. After a few days, I discovered it is super hard to catch up on long assignments and I needed guidance. My teachers began to shorten assignments and my friends started to understand how hard things are when a parent is very sick.

But people should not need an excuse to treat others with kindness. You never

Love is like Breathing

Putting positivity and kindness into our environment will make high school a better place

Love is like breathing. You take it in and let it out.

—Wally Lamb from his novel “She’s Come Undone” The first time I read this book was in the back of my sophomore English class. I thought it was interesting, but not enough to pursue further. It was not until a year later that I saw the book’s cover — a pale, moony face floating above a languid sea — staring out at me from a shelf in Half Price Books.

I bought it for $2.

It changed my life.

03 March 8, 2018 | vol. 49

High school is not a place that breeds self-love. People do not look or feel their best when they wake up 10 minutes before rushing out of the door to a place they do not want to be. Our favorite old movies and TV shows like Hannah Montana and Mean Girls taught us that high schoolers are judgmental and cruel, and that popular girls are, by definition, rich, mean and drop-dead gorgeous. Popular boys, then, must play sports, fail classes and disrespect women.

If you do not fall into these categories of “popular,” there is no doubt a constricting, negatively-stereotypical label out there for you. It is easy to point at people and call them “nerds” or “stoners.” It is not so easy to be on the receiving end.

Although high school stereotypes are a major contributor to this point, my problem is not solely with these. I have more of an issue with the notion that high schoolers ruining each other’s self confidence has become, or maybe always has been, “typical” or “just the way it is.”

That is why when I read She’s Come Undone, I was so moved by this quote. It was the catalyst encouraging me to rebel against this negative, self-deprecating high school culture.

To me, this quote means that in order to receive love and positivity from your environment, you must put love and positivity into the world. Think about it:

know what people are going through, and even if someone looks perfectly fine, they could be dealing with struggles that you can not imagine.

Instead of turning your cheek at someone crying in the bathroom or in the halls because it makes you uncomfortable, reach out and ask if they need anything or if they want to talk. A lot of the time, the person just wants to talk to someone, even a complete stranger.

“Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” - Julie Andem

“My life was falling apart and I was still supposed to turn in my geometry homework every night. I was a complete wreck and no one noticed, because I didn’t let them.”

+BY SAMANTHA JOSLIN`

if you inhale for long enough, pretty soon you will not be able to take in any more air.

But if you breathe out, you start a steady flow of taking in breath and exhaling it.

If you do not focus on forcing yourself to breathe, you will not even notice that you are doing it — and if you make a habit of putting love into the world, eventually it will be instinct, too.

After a few days of this quote echoing in my head, I decided to change. I was not helping anyone by putting anything but love into the world, least of all myself. I started spreading kindness as often as I could: tossing out compliments to everyone I spoke to, being generous with my time and energy when a friend or stranger needed help, swallowing my judgment and trying to understand people when they said something I disagreed with. When I was having a bad day, I began to recognize that it was because I had failed to put joy or kindness into my environment for a while. Instead of moping around, I started sending supportive messages to others when I was sad, or going to work helping someone else with a problem. Not only did this distract me from my own sadness, but it brought happiness back into my life.

Love is like breathing.

Complimenting someone else usually means getting a compliment in return.

Giving someone else advice usually means they will be there to give you advice when

you need it, too. Giving your time to lift someone up or giving your money to pay for someone else’s dinner usually means that you will be repaid in both gratitude and similar favors.

You take it in...

High school is already a pretty tragic place, something we cannot escape even when we convince ourselves how lucky we are to be receiving such a thorough education. But maybe we would be more open to accepting how truly privileged we are if our environment was more supportive. Every day, we are required to come to school and stay here for seven hours or more. Why not make it a place we can enjoy?

And you let it out.

You can start by exhaling. Breathe out a wave of support and generosity. If everyone does it, we will all be on both the giving and receiving ends. When you need to breathe in, there will be enough love hanging around that eventually everyone can get in tune to the current of positivity.

There is no point in taking shallow breaths of negativity or labored gasps of hate.

There is no reason that we need to dread coming to school every day. Let the ebb and flow of love blow over Northwest, and maybe then high school will not be such a terrible place, after all.

A CALL TO ACTION

from Sly James, mayor of Kansas City, Mo.

Dear Students, I’ve been listening and watching the news for several days since the violence in Parkland, Florida and wondering how did we, once again, allow more of you to be mowed down by an apparently disturbed young man wielding a high-powered, military-style assault weapon with a large capacity magazine. This is especially sad and ridiculous, even infuriating, considering the situation was both predictable and preventable.

Seventeen more of you dead in Florida.

Valentine’s Day. 2018.

If this were the only such incident, or at least an infrequent one, it would be immensely sad and tragic. The reality that such massacres are now relatively commonplace, however, is more than that.

It is unbelievably incredible.

Undeniably horrendous.

It’s totally incomprehensible that these mass murders have turned America’s students into the most endangered group of people in any industrialized country in the world.

According to the New York Times (2/15/18), more than 438 students and teachers have been shot in at least 239 school shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012. There have been 63 people injured or killed in 6 school shootings in the first 45 days of 2018.

Education Week, 2/1/18 Although mass shootings have been generally increasing in different settings, schools are unfortunately frequent targets.

“The third deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history was at Virginia Tech University in 2007, when 32 people were killed. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is tied for the fourth-highest casualty shooting, with 26 deaths.” ABC News, 2/15/18 This carnage is spreading like a raging infection left untreated. The difference between an infection and school shootings, however, is that at least a doctor diagnoses, treats and tries to cure the infection.

Politicians and other adults who should act like doctors, caring for a nation infected by gun violence, make absolutely no effort to diagnose and treat this disease. In fact, many argue that if gun violence is a disease, the best way to cure it is to inject it with more guns and bullets. That makes no sense and it does nothing to protect you all — the future of our country.

The reality is that Congress has refused to even consider the public health impacts of gun violence. They passed legislation prohibiting the Center for Disease Control (CDC) from even researching the issue. You only have to live in a city suffering from any level of gun violence to understand just how big a public health issue it is. State

04 March 8 2017 | vol. 49

government has aggravated the problem by refusing to allow cities like ours and St. Louis from doing anything to try to control the number and types of guns on our streets and in the hands of those who shouldn’t have them.

Students, it should be clear to you by now that the adults responsible for protecting you have been unable and/or unwilling and/ or incapable of doing so. They see you shot and dying, wring their hands, shake their heads, say they care and then pass laws to make it easier for almost anyone to get any gun. This is not leadership. It’s politics at its worst.

There is so much money tied up in gun manufacturing and sales that politicians become weak in the knees when they consider it may be withheld from them or used to finance an opponent if they dare advocate for common sense.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) spent $11,438,118 to support Donald Trump and another $19,756,346 to oppose Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. And how about contributions to other politicians? The NRA pours money into elections for both the U.S. Senate and House to maintain the insanity that is our gun policy in the United States. They make contributions to or spend significant sums in support of lots of “right minded” politicians or in opposition to their “wayward” opponents. Some argue that the NRA is, in reality, more of a marketing agent for gun manufacturers, rather than a benign club of gun lovers and second amendment protectors. You be the judge: With so much money involved and so many politicians and businesses addicted to it, it’s not surprising that not even surviving victims or images of the bloodied and destroyed bodies of first graders are able to shake common sense from the “cold dead hands” of those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo.

Students, I’m afraid this country needs YOU to show the ADULTS the way! You, those who are increasingly in the crosshairs of murderers, need to protect yourselves, and by extension, US! You may be our last and best hope for change. You can’t leave it to us adults alone. We need you to demand that the politicians protect your constitutional right to life with as much or more commitment and intransigence as they apply to protecting a dubious right for 19-year-olds, domestic abusers and domestic terrorists.

You have to unite in your own selfinterest. I know though, having raised kids of my own into and out of school age, that some of you don’t think such violence could ever visit you or your school. “Those things don’t happen where I live.” Really?!

You may believe that this type of violence only happens to “other people.” Don’t believe it, and remember — you are “other people” to other people.

It’s time for you to unite to protect yourselves. You have to make your voices heard and your faces seen. Don’t listen to those who tell you that you are powerless, too young, or don’t have enough money.

Acting together, you can be powerful if you are visible and insistent. You aren’t too young to die, so you are, by definition, old enough to fight for your lives. The pressure of money has paralyzed the adults. The lack of money can motivate you to innovate, inspire and succeed.

I grew up in the ’60s, graduating high school during the height of the Vietnam War in 1969. Students then were failed by the adult politicians who sent them off to a disfavored war, somewhat like the adult failure to do anything to protect them from gun violence now. Ironically, assault weapons were the weapons of choice in both settings.

Students in the ’60s were extremely instrumental in bringing the Vietnam War to a close. They had no voice in who was being drafted and sent off to war unless they were from families of means and/ or influence inclined to protect their own with a medical diagnosis of bone spurs or flat feet. Those without such means, disproportionately black and brown, served and, too frequently, died.

Then as now, students were on the front lines. Then as now, students lost their lives when they should have been planning families and their futures. Then, as now, students are calling BS on the excuses.

They rebelled! They staged sit-ins. They marched, protested and burned their draft cards. They took a strong position against the war, and it made the adults stop, look and listen.

Some of the protests, like the demonstrations in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, were co-opted by the radical wing of the protest movement and ended in violence.

Other protests brought about violent over-reactions by the government, when students were shot and killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State in 1970. The stance against student shootings and deaths in today’s school shooting tsunami, however, should never incite the violence of the ‘60s,

but it should incite the commitment and activism. Social media could actually be used to accomplish something other than fun, games and bullying.

You are more savvy than we were in the ’60s. You also have more tools and resources available to you. Be innovative and smart in your approach and your goals.

Be honorable, respectful and focused. Use facts and data to prove your points and achieve sustainable solutions. Recognizing that this issue is very volatile, and that some will be critical of your engagement, emphasize productive discussion rather than argument and speak to pragmatism rather than ideology. Be proud of your approach and of your commitment.

You must protect yourselves and either convince or shame the adults into following you toward common sense controls over these potential instruments of your deaths. Limit access to assault weapons.

Strengthen background checks and make them universal. Take the handcuffs off of the CDC and the ATF. You may in fact be the glue that finally helps unite and focus all the adult groups that have been struggling to pass common sense gun safety measures.

I’ve seen the young people from Parkland, Fl., speaking out so bravely about what has happened to their lives. And I’ve met so many intelligent and engaged young people right here in Kansas City since I became mayor. Unfortunately, adults have proven that when it comes to sensible gun control, the politicians won’t listen to us.

But perhaps they will listen to you, our children. So please, show us the way.

Some of you have already started organizing, meeting, speaking out. Soon, many of you will be marching. Keep at it until they start listening to your demands for change and take action. Show us that our country’s young people — black, white, brown, gay, straight, religious, atheist, poor, rich, rural, urban — can all come together to save your own lives and, in the process, save our country from ourselves.

This is your time to take charge and show our nation the way. This time you lead and I, and other adults, will join. Your lives may very well depend on it.

Sincerely, Mayor Sly James

This letter was edited for length by the Editorial board of the Northwest Passage

Stand Up This generation needs to speak out in favor of gun control

24/1 FOR

Seventeen people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas H.S. on Valentine’s Day. In the weeks that have followed, survivors have been embraced and victims remembered.

Somewhere along the way, America forgot that everything great that has ever been accomplished, from sea to shining sea, took grit and determination. This country was built by idealists protesting wrongs they could no longer stomach. In not one instance were protesters welcomed with open arms.

Protesters have never fought for the easy — they fight for what they believe is right. Union strikers were bombed, civil rights leaders assassinated, quarterbacks dumped, children sent death threats — all for speaking out.

So how do students do that? How do they listen to the voices that tell them to stand up and be heard, while watching the abject derision of those who do? How do they stand up against the powerful, when the powerful control everything?

These are the most important questions facing this generation.

When a world is so beset with wrongs and people who refuse to face them, the burden falls to the next generation. They must stand up and endure for the better.

The protesters of the Vietnam War constituted the last significantly influential block of demonstrators.

The Black Lives Matter movement is nearly in the same boat, but a gap of 40 years has left too sizeable a void. It has been so long since Americans have had to fight for the very foundations of their democracy that they have forgotten how.

This generation has a long road ahead, but is more than capable of perservering. All they have to do is look to a shared past of generation upon generation of patriots standing up to the status quo and refusing to sit back down.

AGAINST

When people are told all their lives to stand up for what is right, but are then ordered to sit down, shut up and not rock the boat, a moral dilemma arises.

Last school year, students sat outside of the office in protest of the perceived mishandling of a disciplinary issue with a teacher.

When that sit-in occurred, the students were vehemently told to go back to class and to stop protesting.

When an administrator tells students not to speak for themselves and essentially tells them to be cogs in a machine, the cogs are conflicted.

In Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau said, “A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”

After seeing years of stagnation and abandonment on the issue of gun control from traditional leaders, the responsibility falls to young adults and teenagers to find a better solution. The duty falls to each of us to stand and speak the truth as we see it.

In Parkland, high school students are forcing business leaders to take action on a topic that has historically been a non-starter. We can only hope that political leaders will soon respond affirmatively as well.

Speak up, speak out, speak loud.

When told to shut up and sit down, there is now a moral obligation to refuse.

This is a generation inundated with the confidence of Kanye West and Alexander Hamilton, stirred by the activism of Malala Yousafzai and Jason Kander, consumed with a drive to see a better world.

A new spirit of activism must arise in spite of partisanship, factoryinspired school systems and a general sense of disillusionment in traditional institutions. Someone has to stand up and say no.

And that someone is us.

REACTIONS TO PARKLAND SURVIVORS SPEAKING OUT and the students’ responses

“It’s quite interesting that the children survivors haven’t even buried their friends, grieve, get over shock but had the time to plan for a march, come up with a creative hashtag, get their story to all media outlets all in such a short amount of time…”

—@KamVTV “Hey uh, do you ever like, think?

Before you like, speak? We all see you, ya know.”

—@nikta04

“My sympathy for the #ParklandShooting is very limited.

We should not let kids who are upset make big decisions– particularly on gun control.”

—@KTHopkins “We’re emotional because our classmates died because of GUN VIOLENCE. We might be emotional, but we’re not irrational or illogical. It’s obvious that a change needs to be made. Too many people have died for our actions to be purely irrational emotions.”

—@car_nove “Hey Lefties, ‘AR’ does NOT stand for ‘assault rifle.’ It stands for ‘ArmaLite rifle.’ You want to take our guns but you don’t know jack about guns. See the problem?”

—@TomiLahren “The problem is that you think people not knowing what AR stands for is a problem. But the real problem is that a 19 yo purchased an AR 15 legally, and then proceeded to kill my friends and classmates.”

—@longlivekcx

NW PASSAGE | Staff Ed. 05

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THE POWER OF SPEECH

ACLU voices concerns over school board’s open forum policy + BY MATTHEW OWENS A microphone on top of a podium faces seven elected SMSD school board members. Parents, critics and students flock to this microphone on the last Monday of each month to make their statements known, but sometimes a microphone is just too hot.

“It is never clear what will or won’t resonate,” SMSD parent Jeff Passan said.

Last May, Passan, who has previously covered the Royals for the Kansas City Star and currently works for Yahoo Sports, was concerned about Deb Zila and why she did not recuse herself on a recent unanimous vote. The vote approved the district’s employee benefits contract with CBIZ, which employs Zila’s daughter, Mallory Zila. He spoke during the open forum at a board meeting in which he mentioned Deb Zila and asked why she did not recuse herself.

Once Passan mentioned Zila’s name, president Sara Goodburn stated that “naming specific people is not really allowed.”

Passan went on to finish his remarks.

“Considering the boards’ history with stifling speech, it didn’t at all surprise me that they tried to institute a rule that was clearly wrong and existed only to protect them,” Passan said. “[It] ended up backfiring spectacularly.”

Passan’s critique referred to Goodburn’s attempt to keep him from naming Zila, claiming that he should be able to speak directly about her as an elected official.

Eight days after the meeting, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a letter to the school district discussing the constitutional problems with the no-naming policy. This letter pointed out that a school district cannot limit a person’s right to criticize a public official. Around the same time, the ACLU also sent a memo to the Tonganoxie School District regarding similar issues. According to the ACLU, SMSD never responded.

“Criticizing a public official is very much protected and it is incredibly important for democracy,” ACLU legal director Lauren Bonds said. “That is why we originally got involved.

We felt this was a huge violation of people’s constitutional rights.”

Then, at the Nov. 27 meeting, the topic resurfaced as the board adopted a new policy which stated that “complaints against individual board members and/or individual employees” are inappropriate and those types of complaints should

only be “submitted in writing.” This prompted the ACLU to send another letter.

“You cannot tell people you can only praise public employees, students and board members,” Bond said. “That was basically was a praise-only policy. That is content restriction, which is not permitted under the constitution.”

School districts are not required by law to hold open forums, and they opt to have them. While the ACLU challenges the open forum policy, it was never the board members’ goal to limit free speech in regard to their actions, but to limit people’s disruptive actions.

“It was obvious to us on the task force that the board manual did not reflect what our intent was,” NW board representative Patty Mach said. “Words mean something, and we needed to go back and change those words. It was never our intent to say that you can not criticize board members’ actions.”

A concern is that opening the floor for patrons could lead to the platform being abused by people who talk about personal issues rather than talking about actions and policies that impact the district.

“As a board member, I want to do everything I can to protect my students and employees,” Mach said. “If it gets to a point where people are abusing [their power to speak], we may be forced to shut down open comment.”

The ACLU is aware that both the Wichita and Topeka school boards have policies similar to the one in place in the Shawnee Mission School District.

“This is a common issue that school boards have,” Bond said. “I think there are reasons for wanting to [limit types of speech]. You just have to write a policy that can address your problems without infringing on people’s First Amendment rights. This is not a problem unique to Shawnee Mission.”

During the January board meeting, the board proposed a new policy which allowed complaints about board members’ actions, but banned personal attacks as well as naming specific students and teachers.

“I appreciate that the board’s new members and its new president, Brad Stratton, have been openminded,” Passan said. “I appreciate that I can now criticize when necessary without fear of being cut off.”

Currently, the ACLU is not pursuing legal action.

ACLU BY THE NUMBERS

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STUDYING ABROAD

With another year of high school in a foreign country, these students dive into the cultures they studied throughout high school +BY KAILI SITZ AND JACK LYNCH Most students spend their senior year continually hitting the snooze buttons, counting the days until they can finally graduate. But these students are up for senior year, again.

These students now dive into the cultures they studied in high school head-on, through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program.

The school year in Japan begins in April and Paige Jones arrived in August, the middle of one school year and will begin another before heading back to the United States. After starting to learn Japanese in middle school, Jones decided to take a second senior year there.

“I’ve been interested in [Japan] for a while,” Jones said. “I started Japanese in eighth grade, so five years before I even got here. But, I mean, it all started, I hate to say it, with anime.

Hearing a language and learning about a country that I didn’t know grabbed my interest.”

In Japan, classes are taught seminar-style, with a teacher lecturing and students listening for entire class periods. School days are the same length in Japan as in the United States, and, due to Japan’s advanced curriculum, Jones is not technically a senior.

“On top of being in high school again, I am technically a sophomore,” Jones said. “I’m in a class with 15- and 16-year-olds. School here is very different and, for me, it’s quite boring.

Japanese students spend a lot of their time studying.”

Docker Clark’s experience in Belgium is not too different from Jones’, or from other students’ in the United States. While classes are structured differently — higher levels of classes like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate mean being enrolled in more hours of a class, not a more advanced one — a few things are still the same.

“Everybody is still intertwined in drama,” Clark said. “[But] five years of high school basically just equals one more year of maturity [for me]. And last year, in English class in America, we were talking about the absurd and existential. And then I walked into French class, the Belgian equivalent of English class, and they said, ‘Today, we’re going to talk about existentialism.’ So, in general, the material is pretty much the same.”

Clark left for Belgium in August and will return to the United States in July. He plans to attend NYU at their Paris campus for his freshman year before continuing in New York City afterward.

Even before arriving in the French-speaking country, Clark felt disconnected from the life he was leaving.

“The hardest part was the plane ride between

Kansas and Belgium,” Clark said. “I was in a plane, and I had not yet met my first host family. There was no place on the world for me, I was just on a plane seat. You have to talk to people you love. If you don’t talk to them for a year, there’s a distance.”

Clark speaks not only of his family members and the feeling of leaving them behind, but his relationship with his boyfriend. “[People] told me ‘it never works out, you guys are young, you don’t really know how to make that relationship survive over seven thousand kilometers,’” Clark said. “Luke and I work as a couple and on individual level. We are constantly working to keep the relationship alive.”

Despite the hardships of studying abroad, one NW teacher in particular has been advocating the positives of the Rotary Youth Exchange Club program for years. French and Spanish teacher Doug Murphy encourages students to participate in the youth exchange, as it improves their language skills considerably.

“I made the mistake of studying abroad in college,” Murphy said. “It isn’t a mistake [in itself], but I didn’t realize how easy it was to study abroad [in high school]. There’s a lot of groups you can study abroad with, but when I was in college I kept meeting all of these kids who had really good language skills. I had never heard of this exchange thing, and so I asked them, ‘How did you guys get so good?’ They all said the same thing: ‘I did a second senior year through Rotary.’”

Students who study abroad sign up through a local Rotary Youth Exchange, like the Shawnee, Overland Park and Lenexa Clubs. When applying for youth exchange, students also have the choice to apply to college as usual.

“You apply to colleges of your choice, you get accepted to Rotary and you tell your college to hold your scholarships,” Murphy said. “You’ll be a year more mature, and you come back with much more experience to generate questions.”

With hardships ranging from studying to keeping in touch with loved ones, participating in the Rotary Youth Exchange may not seem like an attractive option. But for anyone craving a unique experience in a new culture, studying abroad before college is a viable option.

“If you’re going to get good at a language you need to go abroad,” Murphy said. “By doing that in high school you find yourself immersed, you live with families. So you’re also still a kid which means people still explain to you how the shower and toilet work. And when you do it as an adult that’s a very awkward conversation.”

PHOTO COURTESY PAIGE JONES

PHOTO COURTESY DOCKER CLARK (FAR LEFT)

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAIGE JONES (FAR RIGHT)

“So there was no place on the world for me. I was just on a plane seat.”

—Docker Clark

08 March 8, 2018 | vol. 49

PHOTO COURTESY DOCKER CLARK (THIRD FROM LEFT)

HARD TO CHEW

MOST POPULAR OPEN LUNCH SPOTS

MOST POPULAR SCHOOL LUNCH Pizza 270 calories 20 grams of protein 9 grams of fat 3 grams of sugar

French toast sticks 560 calories 23 grams of protein 25 grams of fat 15 grams of sugar

Quesadilla 300 calories 19 grams of protein 11 grams of fat 2 grams of sugar

Open lunch options make it difficult for seniors to eat healthfully

Popcorn chicken

+BY CADENCE ELDER, ANNALISSA HOUSER, SAMANTHA JOSLIN AND JACK LYNCH

O

ne of the most coveted senior year opportunities, along with the taste of impending graduation, is open lunch. When students trade the cafeteria’s required fruits and vegetables for the cheapest, tastiest fast food options, however, it is not always a reward.

“I pretty much go out every day,” senior ZhanArden Vil said. “I don’t always eat — sometimes I just chill in my car. I like to go to Wendy’s, that’s the number one spot, [but also] Burger King, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken. [At] Wendy’s I get the “4 for $4” and a Frosty. A Frosty is essential.”

To most seniors, Vil’s open lunch activities are nothing out of the ordinary. According to a NW survey with 271 responses, Wendy’s is the second most popular open lunch spot, behind Chipotle and just ahead of McDonald’s and Taco Bell. But, while the 4 for $4 meal is enticing price-wise, the health cons may outweigh the pros. With a choice of one entrée from a menu of eight options, grouped with fries, chicken nuggets and a drink, it is obvious that this is not the healthiest deal in the world, which may lead students to choose the apparently healthier items on the deal’s limited menu. But even the seemingly guilt-free grilled chicken wrap is only 120 calories less than the Double Stack cheeseburger on the same menu, and contains 15 grams less protein.

At McDonald’s, it’s no better. The healthiest full salad on the menu is the $4.59 Bacon Ranch Grilled Chicken Salad, with 320 calories, 14 grams of fat and 42 grams of protein — that is more calories and more fat than the six-piece chicken nugget box. On the other hand, the unhealthiest salad is the $4.79 Southwest Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Salad, which contains a whopping 520 calories and 25 grams of fat. Compared to the classic $3.99 Big Mac, which has 540 calories and 28 grams of fat, it’s hard to expect students to pay a dollar more for

a salad with a mere 20 calories and three grams of fat less than the popularly unhealthy Big Mac. The cheeseburger is an even more compelling choice, with 300 calories and 12 grams of fat for only a dollar — that’s fewer calories, less fat and less money than even the healthiest salad, but it fails to provide the nutrients of the lettuce, chicken and other ingredients in the salads.

“There’s not a whole lot of healthy options that are low priced,” Vil said.

“I just get what I like and get what I can without spending too much money. For the price that I would pay for school lunch, which I don’t really want, I could buy something else that I do want.”

Some seniors, like Elizabeth White, usually opt to drive home for healthy, free food options, or just bring their meals from home to the cafeteria. ““[I don’t get fast food at open lunch often] because I have my lunch from home and it’s not worth spending the money,” White said.“[But at school,] they don’t serve the kind of food I like.”

For students with restricted diets, it gets even harder. Exploring vegan and gluten-free lifestyles is nearly impossible without carting meals from home, especially when watching price and time during open lunch. Senior Cassie Gomer, for instance, balances her strict diet with the freedom of open lunch.

“I try to make good decisions for lunch, but sometimes they don’t have the healthiest options at school,” Gomer said. “I do the ketogenic diet right now, which is low-to-no carbs, medium protein and high fats, and I just try my best to make healthy choices.”

That is the struggle for many students — balancing a healthy meal with what they consider appetizing.

But how healthy are the meals in the cafeteria? What about the favorite meals of students who go to open lunch? The truth can be hard to chew.

318 calories 19 grams of protein 18 grams of fat 1 grams of sugar

Burrito 330 calories 17 grams of protein 11 grams of fat 3 grams of sugar

WHY TRY AN ALTERNATIVE DIET? “I eat gluten-free because it helps me feel fueled for the day and when I eat gluten, it doesn't make me feel energized. I also just like eating healthy because I know it’s good for me. I workout and play club volleyball, so it helps give me energy me for that.”

— FRESHMAN TAYLOR MCCARTHY

“Limited red meat consumption is good for you, and so is avoiding high cholesterol. My family members follow this [diet] as well. You are able to get protein through chicken, and can replace practically any red meat with turkey meat.”

— SOPHOMORE ALYSSA MURRAY

HEALTHY (WELL, HEALTHIER) CANDY OPTIONS

While almost no candy would necessarily be considered “health food,” there are surely more guilt-free options to indulge in when it comes to sweets. Pro-tip: Opt to grab these candies in “snack-size” or “fun-size” packages to limit your intake

READY TO SERVE

Although the minutes we wait in line for lunch feel like hours, these people spend their days preparing our meals +BY CADENCE ELDER Kitchen manager Mike Shepherd gets up at 5 a.m. every morning to drop his two children off at the bus stop before heading to work. He ended up in the NW cafeteria because the schedule worked so well alongside his children’s, and he has grown attached to the kitchen and the students he has met along the way.

“No one should ever go away hungry,” he said as he ate his own portion of the school lunch he had prepared for the day.

Shepherd and the rest of the lunch staff serve at least 18 entrées daily. Although the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act began limiting calorie count and sugar content back in 2010, Shepherd says the food still tastes great.

“Most of it was dropping down the amount of sugar and the sodium content that you would have, like ranch dressing, mustard, ketchup,” Shepherd said. “That made it somewhat of a challenge. It put those companies into a scramble as they worked to meet the guidelines.”

By “those companies,” Shepherd means giant

businesses like Heinz and French’s, some of the leading providers of ketchup and mustard to the United States — and to U.S. schools. These companies would lose a significant portion of their business if schools across America refused to use condiments with the sodium content their products contain.

“Some kids [stopped] eating [school lunch] because of the food,” Shepherd said. “I’ve gotten used to it, but the change came around and [we had to] train kids’ [taste buds] that it really does still taste good.”

Head cook Barbara Janssen prepares all the hot food throughout the day. Prior to this change in job description, she spent her days cashiering during lunches. She noticed the decrease in sales right after the change.

“It’s good and bad,” Janssen said. “I have kids in the district myself and so I like them having healthy options to eat. I think it’s good that we are eating more and more healthy food. When that first went into effect, we noticed a huge decrease in sales.

They have been building back

“It’s a no-carb, medium-protein, high-fat diet. I started [the ketogenic diet] at the beginning of 2018 because my mom made my whole family do it to kick off the new year, but it ended up not being too bad. It teaches your body to use fat as an energy source rather than carbs, therefore burning your body fat to provide energy. It allows you to reduce percent of fat and increase the percent of muscle in your body. It has lowered my blood sugar and cholesterol, so it has definitely proven to be worthwhile.”

— SENIOR CASSIE GOMER

Mike and Ike

PayDay

R BA

up over time. Perhaps kids are getting used to eating healthier food, too.”

Another change that went into effect with the act were standards that determined what made a meal and what did not. A meal that a student can purchase consists of an entrée, or a protein, plus a fruit or vegetable.

Any student buying school lunch must buy a meal that consists of those components. This restricts students from just indulging in a sweet treat and not eating a protein.

“It’s harder learning what we can serve,” Janssen said. “For instance, when we say ‘you can’t have a cinnamon roll by itself’ that is because of those laws. It is not just because we are being sticklers.”

Shepherd says that although this may be an unpopular trend among students, the results are apparent.

“When the first change came about, [students] had to take a fruit or vegetable,” Shepherd said. “It was just being scraped off into the trash. After the first three years that I was here, I stopped seeing as much of it go into the trash.”

B A R A JA N S S EN

MIK

E SH EP HER

D

“[I’m vegetarian] not just for ethical or moral reasons, but for environmental ones as well. The amount of harmful emissions from the industrial farming industry, especially beef [is extremely detrimental]. Not to mention the land area which could be allocated to grow more eco-friendly foods while feeding more people for less.”

— SENIOR JENNA STEINLE

Twizzler

Nestlé Crunch Bar

Peanut M&M’s

Regular

765 Calories Tortillas For makeshift pizza crust, try cutting one tortilla into multiple mini pizza crusts.

Calories: approx. 450 Marinara sauce Pack marinara sauce on the side and spread it on your tortillas at lunch time.

Calories: approx. 35 Shredded cheese Toss shredded cheese in a side container of your lunch box and top your pizza at lunch.

Calories: approx. 115 Pepperoni Add pepperoni or another favorite topping to personalize your pizza.

Calories: approx. 50

Vegetarian 930 Calories

Yogurt parfait Toss your favorite frozen fruit in yogurt before you go to school and let it thaw by lunch time. Opt for Greek yogurt to add an extra dose of protein.

Calories: approx. 350

Fruit salad Cut up an apple and any other fruit you like. Squeeze lemon juice on your apple to prevent browning.

Calories: approx. 95 Carrot Sticks Baby carrots don’t require refrigeration and easy to take with you.

Calories: approx. 20

Wheat Thins and hummus Another form of proteinrich chickpeas, hummus, is a terrific option to ensure you get your daily value of protein.

Calories: approx. 180 Trail mix (dried fruit, mixed nuts) Mix in dried fruit and nuts for protein and an interesting mix of flavors.

Calories: approx. 350 Fruit kebabs Experiment with fun combinations of whatever fruit happens to be in season.

Calories: approx. 50

Vegan

815 Calories Spinach salad (spinach, carrots, peppers, dressing) A common health risk when giving up animal products is iron deficiency. Dark, leafy vegetables are a good source of iron with .8 mg of iron per cup.

Calories: approx. 235 Apples with peanut butter Get in your daily servings of fruit and protein with this snack. Don’t forget to coat your apples in lemon juice to make sure they don’t turn brown throughout the day.

Calories: approx. 290 Roasted chickpeas Crunchy roasted chickpeas are a perfect protein-filled and guilt-free option when you’re craving something salty.

Calories: approx. 150

PHOTO BY MADELINE MANNING

Pretzel chips Yes, pretzel chips are vegan — and delicious.

Calories: approx. 140

TOO HOT TO HANDLE

+ BY ASHER NORBERG

Cooking was his first passion, but it ended with a Google Internship Sophomore Reis Miller built his first computer when he was just 12 years old. This year, he, along with other culinary students at the Center for Academic Achievement (CAA), was offered a summer internship at Googleplex, the headquarters of Google, located in Mountain View, Calif. But it was not Miller’s passion for technology that got him the offer — it was his passion for food.

The same year Miller built his first computer, he started working on his father’s food truck, Wilma’s. The truck specialized in modern takes on American classics, such as pulled pork sliders.

After the truck was shut down last summer due to financial reasons, Miller needed to find another way to satiate his appetite for cooking.

I wanted to continue doing what I was doing,” Miller said. “Then I discovered Broadmoor.”

Broadmoor Bistro offers courses in culinary arts and commercial baking for Shawnee Mission students. Since the fall of 2000, the bistro has allowed students to cook and serve menus they create and run the restaurant themselves. This year, the program moved to the Center for Academic Achievement (CAA) which offers two sessions for the classes, morning and afternoon.

Miller attends the afternoon session, going to hours 1-4 at Northwest and leaving at 12:20 p.m. for the CAA. As a sophomore, Miller has to rely on other culinary students for rides to the CAA. “Once you are in the Broadmoor community, we all take care of each other really well,” Miller said. “We are a family.”

Broadmoor has also allowed Miller to experiment with food, and his Instagram account, @inspiredchefs documents his and other culinary students’ edible creations.

“It’s an account where we can share what we’ve made, what we’ve created and hopefully inspire other people to become chefs,” Miller said.

Visiting chefs come to Broadmoor to lecture students and give them menus to create. One of them, Greg Fatigati, is the executive chef at Google. As executive chef, he oversees the many cafés that operate around the Mountain View headquarters. When he came to Broadmoor, he encouraged the students to apply for a summer internship at the search engine giant.

“Google has culinary internships, both high school and post-secondary,” culinary arts instructor and Broadmoor Bistro manager Justin Hoffman said. “He was scouting students to be a part of that.”

For Miller, this internship could be a stepping stone. If accepted, he will spend eight weeks working in Google’s headquarters in various culinary positions. As an aspiring chef, Miller is excited about the opportunities this experience could offer.

“I like cooking with vegetables and creating flavorful dishes with them,” Miller said. “[Google is] very focused on using vegetables and not a lot of meat because the carbon footprint of meat is very high.”

Miller has ample experience cooking with fresh vegetables at Broadmoor. The farm-totable movement that has swept the culinary world has found its way into the bistro.

“We are growing pretty much every vegetable you can think of,” Miller said. “We have our own two-and-a-half acre farm in the back of the CAA building and then there is another farm at the old Broadmoor building which we are going to go harvest in the spring.”

After high school, Miller wants to take time to explore the world’s cuisines and then attend The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in Napa County, Calif.

“My dream is to own a restaurant in one building and then, in another building, a bakery and coffee shop,” Miller said.

Bon Appétit prepared by Miller

Three dishes

Grilled Cuban Steak

BBQ Grilled Prawns

Farm Salad

Sophomore Ries Miller cuts pepper Feb. 26 at the Broadmoor Bistro Center for Academic Learning. The Bistro is open for dinner services 5:20-8 pm on Wednesdays. +PHOTOS BY SKYLAR BROGAN

NW PASSAGE | feature 13

Tear In My Heart Senior Noah Britt continues to suffer from a heart condition after surgery failed to correct it + SAMANTHA JOSLIN AND SONNI MEYERS

W

hen senior Noah Britt went in for heart surgery, he knew something could go wrong.

The doctors admitted a onein-500 chance that the surgery would fail, and, in Britt’s words, he’s just really unlucky.

“I was being operated on [for] Wolff-ParkinsonWhite syndrome,” Britt said.

“Basically, in your heart, there’s an electrical system.

There’s supposed to be two nodes that go off in the heart, but I was born with an extra node. The surgery to remove the node [involved] going in through the two arteries in my legs and my jugular with catheters to map my heart, find the node and electrocute it — at least, that’s how it was supposed to work.”

A team of cardiologists at Children’s Mercy Hospital began the surgery on a good note by successfully mapping Britt’s heart through the rhythm of his blood pumping through his major arteries.

They discovered his extra node was on the left side of his heart, making things a little more tricky; the right femoral artery of the leg (the artery through which they were inserting a catheter as well as operating) leads to the right side of the heart, meaning that the surgeons would have to go through the septum in the middle of the heart to reach the left node.

“That’s where they got messed up,” Britt said.

“Someone got turned around and went a little haywire, and they perforated the right atrium of my heart. They were about to put blood thinners in me and, if they had, fluid would’ve filled my pericardium, which is the sack around the heart. It would’ve suffocated my heart and, eventually, my heart would’ve just stopped from the pressure. At one point, there were 23 cardiologists in my operating room for a three-tofive-person operation.”

If the doctors had given Britt blood thinners, this mistake would’ve led to them cracking his chest open to drain the pericardium.

Luckily, the blunder resulted only in the

14 March 8, 2017 | Vol. 49

surgery being stopped early and Britt staying in the Intensive Care Unit for several days afterward, allowing doctors to monitor his heart. The extra node was not removed, meaning that Britt will need the same surgery again in the coming months.

“It was supposed to be an ‘in one day, out the same day’ type of operation,” Britt said. “[The doctors] were really sorry, I will give them that. You don’t intentionally put a hole in a kid’s heart. But there’s not a lot we can do about it now, so I’m just making a bunch of hole-in-my-heart jokes. I remember the doctors that did my operation came in the next day and asked how I was doing.

I told them, ‘as a whole, I’m pretty peachy.’”

Britt was only diagnosed a few months ago after having an episode while weightlifting at school. After lifting a particularly heavy set, he realized that his heart was beating at about 260 beats per minute (BPM).

“I thought, ‘wow, this sucks,’ and then I did another set of weights,” Britt said, laughing at his own joke. “I got dressed, finished somebody’s lunch that he didn’t finish and then went to the nurse. She was a substitute nurse and [after hearing my heart rate] she was closer to having a heart attack than I was.”

An ambulance was called, but, in a matter of seconds, Britt’s heart slowed to a normal rate of about 60 BPM. The ambulance returned to the hospital after being deemed unnecessary, but Britt’s mother was called. After a trip to their doctor, who recommended that Britt see a cardiologist, Britt ended up at Children’s Mercy hospital with the news that the mild heart condition he had been diagnosed with at birth was actually Wolff-ParkinsonWhite (WPW), a condition which affects approximately three of every 1,000 people around the world, according to the National Institute of Health.

“It can lead to heart attacks when you’re older, but [for now] it’s just a nuisance,” Britt said.

“It’s like a mouse. A mouse living in your home might not affect you, but you want it out of your house. So you lay out a mouse trap, or, in my case, you get heart surgery.”

Britt’s girlfriend, Kiara Alexandra Sprowl attends the medical training program at the Center for Academic Achievement (CAA), meaning that, in addition to knowing the complex medical lingo behind Britt’s condition, she knew the risks of the surgery.

“When I heard about the surgery, I was obviously really nervous,” Sprowl said. “It was awful. When I heard that the surgery went badly, I just kind of shut down for a bit. Then [Britt’s] best friend told me, ‘You look like you need a hug.’

When he hugged me, I just started crying. I’ve basically handled this entire thing by joking about it and panicking.

It’s 50/50.”

Britt is involved in Project Blue Eagle at the CAA program.

Britt’s main goal is to become a police officer, something that could be in jeopardy if his WPW is not corrected.

“I would probably be looked at a little closer in the future by agencies if I told them I have cardiology problems,” Britt said. “I could be dismissed pretty quickly because in order to be a police officer, you have to be tased, and if I had a heart attack while being tased, that wouldn’t be the best image for them. If I get the surgery, I could be tased 50,000 times and it wouldn’t matter. Well, it would hurt, but it wouldn’t hurt my heart. As much.”

Britt’s mother, an ICU nurse, also knew the dangers behind the surgery.

“I was praying a lot,” Donna Britt said. “I can tell you that.

My husband and I were pretty calm. The doctors didn’t have to explain anything; as soon as they told me, I knew all the worst-case scenarios.

Getting upset is not going to help anything. Yelling at the surgeon, yelling at people is not going to help anything — it’s just actually going to make them more anxious.”

Senior Noah Britt and his girlfriend, senior Kiara Alexandra Sprowl.

PHOTO BY DYLAN MITCHELL

How a Catheter Ablation Works The newest and most effective method of correcting Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is pairing an Electrophysiology Study (EPS) with a Catheter Ablation procedure. EPS describes the act of mapping out the heart through major arteries, and is the simpler part of the surgery. The Catheter Ablation, however, is where doctors in Britt’s surgery made mistakes. Here is how the surgery should have gone:

1. A catheter is inserted into two veins or arteries and guided to the heart. The catheters are typically inserted into two large blood vessels.

One is in the neck, called the “diagnostic” or “EPS” catheter, that will enter the top of the heart. Another is inserted through the leg or groin and enters the bottom of the heart; this catheter is typically the “ablation” catheter, and will do the electrocuting (“Ablation means “destroy”).

By coming in from both directions, doctors can more easily maneuver the catheters toward the abnormal node.

2. The catheters are placed in contact with the problematic heart tissue/node. If the abnormal node is on the right side of the heart, this is fairly simple. If the problem is on the left, like Britt’s, things get more complicated, as doctors must send at least one of the catheters through the septum of the heart.

3. Radiofrequency energy is now used to burn or electrocute the node. The catheter is connected to equipment that sends electricity into the catheter’s tip, causing it to heat up and burn the node.

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Retiring Student Council Exececutive board members share their favorite memories of Student Council

16 March 08, 2018 | vol. 49

STAY FRESH, VOTE FEARS AND MESH Dawson Mesh and Henry Fears are elected Student Council president and vice president + BY CADENCE ELDER + RORY DUNGAN

Juniors Dawson Mesh and Henry Fears take the stage in their matching black suits and top hats, ready to persuade the student body why they are the best candidates for president and vice president.

“I’ve been wanting to wear a top hat to a dance the last two [dances] and both times my dates said ‘no,’” Mesh said. “I had the top hat, so I went out and got Henry a matching one. ”

The matching top hats were not the only aspect of their speech that got students’ attention. They started off their speech with a rap and then transitioned into their goals.

“I think it went really well,” Fears said. “We incorporated the perfect balance of humor and seriousness; people enjoyed it, but also listened to the serious stuff.”

Mesh has attended numerous leadership camps and is ready for the challenge of being president alongside Fears.

“[My goal is] to make Northwest a better place,” Mesh said. “[ I want to] have things run more smoothly in StuCo, and get people to events and informed.”

Fears will spend the year being Dawson’s right-hand man, helping class and events run smoothly. Both want to focus on making sure people are involved, not only at school, but within the community.

“Our outreach is going to be bigger than it is this year,” Fears said. “We’re going to get other classes involved more; we’re going to get underclassmen involved a lot.

We want them to feel comfortable, feel at home, here at Northwest.”

This year, seniors Porter Volk and Jack Lammers have filled the role of president and vice president, respectively. It is now Volk’s job to make sure Mesh and Fears are prepared to take on their new responsibility. A big part of the training is helping them avoid the mistakes Volk made this year.

“That is one of the things I am most excited about,” Volk said. “I was sitting there in the room with them after we announced the results and I was just all over the place. I was like ‘Dawson, I have so many things to teach you.’ In addition to the things I did well, the advantage I have now is that I can tell Dawson the things I did wrong and we can just build [the knowledge] up. Even though this means my time is over, I feel like I could close this chapter of my life and I did it fairly well.”

In a room full of leaders, Volk recognized the potential in Mesh throughout the year.

“In times of desperation, he knows how to yell and he will get serious real quick,” Volk said. “He is good at having a commanding presence and people will listen to him when he talks.”

The other presidential and vice presidential candidates’ careers in Student Council are not over yet. The rest of the executive board positions will be decided this Friday.

“Even though we didn’t get to be president and vice president, we still have an impact in StuCo,” junior Sophia Clark, who ran for vice president, said. “Everyone on the executive board has a say. “Just because you have the title doesn’t mean you have ultimate power.”

“

WILL GROSS

“My favorite memory of StuCo was my freshman year when Patrick Shreve took me on a tour of every bathroom in Northwest and rated them on a scale of 1-10.”

CLAUDIA SHAMET

PORTER VOLK

RACHEL PEREZ

“I’d say my absolute favorite memory would have to be runnning for student body vice president. I learned so much about myself during that time.

It was such a cool experience that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

“At our yearly camp-out my freshman year, we sat around the fire and sang songs (“Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker) and talked and played games for hours and hours, and it was then that I knew I had a family in StuCo.”

JACK LAMMERS “My favorite memory of StuCo would have to be a guys’ and girls’ night my junior year. It was a great night at PowerPlay, keeping it 100 percent all day, every day.”

“My favorite memory of StuCo is when we got to go to California, and on the first day, we went to the beach and all the guys found surf boards and started surfing in their clothes. ”

MICHAEL FILSINGER “My favorite memory of StuCo was when all the guys in StuCo got many different substances, liquids and toilet paper and we tee-peed Courtney Jones’ house.”

+PHOTO BY MADELINE MANNING

ALL ABOUT THE HAUL

+BY CADENCE ELDER

+PHOTO BY MADELINE MANNING

Thrifting becomes more popular as students follow trends Whether the new perfect piece is found in minutes or hours, these students are dedicated to making a statement.

“I kept getting really cool clothes from my mom and my grandma,” junior Cate Steinacker said. “My grandma was a seamstress, so she was always very fashionable and had all of these amazing vintage [clothes]. I just started taking a few of their items and making different outfits.”

Borrowing clothes from her mother’s and grandmother’s closets is what started Steinacker’s thrifting hobby. Her favorite places to thrift are Donna’s Dress Shop and The River Market Antique Mall.

“I’m very cautious when I’m shopping,” Steinacker said. “I don’t like spending money, so if I’m going to buy something, I usually make, in my head, like five or six outfits [including that piece].”

Senior Bryan Morfin has a similar tactic when he heads to the thrift shop.

“Usually I go with my younger brother and, before we go, we make an album of screenshots [of clothing] that we would like to find,” Morfin said.

Morfin describes his style as “west coast hipster mixed with greaser.” He says that he finds different designer pieces that he likes and heads to the thrift shops such as Savers or the River Market Antique Mall to find the closest look-alike.

“Growing up, we didn’t have much

money and my mom always taught me I didn’t need to buy the newest clothes,” Morfin said. “Sometimes you can find better deals or even cooler stuff at thrift shops. You can just stand out.”

It does take time to find those oneCADENCE ELDER of-a-kind+BY pieces.

That is the main difference between shopping at thrift stores and department stores. Each piece will be unique and worn before.

“I could easily spend a couple hours at one store, walking around multiple times,” Steinacker said. “Each time I walk around, I find new things.”

Steinacker says that a lot of people comment on her outfits, mostly her mom’s and grandmother’s vintage hand-me-downs.

“I have a lot of people ask me how I always look so cute,” Steinacker said.

“It honestly just comes naturally to me. It takes more work for me to put on a T-shirt and leggings because I’m so aware of what I’m wearing.”

Morfin sees his appearance not only as a way to express himself, but as a first impression.

“If I’m about to meet someone new, I really like to have a good first impression and show them that I care about every little thing, even my outfit,” Morfin said.

“West coast hipster mixed with greaser, yeah that would definitely describe my style,” — senior Bryan Morfin

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Places in KC to rejuvenate your wardrobe City Thrift 11225 Shawnee Mission Pkwy, Shawnee, KS 66203 Savers 13233 Shawnee Mission Pkwy, Shawnee, KS 66216 Plato’s Closet 6620 Johnson Dr, Mission, KS 66202 River Market Antique Mall 115 W 5th St, Kansas City, MO 64105 Donna’s Dress Shop 1410 W 39th St, Kansas City, MO 64111 Arizona Trading Company 209 Westport Rd, Kansas City, MO 64111 Wonderland 309 Westport Rd, Kansas City, MO 64111 Boomerang 3900 Pennsylvania Ave, Kansas City, MO 64111

+PHOTO BY MADELINE MANNING

NW PASSAGE | feature 17

Cougar Corner

Spot the Difference

1. Ball 2. Score 3. Cougars 4. Black 5. White 6. Orange 7. Win 8. Cheer 9. Spirit 10. Goal 11. Crowd 12. Loud 13. Crazy 14. Fans 15. Basket

There are 10 differences between the two pictures. Try to find them all and check smnw.com for the answers.

+ PHOTO BY ABIGAIL ROBERTS + PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MADELINE MANNING 18 March.08, 2018 | vol.49

Back to School These students return to their elementary schools for Cougar Community Commitment + BY ANNALISSA HOUSER, SAM RICE & CATE TAGGART

What is CCC? Student involvement in Cougar Community Commitment (CCC) has begun to increase after years of decline. The program was founded in 1992 by Ron Poplau. This is the only community service class in the school district and, over the years, it has changed dramatically.

Before social studies teacher Sarah Dent took over the program, student involvement had declined

to the point that the program could not continue to send students to nursing homes and the Shawnee Community Center. When Dent took over, students were volunteering at private schools, public schools, SM North feeder schools and NW feeder schools. Today, the continued decrease in enrollment has meant that students can volunteer only at NW feeder schools.

“I am hoping, as our

numbers increase, that I can look into nursing homes or the Community Center,” Dent said. “I think that [the thought] behind CCC was that teenagers sometimes get a bad reputation, and if we could instill those values of giving back to your community at a young age, teenagers would be seen in a better light. It helps teens create habits that last into adulthood.”

Dent hopes to broaden

CCC’s impact, but right now says she needs to focus on the schools that feed into Northwest.

CCC students spend a class period hanging art and grading class work of elementary school students, as well as giving lessons or reading books to the classes. These three NW students have returned to the elementary schools they attended as children to work as volunteers.

Maggie Habben Rhein Benninghoven

Porter Volk Ray Marsh

Lucy Johnson Rhein Benninghoven

Last year, senior Maggie Habben was amazed at how much things had changed when she walked in the doors of Rhein Benninghoven Elementary School for CCC. Now, Habben is in her second and final year of the CCC program.

“It was really fun because we got to revisit and relive everything,” Habben said.

“Some of my teachers are still there, so it’s fun to go say ‘hi’ to them.”

Habben enjoys going back to her old school through CCC. She views the opportunity as a way to thank her past elementary teachers for all of the education that they provided her.

“I like how I can return the favor by helping [my old teachers] in the classroom,” Habben said.

Habben tries to be as

Senior Porter Volk walks into Kathleen Palermo’s classroom, which happens to be next door to his younger brother Easton’s class at Ray Marsh Elementary School.

Even though Volk has grown up as an older brother, he claims that working with children is not one of his strengths.

“CCC has taught me how to work with kids,” Volk said “I’m not super great at that, so I’m improving those skills slowly.”

Four days a week, Volk returns to the elementary school he attended as a child. CCC did not immediately come to Volk’s mind when choosing his classes, but he decided upon it when there did not seem to be a more appealing option.

“I didn’t want to do some basic art class or Intro to Video Production,” Volk said “I didn’t want to do

When senior Lucy Johnson was in sixth grade, a CCC student worked with her teacher.

That was when she decided she wanted to be a CCC volunteer who children look up to. Now, Johnson volunteers at that same elementary school, Rhein Benninghoven.

“I just love it so much,” Johnson said. “It’s a good getaway from school to hang out with kids.”

Helping out in the classroom is not the only thing that has influenced Johnson. With 20 or more hours of community service required per quarter, students are encouraged to volunteer for the community.

“I love being able to give back and feel like I’m making a difference,” Johnson said.

Johnson has had many

involved in community service as she possibly can. One of the ways that she stays involved in the program is by running Cappuccino Day. As the president of CCC, leadership is important to Habben both inside and outside of school. Outside of Northwest, she runs a small group at her church.

Habben loved and looked up to her CCC volunteer and when she was in elementary school, and her passion for teaching began there. In fact, she hopes to continue after college with a career in education.

“I remember when I was in elementary school with all my cool CCC students,” Habben said. “It looked like a lot of fun and now I want to be a teacher so I get to have the classroom experience.”

any freshman class, so I just decided I’d do CCC.” Since Volk has returned to Ray Marsh, he has enjoyed seeing his former teachers and meeting new staff members. Volk has not only noticed a change in the staff, but also the students.

“I think it is a little bit more diverse,” Volk said “There were far more white students when I went there.”

Volk said he not only works with the teacher he is assigned to, but also works with others and gets to help other students. Other than working with students, Volk makes copies of papers for his teachers and takes artwork down and hangs new assignments up.

“I really enjoy getting to leave school with my friends,” Volk said. “We have good conversations on the way there.”

moments throughout her CCC experience that make her feel like what she is doing is seriously impacting the community.

Some of her favorite memories of senior year are helping out in her CCC classroom.

“I have had so many cool moments with the students,” Johnson said, “I would say my favorite was when all the kids in my class made me a goodbye card at the end of first semester junior year, my last day at my CCC site.

We ate brownies that the teacher had made for us and we just sat around and talked. The kids thanked me for everything I did.

They were all so sweet and it was just an amazing moment spent with them.”

NW PASSAGE | feature 19

“Waking up every morning and being able to do what I love is more than I could ever wish for. Theatre has given me a home away from home.�

- senior Maddie Munsey