The Lion's Roar Senior Section 2023

LION'SR A R

Photo by Eva Shimkus

To Volume 40's Next Adventures

Dear Readers,

We made it! Four vastly di erent years later, we come together today to commemorate the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. At this point, we’ve grown accustomed to changing routines practically every year, but today feels di erent — today, we leave our childhoods behind in pursuit of new adventures. Today, we say congratulations to the class of 2023!

Seniors, we stand at an in ection point. We are the bridge between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic South. We are the last class to have dragged ourselves out of bed and into 7:40am classes, the last to remember J Block and the last to remember a life without Zoom. Years of constantly changing schedules, learning models and pandemic safety protocols later, when South’s former traditions faded away, we took charge and reignited the school culture we experienced as freshman, introducing South spirit to new classes. We breathed life back into clubs, led chants during under the lights games, hosted fully in-person Tertulias, brought back the Lib Dub, performed in South Stage musicals and cheered on Candytones shows. We are South’s spirit, and for that we should be proud. Now, we arrive at yet another critical moment in our lives. Four years of cramming overdue assignments, building relationships, learning from our mistakes and somehow avoiding any nal exams has amounted to this. Enjoy the moment, because we have earned it!

To our readers and to our community, our paper simply wouldn’t have an impact without you. We do this for you, to tell your stories and to record the “ rst draft of history.” As the only print newspaper remaining in Newton, we hope to deliver a product we are proud to share, as we write, design and report to present the most accurate and representative coverage possible. A newspaper is only as strong as its readership, and we appreciate our whole community, from administrators to teachers to families, for giving interviews, for connecting us to additional sources and for reading our paper. Roar depends on your feedback, too, and your comments are always crucial — even if you end up using our pages for paper mache :).

Volume 39 Sta , together, we have survived the ups and downs of each issue, all for that glorious newspaper ink to stain our hands at distribution. For every late-night paste-up, 1 a.m. design edit, last minute follow-up interview, pillow ght at a certain St. Louis journalism convention and most-special photojournalism, your dedication to Roar has made us not just a paper, but a community. ank you for sticking with us through hundreds of Google Doc comments and InDesign meltdowns as you challenged us, learned with us and brought your best. We couldn’t have published this newspaper without you, and we couldn’t have asked for a better group.

Volume 40 Sta , we couldn’t be more excited to see all of the amazing work you will do. We know Roar is in phenomenal hands with your talent as you carry on the legacy of V39 and everyone before us. We saw the success of your immense creativity in your rst issue, and we can’t wait to cheer you on (perhaps even at Boston NSPA!?!) over these years to come. Long live Leonna <3 CONGRATULATIONS, everyone!

All our best, Volume XXXIX Senior Sta

Sarah Feinberg, Julian Phillips, Emily Schwartz, Eva Shimkus, Sarah Wei

Congratulations, Shay!

We are so proud of you and all you have done and can't wait to see where your adventures lead you.

We love you so much!

Mama, Daddy and Eliana

We are incredibly proud of everything that you have accomplished so far and are eager to see what you will achieve during the next milestone of your life. Your hard work and dedication continue to inspire us, and we hope you continue to seize every opportunity with enthusiasm.

We love you so much!

Dongsheng, Rong & Rachael

Oregon

Reed College

Mitchy Bojar

Univ. of Oregon

Soleil McAneny

California

Chapman University

Sanjana Deshpande

Daniel Diamond

Gabriel Levine

Bradley Pelish

Geffrey Friedman

Northeastern University Oakland

Yuval Ailon

Occidental College

Caroline Cole

San Diego

State University

Margaret Heberlein

Santa Clara University

Nicholas Canter

Scripps College

Anna Zeren

Stanford University

Amelia Everett

Of They Go

Senior Plans

Univ. of California, Los Angeles

Tony Fan

Univ. of California, San Diego

Leo Harris

Ali Jafri

Aris Li

Gun-Woo Park

Catherine Zong

Univ. of Southern California

Omar Jalisi

Univ. of California, Irvine

Yunze Hu

Arizona

Univ. of Arizona

Meejee Sarvey

Arizona State University

Victoria Stephen

Colorado

Univ. of Colorado, Boulder

Luke Beckett

Daniel Brown

Dylan Kay

Travis Scott

International

Carina Bagdasarian

Sandro Benmayor

Kian Farshi

Zoe Goldberg

Hannah Namini

Veronica Ohanian

Benjamin Rishikof

Gap Year

Omri Ayalon

Emma Colombini

Iymani DaSilva

Matthew Fitzpatrick

Kenzi Fleischhacker

Addyson Salek

Dillon Smit

Mateu Vargas Graupera

Jack Kelley

Luisa Pedreira

Mathilde Pellegrin

Other

Thomas Morson-Young

Ori Gallaugher

Gabriella Garik

Zelda Pierce-Provo

Tia Russell

Sade Arguello

Yael Bar-Or

Harel Friedlander

Itai Rotem

Jaden Scarr

Lucas Stafford

Jordan Sullivan

Yeela Tsalel

Tomer Kapluto

Henry Knight

Yoav Levari

Orly Shiner

Military

Alon Haimovich Erez Levy

Michael Rivers

Colorado State Univ.

Anna Mueller

Colorado School of Mines

Brandan Holt

Oklahoma

Univ. of

Zachary

Texas

Univ. of Texas

Dallas

Joshua Sebastian

Rice University

Claire Hooper

Of They Go Senior Plans 2023, Continued...

Vermont

Bennington College

Theodore Lai

Middlebury College

Maya Jha

Fairfield University

Irini Eliopoulos

Isabel Homer

Grace Morrison

Connecticut College

Katherine Connor

Malcolm Levy

Damian Sperrazza

Smith College

Cai Lin Lee

Boston College

Rachel Boey

Lucas Doung

Annika Engelbrecht

Connor Murphy

Connecticut

University of Connecticut

Sydney Chow

Laura Frothingham

Jessica Li

Rosalinda Olivero

Jason Wong

University of Vermont

Alexandra Chilton

Madison Deveney

Alexandra Sand

Dylan Shanahan

Samuel Welch

New Hampshire

Dartmouth College

Nathan Rottenberg

University of New Hampshire

Zachary Gabriel

Maine

Colby College

Madison Genser

University of Maine

Aleksandra Nedeljkovic

Bates College

Nicole Tandetnitskiy

Bowdoin College

Kamar Burris-Khan

University of New England

Emily Scheff

Wesleyan University

Saakshi Challa

Daniel Chan

Andrew Greenberg

Andrew Hsu

Trinity College

John Toyias

Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Talia Barts

Mica Berman

Laura Bouzinier

Isidora Carcamo

Amar Cintron

Ross Curran

Gabriela Dos Anjos

Niccolo Lee

Alex Levitan

Alexander Li

Hanna Liauchonak

Katie Lin

Ella Meirav

Julia Mirvoda

Westfield State University

Noah Taube-Perrotta

UMass Lowell

Kavin Chandok

Varshith Devireddy

Russell Lee

Rhode Island

Brown University

Kassra Ehsan

Alyssa Feinberg

Julie Wang

Roger Williams University

Ella Ezrin

Roy Salomon

Providence College

Declan Daley

Tufts University

Dan Bahar

Sarah Feinberg

Ella Hou

Jillian McLeod

Jacob McPherson

Sarina Miller

Mina Okaniwa

University of Rhode Island

Maureen Caulfield

Sarah Gelbert

Johnson & Wales University

Zachary Decter

Jessica Lee

Madison Wong

Rhode Island School of Design

Amanda Chung

Wentworth Institute of Technology

Valentin Andrieux

Jazmanny Pagan

Daniel Rivkin

Joseph Verdie

Augustine Vu

Harvard College

Natalie Jones

Matan Josephy

Jaray Liu

Wasan Rafat

Emily Schwartz

Ossimi Ziv Petreanu

Emerson College

Isabel Dantas

Chloe Yu

Christopher Vargas Bentley University

Daniil Brudnyy

Jake Cheong

Farah Gonzalez

Zavian Irfan

Chloe Man

Amanda Mintz

Wellesley College

Ines Koci

UMass Boston

Georges-Simon Allan

Eliane Dupret Dias

Western New England Univ.

Everson Quissanga

Jena Foster

Daniel Gelbert

Benjamin Goldblatt

Douglas Greenbaum

Royce Guan

Basmala Haddad

Jaden Heap

Fidan Huseynov

Simran Khatri

Kathleen Langan

Wheaton College

Ayla Flores

William McChesney

Tallulah Perez

MassArt

Liam Connolly

Anastasia Rybnikova

Brandy Silva

Charlotte Xerras

Clark University

Tyler Lee

Claudia Morin

Ayush Phirke

Eli Rabson

Lucas Rishikof

Woojin Seo

Ido Spigelman

Noya Stessel

Arielle Teleshevsky

Angela Yee

Dylan Yee

XinYao Zou

Framingham State University

Alexa Diaz-Ortega

Josslyn Dorfman

Tyler Wong

Berklee College of Music

Jude Seiner

Aleksander Xhoja

MIT

Audrey Wei

Luka Marceau

Jason Papa

Joutaro Takeoka

Brandeis University

Michael Amicangioli

Usha Berger

Nicole Chen

Alex Dong

Minki Kim

Ryan Liu

Simmons University

Alyssa Chen

Lyanna Tran

Boston University

Isaac Chan

Benjamin Kissin

Mary Lareau

Shoshana Liebowitz

Sarah Otis

Julian Phillips

Benjamin Werner

Lawrence Qiu

Melinda Yung

Lasell University

Asma Bahira

MassBay

Community College

Yarien Rivera Cruz

Williams College

Bria Abbiati

Babson College

Adela Cronk

William Freudenheim

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Shervin Boostani

Dezhen Zhang

UMass Dartmouth

Lila Donovan

Owen Dunker

Massasoit

Community College

Cinciere Israel

Benjamin Cummings

Inst. of Technology

Tracy-Adan Pennington

Northfield Mount Hermon School

Tyler Kadish

Merrimack College

Jacob Pilavin

MCPHS

Liyu Huang

Ameena Mazaeva

Amherst College

Eva Shimkus

Lesley University

Alise Hernandez-Fabregas

Northeastern University

Danielle Berdichevsky

Maya Berdichevsky

Suzannah Berezovsky

Jaden Chin

Oliver Friedenthal

Janani Ganesh

Kexin Huang

Isabel Itskin

Stefan Lachenmann

Jaesuh Lee

Jennifer Liu

Alexander Ma

Laaila Najam

Sylvie Nguyen

Benjamin Shaar

Aden Tom

Mai Tran

William Truncer

Nicholas Umansky

Arshia Verma

SENIOR CUP WINNERS

Each year, teachers and members of the graduating class nominate and vote for seniors who show excellence in service, leadership and scholarship for the Senior Cup

FINALISTS: Yael Bar-Or, Andrew Hsu, Wasan Rafat

"Last year, I used to be much more introverted, but then [serving on Class Office] pushed me to meet more people. I think it's similar this year — they all voted for me to become president, so I felt responsible to try and get this year to be as good as I could."

gianna burgess

"Gianna’s one of those students who educators see only once in 10 years ... Gianna is a true renaissance young woman, because she can do so many things ... [whether it be] art, poetry, dancing, singing, writing, organizing, leading, social activism. She’s not afraid to speak truth to power."

-katani sumner

Black student union advisor & metco counselor & legacy scholars program director

gianna's beats

“Being raised by my grandmother, she was like, ‘You're going to learn about Black history that they don't teach in school.’ … When you really look at history, you see why things are the way they are now … When you are aware of oppression in the world, you should speak up and do what you can to help educate others.”

"She’s always writing a poem or a speech. She’s such an activist ... She cares for the wellbeing of the community. I think that’s amazing."

-daniela Viloria '23

“They're good songs, like your typical, 'You got this,' but not in a cheesy way.”

searching roy ayers

optimistic sounds of blackness

tom shimoni

"Creating an engaged, spirited community has always been important to Tom ... he [was] pivotal in bringing a successful homecoming dance to the school and the awesome lip dub this year ... Tom makes all around him feel valued and important. He has made this senior year one of the best in the eight years that I have been a class advisor."

-kathleen sabet class of 2023 advisor

"He is a great friend who will always help out his peers and make sure that everyone around him is happy and well. I believe that without Tom as our president, this year's class office would not have been the same. He truly transformed us to be the best team that we could be."

-noa dahan '23 class officer

We are so proud of you and excited for all the good things to come. With Love from Mom and Dad

Congratulations, Eli!

We are so proud of you and the young adult you’ve become. We can’t wait to watch you shine on your next adventure.

Love, Mom, Dad, Gideon and Rocky

Griffin Wylie '23

We're so proud of you and the person you've become! We can't wait to see what's next for you.

Love, Mom, Dad, and Sarah

A Message From the Mayor

To the Class of 2023 – Congratulations.

I am moved by the resilience, compassion and talent in the Class of 2023.

You grew up in a world that has let you down … You lived through a worldwide pandemic and all its ripples of disruption and disappointment. Gun violence has made active shooter drills a part of your lexicon. Hate crimes are escalating. Our climate is hurtling toward a dangerous tipping point. e economy is shaky.

Yet, what I see in this Class is remarkable. Students getting involved and speaking up. Students with the courage to stand out and be di erent. Students laughing and singing. Students caring.

You have shown Newton, time and time again, that you have resilience baked into your DNA.

Please celebrate your hard work, growth and accomplishments. You earned this moment. Celebrate with and take a moment to thank friends and family and the teachers who helped you along the way. Grasp tightly the optimism and camaraderie, the excitement and love of learning as you leave Newton South.

e hard-earned resilience you carry with you as the Class of 2023 will serve you well. Know that no matter the obstacles you will inevitably face, you have the skills to move forward.

Know, too, that your community here in Newton, your foundation, your soft landing, will be rooting for you.