The ReMarker | February 2021

The ReMarker

Dallas, TX • Volume 67, Number 4 • February 5, 2021 •St. Mark’s School of Texas

‘Coming to

terms’

COVID-19 is not just statistics we see on the television screen. The real truth behind this disease is one filled with grief, suffering, loss — and tales of redemption.

“Even if you hear all of these statistics about how many people in the world have it — how many people in America, how many in Texas, how many in Dallas — and even if you take those seriously, there’s still a very big difference between hearing about it and actually experiencing and knowing someone in your family has it.” — Blake Backes, sophomore Pages 5-7

STORIES Toby Barrett, Jack Davis, Jamie Mahowald, Henry McElhaney, Peter Orsak, Robert Pou, Austin Williams PHOTO ILLUSTRATION Jamie Mahowald

Inside

An artist’s life

Civil Rights

Rivalries

Sixth grade humanities instructor William Atkinson `95’s path from gallery to classroom. Pages 16-17

How a bill becomes a law: the Civil Rights Club’s pursuit to draft legislation with local politicians. Page 18

A look into the history of some of the school’s era-defining rivalries on the playing fields. Page 27

Essentials

The ReMarker • Februrary 5, 2021

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Instagram: @remarkernewspaper Podcast: In-depth conversations concerning all sorts of topics Focal Point on Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud Behind the Column Episode 4 airs today:

What's INSIDE Issues The start of Black History Month and an important Black American: Dr. Louis Wade Sullivan. 3

Culture The Civil Rights Club’s work with a state legislator to pass a bill on civil rights. 18

Student’s opinion on the attack on the Capitol Jan. 6 and statistics on how our senators voted. 4

Examining the changes to the Mini Marque through its transition from club to class. 19

A sophomore’s battle with COVID-19 during school; Jayan Joshi ‘19 skipped the line and received the vaccine early. 5

Five-time Emmy award winner Paul Dini recounts creating some of the most innovative TV shows. 20

Junior Camden Reeves and his family were forced to stay separate from his grandfather after he tested positive for COVID-19. 6 Junior Peter Orsak lost his great uncle — essentially a grandfather figure to him — to COVID-19. 7 An introduction to the new Dallas police chief from City Councilman Lee Kleinman ‘77. 8 Why are businesses moving to Texas? A look through the eyes of students who made that move with their families. 9

Comments overheard around campus.

Marion Glorioso Tony Vintcent Fine Arts Department Chair

I have a Masters Degree in falling.

After fake falling in her Acting I class.

Varun Trivedi Senior

How does a physics instructor continue producing music at home during the pandemic? 21 Buzz: Taking a look at places to get a great haircut around Dallas; Eataly, an Italian marketplace, review. 22 Opinions Editorials: Our letter to Sen. Ted Cruz; Commending the administration’s improved communications. 23 Editorial: Ability to continue some traditions has been a morale boost.

Aniol: Intro to the Big Leagues. 24

Discoveries An explanation of the Texas drought and the school’s conservation efforts. 10

Editorial: More honors electives give students options beyond APs. Mahowald: ‘Top Ramen’ and the prisoner’s paradox. 25

Coding in Middle School: teaching students problem solving in a growing industry. 11

Sports African American idols in sports — Jesse Owens, Bill Russell, Serena Williams and Jackie Robinson. 26

10600 A look ahead to what McDonald’s Week will look like in a year changed by a pandemic. 12 Sitting down with the new Upper and Lower School counselors, Dr. Mary Bonsu and Bridget Redondo.

13

Say what?

PERSONAL COLUMN

What are former foreign exchange students Taisuke Mori and Juan Montabes up to now? 14 A father-son duo’s story about working parallel jobs in alumni relations. 15 Centerspread William Atkinson ‘95: a wellknown street and professional artist, police officer and marine instructor, now sixth grade humanities teacher. 16-17

‘Borders’ Special Section

Analyzing some of the rivalries with nearby schools and what factors make up a high school rivalry. 27 Seun Omonije ’18: the art of combining Division I football and a computer science major at Yale. 28 How has the lack of fans at sporting events impacted athletes and their performance this season? 29 A graphic of junior Colin Smith’s shots throughout the season; “For the Sports Junkie.” 30 Photo story: Basketball, soccer, swimming and wrestling are halted due to pandemic. 31 Backpage Biology instructor Mark Adame’s passion for off-roading. 32

Junior Ekansh Tambe undertook his multi-year photojournalism project by photographing and reporting on notable borders around the globe — ­ from the U.S.-Mexico border to the Korean Dimilitarized Zone. Special Section.

I’ve literally just lost the ability to actually have memory — I’ve run out of RAM. Rahul Banerjee Senior

That experience was unpleasant and disgusting.

Recounting when a chicken pooped in his hand.

TWO SHOTS Senior captain Harrison Ingram spins the ball as he lines up for a free throw.

The Lions went on to lose the game against the Waxahachie Indians 63-65.

Democracy should probably stick around

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n Jan. 6, our democracy saw one of the greatest threats to its existence in our history.

I don’t say that lightly. Typically, I criticize the media for throwing around the word “unprecedented” almost as much as Twitter likes throwing around the word “fascist.” But I have to say, they’re right this time.

A recurring, page-two column is a nice start for the reader. It’s a friendly hello from your neighborhood columnist to look forward to every month. Consistency is key — typically, the column is written by the same journalist, and, typically, he strikes a similar tone each month.

But this month, my tone will be different.

The last time the Capitol was breached was Aug. 24, 1814, by British soldiers during the War of 1812. That’s almost 208 years ago. Our democracy was young, innocent.

Cristian Pereira Today, it is weathered Senior — a veteran of slavery, a Editor civil war and Jim Crow.

On Jan. 6, it was tested again.

The last time a battle flag of the Confederacy was flown in the Capitol was…never.

As the Capitol, a symbol of freedom, civility and perseverance, filled with vandals, unheard Americans who trusted the reckless leadership of “a selfish man’s injured pride,” as Sen. Mitt Romney put it, raided the federal building in an attack that we now know was at least semi-coordinated, searching for the Senate and House chambers with the goal of shedding blood.

“Hang Mike Pence!” the crowd chanted.

Hours earlier, the sitting president of the United States condemned his vice president on Twitter, criticizing him for not “having the courage” to unconstitutionally contest the results of the free and fair 2020 election.

A woman was shot trying to enter the House chamber. A Capitol police officer was killed. And amid the mayhem, the overarching goal of circumventing our republic and stopping the confirmation of a new president lingered in the air with the tear gas that failed to stop the rioters from entering.

This is not a matter of politics.

The polls, court cases, investigations and audits show no evidence of nearsignificant voter fraud or irregularities.

The states confirm the electorates, not the federal government. Yet malicious leaders, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, rode Donald Trump’s coattails of sore losership, fueled by lies.

Trump, Giuliani, Cruz, Hawley — the whole lot — likely can’t be prosecuted for direct incitement. But they can certainly be held responsible.

To take advantage of the natural American fear of tyranny and launch it towards the systems of government that protect us from the tyranny that we so fear — it’s a terrible thing to do.

But, on Jan. 6, we learned that it can happen here.

It can happen here, my fellow Americans.

And for the rest of my life, that realization will linger in the back of my head, a constant reminder to pursue truth, oblige to my civic duties and love my country — actively — so as to prevent another catastrophe from ever happening again.

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Black History Month

Ground-breaking

G

rowing up in small-town Blakely, GA, Dr. Louis Wade Sullivan had to sit in a separate waiting room when he went to the doctor.

The two physicians in his southwestern Georgia town of 1,985 people were white. Black patients had a separate waiting area — away from white patients.

That’s the way it was in 1920s Georgia.

“You’d have to go around to the back of the building and enter a separate door,” Sullivan said.

“Blacks considered that really an insult to antiquity. So many Blacks would head 41 miles south to the one Black doctor in that area in Bainbridge, Georgia. His name was Dr. Griffin.”

Sullivan, whose grandson Paul graduated last year, remembers his father’s taking him to Dr. Griffin to help.

“In retrospect, it’s clear to me that my father was exposing me to Dr. Griffin,” Sullivan said. “I admired Dr. Griffin because he was able to help people, relieve them of pain, so, when I was age five, my parents were asking me and my brother what we’d like to be when we grew up, and that’s when I said, ‘Well, gee, I want to be a doctor. I want to be like Dr. Griffin!’”

True to his childhood words, Sullivan took a career path in medicine — a path that ultimately led him to a seat around the table in President George H.W. Bush’s Cabinet as secretary of Health and Human Services.

But, that young Louis Wade Dr. Louis Wade Sullivan Minority health advocate and health policy leader

Sullivan had work to do.

He finished second in his class at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta and went on to attend Morehouse College, where he graduated third in his class..

“I wanted to get away from a segregated environment and compete not only with Black youngsters but also with white youngsters,” Sullivan said. “So I applied to several medical schools — Boston University, University of Michigan, Case Western Reserve University and University of Minnesota and was accepted at all four. I went to Boston University.”

At first, Sullivan was intimidated by the change in scenery, but not for long.

“I was the one Black student in my medical school class of 76 students,” Sullivan said. “My classmates came from places like Amherst, Middlebury, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia and Brown.

I wondered how I would do as my classmates all finished first, second, third in their class. We had our first examination three weeks after class began my freshman year. I scored very well.

I then relaxed, because I was sure that my education at Morehouse had been just as strong.”

After finishing medical school at Boston University, he stayed on campus to do research work in the field of hematology and was an overtime professor. Soon after, Morehouse College contacted Sullivan for a position in hopes of starting a medical school. He accepted.

“At that time, Blacks were about ten percent of the US population and only about two percent of the nation’s doctors,” Sullivan said. “One of the purposes of starting a medical school was to increase the percentage of Black physicians.”

In 1982, Sullivan and the Morehouse College Medical School moved into their own facility on campus. ThenVice Bush, who spoke at the dedication, got to know Sullivan and asked him to travel to Africa with him.

“When he asked me to go, I was pleased,” Sullivan said.

“But I then said, ‘Well, Mr. Vice President, I’m not in the government, so why would you want me to go?’ He said, ‘Well, I have to be honest with you. I’m going to Africa, and ten percent of our citizens trace their ancestry back to Africa. I want to have some African Americans as part of my delegation, and you would be a good representative for the United States.”

Six years later in 1988, Bush won the Presidency and asked Sullivan to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Sullivan quickly agreed to serve.

As a Cabinet member, Sullivan made progress on many medical fronts, managing large federal resources to help young Black men.

“The incidence of injury and

illness in young Black males is significance of African-American quite high,” Sullivan said. “I history to him in his childhood. wanted to address that, and I “Black history has always allocated $100 million over a been important to me since period of five years to develop the time I was a student here programs to reduce violence, to at St. Mark’s,” Mack said. “My help young people organize their grandmother and aunt both have lives, to really resolve conflicts decades of experience teaching without necessarily becoming in schools, and they reinforced violent.” why it is important to seek to Additionally, Sullivan helped know about history to inform create a more diverse Cabinet, what we do in the present and one that might more closely in the future. I think all history reflect the makeup of the United is important, frankly, and Black States itself. history is particularly important “I worked to increase to me.” the number of women in the For Mack, recognizing the department,” Sullivan said. role racism has played in history “We appointed the first female director I think all history is important, of the National frankly, and Black history is particularly Institutes of Health, important to me.

Dr. Bernadine Healy.

We also appointed Korey Mack ‘00, Admission Officer the first female and minority Surgeon General, and plays Dr. Antonia Novello, who is currently in society is significant Hispanic.” in making progress.

After concluding his work “In my own experience, my in Bush’s cabinet, Sullivan parents, St. Mark’s and all the continued his work as chairman people in my life acknowledge of a commission intended that there are challenges in to increase racial and ethnic our society and that race plays diversity in health professions, a significant role in a lot of issuing a report called Missing those issues,” Mack said “It is persons: Minorities in the Health important that individually Professions in 2004 at the National and collectively we seek greater Press Club in Washington. understanding and awareness And today, Sullivan still and use that to motivate strives for a more diverse medical us to do something about community. overcoming those challenges as a “When we issued our report community.” in 2004, Kellogg Foundation Lorre Allen, who was recently provided a grant to me to form named as the school’s director the Sullivan Alliance,” Sullivan of Diversity, Inclusion and said. “We formed that in January Human Resources, maintains the 2005, and the commission still month’s importance in spreading operates today with programs recognition of Black history. in states around the country to “It’s bringing awareness increase diversity in the health to the accomplishments of professions.” the African American, Black American communities and the The work of Sullivan and cost and the accomplishments countless other Black innovators that they’ve made to our country is celebrated each February, in the areas of science and math, which is designated as Black engineering, medicine, social History Month. justice, education,” Allen said.

Yet rarely discussed is the Broussard suggests Black history of the month itself. When History Month has a major did Black History Month get its impact on youth. start?

“It’s an opportunity to not Dr. Albert S. Broussard, only celebrate the achievements Cornerstone Faculty Fellow at of Black people in the long history Texas A&M University, traces its of the United States,” Broussard roots to Black historian Carter G. said. “But also to expose young Woodson. people — white and Black — to “Carter G. Woodson is called introduce people to notable the father of Black history,” African-Americans who they Broussard said. “He started this may not have known anything week of Black history, and in about.” the 1980s, it evolved into one STORY Toby Barrett, Grant full month. That became Black Jackson History Month.”

ARTWORK Morgan Chow Admission Officer Korey Mack ‘00 also recalls the

The ReMarker • February 5, 2021

HAND OVER FIST Represented by the colors red, yellow, and green, Black History Month advances the place of Black Americans in history and spreads awareness about important AfricanAmericans.

Issues

Dr. Louis Wade Sullivan’s path from small-town, rural Georgia to a seat on the President’s Cabinet serves as inspiration for all of us as the nation celebrates Black History Month.

Capitol

A student shares his opinion on the Capitol riots. Page 4

Firsthand

Students around campus share their personal experiences with COVID-19. Pages 5-7

Preface

An alumnus on Dallas City Council and Dallas police officers introduce the new chief of police. Page 8

Austin

Recent years have seen mass migration to Texas from California. Why? Page 9

In brief COUNSELING Juniors have begun the year-long College Counseling process and will be meeting for seminars via Blackbauf until March to facilitate their admission work.

Pending accessability, after that date, juniors will meet in the Science Lecture Hall for guidance from college counselors Director Veronica Pulido and associate directors Phoebe Kingsak and Josh Shandura.

Remote students will connect via Microsoft Teams meetings.

Students wishing to meet with any of the college counselors can call and schedule an appointment.”

DOING YOUR PART Each student should fill out the SchoolPass Health and Wellness Check before arriving at school each morning.

Completion takes seconds to complete the check and can be done on the phone, through the SchoolPass app.

This check-in is required of all students, faculty and staff members.

SERVICE HOUR LOGGER My Wish is a new service hour tracker founded by sophomores Aadi Khasgiwala, Akash Raghunathan, Aaron Liu and Rishab Siddamshetty. Their goal is to provide a user friendly website that connects charities to donors with an emphasis on customer satisfaction.

DROPPING TESTS The SAT will drop the optional essay section and discontinue SAT subject tests, the College Board announced Jan. 19.

The changes are effective immediately and come as many colleges evaluate the role of the SAT in the admissions process amid a global pandemic and growing concerns of economic inequity influencing scores.

The hour-long SAT subject tests were taken by students to differentiate themselves in a particular subject. Students are now expected to turn to AP exams, also offered by the College Board, to accomplish this.

Eighth-grader sweeps Spelling Bee

POLITICS

Surviving the siege As the Capitol was attacked for hours by rioters Jan. 6, members of the community watched in shock online, desparate to see the scene unfold at the heart of our nation.

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O

n Jan. 6, the first rioters broke into the Capitol.

It was 2:11 p.m., and Congress was meeting for a joint session in the chamber of the House of Representatives to tally the state election results and finalize the results of the Electoral College.

The rioters began gathering in front of the building an hour before, and in that hour, the world watched as the Capitol of the United States of America was breached.

February 5, 2021

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Among those many spectators were students from around the community, like Henry Morgan, president of the Political Forum Club. Morgan checked various news outlets between classes and watched for new developments during his free periods, anxious to hear updates from the Capitol.

“This was during the week when we were doing online school, so I was in the middle of a free period on the couch with my mom,” Morgan said. “We were just watching and talking about it, and were like ‘This is horrifying.’”

Morgan was disgusted by the scene he saw — rioters crashing through police barricades and dueling police in riot gear at the steps of the Capitol. Just moments before, members of Congress debated whether or not they would certify Arizona’s vote in the presidential election.

“It’s terrible — but not surprising — considering some of the rhetoric from the past few years that has come from President Trump,” Morgan said. “When he said the election results weren’t legit, obviously they were furious about that.”

He also thinks that, while the scene at the Capitol was despicable, the aftermath has provided a path for unity. Moreover, the incident

stimulated Congress’s working late into the night to finish the work they had begun that morning.

“For the nation, this settled things in a way,” Morgan said. “If you think about all the senators — Republican senators — who said before the riot that they were going to object to the election results, a lot of them withdrew their objections after the riots out of respect for what had happened.”

In the Political Forum’s meeting Jan. 13, Morgan led members in a discussion about the Capitol riots and the resulting aftermath, including Twitter and Facebook’s ban of President Trump’s accounts on their platforms.

“We talked specifically before about former-President Trump being banned from social media.”

Morgan said. “We were debating whether or not it was a violation of the First Amendment. In my opinion, it’s really obviously not because these are private

companies, and you agree to their terms and conditions before you use their private service.”

Originally, he had planned another topic for discussion, but ultimately decided to discuss social media as it seemed a more relevant topic for the student group.

“We mainly focused on whether or not it was a violation of the First Amendment,” Morgan said. “I originally wanted to talk about if he should be impeached, but I ended up changing my mind on that.”

Despite the debates, there was no full agreement made by the group.

“I really wish there was a resounding agreement,” Morgan said, “but I can’t say there was one.

At this point I think we can all agree that President Biden is more civil.

Maybe now that the Trump years are over, we can unite a bit more.”

CLIMBIMG THE WALL Just outside the Capitol rioters were seen massing at the entrances to the building, scaling walls to avoid police in riot gear and carrying signs and flags, including a Trump 2020 flag.

STORY Jack Davis, Keshav Krishna ARTWORK Cooper Cole

By the

211

Republicans

numbers

221

23

Democrats

Texas Respublicans in the House

A full election process • Ballots are cast across the nation on Election Day • Election may be contested in the state or in court • The electoral college meets and cast their votes • The electoral college vote is then sent to Congress • Congress certifies or objects to the votes from each state and tallies a final vote

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3

vacancies

2

Independents

50

Texas Democrats in the House

Republicans

48

2

Texas senators

Democrats

117TH CONGRESS After Georgia’s runoff elections Jan. 5, Democrats secured control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, with the help of the independent members and Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.

Texas Senators’ VOTES Ted Cruz Senator (R)

How did the Texas’ senators vote during the election confirmation Jan. 6?

Objected Virginia Electoral College Vote

Yes

Objected Pennsylvania Electoral College Vote

Yes

John Cornyn Senator (R)

by Keshav Krishna ighth-grader Akash Manickam claimed swift victory in the Middle School Spelling Bee, held during community time Jan. 20.

Manickam emerged as the winner after only one round, facing off against finalists seventh-grader Enzo Henry and sixthgrader Michael Chang.

After classroom-level competitions, the finalists were determined in the preliminary bee held on Jan. 13.

“Everyone in that bee was very talented and very qualified,” Manickam said.

“I knew that they all had studied hard. I was prepared for a long round, so I was relieved and extremely proud when I won.”

Manickam believes keeping his mind clear was critical to his performance.

“I was just telling myself that I should not stress out about it,” Manickam said. “I should stay calm because stressing out would have just put unnecessary pressure on myself.”

This mindset also shaped Manickam’s preparation for the contest.

“I didn’t prepare much,” Manickam said. “I didn’t go over the word list for hours on end because I knew that if I did that it would add unnecessary stress. I mainly went with my gut on a lot of the words.”

Humanities Department Chair Danielle Clayton organized this year’s spelling bee contest, which differed slightly from previous years due to COVID-19 safety precautions.

“Classroom spelling bees were conducted in a hybrid manner,” Clayton said.

“The preliminary bee was held in the Graduate Hall, where each student had his own table and was sociallydistanced. The remote students were piped in via Teams.”

In addition to these changes, the competition also featured an acorn trophy, something Clayton hopes will become a new tradition.

“My son and I used to collect acorns,” Clayton said. “I like their symbolism of strength and potential.”

Manickam will compete digitally in the district spelling bee in a couple of weeks. Should he advance, he will compete in the regional competition in March. Clayton likes Manickam’s chances.

“Akash is a very intelligent young man,” Clayton said. “I am sure he will do well.”

Manickam hopes the same mindset and process that helped him win the school round will carry him through the district bee.

“I’m following the same routine from the Middle School bee,” Manickam said.

“I pride myself on having high expectations, so I want to do well.”

Objected Virginia Electoral College Vote

No

Objected Pennsylvania Electoral College Vote

No

Continued from page 1

Coming to terms

Negative. Positive. A trip to the hospital. After Blake Backes’s mom fell ill, COVID-19 quickly spread through his family, landing his father in the hospital and Blake in his bedroom, eating sandwhiches he couldn’t taste.

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Surplus in a national shortage While the nation tries to move past a failed initial vaccine rollout, with the number of vaccinated Americans lagging behind national goals, Jayan Joshi ‘19 found a way to put a garbage-bound vaccine to good use.

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he concept of a vaccine rollout seems simple –– give it first to healthcare workers and those whom COVID-19 would hurt most, and roll out the rest through a system of ranked groups afterward.

But as with any logistical undertaking on such a massive scale, reality can be counterintuitive at best, nightmarish at worst. Jayan Joshi ’19 was one of the first to receive a vaccine, though by sheer luck.

“One of my friend’s parents was able to get the vaccine because he was a healthcare worker,” Joshi said, “and when he went, the hospital was telling people, ‘We only have a certain amount of shelf life for the vaccines.’”

A Pfizer or Moderna vaccine can last up to six months when frozen, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but once a case of the vaccine is opened, it is only a matter of days before the shots –– which cannot be refrozen –– might expire.

“They’re telling people that they’re going to either throw them out or give them to somebody,” Joshi said, “and there weren’t enough health care workers that could take the vaccine, so one of my friends texted me about it, and I was able to go and get my

vaccine.”

Joshi first performed a background check on the clinic to affirm that this offer was reasonable, following doubts about the vaccine rollout process that have existed since its beginning.

“But it turned out to be legit,” Joshi said.

“So we just had to call the place, set up an appointment and then drive to the clinic to get our shots. It was a really simple process, but it all felt a bit rushed.”

While the civic accountability of receiving a vaccine concerned Joshi at first, he reconciled with the fact that the vaccine, owing to its shelf life, could not have gone to somebody who was more in need of it at that moment.

“At the time, I wasn’t really sure how ethically responsible it was,” Joshi said. “But they explained to me that either I got this or they were going to get thrown out.

The people at the clinic were begging them to tell anyone to come and get the vaccine because they just wanted to

get as many people vaccinated as possible before the vaccines were useless. I came to terms with that once I realized that I wasn’t Jayan taking a vaccine away Joshi ‘19 from someone else.”

For Joshi, a great deal of the issue lies in the process of reaching out and advertising the vaccine to those who would stand to benefit from immunization most, instead of those who happen to be connected to the clinics themselves.

“I think this shows that the whole thing is pretty disorganized,” Joshi said. “The fact that I was able to get one ahead of somebody who may have needed it more is pretty ridiculous, in my opinion. Obviously, I’m glad that I got it. But I don’t think that people like me should have been able to, at this point in time.

I think that the clinics need to Vaccination do a much better sites job of reaching • Fair Park out and actually • Parkland Hospital getting people • UT-Southwestern Medical that need the Center vaccine to take them, rather than scrambling at the last minute.”

STORY Jamie Mahowald ARTWORK Jamie Mahowald

The ReMarker

STORY Henry McElhaney, Robert Pou PHOTOS Courtesy Blake Backes

5 Issues

how he would make quick trips to the kitchen in between classes, making his go-to quarantine snack — the Dagwood sandwich: a cartoon-like, multilayered sandwich piled high with meats, cheeses and condiments.

He felt like the world was just flowing by him. He was lethargic, sick, bored, tired and still couldn’t taste or smell. But he snapped out of his zombielike state when his father, who had slowly progressed from bed-ridden to fully indisposed, woke up with a 104.5 degree fever. That’s when Jane — still ill — had to drive Leon to Presbyterian Hospital, where he was immediately put on a ventilator.

Blake couldn’t visit his father for three days after he was admitted because of the hospital’s safety guidelines. During that time, everything felt surreal. He was scared. His assignments due later that week didn’t seem to matter much anymore.

Eventually, Leon recovered enough to come home. He had to stay on a portable ventilator, but Blake was finally reunited with his father. His life felt real again.

Normal –– or at least as normal as it could be at the tail-end of 2020.

Now, Blake and his family are back to full health. Blake still can’t quite smell QUARANTINED Blake and his mother Jane both tested positve for COVID-19 but only had to quarantine at home. everything, but his family is COVID-free.

They recovered without seeking serious medical help.

And for that, Blake is thankful.

February 5, 2021

t all started when Blake Backes’s mom, Jane, tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after Thanksgiving Break.

Already home from school, Blake and his dad, Leon, immediately got rapid tests.

Both negative.

Jane quarantined in the back house, and Blake and his father brought her food, water and medicine, making sure to put on gloves and a mask each time.

The next day, Blake and his father began experiencing symptoms. Again, they went to get tested.

This time, Leon tested positive, Blake still negative.

Now both of his parents had the virus.

He didn’t. Blake was the one who had to isolate and stay up in his room all day. He didn’t mind since he didn’t want to leave his bed anyway. He knew he had it. He knew it was only a matter of time before it was “official.”

Sure enough, after testing for a third time, Blake finally got a positive result.

His symptoms weren’t too bad; it just seemed like a mild flu, but he did end up losing his taste and smell after a couple days. Blake spent most of his days trapped in his room, on his computer, on Microsoft Teams. Time began to blur as the tasteless, scentless days in his stuffy room grew into a mind-numbingly monotonous routine.

He fondly remembered what online school used to be like. Remembered how he would sit in the study downstairs, his mother working nearby. Remembered

HOSPITALIZED Blake Backes’s father, Leon, spent time in Presbyterian Hospital after his COVID symptoms took a serious turn for the worse.

He wasn’t able to see his family while hospitalized because of the hospital’s health and safety guidlines.

FAMILY REUNION Camden (left) and Aaron (right) catch up with their grandfather for the first time in months. Manit was born in Lampang, Thailand, and spent his adult life as a doctor.

MASKED CELEBRATION (Left to right) Camden’s father Mike, brother Aaron, mother Mae, grandfather Manit, grandmother Vara and Camden gather for Thanksgiving.

MANIT’S STORY

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Strong through separation Grandfather of junior Camden Reeves Manit Kantipong fought a diligent battle against COVID-19 this year — and came out on top.

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or many elderly men and women across the world, the pandemic has been isolating.

Medical conditions that come with age have placed seniors into an especially high-risk category, and many have had to spend time away from their loved ones.

Junior Camden Reeves’s grandfather, Manit Kantipong, has experienced this isolation at a life care facility apart from his family.

“2019 is when my grandpa first went to the hospital,” Camden said. “He was there for a few weeks, maybe a month. After that, he moved to Life Care Center of Plano, and he hasn’t really left there besides going to dialysis treatment a couple of times a week.”

Struggles with dementia have seperated Manit even further from his family.

“He’s been experiencing some memory loss, so he’s disconnected from a lot of what he used to be accustomed to,” Camden said. “It definitely doesn’t help that he’s separated from us.”

As COVID-19 spread throughout the last year, visits from Camden and his family became less frequent to protect at-risk tenants of the life care facility.

“When COVID hit, we really were not able to visit him at all,” Camden said. “It was all FaceTime, and he’s not really great about answering his phone, so we were barely able to talk to him around September and October. They started letting people visit outside if they showed proof of a negative PCR test, so my mom started going a lot. We all went as a family two or three times.”

Before the facility allowed visitors, Camden and his family found different ways to communicate with Manit.

“We wrote messages on pieces of paper and taped them to his window,” Camden said. “He told us he really liked it because they stayed up for a long time. Even through storms and stuff, he would just look at them and be reminded that he still had us on the outside.”

Thanksgiving of 2020 was a chance to reunite the family. Manit was finally able to join Camden and his family — even if it was just for a night — and he spent almost three hours with his relatives.

“It was great to reunite with him, and it definitely cheered my mom up,” Camden said.

The Reeves planned to see Manit again on Christmas, but Camden’s brother — Aaron — tested positive for COVID-19, preventing the family from visiting.

Camden remembers MAKING IT WORK After testing positive for coronavirus, Camden’s brother how strange Christmas Eve Aaron joins the family via FaceTime on Christmas Eve for a makeshit candlelight celebrations felt seeing his service (right) and to catch up and open Christmas presents (left). brother in person only a few times throughout the day.

“We couldn’t get all of the information about “Christmas Eve definitely how he was feeling, but I did think it was a good felt a lot different,” Camden said. “Especially with sign that he was in the hospital and was getting my brother not around. We would leave food at his door as well as new clothes, soap and shampoo, but better care,” Camden said. we didn’t really get to see him. When we watched Fortunately, Manit is now virus-free, a relieving the Christmas Eve service online, he just signed in development for Camden and his family on his computer and watched it while we were all “He no longer has COVID, but it was definitely downstairs.” scary for all of us,” Camden said. “I’m sure it was Christmas Day was not much different. Aaron scary for him knowing how risky it is, and how was able to spend only half an hour downstairs with dangerous the virus can be.” his family before he had to return to his room.

Through observing COVID-19 guidelines, Aaron “I don’t know if it was us or 2020 overall, but the has high hopes for the future.

Christmas spirit didn’t feel the same as it normally “Stay positive and trust that everything’s going does,” Camden said. “When Aaron was getting his to turn out fine,” Aaron said. “Stay safe, wear gifts, he was in this far corner away from the rest of masks and do everything you’re supposed to, and us with both a mask and face shield on.” everything should be fine.”

Despite their troubles, Camden and his family Although filled with stress and worry from the have received a lot of support from their friends and beginning, 2020 is in Camden’s rearview mirror. relatives.

With widespread vaccine distribution on the “Lots of people have reached out to me to offer horizon, he’s cautiously optimistic for what’s to prayers,” Reeves said. “Even though I haven’t told a come. lot of students outside of my church group, we have “The vaccine is a really good sign,” Camden received a whole lot of healthy support.” said. “We’re moving away from this whole year and the craziness with COVID, but I still think it’s going Manit contracted COVID-19 Jan. 13. His recovery to be pretty scary. I don’t know what it’s going to period was a time of uncertainty for Camden’s be like going back to restaurants or stores without family — when he tested positive, Life Care Center a mask on, but I’m looking forward to transitioning of Plano staff moved him to the COVID-19 wing back to normal life. I want to have a normal senior of the facility. During his time in this wing, Manit year experience. We can only hope it’s all completely didn’t communicate with his family, and his mental back to normal by then — but you never know.” health deteriorated, suffering heavily from loneliness and depression. Eventually, Manit was moved to a STORY Austin Williams, Toby Barrett hospital.

PHOTOS Courtesy Mae Reeves

COVID-19

An abrupt loss of life

Junior Peter Orsak lost a ‘grandfather figure’ ­— his aunt’s father and one of his closest relatives — to COVID-19 more than three months ago.

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AT THE LAKE Fishing became one of Cecil and Orsak’s favorite pasttimes when they caught a six-pund bass together (middle), and the pair have kept this activity alive fishing at Orsak’s uncle’s ranch every year (right). At Thanksgiving, Orsak says he remembers Cecil recounting his famous stories (left) and carving the turkey every year for the whole family.

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Waking up early for a dentist appointment, Orsak reluctantly hopped in the car with his dad. After a few minutes of small talk, he could tell something was wrong. His father broke the news that Cecil had tested positive for COVID-19 a week prior and was now admitted into the hospital.

“When he first told me, I was completely shocked,” Orsak said. “My parents decided not to tell me originally because they didn’t

know how serious it was, so hearing he was now in the hospital was heartbreaking.”

Cecil’s case worsened, and it became more apparent that he would not make it. Finally, Orsak’s parents announced that “Papa” had passed.

“I miss him so much already,” Orsak said. “He taught me how to fish. He taught me how to shoot my first gun.

Whenever I was with him, I loved talking to him about Texas high school football or professional sports. There was never a dull moment with him around.”

Although they weren’t related by blood, Cecil was OUT AND ABOUT Cecil and his wife “Nana” always loved their trips out for ice cream. nonetheless one of ribs over a game of dominoes called ‘42.’

Orsak’s closest family “At my uncle Paul’s old lake house, he’d members. always grill out in the backyard,” Orsak said.

“Up at my uncle Carl’s ranch outside of “This one time he made probably the best ribs Paris, we used to always throw the football I’ve ever eaten. My family used to talk about around and fish,” Orsak said. “One time, with them all the time, even years after.”

Papa’s help, I remember Peter Orsak Cecil, among many things, was known for reeling in something Sports his storytelling. like a six pound Editor “My favorite story of his was probably bass. At the time, I this bank robbery story he told two years ago,” remember looking at Orsak said. “This dude walked into the bank it and thinking it was and told the bank teller to give him the money. absolutely massive –– it The guy took off on foot with the money, and felt like it was the size of me.” as an 80-year-old man, Papa chased him down Losing this relationship hasn’t been in his car and stopped him. He tells it better easy for Orsak. Many of his greatest holiday than I do, but I couldn’t stop laughing.” memories — ­ from Christmas to Thanksgiving Above all, Cecil will be remembered as a — revolve around Cecil. humble, caring man.

“The holidays will definitely not be the “Papa was a great man,” Orsak said. same without him,” Orsak said. “There was “He always did the right thing and loved nothing better than enjoying some great food entertaining our family. He experienced so and listening to him tell one of his famous much, so he had a lot to teach. It’s going to be stories. His job on Thanksgiving was always hard getting used to him not being around.” to cut open the turkey for us, so it was really weird this year with him gone.”

STORY Jack Davis Thinking back on his time with Cecil, PHOTOS Courtesy Peter Orsak Orsak remembers Cecil grilling him “magical”

February 5, 2021

unior Peter Orsak and his great uncle, Philip Cecil, also known as Papa, always had a very close relationship. Although they weren’t related by blood, Orsak always saw Cecil as one of his grandparents, spending almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas by his side.

When Cecil received the news that his COVID-19 test came back positive, he wasn’t phased. He felt perfectly fine, despite knowing he had the virus.

As was common in Paris, TX, members of the community often bypassed wearing masks in public. For the next week, he went about his regular life, running errands and checking up on the Liberty National Bank owned by the family. Everything seemed completely normal.

Eight days after contracting the virus while taking out the trash, Cecil returned inside gasping for air. As a fit 84-year-old man, this sudden exhaustion provoked instant concern from his wife Sally.

After taking a seat, the two recorded his pulse-oxidation levels at a remarkably low 88 percent –– they immediately called 911.

“I think something bad is about to happen to me,” Cecil said.

Within a few hours, Cecil was in the emergency room at Paris Regional Medical Center, struggling to get enough oxygen to his blood. After a long wait, he was finally admitted to ICU with COVID-19 and pneumonia and was intubated. As patients often become reliant on this oxygen flow, his immediate family soon realized this could be the end.

He was isolated from visitors, as was protocol for COVID-19 patients. The only contact he had with family was through a glass barrier and a baby monitor.

Over the course of the next 48 hours, Cecil slowly lost consciousness. On the tenth day of his battle with COVID-19, a cardiac event led to his ultimate downfall.

On Oct. 10, 2020, laying in the ICU bed with his family behind the glass, Papa took his final breath.

POLICE CHIEF

New sheriff in town

After the sudden resignation of former Dallas Chief of Police Reneé Hall, the city has hired recently retired San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia to serve as the first Hispanic chief of the Dallas Police Department.

February 5, 2021

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is career spans 28 years of policing with four as a chief. Having such a long history in the field, Chief Eddie Garcia was expecting to retire. But instead, he has started a new chapter in both his career and the city as he becomes the first Hispanic chief to lead the Dallas Police Department.

Garcia was selected out of a pool of 30 applicants Dec. 23 and assumed his new position Feb. 3.

“The city manager started a recruitment process,” Dallas City Council member Lee Kleinman ‘77 said. “Once he narrowed it down to six, he had a number of community groups give feedback as to what they’re looking for for the chief. He also did online interviews with council members who had submitted questions to give people exposure to the different candidates. Eventually, he settled on Chief Garcia.”

Kleinman says that he wanted a good communicator.

“Being able to listen, answer questions and give good ideas for how to reform the department were very important,” Kleinman said. “I didn’t want the same old stuff we’ve been doing to keep happening, and he was receptive to those ideas. He is someone I feel like the citizens could work with and appreciate.”

Garcia also has the support of his staff, including officer Beverly Ma. “Everything that he's done so far seems pretty positive,” Ma said. “For instance, he sent out a video, not just for us, but for everyone to see what he wants to bring to the table. He is already very proactive

PRIOR COMMAND After four years as a chief in San Jose, CA, Garcia will take over from the former Dallas Chief of Police Renée Hall (right), who stood with armed officers at a Black Lives Matter protest at the Dallas City Hall this summer.

and is trying to do everything he can before he even starts.”

Officer Andrew Alvidrez says that Garcia’s prior experience in San Jose, CA will help in adapting to Dallas.

“San Jose is probably the same size as Dallas in terms of inner-city population and demographic makeup,” Alvidrez said. “So what he’s dealing with economically and demographically now is pretty much the same as San Jose.”

Eddie Alvidrez says that Garcia’s Garcia previous experience also earns Dallas Police Chief him support from other officers still.

“People really wanted to see someone from inside the ranks — someone who has worked hard to move up and become qualified — to be selected,” Alvidrez said. “When you look at Chief Garcia’s resume, he’s very qualified, and he’s held a lot of positions. He’s had a very natural progression through his career.”

Kleinman wants to focus on efficiency and resource management, something that he thinks Garcia can achieve based on his history in San Jose.

“I’d like to see a really strong analysis of the effectiveness of the department’s different divisions and how our resources are being used,” Kleinman said. “One of the biggest problems is that we have around 3500 officers, but there are 1500 to 1600 officers that are just sitting behind a desk. One of the most important things to deter crime is presence —

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people seeing police on the streets. I think that Chief Garcia was pretty effective at San Jose because he ran a very lean department. It really only had officers focused on policing, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve.”

Besides this, Kleinman also wants to foster trust with the community.

“There are many different reforms that we’ve been trying to bring about that have been met with resistance,” Kleinman said, “and we’re continuing to try and build that trust with our residents. Having a community that trusts our department and a department that’s looking forward, I think those are really important.”

Ma also thinks relationships with the community will bring about the most change.

“I'm excited for a new police chief to come onboard and actually implement some really good changes — not only within Beverly the police department but the Ma community. The biggest thing is Dallas P.D. officer bridging the gap between us and the community.”

And while Garcia hasn’t started yet, Ma says he appears to be ready to make changes.

“Based on his interviews and his answers,” Ma said, “he seems very confident that he does want to make positive changes. We'll see what happens.”

STORY Morgan Chow, Ian Dalrymple PHOTO Jerry Zhao

RAPID RELOCATION

TECH RUSH The 2010s saw many tech companies make Texas their new home. Low taxes and a friendly business environment are the main pulls

of the Lone Star State.

Cowboy appeal

Californians and other bigstate natives are flocking to Texas to make a living, and many businesses have chosen Texan cities for their headquarters.

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harang Vyas has never experienced cold like he did in Dallas this past winter.

The California native, used to the coastal climate of the San Francisco Bay Area, says it’s the harshest winter he’s experienced yet.

In Austin — just a few hours away — the richest man in the world is also feeling chilly.

There’s nothing quite like Golden State weather.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk moved his family out to Austin to focus on a new Tesla Gigafactory and future Starship launches.

Musk and his family are not alone in their departure for Texas — according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half a million people made the big move in 2019, and many more have Texas on their watch-list.

Sharang during the pandemic, but there were some aspects that made moving Oracle easier.

“COVID was one of those things that made our move a little bit quicker, and we didn’t really have a place to stay until now,” Sharang said. “I was able to do online school for the first quarter. That probably helped a lot with us getting settled into our apartment.”

Sharang did notice some cultural differences in his move to Texas.

“The Bay Area is definitely a lot more diverse from what I’ve seen so far,” Sharang said. “There seem to be more Asians and more Latinos. That’s not to say Dallas isn’t diverse, but the Bay Area is one of the most diverse places in the world.”

Sharang found that there were advantages of moving to Texas for him and his family. “[The biggest perks were] definitely my dad not having to keep shuffling back and forth for his work,” Sharang said. “And prices in general; housing was a lot easier here than in California where everything is really, really expensive.”

Much like the Vyases, Assistant Head of Upper School Chris Disimile was also a California native. In 2017, Disimile and his family moved to Dallas from Orange County.

“My cousin lived in Dallas for a few years, and after visiting him for his wedding I saw an opening at St. Mark’s,” Disimile said. “I had some great conversations with [Associate Headmaster John] Ashton.”

Disimile’s personal attraction to Dallas was the school, but he saw a multitude of other reasons people were leaving places like California in favor of places like Texas.

“Cost of living in Texas is certainly lower,” Disimile said. “Having no state income tax is another big plus. And even though Dallas folks may complain about the traffic, there really isn’t much in comparison to Los Angeles or New York City.”

Texas is one of nine states without a state income

HewlettPackard

economics teacher,

Disimile noted that the money people can save really is as good as it sounds.

“It especially makes sense for someone like Elon Musk,” Disimile said. “When you’re talking bigger numbers, not giving up that extra chunk of income on the state level saves you a lot of money. When I lived in New York City, for example, I found that almost half of my paycheck was collected in taxes.”

Disimile also credits Texan universities, offering talented graduates for tech companies to hire.

“The surrounding universities can serve as major research hubs that are both tech-friendly and business-friendly,” Disimile said. “When you have a well-educated workforce built-in, it naturally attracts tech companies — the same way you find so many in Silicon Valley, next to Stanford.”

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey found that Texas continues to be the most popular state for California residents choosing to relocate. 86,200 people from the westernmost state moved to Texas in 2018.

“Dallas is just a great place to raise a family,” Disimile said. “It’s got that perfect mix of city and suburbia.”

STORY Austin Williams, Myles Lowenberg GRAPHIC Morgan Chow

Senior starts investment company with a focus on cryptocurrencies

by Keshav Krishna n the fall, senior Alexander Zuch helped created NextGen Capital, a small company which invests in cryptocurrency, IPOs and digital art.

“My father, his friend and I registered the company in Texas,” Zuch said. “I mainly focus on cryptocurrencies. I help them research, create accounts and invest in various exchanges.”

In addition to his responsibilities in NextGen Capital, Zuch personally invests in cryptocurrencies.

“I invest in more riskier currencies with smaller market caps,” Zuch said.

“While there may be more risk, there’s also more reward.”

For this, Zuch uses money he earned from his job as a camp counselor and saved up from his birthdays.

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“I’ve always had that entrepreneurial attitude that I’ve been able to garner some money from,” Zuch said. “Once something goes up, I’ll take out that investment to put it in something else, so the money compounds that way.”

Zuch’s interest in cryptocurrencies began in 2017, when Bitcoin surged to popularity.

“That was when there was the initial craze of everybody investing in it, even though almost nobody knew what cryptocurrency actually was,” Zuch said. “I was one of those people.

I had money in there, but it was a very brief thing.”

The ability to manage and grow his money through cryptocurrencies appealed to Zuch.

“I’ve always been interested in the stock market and how it runs,”

Zuch said. “Back then, I was not 18 years old, so I didn’t have a personal account in Fidelity or Robinhood to invest in stocks. I could have an account in cryptocurrencies because they’re not very regulated. That’s why it became my avenue of investing.”

Additionally, Zuch believes the technology used in cryptocurrencies to be a game-changer.

“It’s very exciting because of the volatility,” Zuch said. “Prices go up and down very quickly, all the time.

But what really excites me is the blockchain technology. It’s an emerging technology that’s already used for things like voting and healthcare and has a lot of potential applications.”

After a hiatus, Zuch revisited cryptocurrencies last spring, when prices were much lower compared to

what they were when he began investing.

“It almost got to $20,000 but was down to $4,000 when I got back in it,” Zuch said. “It’s worth ten times that now.”

After he graduates from college, Zuch hopes to make a career out of finance, specifically working in private equity or a hedge fund.

But first, Zuch will have to finish his senior year. Throughout his grade, he’s known for his investing skills, with many of his classmates asking him for advice.

“Don’t invest in something without knowing its uses and why you’re investing in it,” Zuch said. “I try to focus my investments on stuff that people don’t know about with real use cases and actual applications to invest in, rather than just the price going up.”

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February 5, 2020

Freshman Sharang Vyas’s family moved from California to Dallas because of the business opportunities.

“My dad was originally working for his own company, which was clients with Toyota, and they have a business here,” Sharang said. “Pretty much every week he would be in Dallas. We just decided it would be a lot easier if all of us just moved to Dallas for his work.”

Sharang’s father Nilesh Vyas sees two big reasons that companies would choose Texas over other popular states.

“First of all, I think the biggest attractions are tax breaks, government incentives and an escape from the more rigid corporate structure in California,” Nilesh said. “Second — especially moving from California — Texas seems to me to have the most similar weather.”

Contrary to his father, one of By the the biggest differences Sharang has numbers noticed between Dallas and the Bay Area is the weather.

“In California, it stays relatively warm throughout the million day, and even between winter and people have moved to summer it stays mostly the same,” Texas since Sharang said. “In Dallas, this [past 2010 winter] was some of the coldest weather I’ve ever been in.”

Sharang’s mother Pratyusha Kapila says that while winters can of the top be cooler in Dallas, she is a little 25 cities for home surprised Sharang took notice. ownership “We lived in California for 22 nationwide years,” Pratyusha said. “Sharang are in Texas had never lived outside of California, so I can see how he felt it was different.”

Moving to Dallas was more challenging for

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Environment

Where’s the water?

Discoveries

Texas is currently experiencing a major drought. With the majority of the state under some level of drought conditions, and large swaths of the state under severe drought watch, how will this effect our state’s wildlife? How will this drought effect our campus?

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The ReMarker • February 5, 2021

hy is everything so dry? Why does it rain so infrequently?

With conditions changing from moderate to severe or extreme drought across the state, its effects are starting to become more and more visible.

Nearly 100 percent of the state is seeing some kind of drought, and it’s only getting worse.

David Gimnich ‘04 works with the Wildlife Conservation Division of the City of Austin’s Water Division.

Specifically, he helps coordinate the building of infrastructure in the habitats of endangered wildlife and the maintenance of the Edwards aquifer, which supplies clean water to over 2 million Texans and served as the main agricultural source of water in the region.

“The greater drought conditions that we are in and the less water that is getting into our aquifer affect our overall ecosystem,” Gimnich said. “A lot of native species can die off.”

However, the effects of the drought are not just limited to wildlife.

“You can get a lot of soil runoff and soil that dries out,” Gimnich said. “So when you do get those really big rain events — which can occur after extended periods of drought — native grasses die and no longer help with flood mitigation, so massive droughts can lead to massive floods. These droughts can also lead to massive tree mortality, which is just making fuels for wildfires.”

Despite these possible effects, the ecosystems in Gimnich’s region have seen relatively little impact.

“In terms of impacts to the aquifer and impacts to endangered species, we don’t see a lot of that right now,” Gimnich said. “We manage these ecosystems in such a way that they’re not just healthy, but also resilient. Even though we’re seeing a transition from abnormally dry conditions to moderate or even severe drought, the ecosystems are able to take a

Coding

Math and writing classes are mandatory in schools worldwide as it is accepted that students will need to know how to write and do math in their profesional or personal lives. In a world where computers and technology are becoming increasingly vital to society, should coding and computer classes join math and English as mandatory parts of a curriculum?

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In brief AMC MATH EXAM The Math Department will offer the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) 10B test Feb. 10 to about 80 students who chose to take it last fall.

There will not be an option for students to take the test remotely, but they can come to campus. The Math Department will only allow students to take one of the tests, so those who wish to take both the A and B tests can do so at another location.

STEM FESTIVAL Instead of a meeting with guests, the STEM Conference will take place over multiple podcasts beginning March 5. The first podcast covers climate change and includes Dr. Molly Brown from the University of Maryland, Dr. Jonathan Ajo-Franklin from Rice University and Dr. Timothy Herbert from Brown University. The second podcast will focus on space exploration and tech advances and will include Nasa Human Spaceflight program lead Kathryn Lueders, Joalda Morancy, an intern at Nasa’s JPL and Rubik Sheth, Nasa Director of Thermal Systems. In the third podcast, the co-chairs will discuss the difficulties of the past year with a more casual focus.

DRIED UP Most of the state is experiencing at least abnormally dry conditions

Abnormally Dry Moderate Drought Severe Drought Extreme Drought Exceptional Drought

20% of state 15.5% of state 13.3% of state 13.7% of state 6.1 % of state Source: drought.gov

lot of heat.”

Though conditions are drier than usual, they are not the worst that Texas has seen. In 2011 and 2012, the state endured one of the most severe droughts in recorded history, with more than 80 percent of the region experiencing “exceptional” drought conditions at its peak.

“The 2011-2012 era for Texas was this incredibly impactful severe drought that we experienced,” Gimnich said. “That’s when we saw these massive problems that occurred on a large level. That’s when the environment is so dry that someone could flick a cigarette out of their car and a fire starts raging where it lands.”

Though droughts occur in Texas somewhat regularly, Gimnich maintains that climate change and other humancaused phenomena contribute to these droughts.

“There’s a lot of science that shows that humans have caused a very direct and negative impact on the climate,” Gimnich said. “What we’re seeing is that these natural cycles — for example, drought — are slowly getting more and more extreme. We’re seeing more hurricanes on average every year, stronger wildfires, stronger winds, all that stuff.”

Even though the current drought is not nearly as severe as the one recorded in 2012, the recent pattern of droughts is concerning.

“It’s less about the micro view of this year,” Gimnich said. “It’s more about being aware of what this could indicate for long term impacts both to the natural environment and the human-built environment.”

Gimnich stresses that everyone should contribute to the sustainability of our local environment.

“Everyone needs to be doing their part. On a very personal level, I am very OCD and go way overboard in terms of recycling and things like that,” Gimnich said.

However, Gimnich recognizes that a

majority of environmental harm comes not from individuals, but organizations on a much larger scale.

“The impact that individuals can have is very small compared to the actual causes of global climate change.”

Gimnich said. “The actual causes are on an industrial level. It’s power plants. It’s mining. It’s the airline industry. Sure, individuals can choose not to fly or they can drive a hybrid car, but that still doesn’t change the overall industry. Until we actually address the real issue we’re only going to be making single percentages of change.”

Director of Environmental Studies Dan Northcut stresses that St. Mark’s is working towards more sustainable water use.

“Especially in the bathrooms, things like waterless urinals and automatic faucets help to reduce the amount of water we use.” Northcut said. “When we did those in Centennial, we saw about a 40 percent reduction in water usage.”

Most buildings on campus, especially those built more recently, have undergone LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, a process that ensures buildings operate in a sustainable way.

“We got silver LEED certification for the Winn Science Center a couple months ago, so we’re going in the right direction,” Northcut said.

However, Northcut recognizes that there is still progress to be made.

“There are definitely more things that we can do.” Northcut said, “I think we should definitely try and look into some rainwater harvesting and stuff like that. We should definitely look into every possible way to conserve and save water that we get here.”

STORY Cooper Ribman ARTWORK Jonathan Yin

KEYBOARD WARRIORS Tech companies are always looking for more programming help. Middle Schoolers get the chance to start experimenting as early as sixth grade, in case they find their passion on a computer screen.

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Neural networks

Middle school computer science classes were first introduced to the school in the mid-90s.

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other languages like C, C++ or even Javascript.”

For those who may think that the level of coding studied in middle school may not be as comprehensive as an Upper School course, Murphy is quick to point out the complexity and depth of the Middle School coding curriculum.

“I break down the computer science program into three broad sections,” Murphy said. “The first section is computer applications: learning about the cloud, learning about digital citizenship, learning about all those basic things that are going to get you forward on the computer.”

After studying the basics of using computers, middle schoolers learn how to actually code.

“The second section is coding,” Murphy said. “We learn different languages, and we work with different websites to see how they’re similar but also to give them a strong base in specific languages.”

In the third part of the year, students use the skills they’ve gained from the past few months to design and program robots, allowing students to use their knowledge for a more practical, hands-on approach.

“The third section is robotics, where we take everything we learned from coding and we create robots and program them to move,” Murphy said.

“I love how everything ends in a reallife situation with the robots. It’s just building up and gradually learning.”

Murphy believes that what makes the school’s coding curriculum special is the fact that there are dedicated teachers for every level of study.

“With designated computer science teachers for fifth through eighth grade, it’s really William changed the game,” Fitzpatrick Murphy said. “It’s made Junior it a lot easier for us to build a computer science curriculum that the boys can learn a lot from.”

In Murphy’s opinion, the increased focus on teaching middle schoolers how to code in recent years has made students more receptive to and even more enthusiastic about studying computer science.

“Six years ago, coding might not have been as big of a deal as it is now,” Murphy said. “The bottom line is we’re growing with it, and I think that’s wonderful. The boys are so adaptable and so willing to learn, which is what makes teaching coding at St. Mark’s truly an honor.”

STORY Han Zhang GRAPHIC Jonathan Yin

11 The ReMarker

Even though the language or usage of coding might change over time, Murphy fully expects students to be able to use skills from Middle School computer science long after they’ve graduated.

“The reality of coding is that it’s going to change over time,” Murphy said. “But if you’re learning to problem solve with code, you will be able to change with it.”

Junior William Fitzpatrick was first drawn to coding by the intricacies and broad applications of computer science.

“I liked how you could do anything with it,” Fitzpatrick said.

“How you could make a computer do anything you wanted, solve a bunch of problems you had, or automate stuff. That’s still what appeals to me now.”

For Fitzpatrick, the benefits of computer science extend beyond the screen and into the real world. Building connections with other people who code is one way to learn and grow even faster.

“I think making connections with other people who code is really important,” Fitzpatrick said. “Those friendships can last a long time and you end up learning a lot from them.”

Murphy understands college-level coding is significantly different from the coding she teaches in Middle School, but she stresses that this only makes studying coding in Middle School all the more important.

“There are absolutely differences in what you’re learning in terms of content,” Murphy said.

“It gradually gets more advanced, but you’re using the same base concepts, terminology, and — most of all — that problem solving skill that you’ve developed.”

Although Fitzpatrick has moved on to more complicated coding projects such as creating bots for purchasing shoes or reverse engineering other people’s code, he considers the school’s coding curriculum as a strong base for those who wish to pursue coding later on.

“The computer science program is a really good start,” Fitzpatrick said. “Even though I personally don’t like the language they teach — Java — it’s a really good jumping-off point. It allows you to learn

Discoveries

those who are interested in computer science, it’s an incredible way to start.

For those who aren’t as interested, they’re still going to be learning determination, perseverance and trial and error.”

According to Murphy, coding teaches middle schoolers skills beyond computer science. A large part of learning to code is learning how to solve problems, as well as building character and leadership skills.

“A lot of coding is problemsolving,” Murphy said. “It’s looking at something and trying to figure out ways to solve it. With coding, there are multiple ways to solve it, so you have to be able to think around that problem.”

February 5, 2021

hen people think of coding, they tend to think of hackers. Secretive, glasses-wearing adults furiously typing on keyboards, saying, “I’m in.”

What most people don’t think of is a group of middle schoolers in a brightly-lit computer lab, watching a presentation on how to be respectful online.

But for Middle School computer science teacher Kendall Murphy, coding is just as easy to start in sixthgrade as it is in college, and arguably more important.

“When you think about coding, there are tons of coding jobs available out there, and not many people to fill them,” Murphy said. “So for

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The ReMarker • February 5, 2021

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Counselors

A profile on the school’s two new counselors, one in the Upper School and one in the Lower School. Page 14

Father-Son

A look into the unique dynamic between a fatherson pair in the school’s alumni network. Page 15

Study Abroad Checking in on past foreign exchange students from Spain and Japan to see where they are now. Page 18

In brief ORCHESTRA Nine members of the Upper School Orchestra earned a place in this year’s Texas Private School Music Educators Association (TPSMEA) All-State Orchestra, including violinists senior Varun Trivedi, junior Jedidiah Kim and sophomores Akash Raghunathan, Svanik Jaikumar and Branden Song; violists seniors Charlie Zhang and Rishi Mohan; and cellists sophomores Aadi Khasgiwala and Miller Wendorf. Due to COVID-19, the students will not convene as an ensemble for a three-day clinic and a following performance in the last days of January.

DEBATE Freshmen Ahsan Tahirkheli with Sid Bidare and Liam Seward with Anish Guddati won the John Edie Holiday Debate Tournament virtually hosted by The Blake School Dec. 18–23 as co-champions. Two weeks later, senior David Yang and junior Max Chuang made it to the round of 16 in the Billy Tate Southern Bell Forum Jan. 2–4, hosted virtually by Montgomery Bell Academy. In late January, senior Yang and juniors Sal Abbasi, Zayn Bhimani and Chuang competing in the Barkley Forum for High Schools hosted virtually by Emory University.

MATH TEAM This fall, the Upper School Math Team competed in a single-elimination bracket competition called Math Madness.

The competition was divided up into multiple divisions. The team competed each Saturday to advance to the next round, ultimately winning their division over Winter Break. The team does not have major competitions in the following weeks, but in the down time between events, the team is practicing its skills in addition to participating in informal competitions among students.

CS DRIVES The Spring Basket Drive will take place March 8-29 to benefit The Jubilee Center, the West Dallas Community Center, Genesis Shelter and Jeanie’s Place.

Following health guidelines, the Community Service Board has made adjustments to the drive to circumvent multiple people handling the baskets. Basket items and procedures will be explained as the drive approaches. Because of COVID-19 concerns, the blood drive will not take place this year due to an increasing number of cases and the presence of the new strain of the virus.

McDonald’s Week

A week to last

FEASTING During McDonald’s Week, students typically eat in participating restaurants to raise more money for Austin Street.

However, because of health regulations, these dinners will not be offered this year.

In a highly irregular school year, a modified McDonald’s Week will still take place during the first week of March.

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mong the most prominent traditions here is McDonald’s Week, an annual weeklong fundraiser delegated to the Junior Class for Austin Street Center.

The phrase “McDonald’s Week” traditionally conjures images of raucous poolnoodle battles, spectacular chemistry shows, frigid ice baths, huge t-shirt stands and piles of food – a decisively pre-COVID-19 atmosphere.

For the Class of 2022’s McDonald’s Week co-chairs – juniors Sal Abbasi, Ashvin Nair and Alex Nadalini – adapting to the unexpected is nothing new. But adapting to the seemingly impossible is a different challenge.

Since their initial appointments over the summer, the co-chairs have been altering their plans for this year’s McDonald’s Week to the ever-evolving situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in the school and surrounding area.

“We were in that mentality of expecting the unexpected,” Abbasi said. “We were trying to be ready for anything that was thrown at us.

We were meeting fairly often, just getting our basic plans down. I think our biggest job this year is to be as flexible as possible and to be as receptive as possible to the situation.”

Though McDonald’s Week has been officially pushed back to the first week of March, the co-chairs had been planning for a regular McDonald’s Week in November. The delay simply gives them time to plan further.

“We were planning for November because the worst-case scenario is we planned for the spring and it’s in November,” Abbasi said. “So we were planning for November, thinking that if we were planning ahead of time, that can only be good.”

EARLY YEARS In a proto-McDonald’s Week at Grandy’s in 1989, Athletic Trainer Robert “Doc” Browning (right) hangs out with high school students.

Interestingly enough, the McDonald’s Week community service drive didn’t start at McDonald’s at all. Athletic Trainer Robert “Doc” Browning took part in the inception of the event when it first began to take place at a Grandy’s restaurant location. However, in just a few years, the event moved to its namesake location.

“After the third year, Grandy’s was going into bankruptcy. There’s a few of them you’ll find around, but that one’s gone away,” Browning said. “When McDonald’s moved here, they learned of Grandy’s Week. We had

Grandy’s Week in the fall of that year, and then the first McDonald’s Week was in the spring, and then McDonald’s took over the fall. It’s been McDonald’s ever since.”

Since those early years, McDonald’s Week has changed and morphed into the event it is today. One new change the co-chairs are trying to make this year is greater involvement from Hockaday in the event, but this does not mean there will be a comparable event at that school.

“The idea was to get Hockaday more involved because, in the past, they’ve typically been present at McDonald’s Week, and it adds to the atmosphere, to the experience, and it adds donations to Austin Street,” Nadalini said. “It benefits both the experience and Austin Street.”

Hockaday junior Sarah Roberts is leading the way as the contact person and organizer for all things McDonald’s Week-related at Hockaday. As someone who personally participated in some of the auxiliary McDonald’s Week events, she hopes more Hockaday students will get involved to help Austin Street.

Roberts hopes Hockaday involvement also becomes a regular part of the event and that her position is similarly filled by that year’s juniors.

“I really hope that it does continue in further years,” Roberts said. “I obviously won’t be in charge, but I really do hope so because I think that Hockaday and St. Mark’s could really work together, do even more with these McDonald’s Week events than they have been doing in the past and help Austin Street Center even more.”

Though the circumstances for this year’s McDonald’s Week are extraordinary and limit possible events, there is a precedent for such circumstances. Following the destruction to the Preston-Royal McDonald’s following last year’s tornado, McDonald’s Week took a much different form last year.

“The co-chairs were running around for weeks trying to come up with new ideas when we didn’t even know if we were going to be able to hold the fundraiser,” former McDonald’s Week co-chair and senior Gabe Bines said. “I was super anxious and stressed, but as the weeks went on and we started to brainstorm more and more as a class, my anxiousness turned into excitement because I saw our class come together to defeat an obstacle that seemed impossible.”

With flexibility to ever-shifting circumstances, the co-chairs believe last year will give a good template of what this year’s McDonald’s Week will look like.

“I think it’s going to look parallel to last year’s where most of the stuff will be happening on campus,” Nair said, “but there’s going to be separation between the different schools this time because of COVID. But overall, nothing really is going to change from last year.”

Storytime with Doc

Having been with the event since its inception, “Doc” Browning has several stories related to McDonald’s Week from throughout the years. Here are some of his stories in his own words: Jamie Alexander [the director of Grandy’s’ public relations] told me that they got over 200 requests a month for stuff like this, but, when she saw our proposal, it jumped off the page at her like nothing she had ever seen. We said that we were going to do something for you. We’re not just coming in and saying, ‘Give us something.’ We will pack your restaurant for a week and increase your receipts and increase your business and give you publicity. All you have to do is something for somebody else.

Somewhat early on at McDonald’s, we would designate each day as a special day.

We had Hockaday Day, we had Lower School Day and, on Fridays, we had community leaders come down. We actually had the mayor, Lamar Hunt, and local congressmen come to Grandy’s, just to join in on the celebration and all of that.

McDonald’s corporate now offers what we do to other schools around the country that are in close proximity with other McDonald’s. This program that we have done here has flourished and blossomed beyond the borders of St. Mark’s and beyond Dallas. It’s become a model for other programs around the country.

The various possibilities of what McDonald’s Week could look like are essentially funneled through the Health and Safety subcommittee, chaired by junior Adam Wang. This subcommittee helps manage what regulations and restrictions need to be put in place for a safe McDonald’s Week.

“We’re thinking there are three possible ways McDonald’s Week could look,” Abbasi said. “It could either look like how things are looking right now – no visitors, we can’t have any people in contact at all, no large groups.

We have a better scenario: maybe some visitors and larger clusters of people. Then there’s the miracle scenario where COVID essentially goes away, and we can have a near-natural McDonald’s Week. Those are the three ways we’ve been planning this event.”

STORY Axel Icazbalceta, Jamie Mahowald, Will Spencer PHOTOS Jerry Zhao, Collin Katz, Courtesy Robert “Doc” Browning

Talking with the co-chairs

Quick responses from the event organizers on why they’re doing it, their favorite McDonald’s foods, and more Ashvin Nair co-chair

Sarah Roberts Hockaday contact

Why did you want to be co-chair?

When I came to St Mark’s in ninth grade, McDonald’s Week was an event where I got to meet the rest of the Upper School. It’s been a special event for me since then. During ninth grade summer, I had some experiences working with the homeless, so that’s why this cause is really meaningful to me.

What’s your favorite McDonald’s menu item?

My favorite menu item is definitely the fries.

What’s your favorite McDonald’s menu item?

I really love McDonald’s fries, especially when they have extra salt on them.

What’s your favorite McDonald’s Week memory?

I really like the dinners last year in the spring. A couple of my friends from track, we would all go to the dinners after practice. It was a really good excuse to get out, and it was also a fun way to raise money.

Alex Nadalini co-chair

Sal Abbasi co-chair

What’s your go-to McDonald’s order?

I usually go with a 20-count, a Big Mac and a McFlurry with some fries. It doesn’t make me feel good later on, but I like it in the moment for sure.

Why did you want to be co-chair?

Growing up at St. Mark’s, I always knew it was a big deal and a lot of fun. I just want to help out and help make it run smoothly in a year where it’s really important, and I just want to be a part of it.

What’s your favorite McDonald’s menu item?

The cookies. They are so cheap, you can get three for a dollar. They’re so good, and you can order them warm too. The cookies, not even a question.

What’s your favorite McDonald’s Week memory?

My favorite memories of McDonald’s Week have been my walks with Doc to campus, and just watching everyone have such a good time.

COUNSELING

Increasing student support Counseling office beefs up its staff; increases availability for assistance to Marksmen by adding counselors Bonsu and Redondo.

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rom playground conflicts in the Lower School to the stress of too many tests in Upper School, students can find themselves in a variety of difficult situations, feeling unable to overcome their stressors.

To provide Marksmen with additional resources to cope with mental health struggles, the school has welcomed a new Upper School counselor and created a new position, Lower School counselor.

Whether it’s with first-graders or twelth-graders, Marksmen now have the opportunity to work with counselors specializing in all different age groups.

Being on the inside at school, there’s this real time where you understand what’s going on with dynamics, and I could sit and go talk with a teacher immediately after something has happened. I feel like I can make a bigger difference in the life of adolescents.

Mary Bonsu, Upper School Counselor

“When [students] come to me, I’m going to pull things from evidence-based interventions,” Bonsu said, “and I’m going to provide a safe, comfortable, non-judgmental and confidential space to explore all of those things [and] set goals within their free periods and the time in between classes to work on themselves.”

Overall, the counselors aim to help Marksmen graduate with a well-rounded experience and engage in the school’s brotherhood. They hope to teach students how to take care of themselves physically, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically to develop tools to cope with any adversity that may arise later in life.

“My goal for students is to be someone that they trust and that they can come to me with any issue and know that I’m going to address it with an utmost level of professionalism, honoring their story,” Bonsu said. “And that parents trust me — that’s huge. That’s my personal, professional, ongoing goal, short term and long term.”

STORY Will Pechersky, Sai Thirunagari PHOTO Ekansh Tambe

Lower School changes methods for traditional Leadership Wall selection process

by Han Zhang

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he Leadership Wall, a long-standing Lower School tradition, will be changing the format of its selection process this year. The change is due in large part to the amount of time and effort required from both teachers and students in previous years.

“Prior to 2016, each grade level would nominate a leader,” Lower School Head Sherri Darver said. “The teachers would work with one boy from each homeroom on the grade-level choice, researching that person. This took an enormous amount of time for the homeroom teachers and the boys, who had to give up P.E. and/or recess periods or even stay after school to work on this project over the course of two to three weeks. Each grade level would then present their research to all the LS boys. Voting would occur for one leader to emerge.”

As of now, the changes will be made primarily with efficiency and accuracy in mind. One problem noted by Darver is that lower schoolers tended to vote for people nominated by their friends, an issue that may be solved with the introduction of the new system.

“Every boy and faculty member in the Lower School has

an opportunity to nominate a leader,” Darver said. “They must state their reason for each nomination. We collect nominations for seven to ten days. The leaders with the highest nominations are then put on a ballot for voting (this has usually been between three to five nominees) Every boy and faculty/staff member may vote. Once we know the winner, research of this person’s life begins. One student from each grade level is chosen by the grade-level teachers. We then divide the research of the leader’s life into reasonable parts.”

After four students have been selected, they will each share a presentation on their nominee to the entire Lower School, after which a final vote will be taken and a portrait of the chosen leader will be added to the Leadership Wall. Darver hopes that the changes will largely benefit the lower schoolers participating in the Leadership Wall.

“We hope that the changes have improved the process, especially with the intentionality of identifying the character traits and virtues the leaders had at young ages,” Darver said.

“Our youngest Marksmen can make connections to these virtues and hopefully see potential in their own lives.”

Leadership Wall Past recipients, as voted

by Lower School students 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

George Washington Abraham Lincoln Martin Luther King, Jr. Harriet Tubman John F. Kennedy Mahatma Ghandi Nelson Mandela Dr. Norman Borlaug Mother Teresa Malala Yousafzai Jackie Robinson Rosa Parks Alexander Hamilton

Lower schoolers voted on the 2021 inductee the week of Feb. 1-5, but results were not known as The ReMarker went to press.

13 The ReMarker

Redondo has already found rewarding aspects of working with lower schoolers, aiming to facilitate their interactions with each other.

“One of my big goals is to develop a plan or a way for them to be able to really know how to engage and cope with anything that can be considered a bullying issue and being able to help them develop their conflict resolution skills because that’s something that they’re really going to need,” Redondo said.

As she settles into her new community, she’s developed her own goals to focus on.

“I have a lot of self-expectations of being able to be as helpful and supportive as possible to the teachers, to the families and to these kids,” Redondo said. “I think my main one is helping them to feel comfortable coming into the counseling office and knowing that this is available at all times for them, and that I’m here for them.”

As for the Upper School, Bonsu sees her role as an expert who’s available to coach Marksmen with strategies to manage stress, anxiety, depression, relationship issues, identity issues and any other

issues related to mental health. She says the three main concerns that Upper School Marksmen encounter are stress, time management and relationships, and COVID-19 in particular has affected them socially.

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conversations that she would have with boys and how you guys would just get it — really, really productive therapy sessions where boys would be committed to exploring things and thinking about things in ways that help them better their lives.”

Transitioning from their time at the hospital, both Redondo and Bonsu felt the appeal of working in a school setting. “[I liked] the idea of being able to work with the kids in a different way where I’d have more of the capacity of working with the teachers and with the parents and being able to help implement any type of changes there,” Redondo said. “And the flexibility of being able to work with each of the students one-onone and in group settings, I felt like I’d be able to share my knowledge and help more this way.”

February 5, 2021

Lower School Counselor Bridget Redondo will begin her career at the school as the first to hold this position. Prior to coming here, Redondo spent ten years working at Children’s Medical Center Dallas.

“I would see kids that were admitted to the hospital for whatever reason,” Redondo said. “If they were having issues coping with being in the hospital, or their mood seemed down, I would help develop safety plans with them and work with their parents.”

New Upper School Counselor Dr. Mary Bonsu specializes in children and adolescents, working as a pediatric psychologist at Children’s Medical, where she focused on helping children work through pain management — her dream job. But once she became a mother, she decided to change careers.

“I learn something new every day, and I’ve been a psychologist for about 15 years now,” Bonsu said. “I wanted to understand Mary how to start educating my Bonsu child from a young age, and Upper School education is something I Counselor haven’t focused on. That made me think, ‘Okay, I want to take my career in a different direction.’”

Redondo, Bonsu and Counseling Director Dr. Gabby Reed were all colleagues at Children’s and all felt drawn to work here, learning more about 10600 Preston Rd. through Reed, who counsels middle schoolers.

“We’ve been friends this whole entire time,” Bonsu said. “[Reed] would talk to me about the

HELPING OUT New Lower School Counselor Bridget Redondo takes a shift in her career, shifting from the hopsital scene to the school evnvironment. Taking the opportunity, Redondo is the first to serve in this new Lower School position.

GOOD TIMES FORMAL Japanese Spanish exchange exchange student and student Juan Montabes (far football player Taisuke Mori right) poses smiles in his with buddies gear after a at a dance. “I game. made a lot of new friends,” Montabes said.

ON THE PAGE A sample of Montabes's geometric artwork.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS

Where are they now?

While they were here, they were Marksmen. But what's going on in the lives of foreign exchange students Juan Montabes and Taisuke More now that they've returned home?

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February 5, 2021

The ReMarker

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rom Spain to Japan, students who live across the globe make their way to the U.S. through the school’s foreign exchange program. The local students and faculty interact with these young men throughout their limited time at the school, but as their stay on campus draws to a close, they travel back across oceans and continents to their homes, far away from the quiet studying of the library and the rigorous practices out on the field. As life continues on the other side of the globe, Juan Montabes and Taisuke Mori graduate from their studies, pursue careers and maybe — every now and then — enjoy a game of American football.

Ian Dalrymple: What do you do for a living?

Juan Montabes: “I am in my sophomore year here at my double engineering program in Madrid.

Right now, I study industrial design and mechanical engineering. I really like the industrial design part.

I also have part-time jobs on the side, but they have nothing to do with my career.”

Taisuke Mori: “I went to St. Mark’s around 20062007. After going back to Japan, I studied for college for maybe nine months and entered college in 2008. I graduated in 2013, and then I entered a company the same year. At first, I worked as a normal salesman on the Japanese market. Then, two or three years later, I was sent to India, and I worked there for three years at a subsidiary company. Then, Taisuke due to the COVID-19 situation, Mori we had to cut labor costs, so I Japanese was sent back to Japan.” exchange student

ID: Have you picked up any new hobbies or activities since you left St. Mark’s?

JM: “I didn’t watch NBA or basketball in general before living in the States. I really like burgers now because of Dallas. I have continued with the hobbies I had before St. Mark’s, like art, reading and soccer. I also started playing guitar and I want to take piano lessons. After being in Dallas, I was introduced to new music and rappers, so passion for music really started growing in me.”

TM: “One of the hobbies I’ve been doing actually started at St. Mark’s. While I was there, I joined your American football team, so when I went to college, I kept playing, and St. Mark’s really helped me with that. When I joined my college team, a lot of them didn’t know basic weightlifting, so I helped them with that. When I first entered, the team was in like division three, but my last year we were able to go into division one, so I’m proud of that. Those weightlifting skills have kept me healthy ever since.

ID: What would you say is the biggest way St. Mark’s has changed your life?

JM: “St. Mark’s changed my life because it taught me brotherhood and unity. When I was there, I was the only international student. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming to me. St. Mark’s has taught me that a community of people can help make you feel comfortable and make you feel at home when you are not actually at home. I also learned to make friends and that feeling of community in my own school. I met students who were younger and older than me to try to bring that sense of family to Spain.”

TM: “One technique I learned at St. Mark’s was being a leader and collecting ideas and recognizing people’s strengths. When I was sent to India, I was a manager, so I could get closer with my colleagues from the skills

Marksmen create new business magazine

by Han Zhang s part of an effort to boost student interest in business and finance- related topics, juniors Pranay Sinkre and Evan Lai have begun the process of creating a new student publication, Lion’s Share.

“As a part of the Business Consortium Leadership Committee, I’m always looking for new ways to get kids involved and exposed to different facets of the business world,” Sinkre said. “I looked around campus at all the other publications and wondered why no one had made a business-centered magazine, so I jumped on the opportunity.”

Although the pandemic has made the writing and design process more difficult than it would be normally, Sinkre and Lai feel comfortable with the way that the magazine has been progressing so far.

“Since this is our first year, the deadlines are fluid, and I am simply trying to accommodate everyone's schedules,” Sinkre said. “Before we even started writing, I told everyone to pick a story idea that piqued their interest. In terms of design, we have been scouring the internet for inspiration from professional and collegiate publications, but we fully intend to add a St. Mark's flair to it.”

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Since the pandemic and the tornado of last year, Sinkre and Lai have had no shortage of topics to access in their magazine. They hope to be able to address issues that will appeal to all members of the community.

“Considering that we are in the height of a historic pandemic, it would be foolish of us to not take advantage of the unfortunate and unique effect COVID has had on businesses around the country and locally,” Sinkre said. “We also want to emphasize that we are a St. Mark's magazine at the end of the day, so we are prioritizing local businesses in the Preston-Royal area.

In addition, we will be discussing how the tornado has placed an additional burden on local businesses.”

Sinkre and Lai are both extremely grateful for the effort the writing and design teams have put into the magazine.

“The team has exceeded all my expectations, and they have been exceptionally efficient at writing their stories and submitting them for review,” Sinkre said. “I cannot express the gratitude I have for my writers and designers. Even though this is a first-year publication, I applaud everyone on the team for taking this project seriously and always giving 100 percent effort.”

I learned from St. Mark’s about Juan collecting ideas and seeing their Montabes Spanish strengths. When I went to St. exchange Mark’s, Ty Montgomery was student in like eighth grade. I don’t have a crystal ball or anything, but as soon as I saw him play on the field, I could tell he was different. It showed me how much it matters what each guy can do, and I learned not to be distracted by the information that didn’t really matter when it came to my coworkers.”

ID: Where do you see your career going, and what are your long-term goals?

JM: “When I came back from the United States, I told my parents that I wanted to get a master’s degree there and maybe get my first job there. A dream job for me would be a designer at Nike or Reebok or companies like that. That is where I picture myself. It could be in the States or Germany or Italy.”

TM: “What I want to do is best serve my customers and make people happy. If I make my customer happy, then the customer will make the users of their products happy, and so on. Right now, I’m working in Australia and New Zealand, but in a couple of years, I could be working domestically. Either way, my stance won’t change; I just want to make the people around me as happy as possible."

INTERVIEW Ian Dalrymple PHOTOS Taisuke Mori, Juan Montabes

ALUMNI NETWORK

Service in the blood

Hoping to provide boys with guidance into their adult lives, this father-son duo works tirelessly to connect Upper School students and alumni.

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lumnus Chris Broom ’87 and senior Blake Broom are used to sharing things in the Broom House, but, unlike other father-son duos, Chris and Blake share more than just a house, a driveway and a breakfast table. The two have something more unusual in common: a shared interest in connecting students with alumni.

While Chris presides over meetings as the chairman of the Mentoring and Networking Committee of the Alumni Board, Blake works to bring the experiences of alumni back to campus as co-president of the Student Alumni Association.

From this unusual arrangement comes a rather unique dynamic. The relationship between past Alumni Board chairmen and Alumni Association presidents could be described as colleagues and co-workers or as superiors and subordinates.

But this time, it’s family.

Blake joined the Student Alumni Association entirely independently of his dad. In fact, Chris didn’t know about Blake’s position until the two groups met.

“I didn’t even know Blake had signed up to do it until we were told that we were going to meet with the Alumni Association,” Chris said. “And so I found that he and [senior] Daniel Sanchez are co-presidents of that. It’s been really fun.”

The proximity of Blake and his dad in their personal lives has offered a unique opportunity for communication between the two groups.

“We definitely bounce ideas off of each other, but it’s pretty relaxed,” Blake said. “We don’t have any official meetings with the Alumni Association, but we discuss who can come talk on campus.”

Chapel Council’s Interfaith Panel meetings to continue after initial success

by Morgan Chow

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he Interfaith Panel, a new discussion committee from the Chapel Council, plans to continue meetings after a successful first meeting Jan. 21, according to seniors Rahul Banerjee and Knobel Hunt.

The panel will host conversations between religious leaders, theologists and alumni involved in religion.

“Each member of the panel will answer questions and talk with others about their involvement and background in religion,” Banerjee said. “It has a very similar setup to the LitFest or STEM fest, just on a different topic.”

Attendance of the meetings will not be restricted to those on

the Chapel Council but welcome to all students wanting to listen to the guest speakers. The panel will allow for students to interact with the speakers as well.

“Essentially, students will have the opportunity to hear and ask questions to various religious leaders, people involved in religion or philosophers to understand their experiences and their interactions with their faith,” Hunt said.

Faith is not the only topic the panel will include, however. The seniors hope to spread ideas of positive virtues as well.

“The panel will not just be around religion, but it will also be on mindfulness, spiritual thinking and other ideas,” Banerjee said.

While the details of each and

every panel have not been fully fleshed out yet, the two leaders are expecting to cover diverse topics.

They hope to welcome many people with various experiences to cover as many topics as possible.

“Our plan is to make sure to invite people of different backgrounds and beliefs as to induce a more interesting conversation and interaction,” Banerjee said. “We haven’t gotten a full list of possible members yet; however, Knobel and I are going to invite a religious leader to talk to the Chapel Council in a sort of smaller panel.”

After the success of the first meeting, Banerjee and Hunt hope to continue the panel once every month. Even with the struggles of leading a panel online, they

wish to continue the religious conversation.

“We are both excited about what this idea holds for the future,” Banerjee said. “Because of online school, planning for this panel hasn’t been ideal because it’ll have to be conducted virtually. But we are confident that next year the panel will continue, and we hope it can be conducted on campus.”

The leaders are looking forward to presenting the panel and developing it further with over the corse of this year and into the next few years as well.

“There hasn’t been an Interfaith Panel or anything of the sort at St.Mark’s before,” Hunt said. “We see this as building into something really special in the future.

The ReMarker

Chris Broom, Mentoring and Networking Committee Chair

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Our goal is to make sure that young alumni — in college and just recently out of college — and current high school students know that they have great access and tools available to them.

15 February 5, 2021

As co-president of the Student Alumni Association, Blake Broom seeks to provide students with the experience and advice of both recent graduates and older alumni.

“We try to connect students with collegeage alumni,” Broom said. “We also try to connect students with older age alumni who can offer internships or advice on the professional world.”

The 2020-2021 school year is Chris’s fifth year on the Alumni Board. The Alumni Board encompasses a wide variety of functions, but Chris’s specific role involves connecting students and alumni.

“You have the chairmen of all different kinds of different committees, and I’m just the [chairman of the] Mentoring and Networking Committee,” Chris said. “It’s a really good group of people that are really dedicated to making sure that St. Mark’s is successful.”

Blake’s position in the Alumni Association has given Chris access to new perspectives on alumni-related issues.

“We’ve talked about what the goals of the committee are and about how to encourage people to come to his meetings,” Chris said. “He’s also talked about his goals to get people involved.

Blake’s been really helpful, giving me that insight sometimes just by talking, but other times we’ve had more pointed discussions on what would be useful to the Student Alumni Association.”

One objective Blake aims to work on with his dad is to bring alumni with more varied interests back to campus in order to appeal to a greater number of students.

“I was talking to him about bringing in writers and artists, all sorts of people to reach more people in the school.”

Blake said. “I want to try and cover as many interests students might have as possible.”

Another goal of the alumni network is to give presentations that help students in their transitions out of high school UNLIKELY PARTNERS Senior Blake Broom’s involvement in the Student Alumni Association and into their college and adult has transformed the relationship between him and his father, Chris Broom, into one that has facilitated communication within the alumni network. lives.

“Our goal with the Student Alumni Association have improved the quality of their Association is to present,” Chris said. “We had own lives. three events set up with them, and one was “I’ve seen how much being involved in the just called ‘Finding Your Passion,’ and it was alumni network has helped my dad,” Blake all about finding what you really love and said. “It’s just made him generally happier what interests you. Another event is helping because he’s always loved St Mark’s. He helps with interviewing skills. And the other one is me understand the importance of alumni doing your resume.” connections, and it also makes me feel like I’m While the goal of the alumni network will helping other people.” always be to help other students and alumni, Blake claims that his and Chris’s experiences STORY Will Spencer, Eric Yoo with the Alumni Board and the Alumni PHOTO Courtesy Blake Broom

A fresh canvas William Atkinson ‘95 and his art have made their way across the country and around the world.

From the mountains of Colorado, to the streets of Los Angeles, to the grand and celebrated galleries of New York City, Milan and Madrid, Atkinson has made his name known in the art world.

Now he’s decided to return home to pursue his long term dream: teaching English.

STORY Siddhartha Sinha, Luke Piazza PHOTOS Courtesy William Atkinson

Out on Display Here are some of William Atkinson’s showings and exhibitions around the world: 2009-2014 • Crewest Gallery, Los Angeles, California: Top of the Dome IV • Le Spec Gallery, Los Angeles, CA: Viva Los Angeles and We the People: Art for the Masses • The Site UnScene, Los Angeles, CA: Project Remember: Bring the Troops Home

2015-2020 2021 • Van Gogh Gallery, Madrid, • M.A.D.S., Milan, Italy: Spain: Luxembourg “Love My Body” and International Contemporary “Kromatic @rt” Art Fair • Van Gogh Gallery, Madrid, • Dallas Children’s Advocacy Spain: Paris International Center, Dallas, TX: Art for Contemporary Art Fair Advocacy Auction (Upcoming) • Agora Gallery, New York, • Agora Gallery, New York, NY: “Distant Observations of NY: New York Art Expo Abstraction & Tradition” (Upcoming) • Red Dot Miami, Miami, FL: Art Basel (Upcoming)

E

very day, sixth graders walk from classroom to classroom, subject to subject, building to building during an ordinary school day.

From biology to foreign language to math, all of their teachers have been working at schools for years. All of them have had a direct path from high school to college to where they are today. All have worked under their real names for their entire career.

All except one.

For a number of sixth graders this year, they’ll be learning humanities from a former police officer.

They’ll be learning how to structure five-paragraph essays from a Marine instructor. They’ll be learning about ancient civilizations from an artist with gallery exhibitions in New York, Madrid and Milan.

They’ll be learning from William Atkinson.

ON DISPLAY Many of William Atkinson’s works are available for sale and viewing at Agora Gallery in New York City, including “My Boundary Does Not Move,” pictured here.

From the small galleries and artistic communities in Los Angeles, Atkinson’s art gathered momentum, and he says that his exhibitions are still difficult to come to grips with.

“Right now, I'm lucky enough to be represented by a gallery in New York City, a new gallery in Madrid and another gallery in Milan,” Atkinson said. “It's kind of crazy. I pinch myself every day because I know how hard it is to be recognized in any way in the art world. To have a gallery dedicate space to you is such a huge honor.”

But 12 years removed from his start in street art, Atkinson says it’s time for him to come back to his roots — come back to Dallas.

“This constant of William Atkinson ‘95 education has always Teacher aide been there for me and While most may know William Atkinson ‘95 as a something I love,” former student teacher or a current teacher aide to Atkinson said. “When Thomas S. Adams Master Teaching Chair Rebecca I came back to Dallas, Jenkins, he began his winding journey at West Point, I spoke with [wife] where he studied for two years before finishing Jacqueline, and I was like, his degree at SMU. Following several summers in 'I'd like to teach professionally in a formal academic Colorado working on a ranch, he settled there and setting, so I need to start pursuing that goal.' She served as a police officer in a smaller community to said that was phenomenal.” guarantee that he would have the personal impact If all goes to plan, Atkinson wants to commit the and relationships he was looking for. next 20 to 25 years of his life to teaching, but the first “Being a police officer is absolutely one of the step is completing his Master’s degree in education. most rewarding jobs when done correctly,” Atkinson “Student teaching was the last portion of the said. “It is also a job where you receive immediate masters,” Atkinson said. “For me, there is no higher feedback if you are not doing it correctly. As a honor than teaching at St. Mark's. I absolutely love young officer, there was no bigger compliment than it. It's just the most wonderful honor to be a part of the local community calling 9-1-1 and asking if such an academic lineage that I'm excited for any Officer Atkinson is helping.” opportunity to be there.”

Soon after he was recruited to assist the Marine That being said, Atkinson still had reservations.

Corps in Los Angeles as an subject matter expert, Twenty-five years after his graduation, he wasn’t instructing Marines on counterinsurgency and sure about his fit in the community, so before he irregular warfare. committed to teaching on campus, Atkinson took on “We conducted classroom training, range a number of jobs on campus, coaching eighth grade training, and real world training,” Atkinson said. football, Middle School wrestling and Middle School “I was not assigned to a particular location but track. was part of a traveling team that went wherever Atkinson says those experiences reinforced we were needed. We also provided support for the feeling that 10600 Preston Rd. was right certain directives, situations, and initiatives. for him. And now, having spent nearly three Teaching Marines as a civilian is an incredibly high quarters teaching classes this year, Atkinson says honor. Marines have a long and storied tradition he appreciates the belief his more-experienced of teaching their own — so colleagues have shown in him. you can imagine it was an “[Cecil H. and Ida Green Each piece should be an interesting environment until Master Teaching Chair Scott] opportunity to push your they got to know us. If we Gonzalez and I did two weeks artistic boundary. If not, you are helped just one Marine feel remotely,” Atkinson said, “and just repeating the same expressive safer, all of those years were then Mr. Gonzalez — out of moment. A blank canvas an honor.” absolute kindness and generosity conveys a sense of challenge and At the same time, – turned over his classes to me and opportunity, no matter how Atkinson also decided to I was doing the full instruction many times you face it. make a name for himself in for the quarter. He would monitor William Atkinson ‘95, the Los Angeles street art through Teams, but it was a huge Sixth grade humanities instructor world nearly ten years ago vote of confidence. It's been such a when local galleries tried to capture the trendy art wonderful learning experience.” form.

From Colorado police officer to Los Angeles “There was a huge resurgence of street art in Marine-instructor-by-day-artist-by-night to Dallas L.A. for a whole confluence of reasons,” Atkinson humanities instructor, Atkinson says he’s where he’s said. “One thing people were very good at in the always wanted to be.

L.A. art world is capitalizing on things that are Even as his street art gained recognition, even interesting, on trend, really capturing a moment. as galleries and art fairs around the world wanted Galleries were transitioning this art form present in to exhibit his work, even as his name gathered the city into a gallery space.” momentum in the art world, Atkinson says the Originally working under a pseudonym plan was always to move professional art into the without any formal art education, Atkinson said the background and become a teacher. biggest consideration in his transition from street art And he has no regrets. to gallery art and fine art surrounded his identity.

“It has absolutely affirmed my choice to “That was an interesting and challenging and dedicate the next 25 years of my life to teaching,” emotional decision to make,” Atkinson said. “To Atkinson said. “Coming back with life experience transition from that and come out of the shadows allows for unique insight as to how special our and say, 'This is me.' I just work under my name school is. Everyone asks me what it is like to teach now, which is a very different experience than at St. Mark’s, and I always say that the boys make it having that shroud of anonymity around it. For me, very easy and enjoyable. I am honored to have any that was a pretty big moment to consider how and if part in the academic legacy of our institution.” and why to do that.”

Mini-gallery

A look at some of Atkinson’s pieces featured around the globe across the years and the hidden secrets behind them.

“More Than Cool Reason” (2018)

Series: “In Media Res” (2015 - 9 total pieces)

1 6 ,17

For me, “June” is an important piece. One night when I was painting, I was putting the finishing touches on it and was like, “I’ll work with it for a little bit.” Then my wife came in and said “We’ve got to go to the hospital because I’m having a baby.”

And I was like, “ Okay painting’s done!” So that was that night, and the wallpaper that goes across it is actually wallpaper from my daughter’s nursery.

That one obviously matters more and has a special connection to it. It doesn’t mean I won’t show it and won’t sell it. My wife is just mortified that I would sell it, but it’s meant to live with others. I know what it means, I know what happiness it brought me and hopefully if it ends up living with someone, they can have a piece of that.

“War Chest” (2020)

I was in Brooklyn in this little thrift store, a secondhand store in a basement, and I was looking for books and things that were interesting. And there was this little stack of art books that were commissioned by the government in the ‘60s to document art that’s taking place and nature and all these wonderful things in America.

It was a series of books, and they were beautiful, but each one was very thin and detailed and had been sitting there forever. I was thumbing through them, and it was really profound, and the writing was really beautiful. So I grabbed the stack and I’ve gone through there and brought their energy out and reintroduced it back to the world so it can live again.

The ReMarker • February 5, 2021

“June” (2019)

This series is an older representation of my work. I spent the better part of 2014 preparing for my first solo show. One night I needed a mental, creative and emotional break. I pulled out a long single sheet from a roll of paper and this series was the result.

It was created as one piece and, as per my practice, in one night.

The piece was literally a moment in the middle of a thing.

I was still showing under my street art pseudonym at this time, so the work is more representative of that style. My street art was edgier and more raw in its expression than my current work. I am proud of all my work and happy to be in a more refined artistic space now.

Perspectives

There was a lot of energy in that piece. It is probably an ad from a magazine. I like to use a lot of recontextualization of those because those are major decision making forces for people: “Why’d you do this? I saw it on an ad. It told me to.” What are you really looking at? What is motivating you to do those things? What is your process, and what do you make decisions based off of? For me, sometimes I’ll have an image that I want to use, and sometimes they’ll be scrolling online and say “That’s the one.” And they enter paintings at different times in the process in different ways.

There’s a person named Colonel John Boyd. He developed something called the OODA loop, which is ‘Observe, Orient, Decide and Act.’ That’s basically one interpretation of how humans make decisions. You observe something. Your brain orients to it.

You make a decision. And then you act upon it. I wanted to have that in more of a public foray or discourse. There’s also my own type of personality that would go with that as well, so it had an edge to it that was uniquely mine. For a couple of years, it was really enjoyable.

The ReMarker • February 5, 2021

Culture

18

Cartoonist

A conversation with Paul Dini, a far-reaching screenwriter. Page 16

Blues

Physics instructor Stephen Houpt finds new ways to share his music. Page 17

Mini Marque

After many years as a club, Mini Marque production now takes form as a Middle School course. Page 18

In brief FILM Senior Sarbik Saha and sophomore Sal Hussain had two films selected for the 2021 IndieFEST Film Awards: My Greatest Critic and Paradise. My Greatest Critic was also selected as a semifinalist in the Chicago Indie Film Awards. In addition, Saha’s screenplay LUCID was selected to compete at the 2021 Chicago Indie Film Awards.

POETRY OUT LOUD Junior Samuel Eluemunoh won the school-wide Poetry Out Loud competition with his recitation of the poem “American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin’’ by Terrance Hayes. Eluemunoh has been invited to participate in the state competition, which will be conducted virtually. Although the exact date of the competition has not yet been announced, it will likely occur in late February or early March.

HSK + NSE Fifty students received gold medals on the National Spanish Exam (NSE), which indicates a score in or above the 95th percentile. Seventyone students received silver medals – a score from the 85th to the 94th percentiles. Thirty-five students received bronze medals – a score from the 75th to the 84th percentiles. Twenty-one students received honorable mentions, indicating a score from the 50th through the 74th percentiles.

Twenty-four students who took the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) at various levels passed. The NSE is a nation-wide contest designed to evaluate a student’s fluency in Spanish, and the HSK is an international standardized test designed to evaluate students’ proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.

CERAMICS Ceramics students finished submitting pieces Jan. 11 for an exhibition held by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). The opening date for the exhibition, which will be held virtually this year, is scheduled for March 3. The NCECA has historically accepted only about 100 pieces per exhibition. Awards given out to some of those accepted for the exhibition include scholarships, equipment and cash prizes.

Civil Rights

A bill for change Two juniors join to form a civil rights club directly involved in drafting legistlation and addressing pressing issues.

T

aking the first step isn’t an easy thing to do.

After all, how are two juniors in high school supposed to make an impact on the legislation and civil rights situation in their community?

Juniors Thomas Phillip and Rahul Gunukula decided to take on this challenge by starting their own civil rights club at school.

Using their connections and their own passion for the cause, the club’s members hope to get others involved in coming together to create a new piece of legislation that will improve our community.

Like many around the country, Philip and Gunukula saw the widespread outrage following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and sought to do something about the overarching issues the subsequent protests sought to resolve.

“The Black Lives Matter protests showed a lot of us how relevant the issue of racial injustice is in our country,” Philip said. “And it showed that, no matter your age, you could do something about it. So I thought that if we could do something in our community, that’d be a great way to get people involved. I talked to Rahul, and he thought the same thing, so that’s how we founded the club.”

After deciding to found the club, the pair decided on Admission Officer Korey Mack ‘00 as the sponsor for the Civil Rights Club.

“Mr. Mack was already deeply involved with the [city] government,” Gunukula said, “and he has a lot of connections as well with Black-owned restaurants and Black representatives. So he already was behind this movement and started doing a lot of things by himself, in addition to running for city council.

He was already there, so he was the first candidate in our mind.”

Since the club’s founding at the beginning of the year, the club has worked on various projects related to civil rights issues in the community. The club organized an event where they showed members of the school community how to volunteer at polls last November. Soon to be posted on their upcoming website, the club has interviewed Black small business owners in the community to give them greater exposure. Most recently, the club held a November meeting with Jasmine Crockett, the newly-sworn-in Texas House Representative for District 100.

“She talked to us about her goals for this year as she ran for a position in the Texas House of Representatives,” Philip said. “She talked to us a lot, and we’re trying to get a bill going with her.”

Mack, who had Crockett’s contact information from previous work he had done with her, was the middle man between the club and Crockett.

I knew she was eager to be involved in some of the same issues,” Mack said. “She also has a very similar story going to an independent school.”

When Mack reached out to her about speaking to the club, she immediately accepted.

“He asked me about speaking to the Civil Rights Club, and I was like, ‘Yeah, sure,’” Crockett said. “I Jasmine knew nothing Crockett about the history Texas State of it, but I thought Representative it was super duper cool that there were young people that took it upon themselves to decide that they wanted a civil rights club. That’s not anything that existed when I was growing up for sure.”

During the meeting, she spoke to the club about various civil rights topics, and finished the meeting off with an unusual request.

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ADDRESSING THE ISSUES Summer protests following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others serve as the backdrop of the club’s work with Representative Jasmine Crockett on the bill proposals. The club hopes to put some of the demands made over the summer into real change.

“I asked if I could give an assignment to the club,” Crockett said. “The assignment I gave was that I wanted them to work on three pieces of legislation that they thought that I should introduce, and I want them to pitch those pieces of legislation to me. They’re really, really smart.

I absolutely believe that they will think outside the box and come up with something creative that I can ultimately file.”

Since that meeting, the club has gotten together to outline a bill proposal to send to Crockett with three points — as per the assignment — all of which are related to police reform: civil greetings from police officers to civilians, reforming qualified immunity, and limiting the situations in which officers can use deadly force.

“We proposed three ideas to her, but they all boil down to interactions between citizens and police officers, just trying to make those less tense and less violent,” Philip said.

“Whether it’s tackling qualified immunity or use of force, we’re getting into the specifics with her in our next meeting, but our proposal is to tackle this issue.”

Like the inspiration for the founding of the club itself, the motivation for the bill topics they proposed held roots in the events of last summer.

“The stories of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor inspired this bill,” Phillip said. “We found this statistic that when officers use less deadly force there’s less civilian deaths and also less police officer deaths. So we felt that a bill that limits the deadly force of police officers will not only help citizens — especially AfricanAmerican citizens — but it will also help police officers. We think that this bill can help our lives too, so that whenever you get pulled over by a police officer, that interaction is as peaceful as possible.”

Once Crockett meets again with the club, they will work together to iron out the details before she takes the proposal to the next step in the Texas House of Representatives.

Representative Crockett will be submitting all three of the club’s proposals during the current legislative session.

“The first part would just be submitting [the bill proposal] to [the Legislative] Council, and getting a copy back,” Crockett said. “And then what I’ll most likely do is get with the club once I get a copy back and say, ‘This is what it says. Does this meet the intent of what it is that you guys want it to do?’”

The club decided to focus on these specific topics related to police reform to ensure that their work would have an impact.

“We want to start small and focus on one thing so that we don’t spread ourselves too thin focusing on multiple different topics,” Gunukula said. “We wanted to put forward a tangible result, and this seems like the most achievable thing and what we’d be most affected by. So we wanted to tackle this one topic instead of going after many and risking having no success at all.”

Having finished writing their bill proposal, the club will meet with Crockett after she has

received her committee assignments in the Texas House of Representatives to further plan the drafting of the bill.

“The legislative session began yesterday [Jan 12] in Texas, and Representative Crockett is going to meet with us after the representatives get committee assignments,” Philip said.

“So then we’ll see what she’s going to be focusing on and how we can fit the bill to that responsibility.”

Even with all the events happening in the club’s first year, Philip and Gunukula still hope to expand the club further for years to come.

“We just hope we can continue to grow this club,” Philip said. “With COVID, it’s been hard to have a lot of meetings and group events, so we hope we can make a community around it and have more events that are in-person and social. That’s how we see change happening, not just on social media or through the internet, but through real discussions for change.”

STORY Axel Icazbalceta, Will Pechersky GRAPHICS Jonathan Yin

How to pass a law in the State of Texas

1

A State Representative or Senator comes up with their idea for a bill and drafts a proposal with all the important information for said bill.

2

The proposal is submitted to the Legislative Council, a group of lawyers within the state government who write the bill. The draft of the bill is sent back to the Senator or Representative.

3

When that Senator or Representative is happy with the bill, they introduce it to the correct chamber floor. The bill is then assigned to a committee to be discussed.

4 Bill

5 6

The corresponding committee discusses the bill and holds a public hearing. After this session, the committee may release a report with their recommendations on the bill.

The bill is then voted in the House or Senate, during which amendments may be made. If passed, it is sent to the other chamber for a vote.

Once a bill has been passed, it is sent to the Governor’s office. The Governor has 10 days to sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to become law without a signature. If vetoed, a two-thirds majority in both chambers may override the veto.

PUBLICATIONS

From club to class After 21 editions as a club, the Mini Marque successfully completed its first semester as an actual class. It used to run as an extracurricular with students putting in their own time.

19

Because the class is only a semester long, the Mini Marque has now shifted into a club where anyone can join. And although the class is over, it has provided a much-needed foundation for the rest of the magazine. The efficiency of the class led the group to complete 110 pages of design, some 40 pages over the normal number, allowing lots of time to edit and cut unessential pages.

“It’s going to help us out in the second half of the magazine because we’re done with most of the

spreads,” Yepuri said. “Now we’re gonna have to go through and edit and hopefully get the magazine by late March or early April.”

In years past, applications were necessary to join the club, but because of the hectic year, Clayton decided to get rid of that system.

“When we are a club, it can be anyone,” Clayton said. “Before, we had applications, but things are crazy this year.”

When the club began, new members were paired with veterans of the semester class in order to learn the basics. Clayton likes this idea of student-run instruction.

“It should be a student-driven magazine,” Clayton said. “The veterans will train the club members once a week, and now that they’ve already created their own spreads [during the semester course], they’ll help the new members create new ones.”

Clayton has not decided on any editors yet, but she may make the decision further down the line.

“We’re all working together to create this, so there are no lead editors at this point,” Clayton said.

“I really like the idea of electing those editors based on their service to the magazine at the end of the year and really allowing them to put a stamp on the magazine.”

With the club now underway, Clayton wants to focus more on producing rather than assigning management positions.

“That will be up till the end of the year when we come together to find our most creative minds and our hardest workers,” Clayton said. “They can sit down with the magazine in April and really hone it down to its finest edge.”

STORY Eric Yoo, Morgan Chow PHOTOS Morgan Chow

Juniors create their own streetwear clothing company called Strawbuilt

by Myles Lowenberg uniors Blake Molthan and Cooper Cole started Strawbuilt, a streetwear clothing company that has released its first piece of clothing, a t-shirt called “Powerlines.”

Cole said he and Molthan decided to start Strawbuilt after looking online.

“We were sitting in science lecture hall one day, and we were looking through a Reddit forum on t-shirts and small companies,” Cole said.

“We were like, ‘We should start one’ because he’s good at the whole business side of stuff, and I can do the art stuff.”

J

Cole and Molthan found the right design for the shirt after going through plenty of others.

“I used my iPad and just kind of drew it up,” Cole said. “I made a bunch of designs, and then we picked one of the ones that we liked best.”

They settled on the “Powerlines” design, featuring a colorful background that stands out against the silhouette of a powerline and the white of the rest of the t-shirt.

“I liked that [design] a lot because the color gradient in the background looked pretty cool,” Molthan said.

“We both agreed it looked nice, and

[Cole] tweaked it a little bit, made some changes with the coloring and shading and added a little bit of text.

And we were set from there.”

Molthan marketed the product by taking pictures and posting them on Instagram and on Reddit.

“On Instagram, most of the people liking it were just friends or anyone I knew,” Molthan said. “But on Reddit, it was all strangers, no one that I knew, and it was still getting some attention.”

Molthan was surprised by the amount of people across the country viewing his products on Reddit and

buying them.

“People were giving me advice and updates on [Reddit], and I got a couple of orders from people from like California, Colorado, Idaho,” Molthan said. “Every now and then I get a new order from out of town, and I’m just like, ‘Woah, I’m actually sending the shirt to someone I don’t even know.

After this first release Molthan saw the potential that Strawbuilt has for the future.

“We already have the foundation built, the website and the Instagram and the marketing,” Molthan said.

The ReMarker

The Mini Marque completed its first-ever semester as a class Jan. 15. Clayton first conceived the idea because she believed the workload at the end of the year would become much more manageable as a class than as an extracurricular club.

“It’s something I pitched last year,” Clayton said. “I thought that I could take on the extra class because, honestly, this is making work light for me.

They agreed that it would be a good one-semester course and that it would always be in the fall.”

With the introduction of the new class, assignments and organization became easier.

Eighth-grader Neil Yepuri enjoyed the more even distribution of seventh and eighth-graders.

“I think it’s generally more even between seventh and eighth-graders, so that’s helped it become more organized,” Yepuri said. “I also think that’s part of the class thing. I think both of those are much more organized.”

Because the Mini-Marque is now an official course, the class has access to new material to learn from, and eighth-grader Joseph Sun believes that he has improved significantly from it.

“Since it’s now recognized as an official class, we got to have textbooks,” Sun said. “We would go to [the textbooks] as a kind of reference, so if we

needed help, we would just go to the page to look at how to do it. We’ve learned a lot from that, and from last year to this year to now, I’ve improved a lot more and I think the seventh graders did too.”

Having a class pushes the students to stay focused because it makes the Mini Marque a more officially sponsored project.

“It feels more like an obligation now rather than something you can do if you Danielle want to,” Yepuri said. “Before, Clayton we basically had to keep track of Humanities Department everyone. Sometimes people would Chair drift off, they would start doing other things. That’s why we weren’t as productive in the first half of last year because there was no real control over what happened.”

Even though the class made things feel more compulsory, Clayton still had to overcome early struggles when trying to teach remotely.

“This was quite a rough start this year even with this group because of all the in-class, out-of-class troubles,” Clayton said. “Trying to teach this kind of stuff when you can’t get close together is infinitely harder because you can’t just all gather around a computer. I’m so grateful for the class, however, because I’m so much less stressed.”

February 5, 2021

T

he Mini Marque is the only Middle School publication that boasts 21 editions and many awards, a fact even more pronounced given that it is only a club. However, after Danielle Clayton, the sponsor of the club, concluded that the magazine would be more efficient as a course, the Design and Publication class came to be. The onesemester program would teach seventh and eighthgraders the basics of Adobe Indesign and Illustrator, two applications crucial to the production of the magazine.

Culture

NEW EDITIONS The Mini Marque, the only Middle School publication, releases a new issue every spring. Because of an actual class, students who want to pursue journalism will be more prepared for the Upper School’s intense publications.

SCREENWRITING

Finding a niche in the creative process

Initially a cartoon writer and animator, Paul Dini — cousin of Headmaster David Dini — branched out into television and film screenwriting, impacting several well-known franchises.

February 5, 2021

Culture

The ReMarker

20

Will Pechersky: When did you first gain an interest in writing, creating and producing?

Paul Dini: It was all when I was a kid. I would write humorous stories at school instead of handing in a basic report. I would illustrate it with little drawings or I’d try and make it funny. I read a lot when I was a kid. I read a lot of humor books and I read a lot of short stories, and I was thinking like, ‘Boy, I hope there’s some way I could turn this into a job,’ and I really didn’t have any sort of career path mapped out. I went through college having no idea at all what I was going to do. I arrived out here in Los Angeles around 1980 and worked from one place to another. I guess I knew the business well enough, and I knew the craft of creating and writing and mapping out cartoons.

That led to producing on animated shows, and it led to writing other types of shows. I guess it came down to being a fast study at whatever I was learning and having a lot of enthusiasm for different types of television.

WP: Are there any lessons that you’ve learned through experiencing different challenges as a creator?

PD: I would say to not Dini limit yourself to one sort of Paul Screenthing. If you like sitcoms, writer read all about them, watch as many as you can, try and experiment and write in that form if you want to. Do not limit yourself to what somebody else has done and do not do a copy of what they’ve done. Find something about that relationship of the lead characters that you like and look for a way to apply it to your own life. It’s the same with animation, don’t try and redo what Bob Clampett or Chuck Jones or Hanna-Barbera did years before, because that stuff exists as their work. I’ve seen a lot of of artists and directors that come up saying, ‘I’m going to do just a zany and cartoonist Bob Clampett or Tex Avery,’ and I’m going like, ‘They did the wacky, the eye pops, the

INTERVIEW Myles Lowenberg Junior James Singhal posts his photography on his Instagram account, @jsinghalphoto. He gives a look behind his photos here.

WORLDWIDE Starting with his first two series with “Filmation” in 1979, Paul Dini wrote or produced over 60 films and shows over his career. Despite changing technology and media, his style retains elements from his older works.

crazy sound effects and the weird reactions. What can you do? How do you make this funny? What’s your definition of funny? If you try and imitate what they’re doing, you’re never going to be able to put an original spin on it. Make something of your own experience and then figure out a way to tell that story as a cartoon. Then you’ll be happier and also have a more unique type of picture.

WP: Which of your contributions would you say you’re most proud of?

PD: When I worked on a Batman series and the Warner Brothers cartoons I did over the 15 years I was there, I had a really good experience working with various artists and teams to come up with something new and fun and put a new spin on things like Batman. Nobody had really done an action-adventure series like that before, and that came from really thinking about the character and his world and the whole history of Batman. We looked at it in a way to distill that all down into something that we felt was new and unique, yet still felt like it spoke to the heart of the character. So the fact that it’s been almost like 30 years since the show premiered, people are still enjoying it, they’re still watching it and it has an air of timelessness to it. I feel good about being associated with that. That was definitely a career highlight. So to be part of that was a lot of fun and very gratifying.

WP: What is your creative process like? Do you write for TV shows on superheroes differently from writing other types of TV? GA: It has to begin with character, or you don’t have much of a story. I write on a show also called “Creep Show” which was on Shutter. It’s a horror anthology based on the movie from the ‘80s. So, again, it’s like “Tales from the Crypt” or “Twilight Zone” or something like that, where they’re all oneshot stories, and I work with a writing partner on those. We’ll sit down at the start of each season and we’ll go ‘What’s horrific in our life, what motivates us, what keeps us up at night, what are we sort of outraged by what we see somebody else doing and

I had a portraiture assignment, and I decided to try something slightly different. I wanted to try shooting in a studio setting, and I got my friend [junior] Enoch [Ellis] to help.

I think it’s a bit cheesy to get him to have fake blood coming out of his mouth, but to set up something a bit different, we used an orange gel on one of the lights to create a warmer tone and just shot the photo. It turned out pretty nice, especially with the gradient in the background.

I wanted to try product photography. I’d seen a couple photographers I follow had shot products, and I wanted to try shooting a bottle of makeup — I believe this was eyeshadow. I got a sheet of Plexiglas that was frosted on one side and poured some of the product out onto it.

I set up the lighting, and I was going for a really saturated look. And I kept adjusting it to get the lighting as perfect as I could to make the label glow. I believe I got a pretty cool result, although the pool on the bottom is a bit weird.

how does that emerge into the realm of monsters?’

Very rarely will we come up with a monster, and they’ll make it look really cool when they design and construct it, but if it’s not evocative of a human condition or it doesn’t mean something in a bigger story, then it’s just a guy in a big suit running around.

WP: How has animation changed in the time that you’ve been in the industry? What’s been the effect of the new technology in that time?

PD: I’d say that the rise of computers has made animation in many ways a lot more cost effective.

When I started in the early 80s, it was all handdrawn animation. It was all based on the format pioneered by the Disney studio, Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbera, but it was all stripped down to be really cheap and efficient. So that was what was really frustrating is for a long time; myself and other artists and writers were feeling like we were being hamstrung, like we couldn’t do our best, like we had to sort of strive for this middle of the road mediocrity where none of it really meant much of anything.

WP: Do you have to force yourself to keep coming up with new ideas or does inspiration come naturally to you?

PD: Well, I’m pretty lucky in that I have a natural love for the types of work I do. I think if I didn’t enjoy it, I would have a lot more trouble coming up with ideas for it because other people have told me: ‘Well, why don’t you try writing for this show’ and it’s like, I don’t want to really write a police procedural. I‘ll watch one, but I don’t really want to write one because I don’t have the ideas for that.

I can sit there for an hour and be entertained by something, but again I don’t really want to write it, whereas with animation I’m always intrigued by the possibilities and what you can show with it and the more bizarre stories you can tell.

STORY Will Pechersky, Alam Alidina PHOTOS Courtesy Paul Dini

I took this photo while trying to emulate Ansel Adams, and my main purpose here was to shoot a landscape without a wide angle lens and to try to use a telephoto lens to really capture the feeling and emotion of this mountain.

Since Ansel Adams always shot in black and white, I used that, and I think it really helps to capture the wild nature and the grit of the mountain. You can see snow blowing off the top of the mountain, and also the stark contrast from the sunlight. The heavy contrast and the sharp, jagged mountain really help to show the craziness of the world and nature.

MUSIC

Blogging and the blues Whether it’s virtual or in person, Stephen Houpt hasn’t missed a beat in getting his music out to the public.

H

e’s always played the blues.

Concerts, performances, crowds, all the trappings of live music.

Now, those concerts are impossible.

But that doesn’t stop physics instructor Stephen Houpt from making his music.

PERFORMING LIVE Houpt and the blues band Strictly TaBlue perform in front of a crowd at Poor David’s Pub while Houpt plays the harmonica, one of his favorite instruments, prior to the pandemic.

21

MAKING MUSIC Used in the making of six of his albums available on Spotify and Apple Music, Houpt enjoys playing his Weissenborn acoustic lap steel guitar made in 1927.

Headliners

From album drops to movie releases and everything in between, here’s what’s on tap in the coming weeks.

Videogames

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury

Feb. 12

Rogue Invader

Feb. 25

Monster Jam Steel Titan’s 2

Mar. 2

Terminator: Mar. 26 Resistance Enhanced

Movies

Albums

Life Rolls On, Feb. 12 Florida Georgia Line

Fear of Rain

Feb. 12

Tom and Jerry

Feb. 26

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Mar. 19

In Ferneaux, Blanck Mass

Feb. 26 Mar. 5

Godzilla vs. Kong

Mar. 26

When You See Yourself, Kings of Leon Duets, Sting

Mar. 19

The ReMarker

Culture

Houpt often plays with an acoustic style guitar, the Lysenborn, and currently wants to make an all-instrumental album using various types of Lysenbornes. Specifically, Houpt wanted to play with a Baritone Lysenborn, and looked around the world for Luthiers, people who make guitars.

Finally, he came across guitar maker Richard Wilson.

“Richard Wilson, who lives in Australia, wanted $4000 to make this guitar,” Houpt said. “He listened to my music and said he really liked it and offered to take $1350 off the price, if after he finished making it, I would make some videos and recordings for him.”

One of Houpt’s long-term goals has been to get a guitar sponsorship, and Wilson is essentially paying him to record music.

“It is my first endorsement deal, so I was pretty happy about that,” Houpt said. “He is going to take those recordings and put them on his website and social media. He makes beautiful guitars.”

STORY Cooper Ribman, Shreyan Daulat PHOTOS Courtesy Stephen Houpt

February 5, 2021

Though many around campus have been fortunate enough to hear physics instructor Stephen Houpt’s music live in assemblies, they can now enjoy his music online in the form of a blog. He began the website using a company called CD Baby that has a smaller branch called Host Baby which gave him a template to create a website.

“The most important thing about the website is that it actually has the music on it,” Houpt said. “The audio section has all of the seven albums that I have put together.”

Houpt often plays and records songs alongside people associated with 10600 Preston Road. One of Houpt’s blues albums released in 2019, called Strictly TaBlue, featured Fine Arts Chair Marion Glorioso on vocals. Houpt has also performed alongside senior guitarist Collin Katz and instrumentalist Chirag Gokani ‘17 respectively in the past.

“Ms. Glorioso was a great vocalist when we performed a while back and I remember playing alongside Chirag Gokani, like when we performed a live-gig outdoors,” Houpt said.

For Houpt, the online blog represents an easy way for people to access his music without having to go through a streaming service.

“The purpose of the website is to allow people the chance to listen to my music without having to stream it on Spotify or YouTube, even though the music is on there also,” Houpt said.

Additionally, the blog and other online avenues provide Houpt a way to release his music without inperson concerts – that Covid-19 has made impossible.

“I can’t play music in actual venues anymore,” Houpt said.

“Therefore, I have been doing live concerts on Facebook and a couple

Zoom concerts. I am doing these concerts along with the Dallas SongWriters Association.”

Houpt has been teaching physics virtually the entire year. However, despite the time saved by not having to commute, he has not had more time to put into his music.

“I have not had more time on my hands as a result of teaching virtually,” Houpt said.

“Like all teachers, I spent the weekends grading and writing comments. One challenge I have had is doing labs. I sometimes have to go to St. Mark’s on the weekends and make demonstration videos to help the students the next week.”

FOOD REVIEW

Eataly: the Italian market and restaurant taking Dallas by storm

HAIRCUTS

Need a haircut?

Read this first.

Snip, snip. Cut, cut. Here’s some of the best salons and barbers in Dallas — ready to help your mane look its absolute best Reviews Myles Lowenberg, Trevor Crosnoe, Austin Williams

by Darren Xi uthenticity.

If I were to condense Eataly into one word, it would be authenticity.

When Eataly labels itself as an Italian grocery store and restaurant, it could not be closer to the truth. From Venchi chocolate to San Carlo chips, almost all of the classic Italian brands can be found in the grocery store, and the dishes offered in their Terra restaurant made me feel like a true Italian.

Eataly is located on the second floor of NorthPark in between Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom Rack. As I walked up to the store, there were about 30 people waiting in line to get in, with tape lines across the floor to remind groups to remain socially distanced. Additionally, the tables in the restaurant itself were spaced six feet apart with dividers between most of the tables. Thus, as a perused the aisles of Italian food and drink and sat to eat my meal in Terra, the premier restaurant of Eataly, I actually felt quite safe.

Not only did the grocery store offer a variety of Italian products but it also boasted a sweets shop, a coffee shop, a gelato shop, a pizzeria and a cooking school. Additionally, Eataly included a butcher, a fish monger and premium Italian wine. And, other than Terra, which is located a floor above the grocery store, there is also a pizza and pasta restaurant and a pasta bar.

I actually had to go Eataly twice for this review. The first time I went, I explored the entirety of the supermarket but could not eat at Terra because the restaurant was filled to the brim. Thus, I had to book a reservation for the next day.

When I returned the next day, I headed straight to the third floor to eat lunch at Terra. As soon as I walked through the door, it was as if I had been teleported straight to Italy. The rustic ambiance partnered with the visible wood fire that the chefs cooked with reminded me that if anything, Eataly was authentic.

I ended up ordering arrosticini and traditional lamb kebabs as an appetizer with spaghetti al pomodoro as my entrée with smoked cauliflower for a side.

Everything I ordered thoroughly exceeded my expectations. The arrosticini came with lemon, and the sourness of the lemon combined perfectly with the saltiness of the perfectly cooked lamb. The spaghetti was like no other. The noodles were cooked perfectly, the sauce was clearly made fresh and the basil added a unique flavor to the finished dish.

Finally, the cauliflower was the perfect complement to the spaghetti. Whereas the spaghetti pomodoro was rich and slightly sweet, the cauliflower was soft and salty.

The meal satisfied all of my Italian food needs.

Not only was Terra’s food incredibly delicious, its organization made the entire lunch experience very efficient. Instead of spending more time waiting for my food than actually eating it, my appetizer came out approximately five minutes after I finished ordering.

In conclusion, Eataly is like a tunnel from the second floor of North Park into Italy. The grocery store offers the most authentic products and its foremost restaurant, Terra, cooks some of the best Italian dishes in Dallas.

A

Februaryr 5, 2021

Buzz

The ReMarker

22

Lovers Lane Barbershop

A-

4331 Lovers Lane

Lovers Lane Barber Shop has been around for a while as one of the best local spots in the Park Cities to get a haircut. It was established in 1938, and it looks about the same as I imagine it did back then. There are only three chairs to get a haircut, and I haven’t seen any of the main signs on the wall change in the many years I’ve gone there regularly.

The barber shop is located, as the name would suggest, on Lovers Lane, near plenty of other shops. There’s a Drip Coffee and a donut shop less than a minute’s walk away from there, and in B.C. (Before Corona), I liked to wait for my haircuts in the morning after visiting them.

However, in the Corona era, I waited in a parked car in front of the shop on a gloomy day with some light rain. The lack of waiting inside the shop made it impossible to enjoy some of the most unique parts of it.

Walking into the Boardroom Salon, I immediately felt at home. After confirming my appointment at the front desk, I was offered a drink of my choice.

I selected a Dr. Pepper, and I received a can with a custom koozie sporting the Boardroom logo for me to keep. I sat down in one of the large leather armchairs that sits in their waiting room and watched ESPN on their tv while sipping on my cold beverage.

I didn’t have to wait long before my stylist called me into the main salon area for my haircut. I was stunned as I walked in to see a pool table sitting in the middle of the room. I didn’t end up using it, but the fact that they invested in it shows the Boardroom truly cares about customer experience.

I then sat down in the barber chair, told the stylist how I wanted my hair cut, and she got to work. At the time, my

Anderson, Cox & Co.

A+

500 Crescent Court

The usual entertainment when waiting inside the shop for a haircut is newspapers and a TV that I have only seen to show black and white movies, golf, and if we’re getting really adventurous, the Discovery Channel. When I was getting a haircut, there was an old courtroom movie on the TV. All of this adds to the oldfashioned and quirky aesthetic of the shop, and the pictures behind the chairs show even more of the history of the shop.

There’s photos of Highland Park natives Clayton Kershaw and Matthew Stafford, and the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stopped by the shop too.

The haircut I got was a standard one as usual, and I’ve been getting the same one for as long as I can remember and have always liked it. Lovers Lane Barber Shop has been around this long for a reason: there’s good haircuts, atmosphere, and history.

hair was pretty long, and I liked it that way, so I told her to try not to cut it too short. She was cutting for a long time before she turned my chair back around towards the mirror, so I honestly didn’t know what to expect. My hair was pretty wet though, so I couldn’t judge the length at the time.

After finishing up the cut, the stylist walked me to the back and sat me down in a reclining chair in a dark room. She shampooed and conditioned my hair with hot water which was incredibly soothing and probably the best part of the whole experience. We then went back to the main salon area where she blow-dried my hair.

Once my hair was dry, I could see that it was significantly shorter than I wanted it. I walked out of the building smiling as I attempted to hide my discontent with the length of my hair.

However, a few days later it looks much better already.

If you’re looking for a perfect snip, Anderson, Cox & Co. is for you. Located at The Crescent in Uptown Dallas, the styling salon is just a few steps up the stairs inside of Stanley Korshak, a luxury goods department store near the front of The Crescent.

Parking was free and easy in their large parking garage.

Simply bring your parking ticket upstairs and Kurt, working the register, has got you covered.

I was greeted with a smile as my hairdresser, Lisa, walked me back to the shampooing area. The shampooing chair I sat in was super comfortable, and Lisa is always friendly and willing to have a conversation.

Next, I was led to my seat and covered in a hairdressing cape as to avoid getting hair on my clothes. Lisa has been cutting

Boardroom Salon for Men

B

5550 W Lovers Lane

my hair for a while, so I didn’t have to request anything special this time around. I’m sure if I was thinking about trying a new style, she’d have some great ideas for how to execute it.

The salon has a sleek and modern interior that’s welllit and covered in mirrors.

I’m always able to see what’s happening as I get my hair trimmed, although I rarely have any complaints or changes midcut.

As far as pricing goes, the salon is no dollar store. At a high-end salon like Anderson, Cox & Co., you should expect to pay nearly twice as much as a run-of-the-mill haircut, but I think the consistency is worth the price. Frankly, I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t happy with my cut!

EDITORIAL

Our letter to Sen. Ted Cruz, whose actions on the floor of the Senate have violated a fundamental tenet of democracy: every vote matters.

GRAPHIC Jonathan Yin

More direct and thorough communication is a welcome improvement

S

ince the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have felt there’s been a disconnect in communication between administrators and the student body.

Specifically, while parents were receiving emails regarding COVID-19 cases, available testing and return-to-campus plans, students were left out of the loop. Students often found themselves having to seek out important updates on the school website rather than receiving the same information via email.

We ran an editorial expressing these sentiments in the October edition of The ReMarker, and we commend administrators, especially Headmaster David Dini and Nurse Julie Doerge, for

attentively listening to our feedback and then making significant changes to improve the consistency in communication with students.

Effective as of Jan. 22, the school has initiated a change to improve its communication with students through email: the student body is now included in the daily “COVID-19 Cases Community Update” as well as the “Update from the Headmaster.”

We appreciate that on Jan. 22, students were the first to know about the transition to remote learning the following week.

Head of Upper School Colin Igoe sent an email to Upper School students that morning, detailing the switch to remote

learning owing to a significant uptick in COVID-19 cases in our community.

We believe this increase in communication regarding COVID-19 will not only help students understand the school’s response to the pandemic better but also give students a vested interest in the entire community’s ability to adhere to proper social-distancing and masking protocols.

Ultimately, we're all stakeholders in the health and wellness of everyone on campus. Transparent communication is the best way to ensure support for any policy — and that's especially true in the uncertainity caused by the pandemic. We appreciate administrators' actions.

The ReMarker • February 5, 2021

I

n 2018, after you won your race to serve a second term in the Senate, you said your “responsibility is to fight for every Texan” — the 4.2 million who voted for you and the 4.1 million who didn’t. You vowed to fight for our “constitutional rights.” And you said that “Texas can be a model for how we can come together [by] respecting each other’s decency.”

It’s a shame you didn’t take those words to heart.

On Jan. 6, you rose to object to the certification of the electoral vote in Arizona, citing allegations of voter fraud that have been disproven by every court in the country. That objection, and the ones that followed it, marked the climax of a disinformation campaign designed to convince millions of Americans that the results of the 2020 election were false.

As it turned out, that campaign worked. Hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol, beating police and destroying property in an effort to “Stop the Steal.” They may have been flying flags with Trump’s name on them, but the endorsement of elected officials like you lent legitimacy to the President’s claims. Senator, you went to one of the top law schools in the country and have argued nine times before the Supreme Court — you should’ve known better.

Instead, you placed political expediency over integrity, accelerating the country’s divisions for your personal gain. And while doing so is unethical for a talking head on cable news, or for an elected official lashing out on Twitter, for a sitting United States Senator to use the same chamber where Daniel Webster fought for “Liberty and Union” and where Lyndon Johnson presided over the passing of the Civil Rights Act to call into question the legitimate votes of millions of Americans is dangerous, not to mention dishonorable.

Your actions bring to mind a darker chapter in the history of the Senate, one where the fight to preserve segregation was couched in the very same language of “rules and procedure.” Because behind those words was a deep well of hate for the institutions of our democracy and the shared values of our country. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the rioters, as they rifled through desks in the Senate chamber, said “I think Cruz would’ve wanted us to do this,” despite your late call for them to stand down.

When you took office, you swore an oath to protect the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” After the events of Jan. 6, that line has taken on special resonance, because on that day you chose to promote claims you knew were false, inciting protestors around the Capitol to commit acts of terrorism. If you did so knowingly, that was an act of sedition. It was a betrayal of your oath, a betrayal of every voter you swore to represent. Your conduct was unfit for public office — because of it, you should resign.

Just think of all the voters who cast their ballots for the first time this past November. Some were high school students like us. Others registered for the first time — maybe after years or decades of believing the system didn’t work, they decided to give it a chance. Last year Texas had a voter participation rate of 66 percent — its highest since 1992. That’s what we want in our democratic process because it signifies that people believe their votes matter and that they can create change.

So when you speak out against that process, when you give credence to false allegations of fraud, you undermine the belief of all those people who filled out the endless forms, who took time off work, who, in the middle of a pandemic, sought out an early voting site or showed up to the ballot box on Election Day. The doubt and the fear you helped create don’t just hurt one party — they corrupt our entire system of governance. That makes your actions unforgivable.

Opinions

Senator Cruz, it’s time to go.

23

Traditions

The Editorial Board commends administrators for preserving traditions.

Page 24

Big league

Endzone Editor William Aniol's attempt to upgrade his fantasy draft. Page 25

Prison

Managing Editor Jamie Mahowald reflects on the paradox of incarceration.

Page 25

short & SWEET Our takes on the month's less consequential issues­– in 280 characters or less.

As temperatures drop outside, finding spaces to work — both alone and collaboratively — has become much more difficult.

We’d like a system that opens up more classrooms and common areas so that students have more options to work indoors.

Adding better data on COVID to the website, such as long-term trend lines and weekly summaries of new cases, would give context to the decisions to move to virtual school and would provide yet another reason for students to be careful.

We’re excited by the announcement of the Diversity Committee and the new additions to the website, but we’re hoping to see more concrete progress in the next few months that will lead to real change in curricula and attitudes on campus.

EDITORIAL

REMARKER

A tremendous effort to continue traditions

A

s the COVID-19 pandemic rages on and vaccines slowly trickle out, we want to commend administrators for continuing to pursue its goal of incorporating as much normalcy into our school experience as possible.

Through mask mandates, social distancing and proper shelter-in-place procedures led by school nurse Julie Doerge, the school has managed to stay in person and provide its students with as much as is possible in their educational experience. Seniors were able to have their long-awaited Christmas Party, sports are continuing (to the greatest extent possible) and transmissions during the school day have remained minimal.

A clear area for improvement of our experience remains: fan allowance at outdoor sports games. The soccer team’s season is nearing its finale, so fans are dying to come out and show spirit. The blue and gold bleachers of Hunt Stadium are more than spacious enough to allow masked social distanced fans to attend games — even if only seniors are allowed.

The possibility of students grouping up

student newspaper of ST. MARK’S SCHOOL OF TEXAS 10600 PRESTON ROAD DALLAS, TEXAS 75230 214.346.8000

still remains, but if students are observed by faculty members and social distancing and mask wearing are strictly enforced, then what difference is there between a soccer game and a long-period class?

Nevertheless, we are grateful that the administration continues to minimize risk but maximize experience. Remote learning is not nearly as rewarding as an in-person education and the ability to see our peers every day remains a blessing and a privilege that we are continuously appreciative for.

Lastly, we’d like to thank the tireless efforts of our faculty and staff for coming to school to help preserve our educational experience to the best of their ability.

While it has been a difficult year, they have shown a tremendous amount of flexibility and perseverence – working to navigate technical challenges in order to preserve some sense of continuity.

A global pandemic comes with its fair share of challenges. Regardless, they have been able to masterfully transition to this new normal.

Editorial Board editor in chief ROBERT POU assignments editor SAI THIRUNAGARI brand editor COOPER RIBMAN endzone editor WILLIAM ANIOL executive page editor JACK DAVIS head photographer COLLIN KATZ managing editors JAMIE MAHOWALD HENRY MCELHANEY SIDDHARTHA SINHA opinions editor ALAM ALIDINA perspectives editor LUKE PIAZZA senior editor CRISTIAN PEREIRA

Section Editors 10600, culture AXEL ICAZBALCETA WILL PECHERSKY discoveries, issues TOBY BARRETT AUSTIN WILLIAMS deputy endzone SEMAJ MUSCO

Intro to the big leagues

February, 5 2021

The ReMarker

Opinions

24

F

ake it ‘til you make it, or so they say. I am a legend in Plano for my fantasy football league development and management skills, serving as our league manager for several years. But this year? As the continuing commissioner, I took it to a new level.

Someday, on draft day, I hope to be wearing a trendy suit and tie, in an NFL or an NBA war room, as the camera rolls and the picks are made –– as the strategist behind those picks. So why not start now, I thought? It was time to elevate our fantasy endeavors.

I was not sure how “the league” was going to respond to my suit-and-tie mandate on our draft night, but the idea was well-received. I had more than just navy blazers in mind, however; prior to our draft session, which is always at night, we were going to dine in style at a trendy steakhouse.

I am not sure what the other diners thought when we walked in that night, dressed like ESPN announcers. Up against the clock, we raced home and gathered around a table in the “War Room” –– one of our upstairs game rooms –– to make our selections, accompanied by the roars one expects to hear in a real, professional draft scenario –– likewise both positive and negative.

And although no phone calls were made to initiate trades with other teams or to let Dalvin Cook know I had selected him fourth overall, one day, I hope that is a responsibility I have –– and this is no longer a “fantasy.”

And as for the suit and tie, in the event

CARTOON Cooper Cole

you’re wondering whether clothes not only make the man but also dramatically improve his draft picks, long-story-short…they do not.

The hours of podcast-listening over the summer I logged –– just as I do every summer –– went to waste when I strayed from the big-board I had created by taking Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans in the third round –– a player I was not high on coming into the draft. When the fourth pick of the third rolled around, I was an indecisive decision maker –– unlike the mover and shaker I should have been decked out in a suit and tie. The clock hit one second, and I went for the big name –– even though I had the gut feeling that I should remain true to my rankings.

So then, for the remainder of the draft, as I wrestled with regret stemming from my possible “mistake,” I tried to increase my confidence, going around and swearing to my friends that Mike Evans would be Tom Brady’s present-day Randy Moss… and then I had to live with the backlash from that unrealistic comparison as the season rolled out; Mike Evans was either “boom” or “bust” week in and week out… just as always.

Overall, my team “busted,” but my draftday idea “boomed”; a draft that was hopefully a glimpse into my future. And always stick to your gut, I learned, even if operating in a “fantasy” world.

deputy focus ERIC YOO HAN ZHANG reviews specialist TREVOR CROSNOE

William Aniol Endzone Editor

sports LUKE NAYFA PETER ORSAK

Creative graphics director JONATHAN YIN artist COOPER COLE

Advertising business manager IAN MIZE

Writers

ETHAN BORGE, MORGAN CHOW, IAN DALRYMPLE, NIKHIL DATTATREYA, SHREYAN DAULAT, GRANT JACKSON, RAJAN JOSHI, ARJUN KHATTI, KESHAV KRISHNA, MYLES LOWENBERG, MATTHEW REED, WILL SPENCER, DILLON WYATT, DARREN XI

Photographers

BLAKE BROOM, ABE ECHT, PATRICK FLANAGAN, LUIS GARCIA, SAL HUSSAIN, EVAN LAI, EVAN MCGOWAN, HAYWARD METCALF, LARS OCHS, SKY PARK, HENRY PICCAGILI, DANIEL SANCHEZ, OWEN SIMON, EKANSH TAMBE, LUKE VOORHEIS, JERRY ZHAO

Adviser

RAY WESTBROOK

Headmaster DAVID W. DINI

audience The ReMarker is intended for the students, faculty, staff and alumni community of St. Mark’s School of Texas. Press run is 4,000 copies, with more than 2,600 of those mailed out to alumni around the world, courtesy of the school’s offices of External Affairs, Development and Alumni divisions. opinions and editorials Editorials represent the viewpoints of the newspaper’s Editorial Board and are not necessarily those of the Board of Trustees, administration, faculty or staff. All personal opinion columns, bylined with the writer’s name and photo, represent the views of that writer only and not necessarily those of The ReMarker, Board of Trustees, administration, faculty or staff. online viewing www.smtexas.org/remarker. reader involvement The ReMarker encourages reader input through guest columns and story ideas. Contact the appropriate editor for suggestions. letters to the editor Letters to the editor are welcome and encouraged. They must be typed, signed and not exceed 300 words. E-mail submissions are not accepted. advertising Contact the business staff at 214.346.8145. We reserve the right to refuse any advertisement.

Inclusion of an ad does not represent an endorsement by the school’s administration, faculty, or staff or ReMarker staff members. membership The ReMarker maintains membership in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, New York City, NY; National Scholastic Press Association, Minneapolis, MN; and the Interscholastic League Press Conference, Austin.

‘Top Ramen’ and the prisoner’s paradox Y ou can hear the prisoners’ cheers in the background of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” You can hear them in that whole album, actually. Cash had microphones set up in the prison yard so the wider audience could hear the roars and hollers of the men at Folsom Prison as he sang.

He also kept the ad hoc dialogue on the final record, including an intermission between “The Long Black Veil” and “Send a Picture of Mother” wherein he grabs a tin cup of water, spits it out, and asks, “You serve everything in tin cups?”

I didn’t quite understand that part, so I asked Aaron* what it meant as we drove home from the Frank Crowley Courts Building downtown, and he said that if they were allowed to drink from glasses or water bottles, they’d see how yellow the water actually was.

ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS

Q: What’s the biggest issue you hope to see addressed by the Biden Administration?

Distribute 100 million vaccines in 100 days and figure out a way to address the amount of people that are out of work.

Sam Adams Sophomore

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Short-term, controlling the spread of COVID-19, and long-term, helping the country overcome its divisions.

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Jorge Correa Spanish Instructor

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Aaryan Puri Senior

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I think this new administration needs to work hard to promote unity, especially on issues like social justice and the pandemic.

Ekansh Tambe Junior

First and foremost, fix the immigration system. It’s old, broken, and inefficient.

I am eager to see what measures Biden will take to achieve his goal of a unified nation.

Alex Geng Junior

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I hope Biden takes BLM as well as other topics that have been heavily protested to heart.

Christian Youst Sophomore

The ReMarker

Around the Quad

Furthermore, before they reach the wider diversity of honors and AP classes to choose from as upperclassmen, freshmen and sophomores have one primary avenue available to them to rack up honors credits: mathematics. Advanced tracks in language courses are also available to select students, but for the vast majority, the only way to differentiate oneself from his peers is through excelling in the math department.

This phenomenon places singular importance on students with strength in one particular area of study and does not reflect –– in the numerically based GPA –– underclassmen’s accomplishments in other subjects, putting students gifted in other areas at a disadvantage later down the line.

Therefore, departments should be open to adequately representing this diversity of interest by offering other honors courses to select underclassmen as well. Shifting to an entirely unweighted system would solve this problem in theory, placing non-honors classes in the same field as honors classes, but given our continual success in college admissions under this system, we do not advocate for this measure.

Also, giving all or most classes an honors boost would cause runaway grade inflation and devalue the success of many hardworking students, so departments should be judicious in deciding which classes to promote.

But overall, we implore faculty and administrators to be aware that –– especially as curricula advance into the later years of high school –– the unique and interesting classes they’ve been designing for months may be significantly more attractive with an “H.”

25 Opinions

*Editor's Note: To protect his privacy, Aaron's real name has been replaced.

Jamie Mahowald Managing Editor

Among the stated goals of the new daily schedule and the accompanying switch to semesters is an increased flexibility and variety of courses, especially as students progress into the later years of high school.

Departments are reshaping their curricula to provide students with newer, fresher course offerings, so we encourage faculty and administrators to consider the practical facets of these additions for students, especially as they relate to college admissions and the weighted grading scale.

Advanced Placement (AP) and honors courses constitute a large portion of the Upper School curriculum for many students, and while these courses are appealing because of their rigor, students at a college preparatory school like ours are also drawn to these classes because of the college admissions process and the extra boost they bring to a student’s weighted GPA. Because students here will inevitably pay great attention to the choices that make them strong applicants, a student may be more inclined to take an honors or AP course he is less interested in than a non-honors or non-AP class he is more interested in. This propensity for students to enroll in honors courses causes our offerings to revert to the familiar AP and honors courses we have had for years.

The DNA Science course, for example, has exemplified the on-andoff nature of these classes, as they frequently see such low enrollment compared to their weighted counterparts that some years they fail to make the cut. Departments should invest especially in maintaining courses like these that best utilize new facilities.

February 5, 2021

The deprivations of prison are far more psychological than physical, and prison is a physical enough place on its own. To be a prisoner is to have the wonders of modern logistics and engineering used to keep you in a medieval state of autocracy and punishment, as though living through every era of human history at once.

As an aside, I am not ignoring the problem. Crime is the problem that necessitates the prisoner’s paradox. But this column is about the solution, because that’s the more interesting and more ignored part of the equation, and because the common retort –– “Would you want to live next to a murderer?” –– places all the focus on the problem and none on what might fix the problem.

Texas is a paradox. Defined as it is by the times and habits of individual communities –– some insular and regressive, some open and progressive –– the way Texas responds to law and lawlessness eludes reason. Our state locks its people up at the seventh highest rate of all jurisdictions in the world, so each neighborhood (some more than others) is filled with its own flock of men and women with cuff marks on their wrists and albatrosses around their necks.

The “corrections system” is a paradox. It doesn’t live up to its name. Our gravitation toward recidivism –– the fact that we discharge prisoners only to put them back months later, that we’re less shocked when a former prisoner commits a crime than to a job, that we invite the rare felon who did correct him or herself to speak at galas and events, to write books and appear on talk shows –– damns our prison system more than does any flogging recorded on any contraband 240p camera.

Law is a paradox. It both protects and destroys. We erect literal walls between prisoners and civilization, axing a solutions-oriented correction and replacing it with the appealing justification that “they’re bad people and should be treated badly” as though we live under some Imperial Roman legalist regime that imagines people as completely static and incapable of the nuances of personal growth. We want them to change and yet deprive them of every possible channel of change. The paradox, therefore, lies not in the laws, but in ourselves.

Compiled by Keshav Krishna

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Honors electives should supplement existing AP classes

President Biden ordered the Justice Department not to renew contracts with private prisons.

You never expect something like that to actually happen, and although the effects of this order are limited to the federal level, rejecting the profiteering of the oxymoronic “justice industry” is a step in the right direction.

I knew when my parents said I was getting a new roommate that I’d probably not come home to a new baby; I expected a dog, a foster child, an estranged brother. I did not expect an ex-con.

Aaron was discharged at 35 from North Tower Detention Facility, one of Texas's many, many infamous prisons, November of my sophomore year. I’m not sure whom he’d attacked — an exgirlfriend or a boss, maybe — but I pieced together fragments of overheard late-night kitchen table conversations: Aaron wouldn’t cause any further trouble, my parents asked; in return, they’d offered him my sister’s bedroom and a guiding hand in his job search.

I didn’t know what to do with my life at this time. If whatever passion project I’d eventually settle on didn’t work out, I’d follow my sister and become a lawyer, one who made enough money to subsist but not enough to be deplored. But I could feel my drive waning as my zeal diminished and I had nothing to take its place, and I saw no world problems I was uniquely capable of solving, no specific group whose pain I could alleviate, no reason to become educated other than to be educated.

Aaron drove around with me our neighborhood in my mangy old Lexus (he called it the “Flexus”), blasting Johnny Cash’s prison albums on repeat and explicating the parts of prison the media gets right and wrong: Top Ramen is money. Gangs cleave along racial lines. Guards aren’t armed at every moment, so when they are, something’s up. Nobody stays in your life for long, because once the red stamp’s on your resume, the next misdemeanor shoves you off the knife’s edge.

Before long, Aaron was gone. I don’t know where he is now.

I started paying attention to prisons after he left. My heart skipped a beat at the news that

STUDENTS AND FACULTY

EDITORIAL

Breaking the color barrier

In honor of Black History Month, we look at some of the greatest African American sports heroes in recent history who went above and beyond athletics. Not only are these some of the best athletes the world has ever seen, but each one of them fought for equality, perservered through oppression and inspire members of the community here at 10600 Preston Rd.

The ReMarker • February 5, 2021

Sports

26

Role models

Rivalries

Looking deeper into what constitutes a great sports rivalry. Page 27

Omonije ‘18

Going through a day in the life of a Yale football player and Google intern. Page 28

Shot chart

Highlighting junior Colin Smith’s hot zones on the court. Page 30

In brief

DOC RETIRES At the end of this school year, Doc Browning will be retiring after 36 years on campus.

Browning joined the community in 1985 and has served in many roles around the school, including head athletic trainer, physical education teacher and coach, among others.

Although nowhere close to encompassing what he has done for the community, Browning’s achievements include receiving the John H. Murrell Excellencein-Teaching Award in 1994, the Ralph B. Rogers Alumni Award in 2007 and the Ackerman Character Education Award in 2015.

ATHLETES COMMIT Seniors Kit Colson and Jack Palmer and junior Ian Mize have committed to D1 colleges for their respective sports.

Colson has committed to Yale University to continue his track and field career, Palmer has chosen Santa Clara University to continue his water polo career and Mize will be attending Princeton University to play lacrosse. Colson is the first student here to compete on Yale’s track team since Erick Hawkins ‘92 and Weldon Johnson ‘92.

NFL ALUMNI UPDATE Ty Montgomery ‘11 had 18 carries for 105 yards in the New Orleans Saints week 17 win against the Carolina Panthers, serving as the teams starting running back.

Montgomery also contributed in the playoffs, recording four carries for 14 yards against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Although he spent time on and off of the Saints 52-man roster playing only six games, he finished the regular season with a total of 128 scrimmage yards.

Also, Kansas City Chiefs part owner and CEO Clark Hunt ‘83 and the team defeated the Buffalo Bills 38-24 in the AFC Championship Game, taking home the Lamar Hunt trophy for the second time in two years. The Chiefs will take on the Buccaneers Feb. 7 in Tampa Bay for a chance to win back-to-back Super Bowls.

TOP RANKED Three Marksmen cracked the top 20 in Texas Private School Football’s top 32 players for each position in the state after the two-game season for the Lions.

Junior quarterback Alex Nadalini rose from 15 last year to being ranked seventh this year, junior wide receiver Conor Duffy finished ranked ninth in the state and junior linebacker Elijah Ellis was ranked 15th in the state for their respective positions.

ALL-TIME GREATS Track star and Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, baseball hall-of-famer Jackie Robinson, 11-time NBA champion Bill Russell and tennis legend Serena Williams (left to right) pioneered sports for African Americans through their remarkable play in the arena and their fights against social injustice outside of it.

Jesse Owens Who was Jesse Owens?

Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Master Teacher Dr. Bruce Westrate: He was a track star for Ohio State. You have to remember that he was competing in a completely different time than nowadays. I don’t think it is fair to him to simply look upon this accomplishment solely in terms of race. It was much bigger than that.

He eventually went to the Berlin Olympics and represented America with Adolf Hitler presiding. We all know what Hitler’s views on Black people were, with the Nazi race theory, so Jesse winning four gold medals was looked upon as a direct slap in the face to Hitler.

As a track athlete, how has Jesse Owens inspired you?

Junior track athlete Fisayo Omonije: His commitment to his events really inspires me.

One time, I went to the Olympic headquarters in Colorado, and it had a bunch of stuff in honor of Jesse Owens. It had the amount of actual distance he jumped for his long jump, and I remember seeing that as a little kid, and I was just amazed at how far it really was, which goes to show how much effort they put in to get where they’re at.

How has Jesse Owens pioneered sports for African Americans?

FO: I think the 1936 Olympics is one of the quintessential examples of breaking barriers.

Through his performance, he empowered Black athletes to want to meet their goals and prove their worth not only as athletes but also as members of society. Obviously that inspires me a lot being a Black athlete.

Why do you think Jesse Owens is someone we still admire even today?

FO: In today’s times, it’s been an ongoing fight, but the fight for racial justice in our country with Black athletes being more outspoken about that, I think that all trails back to the times of Jesse Owens, to Jackie Robinson and others. I think he [Owens] was the catalyst. You can mention the LeBron James ‘Shut Up and Dribble’ movement, the ‘More Than an Athlete’ kind of stuff that is going on today. If he didn’t start it, he moved it forward in a great way.

Serena Williams Would you consider Serena Wiliams to be the greatest of all time?

Hockaday junior tennis player Lili Beck: I would consider Serena to be the greatest tennis player of all time, between both men and women, because I think she has a really powerful style of play. She’s not defined by the stereotype that women can’t be assertive

on the court.

How has Serena Williams inspired you as a tennis player?

Sophomore tennis player Landon Ardilla: Since I was a kid, I always just watched her –– especially in the US Open. I’d come home from practice and she would always be my favorite person to watch because her attitude on court is just so fierce. She just takes it to her opponents, and she’s always was a role model for me.

LB: She really embodies the motto that hard work pays off –– especially because tennis is a wealthy and privileged sport, but she didn’t come from money. She worked her way up to the top by never giving up and never underestimating her opponent.

Is there a story about Serena Williams that stands out to you as an example of her character?

LB: I remember she played this girl named Coco [Gauff] who’s a lot younger than her, and I think Coco ended up winning. I just remember Serena wasn’t freaking out about her own game; she just congratulated her and was a super good sport about it.

How do you think Serena Williams has used her voice to speak on social injustices?

LA: She’s super outspoken. Especially in the African American community, so many people look up to her, and she uses that to advocate for people and minorities. She just had her sister, a great attitude and an admirable work ethic.

Bill Russell Where do you rank Bill Russell in terms of all-time best basketball players?

Middle School basketball coach Dwight Phillips: Because of his accomplishments, Bill Russell has got to be in the conversations for one of the greatest of all time. Not only was he talented, he was smart and well-respected amongst his teammates.

How has Bill Russell inspired you in basketball?

DP: Bill Russell trailblazed for Black coaches.

He made it easier for us, for Black coaches, to have an opportunity to coach the game we love. His influence has carried to every Black athlete today. Him being a man of integrity and a stalwart for the Black community speaks volume to what kind of man he is.

Junior basketball player Tate Laczkowski: When I was nine or ten, my family and I were at All-Star Weekend in Houston, and I remember Bill Russell was there. It showed him on the jumbotron as an 11-time NBA champion, and I turned to my dad and was like, ‘Wow, who’s he?’ My dad told me how great of a player he was. He’s honestly one of the people

that inspired my love of basketball –– not just the game but also the history of the NBA .

How has Bill Russell pioneered sports for African Americans?

TL: He talked about racial issues early on. A lot of people told him, ‘You should just play basketball.’ I think that’s transformed into today where a lot of players speak out on racial issues. It’s a great thing that all these players are using their platforms to speak about injustices that are personal to them. I think Bill Russell partly started that trend of being able to use whatever platform you have to speak up for what you believe in.

Jackie Robinson As a baseball player, how has Jackie Robinson inspired you?

Senior baseball player Abe Echt: Going through my childhood, you learn about these Black athletes who have a huge impact on and off the field, and Jackie Robinson is probably the leading icon when it comes to these kind of athletes. Everyone in the sport looks up to him, and we all try to hold our play and our character to his standard.

Senior baseball player Marlon Henderson: On a lot of baseball teams, the players you meet are mostly going to be white. He helped me realize that that shouldn’t be a point that turns you off from the sport, but you should just keep on pushing forward even regardless of race and not let that be a barrier if it’s something you really want to do.

Is there an accomplishment or story about Jackie Robinson that stands out to you as an example of his character?

AE: During one game against Philadelphia, Jackie was being heckled by a rampantly racist crowd and Jackie became visibly upset.

The next minute, Peewee Reese, one of Jackie Robinson’s teammates, walked over and threw his arm around his shoulder and embraced the moment together to show Jackie that he was not alone. It showed what kind of person Jackie was and how he really could inspire the people closest to him.

How did Jackie Robinson pioneer baseball for African American athletes?

MH: He opened up the Major Leagues to players of all different creeds and races. A lot of minorities didn’t want to play the sport because they knew there wasn’t a chance to make the major leagues. By breaking the color barrier, he allowed people to pursue their passion without being stopped by racism.

STORY Peter Orsak, Luke Nayfa, SeMaj Musco GRAPHIC Will Spencer, Creative Commons

LINE OF SCRIMMAGE The ESD defense (far left) lines up against the Lions offensive line in their matchup this fall on the Lions’ home turf.

RIVALRIES

Mano a mano

JUMP BALL Junior Colin Smith (middle) leaps for the jump ball against the opposing team.

With the intensity and meaning behind them, rivalry games often bring the best out of both sides and are remembered for years to come.

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BASKETBALL vs. ESD 7-4 FOOTBALL vs. ESD 3-7 SOCCER vs. ESD 6-10-3 BASEBALL vs. ESD 9-2 LACROSSE vs. ESD 5-10 “Social media definitely has a big impact,” Sanchez said. “I know every year for the football game, ESD always says a couple things on Twitter. I try to hold myself back, and I did this year, but there were plenty of opportunities to talk back at them.”

Friesen believes because of the school’s reputation, opponents always bring their best when facing off against the Lions.

“St. Mark’s is seen as a really great school academically and athletically, and a lot of people like to beat us,” Friesen said. “So, when we go out to play other private schools, we always get their best. I know whenever I’m coaching Middle School baseball, every opponent throws their ace against us. Everybody saves their best for St. Mark’s because that’s the game that they can say, ‘Well, we beat them. That’s a big deal.’”

STORY Peter Orsak, Arjun Khatti PHOTOS Daniel Sanchez, Sal Hussain

Returning state champion junior Elijah Ellis and wrestling squad left unsure of a season

by Rajan Joshi s he stands on the podium at the Prep state championships, junior Elijah Ellis feels a great sense of pride knowing all of his hard work has paid off. After training for two years and winning back to back SPC championships for wrestling, in March 2020, he finally got first place in the state.

His freshman year, Ellis came first in SPC for the 172-lb weight class, but wasn’t able to compete for prep states due to injury. After a successful first season, he continued to grind every day for the chance to compete to prove himself as the best in the state.

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The following season, he bulked up to compete in the 195-lb weight class, and found great success, finishing with a record of 30-8 in all matches.

After a long, competitive season, he had the opportunity to win the state championship, and he seized that opportunity.

“It was the culmination of a lot of hard work and staying in good shape throughout the offseason and the whole season,” Ellis said. “It was definitely a challenge, probably one of the biggest challenges of my life. I had to win multiple matches against upperclassmen, and the mental aspect of that was tough as well, but once I

won, getting on the podium was the greatest feeling in the world.”

With the support of his teammates, he had enough energy to win the final match and earn the gold medal.

“The whole team was there to cheer me on,” Ellis said. “Having my team behind me gave me the strength to take home first place.”

After winning state, Ellis went to the Prep National tournament, where he fell short of his goal. He went 0-2 in his matches, but the experience helped prepare him for the future.

“It was definitely a learning experience and a great trip,” Ellis said.

“I went 0-2, and I was the only person

who traveled there, so I didn’t have my team there to support me, but my goal is to be top eight in the nation to be named an All-American before I graduate.”

With the future of this season up in the air, Ellis has continued to work so that he is ready to compete if given the chance.

“I’m going to continue training no matter what, but it would be very tough if we aren’t able to compete for championships,” Ellis said. “I have multiple workouts for strength and cardio that I’ve been doing every day to stay in shape to go along with my wrestling practice every day.”

27 The ReMarker

Duffy believes the atmosphere surrounding rivalry games is what makes them so special.

“Usually there’s a lot higher turnout, so every play, everyone is super engaged the entire time,” Duffy said. “My sophomore year [against ESD], it was a pretty crazy atmosphere. Everyone was yelling at the players on the other team while you’re going against them. And on the other side, the ESD coaches were taunting me.”

ESD junior linebacker Jake Lewis says the rivalry between St. Mark’s and ESD goes both ways.

“In football, I’d definitely consider St. Mark’s our biggest rival,” Lewis said. “It’s a rivalry that’s been passed down for countless years, and it’s to the point where it’s almost a must-win game. Even if you lose every other game in the season, you have to win to protect your dignity as a class and as a team.”

With the emergence of social media, senior Super Fan Man, varsity baseball player and volleyball captain Daniel Sanchez noticed players take to the keyboard to talk trash against each other.

vs.

Sports

Although rivalry games are just another digit in the win-loss column, for many coaches and athletes, they mean much more.

“The thing about rivalries is if you lose, they will hold that loss over your head nonstop until next year, and you cannot let that happen,” athletic equipment manager Ron Turner said. “You have to win and make sure that you are still on top.”

Associate Athletic Director Joshua Friesen believes that to make a good rivalry, the games must stay competitive.

“I think a good rivalry is made from two teams that on any given year can win,” Friesen said. “Most of the time, if it’s really lopsided and only one team dominates, it’s not a ‘rivalry.’ It might be a must win game for you, but it’s not much of a rivalry.”

While the school has had many rivals, Greenhill was widely considered the school’s biggest before the turn of the millenium.

“When I first started here, Greenhill was by far our number one rival,” Friesen said. “That matchup was a must win for all our kids, even though in football we had won something like 26 straight years. No one wanted to be the team that lost that streak.”

Over the years, Friesen believes ESD has slowly but surely overtaken Greenhill as the Lions’ largest rival because of its proximity to 10600 Preston Rd. “The ESD rivalry began as they grew in size and

became more competitive,” Friesen said. “There were friendships between kids from both schools, so a lot of that rivalry was created amongst friends. Nobody wanted to give up bragging rights to the guy that they were going to see on the weekend.”

While ESD is the school’s most notable rival, each sport nurtures its own rivals based on who is most competitive.

“When you end up matching up in the conference finals or semifinals, that’s a big deal,” Friesen said. “So teams like Casady might be a really good soccer rival for us, whereas in lacrosse and football, ESD’s a big rival. Basketball has nurtured a little bit of a rivalry with Highland Park the last couple years, but it’s not a long-term rivalry yet.”

Junior football and lacrosse player Conor Duffy said preparing for ESD is different than any other school.

“It’s definitely pretty different preparing for a rivalry game because you know the team is going to be a lot better when they play y’all,” Duffy said. “For me, every year I go against the same [ESD] corner that I have a history with, so I’m definitely thinking about what I’m going to do to him on the field during game week.”

Looking at each sport’s record versus rival school ESD over the last ten years.

February 5, 2021

ver the years, the Lions have created rivalries with several schools.

In the ‘90s, Holland Hall and Greenhill were almost always the school’s most competitive opponents for football in the SPC North Zone. Even matchups against Fort Worth Country Day and Cistercian sparked talks of rivalries for the Lions.

But as ESD continues to rise as one of the more successful athletic programs in the conference, a new rivalry has emerged.

Recently, ESD-St. Mark’s football matchups have come down to the wire. Trash talking and heated arguments between players and coaches have led to nail-biter finishes that many fans will never forget.

But as this new rivalry transforms into one of the most anticipated matchups in the SPC, the question still remains: What makes a rivalry great?

Us versus THEM

FINDING BALANCE

Game time vs. screen time Day to day, Seun Omonije ’18 manages to balance two rigorous lifestyles at Yale University: life as a computer science major and life as football player.

T

he 6 a.m. alarm goes off for the fifth consecutive day.

Legs aching with pain after yesterday’s practice in the freezing Connecticut weather, he manages to find enough strength to roll out of bed and drag himself to the showers down the hall.

Just 30 minutes later, he throws on his beanie and walks over to the workout facility just a couple minutes from his apartment. Here, he is met by nearly 100 teammates ready for another day as a Yale football player.

After grinding out several sets of squats, bench press, weighted pull-ups and various other intense workouts, the easiest part of his day is finally over.

Now back on campus, he prepares for a routine day as a computer science major. For nearly four hours, he devotes himself to courses like intro to quantum computing, data structure and algorithms, software engineering and others.

He looks at his clock; somehow the day is only halfway over.

After classes, he heads back to the facility once again to watch film, practice and eat dinner with the team.

At 9 p.m., finally, he watches his favorite Netflix show to put himself to sleep.

This is the life of Seun Omonije ’18.

February 5, 2021

Sports

The ReMarker

28

Omonije went on to play football as a wide receiver for the Yale University Bulldogs after graduating from the school. While this was a milestone Omonije had dreamed of his whole life, he had even greater ambitions for how he could impact the Yale community: he wanted to epitomize the role of a student-athlete.

Omonije majors in computer science. During the football season, one of the most important components to Seun’s success is his ability to switch gears from being a football player to being a computer-programmer.

“In the fall of freshman year, I went to a lot of parties, and even though I’m still social now, there are a lot of nights where I’ll stay in and do some computer science work instead,” Omonije said. “I go from a guy that’s super hyped up playing football to a nerd hanging out with a bunch of guys ten times smarter than me.”

On average, Omonije balances nearly six hours of football activity with six hours of computerprogramming each day; however, he knows what he is doing is special.

“I believe I’m the first Yale football player in computer science in history,” Omonije said. “So knowing I’m on a mission that is different and I’m blazing my own trail is enough to motivate me to get through the times when I’m tired.”

For Omonije, the football practice facility is a

TYPING AWAY On a daily basis, Seun Omonije ’18 manages to balance two rigorous lifestyles at Yale University: life as a Computer-Science major and life as Bulldog football player.

place of comfort where he is able to evaluate his past performances to improve for the future.

“Being at the football facility is kind of like an escape from my hectic life,” Omonije said. “Practice in college is different. There’s a lot more film work because it’s the best way to improve. There isn’t as much of a drop off in talent, so whoever can execute the best on a day will usually play and that has a lot to do with who watches the most film.”

Although Omonije strives for perfection in each of his athletic and academic endeavors, he understands that being a student-athlete at a prestigious university will inevitably present shortcomings.

“One thing that’s important to note is that there are sacrifices that I have to make to get it done,” Omonije said. “I can’t do both perfectly, but I can do both really well and succeed in the classroom and on the football field.”

Seun’s computer-programming skills helped land him an internship with Google where he had first-hand access to new tools and technologies that the company uses. Next year, Omonije plans to further his experience with Google as a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Intern.

“After talking to the head of Quantum Computing at Google, I got another internship for

Google Quantum AI next year which I am really looking forward to,” Omonije said. “I’ll be working on quantum compilers and 3D quantum circuits.”

On Sunday, to finish off the long weekend, Seun spends a couple hours at church to decompress and prepare for the new week ahead.

Omonije credits computer science instructor Kurt Tholking for helping inspire his passion for computer programming.

“One thing I love is that Mr. Tholking is very supportive of our dreams,” Omonije said. “I created an iPhone game in his class that I still use in job interviews today. Mr. Tholking really gave us the tools to do what we wanted.”

During his time 10600 Preston Rd., Omonije was surrounded by over-achievers, something that has helped him greatly in college.

“The biggest thing is just understanding that I’m different, and I think that coming from St. Mark’s fostered this attitude,” Omonije said. “Every day, stepping on the St. Mark’s campus and being around people who want to do great things inspired me. St. Mark’s has been a cornerstone in my understanding that anything is possible.”

STORY Luke Nayfa, Rajan Joshi PHOTO Abe Echt

Ryan McCord ‘20 contributes to historic moment in women’s sports history

by William Aniol and Arjun Khatti yan McCord ’20 helped make history Nov. 28 against Missouri as the holder for Vanderbilt University kicker Sarah Fuller’s second half kickoff, making her the first female to ever play in a Power Five conference college football game.

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DYNAMIC DUO Sarah Fuller became the first woman to play in a Power Five football game when she delivered the opening kick of the second half vs Missouri Ryan McCord ‘20 was there to hold the kick.

Fuller, a soccer goalie fresh off an SEC championship, expressed interest in joining Vanderbilt’s football squad after the Commodores were left without a kicker because of positive COVID-19 tests within the position group.

“We all got a text saying we were having kicker tryouts later that day, and anyone who could make it would be great,” McCord said.

“The one long snapper who didn’t get COVID texted our group chat saying, ‘We might have a girl kicker.’ We were all really confused.”

As all of the school’s regular students had left

campus already, the Commodores lacked the ability to add anyone new to the team.

“The only people who were still there were the members of the soccer team,” McCord said. “And [head football] coach [Derek] Mason just reached out to the head coach of the soccer team and asked, ‘Do you have any people who can kick? We don’t have any kickers; we really need someone.’ So she tried out, and I heard she did really well.”

McCord, a freshman cornerback for the Commodores, is also the backside safety for the kickoff team. Because Fuller was used to kicking the ball off the ground, the team decided to use a holder instead of a tee.

“Our coaches told us, ‘We just need someone to hold the ball for her,’” McCord said, “so we changed how the kickoff worked. I always knew I was going to be holding for her, which is kind of strange, but I got used to it during the week of practice [prior to

the game].”

Although Fuller’s situation was unique, McCord treated her the same way he treated any of his other teammates.

“She got a lot of support doing what she did,” McCord said. “To me, and to all of us, she was our teammate, and she did what she needed to do.

She came in wanting to help the team, and she ended up doing that. She loved it.”

Minutes after the game, McCord found himself pictured in viral photos across all social media platforms.

He realizes that this wasn’t a lifechanging moment for him, but he still admits that it was an experience he will always look back on.

“In 50 to 100 years, this will probably be seen as a big moment for women in sports,” McCord said, “but it’s also one of the most random things I’ve ever been a part. To see myself pictured in history, it’s definitely something I’ll never forget.”

Sports changed forever due to COVID?

by Peter Orsak ne day, sports will return to normal.

Fans will pack into Spencer Gym maskless in standing-room-only crowds.

The Super Fan Men will lead “You can’t do that” chants to hundreds of students crammed into the stands at Hunt Stadium on Friday nights, while middle schoolers will awkwardly attempt to socialize with the Hockadaises on the back field.

But not today. Today, we are forced to cope with canceled seasons and championships, work out in limitedcapacity gyms, and watch athletes compete in empty arenas.

The vast changes made by professional and collegiate sports leagues in light of ALONE the pandemic may seem temporary, but Sitting by executives and players alike have pushed himself in the stands, for a few of these adaptations to stay. sophomore People have been asking for a shortened Patrick MLB season for some time now, and Flanagan with the exhausting 162 game schedule looks out being cut down to 60 for the 2020 season, into Hunt Stadium. For a push towards a permanent middle athletes, this ground is in process. In addition, the new absence of universal designated hitter position for fans is reality. both the American and National Leagues introduced last season will likely continue longterm.

In the NBA, a shortened season is being considered as well. Play-in games for the seventh through tenth seeds, an experiment done for the 2020 playoffs, will remain in place for the 2021 season and possibly for seasons to come.

While many of the adaptations made will certainly be temporary, members of the sports world have learned a great deal and have been able to experiment with fresh ideas that could reshape sports forever.

O

- 49%

+15% NBA Finals

-7 % NWSL

-61%

NFL Playoffs

+500% Stanley Cup

D

own, set, hut!

The Lions’ slot receiver releases off the line of scrimmage, sprints ten yards forward with a defender on his right hip, stride-for-stride with him.

He then plants his left foot toward the sideline, exploding into a deep post.

He’s wide open.

Waving his arms in the air, he then looks up and locates the ball flying in his direction.

But it’s high and underthrown, giving the free safety a chance to recover. To make the catch, he’s going to have to climb the ladder.

He goes up, reaches his hands as high as he can, and out jumps the defender to secure the catch in the endzone.

But there isn’t a roar. No screaming or yelling. No chanting his name.

Just a few high fives.

Thanks to COVID-19, this is a new normal all Lion athletes must adapt to –– the stands are empty.

Noticing a significant difference, Trevor Gicheru, a senior wide receiver and defensive back for the Lions’ football team, missed the energy that his classmates added to the game from the stands from years prior.

“The atmosphere changed a lot,” Gicheru said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it was in a super negative way, but it was definitely different. Someone could make a play that was really, really exciting, and then it just wasn’t the same because there weren’t as many people cheering you on –– it was just the parents that were there.”

To fill the void of fans in the stands, Lions football players found themselves having to generate their own energy on the sidelines.

“In the Greenhill game especially, I’d say that we as a team did our best to compensate; we were always pumped up on the sidelines,” Gicheru said, “but I’m just grateful that Coach [Hayward] Lee was able to put together what he could of a season given our COVID issues.”

Knowing this was his final year on campus and his last season wearing the blue and gold, Gicheru appreciated the school’s decision to allow his senior classmates to attend the Lions’ game versus ESD Oct. 30.

“I think it was great that the school let seniors come to that game,” Gicheru said. “It would

have been nice if everyone could have come, but considering what we have going on, I 100% understand why they decided to do that. I’d say that definitely helped out at least having some classmates that came to support us.”

During the winter season, the soccer team found themselves in the same boat as the football team. Fresh off of a historic SPC championship run, sophomore central midfielder Nat Fisher and his teammates needed to defend their title without the support of fellow Marksmen cheering them on.

“I miss the fans,” Fisher said.

“Last year we had some great experiences such as the SPC final and the Greenhill game. I really wish we could have socially distanced student fans.”

At first, we weren’t allowed to have any fans, so we missed out on having a great atmosphere like we did last year during the entire SPC tournament.

Nat Fisher, Sophomore soccer player

Even without the support of fans, Fisher is still proud to showcase his talents wearing blue and gold.

“The games have felt different but they are still great to play in,” Fisher said. “While we can’t have the entire student body cheering us on, we’ve still been able to represent St. Marks and our parents have been able to watch us.”

Despite the deafening

silence, head varsity basketball coach Greg Guiler was able to lead one of the top teams in Texas to victory. Although the silence did not affect him, Guiler still wanted to get as much noise as he could to ensure his players would get a regular game experience.

“We have played two home games with no fans,” Guiler said. “For me, it didn’t make too much of a difference. Doc was announcing games and there was noise from the guys on the bench.

The players, however, knew they had to infuse energy into the game and make up for the silence of no fans.”

Playing without fans this year has given Guiler time to reflect and appreciate the role the crowd has in motivating his players and how they helped the team to win the Lions’ biggest games last year.

“I think about the SPC championship last year,” Guiler said. “The semi-final game where the fans were kind of going back and forth from the soccer game and then coming into the gym.

There was a stretch where we went down seven or eight points and the fans had come in during halftime of the soccer game and they were stunned to see us have a bad third quarter. Those fans showing up sparked life into us and I think won us that game and ultimately led us to an SPC championship.

I think the power of fans is enormous and it’s sad we couldn’t have them home this year.”

STORY William Aniol, Dillon Wyatt PHOTO Sal Hussain

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29 The ReMarker

WNBA Finals

Without their classmates in the stands due to COVID-19, Lion athletes have to adapt to the changing game atmosphere.

Sports

How TV ratings have changed because of COVID-19

Empty

February 5, 2021

On campus, I hope the outcome of this pandemic will be the same for our Athletic Department. The school has been able to experiment with broadcasting competitions online for students and parents to watch live with the absence of spectators.

As a fan, I hope these livestreams are here to stay. When our basketball team is taking on top schools Peter Orsak in the nation on any Sports given weeknight, fans are Editor constantly missing out on primetime competition.

These broadcasts are mustsee TV for Lions fans and provide a perfect way to cheer on our classmates from home, strengthening our brotherhood and fan base.

Additionally, the football team spent the summer lifting off-campus at Cooper Clinic in accordance with the school’s guidelines. Off-campus lifts could become a regular occurrance in the future, as some Marksmen travel over an hour to campus every day and would prefer a closer place to work out.

Finally, the Middle School intramural basketball league, comprised of six teams with different coaches and a mix of seventh and eighth-grade athletes, has been an excellent replacement for conference play. With real refs and stat-keeping, these matches are just as competitive as normal games and could be something to experiment with moving forward.

While we don’t know what will stick, members of our community have stepped up and made the necessary changes to adapt to our circumstances. Lions fans can only hope some of these positive changes are here to stay.

NO FANS

Swish

Marksman from deep

GRAPHIC Jonathan Yin PHOTOS Sal Hussain

From the limited amount of games we’ve been able to play, I’ve made the most of it and had some pretty good games. Around the arc, I take whatever the defense gives me.

February 5, 2021

Sports

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Colin Smith, Junior power forward

Sports junkie

2

field goal percentage

Left Wing

3

Left Corner

6

4

games played

1

Soccer

CHAMPIONS Senior Jackson Fair and junior Elijah Ellis pose after winning first place in their respective weightclass at last year’s DISD Open.

This January, Elllis was named to the St. Mark’s Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Swimming

Senior Eric Yoo leads the team with six goals.

Sophomore Jerry Fox finished his 50m freestyle in 21.6 seconds.

Senior Henry McElhaney leads the team with 10 assists.

Junior Nico Gomez finished his 100m butterfly in 52 seconds.

The team has won seventeen consecutive games dating back to last year.

Season Record: 8-0 Counter Record: 2-0 Last three:

Fun fact: Head Coach Trenton Calder played for the USA Senior National Team and represented his country at the World University Games in Serbia.

Season Record: 2-1

Season Record: 5-1

6-0 Win vs. Trinity Valley 1/15

Last three results:

Counter Record: 2-0

6-0 Win @ FWCD 1/12

Win vs. Cistercian 1/12

Last three:

5-2 Win vs. TCA 12/30

Win @ Highland Park 1/12

83-51 Win vs. Trinity Valley 1/15

Next up:

Loss vs. Southlake 1/14

82-32 Win @ FWCD 1/12

2/5 @ ESD

52-50 Win @ Rockwall 12/18

2/8 vs. Trinity Christian

COMPILATIONS Luke Nayfa

51

Center

Senior Harrison Ingram was named a candidate for the Naismith Player of the Year Trophy.

2/5 @ ESD

points per game

Right Wing

Advanced stats:

Next up:

16.2

Right Corner

Advanced stats:

In the Lions first home counter game, Junior Colin Smith recorded 34 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals to help beat Trinity Valley 83-51.

numbers

3

Advanced stats:

Juniors Corvin Oprea and Colin Smith lead the team with 13 made three-pointers on the season.

By the

Three-pointers made by location

CONTROL Senior Christian Shadle juggles the ball to help lead the Lions to a 2-0 victory vs.

Prestonwood Christian Academy.

A deeper dive into Lions sports for the winter season.

Statistics and records reflect games through Jan. 29.

Basketball

Ever since starting on varsity as a freshman, junior Colin Smith has proven why he is a nationally ranked player in the 2022 class.

Standing at 6’7”, Smith values his three-point shot as one of the leading contributors to his success.

Word from the captains Senior basketball captain Harrison Ingram

“With everything going on, we as a team are trying our best to live in the moment and play every game with as much heart as possible. The brotherhood we have built is so much stronger this year because we are all battling adversity together with a positive attitude.”

Senior soccer captain Henry McElhaney

“We’re thankful to continue to be able to play with everything going on right now.

Obviously, having no SPC tournament is a huge deal for us, but there’s going to be a North Zone champion based on points per game in our counter games, so everyone is focused on that goal right now.”

Senior wrestling captain Jackson Fair

Senior swimming captain Jack Palmer

“Although wrestling has not been allowed so far this season, I believe the team is more unified than ever. I’m glad to be a member of the St. Mark’s Wrestling community and you can expect big things in the future from all levels of the varsity team.”

“Everyone on the swim team is really just grateful to be able to compete. We’ve been dominating our SPC rivals, and we’re really excited for the SPC championship, especially with a brandnew coach in Coach Calder.”

MASKS ON Due to SPC rules, senior Sarbik Saha (left) and junior Corvin Oprea (right) warmup in masks to play versus Waxahachie Dec. 17.

Despite a strong effort, the Lions fell to the Indians 65-62.

SPORTS DURING COVID-19

The show must go on While the country still battles COVID-19, Marksmen have perservered and played winter sports amid the pandemic.

31

YOUR TURN As his teammate finishes his leg in a relay race, junior Sam Reitich dives into the pool, helping the Lions notch a win at Highland Park High School’s Senior Night Jan. 12.

TIP DRILL In the first game of the season Dec. 10, junior Colin Smith tips in a rebound for a basket as the Lions went on to defeat Spring Creek Academy 63-62.

CHEERS Celebrating a hard-fought 2-1 victory at Bishop Lynch High School Dec. 14, the Lions improved their record to 4-0 through the first month of the season.

PHOTOS Sal Hussain, Daniel Sanchez, Lars Ochs

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Sports

February 5, 2021

BREAKING THE TIE During opening night Nov. 17, junior Lars Ochs scores a go ahead goal as the Lions defeated Prestonwood Christian Academy 3-1.

ReMarker ST. MARK’S SCHOOL OF TEXAS 10600 PRESTON RD. DALLAS, TX 75230

HEAVY METAL Navigating the rough terrain, Adame prepares to tackle the next obstacle ahead at the Northwest OHV Park in Bridgeport, TX.

FOUR-WHEELING

Off the beaten path

Pursuing a longtime passion, biology instructor Mark Adame has been off-roading for nearly 40 years.

February 5, 2021

Backpage

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Jonathan Yin: What exactly is off-roading, and why are you so interested in it?

Mark Adame: Off-roading is basically challenging your driving abilities and challenging your vehicle’s abilities.

It’s just the exhilaration and the thrill of being able to go somewhere most people can’t go and trying to problem solve that makes it so fun for me.

A lot of times people think of four-wheeling as doing these crazy jumps and banging up your car, but that’s not how it is at all. It’s actually trying to go through obstacles and stuff, usually slowly, with minimal damage to your vehicle, unless you have a bunch of money and no sense. You just can’t just go on a trail and hope you make it, you have to actually scout it out, or have somebody spot and make sure you won’t damage the environment around you. It’s like a problem solving thing when you get to go outdoors.

JY: What inspired you to get into offroading?

MA: Living in a small city in east Texas, there wasn’t much to do, and I had a two-wheel drive pickup truck that my friends and I used to take on the backroads around the city. Back then in the 80s, Tyler was really small compared to how it is now, so there were a lot of places to go out in the country and mess around.

In college, I was in Galveston. There’s lots of places to go four-wheeling on the beach in the dunes, and I used to get stuck or get other people unstuck in the sand. A good friend of mine had a four-wheel drive Toyota. I fell in love with that truck. It was a five speed manual, four cylinder, four-wheel drive extended cab. I used to take it and go down to Corpus Christi and the Padre Island National Seashore and drive up and down where you needed a fourwheel drive.

In the past five years, I finally got the truck that I always wanted—a Tacoma four-wheel drive, six cylinder. And it’s a gray one. I love going and being out in nature, and I’m able to

go to all these different places.

JY: What makes the Tacoma your favorite truck?

MA: It’s a great all-around truck. It’s good for everyday driving. It’s well made. They have tried-and-true technology, they last long, they’re good off road and they’re comfortable. They’re very comfortable to drive, easy to work on, and there’s lots of aftermarket things you can get for them. They’re not too big and not too small.

JY: Can just any truck go onto any trail, or is there a rating system that tells you which ones you can do or something like that?

MA: You have a huge range of choices on what trails you want to take, and there’s always a trail that goes around the whole perimeter of the park. There’s a lot of little side trails that you can go off onto, and some of them—those little side trails—are rated like ski slopes. There’s some that have “quadruple black diamond” or whatever.

I’m usually more on the cautious side since this is the truck I drive to school every single day. If I do anything to it, I’m out of luck.

JY: What’s your favorite experience you’ve had while off-roading?

MA: All of them have been really fun. One of my favorite ones was when I got to go offroading with [senior] Will Chance and his dad and [senior] Gabe Bines and his dad and my son.

That’s probably my favorite because we all were together and we all got to help each other out and get good pictures and have good laughs and make good memories. Fortunately we didn’t get stuck, but it would have been okay because we would have gotten each other unstuck. And I just fell in love with [off-roading] even more.

JY: So where exactly can you go off-roading here?

MA: There’s actually no place to go four-

wheeling in Texas unless it’s on private property. There are three off-road parks in Texas, and one’s in Bridgeport just up the road.

I’ve been out there a number of times.

One thing I’ve been doing lately—the past year or so—is going to the beach. It’s about a four-and-a-half hour drive down from here, and you have the whole beach to yourself. The thing I really like doing on the beach is towing other people out of the sand.

JY: Do you have a bucket list for places that you’d like to visit?

MA: For a lot of people who do off-roading, there’s a lot of places up in Moab, Utah. I’m not that adventurous because I don’t want to break my truck, but one of my dreams is to drive a lot of the Bureau of Land Management lands, which are these backroads areas in the mountains in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. I want to go up there and just be able to go for miles and miles in the back country where you’re just completely removed from everything.

JY: What would you say is your favorite part about off-roading?

MA: Every time I’ve been four-wheeling at a dedicated off-road place, all the differences and beliefs between everyone don’t exist anymore because everybody’s so friendly and always more than willing to help each other out.

In fact, it’s kind of fun to go to these parks and see somebody who stuck. We try to challenge each other to see who can help them get unstuck first. It’s a great community, and everybody’s really nice. You would think that you would see the issues and differences that a lot of people are fighting about now, but you don’t. There’s people from all walks of life.

STORY Jonathan Yin PHOTOS Courtesy Mark Adame BONDING Whenever he is free, Adame turns to off-roading as the perfect opportunity to get outside and spend quality time with his family in nature.

The ReMarker

Dallas, TX • Borders Special Section • February 5, 2021 •St. Mark’s School of Texas

Journey around the

world After visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in the summer of 2017, junior

Ekansh Tambe discovered a passion for exploring the places where two nations converge. He embarked on a multi-year photojournalism project that took him to six borders on five continents. Along the way, he documented heavily armed

borders at the Korean Demilitarized Zone and scenic landscapes at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, pictured here as seen from Morocco. We sat down with Tambe to learn about the many stories behind each of his photos and travels.

DESIGN AND REPORTING Sai Thirunagari, Cristian Pereira PHOTOS Ekansh Tambe

North America

U.S.-Mexico

Travelling 1,900 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border, from Texas to

California, Tambe and his family documented the experiences of American Border Patrol agents, Mexican immigrant laborers and police officers who combat drug trafficking. In the summer of 2017, he learned about the agents’ physically and mentally demanding task of apprehending illegal bordercrossers, workers who toil to remove weeds in the unrelenting Arizonan heat and the effects of the drug trade on border towns. As he moved westward, Tambe photographed a myriad of terrains: mountains, hills, deserts, plains, rivers, canals, sand dunes and oceans.

DRUG MARKET “A look at the city of Nogales, Mexico, depicting hilly terrain and the challenges that Border Patrol agents face each day,” Tambe said. “A police officer guides my sister and me to a church area where a pedestrian was recently killed in a car chase. Drugs are a real problem at this portion of the border; a few agents told me the same thing: stop the demand and the supply will automatically stop.”

WORKING OUTSIDE “Meet the Mexican immigrants of Yuma Valley in Arizona who stand in long immigration lines at border crossing checkpoints every day just to earn minimum wage across the border in the United States,” Tambe said.

February 5, 2021

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Borders

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WALL OF CACTI “In many cases, the terrain at the border acts as a natural barrier,” Tambe said. “This image depicts the hundreds of miles of cactus fields on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.”

BORDER FENCE “I took this photo in Antelope Wells, NM, where Mexico and the U.S. are separated by a vehicle barrier known as a tripod fence,” Tambe said.

“The fence is only about four feet tall, so it is up to the border patrol agents to catch anyone on foot.”

Night Sky

Milky Way

While Tambe and his family drove along the U.S.-Mexico border, he decided to experiment with night photography near Big Bend National Park, a prime location to view the stars and the Milky Way. He set aside the topics of security and immigration, instead seeking to capture natural beauty at the border, photographing a sight that Dallasites rarely when they look up at the night sky from their backyards. With this series of images, Tambe intended to create a set of work that differed from his photojournalistic pieces.

A STARRY WONDER “When I was down there, the Milky Way would be different every night,” Ekansh said. “One night, I could see amazing red — that was gorgeous — and purples and blues. I could play with the light and how my camera affected those settings. That was something completely different — something really unique that I was able to do and that I’m really glad to have had the opportunity to do. As a photographer and as an artist, I don’t want to limit myself to just border security. Even though that’s something that I really enjoy exploring as a photojournalist, a photographer and a person as well, I still want to push my boundaries as an artist in various areas and see what I can do to create amazing images in different fields. The U.S.-Mexico border is more than just a place of conflict and struggle; it’s also a place of incredible natural beauty, culture and trade.”

The ReMarker

February 5, 2021

Borders

3

Heavy Security

Korean DMZ

In the winter of 2017, Tambe and his father went to one of the most

fortified borders in the world: the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) — a place where one wrong move could erupt in international nuclear war. And adding to the palpable tension, Tambe and his father visited the DMZ soon after news outlets had announced that a North Korean PEACE RIBBONS “Each ribbon in this image contains a message of peace from a South Korean resident,” Tambe said. “My discussions with the Korean people as a whole and those affected by the Korean War led me to believe that peace is paramount to them and so is the need for the unification of Korean peninsula.”

soldier was shot at least five times Nov. 13 while defecting to the South. Following the U.S.-Mexico border, this trip solidified Tambe’s ambition to compose a portfolio of contentious borders.

HIGH STAKES GAME “What you see here are antitank walls lining the road near the DMZ in South Korea,” Tambe said. “Each block of concrete contains dynamite and will tumble onto the road to prevent tanks from advancing.”

4

February 5, 2021

The ReMarker

Borders

NO RUNNING “This is the Joint Security Area, or JSA, and is the only place in the DMZ where North and South Korea conduct meetings,” Tambe said. “At this point, I was nervous and a little frightened to be standing just meters away from the spot where a North Korean soldier was shot twice while defecting to the South days earlier.”

GUARDED MINEFIELD “Thousands of land mines are still active in the Demilitarized Zone, which acts as a 160-milelong, 2.5-mile-wide buffer between the two nations,” Tambe said. “I explored the underground tunnel that North Korea dug to invade the South many years ago and got a first-hand look into the areas destroyed by the Korean War.”

Middle East

Israel

For nearly ten days in the summer of 2018, Tambe and his family traversed Israel’s borders, documenting the boundaries that the country shares with Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Gaza, in that order. This time around, Tambe focused on immersing himself in the foreign culture, hearing poignant stories from locals along the way. He began to view the border not only as a place of conflict but also as a hub of diverse cultures and architectural beauty.

BARBED WIRE “This is Israel’s border with Syria, as seen from an overlook lined with barbed wire,” Tambe said. “At this border, every couple of miles there exists a bunker — a shelter from bombs and air missiles. These shelters were built during the war for the Golan Heights region.”

RELIGIOUS CONFLICT “In Palestine, I met an elderly Israeli woman whose father was stabbed to death by an Arab in an act of senseless murder,” Tambe said. “With tears in her eyes, she detailed the massacre incident in Hebron in which many Jews were killed. However, in times of tragedy and in moments of despair, there is always a ray of hope — she also recounted the story of a Muslim friend in the community who hid numerous Jewish refugees in his house to prevent them from being killed.”

5

ANCIENT HISTORY “The Old City of Jerusalem, seen here, is divided into four quarters, one for each group of people residing there: Armenians, Jews, Muslims and Christians,” Tambe said.”

The ReMarker

February 5, 2021

Borders

A LONG ROAD “Jordan’s and Egypt’s borders with Israel stand in contrast with every other border Israel has: the landscape is desolate, littered with mountains, gravel and red sand,” Tambe said.

“Pictured here is the Egypt border, which is lined with endless barbed wire fencing and natural barriers.”

Mediterranean

Spain and Morocco

Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean lies the Strait of Gibraltar, a historically sought-after body of water that separates two countries, Spain and Morocco, and two continents, Europe and Africa. The border has a long history of violence from the Spanish border patrol against Moroccans who try to enter illegally. “African refugees fleeing domestic conflict often see the enclaves as a gateway to Europe, and it was tragic to see that many risk their lives to cross the heavily fortified fences and trenches at the border, all for a better living,” Tambe said.

February 5, 2021

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Borders

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STORIES TO TELL The fence along the SpainMorocco border is lined with some rubble along the way (top). “In a small Moroccan village near the border (right), I stayed in this village for a few hours, having tea with a family living in a small home in the village,” Tambe said.

“Their hospitality towards me was heartwarming and reaffirmed my belief that, at the end of the day, these people who live along borders all over the world and struggle to make ends meet are people just like you and me. They, too, have stories, family, perspectives, struggles and aspirations.”

ACROSS CONTINENTS “I stayed pretty much even time on both sides of the border,” Tambe said. “I wanted to capture both perspectives.”

BORDER PROTECTION “I explored the two Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla that lay on the African continent, marking the border between Spain and Morocco,” Tambe said. “These images depict the fence at the SpainMorocco border, and the many forms it may take.”

LEARNING MOMENT “This border is unique in comparison to the other five in that my images from Berlin take a more historical perspective,” Tambe said. “I spent nearly two full days in Berlin, exploring the city and focusing on photographing remnants of both the Berlin Wall and the ensuing struggles. Before I traveled to Berlin, I knew nearly nothing about the history of the Berlin Wall, the conflict, West Berlin and the Soviets. Afterward, I feel like I’d taken a crash course over two days of Berlin’s history in the second half of the century.”

7

Berlin Wall

Taking a more historical perspective, Tambe travelled to Germany

to photograph a wall that once was. Spending nearly two full days in Berlin in the winter of 2018, Tambe documented remnants of the turmoil between East Berlin and West Berlin as the world recovered from a second great war. While the wall was torn down in 1989, its lingering presence throughout the streets, parks and public spaces of Berlin remains a constant reminder of the conflict it used to represent.

GHOST OF BERLIN “In 1961, nearly 2.5 million Germans fled from East to West Germany, which was seen as the gateway to the freedoms of the Western world,” Tambe said. “The wall was built in 1961 by East Germany to cordon off West Berlin/Germany in an attempt to halt the mass exodus. The wall was torn down in 1989. This portfolio of images documents how this historical struggle is reflected in Berlin today.” The wall’s spirit remains in Berlin in several different ways, from a ‘pen,’ as Tambe described it, showcasing what the wall looked like in the ‘80s (left) to rubble left behind after the wall was torn down.

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Borders

February 5, 2021

Europe

South America

Colombia and Peru

Unlike many prominent borders, the border between Colombia and Peru is mostly unguarded, leaving citizens from both countries living close to each other with virtually no vigilance. “In the past, hatred between neighboring communities was so intense that you could be killed for accidentally crossing the border into one other than your own,” Tambe said. “However, recently, the residents accomplished the impressive feat of putting an end to violence in this town and embracing peace and prosperity through determination and resilience.” Along the Amazon River, Tambe met with villagers and photographed their everyday lives in the summer of 2019, the last border he visited before the COVID-19 pandemic hampered international travel.

MEETING UP (Above) “On a lot of evenings, villagers from the Peru side and villagers from the Colombia side gather on a little island on the border,” Tambe said. “They wrestle, they play soccer and they swim with dolphins. It was really special for me to be able to stay with them.” (Left) Tambe photographed many villagers along the Amazon’s bank.

February 5, 2021

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Borders

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NEW WORLD “For four days, I stayed in this small town by a river that you see in those photos,” Tambe said.

“In that spot, I explored the border between Colombia and Peru.”

WAY OF LIFE “There are probably hundreds of little towns littering the side of the Amazon River on both the Colombia and the Peru side,” Tambe said.

“They don’t have phones, they don’t have cell signal, they don’t have cars — everything there is done by boat.”