The rise of the online trend “looksmaxxing” is pushing young men to extremes with goals of physical superiority. From super-toned muscles to sharp, chiseled jawlines, boys are setting sometimes-unrealistic expectations that could ultimately be a detriment to their health. While some of the trends are positive when it comes to hygiene and healthy habits, others are causing body dysmorphia in Generation Z.
Students who have lived in areas affected by the recent wildfires share memories and stories about their old homes.
Students share how they pass the time when school is canceled due to freezing temperatures and winter hazards across the Dallas area.
8
Esteemed author R.F. Kuang visted campus to participate in the school’s Literary Festival, a day that had presentations, class visits and more.
Within the uniform guidelines, students test the limits with extraneous circumstances like recent winter storms. 24
Few student-athletes have the opportunity to be a captain, and even fewer do so as an underclassmen.
Students and fans poured into the newly opened Hicks Gymnasium to witness the first basketball game on Tom Adam’s court. 6
As I stepped onto the court of the new Zierk Athletic Center for our first basketball game, I was overwhelmed by a mix of emotions. The gleaming hardwood, the pristine bleachers and the crisp sound of sneakers squeaking against the fresh floor all blended together. Yet, as a senior, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of bittersweetness knowing that my time here would be limited to just these final few weeks of basketball season.
formed into reality.
Students now have a new tool to improve their athletic skills: virtual reality.
The swim team celebrated senior night in the new Levering Pool in the Zierk Athletic Center, highlighting many record-holding seniors.
Our first game was incredible. The team got the first win in the new center. Luke Laczkowski scored the first points off a dunk and reached 2000 points. I was able to make the first 3-pointer in the history of our new gym. It’s a moment that will be forever etched in my memory.
Being part of these “firsts” has been an unexpected gift in a year otherwise filled with “lasts.”
The last first day of high school, the last football season, the last homecoming – these milestones have been constant reminders that my time here is drawing to a close. But the new athletic center has given me and my teammates the chance to be pioneers.
for thousands of future student-athletes who will create their own memories on this court. While my time in the Zierk Athletic Center may be brief, I take pride in being part of the inaugural group that brought these walls to life.
During football season I would walk past the construction site and observe as the building took shape. I imagined myself running out out of that new locker room. Now, standing here in our new home court, those daydreams have trans -
As I look ahead to my final games in this gym, I’m filled with gratitude rather than regret. Sure, I wish I had more time to compete here, but being part of something new, something historic, has given my senior year an unexpected brightness. These firsts, especially that first three-pointer, will remain with me long after I’ve played my last game. And most importantly, the memories of the team, swaying together singing the alma mater after a win, or the long bus rides for tournaments or games, or even small things like walking out of practice, will remind me of just how special this place and community is to me. 16
Every first practice, first warmup, first team huddle and first game in this space carries significance beyond just the moment itself. We’re not just playing basketball, but laying the foundation
DIAPER DRIVE On Jan. 17, sophomore Jack Shepro collaborated with the Middle School CS Board to host the first ever Diaper Drive, in conjunction with the annual Coat Drive. The CS Board collected diapers outside Nearburg which were then donated to Hope Supply Company, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting children in need. Diaper shortages are a significant humanitarian issue in the U.S., and the drive successfully collected over 6,000 diapers.
FACULTY IN-SERVICE On Dec. 17, 2024, sophomores gathered in Decherd Auditorium for their second annual Secret Santa. Organized by student council members Anderson Lee, Dylan Bosita, Reid Smith and Ford Robinson, more than 50 sophomores signed up to participate, and gifts ranged from a Cleveland Browns hat to a deck of school-themed playing cards. The Secret Santa brought the class together one more time before the holiday break, fostering both camaraderie and holiday spirit.
TINY DANGERS The flu has peaked this season with the A and B strains, with B sticking around to the end of spring. The vaccine has a 55 percent success rate and no confirmed drawback. The Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV) respiratory virus from overseas has remained with less concern despite no effective treatment, but it can cause bacterial pneumonia. So far, strain A has been most prevalent in our community.
Reviewing this month’s news from around the world
WHAT HAPPENED: Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer releases Deepseek-R1 to the public.
WHEN: Jan. 20
RELEVANCE: Rivaling the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT models in both cost and performance, Deepseek-R1 could completely disrupt the AI bubble.
WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald Trump is inaugurated into office.
WHEN: Jan. 20
RELEVANCE: Marking the beginning of his second term, President Trump takes the position as the 47th president to run our country from 2025-2029.
““St. Mark’s taught me the value of hard work. It is ok to be pushed and work hard to achieve something. The school did that and I think about that often today when I buckle down to get something done that I feel is hard and perhaps insurmountable.”
“It is OK to be uncomfortable. Trying new things and stretching yourself is not a natural feeling, but unless you put yourself in uncomfortable situations and then overcome the discomfort, you will never grow.”
“The annual holiday “Can-paign” was a real highlight. We solicited canned goods from all over Dallas and collected thousands of them. We boxed them, sorted them and then delivered them to a couple of agencies in town. There was fun class competition as to who could collect more.”
With approximately 70,000 people enlisting in the army every year, their courage is often overlooked. Faculty reflect on their service to highlight the sacrifices and long-term impacts of deployment.
BY ANDREW YE AND DIEGO ARMENDARIZ
Bullets whiz past, striking the rocky hill behind him. He ducks low, gripping his rifle, his heart pounding in his deafened ears.
ATVs roar up behind him. Backup. His friends.
Muffled shouting, explosives detonating, clouds of sand launching skyward, chokes the air and blinds his vision.
Gunfire rattles again. Shattered glass flies everywhere. The sand is stained red. His comrades are motionless.
Then, a tap. A pressure in the center of his back. He looks down, red spilling into his uniform from the inside. His knee gives away as he falls.
“Dude, we got second place. No way these guys killed us, they had to be cheaters.
We can’t end on that, let’s queue one more.”
While millions of students enjoy playing war simulators from the comfort of their homes, thousands of real soldiers risk their lives every day on combat missions worldwide. According to the Department of Defense (DoD), approximately 170,000 active-duty personnel are deployed overseas at any given moment. Each year, an average of 1,200 service members do not return home, which equates to roughly four people killed in battle every day. War is not pixels. War is real. And for those who fight it, the battle doesn’t pause when the game is turned off.
This unseen disconnect between students and soldiers is something History Instructor Michele Santosuosso sought to resolve through the creation of her History of Special Operations (Spec Ops) class in 2017. Santosuosso says she structured her class to reflect a college course, 100 percent Socratic style, where students engage in serious debates with each other and the get the occasional visit from former special operations personnel.
“I created (the Spec-Ops) course eight years ago, and it’s special to me that so many students want to take it—especially since it’s not AP,” Santosuosso said, “It’s the sweet spot of my day because it’s a passion of mine, and students choose to be here.”
For Santosuosso, the main purpose of Spec Ops isn’t necessarily to detail the cruel aspects of the war on terror, but instead to listen to the stories the visitors share, to take key lessons away, and ultimately to be aware of the things that are happening around us.
BY JACKSON BAILEY
Springing forward on March 9, only to fall back Nov. 2 this year, daylight savings is a transition in time designed to get more out of the day. While lasting for different durations in different countries, daylight savings moves the clocks ahead one hour during the summer months. For the winter months, Standard Time, or the local time when daylight savings is not in use, is in effect. Despite the fact that most countries do not follow daylight savings, the U.S. does. At least for now.
President Donald Trump proposed to end daylight savings, a decision that would mean fewer hours in summer afternoons in sacrifice for early morning darkness. However, the daylight savings removal may come with health benefits. According to Healthline, the transition to daylight savings time can temporarily throw off sleep schedules, resulting in reduced productivity and attentiveness which could potentially cause heart-related problems. Despite the potential health problems associated, the transition into daylight savings time and the effects of early sunrises can be conquered.
“We’ve mechanized our time keeping so much I don’t think sunrise and sunset has that big an impact,” Chemistry Teacher Kenneth Owens said.
Since the beginning of human civilization, people have relied on the sun to dictate when we wake up and sleep, otherwise known as a circadian rhythm. So, naturally, we’ve followed a type of daylight savings as the times the sun stays in the sky changes throughout the year. But, with the removal of daylight savings, our standardized times won’t follow the changes in the sun’s movement.
“I think it will throw people off if they can’t keep the rooms dark enough to sleep in in the summer when the sun’s coming up as early as it would if we weren’t on daylight savings,” Owens said. “It might impact summertime activities when the sun goes down an hour earlier and you’re not able to see at 8:30 p.m. like you can at this point in the year.”
While the health benefits of removing daylight savings hang in the balance, one problem that would arise from the removal is the decreased amount of daylight later in the evening. Less daylight could affect events such as sports games that would have to use artificial lights earlier than before. The loss of the extra hour of daylight can also limit peoples’ schedules for the day.
“During the summer, if you’re doing activities later at night you have a little bit more daylight to use,” Sophomore Brendon Lin said. “Whenever you get that extra hour of daylight, you can schedule your events to be a little later and it’s a lot more flexible.”
While daylight savings comes with health risks, the extra hour for activities will be missed. While the idea has been tossed around, the call has not been made yet. As of now, the early morning sunrise and extra summertime evening hour can still be expected.
BY ARMAAN NEWASKAR
Diretor of Security Dale Hackbarth’s work philosophy is centered on constant improvement. His experience and enthusiasm are what made him the perfect candidate to lead the school’s security department. It’s these qualities which have motivated him to develop new ways to keep this school safe, year after year. This year especially welcomes impressive changes to the school’s security measures.
The school’s security department can be characterized as adaptable. The staff is consistent in their focus and mission, but flexible in their methods. Amidst new gates and cameras updated with artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the most distinct change is the new staff team member.
“Brian Feinstein is another retiree, a Dallas Police retiree. This gives me a total of six retirees, with 107 years of law enforcement experience between them,” Hackbarth said.
Hackbarth’s ideal security guard requires three qualities: experience, professionalism and most importantly people skills.
“Experience and professionalism doesn’t do any good unless they have people skills,” Hackbarth said. “You’ve got to be able to communicate and talk and be comfortable around people and yet also have a presence.”
Hackbarth is uncompromising in his standards for the school’s guards, not only because he understands the gravity of their role, but also what it takes to play it.
“We have a very open and warm and welcoming campus, and that brings challenges,” Hackbarth said. “Challenges such as the fact that we have to be everywhere, and we have to be seen and visible out there to make this campus as safe as possible for students to learn and teachers to teach. Because of these challenges, it’s important for the security staff to be competent and willing to improve.”
Hackbarth attributes his motivation to the school’s community. In his eyes, the community and its harmony are what allow him and his team to be consistently focused and driven.
“The people here on campus are what drive me. From the students, to the parents, to the faculty, the staff and the administration. Everybody strives to do their best, because it does start from the top, and it trickles down and motivates everybody to put their best foot forward,” Hackbarth said.
For 35 years, Hackbarth has led the school’s security team along a path of progress. At first the school was a secondary job, a way to keep himself active when he wasn’t doing police work.
“With world events and with the increase of violence in schools especially, St. Mark’s approached me and offered to let me lead their security team with the promise of me getting to choose my own staff,” Hackbarth said. “It’s been a great, great relationship from there. ” From then on Hackbarth didn’t look back. Considering how much time he and many members of the team have spent here, it’s impressive that they’ve maintained a sense of constant vigor and enthusiasm.
“I can only be the way I am because I tell myself every day that people are counting on me,” Hackbarth said.
With the rise of recent technology, online scammers are running rampant more than ever before, highlighting the importance of proper internet education.
BY ROHAN KAKKAR AND SHIV BHANDARI
When Computer Science teacher Kendall Murphy opened her computer to check for important emails one summer day, she wasn’t expecting to see photos of her house in her inbox.
Driven by curiosity, she clicks on the email.
She can feel her stomach drop.
A threatening letter, completed with her full name, address and a street view of her house, stares back at her. The letter demands that Murphy pays a certain amount of money to an unknown user and threatens to harm her if she doesn’t.
Even for Murphy, who teaches how to safely use the internet and avoid bad actors to middle schoolers, this personalized attack was something new–something that really shook her to her core.
“It scared me to death,” Murphy said. “I actually called the police, and it turned out that it was a scam and they had other people calling too. It’s important for people to understand that if you’re not sure whether something is a scam, you should call someone who could help you. If you see a red flag, talk to someone.”
Similar scams that take advantage of a person’s emotions or qualities have become increasingly prevalent with the increasing amount of personal information available on the internet, and with the rise of Artificial Intelligence, they’re especially dangerous due to their claims often feeling more legitimate than traditional scams.
“Scammers are salespeople,” Murphy said. “They’re trying to sell their scam to the right person, so they choose who to scam very carefully, but it depends: the threatening email I got was just an AI bot that just sent out as many emails as possible. If you really research it, though, a lot of the time you’re going to realize that something is a scam–it goes back to checking your sources.”
And although students are certainly at risk of falling for these scams, especially younger kids, older people
are the most vulnerable. According to the National Council on Aging, Americans over the age of 60 lost roughly $3.4 billion in total fraud losses in 2023. Due to older people sometimes struggling to adapt to new technologies, scammers target this vulnerable group in particular to try and easily make money.
With the recent Los Angeles wildfires, for example, scammers have been creating fake PayPal accounts under celebrity names to incentivize people to donate money to these causes, using the name to try and foster a sense of trust that many people may fall for.
Rekha Garadi, grandmother of Amar Kakkar ‘25, almost fell for one of these scams, and she has also noticed a steady increase in the number of scams every year.
“I almost fell for the wildfire scam myself,” Garadi said. “I looked up the website, and I was going to donate, but I said, ‘I don’t know where this money’s
I THINK IT COMES DOWN TO TEACHERS AND PARENTS TO PROTECT OUR BOYS WHEN THEY CAN BUT ALSO TO TEACH THEM HOW TO BE LEADERS IN A DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT.”
Kendall Murphy, Computer Science Instructor
going and who it’s going to,’ so I backed out.”
The best way to avoid these malicious schemes is often to get another set of qualified eyes on them, such as a knowledgeable friend, teacher or even law enforcement if the scam is especially dangerous or threatening.
“I used to get a lot of texts and phone calls with my area code, and I used to answer them,” Garadi said. “But then somebody told me to never reply to them because they were scams–even if they were really personal messages, so now I’ve learned to not answer if I don’t have a contact name associated with the number.”
But sometimes enlisting the help of
others isn’t an option, so students and senior citizens alike must use their risk evaluation skills quickly and effectively, an ability that Murphy aims to teach to her students through education digital citizenship units.
“Every year we do digital citizenship, covering how you should handle yourself as a marksman online by acting out scenarios you might find yourself in,” Murphy said. “After that, we go into our internet safety and source evaluation unit. My hope is that the boys will be able to help others since they’re being presented with so many possible situations, so if they see something suspicious they’ll be able to recognize that and say something.”
A large part of staying safe on the internet, regardless of someone’s age, is keeping private information–like addresses, passwords or other personal details off the web, where they are saved and stored forever. This philosophy is key to Murphy’s lessons, where she teaches marksmen the importance of using social media in healthy, safe ways in a time where so many people live their realities through apps like Instagram and TikTok.
“You have to be really careful because there are some situations they’re just too young to hear about, but I’m very serious with them,” Murphy said. “I posted things on Facebook when it had just come out when I was a freshman in college, and you can imagine that we didn’t understand back then that once you put something out there it’s out there forever and that it can affect your future.”
But even with these lessons and education, students and parents should be aware of the potential dangers affiliated with reputable platforms like YouTube and PayPal that bad actors can use with malicious intent while under the disguise of someone like an internet influencer.
“My son is 8 and he loves YouTube, but even if I put the YouTube restrictions on, I can’t control everything that he’s seeing,” Murphy said. “So I think it comes down to teachers and parents to protect our boys when they can but also to teach them how to be leaders in a digital environment.”
Although national vaccination rates have only slightly declined, smaller communities across the U.S. have experienced steeper drops than the data might portray on the surface.
BY KEVIN HO AND TEJAS ALLADA
Vaccination data across the country shows high rates, but concerning new data points signify a shift in vaccination efficacy in the US.
The falling vaccination rates are steeper than expected.
There are now gaps in protection against once-common diseases that can lead to hospitalization and life-threatening consequences are widening.
Due to these vulnerabilities, numerous areas in the U.S. now have pockets of students no longer ensured with near-failproof protection through herd immunity.
Because while the overall childhood immunization rates remain high on average, the numbers hide the sharp declines within smaller communities — in numerous states, counties and school districts. And if the figures continue to drop, the risk of outbreaks of life-threatening diseases in children is bound to rise.
Throughout their implementation in history, vaccines have been proven time and time again to be effective deterrents to infectious diseases. And because of them, the diseases of the past — namely measles, mumps and smallpox — have been essentially eradicated.
Before the pandemic erupted across the world in 2020, the rate of kindergartners with complete records for the measles vaccine was above the federal measles target of 95 percent. However, recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that this number has dropped to below 93 percent by 2024. Immunization rates against polio, whooping cough and chickenpox decreased in a similar manner.
According to school nurse Julie Doerge, this decline stems from external factors beyond the control of ordinary citizens.
“During the pandemic, families had a much harder time making sure that their kids were up-to-date with their vaccines,” Doerge said. “With limited access to healthcare, parents weren’t really able to schedule appointments and go and see their physicians to ensure their kids got vaccinated.”
SOME PARENTS DON’T REALLY KNOW WHY THEY ARE SKEPTICAL ABOUT LETTING THEIR KIDS GET VACCINATED IN THE FIRST PLACE, BUT THEY HAVE HEARD IN THE PRESS THAT THEY SHOULD BE.”
Dr. Kimberly Mehendale, Pediatrician
The decrease in nationwide vaccination rates also highlights another growing concern: the issue of taking booster shots. When people skip or delay the recommended number of booster vaccines, they risk weakening their immunity against certain diseases. Skipping immunizations doesn’t just affect that one individual — it shifts the balance of risks and benefits for everyone.
“If you get your vaccine when you’re 5 or 6 years old and never get a booster shot, you wouldn’t be as protected as you would be if you did receive it,” Doerge said.
Even though vaccines are widely recognized for their reliability in viral protection, a small percentage of the population still remains doubtful of receiving an immuni-
zation. Specifically in school environments, parents have voiced concerns over vaccines for a variety of reasons that include safety, effectiveness and personal experiences.
“Some parents don’t really know why they are skeptical about letting their kids get vaccinated in the first place, but they have heard in the press that they should be,” Dr. Kimberly Mehendale said. “Other times, some believe that the diseases for which we vaccinate are not very prevalent, so their children are at a minimal risk of contracting these diseases.”
This distrust in vaccines, however, lacks a nuanced perspective. Although the U.S. is almost entirely protected from severe diseases, millions of immuno-compromised civilians’ lives are at risk.
Furthermore, these safety hazards supersede our nation’s borders and impact communities all across the globe.
“Having the majority of the U.S. immunized is most important for people whose immune system is not fully functioning such as babies, elderly and the sick,” Mehendale said. “Some people who are skeptical of vaccines have never actually seen firsthand how severe and crippling these diseases really are.”
These exact assumptions have directly led to numerous flare-ups across the nation. From Oct. 22 to Dec. 24 of 2022, a measles outbreak occurred in central Ohio that spread throughout numerous schools. 85 infants and toddlers were infected. And out of those 85 children, 80 were unvaccinated.
BY CHRISTOPHER HUANG
Across the country, public school districts are seeing a decline in student enrollment. While this nationwide trend is not evenly spread throughout all public schools, enrollment numbers are falling, and many schools are feeling the effects.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, national public school enrollment has reversed its previous growth trend and is predicted to continue declining due to factors including a decreasing national birth rate, increased school choice legislature and regional demographic shifts.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), total public elementary and secondary school enrollment is projected to decrease five percent from 2022 to 2031, a loss of about 2.7 million students. For some school districts, this relatively small change can be devastating.
“School administrators have to make tough decisions with the already scarce resources that they have,” said Assistant Director of Admissions Korey Mack. “Declining enrollment in any public school district creates the need for strategic thinking about how to make their dollars stretch
even further in many cases.”
School districts receive a large amount of their funding on a per-pupil basis, so losing hundreds of students can significantly harm an already tight budget. As a result of these financial difficulties, many school districts have chosen to close schools or consolidate multiple schools, which can have negative effects on the communities that depended on them initially.
The decline in public school enrollment is also affected by an increase in alternative schooling options, including homeschool and private school. School choice laws passed in states like Texas make it easier for parents to choose to enroll their children in private schools with public funds.
Though traditional independent school districts may face larger enrollment changes, smaller private schools could also see some variation in enrollment and application numbers. At school, the admissions office tracks data relating to enrollment and applications every cycle to be prepared if significant changes in enrollment or applications occur.
“Our office tracks closely the size of our applicant pool, the admission ratio and the matriculation ratio, among
Although such outbreaks are uncommon, these events can serve as wake up calls for low immunization rates — one skipped vaccination could be the catalyst of another incident.
To avoid such spikes, the school implemented several vaccination mandates for faculty members in 2018, requiring them to be up-to-date on their TdaP (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis), hepatitis and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccines.
“The reason for this was that there was an outbreak of measles up in Plano,” Doerge said. “And at that time, we had the Director of Health and Human Services from Dallas on our medical committee, and she recommended that we get all the information for our faculty.”
For Doerge, raising vaccination rates against oncecommon childhood diseases goes beyond simply having more access to them. It’s also about education and outreach — ensuring that people in the community are well-informed. By bridging the gaps in awareness and fostering an understanding on vaccines with new families at school, the clinic strives to achieve this sense of trust and ultimately protect all members on campus.
“We educate people one-on-one when they come in,” Doerge said. “We also refer people to their providers because they do an amazing job helping new parents understand the importance of vaccines and why we encourage all people to get them. After talking with people one-on-one, they understand and are happy to get their vaccines.”
other things,” Mack said. “We do not take for granted the increasing interest in our school and remain committed to expanding our reach while we work to assemble the most qualified student body.”
Enrollment decline in public schools isn’t a new phenomenon. Regional population shifts have led to sudden enrollment drops, an issue that many schools have had to deal with. As neighborhoods around schools evolve in population and demographics, the number of enrollments fluctuate.
“I do think enrollment changes on a macro level – it’s certainly inevitable. Neighborhoods are not static,” Mack said.
Schools around the nation will have to reckon with this trend in the coming years. While declines in enrollment have always been happening in certain schools, it is only going to be more and more common. However, the admissions office at school has the tools to be ready for it if it ever happens.
“Because we track many enrollment metrics year over year and in real time throughout the admission cycle with benchmark reporting and an application funnel dashboard, we can foresee enrollment challenges when they arise and work to mitigate and overcome them,” Mack said.
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“A guest once told a story about how he spent weeks preparing for a mission to capture a high-value target,” Santosuosso said. “At the last minute, the weather forced his team to stand down. Another unit went instead, and their helicopter crashed, killing everyone. At first, he was furious, but he later realized that being angry over things beyond his control was pointless.”
Situations like this can cause soldiers incredible mental stress which is only made worse by the fact that when many return home life after the military just isn’t the same as it used to be.
Without real combat experience, nobody really knows what it’s like to be in the line of fire, staring death straight in the eye.
“Soldiers have seen, been in, and dealt with hardship that people back home just can’t fathom. So there’s an inability to empathize and incorporate them back.” English Teacher and Director of the Wilderness Program Cameron Hillier said. “As a country, we shouldn’t set veterans aside as different, because that makes them ‘the other.’ It pushes them away, Even when they come home, we say you’re not a civilian, you’re still different.”
After spending years in battle zones, veterans commonly suffer from long-term fatigue as they’ve established the idea of “danger” to any combination of their sensors. Santosuosso says for her guests, a trigger can be anything. A smell, a sound, an image. And it never really goes away. But acknowledging it is the first step to managing it.
“Many in the Spec Ops community refer to it as PTSS instead of PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome rather than a disorder,” Santosuosso said. “Because, in their eyes, it’s not a disease but a lifelong challenge to manage.”
For Hillier, a lot of the implicit consequences of real-life war are reflected in the analysis of the novel Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.
“Technically (Matterhorn is) considered fiction,” Hillier said. “But if you listen to Marlantes getting interviewed, there’s clearly very little he’s fabricated, almost like a semi-autobiography, and it seems like it was therapeutic for him to get this story out onto the page and process it.”
Sometimes, life can be overwhelming for everyone, making it easy to overlook the constant sacrifices for us all over the world.
“It’s easy for students to tune out because of video games, TikTok and school stress, but being aware of what’s happening globally is important,” Santosuosso said. “There are American troops deployed somewhere every day of the year.”
Even though we can’t change how battles are fought or understand the difficulties veterans on campus face, Santosuosso says she believes it’s importantwhen talking with people post-deployment to truly learn their lessons.
“One of my guests, a former fighter pilot, always tells students: ‘Do something bigger than yourself,’” Santosuosso said. “One of the simplest, yet most powerful messages shared was: ‘Be kind to everyone.’ It sounds basic, but in their world, that kindness sometimes saved lives.”
With droughts and powerful offshore winds hitting southern California, natural disasters like wildfires are becoming more and more prevalent.
BY NEIL YEPURI AND MICHAEL CHANG
As soon as the clock hit 3:25 p.m., and his last-period calculus was let out, senior Teddy Fleiss had something more important to do.
He instantly headed home, placing frantic calls to friends and family back in Los Angeles – with each zone hit, more and more of the communities Fleiss called home were in grave danger due to wildfires of a massive scale.
The damage was unthinkable.
The home of his grandparents, where he’d made unforgettable memories.
The nearby village, where he’d used to walk through.
Restaurants, rec fields, friends’ houses — all destroyed in the conflagration.
There were warning signs — the previous evacuations and the insurance companies refusing to ensure certain areas due to wildfire risk.
But no one thought it would get this bad.
The devastating wildfires erupted on Jan. 7, likely due to dry conditions in the Los Angeles metroplex. The Palisades and Eaton areas were hit hardest, producing some of the deadliest and most destructive fires seen by the city. More than 80,000 people were forced to evacuate, and at least 28 individuals are confirmed dead.
Although the disaster seems extremely distant, Fleiss spent nearly his entire childhood in areas burnt down by the fires.
“I grew up around the Palisades, which is the area that was hit the hardest,” Fleiss said. “My grandparents lived there my whole life, and their house was just burned to the ground completely.”
This wasn’t even Fleiss’s first California wildfire — the process of a fire burning down land and then rebuilding is a regular cycle in LA.
“When I lived in LA, I think we were evacuated three times for fires,” Fleiss said. “So we were used to the whole packing up thing. Still, every time it was a really freaky experience.”
But the fires didn’t just come up from nowhere.
In fact, the climate in Los Angeles during the beginning of the year was practically a breeding ground for wildfires — yearly Santa Ana winds, combined with untimely drought-like conditions and recent weather oscillating between heavy
rainfall and dry spells created a volatile environment where wildfires were likely to occur.
The Santa Ana winds generally originate from deserts in the southwestern United States, bringing lower humidities and higher temperatures to southern California around 20 times a year. The 40 mph winds are the primary cause for the fires’ widespread nature — and the reason for their ferocity.
I STILL HAVEN’T TAKEN INTO SCOPE THE FACT THAT THE PLACE THAT I SPEND MY ENTIRE CHILDHOOD IN HAS BEEN COMPLETELY BURNED.”
Teddy Fleiss, senior
The fluctuating weather in Los Angeles has also significantly exacerbated the frequency and spread of wildfires. Although the winds are an expected phenomenon bound to happen annually, the unusually dry weather and lack of rainfall are not. Global climate change is generally attributed to the sharp rise in optimal wildfire conditions.
That’s without even acknowledging the most pressing concern caused by the wildfires: cost.
Almost 40,000 acres of land have been decimated, and losses are projected to amount to a hefty $30 billion. The entire county of Los Angeles bears the forefront of the disaster.
“I still haven’t fully taken into scope the fact that the place I spent my entire childhood in has been completely burned,” Fleiss said. “Looking at those photos just kind of hurts.”
Communities have been displaced and scattered throughout the county, and many families are looking to rebuild their homes. Some individuals, like Fleiss’s grandparents, are even considering leaving the city altogether.
“It’s kind of hard to stay in LA,” Fleiss said. “(My grandparents) haven’t really talked about rebuilding because they’re getting older.”
The primary focus of the city is still about recovery — it’ll be several years before everything is back to normal.
“My friends are going to try and rebuild just because it’s easier than leaving,”
Fleiss said. “But every time a friend lost their house, I immediately reached out to them and let them know I was thinking of them.”
However, earth science instructor Sophia Avendano also points out several long term benefits of wildfires burning in their natural habitat.
“If you have a wildfire in a forest, then afterwards you get a lot of nutrient rich soil,” Avendano said. “So it helps things grow.”
Controlled burns are carried out for this exact reason: to rejuvenate forests and the soil.
There can also be noticeable cooling and warming effects shortly after a fire is contained; the large release of greenhouse gases into the environment often contribute to global warming. But strangely enough, fires also have the potential to cool the earth.
“Depending on the characteristics of the wildfire, you can also have a cooling effect,” Avendano said. “If you have a forest and you burn it, it’s going to be lighter. And if you have something that’s lighter-colored, it will reflect heat away from the ground.”
Nevertheless, the wildfires have left a long lasting imprint on families like Fleiss’, and it will be difficult to permanently erase the wreckage from their minds.
“It’s safe to say that it was a scarring experience to see the whole neighborhood completely full of carnage and burns,” Fleiss said.
The Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades, Eaton Fire in Pasadena, and the Hughes Fire in Eaton have wreaked havoc on LA, destroying thousands of structures and forcing thousands of people to evacuate.
38K Acres burned by the fires
23K Structures burned down
7 Major fires 29
With more storms on the horizon threatening Texas with another winter freeze, faculty initiatives and Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) improvements help the school respond to outages more smoothly.
BY ANDREW YE AND HOLDEN PURVIS
One moment, warmth and light. The next, darkness and cold.
The comforting whir of the heater stops mid-cycle.
Temperatures inside plummet, layering the dark windows with frost. The streetlight had gone out too.
Without power, the oven and microwave and everything else are useless. Dinner is a collection of dry snacks and cold leftovers.
Phones, tablets and laptops are rationed like survival tools, their batteries dwindling and slowly dropping.
For students, a power outage is not just discomfort, it’s a disruption. Due dates loom, but without power, even something as simple as turning in an assignment becomes a near impossibility.
For many others, it’s not just discomfort, it’s dangerous.
Between 2000 and 2023, Texas experienced 210 weatherrelated power outages, the highest in the nation during that period, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Of these outages included the Texas power crisis in 2021 that stretched from Feb. 10 to Feb. 27, leaving millions without power and several winter-related injuries.
For families like senior Nicholas Dickason’s who don’t own backup generators, these winter outages pose a huge logistical problem. Because Dickason’s neighbors live in a different grid than his family, when these storms knock out his power, he says that they need to relocate all of their groceries into houses that do have electricity.
“During that winter storm four years ago, we immediately had to book a hotel after moving stuff into my neighbors,” Dickason said. “It lasted for three to four days and was really inconvenient.”
Whenever a winter storm is forecasted, Director of the Physical Plant Mark Webb has to ensure that all essential
heating and water units are functioning correctly.
“We go through to make sure we’ve got everything programmed properly for our HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) to run, to keep everything warm on the inside of the buildings,” Webb said. “As far as the exterior buildings, we go through and we winterize all the water systems that are outside.”
WHENEVER WE SEE BAD WEATHER FORECASTED, WE CHARGE ALL OUR DEVICES, MOVE REFRIDGERATED ITEMS AND MAKE SURE FLASHLIGHTS AND CANDLES ARE AVAILABLE FOR US TO USE. WE KNOW THINGS CAN GET BAD REALLY QUICKLY.”
Nicholas Dickason, Senior
In response to the mass outages across Texas in 2021, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has implemented several measures to enhance grid reliability in Dallas.
A key improvement is the Weatherization and Inspections Program, which has completed 450 inspections on powergrides throughout Texas.
“Outages used to be more frequent for us a few years ago. I’d say we had at least two major ones every year,” Dickason said. “However, over the past 18 months, we’ve only experienced one outage, so things are definitely improving.”
But Dickason claims his family isn’t fully trusting better trends in their number of outages. Whenever bad weather is forecasted, Dickason says his family charges all of their devices, prepares portable chargers and makes sure flashlights and candles are always accessible.
“I remember once, I couldn’t turn in an essay because my laptop was dead, so I had to go to a friend’s house just to charge it,” Dickason said. “It was stressful trying to explain to my teacher that it was done, just that I couldn’t turn it in.”
Last May, the students and the school suffered an outage just as finals season kicked in. Because he didn’t have power, Dickason says he was worried about his science exams since he missed review days and didn’t have access to study materials.
To address the ongoing issue of power outages, the school has considered various backup solutions.
“Emergency generators are probably the best way for us to take care of the school’s needs in a situation where we do lose power,” Webb said. “But the school and all the powers have to be willing to buy in, and that’s a pretty hefty cost; it was pushing over a million dollars.”
During a power outage, the school has backup systems that can maintain the servers for a period of time, allowing students to connect from home.
“We do have backup battery power in our server rooms that will keep servers up,” Webb said. “So if you needed to tap into the school network from home, you could do that for a period of time. But if we lost power here, I would say after eight hours, we’d need to shut that down as well.”
The growing demand for energy on Texas infrastructure still places the systems under pressure, and they aren’t fully fail-proof. Between 2023 and 2024, Texas had the largest population increase according to the U.S. Census, making dependability all the more important.
“Texas has increased their reliability and done things to make sure that the Texas grid can take care of itself,” Webb said. “Of course, as time goes on, more people are moving to Texas, the strain on that grid is going to get heavier.”
But because of the effort Texas and the school are putting into ensuring electricity stays on even during the harshest of weather conditions, Dickason says he’s fairly optimistic about the future.
“I think as these storms become more frequent, we’ll be better prepared as a community,” Dickason said. “Instead of being caught off guard every year, we’ll eventually have systems in place, where we’ll have less and less outages.”
BY MICHAEL CHANG
He used to love reading. Before middle school, you could hardly find him without his nose stuck in some novel or another.
But something flipped when he reached his teens. He began to gravitate further and further away from recreational reading, even learning to dread English reading assignments.
Why is this such a common trend?
Recently, a survey led by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that the percentage of adults who reported reading one book in the past year dropped from 52.7 percent in 2017 to 48.5 percent in 2022. Recreational reading among teenagers has seen similar changes in the past decade — the National Center for Education Statistics
reported a 10 percent drop in the amount of 13-year-olds who read for fun everyday.
Middle School Librarian Elyse Chevallier believes that the sharp decline in reading for children likely derives from the obvious fact that older students are generally busier.
“We only have so many hours in a day, and kids prioritize different things,” Chevallier says. “It gets even more difficult when you’re in Upper School and you have harder classes. You just have a lot more on your plate.”
Aside from the multitude of distractions that prevent older students from reading, the books themselves are often an issue as well. It’s relatively difficult for librarians to find good literature that’s engaging for older Middle Schoolers.
“It’s hard to find books that satisfy (students’) growing maturity,” said Chevallier. “Kids like to read up. A lot of my students really like hard science fiction, but there’s not a lot
being written for younger kids or even young adults.”
In addition, students tend to label reading as a waste of time once their classwork gets more difficult — after all, most novels take place in fictitious, intangible landscapes. However, there are many benefits to recreational reading in all genres, whether it be fiction or nonfiction.
“Reading does make you better at taking standardized tests,” Chevallier said. “It’s not quantifiable in a way that other skills are, but it’s still valuable.”
And picking up reading isn’t terribly difficult; just start slow, one page at a time. Soon, you’ll find that reading does make you a better student.
“(Reading) doesn’t have to be everyone’s favorite thing,” Chevallier said. “But you do see benefits from reading, and it would be nice if (students) could slip reading into their routines.”
COLLEGE DEANS PROGRAM On Jan. 27, college representatives including Lehigh University Vice Provost for Admissions and Financial Aid Dan Warner, Hampden-Sydney College Director of Multicultural Initiatives Rod Jackson, and Washington University at St. Louis Assistant Vice Provost and Director of Admissions Grace Chapin James arrived on campus to give insights on the strenuous college application process.
TPSMEA ALL-STATE The Texas Private School Music Educators Association (TPSMEA) AllState took place Jan. 25 at the Eisemann Center in Richardson. At the competition, four were recognized for achieving a seat in the All-State Orchestra for all four years of high school: Seniors Daniel Sun, Andrew Xuan, Brandon Kim and Adithya Munshi.
DEAFENING by senior Hale Peterson WHAT INSPIRED THIS CREATION?
HP: “It’s a (representation) of what it’s like to have CAPD, which stands for central auditory processing disorder. I made it because the college I was applying for, the B.A. of Design at UT, (had) a creative prompt of experience. I wanted to have the auditory part, (so) when you scan that little QR code, it takes you to a sound bite link that goes to YouTube which has what it sounds like to have CAPD.”
KF: The Armor of Light is the fourth book in Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge Series. The first book was Pillars of the Earth, which is about the building of a mythical cathedral right in Kingsbridge. This book follows that town and a whole bunch of other events, and involves a lot about Napoleon’s war. I read it over the break, and it’s really really good.”
Rebecca F. Kuang, the Brent P. Johnson ‘89 Guest Writer, became a NO. 1 New York Times bestselling author after navigating her way through her culture and heritage.
BY DOAN NGUYEN AND WILLIAM KOZOMAN
At 19-years-old, Rebecca F. Kuang didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She loved debate—she was taking a gap year to teach highschoolers in China—but after declaring her major in Chinese Studies, she felt a little lost.
In her apartment located in a historic district of Beijing, Kuang was surrounded by old temples and shrines. Food and people. Traditions. There was a flood of raw culture that she was never able to appreciate when she lived in Dallas. She’d never spent more than mere weeks in China when she was younger, but right now, it had never felt more like home.
For the next year, she wouldn’t have exams to study for or essays to type up. If she was going to take a chance, the best time was now. Inspired by her environment, Kuang took a leap. She pursued her dream of writing.
Born in Guangzhou, China, Kuang moved to Dallas at just 4 years old and attended Greenhill as one of the maybe two Asian girls in her grade. To get a weekly taste of her homeland, Kuang would drive up to Plano for piano lessons and Chinese school.
But over time, she grew out of touch with her heritage. The language barrier between Kuang and her grandparents slowly swelled, leaving her unable to listen to any of their anecdotes. By high school, Kuang realized she didn’t know where her family had come from. Didn’t know about traditions besides the obvious Chinese New Years celebration. Not even Chinese foods.
She felt disconnected from her culture.
Things began to change when she took the gap year to China after her sophomore year in college. Her Chinese got better, allowing her to converse with her grandparents and hear their stories and life lessons. She found out about her family’s origin and everything to know about Chinese traditions and foods.
For many years, she was relatively isolated as an Asian-American student. But it made her later experience in China all the more impactful.
“It was delightful; it felt like a real homecoming,” Kuang said. “I think my journey towards learning about myself as a Chinese-American was just my journey towards learning to be a novelist.”
Kuang’s love for writing wasn’t born in an English class or at a bookstore; it came from home. She had been writing since she learned how to piece sentences together, composing simple primary books and fan fiction to satisfy her desire to create.
“I was always just writing something to entertain myself and my siblings,” Kuang said. “I actually was in charge of teaching my sister how to read, so I would write these primers with very short sentences based on the vowel-consonant combinations that she just learned, like ‘the cat jumps over the bat.’”
Despite Kuang’s love for writing, it didn’t immediately appear as an option for her career. Stereotypically, in Chinese-American households, more emphasis is placed on STEM rather than creative arts.
Pursue a financially secure job. People like me don’t train as novelists. And she was being realistic. Kuang didn’t have many
role models—successful Asian writers—to look up to.
“I think every Chinese parent’s nightmare is for their kid to say, ‘I want to be an actor’ or ‘I want to be a DJ,’” Kuang said. “I didn’t dare imagine I could major in English—majoring in English was for other people who could afford to.”
But surprisingly, her parents were her biggest supporters, persuading her to make her dream of writing into a reality. Kuang’s father nurtured her love for classic literary works, feeding her George Orwell and Jane Austen novels when she was too young to even understand what she was reading.
With the learning of her Chinese heritage and the adamant support from her father, Kuang found herself writing a rough draft of her first novel, The Poppy War. As she went through the repetitive process of writing, revising and repeating, Kuang would send her father just one chapter at a time.
“My dad would text me, ‘Wow, this is so exciting. I want to read more. Please send me another chapter.’” Kuang said. “That gave me the motivation to keep writing all the way to the finish.”
After completing the novel, the only thing left to do was try to get it published. Kuang sent it out to literary agents, and before she knew it, her agent was sending the manuscript to editors. On the day of her 20th birthday, Kuang got a call from an editor from HarperCollins. They wanted to publish The Poppy War
And though it started as an amateur work, its success showed her just how capable she was as an author. The Poppy War garnered unprecedented attention. Her unexpected success made her popularity skyrocket, selling millions of copies and winning several major awards.
In the following two years, Kuang published another two novels, completing her trilogy and setting the foundation for her future career as an author. Kuang is now pursuing a PhD at Yale University and is scheduled to publish her sixth book, Katabasis, in August 2025.
And as she looks back on what else made her such a successful writer, she thinks about her upbringing in Dallas and how its unique circumstances enabled her to gain unique perspectives and abilities.
“When I was growing up, I felt perpetually on the outside,” Kuang said. “I think being on the outside is a good place to be. It makes you observant—I feel like I notice things that people don’t, and it just led to more observations about my surroundings. That has been a very powerful tool as a writer.”
In 1992, over the course of several weeks, Director of Libraries and Information Services Tinsley Silcox helped to file documents within and archive Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley.
BY KAYDEN ZHONG AND KIRAN PARIKH
Graceland is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. The former home of the “King of Rock and Roll,” it now encompasses 200,000 square feet of museums, restaurants and gift shops. But in 1992, when Director of Libraries and Information Services Tinsley Silcox got the call to help archive and catalog Elvis Presley’s Tennessee mansion, it was nothing more than an unorganized collection of memorabilia.
Prior to coming to the school, Silcox served on the faculty of the University of Mississippi as the Director of the Blues Archives and Music Librarian, where he oversaw one of the largest collections of blues and blues-related material in the country. During Silcox’s time as director, he worked closely with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the university, whose goal was to teach about the American South and its culture.
“At the time, the Center was run by a man named William Ferris, who later went on to be head of the National Endowment for the Humanities,” Silcox said. “It is a graduate degree program, and that summer a young lady named Shelly had graduated with a master’s degree in Southern culture, and she was immediately hired to be the archivist at Graceland.”
Quickly, however, it became apparent that Shelly needed some extra help.
“She had zero archival experience, but she had the background knowledge of the material,” Silcox said. “Two or three months into the job, what they discovered was that they needed some that really understood archives and how to handle archival materials.”
Though the house had opened up to the public starting in 1982, just five years after Elvis’ death, family members had continued to hang out and live there. Parts of the house, like the family quarters, remained inaccessible to the public
because they were still in use, but generally, the security was relaxed.
“At that time, people were coming and going regularly, and people that were distant relatives, or at least claimed to be, were coming into the house and stealing stuff,” Silcox said. “They’d take a cigarette lighter and stick it in their pocket, or they’d see his magnificent car collection and steal a cigarette lighter out of them or (even) a hubcap. Stuff was being taken at a prodigious rate.”
The responsibility of figuring out how to open everything up and in turn transform Graceland into a thriving business thus fell to the archivists.
“Shelly called me and said, ‘I’m in over my head; maybe you can be the person to come and help me,’” Silcox said. “So I went up there, and we worked together for a few weeks.”
The main deliberations came over what to and what not to present, as well as how the items would be displayed. When Graceland was opened to the public, a larger space had been added to allow visitors to walk through and view things like a typical museum, though besides the addition of glass display cases there had not been many preservation efforts.
“By the time Shelly got there, there were people already touring through the spaces they had put in, and she was there to figure out how to mark all the things that were still unmarked and how to describe items,” Silcox said. “None of that had been done. They just had random stuff in random cases with spotlights on them.”
One of the exhibits had Elvis’ black wedding tuxedo and Priscilla’s wedding gown on mannequins in a glass case under spotlights. By the time Shelly and Silcox got there, the tuxedo had turned brown because of the UV light from the spotlights.
“I immediately had them turn the lights off on anything that could be affected, and ordered UV filters for everything,” Silcox said. “One of the things they had put in the
BY EMILIANO MAYO
Curtains open as a tall, dark piano glistens under the lights of Carnegie Hall. Senior Carson Bosita takes a deep breath, places his hands on the keys and lets his body do the rest as the instrument begins to sing.
Carnegie Hall is world-renowned as one of the most prestigous places a musician can perform, but performing at such a location wasn’t always in Bosita’s vision.
“I didn’t think that I would be able to go to such a high level of a performance stage,” Bosita said, “But I knew that if I kept going at it, then something would happen eventually.”
To perform at such a notable venue, Bosita had to win first place at a recital in which the prize would be playing at
Carnegie Hall. Bosita succeeded in this preliminary effort and ended up being the last to play.
“It was just a really big moment for me,” Bosita said, “But I had to treat it like any other performance, where you have to shut everything out besides what you want to play and the specifics of the piece you want to play. In general you need to be able to keep a level head or else you’re gonna rush.”
But Bosita hasn’t been the only Marksman to play at Carnegie Hall. Sixth grader Ethan Chen has also reached this level of prestige.
Chen’s piano journey began when he was six years old, and since then it has only been going upward.
“My parents were trying to find something that interested me and some instrument I could play,” Chen said, “I
cases was a copy of the Physician’s Desk Reference about drugs and drug interactions, and another was his medicine case, which just looked like a fishing tackle box with a bunch of different pills. I had them take those out.”
The cataloging process was immense: Elvis had two whole warehouses filled with furniture and other items that the archivists had to comb through. On top of that, Silcox had to order extensive repairs.
“Elvis had a hallway in which he kept all his gold and platinum records. He didn’t even take the time to hang the frames on the wall,” Silcox said. “He just nailed the records to the wall through the frame. He’d just stick it up against the wall and pound a nail into the frame so the frames were split. We had to take all of that down very carefully.”
One particularly memorable experience was opening up Elvis’s private jet. To preserve the interior of the jet, a Plexiglas cover had been installed on the door so that visitors could peek inwards.
“You couldn’t really see much because of all these dots on the Plexiglas, and I realized that those were giant moisture droplets,” Silcox said. “There was no ventilation in the plane, which was sitting in the Memphis sun. We called a company to hacksaw the Plexiglas off, and the smell was overpowering. Everything was starting to mold.”
Ultimately, after spending a couple of weeks with the faculty, Silcox left them with a list of instructions and materials to buy.
“It was one of the most interesting couple of weeks of my life,” Silcox said. “I’m so glad that I did it for a lot of reasons, but mostly because regardless of whether you like his music or not, (Elvis) was very important in American music history for a lot of reasons. Those sorts of things beg to be preserved.”
Listen to the Focal Point Podcast on Spotify or smremarker.com
started taking lessons, and I ended up really enjoying it.”
Even though practicing consistently was important, Chen believes that a strong and balanced mindset is crucial for playing the piano at his level.
“It can be frustrating because there are some parts you can’t get but you have to keep calm to actually practice and get the most out of your practice,” Chen said, “I tend to actually get frustrated, and I just need to a take a 15 minute break just to calm myself down and then resume.”
For some, playing the piano is just a hobby or a way to fill up a college resume, but for Chen and Bosita, the piano is a passion that brings fulfillment.
“I love piano,” Bosita said, “If a day had 30 hours, I think I’d spend one or two more on piano every day.”
Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence can simulate human-like responses almost instanty, foreshadowing having serious effects on youth mental health.
BY DOAN NGUYEN, NICHOLAS HUANG AND CHRISTOPHER HUANG
It’s different from the awkward, pointless social interactions he’s used to. Countless notifications from countless friends: Harry Potter, George Washington, Katniss Everdeen.
Notifications from friends that couldn’t possibly be sending texts, acronyms and emojis.
The messages have all the right words. It’s satisfying. Addicting.
It—no, She, understands me.
It’s getting harder to believe that it’s all just an algorithm. To some, AI chatbots aren’t human; they’re even better.
Artificial intelligence has dominated the technological landscape for the past few years, and with chatbots evolving at alarming rates, there are several consequences concerning youth mental health, socializing and even crime.
Internet chatbots have existed for a while, displaying responses based on keywords, and with the new innovations in artificial intelligence, many chatbots now incorporate machine learning technology to sound as human as possible.
But these chatbots have found themselves in deep water recently, with many concerned about the danger that the AI-enhanced chatbots pose.
In October 2024, a lawsuit alleged that Character.AI, a Google-backed chatbot service, had a chatbot that encouraged a 14-year-old to end his life.
Another lawsuit in December 2024 shared screenshots of a Character.AI chatbot telling a 9-year-old girl that killing her parents would be “understandable” because she was not given enough screen time.
But the algorithms don’t even understand what
they are saying. Most of these chatbots are given a set of rules to follow, and they simply do what their creators told them to do.
Dr. Tony Liao, an associate professor at the University of Houston and expert in emerging AI developments, has done research that specifically focuses on comparing AI relationship models and human relationship models. He believes in AI literacy: knowing what you’re getting into before actual use.
“The whole ethos of these bots is to be as positive, energetic and supportive as possible,” Liao said. “Whatever somebody inputs, the algorithm will force a positive response because you’re trying to support (the user).”
IT’S NOT GOING TO RUSH OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE. IT’S NOT BUSY. IT WANTS TO KEEP TALKING TO YOU, BECAUSE AS FAR AS THE ALGORITHM IS CONCERNED, YOU’RE THE MOST INTERESTING PERSON IN THE WORLD.
Dr. Tony Liao, professor at the University of Houston
Chatbots such as Character.AI are fully customizable: anyone can create their own specialized AI just by typing a description of the chatbot that they would like to create. These chatbots are able to reel in the user, giving them an incomparable amount of personal attention.
“If they ask you a question, you’re free to answer knowing that it’s not going to judge you, or at least it doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Liao said. “It’s not going to rush off somewhere else. It’s not busy. It wants to keep talking to you, because as far as the algorithm is concerned, you’re the most interesting person in the world.”
Chatbots can become a person’s best friend over the course of a few days, but at some point, a distinction must be made between what is human and what is not real.
“There is this term called anthropomorphism— when we give human-like qualities to non-human things,” Health and Wellness teacher Mary Bonsu said. “We can anthropomorphize with animals, pets, technology, cars and natural disasters. Developmentally, children are more likely to anthropomorphize because it helps them make sense of the world.”
AI chatbots that act and talk like humans could pose problems for the people who interact with them, especially young children, who would be more likely to believe that the bots are real people.
Children who befriend AI chatbots could become more isolated from the real world and more drawn towards technology, possibly harming their social development.
But anthropomorphizing isn’t something unique to children. People all around the world identify human attributes in non-human things, so anthropomorphizing AI chatbots shouldn’t be so surprising.
“We’ve given animals, for example, maybe your dog, you’ve given him a name,” Bonsu said. “He’s your best friend, and he’s human, almost.”
As AI continues to approach human likeness, more people will likely start anthropomorphizing artificial intelligence. More will start giving their chatbots human pronouns, calling the AI “him” or “her” rather than calling the robot “it.”
“I think AI is dangerous in a couple ways,” Liao said. “One is the speed at which that relationship can form and deepen. We’ve been finding that when we interview people who are in these relationships, it happens really fast because of this lack of time pressure or lack of inhibition. You get real, then it
starts going that way and then it just keeps on going, right?”
These two factors, the speed at which relationships can form and the increasing anthropomorphism of artificial intelligence, create unhealthy relationships, especially for children.
However, many people have also tried to find ways where AI can be used to affect mental health in positive ways. An example of this is the rise of AI therapy chatbots, which have already made a massive impact in the field of psychiatry.
After all, AI therapy removes the barriers for entry to traditional therapy. There is no need for transportation, insurance, or face-to-face embarrassing conversation. Instead, people can speak to a non-human wall that can give “accurate” information.
“There’s a bunch of human relationships that are toxic and bad, and if they’re getting a relationship that is better than what they had, then maybe it’s not so bad,” Liao said. “Or some people have talked about growing in confidence or just bringing some more social connection into their lives at a time where people are reporting increasing loneliness.”
But AI therapy can come with risks. Relying
42%
of teens using AI to stave off boredom, almost as much as they’re using it for homework according to commonsensemedia.org
solely on, say, ChatGPT for therapy could be detrimental since ChatGPT doesn’t currently have any medical certifications or a real life degree.
“If companies are having more of the profit and the innovation interests in mind, and not necessarily the ethics around safety, I would be concerned about that,” Bonsu said. “For example, I would not trust some of the digital giants that are already out there with therapeutic AI, but I would trust, perhaps a startup that is vetted by mental health professionals and has a whole school of mental health professionals on their boards.”
But again, AI can also be used for more sinister purposes. For example, in early January of this year, a Cybertruck exploded in front of a hotel, and the perpetrator used AI to advise him on how to make the explosives. AI can be used as a tool for those with poor mental health to commit crimes.
“There was a real story where somebody who was talking to Replika AI and had a plot to assassinate the Queen of England, and the chatbot would encourage him in his plan,” Liao said. “You can program an AI with good intentions, or say, ‘Just be positive, support people and mirror social
interactions.’ But if the input is criminal, or if the input is negative, then that could have the very opposite effect of what you’re trying to do.”
The usage of chat bots occupies a gray area legally and ethically. Chat bots aren’t even human, they don’t truly understand the meaning of the words that they generate. But at the same time, they can still cause damage to the real world.
Mary Bonsu Health and Wellness Counselor
“The chat bot was programmed to be supportive and so encouraged him to carry this out,” Liao said. “So now is that the fault of the chat bot, the fault of the user, or both?”
And as chatbots start having more and more legal consequences, such as the effects of AI on terrorism or self-harm, some regulations will likely be set in place.
“There’s been some legal challenges to Replika, where people are concerned about the data collection,” Liao said. “That Character.AI story got a lot of traction because it’s an extreme consequence. And I think we’re going to start to see some more regulation trying to be put on these companies: either age restrictions or data standards or at least something to understand what’s going on under that hood.”
As generative AI develops, the cases of artificial intelligence-assisted crime will continue to increase. While protective measures are being developed, the rapid evolution of AI technology often outpaces security solutions.
Artificial intelligence in chatbots is currently uncharted territory, with researchers still uncovering new implications and potential risks of these interactions. The emotional and psychological effects of prolonged chatbot engagement remain poorly understood, particularly in vulnerable populations like children and elderly users.
The field of artificial intelligence is rapidly changing, leaving companies having a difficult time telling what could go wrong with their chatbots until something eventually does go wrong. Professionals like Dr. Liao advise to have some caution around becoming too close to a chatbox— mere lines of code
The line between helpful digital assistant and emotional dependency can blur quickly, leading to potential psychological and social challenges for users who form strong attachments to these AI systems.
“I just think that parents should just also be educated on the risks around AI, allowing their children to interact with AI, and just knowing what the dangers are,” Bonsu said. “Help remind your students. Help remind your kids that it’s not real.”
The conversation below features a chatbox impersonating book character Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games . The artificial person was generated by the ReMarker staff.
From parental pressure to expectations set by older siblings, students are forced to reckon with stressful goals on a day-to-day basis, the consequences of which can lead to anxiety and worse mental health.
BY KAYDEN ZHONG AND EMILIANO MAYO
Tests, quizzes, papers, sports games, extracurricular activities. On a daily basis, students have to manage numerous events while juggling expectations and pressure from others.
Marksmen are no strangers to having overachieving older siblings. Whether they are the captain of the football team or student council president, to the younger siblings it can feel repetitive to hear about the success of their brothers.
“This comparison absolutely does affect mental health,” Director of Marksman Wellness Center Dr. Gabby Reed said, “First of all, humans are born to compare themselves to other people, from an evolutionary perspective. If you think about it, comparing ourselves to other people and sort of either going with the flow or rising to the occasion are very evolutionary traits.”
This comparison can lead the younger sibling to set unachievable goals just to please his parents and hopefully reach the greatness of the older sibling. It is a toxic motivation that rarely works while it builds anxiety.
“You are a completely different person than your sibling,” Reed said, “And depending on your age difference, your brain is at a completely different point than that person’s brain.”
Reed believes that a different type of comparison can help the younger sibling learn from his older sibling. This healthy
comparison functions by the parents praising hard work instead of outcomes.
“It’s about the fact that you studied for six hours that the younger sibling is going to go: that’s what my parents care about,”
Reed said.
Even though parents can help to relieve this stress, Reed explains that the real helper can be the older sibling himself. She states that by communicating with the younger sibling and helping him feel more at peace, the older sibling can effectively relieve stress.
“I think it’s an uncomfortable conversation,” Reed said. “Once you start having them, and regular conversations about your feelings and stuff, then it’s a normal thing,
Sophomore Dylan Bosita has felt both ends of the spectrum when it comes to being compared to his siblings.
“I do think there’s some part of me that looks at them like I have to be just as good as them in order to get to a good college and get to where I want to be,” Bosita said.
But Bosita also believes that staying close to his family and having a close relationship with them is a big factor that contributes to his success at school and outside of it.
“I definitely couldn’t be where I am right now without them,” Bosita said, “Them being here is huge and not even just for mentoring, but also their presence and knowing that, you’re not doing it by yourself, especially because my brothers went and are going to the same
school as me.”
One major stressor for seniors is the college application process. Though the process typically begins in the spring of junior year, balancing applications, schoolwork and extracurricular activities is immensely taxing. Parental pressure to perform can also play a large role in making senior year demanding. For senior Jediel Sarfo, the college process intensified an already busy schedule.
“All throughout the first semester, the application is looming over everything, and (you) know those deadlines had to be hit,” Sarfo said. “We had less time and I think through that, you have to find new ways to manage the pressure and the mental toll.”
It is not uncommon for each college application to take several hours, a drain on the already limited time that seniors have to work around. To some, this change can start to take a toll on other activities.
“During my entire time in high school, I’ve always been getting A’s in English, but this semester I got my first B in English,” Sarfo said. “It was mainly because of time management stuff with college applications, and it ends up taking a lot of your energy because I’ll spend a night working on an essay and in the morning I have a research paper to work on still.”
While many seniors are going to receive their dream accomplishment, there are still many that face rejection. The fear of the unknown and rejection can begin to affect mental health and
BY KIRAN PARIKH
Not everyone gets to enjoy the privilege of being a Marksman. Most students don’t get to enjoy the school’s education, the clubs or the student life. Most students aren’t lucky enough to have the same resources as a Marksman, much less a planetarium. It’s not fair, especially to those who would make the most of it.
That’s why last year, senior Nicholas Dickason, his co-chair senior Arjun Poi and English and History teacher John Perryman decided to create the Civic Responsibility Board—to share the unique opportunities a Marksman has with the surrounding community, and to help students maximize their school experience.
“I’d say (our mission is) to help out the underprivileged community in the area,” Dickason said. “We want to share St. Mark’s resources with other schools that don’t have the same opportunity.”
In their second year of operation, the Civic Responsibility Board is striving to make an impact. Closely working with nonprofit organization Wesley Rankin, the board helps to lead clubs with Lower-School-age students in the Dallas area. Every week, the board hosts a gardening club, and every two weeks a chess club. So far, they have also provided opportunities for Marksman college counselors to give advice at the night program, hosted round tables and volunteered to work lunch at Wesley Rankin.
Yet, while the Civic Responsibility Board has focused on clubs and partnerships like those with Wesley Rankin, its mission extends beyond community service. At school, the board focuses on increasing understanding of the systems and histories that shape our communities. To that end, this year, the board has expanded its efforts with two major initiatives.
The first is the Civic Responsibility Speaker Program,
cause immense amounts of stress.
“They’ve put in so much work only to get deferrals or rejections from certain schools,” Sarfo said, “It can feel like an attack on what you’ve put in, but it doesn’t take away what you’ve put in.”
To overcome this stress and anxiety, Sarfo believes in a better and more positive mindset and focusing on a clear goal in mind.
“I think what’s more important is your mindset and what you have up here, and your overarching purpose,” Sarfo said, “And so if you have that clear, you’ll realize that it doesn’t actually matter as much where you go as long as you keep your overarching purpose.”
According to Pew Research Center, NBC and the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety and stress affect a significant amount of U.S. adolescents aged 13-18.
31.9% of adolescents suffer from anxiety disorders
70% of teens feel anxiety and depression are major issues for their age
12M children have undiagnosed disorders
88% of teens feel pressure to get good grades
bringing experts like March to the Polls CEO Camila Bourdeau to campus to inspire students and provide insights into public policy, governance, and community challenges. The second is to offer new courses preparing Marksmen for careers in public service, civic leadership and government.
These initiatives, combined with the board’s direct service efforts, demonstrate the impact of their work. Even though the Civic Responsibility Board is just beginning, Dickason knows the difference they’re making. In a heartwarming moment, his students at Wesley Rankin showed how thankful they were.
“They wrote us thank you cards at the end of the semester. That was really fun and touching,” Dickason said. “It’s nice to see that the kids really do want to learn, and that they really do enjoy all the work we put into going down and doing lessons for them.”
LUNAR NEW YEAR Wednesday, Jan. 29 marked the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year. It will be the year of the snake. Decorations for the occasion popped up around campus on Jan. 27 and red envelopes were distributed students during chapel services. On Jan. 30 the senior Chinese class performed in Spencer Gym in front of the entire school. Some of the performances included Chinese yo-yo, a lion dance and a face change.
SENIOR EX Senior exhibitions are a way for seniors to express the crux of their interests and highschool careers before they leave for college. The first wave featured the speeches of many seniors like Lawrence Gardener, William Morrow, Jack Tholking, and Matthew Hofmann. Each senior had an assigned group, and some were the only presenters for an entire grade. The middle schoolers were the primary audiences of the presentations, and they got to hear lessons from over a dozen of seniors.
ATHLETIC COMPLEX OPENING On Jan. 21, the new Zierk Athletic Center first opened its doors to visitors. Parents were invited on this morning before school to tour the facilities, listen to speakers and enjoy some coffee. Representatives from the senior class, Student Body Class President Matthew Hofmann and Senior Class President Henry Estes, each provided a message to the parents. Other prominent board members, donors and faculty members like Eugene Dermott Headmaster David Dini also spoke.
This cycle we listened to people around campus and took the best quotes. Here is what they said:
With the cold weather, students once again question the necessity of uniforms, but the traditional attire serves as more than just another school rule.
BY ROHAN KAKKAR, SHIV BHANDARI AND DIEGO ARMENDARIZ
Over their years growing as students and men, Marksmen experience significant changes in both their campus and personal lives– from participating in school sports for the first time to attending their first homecoming– that inevitably, uniquely shape them on their journeys of personal growth.
Throughout all these unique changes and experiences, though, one aspect of the school experience has weathered the test of time– the uniform. Whether it be in the blistering heat or the bitter cold, everyday Marksmen don their classic oxford shirts, short grey shorts and worn-out black shoes in preparation for the workday, participating in a tradition as old as the school itself.
But recently, with temperatures plummeting below freezing, students, blasted by the dry winds and beaten by the unrelenting freeze, have begun to wear additional outerwear, most controversially sweatpants that Marksmen put over their school shorts, to try and avoid the crippling cold.
This recent clothing addition, however, doesn’t strictly follow the uniform code, creating a confusing situation for students and staff alike who must decide what is and isn’t appropriate for school.
“Some clothes aren’t part of our uniform, but boys still try to wear them,” Lenaeu said. “So it’s our job as administrators or faculty to let the boys know that we want them to stay in their uniform, and it doesn’t have to be a long
BY CHRISTIAN WARNER
In the summers of 2010 and 2011, Makerspace Director Stewart Mayer was invited to film polar bears in the desolate arctic – Churchill, Canada. Known as the polar bear capital of the world, the vast white landscape with the frequent vibrant aurora borealis in the sky became Mayer’s home. Each day he and the team of other cameramen, nature experts and so-called bear guides – trained experts in the landscape and wildlife –would set out and gather footage for a TV show, airing on National Geographic and other Canadian channels.
And spending enough time in the arctic landscape with polar bears and other wildlife left Mayer with countless, unforgettable memories: some wholesome and others adrenaline-filled.
On one day, Mayer and the team set out to shoot footage of the bears as they had done so many other times. Each time they would mount their ATVs from their barbed-wire guarded base with a small runway for planes to land and trek the flat, winterly-barren land. It was rather easy to spot the bears, given the flat picturesque land where Mayer could see for miles in good weather. Once a bear was spotted, the team would simply wait for hours on end. Capturing nature in its unaltered state required the team to seemingly blend in with the surroundings as if they were never even there.
And on this day, this particular bear seemed to notice the crew, but it was different from just a curious bear. While others may have investigated the team for a few moments before losing interest, this bear took a more territorial approach. Even before this, Mayer noticed how the bear looked especially cantankerous; it had a mean countenance, a solitary lifestyle and a beat-up appearance.
Eventually, the bear stalked its way closer and closer to the crew. Not wanting to stir up the over-thousand-pound animal, the team slowly began to back away.
But their evacuation efforts didn’t matter.
The bear got about 50 yards away from the team, a dangerously close distance, given the ferocity and power of the animal they were dealing with. The bearguides jumped into action.
There are four modes of bear deterrence, each for a different level of severity of the situation. First, the guides threw rocks at the bear, a seemingly laughable yet effective technique. Having no effect on the nearing beast, they then used the bear spray. Again, it had no effect. The guides had two remaining techniques: a fireworks launcher and a shotgun. The shotgun was a last resort technique as none of these guides ever wanted to harm or tamper with the wildlife. As the guides fired off these whistling pyrotechnic shots, the bear continued charging.
Mayer felt a rush of adrenaline yet stayed calm.
And just as the bear guide was almost forced to use the last resort, the bear finally yielded, fleeing from the scene. Mayer and the crew were in shock and never wanted to experience the same terror again. The team’s understanding and respect for the wildlife only grew after the encounter that had just provided Mayer with a lifelong memory.
Recent self-improvement trends targeting at teenage males have caused drastic lifestyle changes, showing both positive and negative effects on the mind, body and attitude.
BY MATTHEW HOFMANN, CHRISTIAN WARNER, KEVIN HO, ARJUN POI AND HILTON SAMPSON
Junior Elijah Kraus stared into the mirror.
He noticed his positive canthal tilt, slightly developed masseter muscles and minor facial asymmetry.
During his freshman year, Kraus first began to notice his failos. The online self-improvement trend dubbed looksmaxxing had caught his attention.
As he dove further into the trend, he learned more about this new self-improvement terminology. According to online looksmaxxing forums, halos are his facial features that boost the overall aesthetic, and failos are visual features that evoke a negative reaction.
Scrolling through TikTok, Kraus became more aware of each minute facial feature. The tilt of his eyes, the imperfections in his skin and the bone structure of his face all became more noticeable, and once he realized these “flaws,” he set out on a journey of improvement.
At times, the trend offered advice that seemed suspicious. He was hesitant to commit to techniques like bonesmashing – the exercise in which one hits the jawline with a hammer to create microfractures to accentuate the prominence of the jawbone.
Yet other techniques made sense to Kraus.
He adjusted his diet to improve his skin and reduce acne; for example, eating carrots, rich in beta keratin, which were supposed to add a tannish hue to his skin tone; or consuming potassium to flush out salt which bloats the face.
And while this looksmaxxing trend promotes self-improvement at its core, it preys on the growing amount of body dysmorphia clearly seen in countless teenage boys across the world and is often taken to a dangerous extreme.
Body dysmorphia is a mental health condition in which an individual spends an excessive amount of time worrying about their physical appearance and flaws. This condition has seen more coverage in recent years due to a movement in social media trends and prevalence.
Online, countless TikTok and Instagram reel accounts put forth idealized images in which the images are not natural but staged and edited to the
creator’s discretion. Perfect lighting, the right angle and Photoshop skills create unrealistic expectations for the viewer.
One of the most notable industries this is seen in is the exercise industry. Combined with a niche trend of hyper-masculine social media pages, it has created a new, dangerous model that can easily manipulate the youth.
At times, these types of media appear to inundate a user’s algorithm — an endless stream of exercise regimens, diet hacks and grooming tips. They’re a constant reminder of a utopia that an influencer lives on a regular basis. A utopia that other people should strive to emulate. But it’s only an imperfect, partial reflection of exclusively the perfect moments that occur.
“As a result of social media, people can become a little bit more rigid or think that if all these other people are doing something and they’re not doing the same thing, then there must be something wrong with them,” Certified Eating Disorder Specialist Sallye Clark said. “So then people kind of go overboard with that. It’s an expectation that isn’t realistic. Everyone has a bad day, and people don’t always work out or practice good self-care, but people are still posting that they do, even when they actually might not.”
These idealized and idolized influencers, often shown in edgy and motivational edits (short-form videos with numerous effects) that capture attention easily, can lead people to lower levels of self-esteem and a greater willingness to take drastic measures for self-improvement. These videos of influencers like male supermodels Jordan Barrett and Francisco Lachowski further inspired Kraus’ desire to improve himself.
During the transition from freshman to sophomore year, Kraus began to mew, the action of pressing one’s tongue against the roof of the mouth to improve jaw structure and face shape. He claimed his jaw was constantly sore and that one could never catch him not mewing. Combined with his other efforts, he found himself safely immersed in the trend.
According to Clark, these daily selfcare routines that countless other teenagers cling to typically emerge from a healthy motivation — a desire for self-improvement. But this stimulus can quickly turn into a mentally destructive activity, causing heightened unrealistic expectations.
“Especially in regard to exercising or eating clean, sometimes the really good motivation that boys initially have is stuff like, ‘I want to be really healthy and fit,’ or, ‘I want to get abs,’” Clark said. “But then there can be a fine line for both boys and girls, where it can become a little bit more obsessive and compulsive than just practicing good self-care techniques.”
According to Jamie Grant, a licensed professional counselor, proper self care involves maintaining good health in all facets of life: rest, nutrition, fitness and more.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted some important issues that were previously not addressed, mainly mental health and self care, yet, like many
trends, it went too far at times.
“Even things that are good can become compulsive and thereby cause problems,” Grant said. “Even the shift toward more self care has become or can become compulsive. It’s really important for me to clarify what self care is and is not, because a lot of times, people use that word as a carte blanche (an excuse) to do whatever they want.”
Grant believes that anxiously obsessing over self care stems from chronic misattunements in our environment during childhood. This environment can include parents, peers, teachers and society as a whole.
“Often our environments fail us in ways that impact our ability to esteem, value and love ourselves for who we are as humans,” Grant said. “The result can be an inability to esteem oneself from a healthy, secure perspective. That’s often where compulsive and extreme behaviors may become means of trying to feel better externally, when the problem is actually deeply internal.”
These toxic environments became more pronounced when some extremists in the looksmaxxing community took the trend further. There is a theory or consensus among these extremists that essentially rates people’s looks on a 1-to-10 scale, saying that “sub-fives” have no potential and should give up on bettering themselves while the others may continue.
Further, they believe that the only important thing about interacting with romantic interests is one’s appearance. Personality and internality do not matter because, in the end, objective attractiveness is the only deciding factor. Kraus believes that this obsession with only one’s external image has drastic negative consequences.
“If you get super obsessed with body image and diet, especially, that can lead to eating disorders,” Kraus said. “One of the harmful things about looksmaxxing is that it focuses on a lot of things that are rarely noticed. It focuses on a lot of things that are not in your control, like your facial thirds. You want to have even facial thirds, and that’s entirely genetic unless you get surgery.”
These insecurities that some extreme followers of this trend obsess over often cause them to superimpose one’s failos over all other features and qualities, shrouding their holistic identity.
“You also start to look at other people differently, like you start to analyze other people’s facial thirds, other people’s eye area, other people’s jawline, other people’s canthal tilts; and that can really skew your perception and mess up your ego,” Kraus said.
At the same time, some
forms
uses YouTube to watch powerlifting and bodybuilding videos and looks to Instagram for weightlifting inspiration and motivation that is less superficial.
“When I was younger I looked up to this guy Alex Eubank because he was very muscular,” Hesse said. “But other channels would use their platform to talk about mental health struggles, family issues or experiences with religion and God — deeper issues that are more meaningful and motivating.”
Besides taking simple multivitamins, Hesse has strayed away from the supplements that many influencers online promote. He’s found creatine monohydrate, a common sports supplement, to be more of an annoyance than a benefit. Instead, he focuses on trying to get eight hours of sleep a day and maintaining a simple diet.
“I think people overcomplicate things with diet sometimes, and I used to be one of them,” Hesse said. “The idea that you can’t ever have fast food or sweets doesn’t always make sense. Typically, I won’t eat fast food or very sugary and processed stuff. But every once in a while, it’s perfectly fine to have that.”
Senior Jack Frary has a slightly different approach to self-improvement. Like Hesse, exercise is at its core, but Frary also uses numerous supplements and follows a different regimen to better himself.
a protein-rich diet that is nutritious, but as my friends know, I also eat some unhealthy things too. It’s really all about balance.”
This focus on balanced health became a habit, and as social media made supplement usage more mainstream, Frary began changing what he was putting in his body. Supplements could help flush out any deficiencies in vitamins or essential nutrients so he could be at his best on the baseball field and in life in general.
Frary’s supplement stack contains a variety of things: creatine monohydrate; a bioavailable magnesium complex; vitamin D3; a multivitamin that has boron, zinc, calcium, B12, folate and other vitamins; fish oil pills for omega-3s; a probiotic pill; collagen pills with vitamin C; and ashwagandha (an herbal root extract) pills.
The goal of this self-improvement supplement stack is to create the best conditions to put on muscle mass as well as improve mood, reduce stress and create a healthy body that is in balance.
According to Frary, he recognizes that there is a danger in relentless self-improvement, something that has grown even more common with social media as pages capitalize on teenage boys’ desire to be an “admired man.”
“A lot of these kids are looking at these social media pages and courses that people are selling and trying to just self-improve,” Frary said. “There are kids who just want to get better, but then you get some kids going to dangerous extremes like trying to raise testosterone with weird methodologies or trying to improve facial structure in harmful ways.”
To Frary, it is all about balance and prioritizing your health, something that is at the core and original purpose of selfcare.
“With over-analysis of anything, you’ll always find flaws, and you will just be unsatisfied,” Frary said. “It’s good to always be pushing yourself to be better and better, but at some point, it’s a little bit too much.”
In general, having good social media literacy can help individuals find this balance in an age of social media perpetuating the extremes.
“There’s unrealistic standards that social media is putting on people, so sometimes it’s hard for us not to idolize things or people that we see,” Clark said.
His journey began in seventh grade with weightlifting for sports, which resulted in an injury. In order to recover from the injury, Frary began reevaluating everything he did to get himself healthy again. He started with the basics first, looking at his calories in and out and calculating what his calorie goal should be for the day.
Since freshman year, Frary has been on a lean bulk — an approach to adding muscle that aims to increase lean body mass while minimizing added body fat — by eating in the low 3000-calorie range and exercising at least four times a week. Throughout the day, he tracks the calories that he has consumed.
“By the end of the day, whatever calories are missing, I’ll go to my kitchen and get a Greek yogurt or a bar or something like that, and try to fill out the rest of my calories,” Frary said. “I try to eat
Clark also highlights the blur on reality that the internet often presents, which makes it difficult for people, especially teenage boys, to discern what is fact and a marketing ploy.
From her perspective, the sense of determination to continue one’s seemingly endless journey of self-improvement can quickly turn awry. And without personal boundaries set in place, mental health is bound to become compromised — an issue that can eventually alter other aspects of one’s routine lifestyle.
“When these self-care practices become a little too extreme and maybe dangerous, like if you’re missing out on certain activities or thinking to yourself all the time, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to do this after school, am I going to find the time to work out,’ then the routine can get risky,” Clark said. “I think even when our motivation is like, ‘I have to look a certain way to be okay with myself,’ then it’s too much.”
Ultimately, she believes that the first step to reestablishing a healthy mindset on self-improvement is to reach out to someone.
“I would say that if you start noticing that this is something that is starting to consume a lot of your thoughts, just go and ask for help,” Clark said. “I know that it could feel scary, but I think that just talking to a family member, trusted adult or even a coach can be super beneficial.”
Christine Nicolette-Gonzalez’s knitting hobby grew into a random-acts-of-kindness non-profit organization that helps others when the weather drops,
BY LINYANG LEE, JOSEPH SUN AND ERIC YI
It was freezing outside. Literally.
There was snow on the ground. The roads were iced over. It was 20 degrees outside.
Christine Nicolette-Gonzalez thinks she only got out her driveway and on the road safely because her car had four-wheel drive.
As she and her husband, English instructor Scott Gonzalez, were bundling up—getting ready to leave the house to visit her mother-in-law at the hospital—she passed the scarves she’d just finished knitting recently.
There were five of them.
Over the past year and a half, she’d given the scarves she’d knit to practically everybody— almost every friend and family member she had across the country.
And now, she didn’t know who to give these five to.
Right before she left the house, though, something, something compelled her to bring the scarves with her before she left.
Maybe somebody’s standing outside that we can give these scarves to, she said to Gonzalez.
A mile from the house, they saw a 20-year-old man shivering at the bus stop with nothing but a light windbreaker.
Nicolette-Gonzalez rolled down the window and beckoned him over.
She didn’t know what she was going to say to him.
All she knew was that this guy was freezing. She wanted him to feel warm.
But as she handed him one of the scarves, she said the phrase that has defined her life. The phrase that has given her a purpose—a mission— for the past decade.
I made this for you, she told the man.
For me? For me? the man asked.
Yes, for you, she said. Put it on, you’ll get warm! He wrapped it around himself.
Gracias! Gracias! Thank you, he said.
On the way to the hospital and back, they found four more people out in the cold.
A middle-aged nurse walking to her car in the hospital parking lot.
A one-legged man standing in the snow waiting for the bus.
A woman on her way home from the grocery store.
A child walking with her mother and sister.
IT’S JUST A LITTLE, TINY THING YOU CAN DO TO MAKE SOMEONE’S DAY. SOMETHING YOU CAN DO TO MAKE THEM FEEL NOT FORGOTTEN.”
Suzuko Davis, Lower School art instructor
She gave each of them one of those five handmade scarves she’d brought with her on a whim. And each time, she told them, I made this for you
As she and her husband drove away—on those iced-over roads—she told him, now I know why I’m knitting
When Nicolette-Gonzalez started making scarves, she didn’t know that she would start a “random acts of kindness” organization that has given out at least 8,000 hand-knit scarves—she’s lost count—all across the world.
She didn’t know that she would grow a community of knitters—knitters as young as 6 to knitters as old as 96—who all band together to make a stranger’s day just a little warmer.
She started knitting because her doctor told her to.
Her childhood had been tough. Her mother was mentally ill.
And in her 30s, that childhood trauma started to play out in her body.
She began having panic attacks. An anxiety disorder. Episodes that would come and go.
And in 2012, she had a particularly bad one and ended up in the hospital emergency room.
Her doctor told her that her anxiety had been causing blood pressure spikes and suggested she do something meditative to get her mind off things that were really bothering her. Something like knitting.
She wasn’t artsy at all. But she decided to give it a try.
Soon after, when she walked into Holley’s Yarn Shoppe to learn to knit, she ended up learning from Lower School art teacher Suzuko Davis, who was working at the shop at the time.
And they hit it off.
Davis felt their personalities matched—she was cheerful and jovial. Nicolette-Gonzalez was sweet, bubbly and bright.
And for Nicolette-Gonzalez, she felt that Davis helped her understand everything about the knitting techniques she was being taught. Davis made her feel like she could do it.
And the more Nicolette-Gonzalez knit—the more she got hooked on knitting.
Two knits. Two purls.
Two knits. Two purls.
There’s just something about that. Something about knitting that’s so mindful and relaxing to her.
So she knit away.
Two knits and two purls at a time.
That cold day Nicolette-Gonzalez gave out those five scarves in December—she called her best friend in Virginia.
This has been one of the best days of my life, Nicolette-Gonzalez said to her.
Nicolette-Gonzalez had only shared that story with her best friend—but word got around fast.
Soon her best friend’s mom knew. Who then went on and told the story to her friends and the owner of Holley’s Yarn Shoppe.
And soon everybody in the shop wanted to knit for others—and join in on the random acts of kindness.
The next time she walked into Holley’s Yarn Shoppe, the owner pulled her aside.
Christine, the owner said, I want you to know I heard about what you did on that cold day. We’ve got extra yarn, but the only way we could give it to you for free is if you make this a non-profit
Nicolette-Gonzalez had never thought about that. All she thought about on that cold day with those scarves was to help those people to get warm.
“I really felt called by God,” she said. “I really felt called by God to do that.”
June 24. Nicolette-Gonzalez’s birthday. The birthday of the hero of her life—her father.
And it just so happened—that it was also the day her random acts of kindness organization, Spreading the Warmth, finally became an official non-profit.
She hosted her first Knit Night at her own home—a time to meet and come together to knit and put together bags of scarves for people to distribute.
Now there’s one every second Saturday of the month.
And those Knit Nights have grown—10, 20, now even 30 people show up each time.
And it’s not just Dallas that has Knit Nights. There’s a chapter of Spreading the Warmth in Corsicana. Even one in Ohio.
There’s a student group at Parish Episcopal. Hillcrest. Covenant. Seven student groups in total that make scarves for Spreading the Warmth.
There even used to be a knitting club here— at 10600 Preston Road—that made scarves for Spreading the Warmth.
And with each scarf that’s given out by Spreading the Warmth—they tell that person the same words Nicolette-Gonzalez said to that man shivering at the bus stop.
I made this for you
Nicolette-Gonzalez always has scarves in her car now. And whether it’s Iceland or Argentina, every time she flies anywhere else, she brings scarves with her.
“Days when I give out scarves are my happiest,” Nicolette-Gonzalez said.
And those scarves she’s given out—they don’t just provide warmth. They provide hope.
Like one hotel receptionist she’d given a scarf to, he wrote a letter to Spreading the Warmth a year later all the way from Spain to express his gratitude. I don’t know who it was who gave me this scarf a year ago, but it has in many ways been the only thing that’s given me hope this whole year, he wrote.
He wrote how that past year had been the hardest 12 months in his life. How he’d lost family members. How he’d struggled financially.
But when he looks up and around his bedroom, he sees the scarf hanging there. He sees that there’s good people out there.
Every cold day, he puts it on.
And it keeps him warm.
Another time, Davis, who was on the board for much of Spreading the Warmth’s being, had given her husband some scarves to give out.
And when she did, her husband noticed he’d kept passing the same homeless man over and over on his commute to work.
So, he pulled over, and gave the man his scarf.
Thanks, I really needed this, the man said.
But her husband kept thinking about that man.
3,718
People are homeless in Dallas according to the January Point-in-Time count. During the winter storms, freezing temperatures, snow and winds pose high danger.
He kept seeing him every day.
So every day, on the way back from work, Davis’ husband would buy the man dinner while he picked up his own.
Nobody ever thinks of me, the man said. Thank you
“It’s just a little, tiny thing you can do to make someone’s day,” Davis said. “Something you can do to make them not feel forgotten.”
When Nicolette-Gonzalez first started Spreading the Warmth, she thought it was all about the scarves. Giving them to people. Making someone’s day.
Soon after starting, she realized that the scarves were just 40 percent of it.
She never expected the other sixty.
Giving purpose to people who need a purpose.
Like Kim—a knitter who was a volunteer of the year.
For Kim, Spreading the Warmth changed her life.
She had deep depression. Was suicidal at one point. But being a part of Spreading the Warmth has given her something to use her gifts for.
“Whenever I give out one of her scarves, I’ll always say, ‘This scarf meant the world to this person who was hurting so much,’” Nicolette-Gonzalez said. “That helps her know that she matters and her life matters.”
Because of knitting and Spreading the Warmth, Nicolette-Gonzalez has managed her blood pressure. She feels healthier now.
And, like Kim, she’s found her purpose.
For her—other than being blessed with her family—she feels that Spreading the Warmth has been the biggest providence—a miracle—in her life.
“I feel very blessed,” Nicolette-Gonzalez said. “I have shed tears. Because ever since I was a child, I would just pray, ‘Please help me, God, to use my gifts to make the world a better place.’ I feel so honored that God has allowed me to use my gifts that were given to me.”
The uniforms that students wear here serve as a symbol of a uniquely united community. But, they present some logistical challenges, especially when unusually-cold weather rolls into town.
continued from page 13
That we want them to stay in their uniform, and it doesn’t have to be a long conversation. It’s just a matter of conforming to the expectations that we hold all the boys to.”
More than just a rule or tradition followed for the sake of following it, however, uniforms serve an important role in the culture of the school, a culture that would degrade if certain cornerstones were ignored.
“I think wearing sweatpants blurs the lines,” Director of the Marksmen Wellness Center Dr. Gabby Reed said. “There’s an ethos here, and a certain level of behavior is expected. Uniforms contribute to that: they set the expectation that you’re a Marksman.”
This culture, which all 12 grades participate in, is largely cultivated by setting expectations of what it means to be a Marksman, leading many underclassmen to look up to their older peers for how they should behave.
“When you’re not adhering to dress codes, you’re sending a particular message to the younger boys,” Assistant Head of the Upper School Jason Leneau said. “You’re choosing to self-express, but that’s not what we’ve asked you to do as a student. It’s important to recognize that we’re all asked to do certain things, and those are non-negotiables.”
Additionally, uniforms can help students stay psychologically focused and engaged during the academic day, enabling them to perform better in their classes by creating an extremely noticeable change in dress between being at home compared to being in school.
“Uniforms do a lot for us in terms of getting into the mindset of school,” Reed said. “When you dress professionally, you act in different ways: your brain is more geared towards getting work done.”
Beyond just the academic world, uniforms are meant to prepare students for the challenges they’ll face in college and beyond.
“Even though I understand the weather changes sporadically, I think it’s just a level of professionalism,” Leneau said. “You’re building good habits to dress neatly
and appropriately so that when you’re out in the real world, you have a professional sense of self to handle business.”
By enforcing a dress code, students are freed from stress caused by social pressures, bringing the community together by creating similarities between students and giving students equal footing to stand on.
“When I was allowed to wear whatever I wanted, I would spend a lot of time struggling to pick an outfit and worrying about what other people would think,” Reed said. “And although uniforms didn’t give me the opportunity to express myself as fully, they freed me from a lot of anxiety and stress. It’s harder to pick on people if they don’t stand out in ways through their clothes and appearances–it’s just one less thing to pick on someone about.”
Especially with team sports or clubs, uniforms can help a team come closer together by creating another commonality between teammates, heightening the sense of connection they experience.
THE UNIFORM HELPS TO EMPHASIZE THE SCHOOL’S DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES AND OUR BELIEF THAT IT IS INTERNAL STRENGTH, NOT EXTERNAL TRIMMINGS, WHICH DETERMINE A PERSON’S INDVIDUALITY AND WORTH.”
Jason Leneau, Assistant Head of Upper School
“When you’re representing your sports team, you’re going to dress nicer because you take yourself more seriously,” said Leneau. “People recognize that and then hold you to a higher standard, but when we start to deviate from that, it becomes more individualized. Now we’re fragmented and not a part of a community: we’re showing our individuality, but that’s not necessarily what we’re looking for. “
While the uniform policy definitely has its positives, one major flaw is the inability to express oneself. People
often use clothing as a way to express their beliefs, identity and cultural affiliations, and many students across campus are barred from wearing apparel that demonstrates this expression by uniforms. However, there are subtle ways in which students can navigate the rules to show their support or stand out among their classmates
“You can’t get around the uniform policy, but there are other ways to express yourselves,” Reed said. “For example, I see guys wearing bracelets that represent a cause they support or wearing different shoes. I know these are small ways to express yourself, but they’re still options to differentiate yourself from the crowd.”
In addition to clothing, several other great methods also serve as means of self-expression, providing students with additional outlets to express their personal and creative interests in unique ways.
“I would encourage students to find other outlets of expression as well,” Gabby said. “Artistic outlets, like musicals or drawing, are great ways to put yourself out there in tangible and visible ways that don’t include your uniform or outfit.”
The ultimate-purpose of the uniform is to unite hundreds of once strangers in the hope that one day they will become brothers, not separated by their differences but supported by them.
“We should embrace and applaud people’s differences,” Reed said. “Things that set us apart can actually be beneficial as we get older. The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity.”
Although students may encounter certain difficulties with wearing their traditional uniforms, the long-term benefits that come from wearing uniforms outweigh the momentary inconveniences that they may pose and create an irreplaceable culture at the school.
“The uniform helps to emphasize the school’s democratic principles and our belief that it is internal strength, not external trimmings, which determine a person’s individuality and worth,” Leneau said. “I’m speaking to, again, our collective effort to try and help people elevate their appearances to take themselves seriously and engage in this community in the best way.”
BY WYATT AUER
Many people come to a decision on what they want to with their life and follow it to completion. For Katy Tye, Upper School drama teacher, that decision is ongoing and fluid.
Growing up here in Dallas, Tye’s interest in performative arts began at a very young age.
“My parents dropped me off at Dallas Children’s Theater when I was 3 years old, and then I did my first play when I was five, and I just stuck with it,” Tye said. “Nothing else drew my attention.”
Following her foray into theater in her youth, Tye’s early interest in performative arts embodied her athletic pursuits from a young age, competing in sports such as gymnastics and diving.
“Gymnastics was a good sport for me at the time,” Tye
said. “It was a lot of fun. But then I think when my body got tired of it, so I went to diving because the water was slightly more gentle than mats and the floor.”
While growing up in the Highland Park school system, she developed an interest in physics that was ultimately deterred by a challenging AP Physics course.
“I love physics; it’s super cool, but AP physics made me cry. In theater, I only cry when I have to,” Tye said.
Tye ultimately made the decision to attend Southern Methodist University, where she earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts and was introduced to fight choreography and cirque, sparking a passion for movement as a form of communicative expression.
“One of my professors that did fight choreography also did trapeze, and so sometimes he would hang the trapeze in our room or an aerial silk, and that’s where I started,” Tye said. “I went to that class for a while, and
I almost went to circus school to do Cirque du Soleil. My first theater company that I started when I was in college was a movement theater company, and so we didn’t use words in our plays. We used clowning, dance circus and all that kind of stuff. Physical movement has always been really important to me.”
Tye’s interest in fight choreography and motion capture lead her to participate in the production of the video game, Borderlands 3, and she became the assistant stunt coordinator for the film The Finale.
“You kind of just fall into something and then doors start opening,” Tye said. “I had a friend whom I did circus with that did a little bit of motion capture for Borderlands, and he told them that I was good at movement, so that’s how I got into doing motion capture for Borderlands.”
As foodborne illness cases increase across the country, food safety has become a high priority on campus.
BY AKASH MANICKAM
A student walks into the cafeteria, hand sanitizer dispensers all around him.
He approaches the server’s line, where friendly parents wearing latex gloves use clean utensils to scoop food onto a washed plate.
Peeking behind the food stations, he can glimpse cooks keeping raw and cooked ingredients separate as they churn together massive amounts of food.
After eating, he places his tray in the return area, where it’s carted off to a dishwasher.
And the cycle repeats every day.
With each step of the journey, watchful eyes ensure that no illnesses have an opportunity to enter the food. And with a recent uptick in salmonella cases and other food-based pathogens, that vigilance has become increasingly important.
Almost two years after the end of COVID as an international health emergency, school nurse Julie Doerge believes most people have relaxed the strict hygiene habits that kept them healthy through the pandemic.
“We know there has been an increase in international travel and the end of the pandemic restrictions,” Doerge said. “During that time, we were all in a bigger safety mode. We were home, and we were all wearing masks.
We couldn’t actually get all the foods we were always used to because groceries were in short supply. That doesn’t account for all of it, but I think that’s a part of it.”
While the most well-known effects of these pathogens are through human sickness, they also threaten the food supply in other ways.
“Because of the bird flu that has impacted so many poultry farms, there is now a scarcity of eggs,” Doerge
said. “This makes the price of eggs more expensive.”
Doerge believes that the salmonella outbreak in 2024 is part of an increasing trend of foodborne illnesses. In addition to poor working conditions and relaxed health standards in processing units, she cites the increase in availability of worldwide foods as a major contributor to the rise in foodborne illness.
“We didn’t have things from all over the world all the time, and now we do,” Doerge said. “We know in other parts of the world, they do not have the same safety guidelines that we have in this country, and that impacts us. People travel more, so they have new exposures that we didn’t used to have.”
Many foodborne illnesses can be prevented simply by having hygienic habits while cooking at home, like thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables, using a meat thermometer, and separating utensils for raw and cooked items.
One of the dangers of foodborne illnesses is that the issue is not linked to a single virus. So far, scientists have discovered 31 different sources of foodborne illness. Norovirus accounts for 58 percent of illnesses. Salmonella makes up only 11 percent.
“There are 48 million cases of foodborne illness a year,” Doerge said. “That’s one in six adults. That’s a lot. I’m kind of grateful that I haven’t had it this year. We have 128,000 hospitalizations, 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness.”
While food-based illnesses are commonly related to meat items, the recent outbreak was linked to cucum -
bers. Doerge believes that the perception of certain foods and their susceptibility to pathogens do not always match in the eyes of most people. Even foods like rice can be covered in illness-inducing bacteria.
“My daughter called me and said, ‘Mom, do I have to throw away the carrots I bought at Trader Joe’s?’” Doerge said. “I said, ‘Well, look at the recall and see.’ She called me back and said, ‘Yep, I had to throw them away.’ I’m glad people are actually paying attention.”
Since SAGE took over as the school’s food provider, the safety standards in the kitchen have become increasingly meticulous, extending beyond the gloves and hand sanitizer required in the kitchens.
“SAGE goes to great lengths,” Doerge said. “A long time ago, I didn’t ever see the folks in the kitchen out with thermometers checking the temperature of food, and now they do it. I mean, since SAGE has come on board, they do it all the time. They’re checking the food on the salad bar. They’re checking the hot food line to make sure that those are at safe temperatures. We haven’t, in the 18 years I’ve been here, had a foodborne illness issue.”
Doerge believes this issue is important for Marksmen to be aware of before starting to cook their own meals and choose their own foods.
“As you all go off to college, it’s something for you to consider, because now you’re going to be in charge of where you eat, what you eat, how you eat and who cooks what you eat,” Doerge said. “And I think sometimes we might take a shortcut and maybe not do what our mom or dad advised us to or whoever’s been in charge in our kitchen when we were growing up. It’s good for everybody to be aware.”
BY SAM MORSE
The school has a unique, tight-knit culture. Terms such as brotherhood are reiterated due to the rigorous curriculum and unique experiences at the school. Although this culture has its benefits, it also tends to narrow our point of view, making it difficult to understand other people’s experiences and our place in the world.
The Inclusion and Diversity Leadership Council (IDLC) fosters inclusion and diversity while helping students understand the various cultures within and surrounding our school. As a member of IDLC, sophomore Emiliano Mayo wants to make connections between the school’s community and others, creating the project: The Bridge.
When Mayo first got here, he felt a disconnect between the alumni speakers and himself.
“It felt like they were showing us all of the cool accomplishments they got because of St. Mark’s, but not how they really got there,” Mayo said.
In order to feel more connected to the speakers, Mayo proposed The Bridge to the IDLC, which consisted of bringing in leaders outside of the school to speak about how they use inclusion and diversity while leading. After several meetings with the council, The Bridge hosted their first speaker, Antonio Carrillo.
Carrillo is Mexican and is the CEO of both an American and Mexican company. During his talk with the students, he talked about how his heritage has helped his coordinating skills.
“He’s gone to other countries, learned from their
culture, then used what he learned to help his company,” Mayo said. “For example, (Carrillo said) if you ask someone who’s Dutch to do something, they are going to ask you why, and that’s why he gives his employers reasons to do a task.”
After its first success, Mayo plans to continue The Bridge by offering other members of the council to bring in speakers to expand the talks even further.
“I would eventually like to hold assemblies,” Mayo said. “It can really grow and expand to be anything, as long as it maintains the same idea of bridging St. Mark’s to the rest of the world. I just want it to be a way for St. Mark’s students to see that there’s more to the world than St. Mark’s and Dallas.”
Emilia Perez, Anora and The Brutalist all stand out amongst the pack at the Oscars. Here’s what they could each achieve.
BY CAM HURLEY
It’s hard to deny the might that Emilia Pérez flexed Jan. 23 when nominations were announced. Thirteen nominations, the second most for any movie ever, is a feat unto itself. But can Emilia Pérez transfer this momentum into a best picture win, a first for Netflix and only the second for a streaming service? Conventional wisdom would say no with middling critic and audience scores.
Yet the movie has so far defied convention. Its vocal defenders, including previous Best Director winner Guillermo Del Toro, are loud, but how will the movie hold up on the Academy’s preferential ballot system? Writer-director Jacques Audiard has stirred up controversy of his own, saying that he “didn’t study (Mexican culture) much” in preparation. Regardless, a clear path does exist to best picture. Of the 10 best picture nominees, this has probably the highest number of “safe” wins; I feel as though Zoe Saldana is a strong be for supporting actress (even though she is the true lead of the movie), while Best International Feature also feels like a pretty strong lock. Early indicators for a best picture win here would include prevailing at BAFTA or a SAG surprise.
BY CAM HURLEY
2025 comes with a number of anticipated shows and movies. These are some of works believed to be the best, but time will tell whether or not they live up to their respective expectations.
The hit HBO show returns for a second season this April, beginning the task of adapting the dystopian second game for TV. While it has been announced that this season will tell only half the story, additions this season include Kaitlyn Dever as antagonist Abby. Early trailers have pointed to this season dialing up the action, so it looks like The Last of Us will be the big show of the spring.
After his 2017 movie The Florida Project narrowly missed best picture, writer-director Sean Baker has returned to awards season with a tragic Cinderella story about a Russian stripper from New York, winning the prestigious Palme D’Or and establishing a big presence early on.
Since then, Anora has clinched key nods, including at the WGA, SAG, PGA and DGA awards, signaling imoortant guild support for the film. Although the Golden Globes blanked lead Mikey Madison in favor of The Substance star Demi Moore, it is easy to see a world in which a BAFTA or SAG win could establish the necessary momentum for a both a Best Actress and Best Picture win.
If SAG goes to Moore, however, that window will shrink, especially with potential late-breaking spoiler Fernanda Torres. It’s hard to see a world in which this film can win with only Best Picture, so picking up wins for Madison or for Baker in Screenplay at WGA would serve the campaign well.
The key award to watch here is SAG Ensemble: if Anora can take that prize, I could easily see it repeat that win at the Oscars.
Two of the top three highest grossing films of all time are the first two Avatar films, so it’s safe to say that expectations are high for the third. Titled Avatar: Fire and Ash, filmmaker James Cameron began filming almost seven years ago and has stated that the film is ahead of schedule in the post-produc-
tion process. While few concrete plot details are known, Cameron has divulged that the Ash race of the Na’vi will be introduced alongside a volcanic bimoe setting, similar to how the second film delved into the world of the oceans of Pandora.
The inaugural movie in James Gunn’s DCU, Superman undeniably has a lot riding on its shoulders. Early footage has broken records, becoming the most viewed Warner Bros. trailer ever in the first 24 hours, so it seems anticipation is matching early expectations. Stepping into the role of Superman is David Corenswet, a relative unknown perhaps best known for his role in last summer’s Twisters. The film promises to include all key elements of a good Superman movie, and early rumors involve a subplot in which Lex Luthor clones Superman for villanous purposes.
While Emilia Pérez led the field with 13 nominations, The Brutalist lurks not far behind with 10, including nods for both star Adrien Brody and director Brady Corbet.
Its 215-minute runtime may be a hurdle for some to overcome, but The Brutalist has perhaps one of the easier paths to gaining momentum, especially with what I view as a likely DGA win. If the DGA were to pair with another precursor, such as the PGA or the BAFTA, a path would be open for a convincing resumé heading into Oscar night.
Similarly, if Brody ekes out a win over Chalamet (who would dethrone Brody himself as the youngest Best Actor winner ever by a matter of months), that would be another indication of a strong night for The Brutalist.
My gut says that while Corbet, nominated alongside wife Mona Fastvold, will end up losing the screenplay category, craft categories such as cinematography and production design can give it that Best Picture edge.
With its sub-$10 million budget, Oscars or not, The Brutalist is still a sweeping achievement that will impact the industry at large for years to come.
While Avatar 3 may have started filming seven years ago, the new Jurassic World has only begun active development in just the last year. Filmmaker Gareth Edwards is at the helm this time, ditching the cast of the previous trilogy in favor of an ensemble led by Black Widow star ScarlettJohansson. Plot details are scarce, but the film is said to return to the roots of the 1993 original movie, which makes sense considering the two share a screenwriter in David Koepp. Hopefully this film loses the locusts of Jurrassic World: Dominion, and instead tells a back-to-basics dinosaur story.
Netflix’s flagship show, Stranger Things, comes to an end in 2025, almost ten years after the show first started (and we can tell). Series creators, The Duffer Brothers, have promised that all will be revealed, so long awaited answers are hopefully on their way. Coming three years after the fourth season, famed director of The Shawshank Redemption Frank Darabont has returned from retirement to direct multiple episodes; it’s clear that Netflix is pulling out all the stops for one last ride.
Student newspaper of St. Mark’s School of Texas
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It’s only 19 days into Donald Trump’s second administration, and he has already unleashed a blitz of executive orders that challenge fundamental constitutional principles. And though he couldn’t keep many of his “Day One” campaign promises, such as defunding all schools with vaccine mandates (since we would probably have no education in that case), his initial actions have nonetheless sent shockwaves through American institutions.
see COMMUNITY on page 22
EDITORIAL
The recent lockdown at our school, prompted by a law enforcement incident near campus, revealed concerns about our emergency preparedness. While our security team responded swiftly, the response from our school community highlighted a troubling lack of understanding about proper lockdown procedures.
The unfamiliarity with the lockdown siren proved particularly problematic. Though everyone heeded the basic instruction to remain inside buildings, the response fell far short of proper safety protocols. Students wandered hallways freely, talking about what might be happening outside. Class group chats exploded with memes poking fun at the situation, while some teachers continued their lessons as if nothing unusual was occurring.
This huge disparity in responses was striking. While some students took precautions by hiding in rooms or barricading themselves behind a desk, others appeared confused about whether to follow "run, hide, fight" protocols or adhere to the
announcement to remain sheltered. This inconsistency shows the need for clear, specific guidelines about what to do during lockdown situations.
Perhaps most concerning is that people don’t know the difference between a drill and a real lockdown. This emergency happened around 1:40 p.m., which is the same time as every drill we have. The casual attitude displayed by both students and faculty falls dangerously short of the vigilance required to protect ourselves from a serious threat. While it generally felt safe and we were fortunate that this particular incident didn't directly threaten our campus, part of this perceived sense of security stemmed from complacency — people didn’t take the lockdown seriously enough.
Moving forward, we must reinforce the importance of these safety measures. Something as simple as a thorough post-incident review examining what worked, what didn't, and how to improve future responses would be an essential first step in fostering a more security-conscious campus culture.
Will Clifford Digital Editor-in-Chief
I was at a party when the news broke, and I saw people, who didn’t shed a tear when their long term girlfriend broke up with them, fall to their knees and cry. And it wasn’t just a few people–the notification from Shams was like a gut punch to the entire city.
“What is happening?” “No way!”
“We traded Luka?!”
I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to. At the moment, nobody else was reporting it. He had to have gotten hacked, right? Sources. I wanted sources, just something to give me hope, to wake me up, to tell me it wasn’t real. But as each moment ticked away, this fun night devolved into a community nightmare.
Mavericks star Luka Doncic had just been traded to the Lakers in one of the most shocking — and quite frankly one of the worst — trades in NBA history.
Seven months ago, we all watched the Mavs take on the Celtics together. Now, the same guy who took the city to the promised land, is on his way to Beverley Hills.
I remember when he hit the buzzer-beater against the Clippers in the bubble and when he drained the game winner over Rudy Gobert last year, sending the Timberwolves home. But the one constant through all of it– I was never watching alone– my friends were next to me the whole time. Each game felt like the entire fanbase was on the couch next to me.
Dallas is a sports city. And as a sports fan, these last few years have been beyond sweet, to say the least. The Cowboys have been decent and the Stars, Rangers and Mavs have all made it to the championship recently. But after some questionable hiring moves from the Cowboys, bad free agency losses from the Rangers, and now this– it seems like it's all gone.
Dirk was in the twilight of his career when the kid showed up, but after watching him play, he knew that if he retired, the team would be in good hands. Luka started a renaissance for basketball in Dallas– we couldn’t get enough of the guy who looked like a dad knocking-down mystical step-backs against the world's best athletes. And when the playoffs rolled around, the city turned blue. It didn’t matter if we had tests the next day or practices in the morning, Luka magic was must-see TV.
I know star players leave, it’s just part of sports– but this is different. When Kevin Durant left OKC, he was a free agent and wanted out, so everyone knew there was a chance he didn’t come back. Or, James Harden, a beloved superstar in Houston, but everyone knew he was ready to move on by the end. Now this, this is insane. There wasn’t a disagreement. He wasn’t a free agent. He didn’t even ask for a trade. Luka, himself, didn’t want to go. And I know, for a fact, that the entire city isn’t ready to watch basketball without him.
continued from page 21
Most concerning is his executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants — a direct challenge to the 14th Amendment. The impact of this order extends far beyond legal debates, threatening to create devastating complications for immigrant families within our own campus community. Students, faculty and staff face potential disruptions to their healthcare access, educational opportunities and legal status, whether directly affected or through family members. A change as drastic as this would have irreversible impacts on many people we never would have anticipated.
The constitutional concerns aside, this policy would likely backfire spectacularly. According to the Migration Policy Institute, rather than reducing illegal immigration, denying birthright citizenship would cause the unauthorized population to more than double from 11 million to 24 million by 2050. This outcome perfectly illustrates the shortsightedness of such reactionary policy-making.
The administration's assault on civil rights extends far beyond immigration. Trump's executive order recognizing only binary gender on official documents and his revival of the transgender military ban represent direct attacks on LGBTQ+ Americans — an end to what he called “transgender lunacy.”
Similarly, his sweeping dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as part of his crusade against ‘woke’ culture threatens decades of progress toward workplace equality and organizations like our very own Inclusion Diversity Leadership Council (IDLC). In doing so, he revoked decades of executive orders — including the 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity order signed by former President Lyndon B. Johnson — which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion and national origin. These actions will have long-lasting implications for creating a federal workforce that truly reflects America's diversity in decades to come.
The power of executive orders today are more focused on creating divisive laws that tear our nation further apart than “making America great again.” They have become more than merely an inevitable occurrence that comes with the turnover of each presidency, but rather an outright abuse of power.
His controversial pardons have sparked particular outrage. By pardoning Jan. 6 insurrectionists, including extremist group leaders like Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes (leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers), Trump has effectively sanctioned political violence. The pardons of Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road creator (a blackmarket widely used for narcotic distribu-
tion), who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015, and the police officers convicted in the murder of 20-year-old Karon HyltonBrown further demonstrate a troubling pattern of enabling both criminal enterprise and police brutality.
Given the deeply polarized political climate, presidential pardons today appear to have turned into an abuse of power as well. While we can’t stop them, it’s crucial that we stay aware of what’s happening. Police officers, just like the security team on our campus, lost their lives while doing their duty to protect, yet those responsible were let off without facing any consequences.
On the environmental front, Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement (the U.S. is the world’s second-largest greenhouse emitter) and declaration of a "national energy emergency" to promote deregulated drilling appear more symbolic than practical. According to the U.S. Energy Information Association, global supply is projected to outpace demand growth, with production likely rising less than 1% and oil prices actually falling by 2026. This suggests his "drill, baby, drill" agenda may be more political theater than effective policy.
Environmental policies and actions are constantly being reversed and reinstated with each new president, swinging back and forth between adhering to climate regulations and disregarding them. While each action plan has its merits, we need more than just four years to see real progress in our nation. When presidents take office and simply undo all previous executive orders instead of working to improve them, we're stuck in a cycle with no real forward momentum.
The administration's other actions range from the concerning to the bizarre. His reversal of a 2022 order to lower the cost of prescription drugs threatens millions of Americans' access to vital medications, such as insulin. Meanwhile, attempts to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America," repeated references to Canada as the "51st state," and demands for Denmark to cede Greenland reflect a concerning detachment from diplomatic reality.
Someone like this is unfit to wield the power of executive orders. However, since executive orders aren’t going away, the only way to address this is by supporting the right candidate. Research the issues that matter to you and use your vote to drive change.
Outside of just voting, the solution lies in civic engagement. First, talk to the people that would be affected by this to better understand the real-world implications it would have on their lives. Then take action, whether that be through volunteering with advocacy groups, petitioning, or getting involved in school clubs like the Inclusion Diversity Leadership Council (IDLC). Use your voice to push for discussions and awareness to educate peers, and speak out often.
An oversimplified guide to what falls where in our hierarchy of events across campus.
PRESEASON LACROSSE TOURNAMENT The Lions lacrosse team traveled to Jesuit to play in their annual invitational tournament from Jan. 25-26. The Lions finished with a 2-0 record with an 8-2 win over Frisco and a 2-1 win over Highland Park Gold after day one. The team came out firing on the second day, besting Jesuit New Orleans 8-4. In their final game against Lake Travis, the Lions ended with a 6-3 loss. The team hopes to use the information gathered from the games to fully prepare for their upcoming season.
LUKA DONCIC TRADE MAKES WAVES On Feb. 1, the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic to the Lakers in one of the most shocking deals in NBA history. The trade, which included two other Mavericks and brought Lakers star Anthony Davis to Dallas, sent shockwaves through the sports world and was the talk of campus for days. Doncic was widely considered a franchise player for the city’s team. The Mavericks will face their former star two more times this season - on Feb. 25 in Los Angeles and on April 9 at American Airlines Center.
FAN BLIZZARD NIGHT Both the Lions basketball and soccer teams faced off against Greenhill for the highly anticipated Fan Blizzard. Starting at 5:45 PM on Jan. 17, fans were invited to a pregame tailgate before the game — in response to a low turnout at spirit parties — where students were able to enjoy free food and milkshakes. Soccer ended the night with a 3-1 loss, but, basketball finished with a 59-51 win in their final game in Spencer Gym. From now on, the Lions basketball team will compete in the new Hick’s Gym in the Zierk Athletic Center.
VARSITY BASKETBALL, 2/1
St. Mark’s St. Stephens
VARSITY SOCCER, 2/1
Before becoming a math instructor, Liz Kraft was recognized as one of the nation’s top divers, earning countless awards and achieving a world record.
BY WILLIAM KOZOMAN AND RONIT KONGARA
Standing on the board, looking at the water below. Even though it’s only a couple meters, it feels like standing on a cliff’s edge. Knowing the judges will critique every minute mistake you might make. Feeling the pressure that you have to succeed. But finding composure despite it all. Those old memories are coming back. For Middle School Math Instructor Liz Kraft, she knows it all too well. As one of the best divers in the country, she routinely competed at the highest level, even achieving a world first along the way. Behind her passion and great success is a story of constant dedication to the sport, from her youth to the present day.
And throughout the decades, the diving board has always seemed to find its way into her life, even when her thoughts tell her she can’t or she shouldn’t anymore. It’s a passion that chases her as much as she chases it.
“When summer comes around, I think I’m not gonna be able to do this. I’m too old,” Kraft said. “And one day, I just get out there and start bouncing a little bit, and it’s just fun. It’s kind of like flying. It’s hard to stop.”
But her journey didn’t begin here. Instead, it started when she was just nine. Inspired by divers at a competition at her local country club, Kraft taught herself a couple of dives to show off in hopes they would ask her to join their club. At the time, no proper diving programs existed in New Orleans, and diving was mostly unheard of. But, at age 11, she started to properly train, working with a local coach at Tulane University’s natatorium.
St. Mark’s St. Stephens
VARSITY WRESTLING, 1/29 2 2
St. Mark’s ESD
GAME: St. Mark’s vs. Episopal School of Dallas
DATE: January 29
SCORE: Lions 41, Eagles 24
SPORT: Wrestling SEASON RECORD: Loehr has dominated his opponents this season, accumulating 28 wins and only 7 lossess over the course of the season thus far. Wyatt Loehr
By the time Kraft reached high school, she knew diving was what she wanted to do. Driven by her passion and competitive spirit, she continued her career, participating in diving camps every summer held by the University of Michigan’s head coach and competing in many national and international events. In her senior year, Kraft committed to the University of Michigan’s diving program and joined the following year.
TO BE AT THAT LEVEL OF DIVING, YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO PUT IN HOURS THAT OTHER PEOPLE DON’T NECESSARILY WANT TO, BUT YOU DO IT BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT”
Math Instructor Liz Kraft
Adjusting to the college lifestyle was rough. The switch came with a major increase in coursework and practice time. Her college schedule revolved around her diving practices, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Her college practices consisted of practicing spins with a belt and trampoline set up in the morning and then diving off either a 1-meter, 3 1/2 -meter or a 7 1/2-meter board to practice real dives, each two hours in length. Balancing the coursework, her athletic career and her college social life was definitely a struggle, and some things had to give.
“When I arrived on campus, my coach told me there were three things to do at the University of Michigan. There was studying, there was diving, and there was
partying. He told me to pick two of them and he was right. I tried to do two and a half, didn’t always work out really well. There was a huge learning curve on trying to balance time management,” Kraft said.
Eventually, all of her hard work paid off, and her performance in competitions reflected the dedication and time she put into practicing her diving. Kraft set a record as the first woman to land an inward 3 1/2 somersault on a 10-meter board.
However, her career came to a tragic halt when she dislocated her shoulder in the finals of a national competition in her senior year. Kraft was forced to redshirt for a year at Michigan and then transfer to SMU, where she had one year to get back into shape for the 1980 Olympic Trials. Not in prime shape for the trials, she didn’t move on, and without a way to continue her diving career—since college athletes weren’t allowed to be paid—she retired.
But lessons she learned from her diving career stayed with her after it ended. Even without competing anymore, the lessons on giving her all and being dedicated and passionate about what she does translate to her teaching.
DIVING INTO UNKNOWN WATERS
Kraft begins her career at her local country club THE NEXT STEP
Kraft finds her passion with diving and begins to take her career more seriously, training at the Tulane University pool
THE COLLEGE JOURNEY
In her senior year of high school, Kraft announces her commitment to the University of Michigan, where she will fulfill her dreams of diving at the next level
THE WORLD’S FIRST
Kraft sets a record as the first ever woman to land an inward 3 1/2 somersault off of a 10-meter platform
THE FINALE
Kraft dislocates her shoulder, forcing her to redshirt a year and then transfer to Southern Methodist University before the 1980 Olympic Trials
Veteran players often arise as the obvious candidates for leadership roles on a team; However, this year, several underclassman captains look to prove why experience doesn’t always determine one’s leadership abilities.
BY WESTON CHANCE AND SAM MORSE
In sports, leaders have the potential to truly alter a team dynamic. That’s why, every season, coaches carefully collaborate to select their captains. They look for qualities like leadership, accountability and communication. Often, these skills come with experience, making veterans the natural choices. However, some coaches around campus have found that underclassmen are more than capable of successfully captaining a roster.
For Harry Flaherty, the decision to name current sophomore David Dickson a captain for next year’s season stemmed from a variety of reasons. One key factor was the result of a player vote.
“We hold a captain’s vote every year,” Flaherty said. “I think the players’ feedback on captains is really important. As coaches, you have ideas of who the leaders on the team are, but I think you don’t always see what it’s like in the locker room and you don’t always get a sense of who the players really respect.”
As much as Flaherty honors the player vote, he also acknowledges that as a coach, he has the final say. And his personal observation of Dickson’s work ethic and leadership was more than enough to affirm the players vote. By naming Dickson captain, he also sent a message to the team about what it means to be a leader.
“We’re also trying to preach the message that you don’t need to be a senior to be a leader,” Flaherty said. “And then for seniors, you don’t need to be a captain to be a leader.”
Dickson echoes this message and hopes he can inspire all his teammates to lead.
“It’s a blessing that I’ve been given the opportunity to help lead such a great group of guys at a young age,” Dickson said. “I want the idea of younger captains to show
that anybody can lead and encourage a team at any time.” Flaherty also recognizes that team dynamics vary from year to year.
“I’ve seen teams that have been senior dominant,” Flaherty said. “I’ve also seen teams where having captains from both the junior and senior class can be beneficial in bringing those classes together and forming a strong nucleus of leadership.”
Similar to football, the lacrosse team goes through a similar process when selecting their captains, holding a player vote followed by the coach’s final decision.
I’VE SEEN TEAMS THAT HAVE BEEN SENIOR DOMINANT. I’VE ALSO SEEN TEAMS WHERE HAVING CAPTAINS FROM BOTH THE JUNIOR AND SENIOR CLASS CAN BE BENEFICIAL IN BRINGING THOSE CLASSES TOGETHER AND FORMING A STRONG NUCLEUS OF LEADERSHIP.”
Harry Flaherty, head football coach
However, lacrosse picks a total of five captains in contrast to football’s two or three.
Alongside four upperclassmen, sophomore Mac Saye looks to step into a leadership role as the only underclassmen captain for the upcoming spring season. As a captain, Saye has actively tried to set an example for his teammates with his work ethic while continuing to build the team’s chemistry.
“I make sure to show up every day and do my work, whether that’s lifting, conditioning, or playing with the team,” Saye said. “I think that has helped me and my teammates to feel more connected with each other and
establish a sense of togetherness. If they see that I’m doing something correctly and doing my best, then that makes them want to do it, too.”
During the captain selection process, each candidate has to deliver a speech to their fellow teammates and coaches. During Saye’s speech, he emphasized the need for a culture shift as he reflected on the flaws of the previous season, working to improve from last season’s record of 6-12.
“Last year we had a lot of guys that would put lacrosse as their second choice and I understand that schoolwork should always come first, but they would put what they wanted to do over what they needed to do,” Saye said.
Upon the decision of making Saye a captain, Varsity Lacrosse Head Coach Trey Whitty has encouraged Saye to embrace his newfound role and has complete confidence in Saye’s ability.
“I think Mac is a great leader that is willing to tell people stuff that they don’t wanna hear,” Whitty said. “(Saye) is very honest and convicted in his beliefs and that was evident when he stood up and addressed the team. I think Mac challenged everybody in a way that made them perhaps uncomfortable.”
Whitty prioritizes winning over anything else, and therefore doesn’t see Saye’s leadership as a message to send but as a new opportunity to improve the team. Accordingly, Whitty doesn’t care to follow the norm of senior captains if presented with a more advantageous dynamic for the team.
“We have a large 10th grade class, so I think it is important for that group to have a voice,” Whitty said. “I think there’s been this hierarchy culture around here that seniors are just the leaders and I have never viewed things that way. There’s no reason a freshman can’t be a leader.”
BY ARCHER WILBURN
On Thursday nights, Lake Lewisville is more than just a gathering spot for surfers—it’s a place of healing, laughter and camaraderie for veterans rediscovering a sense of belonging. At the center of it all is Tyler Cooper ‘89, who turned his lifelong love of surfing into an unexpected source of community for wounded warriors.
“Ever since high school, I’ve been out on the lake with my ski boat,” Cooper said. “About 15 years ago, I met a Navy SEAL who became a great friend. Through him, I met other veterans, including guys like David Vobora, who was an NFL linebacker for the Rams. That really opened my eyes to this world.”
The ATF, based in Dallas, helps veterans with severe injuries train like the elite athletes they were before their lives changed. Inspired by their work, Cooper began inviting veterans to join his Thursday night surf sessions. What started casually has evolved into a tightly knit group where no injury is seen as a limitation.
“These guys are incredible,” Cooper said. “One Marine who’s been coming for years is fully blind, has a leg amputation and yet, he’s out on the water surfing on his
stomach. The courage that takes is unbelievable.”
While some programs aim to help veterans rebuild their lives, Cooper’s approach is simpler: give them a space to feel normal again.
“What I’ve learned is that these guys don’t want to be treated as wounded. They just want to be one of the guys—like they were before everything changed,” Cooper said.
Surf Day isn’t just about physical activity; it’s about forging connections. After their time on the water, the group gathers for tacos or burgers, joking and swapping stories like old friends.
“We tease each other, talk trash and have a blast,” Cooper said. “We even host an end-of-season awards night called ‘The Surfies.’ It’s completely silly, but it’s about celebrating the fun we have together.”
The camaraderie is life-changing for veterans who often struggle with PTSD, pain and isolation.
“When you’re in the military, you have this brotherhood, this tribe,” Cooper said. “When they come back, they lose that. Surf Day gives them a tribe again.”
The group has faced its share of heartbreak. Cooper recalls losing a beloved member who battled addiction
after returning from war. To honor him, they performed a traditional Hawaiian paddle-out ceremony on the lake, a testament to the bond they shared.
Despite the challenges, Cooper sees the impact of Surf Day in both small and profound ways.
“You can see their emotional and spiritual growth over time,” Cooper said. “We’re Christians, so faith naturally comes up and seeing God work in their lives has been amazing.”
For Cooper, this isn’t a formal program or a charity. It’s a way of life.
“I never set out to start a wounded warrior project,” Cooper said. “This is just how God led my life. These guys are my friends. The artificial legs, the wheelchairs—they don’t even register anymore. They’re just part of the crew.”
Through Surf Day, Cooper has created more than a weekly tradition—he’s built a community where veterans feel seen, supported and valued.
“At the end of the day, it’s not about their injuries,” Cooper says. “It’s about giving them a space to laugh, surf and just live life again. And honestly, they give as much to me as I give to them.”
The ever-evolving game of baseball has forced some players to use alternative training methods to keep up. Most notably, WIN Reality, a VR software that enables players to work on hitting from their own homes.
BY MICHAEL JIMINEZ AND MARSHALL SUDBURY
Half a second. That’s all the time a batter has to react to a 80 mph fastball. Half a second.
As baseball evolves, pitchers are throwing faster than ever and are developing better techniques to throw batters off of what pitch is coming. It’s only adding difficulty to one of the hardest things to do in sports: hitting a baseball.
With the amount of rest pitchers need between games and the almost non-existent sight of one throwing at 100 percent in a standard practice, batters are being forced to shift their training in another direction.
For junior Hudson DaRosa, a broken hand, which rendered him unable to hit despite a desire to get better, led him to start his journey – one that some amateur and even professional athletes have already begun – in virtual reality.
“I started using it last spring,” DaRosa said. “I just wanted to see what it entailed. I really wasn’t using it that often but now I have more reasons to use it, especially before the season and with my hand injury.”
Using the new WIN Reality app on his VR headset, DaRosa can face real pitchers across all age levels and access a multitude of different drills offered through the app, each tailored to different skills and mechanics.
“What it really helps with is your timing,” DaRosa said. “I can’t hit off of a machine or see real pitches, but being able to keep up timing with pitchers and see pitches come in is super helpful when you can’t actually swing at live balls.”
BEING ABLE TO WORK ON THE MENTAL SIDE OF THE GAME, OUTSIDE OF AN ACTUAL GAME, IS A HUGE ADVANTAGE IF YOU CAN UTILIZE IT.”
Hudson DaRosa, junior
While standard hitting drills like soft toss or batting practice are helpful, they often fail to replicate a true, gamelike scenario that a batter would face against a real pitcher. Full speed throws and the ability to react to different types of
pitches could only ever be seen in a live game.
“There’s a lot of stuff that I can do in VR that I couldn’t do at a facility,” DaRosa said. “The best thing you can do at a facility for timing is a machine, but being able to have virtual pitches is a lot more accurate for my timing. It switches up more and I’m able to work on different pitch types and pitch shapes.”
Along with developing reaction time and the ability to pick up on different pitches earlier, WIN Reality is also seen as a supplementary tool to physical practices.
“You can get a lot more game time reps before and after practice,” junior Jake DeBoever said. “It’s also something that you can use inside if you’re not near a field and you can use it whenever you want regardless of the weather.”
As with many new technologies, WIN Reality does have some issues. For DeBoever, although the app can help improve certain aspects of his game, it is next to impossible to create an exact replica of what batters would see in a real game.
“Although it can help with timing, it’s really hard to create something that even compares to facing a real pitcher in an actual game,” DeBoever said. “There’s a lot of other factors that come into play, like the crowd and other natural aspects that can throw you off, so when it’s just you and a pitcher it doesn’t really feel like a real game at all.”
As well as having issues with portraying natural factors, the app also fails to account for different in-game strategies pitchers will often use to attempt to throw off a hitter.
“Pitchers will obviously mess with their timing during an at bat,” DaRosa said. “It’s generally just the same video of a pitcher with different arm slots. There’s no sidestep or quick pitching, which in game will really throw off your timing.”
In addition to the inability to replicate the nerves and adrenaline a batter can feel when stepping up to the plate and the lack of variation, one of, if not the biggest challenge WIN Reality faces is the lack of confidence some players have with the technology itself.
“The issue I think is holding it back right now is the tracking isn’t accurate enough for it to be viable,” DaRosa said.
“I prefer the drills that focus on reading a pitch or predicting where it will land, rather than the actual bat to ball drills themself. If it tells me I got a hit I don’t
really believe it.”
Despite having some faults, as WIN Reality and the world of VR sports training begins to improve, the app is still capable of providing players with drills that can contribute to a higher success rate at the plate.
“I definitely think it’s on an upward
continued from page 23
“To be at that level of diving, you have to be willing to put in hours that other people don’t necessarily want to, but you do it
because you love it,” Kraft said. “I still see that today with my teaching. I don’t think about the number of hours that I’m putting into something. I’m doing it because I enjoy it, and I don’t usually know how to stop until it’s done.”
Though her career ended without competing in the Olympics or becoming a professional diver, Kraft has no regrets.
“I never regretted anything,” Kraft said. “People used to ask, ‘are you trying for the 1976 Olympics or the 1980?’ No, I was going for tomorrow, I really loved diving. It makes me feel good every day that I know I’d really given a lot, it all in the journey.”
An important reason for her lack of regret was a change in mindset that occurred during a session with a sports psychologist at SMU. In a room with former Olympians and national champions, Kraft came to the realization that basing happiness on awards and accolades would leave her ultimately unsatisfied.
“The sports psychologist was talking, and I was listening, thinking, ‘This is the strangest thing that I’m hearing, the people who have been to the Olympics and the national champions are no more satisfied than I was with my career.’ It hit me like a brick at that moment that there’s not going to be a point where I am satisfied,” Kraft said. “It’s really the journey and all the other things that come with it, it’s the dedication, the hard work.”
With the mindset of focusing on her journey instead of the awards, Kraft is
trend,” DaRosa said. “Being able to work on the mental side of the game, outside of an actual game is a huge advantage if you can utilize it and I don’t see that there’s any downside to getting even better at recognizing pitches or improving my approach to at bats even more.”
proud of what she accomplished during her career. To her, she did what shouldn’t have been possible and got everything she could out of the sport, and that was the true reward.
I JUST ENJOYED THE SPORT TO ITS FULLEST AND BECAUSE I LOVED IT SO MUCH, I DID REALLY WELL AND GOT SUPER CLOSE TO ACTUALLY GOING TO THE OLYMPICS, WHICH IS CRAZY.”
Liz Kraft, math instructor
“The fact that I had such a competitive spirit and a drive that was just insatiable got me to a level that was probably far beyond what I otherwise should have. I just enjoyed the sport to its fullest, and because I loved it so much, I did really well and got super close to actually going to the Olympics, which is crazy,” Kraft said. “My proudest moment is that I got more out of the sport than a lot of people who got into it because they wanted to be successful or win.”
After dominant regular seasons, the 23-24 volleyball and soccer teams faced crushing playoff exits. Kevin Lu ‘24 and Reed Sussman ‘24 reflect on their final games in the blue and gold, and senior William Morrow shares how this year’s championship team was inspired by last year’s heartbreak.
BY NEIL YEPURI AND JOSHUA GOFORTH
Sports are all about the winners.
The teams, the players, the individuals, the fans of the team that succeeds the most, when the lights are the brightest.
It’s where all the attention, money and coverage is focused - the old saying of “to the victor, goes the spoils” may not be more applicable anywhere in everyday life outside of sports.
Sports overlook the unsuccessful - cameras focus on the winners being carried off the field in a shower of confetti, while the losing team quietly heads to the locker room.
But, losing is equally as pivotal in an athlete’s journey through sports and through life. Loss presents a unique challenge for players - one of maturity, discipline and determination.
Teams of any sport don’t usually go undefeated - losing is a natural and accepted occurrence throughout the majority of the season. But in the postseason, expectations rise, and failure is not an option. Many Marksmen dream of being a champion, immortalized in school history - a star player on a winning team remembered through documentaries, news articles and legendary celebrations.
Kevin Lu ’24 can attest to that. Although he was part of one of those winning teams in 2021 as a sophomore, he was not a true leader of the volleyball team until later in his career.
So, in the fall of 2023, when the team was at its best and tearing through their regular season and SPC competition, then-senior and captain Lu went into the championship game expecting nothing less than to leave with a ring.
“We didn’t lose to anyone at all, except for at the very beginning of the season,” Lu said. “I think that was one of our problems that year. We hadn’t faced any hardship.”
In the final, the red-hot Lions would face an equally talented buzzsaw in the Episcopal High School Knights, where they’d lose in a heartbreaking fifth set by a mere two points.
“Losing, especially that championship game of my senior year, and never bringing that banner home will always be a blemish on my career looking back,” Lu said.
But as the weeks passed and the fall season faded, Lu eventually struggled less and less with the loss. With graduation approaching, Lu focused on the bigger picture of his career, rather than on its highs and lows.
“I’m well over the fact that we didn’t win,” Lu said. “But that’s how I ended my career, with a loss in the championship. And so, as much as it hurt and stung and sucked, taking a step back
and reflecting on my whole experience and how much the process has been important to me, how much my teammates and coaches have meant to me, helped me not let one loss I took in my career overshadow all of the good stuff.”
With the Class of 2024 heading to college, the volleyball team’s new leadership, including senior William Morrow, were left trying to diagnose and solve the previous team’s mistakes.
“I think we got a little full of ourselves, and I think that’s what ultimately ended up being part of our loss,” Morrow said. “We were just way too cocky. Going into this year, we went in with an underdog mentality, almost like, ‘look, we’ve got a lot of work to do here.’”
“WE DIDN’T LOSE TO ANYONE AT ALL, EXCEPT FOR AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE SEASON. I THINK THAT WAS ONE OF OUR PROBLEMS THAT YEAR. WE HADN’T FACED ANY HARDSHIP.”
Kevin Lu, class of ‘24
So, the team went back to the drawing board, leaning into the idea that every success had to be earned. They endured a tough start to the season, working through injuries and slowly finding their most successful lineups.
With an important lesson learned and time to prepare, Morrow and the volleyball team achieved what they had previously, and so closely, failed to do – bring home the SPC trophy.
“You have to be able to channel anger into your work and energy for the next year,” Morrow said. “It sucks to lose, but in order to win, you’ve got to lose, because you learn a lot from losing.”
And, they did it in much different fashion than the dominant run that propelled them a year prior. Instead, this team played the most sets possible, taking each match to five sets before ultimately winning each. They won the final set in another nailbiter, by three points.
However, no teams, even ones built on experience, talent and hard work, are guaranteed to win. Similarly to the 2023 volleyball team, the 2024 soccer team found itself mired in high expectations. In the minds of players and fans alike, there was almost no doubt they would make a playoff run.
“Senior year was the year that everything was looking up,” Sussman said. “I knew that that was the team. It was kind of a situation where
anything but winning SPC would have been a huge disappointment.”
As the first seed in SPC, the team was set to play St. Stephen’s in the first round. They justified their high seeding by jumping out to a 2-0 by halftime.
But, just a half later, the team had conceded three, and had lost all chance at the SPC title. Sussman, like many members of the team, was struggling.
“At first, it was kind of just shock,” Sussman said. “You’re up two to zero at half time, and 40 minutes later, your career is over.”
But, in SPC soccer play, teams don’t just go home after losing in the main bracket. The Lions still had two more games, with a maximum achievement of fifth place, to fight for.
“But as captains, we had to talk with our coach and ask, ‘How can we take this group who just had their season ended unexpectedly and win two more games?’” Sussman said. “You don’t go home when you lose, you have to go out and play two more days. So what we were grappling with was how to lead them to give it their all and make the most of the next few days. But we did, and we won the next two games.”
In the days and weeks that followed, the team had to come to terms with their loss while also dealing with the retirement of longtime coach Corindo Martin. Sussman began to feel some of the more common negative feelings surrounding loss.
“It was hard. Everything was lining up for us to win. We just made some errors,” Sussman said. “I think it took some time to process, and eventually, Coach told us he was retiring after our third game. I’m pretty sure all the seniors were in tears, if not all the team, just because he’d given so much to us through that program. Soccer was over, but we still had those relationships with each other that transcend any winning or losing.”
Despite his team’s failure to bring home an SPC championship, Sussman was able to channel his anger and frustration into positive work on the field and in the gym, in preparation for college soccer.
Lu even echoes Sussman’s sentimental approach to the end of his highschool career, despite a loss right at the end of it.
“A lot of tough things will happen, and you kind of have to get yourself over the hump. You can’t put yourself down,” Lu said. “My relationships with the guys on the team were strong all throughout, and the loss definitely didn’t diminish from it – if anything, it made them stronger.”
While both senior Luke Laczkowski and senior Henry Estes have committed to play their respective sports in college, their hopes for the future and recruitment process’ couldn’t have been more different.
BY MICHAEL JIMENEZ
Looking out amongst the crowd and seeing familiar faces of family members, friends and coaches is the image almost all high school athletes dream of, but only the lucky 7 percent will ever be able to live out their dreams of playing college athletics.
For the top, most highly sought after recruits, the choice is obvious.
Sign for the college that will develop you the best and prepare you to play professionally.
However, for some recruits, there is no desire to continue their career past college. Playing for a school known for its academics will not only allow them to continue their passion at the next level, but will also deliver them a world-class education.
For seniors Luke Laczkowski and Henry Estes, the choices were different.
After months of long consideration, Laczkowski announced his commitment to Saint Louis University, where he will not only continue to play basketball, but also join the mere one percent of athletes who will go on to play Division I basketball.
“I didn’t really know I wanted to play basketball until summer of my freshman year,” Laczkowski said. “I saw my game was growing at a pretty fast rate, my coaches believed in me and I just kept working. Then it finally became my goal after freshman year.”
Along with Saint Louis, Laczkowski
I WANT TO PLAY BASKETBALL FOR AS LONG AS I CAN. WHETHER THAT’S IN THE NBA OR OVERSEAS, THERE’S A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES. YOU ONLY GET TO PLAY BASKETBALL FOR A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF TIME IN YOUR LIFE, SO WHY NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT?”
Luke Laczkowski, senior
earned offers from schools like Harvard University, Bucknell University and the United States Military Academy, West Point. While these select schools make up some of the most prestigous universities in the country, Laczkowski’s commitment to Saint Louis stemmed from many different factors.
“I have a lot of family in Saint Louis, my cousin went there and my aunt and uncle are season ticket holders,” Laczkowski said. “The opportunity to play basketball at Saint Louis is insane. The facilities are great there and when I
took my visit it felt like a Power 5 school.”
In addition, Saint Louis is able to provide Laczkowski with the tools necessary to improve his skills and prepare him for the next step in his journey.
“I want to play basketball for as long as I can,” Laczkowski said. “Whether that’s in the NBA or overseas, there’s a lot of opportunities. You only get to play basketball for a certain amount of time in your life, so why not take advantage of it?”
With Laczkowski’s main goal being to compete for as long as possible, a school that puts more emphasis on its basketball program was the perfect choice.
However, with Estes having no real aspirations of continuing football past the collegiate level, his offer from Columbia University seemed to be the obvious choice.
“My goal right now is to do a post graduate year at a school where I can go to graduate school and get it paid for,” Estes said. “It opens a lot of doors for me and a lot of Ivy league players end up doing that.”
Choosing Columbia wasn’t an easy decision. While he recieved other offers from great schools like Claremont McKenna College and Carnegie Mellon University, the thought of playing football at an Ivy League school was one Estes just couldn’t pass up.
“There were a few driving factors that made me pick Columbia,” Estes said. “When I went into my junior summer, I knew that I really wanted to play Ivy League football, so when Columbia offered me, it was a really easy choice.”
Along with being a great school, another reason Estes was drawn to Columbia was their very recent success on the field. After a 63 year title drought, newly appointed head coach Jon Poppe led the Lions to winning the Ivy League championship.
“We got a new head coach for the football team and he’s done a lot of good things,” Estes said. “He’s obviously making a program and culture shift.”
Despite having different aspirations after college, both Estes and Laczkowski can agree on the fact that getting the opportunity to continue to play sports heavily influenced their college decisions and also alleviated the stress of going through the college application process.
“Looking back now, there’s a lot of draws to Columbia, but I don’t think I had the academics to get in,” Estes said. “I feel like I would have gone to a completely different college and had a completely different lifestyle.”
Weston Chance contributed to this story.
BY MARSHALL SUDBURY
Work harder. Get better every day. Do the little things. Every team across the world preaches these ideas, but not every team actually does these things.
For the varsity basketball team, these aren’t just cliches that coaches say, but crucial parts of the team’s success. The goal is simple: win the SPC tournament, but when your entire season boils down to one game, win or go home scenario, everything has to be perfect.
“When it’s one game, an elimination scenario, there could be factors that don’t go your way,” head coach Greg Guiler said. “There’s so many little habits that you just have to be in.”
The team has been on a roll recently with a 16-game win streak between December and January. But it wasn’t always so easy for the team. In early December, the team sat at a disappointing record after back-to-back losses to Dallas Jesuit and Prestonwood Christian. The team needed some sort of spark, and Guiler knew that only the players were capable of igniting that spark.
“After our last loss at Prestonwood, players got into each other’s face... letting each other know that the way we were playing had to stop,” Guiler said. “I waited in the hallway, as they died down, I walked in and we haven’t lost a game since.”
This hot streak has extended into the
counter season, including a close 59-51 win over Greenhill in one of the most anticipated games of the season. However, the team isn’t satisfied with where they are right now.
“It’s easy to get complacent and have decent practices instead of great practices,” Guiler said. “I told the guys that...we are our best opponent.”
The team also received the honor of being the first game held in the new Zierk Athletic Complex. In the new and improved Hicks Gym, varsity basketball drubbed Trinity Valley 79-52. Guiler, who has watched the new complex be built, reminded his team of the honor of being the first game there.
“There’s a whole lot of people to thank
for something like this,” Guiler said. “We ride on the shoulders of giants who come before us... legends of Marksmen past, who are excited for this group of guys to get to experience something really special.”
With all the high and lows and the accomplishments this season, the team looks forward to competing and hopefully winning the SPC tournament to finish their season after losing in the championship game last year.
“You don’t just win a conference that’s had 20 years of consecutive future NBA players just by showing up,” Guiler said. “But I think that when we play our best basketball, we’re really tough to beat.”
Last Thursday, students, faculty and staff gathered together in Spencer Gymnasium to witness a variety of performances celebrating the Lunar New Year. The festivities included both professional and student-led performances.
2 4 6 5 3
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The Zierk Athletic Center is one of the largest campus development projects in school history, made possible through the generous support of more than 100 community members. The project, progressing swiftly from its groundbreaking in May 2023, was completed just nine months after the topping-off ceremony in April 2024. On Jan. 21, trustees, alumni, parents, donors and project partners gathered to celebrate this immense milestone. The complex stands as a testament to the school’s commitment to athletic development and excellence. acres
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With an upgraded space, new surveillance and control system, the new security offices offer many improvements.
BY CHRISTIAN WARNER AND WESTON CHANCE
With the destruction of the Hicks Gymnasium in 2020, the security team’s headquarters also fell in the tornado. This setback forced the security, buildings and grounds staff to cram into a small repurposed classroom in Nearburg. With more than a dozen staff members crammed into this room, the two groups quickly realized the tight space.
“Our work was not affected; (the room) just made it a little more busy,” Director of Security Dale Hackbarth said. “Facilities and security get along very well because we do lean on each other. This is a 40 acre, 12 building campus, and, from access control to water leaks and everything in between we have to help each other out.”
The original headquarters in Hicks Gymnasium contained offices for each team, an adjoining conference room for private conversation and an overall larger space to work in. Finding storage in the Nearburg classroom has been difficult for the faculty.
“We don’t have any locker rooms up there, so (our radios, rain gear, winter gear and coats) are kind of piled up on chairs,” Hackbarth said.
The new facilities will solve all of these problems. Hackbarth believes that the new offices will help support his staff by serving as a place they can call home base to check radios, have a meal and more. The increased office and headquarters size will
reflect that of the old gymnasium. Both Hackbarth and Director of the Physical Plant Mark Webb met with the architects during the design process to add their own input on the blueprint.
“Mark Webb and his assistant, Dwayne Barnhart, have their own offices; I have my own office,” Hackbarth said. “There’s a big conference room with cubicles for our staff to get on the computer. It’s big enough with numerous computers for (the grounds) staff and (security) staff. We do share a common, common space, but we have our own offices.”
Along with the upgraded space, a new surveillance and access control system has been implemented, viewing the over 200 cameras across campus on four different monitors. Hackbarth says the new control room will allow for improvements on security analytics.
“We are doing ongoing training on the camera system,” Hackbarth said. “These cameras are user friendly, and I just have to get everybody acclimated, to put their time on the cameras and work. The cameras are basically for post-identification, so if an issue comes to my attention, I’m able to pull up that area and (assess the situation).”
The past few years in the cramped classroom have finally ended, bringing excitement to these teams.
“I’ve gotten pretty close with the facility staff,” Hackbarth said. “You can’t help but get pretty close when you share a classroom with them, and it’s a great relationship.”
Following the destruction of the original Albert G. Hill Tennis Center in 2019, the courts, bearing the same name, were relocated and rebuilt, opening for practice and competition in conjunction with the Zierk Athletic Center.
BY KEVIN HO AND MICHAEL JIMENEZ
2019: An EF-3 tornado tore through North Texas, ravaging the school along its path of destruction. Tens of millions of dollars were needed in repairs. Almost every single building needed to have its roof replaced. Hundreds of trees were strewn all across campus. And specifically in the tornado’s wake was the Albert G. Hill Tennis Center — all eight courts were destroyed.
2022: Five of the tennis courts that had been made unrecognizable two years prior were temporarily resurfaced, but next to them stood the hollow remains of what was once Hicks Athletic Center.
2024: The final metal beams were raised into place as the Marksman Athletic Complex took form. But with the construction of the new athletic center, the tennis courts were torn down a second time.
2025: Six high-performance tennis courts now dot the far northeastern edge of the campus in a row. And with the completion of its construction, a new chapter in the school’s tennis history is ready to be opened.
The destruction of the tennis courts didn’t just leave a physical
void on campus. For players and coaches alike, their normal routines had been completely disrupted. With no home courts to practice on, the team was forced to rely on off-campus facilities.
Since the temporary courts that were resurfaced during the 20222023 season needed to be removed to allow for the construction of the new complex, the tennis team’s practice schedule was significantly altered. The next season, practices were held at four different locations throughout the week — a scattered schedule that didn’t really allow the team to find consistency or a sense of normalcy.
“We sometimes had to drive to Brook Hollow, which was pretty far for most of us,” junior Kian Foshee said. “It’s about 20 minutes from St. Mark’s, and then around 45 minutes from my house. It was just a ton of driving that wasted a lot of time for me, and then I had school work and everything else to do later on that same day. And the only official practices were once a week at T Bar M. So sometimes, not everybody would show up, and I think that kinda changed the team environment.”
Without any courts available on campus last season, the reassuring feeling of a home court advantage also disappeared. For those home
games that were supposed to be on campus courts, the team had to resort to other facilities, namely Hockaday and Brook Hollow Golf Club. But now, tennis players finally have their own place to train and perform.
“Having home courts, having practice 100 yards away instead of across town, is undeniably good for any team culture and team morale,” Hillier said. “We all kind of took it in stride, had some good laughs about the whole situation, but at the same time, we’re definitely thankful to not be doing that again this year.”
Especially with the addition of a sixth court to the previous temporary setup of five, Foshee believes that the new court will primarily be effective in spreading people out during tournaments, thus helping to alleviate crowding issues experienced in past years.
And for Hillier, the arrangement will allow for a new, electric environment to play in.
“The courts are gorgeous,” Hillier said. “They’re really great. The setup of two banks of three courts is also awesome for hosting, because there’s kind of like a home and away layout, so we’ll take these opposing teams, we’ll use those and then we’ll get to play each other on one more court than we had.”
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FEBRUARY 7, 2025
REMARKER
SPECIAL COVERAGE
With the opening of the Zierk Athletic Center, varsity teams now have a new home on campus: a brand new, collegiate-level locker room equipped with new amenities.
BY MATTHEW HOFMANN AND DOAN NGUYEN
It’s halftime during the first game of the football season. The August heat is beating down on the field. Fans in their whiteout attire are drenched in sweat simply from being in the stands.
On the field, the players’ conditions are even worse. But this heat is a staple of Texas football.
As the players run off the field, some staggering as they long for water, they head past the metal gates by the outdoor basketball court and begin walking up a wooden ramp to a single, grey trailer.
But as the players walk through the rickety door, a new wave of heat hits them. Inside is damp, dark and hot air, removing any hope for a relaxing break. Players bunch up where their position groups should be, clambering over teammates to get to the right whiteboard.
The smell of football pads and damp helmets lingers as the players try to focus on mid-game adjustments. To most, there is one, counterintuitive thought running through their mind: When can we get back on the field?
I THINK IT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE WAY WE WANT TO RUN OUR ATHLETIC PROGRAM BY PROMOTING A PICTURE OF ATHLETIC EXCELLENCE.”
Harry Flaherty, Head Football Coach
Fortunately, this cramped, smelly reality has come to an end for all St. Mark’s athletes with the new Zierk Athletic Center and its locker room opening.
What was once a ceiling of patchy gray ceiling tiles, a collection of wooden pad hangers, and two stuffy bathrooms is now a state-of-the-art facility that rivals collegiate-level locker rooms.
Sixteen JBL speakers hang from the roof surrounding the large “SM” logo backlit with LEDs. On the ground, more than 100 lockers come equipped with cleat storage, cushioned seats, an additional locker for personal items and pad dryers on the top.
Around the corner is a long row of bathroom stalls, and further back, a row of showers. On the other hand, a nutrition station with multiple refrigerators and snacks will be provided to replenish the energy supply of tired athletes.
After five years, the school’s varsity teams will finally have a new home.
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New lockers, including lockers with shoulder pad dryers, guest lockers and additional smaller lockers for student-athletes.
In 2019, an EF3 tornado rocked the north end of campus and destroyed Hicks Gymnasium, which in it held a brand-new locker room. Luckily, the tornado missed the single-story part of the building that held this new space, so the school was able to salvage many of the brand-new lockers.
While construction of the new Zierk Athletic Center was underway, the school and its teams had to adapt, deciding on using a portable trailer next to the outdoor basketball court for the varsity locker room.
When the trailer first arrived, it was a gray metal structure with little flavor, but the school was forced to pivot, quickly adding decoration and functional components to make the trailer a viable working replacement, albeit temporary.
“For what it’s worth, I think nobody necessarily wants their locker room to be in a trailer,” Head Football Coach Harry Flaherty said. “But I actually think that our athletic department did a nice job converting it into a highly functional space for us: room for equipment, whiteboards and bathrooms. It got the job done.”
Junior Adam Dalrymple is one of the football captains for next year, and because of that, is in the first group that gets to use the locker room for the entire year. His hope is that many of the good things from this past season are elevated with the new space.
“The locker room will be a lot more organized than the old one,” Dalrymple said. “We were real-
ly disciplined, and we always put up a good fight, and I’m really hoping that carries over into next season with a space like the locker room to build team culture.”
The new locker room will also add to the summer training on campus, especially football training camp in August. According to Dalrymple, the old locker room would get extremely hot during the day and training camp could feel disjointed with the film room being far away from where the team was resting. This is something that Flaherty believes the new locker room and facility will fix.
“Having the locker room, film room, athletics center and the gym all in one space, in addition to being at the entrance to the football stadium, will be much more convenient,” Flaherty said. “Before, everything was a little bit more scattered.”
From the player’s perspective, this holds true as well. Looking back on his football career, senior Mateu Parker wishes everything was in one place for training camp, which he thinks would have brought the team even closer together.
“This may change where the team will hang out,” Parker said. “It is now easy for guys to relax and enjoy themselves during training camp and they have all these nice things. Training camp is definitely going to be a massive improvement.”
But some senior players will get to use this space, even if just for a few games. Currently, the soccer team and basketball team are using the locker room. Even with games at the same time, the teams have enough space to share.
“Basketball is sometimes in there during halftime,” varsity soccer player Eduardo Mousinho said, “so we just spread out and soccer goes off to our side and it’s really effective.”
This cross-team connection is just another side benefit of the space and supports the school’s mission to build community. But this upgrade from a portable trailer highlights the commitment the school has to athletic excellence, something Flaherty believes the school hit on the head.
“We try to encourage our guys to think of themselves as being a part of a college-level program and the way we do things,” Flaherty said. “What we’re going to use is certainly a college-level locker room. I think it says a lot about the way we want to run our athletic program by promoting a picture of athletic excellence.”
Five years after a tornado destroyed Hicks Gym and left their basketball program displaced, the Lions have returned home. Now playing in the Zierk Athletic Center, the team has closed a challenging chapter marked by resilience and community support.
BY HILTON SAMPSON
The old Hicks Gym held countless memories of the school’s basketball program before a tornado tore through campus five years ago, leaving only echoes of thundering crowds and squeaking sneakers in its wake. But on the night of Wednesday, Jan. 22, those sounds returned, filling the air of a brand new facility that carries both the historic name and the weight of tradition.
As the doors to the new Hicks Gym in the Zierk Athletic Center opened for its first varsity basketball game against the Trinity Valley Trojans, the building buzzed with anticipation.
Parents, students and alumni filed in, taking self-guided tours through the facility, investigating the home of future Lions with awe. Members of the school community who had witnessed games in the old gym for decades stood alongside administrators and teachers, sharing stories and memories as they waited for a new chapter to begin.
For the Lions, this homecoming meant more than just a new court. After five years of playing in Morris G. Spencer Gym, where they lacked their own locker room for pregame and halftime talks, head basketball coach Greg Guiler could finally gather his team in their own space. No more impromptu huddles on the bench— they were truly home again.
The significance of the moment crystallized with the game’s first points: a thunderous slam dunk by senior Luke Laczkowski on the north end basket.
“That was pretty poetic,” Guiler said, “that we got to start things off from a guy whose family has been entrenched in the evolution of basketball excellence here.”
The Laczkowski family has been ingrained in the basketball program here over the last several years with Luke’s two older brothers, Andrew and Tate helping to lead the team throughout the uncertain years following the tornado, serving as pillars of the program in both spirit and achievement.
Just minutes later, the Saint Louis University commit reached a milestone of his own—2,000 career points.
As Andrew, then the school’s all-time scoring leader with 2,052 points, cheered from the stands alongside their parents and friends, the game paused. Cheerleaders, friends and family swarmed the court, celebrating Luke’s achievement.
As the game resumed, the home team built on their lead as those in attendance relished in the moment, experiencing the first game in the reopened Hicks Gym culminating in a Lions victory, 79-52 over the Trojans.
But just weeks prior, and in fact over the last five years, things hadn’t come so easy for the Lions basketball team. The excitement in the air meant even more to those in attendance not in spite of the adversity the program had faced but because of it.
Amy Laczkowski, parent of three basketball players, Andrew, Tate and Luke, who have played through this transition, remembers the initial shock of the impact the tornado had on the basketball program.
“I remember in the beginning, there’s was so much confusion,” Amy said, “and I remember Andrew just calling me, ‘Mom, the gym is gone.’”
In the immediate aftermath, the school community rallied together, preparing Spencer Gym to become the temporary home of the Lions basketball program as plans went underway for the reconstruction of Hicks
Gym.
Eugene McDermott Headmaster David Dini vividly remembers the support the school felt in the first few weeks.
“In sort of true St Mark’s fashion,” Dini said. “Families across the community, parents, graduates, parents and graduates saw the need and responded. From the moment the tornado hit the school, people stepped
up, and many without being asked.”
Yet in the first two weeks back on campus, the team, preparing for a competitive season ahead, had no gym to practice in as Spencer underwent renovations including the installation of a new harwood court.
“I think about when we got to go to the Mavs facility and practice,” Guiler said, “the amazing reaction by the community to rally around us and
BY SAM MORSE
Senior Luke Laczkowski converts on a putback layup. A timeout is called. Applause erupts from the stands.
The cheerleaders present the new all-time scorer with a sign of congratulations.
“That last basket made Luke Laczkowksi the St. Mark’s all time scoring leader, surpassing his brother, Andrew,” Announcer Doc Browning says.
History has been made.
Standing by Luke’s side, his brother, coach and biggest supporter Andrew Laczkowski turns to congratulate him.
Luke’s biggest inspiration now stands one spot behind him on the all time scoring list.
What seemed to be a simple shot amidst their 34-point lead turned out altering the history of St. Mark’s varsity basketball. However, Luke was not always destined for greatness.
In a house with two older brothers, competition was inevitable. As the youngest, Luke would often get overpowered, having to compete as an underdog.
“We have a basketball court in our backyard, and we’d play two versus one, Tate and I versus Andrew,” Luke Laczkowski said. “Andrew would just leave me open on the block because I couldn’t even make a layup.”
Although Luke had to work from behind, he was given a natural blueprint. Luke took advantage of this opportunity by not only accepting the challenge of higher competition, but also taking aspects from each of his brothers’ games.
“My brothers created me into the player I am today… I am like a blend of both of them,” Laczkowski said. “Andrew showed me work ethic. He worked his butt off throughout high school and especially college, and I feel like I’ve definitely valued seeing him doing that. For Tate, he was a pretty good shooter throughout high school, and it was his main role.”
Entering Varsity Basketball as a freshman, Luke received limited playing time, leading him to question his future role with the team. However, with a burning desire to see the court, he dove into the grind of AAU during his summer of sophomore year. Feeling like a new and improved athlete, the stars aligned during his sophomore year, allowing him to play a significant role on the school team.
Early in his junior season, Luke reached the coveted 1,000-point
mark. Although he remained focused on the of him, the thought of 2,000 points and the gered in the back of his mind.
“My dad and I started tracking my points order to break 2,000 in an excel spreadsheet,” Laczkowski’s hard work and success over the opportunity to play Division I collegiate Saint Louis University with thorough consideration family. With the unwavering support of his senior season, rather than pursuing personal moment to the fullest and enjoy it as much ing to conclude the season with an SPC championship in the new athletic center.
“I’m not gonna have this much freedom on any other team,” Laczkowski said. “Every per close with because of basketball. That’s ketball, being a team sport: you make some to go out with a bang in my last season.”
During Luke’s final season, Andrew returned and took a job in the St.
help provide that privilege.”
Throughout the initial months and the years that followed, Guiler experienced first hand the difficulties of navigating the Lions through even the simplest of challenges.
“It’s been the hardest thing I’ve done professionally,” Guiler reflected on the past five years. “Trying to create the duck effect, where you’re hoping that everything on the surface
looks like we’re just kind of swimming along smoothly, but knowing that every single day I wake up holding my breath because we don’t have the flexibility we used to have in the past.”
While Guiler is grateful to have had Spencer Gym for the entire program to play and practice in these last several years, he acknowledges that it was a challenge to manage the seven
As senior Luke Laczkowski makes history, his brother, coach and previous record holder Andrew supports from the sidelines.
the challenges directly ahead all-time scoring record linpoints and what pace I needed in spreadsheet,” Laczkowski said. over the past two years gave him collegiate basketball, committing to consideration from him and his his family, Luke’s goal for his personal accolades, was to live the as possible, ultimately aimchampionship banner hanging to play basketball ever again “Every year there are guys I get suThat’s the great thing about basof the closest friends. I want returned to Dallas from UPenn department, allowing him to
contribute to the program while watching his brother’s final season. As Luke was approaching Andrew’s record, Andrew’s support only strengthened.
“I told him not to worry about the record because we had known going into the year that he was going to break it. It was a matter of when not if,” Andrew said. “I have been happy to be here and help him through different things like being a team leader or how to fight a certain situation on the court, or just to be a welcoming voice from the bench for him.”
After breaking the record, Luke is trying to delay his gratification until his final goal of winning SPC is complete. Despite his efforts, he couldn’t resist reminiscing about his journey with his family, observing the impact he and his family have left on St. Mark’s.
“(Andrew) told me the night after I broke his record that he was amazed at how far I’ve come,” Laczkowski said. “And, I mean, it’s kind of ridiculous how much they’ve helped me throughout the process just of high school and then also choosing where I’m going to go to college. Without them, it wouldn’t have been this easy.”
Archer Wilburn contributed to this story.
school basketball teams in a threehour time slot afterschool using a single gym.
Oftentimes, in early morning texts with junior varsity coach Ryan Brewer and Assistant Athletic Director Josh Friesen, Guiler helped to map out the rotation of the three Upper School teams in the gym with only two full courts.
“There aren’t very many varsity teams in America that only get 50 minutes of a full court to themselves,” Guiler said. “That’s a pretty rare thing this day and age.”
With Hicks Gym back in action, Guiler is eager for the countless opportunities it brings—from the ability to run full-court practices without constraints to a renewed sense of home-court pride.
Though the time from the tornado hitting campus to the doors opening on the Zierk Athletic Center took over five years, Dini notes the careful planning that went into the new facility.
“The architects, when they first came in,” Dini said, “they asked us to imagine, ‘if you were writing a story about the building, and after it opened, what would you want that story to read like?’”
The result exceeded expectations.
“Part of St. Mark’s’ great strength is that we think and plan in decades as opposed to just what’s right in front of us,” Dini said. “Always thinking about decisions today and what they might mean five or 10 years down the road.”
For the current players, the new facility represents a dramatic upgrade. For Luke, who has experienced both the challenges and triumphs of the transition period, the new gym creates the opportunity for the team to succeed at the highest level—even though his time on the team will come to an end with SPC next Friday.
“The difference between the two gyms is interesting,” Laczkowski said. “Spencer had this intimate feel where everything was close together. The new Hicks gym gives us more breathing room, which is great. Even with smaller crowds so far, the atmosphere has been electric.”
And for the final games of the season played in the new space, players, coaches and fans alike are prepared to recognize the significance of the building by enjoying the atmosphere it creates.
The five year long process to reopen the doors of Hicks Gym has given the team more than just a place to play basketball—it has been a journey and an opportunity for the team over the years to grow stronger together.
“It takes storms to learn how to
DAVID DINI Eugene McDermott Headmaster
“HE WAS A LEGEND AND A TITAN OF THE SCHOOL. HE WAS A PHENOMENAL TEACHER AND MENTOR AND COACH, AND HE WAS PASSIONATE ABOUT ATHLETICS, THE SCHOOL AND EDUCATION. JUST A BRILLIANT MIND.”
GREG GUILER Head Basketball Coach
“GETTING TO SEE MARCY ADAMS HONORED BEFORE THE GAME WAS REALLY SPECIAL FOR ME PERSONALLY, HAVING SPENT 10 YEARS ON THE BENCH WITH TOM ADAMS. GRATEFUL FOR HIS LEGACY.”
really perfect your craft,” Guiler said. “The resilience in the program is something that has been a rallying cry for us.”
The Zierk Athletic Center has reshaped the future of the school’s athletic programs, but Dini knows that is not what matters most.
“The school is not defined by buildings, it’s defined by the relationships with your teachers and the experiences you have,” Dini said. “But when you combine that with exceptional facilities, it just lifts the possibilities to an even higher level.”
Matthew Hofmann, Akash Manikam, and Lawrence Gardner contributed to this story.
The new Zierk Athletics Center houses the new Levering Pool — replacing nearly five decades of St. Mark’s aquatics modern starting blocks and efficient gutter systems. The facility also boasts second-floor spectator stands and dedic-
BY LINYANG LEE, HILTON SAMPSON AND KAYDEN ZHONG
Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows as swimmers slice through the water.
Above—blue and gold flags flutter while their teammates crowd the gleaming starting blocks. Their chants of “Go! Go! Go!” echo off the high ceiling.
Parents man each lane—placing timing boards in the water before each event—manually recording the times to back up the automatic system that syncs to the huge screen across from the second-floor balcony.
From up there—dozens of spectators watch as history unfolds.
It’s the first swim meet in the Zierk Athletic Center. The first change in the Lions’ home water in more than five decades.
But even with all the new additions—the heart of it all feels the same.
Swimmers stare at the screen in anticipation—checking their times.
Students hold up their posters with huge faces on them for senior night.
Senior George Hoverman stands by the side of the pool, giving junior Richard Wang pointers on turning off the wall.
There’s still the same camaraderie. The same drive to push past the lactic acid. The same thrill and excitement for each other as personal record after personal record is smashed.
Because even though it’s a night of so many new firsts—the heart of Lions Swimming beats on.
Although Hoverman wishes he could have been in the new pool for
another season—to him, swimming at the pool for the last meet of his high school career was spectacular.
“What gives tonight meaning— as the first senior class in the new pool—is that it’s our last time being able to swim for the school,” Hoverman said. “That’s really special in this new space.”
For senior Reagan Brower, the night of the first meet in the Levering Pool was bittersweet.
“I wish we could have had it for water polo, but at least we have it for swimming,” Brower said. “I know in club water polo we’ll use this pool, so I can always come back here. I’m just excited that this is finally a thing.”
Aquatics Teacher and Coach Trent Calder had his hands full managing everything.
“I was so focused on making sure that we got it off the ground,” Calder said. “Everybody came in, from coaches from other schools to administrators, and told me, ‘Wow, this is really impressive.’ Being able to honor the Leverings and getting to thank the alumni who poured so much of themselves into this school was really special. And then we had some great races and senior night in the middle was awesome.”
And for the school aquatics program as a whole, the Levering Pool is a game changer. Measuring 30 meters long by 25 meters wide with 12 lanes, the new pool is nearly twice the size of the old Ralph B. Rogers Natatorium.
“The amount of things that we can do and accommodate is amazing,” Calder said. “Having real water polo being played in our pool, having swim practices with everybody practicing at the same time;
on the short side of stuff, what we could do with our Upper School and Middle School (aquatics) teams is unbelievable.”
The depth of the Levering Pool ranges from seven feet at its shallowest to 71/2 at its deepest, noticeably less variation than the Ralph B. Rogers Natatorium, which ranges from 3 feet to 12 feet at its deepest.
The change not only means that water polo games can be played at a consistent depth but also that the new pool is faster for swimmers because of the deeper water.
Size changes, however, are far from the only notable upgrades from the old pool. The state-ofthe-art competitive starting blocks feature adjustable starting wedges and additional handlebars, the former of which give swimmers a boost off the blocks and latter of which give swimmers different options for their dive and allow them to practice their technique.
The modern design of the walls and
gutters, too, help optimize each and every swim.
“The gutter system is far better at removing the energy that goes in and out of the walls, and that reverb, to kind of put it in a musical perspective, is going to get reduced,” Calder said. “That will allow swimmers so much more energy since they don’t have to fight through clean water.”
In preparation for the new pool, the aquatics program also acquired new touchpads and meet equipment, which will facilitate pool setup and ensure better timing accuracy.
Most importantly, the introduction of the Levering Pool will allow the school to once again host competitive meets and water polo tournaments, something that was difficult to accomplish because of the age and limitations of the Ralph B. Rogers Natatorium. The inclusion of three brand new aquatics locker rooms ensure students and visitors have the necessary storage
FEBRUARY 7, 2025 REMARKER
SPECIAL COVERAGE
in the Ralph B. Rogers natatorium. At nearly twice the size of Rogers, Levering features a consistent pool depth, ated aquatics locker rooms, ushering in a new era for Lions Water Polo and Swimming.
space, and the second story viewing area gives spectators a bird’s eye view of the whole pool.
“It’s going to be a great place to compete,” Calder said. “Being able to host meets is awesome. Being able to host tournaments and games is something that we just haven’t done in a long, long time because back ten or 15 years ago, we were the only pool in town, so we could do that. Now we’re back to the point where we’re not the only pool in town, but we’re a good pool. We can help co-host things with Jesuit and have good tournaments in the Dallas area.”
But meets and tournaments are not the only things the new facilities will offer. As the Ralph B. Rogers Natatorium was in years past, the Levering Pool will also be open to the school community.
“When you look back at the history of the Rogers Natatorium and the number of lives that that pool changed, and what it’s done for
the community and for St. Mark’s, it’s unbelievable,” Calder said. “It’ll be great to give back to the community. There’s a ton of alumni and people that used to swim here prior to the tornado and they’re excited about it too. A lot of great, great things are going to come out of this facility for future and past Marksmen.”
Following the move into the new natatorium, the old pool will be converted into an indoor turf area, marking the end of more than 40 years of swimming and water polo in the Rogers Natatorium. For all, it’s a bittersweet move, but Calder and the aquatics program embraces the opportunity to continue pushing the boundaries.
“I’ll miss the history of (the old natatorium),” Calder said. “I will keep the old pool records from Rogers Natatorium. Those will never die. I look at my predecessor, Mihai, what he did for this aquatics program, and I look up and see the
(SPC) banners, and it’s far easier to count the years he didn’t win than it is to count the ones that he did win. So we’re trying to rejuvenate and continue.”
This year, the swimming program looks to capture a third consecutive Southwest Preparatory Conference 4A Division Championship title. The new facilities will undoubtedly propel the aquatics program to new heights.
“It’s an amazing facility. I hope that you guys recognize how special what you have here is,” Calder said. “This pool rivals a lot of amazing facilities out there, and you guys get to have this for a very long time. I hope that you, the student athlete, recognize how special it is and how hard people fought to get this pool and what it went through to get here, and that we make this a long legacy for many Marksmen to come.”
Matthew Hofmann contributed to this story.
2022-23
2023
2023-24
2024
2024-25
JANUARY 2017
Over a long five years, the school has recovered from an EF3 tornado, turned tragedy into a campus redevelopment project and secured the future of Lions athletics.
Before the tornado, the school releases “St. Mark’s Goals IV,” which includes a focus on improving facilities around campus.
OCTOBER 2019
NOVEMBER 2019
An EF3 tornado strikes the north end of campus, almost entirely destroying the exisiting Hicks Gymnasium as well as affecting other parts of campus.
Recovery begins with Spencer Gym being retrofitted to serve as the primary gym and with debris being cleared away from the north end of campus.
MARCH 2020
SUMMER 2021
NOVEMBER 2021
The Board continues to work on a plan through the onset of COVID, adding another layer to the already difficult process.
The first big step in building the new center is complete with the City of Dallas approving an amendment to the School’s Planned Development Document.
The architect for the new center is selected: CannonDesign.
JANUARY 2022
FALL 2022
SPRING 2023
CannonDesign holds several meetings with the Athletic Center Planning Committee to begin working ideas.
The final schematic design is completed.
Members of the St. Mark’s community gathered together for a groundbreaking ceremony for the Zierk Athletic Center.
SPRING 2024 Just one year later, the final metal beams are put into place during a topping off ceremony while members of the community watched.
JANUARY 2025 On Jan. 21, community members participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Zierk Athletic Center and Albert G. Hill Sr. Tennis Center.
FIRST COMPETITIONS HELD
The Lions basketball team faced off against Trinity Valley on Jan. 22, and the swim team hosted a meet on Jan. 30.
