Volume LVI, Issue IV
15325 Los Robles Avenue, Hacienda Heights
December 2016
Renaissance Highlights Student Achievement By Joshua Sanchez December 5, the gym echoed with cheers and sounds of excited student cheering through the “Decades” themed rally. This rally recognized student achievement, athletics programs, and teacher alumni on campus until it was concluded with a traditional “Conqueror Chant.” To start off the rally with an enthusiastic cheer, the Los Altos Dance Team danced to “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley (1957) until transitioning into “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind, and Fire (1979). Following that was B-52’s “Love Shack” (1989) and after was “Are you that somebody?” by Aaliyah (1998). The Los Altos Dance Team thrilled the crowd with a dance through the decades before the focus was brought to the “GPA Jumpers” for this fall semester. “GPA Jumpers” is a category that celebrates student achievement, especially that of students raising their GPA by at least one full
point. The top “GPA Jumpers” however, were Giovanni Arellano, Julissa Lugo, Mayra Ponce who raised their GPA over 2 points. After this followed a video featuring James Tang with the background music of “Mr Sandman” by the Chordettes. This segued into school life, and was followed up by interviews of several teachers. Each clip was a blank slide question followed up by the teacher’s response. This was followed up by slides commemorating teacher alumni. As a throwback to the decades theme, it featured the yearbook photos of each teacher and commemorated their graduating year. It started featuring Geb Fisher in his class of 1985, and was quickly followed by Jeff Lucas and the class of 1986. After showing various pictures of them the nostalgic trip down memory lane continued to Ed Richter and the class of 1992, Esteban Hernandez and the class of 2001, along with Eric Palmer and the class of 2010. After the memories of the teachers were shared with all
Photo by Mateo Sandoval Senior Varsity Wrestlers honor Ignacio Molinar for acting as their stand in coach for over more than a year. rally-goers, a new series of clips were displayed portraying LAHS staff dancing to Y.M.C.A. by the Village People (1978). With all the teachers dancing to the upbeat song, the rally gained energy with each teacher’s dancing segment. Following this was a quiz of famous scenes from motion pictures in the 1980s.
Each scene is demonstrated by LAHS Drama, and the contestants are to guess what movie the given scene was based on. Several audience members shouted before the contestants being quizzed did, and the segment itself seemed to really garner crowd engagement. This followed with a reminder of the upcoming
Photo by Mateo Sandoval The Renaissance Rally named the best and brightest students and faculty, cycling through trends of years past.
Night Rally on February 10 at 7pm, encouraging each class to wear their colors. “Straight A Students” was another segment to celebrate students with, just that, all “A”s. Later it went to highlight Spanish Honor Society and HOSA, giving their officers recognition. Cheer later danced, performing to songs like “Hey Ya” by Outkast, further rallying the crowd before they went back to the final videos of each sport’s captain. Starting with Chris Leung, the video took us to the “Water Polo Crib” or rather the pool and personal locker room, celebrating their season. Past this, Angel Lee led the video to the tennis courts or “Tennis Court Crib” and talked about their season. Danyelle Marin recounts her season on the “Volleyball Crib’s” courts noting that they were undefeated 10-0 in conference and 5th time league champions. She passes the baton off to Santiago Torres and Cross Country, whom recount their season, and how Cross Country run through several trails and even the abandoned LA zoo. Finally Oscar Villa closed
with football remarking about their season in which they were almost completely undefeated. Following this captain and crib wrap up, the rally moved on to a final quiz about the school itself, with each captain competing for their sport. In their interesting quiz, students found out that the Administration Building caught fire in the 70s and that lockers were removed in 90s. With review questions students learned even more about their school, and were shocked to find that the Tennis Captain won the mini Kahoot quiz. Lastly, there was a traditional Impact Award, given to a special person whom helped a student. This year Noah Vidrio and Noah Clark both presented their shared Impact Award to Nacho Molinar for his coaching and mentorship with wrestling alongside all the other things he has done for Los Altos High School. The decades themed rally ended with the traditional conqueror chant, because regardless of when one became a conqueror, “once a conqueror is always a conqueror.”
ASB Rallies “Conqueror Crazy” Sports Fans of LAHS By Sumitra Bernardo Hundreds of Conqueror Crazy students flooded the gymnasium during third period to attend the ASB sponsored pep rally on Friday, December 2. Students who dressed up in Conqueror Crazy attire were able to get out 10 minutes before ISI, which enabled them to get priority seating.
ASB simply set up the gym by laying down the tarps and chairs, preparing pep cheers. The students learned new pep cheers that would be used at tonight’s game. Band was involved by playing pep tunes as students entered. Cheer pumped up the crowd with their routine. This was cheer’s very first rally performance of the school year. Varsity cheerleader and ASB Com-
missioner, senior Daniella Tavares states, “Our cheer team did really well for our first time performing in a rally for the whole school year. We hit our marks and pumped up the crowd.” ASB taught new pep cheers that would be incorporated into games. Cheers included the Conqueror Clap, Sway, and LAHS. ASB Officer, Sophomore Matthew Shozuya adds on about the
cheers, “The whole rally was exciting, especially the Conqueror Clap. The new cheers looked really cool when everyone did it together.” Senior varsity cheerleader and ASB commissioner, Daniella Tavares comments, “The simplicity of it was what made the rally a success. There were no videos playing or posters up. The school spirit and school unity is what made the rally
excel.” The rally concluded with two Senior Captains, Andrew Manuele and Tyler Nevens with speeches expressing their gratitude for their supporters and motivated the Conqueror Crazies with a small class competition crowd roar. Football Coach, Dale Ziola ended the rally on a high note by thanking everyone who made the rally possible
and who makes the football team thrive. Ziola believes that the football team feeds off of the support from the Conqueror Crazies. ASB students would like to hold pep rallies for other thriving school sports teams at school as well. Shozuya concludes, “It would be amazing to do this for other sports. After all, it is up to our student body, the Conqueror Crazies.”