September Little Hawk 2012

TheLittleHawk Iowa City High School - Iowa City, Iowa - Volume 70, Issue 1 - September 21, 2012 - www.thelittlehawk.com

Iowa City: A party culture

By Cassie Wassink

cassiewassink@thelittlehawk.com

ABOVE: Iowa City on a Friday night during the school year. photos by Eli Shepherd

Beer cans litter the ground and the bars are easily detectable by the lines that wind from the front door onto the sidewalk outside. It is a Friday night in downtown Iowa City, and the party scene is on.

Recently, a Princeton Review ranking highlighted this aspect of UI student life. The U of I appeared as number two on a list of the top twenty party schools. While the University is a separate entity entirely from City High, City High students have commented on the influence that this party culture has on their high school experience.

“I have friends at the University so I’ve stayed in the dorms with them and gone out with them to parties,” one City High senior said. “I guess everyone does have closer access, and teenagers, people from our school, will say that they’re going to a college party, or they’ll just go to parties downtown because they’re there.”

While students attest to the presence of drinking at the University, UI spokesman Tom Moore debates the validity of the recent ranking.

“It was puzzling, because we don’t understand the criteria used by the Princeton Review, and we have no indication that the survey has any validity or accuracy,” Moore said.

Describing past experience with this survey, Moore referenced the leap up from the ninth-ranked party school following the 21-ordinance. He also cited recent data from the National College Health Survey showing record-low drinking levels among students who drink routinely.

“There are fewer arrests for public intoxication amongst students,” Moore said. “It just doesn’t seem to match with the objective evidence we’ve seen.”

Despite Moore’s objection to the accuracy of this student-based survey, he does recognize that drinking remains a work in progress at the University.

“Clearly there is still work to be done, but also there are some very positive signs,” Moore said. “These parties or celebrations occur on every campus. The University of Iowa is certainly no exception.”

MECCA, a community-based organization which offers substance abuse and behavioral health services, weighed in on the issue. MECCA vice president Shannon Wagner commented on the presence of partying and alcohol at City High, prefacing her statements by acknowledging the intrinsic relationship between high school students and experimentation with alcohol and drugs.

“It’s a common thing, and not just because it’s City High,” Wagner said. “It’s because at any school with high schoolers, it’s just a common issue for teenagers that they’re dealing with trying alcohol and drugs.”

Wagner went on to describe how, despite the natural experimentation that is bound to exist at any high school, the University’s reputation as a party school does have a definite impact on City High students.

“With the University, when you grow up here, you certainly see a lot of drinking,” Wagner said. “It’s kind of tough when you’re being told you’re under 21, you’re not allowed to drink at all. It’s kind of a mixed message.”

City High MECCA contact William Batten expressed a similarly mixed perspective on the effect that alcohol at the University has on City High students.

“Sometimes people in the community have misconceptions about the amount of drinking at the University,” Batten said. “I’m not saying

it’s not a problem. The University is well aware, and they have undertaken a lot of efforts to change the behaviors.”

But Batten also expressed the belief that University drinking has the power to shape the experience of high school students.

“The perception that all college kids drink puts a lot of pressure on high school students to feel like that’s something they need to do to be successful, or a rite of passage,” he said.

Batten also echoed some of Moore’s sentiment, commenting on the damage of the Princeton Review’s ranking, as internalized by high schoolers.

“The main thing that concerns me is that people’s perception about what happens at the University can create a culture where it is okay to drink; it’s permissible, based on rankings that are not based on factual evidence,” Batten said.

It is not only MECCA authorities commenting on this influence.

City High students attested first hand to the impact of alcohol at the University on their own experience of partying.

“If I wasn’t in Iowa City, I probably wouldn’t have been to house parties before,” one senior said. “The people [I] work with are all [University] students, so they have parties.”

Another senior described a similar situation.

“The people I work with, they party a lot, so I hear about parties and I’ll hang out with them sometimes, and I go to a few parties,” this senior said.

Questions remain about the accuracy and reliability of the Princeton Review’s survey-based ranking.

Yet, according to both MECCA officials and City High students, there is no question about the impact of the UI party culture on CH students’ relationship with alcohol and partying.

City alum introduces President Obama in Ames

By Renata Stewart

renatastewart@thelittlehawk.com

On August 28, Mischa Olson ‘08 had a normal conversation with a man about her biology research and interest in politics at Iowa State University. What wasn’t so normal, however, was the fact that the man was President Barack Obama. The City High graduate (who had been chosen to introduce the President at a rally on the ISU campus) was waiting for her turn to speak when he came up behind her and started making small talk.

“He was genuinely interested in what I was up to,” Olson said. “He cares about people, and that’s what makes a good president.”

Graduating from Iowa State in December with a double major in Biology and Spanish, Olson has been interested in politics since a young age.

“My family was always active in politics in Iowa City,” she said. And as she grew up, this interest never really wavered, leading to opportunities volunteering for Obama’s campaign.

“In the summer of 2008, I volunteered for his campaign. And as a freshman at ISU, I got involved in the campaign,” Olson said. The bubbly senior said that her time at City High really pushed her interest in politics.

“When I was taking classes at City, my teachers were really good about informing students about the issues, and letting us have free-ranging, important discussions,” she said.

When she got to Iowa State however, the political atmosphere changed.

“There’s a big republican base in Ames, and a group of friends and I thought that there should be a more balanced debate and that both sides should be heard,” she explained. This led to them “re-booting” the Iowa

State College Democrats in order to pressure to write the perfect speech, said. “I just had to get them fired up. I make their voices heard. however, came a sense of calm in could just talk about things I was pasAll of this work and political knowing her constituency. sionate about.” interest culminated in her introduc“Of course I wanted to write Olson took this quiet confidence tion of the president this past month. something that was really, really to the venue, and as she was walkAbout a week before the event, Olson good. But then I realized that the ing out on stage, the President of the got a call from the Obama campaign majority of the people in the crowd United States gave her a boost, yelling headquarters, who said that they already wanted to be there. I wasn’t after her: “Go, Mischa!” were interviewing her as well as 5 or 6 trying to convince anyone,” Olson other students in order to get an idea of the issues that were important to them. Later in the week, another call came. This time it was from the Secret Service, asking her for her social security number. And finally, on the Friday before the big event, a third call came, asking her if she would like to introduce the President. She accepted the offer, and set about drafting her speech.

“The campaign suggested that I write about why I support Obama,” Olson said. “And why I think that participation among people my age is especially important.” Along with the ABOVE: Mischa Olson ‘08 hugs the president on the ISU campus. Iowa State Daily

A2 PREVIEW

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Section A

The Little Hawk Feature Magazine

4 NEWS: INCOMING TEACHERS AT CITY HIGH

7

By Naftalia Flatte & Neil Harte With the influx of new instructors at City come many changes in the classes they teach.

THEY CALL THEMSELVES BEST BUDDIES

NEWS: THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN IN IOWA CITY

By Alex Perez This Year, City High’s Best Buddies chapter has more members than ever. With 22 buddy matches and monthly events, Best Buddies is making it’s mark this school year.

By Jacob Potash

The Obamas and Bidens visited the University of Iowa for a campaign rally.

NEWS: REDISTRICTING IN THE ICCSD Staff Editorial An on-going local story continues with a few new variations.

5 NEWS: WHAT IN THE WORLD?!

By Renata Stewart Keep up with world current events with the Little Hawk’s take on what’s important now.

15

10

A&E: TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS OF MARCHING BAND

ON THE COVER: BABY BOOM (PART 2)

By Emma Baxter In the past year, seniors, Hong Nguyen and Hailey Bryan have had their lives turned upside down with the arrival of their babies, Carter Jackson and Kya Marie.

By Anes Kapo

You see them practice first period everyday and play at all the home games, but what happens behind the scenes?

Section B

4

7

SPORTS: LITTLE HAWK FOOTBALL

SPORTS: NO. 1 IN STATE VOLLEYBALL TEAM

By Alex Moen

By Ryan Young

City football looking to return to glory after losing the season opener.

Volleyball starts out ranked number one as they begin their road to state.

THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

By Will Bubraoff The upcoming presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is a heated debate. Students are turning to social media to express their opinions.

From your editors...

Cassie Wassink & Renata Stewart As you hold the September Issue of The Little Hawk in your hand, you may be noticing that we’re doing things differently this year. We, as a staff, decided that it was time for a change.

As more and more student publications across the country switched to magazine format, we

felt pressure to do the same. However, The Little Hawk newspaper is a true City High staple, rooted in tradition and laden with awards.

Should we continue as we’ve done before and carry on with the traditional paper, or should we innovate and become the first LH staff to switch to a magazine, which would allow for more freedom of design? Crafty problem-solvers that we are, we put our heads together and came up with the compromise you now hold: The Little Hawk newspaper combined with the LH Feature Magazine. The new format will lend itself much more smoothly to the modern page layout which our talented design team is working hard to create. With this adjustment, the hope is to continue the legacy of the Little Hawk in its purest form, while meeting the future head on, and opening the door to new and exciting design possibilities.

Beyond the substitution of a Feature Magazine for what used to be the B section, we are

celebrating a surplus of young reporters at City High. For the first time in decades, The Little Hawk has split into two sections to accommodate the growing number of journalists, which has surpassed the capacity of one class period.

Many hands make light work, but this blessing has presented its own challenges: how to maintain a sufficient level of communication between two class periods, while each is having its own discussions and making its own decisions? Thus far, we have elected to hold weekly meetings after school, as well as monthly Saturday work sessions. This allows editors to communicate with reporters and designers, and brings everyone together for one final push before publication. It is our hope that the staff continue to feel unified and involved, and that the increased enrollment serves only to increase the excitement, motivation and inspiration of the staff.

Along with these creative minds and hard-

working hands come, inevitably, more attentive eyes. It is our hope that this will lessen the errors that you, our readers, diligently point out as you leaf through the paper (or magazine).

We are fully aware of the sloppy mistakes that have slipped through in the past. Any comment made about The Little Hawk spurs a frenzy of dedicated staffers ready to problem solve. We are committed to eradicating the silly typos, easily avoided if stories are turned in with time to spare. With the new and very important position of copyeditor held by our very own Lily Howard, we are confident that these glitches will diminish substantially, if they do not disappear altogether.

With the combination of returning reporters and editors, along with fresh faces and new ideas we, as editors, are both excited and anxious to discover what the rest of the year holds for The Little Hawk.

The Little Hawk

NEWS

A summer in Germany

This past summer, students from City High’s German program went on a three week tour of Northern Germany, led by German teacher Casey Wilmesmeier.

By Neil Harte

neilharte@thelittlehawk.com

For the first time since she began teaching at City High in 2010, German teacher Casey Wilmesmeier led a group of ten upper-level students on a three-week tour of Northern Germany this past June and July. And the trip—consisting of homestays in several towns, day trips to cities like Hamburg, Hanover, and Bremen, as well as a four-day visit to Berlin— was, as they say, “wunderbar.”

“I enjoyed it a lot,” Tia Smith ‘13 said. “I had a very positive experience in Germany. It was a better start to my summer than I could have ever imagined.”

One of the first things students noticed upon arriving in Frankfurt was the first-rate quality of German cuisine.

“It was much richer than what I’m used to,” Erika Bethke ’13 said. “I had so many options and the food had much more flavor than anything available to us at home.”

Other than its superb food and the much cooler weather, life in the group’s first destination, the northern German state of Niedersachsen, seemed to differ little from everyday existence in summertime Iowa: City High students joined their hosts in popular daily pastimes such as going dancing, shopping, and swimming.

Plus, watching every match of Die Mannschaft, Germany’s national soccer team, in the 2012 Euro Cup. “Teenagers are teenagers,” Patrick Dey ‘14 said “They’re the same everywhere. My host and I would hang out downtown with the rest of the group.

Usually we would just talk and eat for hours.”

According to Smith, students did significantly more walking in Germany than they would have at home in Iowa.

The students who went on the German trip pose for a photo with their host siblings. Photo courtesy of Casey Wilmesmeier

“We never drove anywhere unless we were going to another city,” she said.

When not playing ping-pong or video games, Dey and the rest of the City group were able to experience what German high school is really like. Although the mere thought of having to go to school in the summer may have been a bit of a turnoff for others, this group was excited to spend some time in the German classroom.

“I was really interested to see how it would compare to American schools,” Brooks Henry ‘14 said.

“And I was very excited to meet a lot of new people.”

Classes proved to be somewhat different than those in the U.S. Each

class lasted a total of one and a half hours, although the school day itself went only from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

With only three periods and a different schedule each day, students rarely got bored.

“School was great,” Kait Coffin ‘13 said. “I enjoyed all my classes. We had lots of fun.”

Even though the group did not have to take final exams like their German counterparts, they still experienced some stress.

“I couldn’t understand anything the first few days,” Dey said. “Everyone used too many nouns and spoke way too fast. I was confused the entire time.”

However, as the summer days in Germany rolled by and students got

Johnson County ACT average tops state For the first time in many years, the Johnson County ACT average is higher than the state of Iowa’s.

By Max Friedman

maxfriedman@thelittlehawk.com

The averages for ACT scores at City High and surrounding schools are in, and they show a positive trend.

City High School’s average ACT score for the 2012 school year is 24.7, beating the State average of 22.1 “It’s a tremendously positive reflection on our students, families, and teachers,” Principal John Bacon said.

“It provides evidence of the high caliber of students that we have at City.”

With a state average of 22.1, Iowa holds second place in the nation in the category of schools where more than 50% of high-school graduates take the exam. Contributing to raise the state average, West High had an average of 25.8, beating City by 1.1 points.

“Having a very strong ACT Composite average reflects very well on our student population,” Eric Peterson, guidance counselor and standardized test administrator at City High, said. “It shows that students

AVERAGE ACT SCORES AT CITY HIGH

‘05/’06 – 24.6 ‘09/’10 – 24.7 ‘06/’07 – 24.5 ‘10/’11 – 25.1 ‘07/’08 - 25.1 ‘11/’12 – 24.7 ‘08/’09 - 25.8 have been working hard throughout their entire school career, not just in high school.”

In recent years, Bacon and the rest of the faculty have been working on strengthening the AP courses at City, in an effort to further foster the educative community.

“We’ve been doing a lot to beef up our upper-level classes,” Peterson said. “We figure that increased rigor

can only help.”

These efforts include AP Foreign Language courses, AP Computer Science, and the opening of AP US History to all grades.

“We’re still looking to expand our AP Courses next year, and we’re already looking into some possible options,” Peterson said.

into the swing of things, the challenges of communicating in a foreign language steadily decreased.

“By the end of the stay, I had gotten used to the accents and how fast people spoke,” Smith said. “I really saw my German improve. It didn’t feel as forced when we left.”

As with everyone else in the group, the most difficult part of the threeweek-long trip for Nikki Schmeling, ‘13 was to say goodbye to her new friends and family at the end of the experience.

“Leaving Germany made me realize that I had made some friends for life,” Schmeling said. “And that was really special.”

A3

Students win Youth Salute scholarships

By Lilly Reitz

lillyreitz@thelittlehawk.com

As the price of college tuition rises, students often find it hard to pay for post-secondary education. Hills Bank hosts a Youth Salute program to award scholarships to high school seniors, making the college tuition struggle just a bit easier. This year Kieran Green ‘13, Liliana Coelho ‘13 and Emma Baxter ‘13 received scholarships from Hills Bank.

“It was a surprise who nominated me,” Coelho said. “It was someone from City, but I don’t really know.”

Coelho won a $100 scholarship for her leadership skills. She is the president of the Interact Club, captain of the cross country team and is involved with the cross country team’s Run for Relief program. Coelho remains undecided in terms of college choice and future major, but she does know that she hopes to do something for humanity. She plans on using her scholarship money to pay for textbooks.

Green won a $500 scholarship for his leadership abilities. To earn the scholarship there was a series of interviews he had to go through after being nominated by an unknown administrator.

“Every bit of monetary aid helps,” Kieran Green ‘13 said. “But I think the most helpful thing is the fact that it looks good on college applications.”

Green hopes to attend Georgetown University, where he will study International Relations.

Kieran Green, Youth Salute scholarship winner. Photo by Ellen Caman

Locker locations create controversy

By Daniela Perret

danielaperret@thelittlehawk.com

As students walked out of the commons with their class schedules and locker assignments after registering this past August, many upperclassmen were shocked to find that their lockers for the year would be on the third floor.

“I was in disbelief when I found out where my locker was. I was trying to find my locker, and when I found out it was on the third floor I went straight to the office to figure out why a junior like me had a third floor locker. All they said was that Mr. Bacon was changing things up,” Tiara Philips ‘14 said. “I was mad for a long time and I complained a lot.”

Philips is one of many upperclassmen who have a locker on the third floor. A lot of these students feel that the changes are unjust and should not have been made.

“It seems pretty unfair that I have to be on the third floor as a junior,” Joel Reynolds ‘14 said. “I’m about 13

lockers down from the locker I had as a freshman. It just doesn’t seem right.”

The main reason for these changes is to improve traffic control throughout the building by managing where different grades have lockers. The goal is to spread the traffic flow throughout the whole building by not having all of one grade in the same location, at the same time.

“Nobody was doing anything wrong, it was just to improve traffic control throughout the building,” Vice Principal Terry Coleman said. “We’re just trying to establish a new normal.

We’ll continue to evaluate the new system through the year.”

Although these locker changes have improved traffic flow in parts of the building, many students have expressed opposition to the change.

“I feel like a freshman again where I have to walk around with a huge backpack and I have to put all of my things in it,” Reynolds said. “It feels like I was more of an upperclassmen as a sophomore than I am as a junior.”

A4 NEWS

Fourteen teachers join City High staff this year

By Naftalia Flatté

naftaliaflatté@thelittlehawk.com City High’s staff has gained fourteen new teachers this year, eight of whom will work in the special education department.

“I think it’s easier for new teachers to figure out a system that really works with each class,” Emma Holmes ’15 said. “Because they don’t already have set rules and guidelines they normally follow.”

New math teacher Jacob Schares expressed the benefits of his fresh vantage point.

“I don’t have any of the extra baggage that comes from being in one place for a while,” Jacob Schares, a new math teacher, said. “If everybody at City High does something one way, I may not know that, so I can still do it a different way.”

New orchestra teacher, Megan Stucky, recognizes the existing quality of the orchestra program, and has only a few changes that she plans to introduce.

“I wanted to start going to state large group contests,” Stucky said. “I like, as a director, having the feedback of what things are sounding really good and what things need to be worked on.”

Some students have expressed fears that the new teachers may not be able to maintain a calm classroom.

“I think returning teachers can often do a much better job of controlling their class,” Annie Hartley ’15 said. “They can use their experience, and their reputations, to keep people from acting out.”

However, these new teachers are committed to learning techniques and acquainting themselves with the City High system. Katie Shahan, new learning support teacher, described her dedication to “learning the nuts and bolts of how this program has been run for the last 42 years, and doing things my own way but still keeping the tradition going, just slightly updated.”

Despite some natural challenges, all of the new teachers have expressed excitement to teach at City High, and a willingness to tackle any bumps along the road.

“Being a first-year teacher, I knew that there were going to be challenges and unexpecteds,” Kaela Burkle, a new behaviour focus teacher, said.

“I’m just thankful to have a supportive team and system. Having a really nice group of kids helps a lot, too.”

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Two seniors take on summer internships at the U of Iowa Many students look forward to the summer with hopes of spending lazy days by the pool. However, last summer, two City High students traded the pool for research rooms and took on internships at the U of I.

By Will Lubaroff

willlubaroff@thelittlehawk.com Over the course of the summer two City High seniors, Sophia Opitz ‘13 and Juju Wang ‘13, both took on internships in the science department of the University of Iowa.

Opitz worked under the department head Ana Recober MD, researching Migraine Science. Her work involved mostly behavioral science, and researching the correlation between body weight and migraines.

“It was basically a bunch of obese mice running around,” Opitz said.

“We put them in boxes, and tried to make them partial to one side of the box by putting capsaicin in their eyes.”

Opitz’s internship consisted of three to four hours of work five days a week, for eight or nine weeks. Opitz was content with the work she did over the summer, even without pay.

For her, the experience she gained was worth every minute.

“I’m considering a career in a medical field, probably neuroscience, either as a physician, or a researcher,” she said.

Opitz recommends something like this to anyone interested, describing

the substantial value of her experience. Opitz became involved with the University through contact with her uncle. She recommends taking initiative for something like this.

Wang, on the other hand, worked in a separate lab, mostly on DNA replication. Wang’s experience was more akin to a real job, as she was paid.

“I just helped people with things in the University Biology Department,” Wang said. “I did PCR’s of mice bits.”

A PCR, or Polymerase Chemical Reaction, is a complicated chemical process involving DNA and gene processing. Wang’s work involved mostly genes, such as breeding mice for specific genes, working with mutated mice, and staining muscle cells.

“I took blurry pictures in a dark room,” Wang said. “There was a lot of work involved.”

Wang would compare the pictures of cells between two days. Some muscle cells would have a specific DNA code, while others didn’t. Wang had to discern the differences between the two.

“I learned a lot, plus I got paid over the summer,” Wang said. “It was a lot of work. It made me realize, we sit a lot at school!”

ABOVE: Wang ‘13 and Opitz ‘13 interned at the U of I. photo by Will Lubaroff

Twelve students selected as National Merit Semi-Finalists

ABOVE: Eleven of the twelve National Merit Semi-Finalists from City High. photo by Nat Alder

By Nat Alder

natalder@thelittlehawk.com

ABOVE: City High’s new orchestra director. Photo by Renata Stewart

The 2012-2013 National Merit Semi-Finalists were announced on Tuesday, September 11th. The students that were awarded the positions of National Merit Semi-Finalist are Ana Hollander, Francesca Lubecki-Wilde, Sophia Peterson, Ga-

brielle Bui, Sophia Opitz, Juju Wang, Avery Mossman, Juliette Enloe, Cassie Wassink, Abram Nothnagle, Lily Howard, and Noah Kaufmann.

The semi-finalists were chosen for scording a 207 or above on their PSATs. Abram Nothnagle ‘13 said he is more than satisfied to be a semifinalist.

“I’m extremely proud to be a semifinalist,” Nothnagle said. “My first

reaction was that of relief, because I hadn’t heard word of getting in so I began to give up hope.”

The next step for these students is to complete an online application, including a personal essay and a letter of recommendation, as well as confirming their PSAT score with a corresponding SAT score. Finalists will be announced in February.

Parking lot construction

By Christian Kennedy

christiankennedy@thelittlehawk.com Recently there has been a lack of parking spaces for City High students to use.

“There has been a decrease of spaces due to the construction,” Hall Monitor Chip Hardesty said. Normally the 400 or so spaces are enough for both the staff and students, but the construction has taken at least 20 of the spaces normally used. Now the faculty must park in the ‘Jock Lot’, and students are left to park on the street and off campus.”

Many students that are complaining about the parking issue are upperclassmen who believe they shouldn’t have to park off campus while underclassmen get parking spots inside school grounds.

“I have to drive around for ten minutes to find a spot and if I can’t find one, I look on the streets,” Ellie Benson ‘14 said. “It would be nice if upperclassmen had priority.”

Many students agree that upperclassmen should be able to park wherever they want while underclassmen are left with the less popular spots.

“Ultimately after the construction we will have enough spots,” Vice Principal Terry Coleman said. “Until then, there is simply no solution and students will have to find off-campus parking accommodations.”

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

WHAT IN THE WORLD?

What in theW RLD?!

The Lit one-pag tle Hawk’s going o e guide to wh n acros at’s comp s iled b the glob y Ren ata S tewar e. t & Ja son

LONDON 2012: WHAT HAPPENED AFTER? The Paralympics were held in London, August 29 through September 9.

The games marked the return of the Paralympic movement to its spiritual birthplace: the British village of Stoke Mandeville, that first hosted an athletics event for disabled British veterans of the Second World War. The event was made to coincide with the

opening of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. The games broke records for ticket sales, heightened the profile of the Paralympics in relation to the Olympics, and prompted International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Philip Craven to declare them the “greatest Paralympic Games ever.” www.wikipedia.com

A5

Arno ld

Compare & Contrast

JOHN BACON VS. HURRICANE ISAAC THE PRINCIPAL

CATEGORY

THE TROPICAL STORM

Anne and Kate

Sister

Katrina

Iowa City, IA

Birth place

Gulf of Mexico

X-treme Red & White

Detection

Radar satellite

“Here at the School That Leads”

Catch phrase

“SCHWOOOSHH”

Dr. Arganbright

Enemy

Land

Daily announcements

Media Coverage

The Weather Channel

WINNER: John Bacon

MERRIAM-WEBSTER ONLINE’S NEW WORDS FROM 2012

art by NEIL HARTE

YOU SHOULD KNOW WHO AUNG SAN SUN SKY IS...

She is a Burmese opposition politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy in Burma (the winning party in Burma). She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 years, from July 20, 1989 until her most recent release on November 13, 2010, becoming one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners.

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and is set to visit the United States this year. While here, she is expected to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest US honor. www.wikipedia.com

Me We rriambste Me r We rriambste r Me We rriambste r

1. aha moment 2. bucket list 3. cloud computing 4. copernicium 5. earworm 6. energy drink 7. f-bomb 8. game changer 9. gassed 10. gastropub 11. man cave 12. mash-up 13. sexting 14. systemic risk 15. underwater

WHAT: Spectators bring canned food items to the parade and exchange them for candy when you see the pick-up It’s not too late to have your senior portraits done!

Email us about our special “10 in 20” offer - get 10 high quality images from a 20-minute session!

IC Pixx 2008 Rochester Ave Iowa City IA 52245 icpixx@gmail.com 319.321.1370 Steve & Jackie Jensen IC Pixx www.icpixx.com

WHEN: 9.27. 2012 at the City High Homecoming Parade

City High School Ambassadors, Interact and Student Senate invites you to help!

ALL PROCEEDS WILL BE DONATED TO THE CRISIS CENTER

#schoolthatleads

A6 NEWS

New AP classes added for the 20132014 school year

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Frozen yogurt takes over

Frozen yogurt made its debut in Iowa City last year, and it has become one of the most popular treats in the downtown area. Now, two more shops are adding to the frozen yogurt craze.

By Ellen Carman

ellencarman@thelittlehawk.com

ABOVE: University students enjoy frozen yogurt while studying at Yotopia on Clinton St. in downtown Iowa City. photo by Ellen Carman

For many high school students, frozen yogurt has become a staple of any trip to downtown Iowa City. Now with three different frozen yogurt shops in the area, students have more options than ever. The first shop to open was Yotopia, just last year.

“I thought downtown Iowa City was a good place to open a frozen yogurt shop because I wanted to bring a new and healthy product to down-

town Iowa City,” Veronica Tessler, owner of Yotopia, said. “There weren’t any other [yogurt shops] here when I opened it.”

The frozen yogurt shop Orange Leaf opened this summer and Aspen Leaf is scheduled to open soon, also.

“I love frozen yogurt, so I was pretty excited to hear that Iowa City would be getting more fro-yo places,” Olivia Peterson ‘15 said. “It’s nice to have more options.”

Both of the new frozen yogurt shops are chain restaurants, while Yo-

topia is locally owned.

“I’m not too worried about losing customers to the chain frozen yogurt shops because Iowa City people are loyal to their local and independently owned businesses,” Tessler said. “I did the research before opening and I didn’t think Aspen Leaf and Orange Leaf were right for Iowa City because this town is unique and I wanted my frozen yogurt shop to be unique too.”

Although the new shops are chains, they both take pride in having different characteristics that set them apart

from other frozen yogurt shops. Aspen Leaf has fresh fruit toppings and candies from The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, while Orange Leaf offers a “family-oriented, visually uplifting environment.”

“Even though all of the new frozen yogurt places sell the same product, each one is a lot different than the other, whether it’s the taste, the setting, or the multitude of different toppings,” Peterson said. “It’s good for people to be able to enjoy whatever frozen yogurt shop they want to.”

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T H E L I T T L E H AW K . C O M

By Oli Peters

olipeters@thelittlehawk.com

WWW.

Many new Advanced Placement classes will potentially be added to the City High curriculum next year.

One class that the English Department has been seriously discussing is AP Language and Composition.

“I think it’s a great idea to add this class,” English Department chair Robin Fields said. “I’ve taught it at a different high school for three years. I think there’s a lot of merit to the class.

It seems to target a group of kids who might not like the literature aspect, they like the non-fiction aspect instead.”

Out of more than 400,000 students who take the AP test for this class each year, 83-85% of them are juniors.

Many high schools offer this class for students their junior year.

“We don’t know for sure if that’s what we want to do because we feel very confident about the classes that we offer now and the progression that they are in,” Fields said. “So trying to figure out where it will fit in is something we are exploring right now.”

Other classes that are being considered for next year are AP Studio Art, AP Psychology, and AP music theory.

“What I’m looking for is classes that kind of jive with what we are already doing. We can launch new classes, but for us to launch a new class that’s not at all like something we already have, then I have to come up with the staffing for that class,” Principal John Bacon said. “I have to figure out, okay, I’m going to spend a little bit of teacher that I have on teaching this class. I only have a certain amount of teachers, so what are we not going to have if we have this?”

The new classes will be proposed to the school board in November and approved students will be able to sign up for them in January when they register for the next school year.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

NEWS

A7

2012 Election Coverage

Obama campaigns in Iowa City

By Ellen Carman & Jacob Potash

ellencarman@thelittlehawk.com jacobpotash@thelittlehawk.com

President Obama addressed a crowd of about 8,000 people in Iowa City on September 7, 2012, repeating many of the themes and one-liners from his speech the night before at the Democratic National Convention.

“I honestly believe this is the clearest choice we’ve had in my lifetime,” he said, of the upcoming election. “It’s a choice between two fundamentally different visions of our future.”

He focused on his policies for revitalizing the middle class, investing in renewable energy, keeping education affordable, and creating new jobs. He touched on his support for women’s right to choose as well as same-sex marriage.

The crowd was upbeat during the speech, despite the rain earlier in the afternoon, and repeatedly chanted

“four more years.”

“I believe in a lot of things he has to say,” Cassidy Bringle ’14 said. “The whole abortion issue, and gay rights.”

Social studies teacher John Burkle offered tickets to some at City High, and many CH students attended the event. The majority of the crowd, however, appeared to be University of Iowa students.

“I want him…to continue to make sure the middle class people have an equal opportunity in this society.” Iowa sophomore Joey Fan, who is from Singapore, said. “Also, I would love to hear Michelle speak.”

Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden were in attendance, but did not speak; Vice President Joe Biden introduced the President. All four greeted the crowd at the end of the event, shaking hands and hugging lucky crowd members.

“It was definitely worth the wait,” Talbot Morris-Downing ’14 said after the event. “It was interesting to think that last night he was in North Carolina, and now he’s here.”

ABOVE: LEFT, President Obama addresses a crowd on September 7, 2012 in downtown Iowa City. RIGHT: A young girl waves a flag while listening to Obama speak. BELOW: The Bidens and Obamas greet the crowd. photos by Ellen Carman

Students help with campaigns Rouabhi starts work as

By Eli Shepherd

elishepherd@thelittlehawk.com

Of the many factors contributing to the final result of an election, voter turnout unfailingly plays a large role. While addressing a television audience on The Daily Show in 2008, President Barack Obama expressed this sentiment, urging the public to vote.

“Could I make a plea for everyone, just to get out and vote,” President Obama said.

While the show received record viewing numbers and the plea a positive response, national voter turnout still barely surfaced above 50%. Half of America made the choice for the other half, and this was a year where people came out in record numbers.

Those that led Obama to victory in 2008 consisted of several large demographics that don’t always come out, leading to the large role of 18-24 year-olds in the ‘08 election.

This year America goes to the polls to make a choice between candidates offering their own sets of goals,

and their own proposals for how to realize those goals. As Obama put it, the choice between him and Mitt Romney added up to, “the choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.”

Members of the press and voters have long debated what the prevailing issue in the election is, the economy and jobs typically topping the list.

“The economy is probably the biggest issue that comes to mind for most people,” Ava Vargason ‘13 said.

She also reiterated the stark differences between the candidates. “There’s a split between two very different economic ideologies between the candidates, and Obama has been under fire about his economic decisions in the past term. I think it’ll be a deciding factor.” Vargason is an Obama supporter and said she has been involved in his re-election campaign, making phone calls and volunteering at Obama’s Iowa City office.

Averi Cole ‘13 expressed discontent with both leading candidates, citing their footholds on opposite sides of most issues as a frustrating factor.

TheLittleHawk

YES NO MAYBE

“I don’t really like either of the candidates so I’m not really sure how I’ll vote,” Cole said, also mentioning that she may not vote at all if she can’t decide.

Terra Perez ‘13 said that everyone she knew planned to vote.

“I’m going to vote and all of my friends who are old enough will be voting,” Perez said. “I don’t really know anyone who’s not going to.”

Vargason made the case that, as US citizens, people should take advantage of the right to vote, especially when many other countries fight wars over the matter.

“We have a democratic country for a reason, don’t complain about the policies of our president or our congress if you don’t want to get out there and vote yourself,” Vargason said. “Not going to the polls is allowing a candidate you don’t support get votes from the other party. I think everyone should take advantage of being able to get involved in our political process - it’s something that a lot of countries do not get to do.”

STUDENT POLL

OBAMA ROMNEY NOT SURE

Do you plan on voting in the presidential election?

If so, which candidate do you plan on voting for?

*30 students polled

student body president

By Nat Alder

natalder@thelittlehawk.com

The 2012-2013 school year is one month underway. City High is under the student leadership of Mohamed Rouabhi, who was voted as Senior Class President in May of 2012.

Rouabhi, along with Vice President Ryan O Malley ‘13, plan on keeping some City High traditions similar, but also on shaking things up a bit.

“Obviously with Homecoming and Prom, we just plan to stick to the book and plan the events how they’ve been planned in the past few years,” Rouabhi said. “We’re giving a big push to the recycling aspect, which was started last year.”

Rouabhi has some new ideas as well.

“We want to get a City High dance group going for the University of Iowa dance marathon,” Rouabhi said. “We’re really keen on getting that started and continuing with the recycling project so far.”

Rouabhi says that he sees similarities between his own start and that of last year’s senior president Sophie Neems ‘12.

“Neither of us did Student Senate for our first three years of high school,” Rouabhi said. “So seeing Sophie be president despite that fact told me that it wouldn’t be an obstacle.”

Some of the plans that Rouabhi promised during his campaign last year included fixing the parking lot space issue. Rouabhi is working to get that changed.

“We are working hard on that, but it’s going to be tough, because the administration is dealing with a very little amount of room,” Rouabhi said.

“We’re all trying our best though, to see what we can do.”

Rouabhi says that though it isn’t too easy, he still gets some help from fellow students.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that

it’s easy,” Rouabhi said. “But with Kesha Hyche and Ryan O Malley, they’re helping me out a lot, which is great, making things a lot less difficult for me.”

Rouabhi says he will be planning big things for the end of the year.

“As soon as Homecoming is over, we’re going to be having a huge brainstorming session,” Rouabhi said.

“Hopefully we’ll have something huge by the end of the year that will stay with City High for a long time.”

Rouabhi says that one of the bigger tasks for him as president is addressing his fellow seniors during graduation, with his speech.

“I think about the speech all the time,” Rouabhi said. “As of right now, I haven’t started writing it, but I want to write something that will inspire people to go out and do something in the world.”

While writing the speech may be a personal task, Rouabhi certainly coordinates with his colleagues.

“Kesha is doing a lot of the administrative stuff for me, keeping me on schedule, helping me out with announcements,” Rouabhi said. “And Ryan keeps me in check, backs me up on a lot of things. Makes sure I represent City High well.”

Rouabhi is determined to work closely with Student Senate.

“Kesha and I are in contact with them every day,” Rouabhi said. “Planning, organizing events. We have executive meetings once a week, we’re texting each other all the time, giving updates on certain things.”

For more news coverage go to thelittlehawk.com here:

A8 NEWS

A9

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Redistricting: The story that never ends ICCSD Board considers redistricting options

The School Board and community members are debating new schools and zoning lines as they prepare for a 2013 plan.

By Jacob Potash

jacobpotash@thelittlehawk.com

As the Iowa City Community School District Board gears up for a 2013 district-wide facilities plan, one of their top priorities is solving the problem of overcrowding in schools, and with 12,000 students and a divided constituency, there are no easy answers.

“This is certainly a very important time in our school district, as this board and the community try to chart a course for the future of our school district,” City High Principal John Bacon said.

“And there’s no doubt there are some big decisions to be made right now.”

Stephen Murley, superintendent of schools for the Iowa City Community School District, is expected to publish a report early next year with his recommendations for the School Board, each of which will be discussed and voted on.

“We haven’t made any specific decisions,” board member Jeff McGinness, a local attorney, said. “[Superintendent Murley] is going to present us with a facilities plan. Throughout, we’re going to tweak it and come up with what the board wants as a district-wide facilities plan.”

With West High over capacity for the fifth year in a row, many fear that City will be unable to handle West’s surplus.

One of the proposals before the board is a new, third comprehensive high school which the board has been saving up for since 2007 through the School Infrastructure Local Option (SILO) Sales Tax. Principle Bacon thinks the third-highschool option should be considered.

“Is there a way feasibly to stick with two [high schools]? That’s going to be more efficient and less expensive than building and operating a third high school,” Bacon said. “If we find that that would not work well, then I would certainly say that yes, it’s time to build another high school.”

McGinness is not sure if that need will arise any time soon.

“We have more pressing needs at the elementary level in the short term,” McGinness said. “So for me it would be to use the money we have for what we need right now, and then when we get to the point of saying we absolutely have to have this high school, then I’m for that.”

Julie Eisele is a mother of three ICCSD students and a backer of Support Iowa City Schools, a recently-formed group that opposes the construction of a new high school. She echoed McGinness’ concerns about addressing urgent needs first.

“There is nowhere to move elementary students right now on the East side, so there is a need for new elementary schools,” she said. “The most urgent needs are not at the high school level, because there is space at City High.”

Principle Bacon expressed a similar sentiment.

“I think it is really worth taking a serious look,” Bacon said, “at whether it’s time to put an elementary facility out here on the east side.”

He and others see new elementary schools both as a means of accommodating existing students as well as creating growth.

“I think you’re seeing people in the older parts of town say, ‘hey, a lot of the new building is there [on the west side],” Bacon said. “Schools are built because those areas are growing, but then once they’re built and there’s this beautiful new school there, it is a little bit of, ‘if you build it, they will come.’”

Some maintain that instead of building new schools, balance can be restored to schools simply by redrawing zoning lines. Chip Hardesty, a monitor and coach at City High, said the board has been unwilling to “take the political heat for it,” referring to resistance from families to switching school zones.

“It’s a sad belief that kids can’t adapt,” Tom Yates, president of the Iowa City teachers’ union, Iowa City Education Association, said. “How long does it take a little kid to make new friends?”

Such concerns came to light dramatically in 2009. That was the year the board began the process of comprehensive redistricting, a process that Tuyet Dorau, another board member, says started a dialogue that “could be very ugly.”

“It started up talking about things that we were not always comfortable talking about,” Dorau said.

Many students from areas that had long fed to West were reassigned to City, and at town meetings and other forums, families expressed criticism of City and doubts about their children’s ability to thrive there.

“I think that people fear change,” Eisele said. “They have allegiances to certain high schools and it makes sense that they do because...boundaries have not changed for forty years.”

Board members are eager to get past these allegiances.

“I have problems with ‘us’ and ‘them,’” Karla Cook, a former City High math teacher and current board member, said.

“Every school in this district is a good school and saying that one is better than another one -- it bothers me.”

The board should look deeper than numbers, according to some. Hardesty looks to the board to “balance so-called socio-economic levels of students,” but, he specified, “not necessarily based along more traditional diversity lines like race.”

“That’s a pet peeve of mine,” he added.

“That’s a shallow definition of diversity.”

Hardesty also joins many others in his disappointment with the results of the board’s 2009 decisions, which suffered from a lack of enforcement, as well as grandfathering clauses, which

Cook admitted “caused some problems.”

Hardesty went as far as to say that “all the redistricting in 2009” accomplished “virtually nothing.”

“The delays and accommodations built into that system have meant that it’s been years before we even start to see some of that,” Hardesty said.

Yates does not think the 2009 decision-making process was handled well.

“Nothing got acted on. One of the strangest things about the process was the one hundred thousand plus dollars the district spent on the consulting firm from Kansas City which basically provided demographic information the district already had,” he said. “And then nothing happened.”

Doreau explained that, due to “two or three rounds of grandfathering,” it will be two to three years before the district “start[s] seeing the results and repercussions of those moves.”

Dissatisfaction with the School Board is attributed by some community members to deeper flaws in the board’s functioning, specifically their lack of a longterm plan or a more regular redistricting schedule. According to McGinness, such deficiencies have led to a board that is “always playing from behind.”

“We don’t really have a comprehensive facilities plan,” McGinness said.

Yates agreed. “Other districts at least have a process in place whereby they can look at redistricting issues... every three years or every fives years,” Yates said.

Others go even further, maintaining that in the Board’s focus on redistricting, they have neglected important issues.

“We’ve been focusing on field turf.

We’ve been focusing on selling Roosevelt. We’ve been focusing on building an elementary, without data,” Dorau said. “Instead of talking about managing things, we should have been talking about what do we want to accomplish as far as priorities for our district when it comes to education.”

Cook echoed this sentiment: “I wonder when it is that we’re going to start talking about what we teach and how we teach it, because I honestly think that the classroom teacher and the curriculum are the most important thing for a student.”

The school board understands that whatever is decided next year, their work will not be over.

“When we are dealing with a pot of money that isn’t large enough to do everything we want or need to do, we’re never going to make everybody happy,” McGinness said. “And there has to be some compromise.”

Despite the challenges, the board is not ready to stop wrestling with the tough questions of education.

“You guys are going to be the ones that revolutionize the world,” Dorau said, addressing the district’s students.

“So are we giving you what you need?”

art by Juliette Enloe

Northwest students to come to City High in 2013

Students that went to Lincoln Elementary and are now eighth graders at Northwest Junior High have been districted to go to City High next fall. This change attempts to blur the division that has been created between the East and West sides of Iowa City.

By Ellen Carman & Oli Peters

ellencarman@thelittlehawk.com olipeters@thelittlehawk.com

Next fall, a small group of students from Northwest will be leaving behind the Trojan mascot and becoming Little Hawks. These Lincoln Elementary alumni are part of a new redistricting initiative, attempting to even out the populations at City and West High.

“I put myself in their shoes, and it’s a little unusual to be the only group in that [Northwest] junior high that is not going to West. They’re coming to City.

I think of how that would feel if it were my child,” City High Principal John Bacon said. “I definitely feel personally responsible for making it an excellent transition for these families.”

Originally, students that were eighth graders who went to Lincoln and Hills elementary schools were supposed to attend City High in 2010.

“It’s been a four year process of redistricting, so there’s been a lot of communication with the parents and

students that will be transitioning from Northwest to City,” Northwest Principal Gregg Shoultz said. “When the new superintendent came, he changed the policy that Lincoln Elementary kids would go to Northwest and it was delayed until this year.”

West High has a capacity of 1800 students and almost 2000 are currently attending the school. City High has about 1400 students and a capacity of 1600.

“When they pushed back the transitioners I thought, that’s fine but we have waited patiently and the time has now come that those sixth graders are now eighth graders,” Bacon said. “So it is game on again in terms of our responsibility to make sure that we are reaching out to those people.”

Amongst the students who will be transitioning next year is a current eighth grader at Northwest named Jim Geerdes.

“I found out that I was going to go to City High early my seventh grade year and when I heard I wanted to find out if I could get a transfer to West, but I

wasn’t able to,” Geerdes said. “I’d rather go to West than City but that’s just because I’m at Northwest now and most people go from Northwest to West. It’s not really a problem about not having friends at City or anything because I know a lot of people there, it’s just that it’s normal to go from the school I’m at now to West.”

One of the problems with the transition is that students must change their alliances from West to City.

“Everybody is passionate about the school they go to,” Lucas Ptacek, the Assistant Principal at Northwest said.

“And with only two schools in Iowa City there’s that obvious division of City and West which creates a big rivalry.”

Geerdes participates in Cross Country and basketball at Northwest, and plays club soccer. He also has an older brother who is a freshman at City.

“I don’t really think that City High isn’t as good as West, I think they’re both good schools,” Geerdes said. “I mean, I hear a lot of rumours here about what goes on at City and not all of them

are good, but I can’t really go off of those because people are biased towards West here.”

Bohan Yao, an eighth grader at Northwest, has an older brother who graduated last year from West High.

“My older brother told me he felt bad for me when he heard I’d be going there,” Yao said. “But then I told him that I had friends there [at City] and he said I’d be fine.”

Some Lincoln Elementary students went to South East and Yao is excited to be reunited with them again next year at City High. He is also excited to participate in City High sports.

“I have friends at both schools, so I don’t really care which school I go to,” Yao said. “I plan to swim in high school.

I’m excited to switch alliances from West to City because I’ve heard good things about the swim team at City.”

The change will also affect the parents of the students being transitioned.

“Some [parents] advocate for a ‘strict feeder system’, which is where you go to elementary school, junior high, and high

school all with the same people,” Shoultz said. “Many other parents that went to school in this area didn’t grow up based on that system because there used to be Central Junior High. Those folks are generally more positive about a split feeder system because they lived it.”

The Iowa City community has had a strict feeder system since the 1970s, and many people have become used to going to school with the same people through High School. However, in other communities, being split up from your original class is not unusual.

“I came from a community that had three high schools and my junior high was split. It was just the fact, we didn’t know any other way. Some kids would go to one high school, others would go to different ones,” Shoultz said. “We didn’t argue about it, it was just the norm. I even remember going to dances at the other schools.”

2013 will be the first year that kids from Northwest are districted to go to City High.

“I think it can strengthen our com-

munity but I know that being the first group of people to transition will be horrible. I also know that the kids who transitioned because they moved are happy with which school they go to,” Shoultz said. “Once these kids report back that City High is a good school then we won’t have these problems.”

To help with the transition, Bacon has invited students from Northwest to come to City High for a night of football fun and experience what it’s like to be a City High student. As the year progresses, more emphasis will be put on high school and what to expect at City High for the select group of Northwest students.

Regardless of school rivalries and strict feeder systems, many Iowa City residents appreciate both City and West High in the same way that Geerdes does.

“Underneath it all, I don’t really think people care that much about which school they go to,” Geerdes said, “Because an education is an education, and both schools are great.”

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LH

Executive Editors

The Little Hawk

OPINION

Staff Editorial:

A Cultural Divide

We can’t deny that there is a cultural divide at City High. However, confronting it through unconventional means may yield surprising results.

renata stewart, cassie wassink

News Editors

ellen carman, oli peters

Opinion Editors

sonora taffa, kieran green

A&E Editor gabriel basile

Feature Editors

alexandra perez, emma baxter

Sports Editors

ryan young, annika wasson

Design Team

nora holman, jason arnold, emma gier, renata stewart

Photo & Video Editor eli shephard

Copy Editor lily howard

Online Editors

nat alder, max friedman

Ad Managers

mikiel curtis, nora holman

Staff

emmalie bohnsack, michael clougherty, malin craig, juliette enloe, naftalia flatte, olivia hamilton, neil harte, kara hartley, anes kapo, christian kennedy, will lubaroff, alex moen, bradon offerman-mims, daniela perret, jacob potash, lilly reitz, brienna rios, james willging, kierra zapf

Advisor

jonathan rogers

mission statement The Little Hawk, the student newspaper of City High School, aims to inform, educate and entertain readers; to provide an educational opportunity for the students who produce it; and to provide a medium for commercial advertising.

Equity Statements English Version: It is the policy of the Iowa City Community School District not to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability, or socioeconomic status in its educational programs, activities, or employment practices.

If you believe you have (or your child has) been discriminated against or treated unjustly at school, please contact the Equity Director, Ross Wilburn, at 509 S. Dubuque Street, 319-688-1000.

Spanish Version: Declaración de Equidad: Es la política de Iowa City Community School District no descriminar en base a raza, credo, color, género, origen, religión, edad, estado civil, orientación sexual, estado de veterano, incapacidad, =estado socio-económico en sus programas educacionales, actividades, o políticas de empleo.

Si usted piensa que usted o su hijo (a) han sido descriminados o que han sido tratados injustamente en la escuela, por favor comuníquese con el Director de Equidad, Ross Wilburn, 509 S. Dubuque Street, teléfono: 319-688-1000.

art by JULIETTE ENLOE Race: it’s one of those things that nobody seems to want to talk about.

For the average American (and for that matter, the average City High student), talking about race is about as enjoyable as having the fingernails on one’s left hand pried off with a rusty nail, or being forced to listen to an hour-long rendition of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” From a certain perspective, this is understandable. After all, racial tensions have been the cause behind a great deal of suffering, guilt, and oppression in the nation’s past. And so, race is never discussed. It is instead “put on the back shelf,” as it were, to gather dust next to “conversations with our parents about sex” and “in depth discussions about nasal fungi.”

However, every once in awhile there comes an opportunity to have a genuine conversation about race without it being uncomfortable. One such opportunity has arisen in the form of this year’s school play, “Mayberry,” which deals with issues of race in Iowa City. It brings to our attention a rather glaring truth, which is that, while City High may have a ton of diversity, we still have a ways to go if we want to become a true “melting pot.” Thus, The Little Hawk staff desires to take this opportunity to offer our input, to help make the City High populace more vibrant and dynamic than ever before.

Issues of race are, not new to City High. In many ways, the attempts to integrate entirely new groups of peo-

Do you support efforts to increase diversity within the student body?

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YES:

ple into our community have defined the past decade at City High. And in many ways, that integration has been successful. Violence between students at City High is almost non-existent, and the school’s cultural environment is one of the most diverse and tolerant in the nation.

However, we still have a ways to go. For example, many students will self-segregate into groups that are pre-determined by culture and ethnicity, and friendships between students of different cultures are the exception, rather than the rule. Then there is the matter of classroom representation. Students of color are overwhelmingly underrepresented in AP and honors courses, and students of color across the nation consistently score lower on standardized testing.

In many ways, a lot of these things are outside of the control of the City High population. In junior high and even late elementary school, students are often pigeonholed into a given “role,” and they stick with that role as

NO:

they age. Oftentimes, a poor experience can cause students to enter high school already unwilling to try, but there are ways that the City High staff can reverse this trend.

We need to make it clear that a bad academic performance in junior high doesn’t necessarily lead to a bad academic performance in high school. To help send this message across, we should have a stronger dialogue between teachers and guidance counselors. This could allow our counselors to recommend advanced classes to students based on their ability, not just their test scores. We could also make a more concerted push to make advanced classes the “norm” instead of being reserved for a select demographic of students. This would have the added benefit of combating “self-segregation,” as it would give students from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to interact more as part of a class.

In addition to academic diversity, we believe that City High can do more

to encourage a broader degree of cultural diversity. Dedicated “culture sharing” nights are regularly held at West High, in which students are able to share food and music from their native societies. These could very easily be replicated here at City High.

However, given that we are the school that leads, we think that City High should take things a step further. In addition to culture nights, we could host “music sharing” festivals, or even organize non-American sporting events (such as rugby or cricket) for students to compete in. In the end, the means to encourage diversity are largely unimportant, so long as students are getting connected. All that the administration has to do is organize to reach out to students, and to provide a venue where a genuine, bottom up approach to culture-sharing can occur.

City High already stands as an exemplary model for schools across the nation in both its progressive approach to teaching its diverse populace, and the opportunities that it offers to its students. Even so, by taking a more concerted approach to promoting student integration, we can move beyond being just a “safe environment” to being a truly robust environment in which students of all colors and creeds are able to flourish.

In doing so, we remain true to the ideals conveyed by “Mayberry,” and our own values as “The School That Leads.”

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

OPINION

Locker Mayhem

Hectic Homework

by ELLEN CARMAN

I have to admit, I wasn’t excited for the school year to start last month.

Shocking, I know. In an attempt to look on the bright side, I repeatedly reminded myself that I was finally going to enjoy the perks of being an upperclassman. I finally wouldn’t have to hike up those mercilessly steep stairs to reach a third floor locker every day. So directly after receiving my new locker number at orientation I eagerly set out to find my locker.

I began my search on the first floor, daring to hope that I would be one of those lucky juniors with a prime locker position. I made my way through the math hallways, then down toward the music wing.

I wandered by the cafeteria, and finally even checked out the freshmen science wing.

Feeling a little disappointed that I hadn’t lucked out with a first floor spot, I climbed to the second floor, feeling confident I would find my locker there. I didn’t. When I finally located it on the third floor, I was beyond angry. This had to be a mistake! I didn’t even bother to try my combo. Instead, I very maturely, decided to stomp loudly down the three flights of stairs, mumbling about this injustice the whole way down.

Safely back on the first floor, I was informed that this was not a mistake, but a random and unlucky twist of fate. The administration has decided to randomly scatter freshmen through juniors’ lockers in an attempt to control traffic during passing periods.

In other words, our school has decided to separate us from our friends so that in addition to working hard in class, we have no opportunity to socialize between classes. I under-

“

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by SONORA TAFFA

stand the administration’s concern for clogged hallways, but last time I checked our five minute passing time was used to get from one class to another. Should the administration be allowed to regulate the way in which we do this? As long as we arrive in class, it shouldn’t matter if we take a bit of time to enjoy ourselves in the process.

This may not seem like the end of the world, and it isn’t. However, when school can sometimes seem stressful and superficial, being able to walk across the hallway and talk to your friends and getting to see a face that isn’t marking your assignment ruthlessly with red ink makes a difference. Most of our parents are working their jobs from nine to five; however, many of us are attending school from before eight until far after five. So a friend nearby makes a difference.

Small joys like having a locker near your friends and working your way down to the first floor are what makes the big burdens in high school not seem so big.

I don’t think the administration had any intention of disregarding the best interests of the student body by separating us from our class in the name of traffic flow. However, with more certainty, I believe that the students of this school will make sure that this is not taken away from them in the future.

The spirit and unity we create with our class at City High is something that we need to protect. We cannot stand by and watch as the tools that we use to create ties with each other are taken away. Let’s stand up for what’s rightfully ours, no matter how big or small it is.

Small joys like having a locker near your friends and working your way down to the first floor are what makes the big burdens in high school not seem so big.

When I begin to feel overloaded, I try to remember one thing: I did this to myself. In those fateful weeks before school starts, when I was feeling on top of the world and highly intelligent (probably because there had been no recent tests to check my ego), taking all those AP and honors courses sounded like a great idea. However, after about the first week of school reality sets in for everyone. By reality, I mean homework. And by sets in, I mean full on falls out of the sky, burying unsuspecting students eyeball deep in paperwork as they gasp for their final breaths of summer air before being swallowed whole.

If that last line resonated with you, you’re probably a junior.

Whether you prefer my death-bydrowning-in-paper analogy or Mr. Bacon’s “moving year” one, the message is clear. Junior year’s workload is a step up. This is a necessary step in the high school process, as college choices are right around the corner and classes become more advanced. However, lately I have begun to wonder whether the amount of homework my classmates and I recieve on a daily basis is helping or hurting us.

In the first month of this school year I’ve heard classmates

talking about sleeping five hours, being forced to choose between assignments, and spending up to three hours on one class each night. These students have full schedules, packed with AP classes, and are involved in more extracurriculars than any sane person can handle. They’ve taken on this load themselves, and they’re paying for it in precious hours of sleep and their social lives. However, it’s not completely the students’ fault that they are struggling to handle what they’ve put on their plates. Teachers need to understand that City High is full of ambitious students, and they need to keep the busy schedules of those students in mind when they assign a two hour homework assignment. Homework is obviously a key component in any successful education; however, it’s only beneficial in reasonable amounts. How are students expected to complete seven periods’ worth of homework, if each assignment has the potential to take more than an hour?

A productive work environment needs to include consideration and communication between both students and their teachers.

The best classes I’ve ever taken have been taught by teachers who ask their students what their weekly

schedules look like, then attempt to spread out homework assignments accordingly. The result of this strategy is a reasonable and productive homework load. When I sit down to do those assignments I know that I’ll be able to create a quality product, simply because I have enough time. When assignments are unreasonably long, the only thing I’m concentrated on is getting through them so that I can collapse in bed, not comprehending the subject matter. Teachers are here to help us.

They want to help us learn and they want to help us be successful. However, in order for homework to be constructive and helpful, a ceratin level of communication is needed between students and teachers.

Homework is never going to leave, so students need to organize themselves to be successful and teachers need to give them a fighting chance by catering to their schedules. Late nights and school stress are normal, but only in moderation. If homework is taking over your life, if you have a continual twitch in your left eye, or if you’ve forgotten your friends’ first names... talk to your teachers. Or better yet, a psychiatrist.

“

Wasteful Thinking

by ELI SHEPHERD

water bottles taken from the recycling bins around the stadium, the entire time marveling at how little people drank before deeming their bottle finished and disposing of it.

Several of the bottles had in fact, not even been opened at all. One bottle of water had been purchased with hard earned dollars and promptly disposed of. While I find it utterly fantastic that the plastic container was placed into the recycling bin and not the trash can, there is something ingrained in the minds of us all that is even more disturbing than the fact that brand new products are being directly disposed of. We as a people believe that waste is an unavoidable consequence of living. Or at least subconsciously.

“Don’t just dump that out, it’s still good!” someone yelled, seeing me and Logan dumping the contents

of the bottles into the grass.

At the end of the night, his argument still resonated. It was still good. So were all the other hundreds of bottles that failed to make it into the recycling at this one football game alone. Maybe 1500 people had created a small mountain of what was already waste or would eventually be waste, in just under three hours. And this was nothing new. The average American generates 4.6 pounds of trash per day. This is not just a statistic, but a problem. A big one. One that adds up to 230 tons of waste in the US per

“

year that produces huge amounts of greenhouse gas, and also pollutes ground water supplies in communities worldwide. Many communities have huge problems with asthma and developmental disorders due to emissions from nearby factories or contaminated air and drinking water thanks to the dump down the road. This is not just someone else’s problem, nor is it contained just to poor areas or factory towns. Contaminated air and water hurts everyone, and the direct consequences are spreading.

Just this summer, a fire in the

A great place to start is to change the way you and the people around you think about waste. Waste doesn’t have to be a thing.

“

‘Waste not, want not.’ It’s the old adage, up there with the likes of ‘early to bed, early to rise...’ and all the other wisdom cliches. It represents the belief that those who think of others first and don’t dispose of potentially useful things, are better off for it. It’s so simple that it’s difficult to disagree with. Naturally, I don’t hear a lot of disagreement with the statement. These words actually being put into action, however, is an entirely different story; the more than 50 trillion pounds of waste produced each year (in the US alone) speak for themselves. Even with the huge success of recycling nationwide, that number is still on the rise. When we create waste, we trash our planet and subsequently our future.

As the Little Hawks fought to victory the night of September 9, Logan Cronbaugh ‘13 and I emptied

Iowa City Landfill reminded us all of our huge pile of garbage just outside of town. Although no longer ablaze today, greenhouse gases still come from our waste each and every day.

Our waste, our landfill, our problem.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

While much of what I’ve written above consists of jumbled issues (my weekly column is called Environmental Jumble), statistics, and general discontent, there’s a whole lot we can do about it. A great place to start is to change the way you and the people around you think about waste.

Waste doesn’t have to be a problem.

If you can take initiative, maybe, just maybe, we can look back at today and wonder at how we threw all that away. If we can get the idea of waste out of our heads, we’ll all be better off. The concept of waste is the only thing we really need to throw away.

A12 OPINION

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

A Popular Vote

by LILY HOWARD

It’s the season of football games, cross country races, fall fashion, and back to school gossip, but what’s really on the minds of students is the one and only Homecoming Court.

You’re probably expecting me to rant and rave about how shallow and stupid the whole process is, but you’re wrong! Homecoming court nominations are just a big popularity contest, but I don’t see why that’s a bad thing.

Why is it so terrible to vote for all our favorite people, and have them be recognized for being some of the best people in the entire senior class?

Homecoming court is a great opportunity for people who are just plain nice, but who don’t always necessarily get recognized for other things like academics, sports, or the arts, to get noticed for being just that: genuinely kind people. The boys and girls on Homecoming Court tend to be the ones who say “hi” to everyone as they pass them in hallway, the kind of people who hold doors open for little old ladies, or bake brownies for Chip on his birthday.

Perhaps at other high schools the tradition of Homecoming Kings and Queens carries a negative connota-

tion. Maybe the winners don’t always represent the best of the school. But when we look back at City High’s past royals we see that they are hardly comparable to the stereotypical mean-girl queens and mindless hunk kings seen in movies and television shows. From Best Buddies presidents to Rubik’s Cube wiz kids, City High’s kings and queens have always been well rounded individuals that give the community a great view of the cream of the “School that Leads” crop.

Others may argue that the Homecoming Court contendants are not, in fact, the most well-liked seniors.

They may say that they’re all from the same general group of friends and are only on the court

because all of their friends voted for them. To this argument I say, “Well,

or being huge jerks! A person cannot possibly be elected onto the court by alienating the majority, or being widely disliked. Last time I checked that isn’t the way a popular vote works. So if you find yourself thinking that one of the king or queen candidates doesn’t deserve to be one, maybe you just don’t know as much about them as you think you do.

Basically, if you’re so incredibly against the whole Homecoming Court process that you have decided to remove yourself completely from it by not voting, more power to you! Way to work against a cause! duh!” Of course all That being said, if their friends voted you didn’t vote but for them, but why in you still insist on art by LILY HOWARD the world do you think being a big ol’ malthey have so many friends? content, then I sugIt sure isn’t because they go around gest you find more worthy things to smashing peoples’ faces into lockers occupy your precious time with, and

allow everyone who enjoys a good popularity contest to go about their merrymaking in peace.

ONLY

52.2% OF THE

SENIOR

CLASS PARTICIPATED IN THE VOTE FOR

HOMECOMING COURT THIS YEAR.

Drug Testing

by ALEX MOEN

Performance enhancing drugs are the whispered suspicions of major league and college level sports. Superstars use them to break records, make it into the hall of fame, or win a final.

Recently, however, there has been a great debate over whether high school student athletes should be randomly drug tested. Illinois is adopting drug testing policies for high schools, however, Iowa athletic sanctioning bodies will likely not go down the same road.

I have recently learned that the Illinois High School Association has been performing random tests of its athletes for performance-enhancing drug use since the fall athletic season began. Research indicates at least one out of every 13 athletes in Illinois are using drugs to increase their athletic performance.

It seems to me that if students didn’t do drugs or take illegal substances, that their grades will greatly improve.

As well as increase the persons general outlook of the world.

But Iowa governing bodies, such as the Iowa High School Athletic Association, will not follow suit for now.

This is quite a new and interesting tactic Illinois has adapted into their student athlete policy. It is hard to see the end result or whether it will be positive or negative. I am happy to know that Iowa will not continue and follow this domino effect.

That news comes despite recent surveys that shows some athletes indeed dabble with drugs. Over 4,000 youngsters were surveyed by the Iowa High School Athletic Association four years ago and four percent acknowledged steroid use compared

with only two percent in a similar survey five years earlier.

IHSAA official Alan Beste says the Iowa code has strict guidelines that prevent search and seizure. The probable cause is needed and that prevents the association from random tests.

Thus, the IHSAA does not get involved in drug tests, because state law has stronger language that runs counter to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows random testing.

In my opinion, I don’t exactly know what to think of it. I mean, I don’t know anyone who does drugs, drinks, and uses steroids on a regular basis.

However, I am not the most popular guy around, and I don’t know everyone at City High. However, odds are that someone at school is doing some bad things to their body.

Subsequently, I can see how it would be a positive addition. I believe that if this new law was adapted in Iowa, the amount of house parties would greatly decrease as well as the number of driving under the influence violations.

Some City High students said that it wouldn’t really affect them. Mostly because they don’t use drugs. However, some students think that it is not a bad idea if it’s done randomly.

Especially since several students are on the football team and they don’t know anyone who uses performance enhancing drugs.

I believe that no matter what the circumstance is, no one should think that doing something like drugs is okay. Whether it is to increase your speed in a sport, or to make yourself feel better or high.

art by KARA HARTLEY

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

OPINION

THUMBS

Make the Most of It

by KARA HARTLEY

You are sitting in class and the clock says there are 15 minutes left. It has never moved slower in your entire life. Severely bored from counting along with the red hand of the clock, you sit recording one 60 second trip after another. A new worksheet is thrown in your face with a good chunk of time left in the class period, but nothing substantial. Do you get started on the homework?

Of course not! You pack up and join everyone standing at the door who are chatting about the weekend, with their phones out, ready to move on to the next thing. That homework sheet can wait till later. This is a typical high school scene; it’s just another part of the “before the bell rings” ritual. However, so many City High students have such ambitious schedules that they can’t afford to waste that precious time! We all need to make it a point to take advantage of those five minutes of class if we real-

ly want to be “the school that leads.”

Those five minutes at the end of class can keep us from the dread of students everywhere: too much homework. I know homework isn’t what most of us would choose to spend our nights doing, but it all depends on attitude. Being completely whiny never helps, and when students are angsty about their homework, it becomes contagious. But the worst homework complainers are those I hear throwing a fit about assignments after I see them wasting time in class. Excuses roll off their lips: they didn’t have enough time to do it, they were too tired to make an attempt after their workout, they had too much other homework.

At the same time, I can totally sympathize with you. Cross Country every single day with an additional meeting, lesson, rehearsal or different activity each night.

Some school nights just suck! Most Mondays I get home at 9:45, say a quick “hi” to the parents if I’m lucky, then head up to my room to zone in and finish up as much homework as possible before face meets pillow from e x h au s t i o n .

You know the

drill. Nights like these are the reason I use those extra five minutes at the end of class.

Another key to cutting down on homework time is removing distractions. Our generation is addicted to technology, which is admittedly a lot more interesting than calculus. I’m not totally against Twitter, Netflix, Facebook and all that good social networking stuff! However, I try to remind myself of this piece of wisdom: moderation in all things. Don’t get attached. Don’t let 5 minutes online, turn into 3 hours of mindless Facebook stalk time. So many students have access to all these technological luxuries right in the palm of their hands, so they end up turning into huge homework time-suckers.

Something I like to do when I am faced with

A13

a tall stack of dreadful homework on my right and my glorious laptop and phone to my left, is hide the distractions! I’ll ask a family member to hide my phone until I finish my homework. It might sound silly, but it’s a reward for finishing my work that keeps me motivated.

These first few months of the school year we have all experienced the Mr. Leman pep talks, famous “City High: The School that Leads” assemblies, inspirational Bacon talks, and general teacher expectations. If I could cut in and share a little wisdom for the new year, here’s what I’d like to say: let’s take advantage of every situation. Give extra smiles in the hallway, don’t give into distractions, and make the most of our opportunities to learn.

Spirit Week #1 ranked volleyball team “Mayberry” The Little Hawk Pacemaker finalists!

Molly’s Cupcakes Obama in IC Football Student Section Hawkeyes winning to UNI Painted benches downtown Leman start-of-the-year speech Homecoming Court Chip Elizabeth Brown beating school swim record iPhone 5

art by KARA HARTLEY

Being one of America’s Best High Schools

Spiderman Sucked

by MAX FRIEDMAN

I didn’t have friends, I had action figures. An embarrassingly large portion of my childhood was spent smashing them together on the desk in my room. Superhero action figures were my source of companionship during the early years, when I was just a wee curly-headed child. I had Obi-Wan land his Jedi Starfighter on Aragorn’s face, Gambit from X-Men tear Commissioner Gordon into pieces with his explosive playing cards and Spider-Man tie up some of my sister’s Polly Pockets for their crimes to society. Even though I’ve grown up a little since then, I still have a vested interest in these characters, especially with the influx of comic-book based movies in the past few years.

These movies have been on the rise in the past 15 years or so and there have definitely been some quality films. Spiderman, the Dark Knight, the Avengers, Spiderman... wait, another Spiderman movie?

It had only been 10 years since the last adaptation, not including the sequels. So I went into the theater with an open mind and a mouth full of sweet tarts, and I was so, so incredibly disappointed. All of the beautiful things that flourished in the 2002 version dried and withered in this one. Now don’t get me wrong, the

acting was great at times, and the chemistry between the characters was charming, but seriously? Peter Parker, played by Andrew Garfield, started off as a cocky jerk, and ended the movie as the same cocky jerk. I don’t see the character arch... Let me fix my 3D glasses. In the 2002 version, Tobey Maguire started out the story as a dopey doofus, who couldn’t even talk to the girl he was madly in love with. He couldn’t catch the bus and the toolish kids at school just loved to push him around. Over the course of the movie, he became more and more confident, beating up bad guys and learning how to use sarcasm. By the end of the movie, he was a glorified superhero. Similarly, the special effects were boring and prehistoric, not improving on the effects of the original by any substantial means.

The movie just kept going downhill, getting worse and worse, kind of like Maroon 5’s music career, until it was over. As Spidey slung his final web at the screen, I puked in my mouth a little bit, and then everyone stood up and cheered.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen confused tears, but

that’s exactly what happened to me.

That movie was the biggest piece of garbage since the third Spiderman movie that would have existed if it wasn’t so god awful that it imploded into itself and slunk into the recesses of the film underworld. It made me lose a little faith in the genre, and in Hollywood. They took one of my childhood role models and turned him into nothing more than an audience-attracting, money-making tool.

What happened to those comic book stories I grew up with? If audiences genuinely liked this movie, what does that say? Am I just a snooty auteur, or is there something seriously wrong with the average movie-going audience? I don’t know for sure. All I know is that I haven’t cringed that much since I saw Paul Blart: Mall Cop. My spidey-senses are tingling, and they say that this movie sucked.

“Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” Sports injuries Too much homework Stadium clean-up Hawkeyes losing to Iowa State Garden Salsa Sun Chips removed from lunch menu Integrated lockers!!!

No parking spots No new iPads yet “The Amazing Spider-Man”

XC meets on Mondays Turned-off lights in the math wing art by OLI PETERS

People who ride the elevator (and don’t need to)

A14

The Little Hawk

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

ABOVE: An artist’s rendition of a Dahli painting on a bench near the IC Public Library downtown. photos by Gabriel Basile

“Paint the Town” draws artists to downtown IC

By Braden Offerman-Mims bradenoffermanmims@thelittlehawk.com

UFOs, green and floating all over.

This is just one of many paintings on the benches of the downtown Iowa City area. This project is called “Seasons of the Bench,” part of the “Paint the Town: Benchmarks” campaign.

126 benches will be painted over two years, many of which have already been decorated.

Jaedin Richardson ‘16 rarely goes downtown, but he enjoys the benches.

“I think the benches look really cool, even though I’ve barely seen any,” Richardson said.

Some of the designs, however, have been opposed, including a bench with staring, grinning faces.

“People shouldn’t put up designs like that on benches,” Richardson said. “It’s weird.”

Overall, the benches have been widely accepted in the community.

Natasha Finnegan-Kennal ‘15 enjoys seeing the benches evolve into new designs.

“I don’t have a particular favorite, I just don’t dislike any benches,” Finnegan-Kennal said. “It’s giving the chance for people to express themselves in a cool and creative way.”

Students at City High have been able to get involved in the painting process, including Kara Hartley ‘13, who is decorating a bench next to the playground. The bench is circusthemed with hot air balloons, Hartley’s signature design.

“I think it’s good that people can pick out a bench to paint, it livens up downtown,” Hartley said.

Hartley believes that it takes some courage to be able to do art in public, but believes that more people should

do it.

“I hate it when people are drawing something and I say, ‘hey that’s really good,’ and they’ll cover it up and say, ‘no don’t look! I’m not as good as you,’ and they’re really good, they just don’t have enough self esteem,” Hartley said.

Dick Blick, an art material company with a local store, regulates the project. In order to paint a bench, one must take a sketch of what they plan to paint to Ryan Betsinger at Blick.

After they approve the sketch, limited store credit is given for brushes and paint, and then the painter must decide when to work on the bench.

Hartley emphasized her desire for artistic confidence. “Never beat yourself up over your art,” Hartley said. “If someone thinks it’s weird, that just means they haven’t seen anything like it before and it’s unique.”

Visual arts teacher added to staff

City High alum Michael Close is a new visual arts teacher at City High. According to Close, readjusting to the school after he swore to never come back has been an “interesting, but enjoyable experience.”

By Gabriel Basile

gabrielbasile@thelittlehawk.com

City High has seen a number of new teachers this year in all departments; math, science, even physical education. However, only one of these new faces has joined the arts department. Michael Close has accepted the position as the teacher of visual arts for his sixth year of teaching.

“I graduated from City High,” Close said. “So when the position opened, I jumped on the opportunity.”

Before teaching at City High,

Close taught art in two elementary schools, instructing everything from drawing to ceramics. After teaching in the elementary schools, Close moved on to teaching art classes at a high school in Muscatine.

“I started teaching in Muscatine, but the 40 minute drive got really old,” Close said.

Close’s interest in art has been with him nearly his whole life. He described his first art experience as grabbing his attention.

“My favorite art experience was in preschool,” Close said. “I had the greatest teacher. We did so many

things with crayons. [My teacher] had us doing crazy things like melting crayons together to make rainbow crayons, and it’s gotten better ever since.”

Close didn’t always want to be a teacher, but with his love of art, he couldn’t turn his back on the trade.

“I thought I was going to be the next Picasso, or one of those artists who actually made money during their lifetime. But then you find out it’s really easier said than done,” Close said. “When you go to school for [art], you can either starve and hope for the best, or do the teaching

gig. I’m finding it very rewarding, I enjoy it a lot.”

City High’s motto “The School that Leads” means a lot to Close. He believes in representing and upholding the reputation of the school by following in his previous art experiences.

“I took a video production class with one teacher, and she was crazy, just like an art teacher should be,” Close said. “Ms. Harper’s the same way, you know, free-spirited, and loves what she does. They’re just good people.”

Close remembers his bad experi-

ences with teachers as well.

“I had a lot of bad teachers growing up, I think everybody does. I guess I gain inspiration from them in that I don’t want to be anything like them,” Close said.

Close’s number one goal is to make sure kids have fun.

“City doesn’t have as many students in art classes as I remember there being when I was here,” Close said. “So I just hope that my classes can be popular, kids have a good time, they’re proud of what they do, and we can get more people interested in this.”

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

A&E

HOROSCOPES “Your destiny... revealed.”

By Gabriel Basile Illustration by Juliette Enloe

A15

Marching to the beat An exploration into the work and practice that goes into the world of marching band, as they attempt to focus the spirits of CHS students.

By Anes Kapo

aneskapo@thelittlehawk.com

Aquarius [Jan 20-Feb 18]

Focus on the positive. Just like your test results.

Pisces [Feb 19-March 20]

Go see Oogieloves this month, your life will change forever.

Aries [March 21-April 19]

Watch your back, Slenderman found a clown suit.

Taurus

With bright and sparkly costumes, and even more radiant smiles, the CHS marching band enters Bates Field. Students know that the band plays music at football games, but the entirety of the preparation and labor that goes into the process is often overlooked.

The marching band is a key part of City football games, as some students come to the games just to listen to the marching band play.

The entire routine consists of many different sections, each one contributing to the overall experience. The woodwinds consist of everything from clarinets to flutes. The brasses are made up of many instruments, including trombones, tubas, and trumpets.

“It takes a lot of hard work, and there’s always room for improvement,” Savannah Reese ‘14, one of three drum majors said. Drum majors set the beat and act as conductors to the entire band. Without them, the band would have a very hard time playing together. The beats that they set vary according to song.

“We play in three different tempos, 4/4 time, ¾ time, and ½ time,” Reese said.

The band director, My-

ABOVE: The City High marching band performs for The Little Hawks’ football games. photo by Kiera Zapff

ron McReynolds, is a favorite among the students. He’s been teaching and directing marching band for a total of nine years. Dr. McReynolds has high hopes for the band this year.

“It’s a good year, they play extremely well,” McReynolds said.

The practice itself has sometimes been called the bane of City High due to its intensive exercises and repetitive routines. However, the marchers understand that these practices are required so that they play their best at the football games.

“I really dislike the long practices, we’ve had two so far, and I was exhausted,” said Kevin Wolfe ‘15, who plays clarinet

in the marching band.

Marching band takes a lot of practice, but to Wolfe it pays off. It brings the marchers closer together. The sense of connection between them is obvious.

“Most of us see marching band as a family, not a class,” Wolfe said. “There’s a strong sense of connection between all of us. When one of us messes up on a piece, we don’t yell them alone, we’re all to blame.”

This year, the marching band decided to play the piece “Piano Man” by Billy Joel. The song is very popular among the students. The marchers were asked to vote for the song that they wanted to play. They wrote which song they pre-

ferred on a small slip of paper, and the song with the most votes was chosen.

“I think it’s a really cool song, I like the rhythm of it,” Wolfe said.

Another advantage to marching band is that they get to see the football from a completely different view, and they don’t need to pay to see the game in the first place. The marching band acts as a break from all the excitement of a typical football game, to let the students sit back and listen to their music.

“Marching band’s purpose is to entertain,” McReynolds said.

“It allows them to experience music they normally wouldn’t.”

[April 20-May 18]

Oprah’s character from The Color Purple will come and haunt you if you don’t read the article on race. See you in two hours.

Gemini [May 21-June 20]

Man up and do what you feel. Oh, you’re a woman? I DON’T CARE.

Cancer [June 21-July 22]

Didn’t make homecoming court? Don’t worry, You’re still a level 99 Wizard.

Leo [July 23-Aug 22]

You’ve got Gangnam Style. Make sure to break out the dance moves at homecoming!

BEST OF THE WEB www.thelittlehawk.com

1

SLIDESHOWS Flip through the City vs. Waterloo West slideshow for some close-ups of our very own Little Hawk football team. You’ll find some colorful shots of the marching band, colorguard, and student section. http://thelittlehawk.com/cityvs-waterloo-west-slide-show/

PODCASTS

*Virgo*

HAWK TALKS:

[Aug 23-Sept 22]

You will encounter a wise man. Study under him and he will reward you with a green crystal.

It will unlock an ancient vault. Inside the vault you will find a two dollar bill. Score.

Libra [Sept 23-Oct 22]

www.HowToDealWithBO.com Seriously, guys.

Come on.

Scorpio [Oct 23-Nov21]

When the going gets tough, take some adrenaline and run really fast.

3

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT PODCAST

OPINION COLUMNS

BREAKING NEWS

Take a look at breaking news stories as they happen, including updates about clubs, athletic events, and happenings around town. Also follow @thelittlehawk on Twitter for live updates. http:// thelittlehawk.com/category/news/

[Nov 22-Dec 21]

Halloween is just around the corner. Get your way-too-revealing journalist costume today!

Capricorn [Dec 22-Jan 19]

2

Read some of our photo/video editor Eli Shepherd’s stories and thoughts on the need for a greener enviroment and how he is personally pursuing this goal. http://thelittlehawk.com/ addressed-to-you-cycling-solutions/

Sagittarius

If you claim your free iPad online, all the single ladies in Iowa will want to meet you.

Seniors Gabriel Basile, Nat Alder, and Max Friedman give their scoop on the best in the realm of Arts and Entertainment. They cover the newest releases in music and movies as well as art-related events around town. http://thelittlehawk.com/ arts-entertainment-podcast/

compiled by Max Friedman

4

A16 A&E

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Album Review

Rick Ross: God Forgives, I Don’t

By Nat Alder

natalder@thelittlehawk.com

ABOVE: Reviewer Nat Alder gives his impression of Rick Ross’ new album. According to Alder, God Forgives, I don’t is lackluster at best. graphic by Gabriel Basile

It’s been a decent couple years since I listened to a whole hip hop album, and T.I.’s Bad Man reminds me why: they suck. Don’t hate, I like rap.

Well, some rap. I appreciate older rap/ hip hop, a la “A Tribe Called Quest,” “Beastie Boys,” early “Eminem,” or “AC/DC” (just kidding), etc. Moreso, I feel extremely blessed to have grown up in a period where music has gone through such interesting changes.

Stuff on the radio these days seems so mechanic, like 6 repetitive synth beats with some catchy chorus that plays over and over and becomes THE song at prom. Thankfully, there are musicians out there like Rick Ross, who is undoubtedly the best at what he does at this point in time: issue some ill rhymes. Rick Ross feels relatively new to the rap scene, but God Forgives, I Don’t is the rapper’s fifth studio album. For at least half of the album, Rick Ross brings the listener

Indie Album of the Year

some highly original beats and lyrics, while the other half feels recycled and tried. Altogether, Ross brings one of the more interesting albums of the year. It starts out really smoothly, the first song, “Pray For Us”, uses simple yet effective beats and builds them up in to what amounts to a great music moment: a semi quiet beat/synth jam that breaks itself down slowly and surely into greatness.

Another thing the album does so well for the first half is echo rap’s earliest predecessors. A few songs early on in the album bring memories of guys like Biggie Smalls or NWA (the song Pirates gives a shout out to Tupac, while Three Kings shouts out lines like “Straight outta Compton” or “real old school hip hop”, which is more than appropriate). Ross’ voice is perfect for this stuff, it’s low and gravelly, slightly menacing. The voice is untampered, unlike the autotuned voices of our generation.

About halfway through the album, things start to get tired. The

beats eventually bleed together, the lyrics all talking about the same thing: being raised somewhere poor, then being launched into fame and money and prostitutes and whatnot. It’s at that point that the album starts to become like every other Rap/Hip Hop record out there: unoriginal. Some of the choruses (that are sung here by a bevvy of guests, such as Jay Z and Drake) can be considered passable, but don’t forgive the recycled beats the rest of the album carries.

So, while it would have been nice to hear more of the original songs that were so effortlessly presented in the beginning of the album, there is still enough to like here, whether that be Ross’ unforgiving voice, the smooth synthesizers or those block rockin’ beats that entertained for the first half of the record. In this day and age, it’s just so nice to have someone like Ross who can pay respect to the greats of the prior generation while contributing a little something of his own.

10 things better than...

The XX: Coexist a success Homecoming

By Gabriel Basile

gabrielbrasile@thelittlehawk.com

Indie music lovers rejoice. English indie pop group The XX released their latest stylistic, moody album Coexist on September 11. With their idiosyncratic style, The XX brings more of that sweet sound many indie listeners loved back in 2009’s self titled album (and debut) XX. Resembling Radiohead’s sound, The XX has a spacey, perfect-rainyday-music feel, focusing on bass, vocals, and simple drum tracks to fill their songs. The simplicity of the songs strikes a perfect note of not too simple to get boring, and holds the listeners attention well. The songs never seem boring and every pause and inclusion or exclusion of an in-

strument seems meaningful and on purpose. It’s obvious a lot of thought went into every track and every snare hit means something.

Be warned though: just like a glass of iced tea, the mood has to be right to listen to many of Coexist’s tracks.

As mentioned, The XX provides great rainy day or moody music, which isn’t always appropriate for the occasion.

But when it is, Coexist hits the spot, making the listener really feel and appreciate the simplicity and beauty of the music.

Songs like “Angels,” “Unfold,” and “Try” evoke a sense of beauty and carelessness, while others like “Swept Away” and “Sunset” still stick to the spacey format of their previous album, XX, but have much more foottapping beats.

It’s also worth noting that although many of the songs have the same feel as previous songs from the group, there have been some changes.

The song “Reunion” features a steel drum, an instrument never before used in any of the group’s tracks. In addition, Baria Qureshi, the group’s second guitarist and keyboardist was removed from the band in late 2009, just after their first album’s release.

The result is a slight change of pace and less of a focus on the guitar and synth sounds, but it’s not a change that affects the definitive sound of the group.

The XX’s Coexist is something many will love and some will hate.

Anyone with an interest of indie music, or an interest in good music in general, should give this a shot.

Acne?

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319-339-3827

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compiled by Nat Alder

1. Chin Ups 2. Zemmiphobia: The fear of mole rats.

3. Chugging Pepto Bismol 4. The song “Get Low” by Lil Jon 5. Consuming cigarette butts 6. Shaving your hair 7. Watching “Hair” the musical 8. A Wiccen convention 9. Appearing in a Carly Rae Jepsen music video 10. Google +

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The Little Hawk

SPORTS

B1

NO DOUBT Little Hawk Football 2012 - Pages B4-B5

photo by Kiera Zapf

B2 SPORTS

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Brown breaks record, team revamps training methods

ABOVE: Claire Rowden ‘13 practices her butterfly in practice. photo by Ryan Young

By Naftalia Flatte

naftaliaflatte@thelittlehawk.com

The Little Hawk girls swim team has managed to take an individual sport and turn it into an outstanding team experience.

“The best part of being on the swim team is the bonding, the laughing, and the cheering,” Molly Hayes ‘14 said. “As well as seeing each other improve.”

The team has experienced some changes from last season to this season. They have acquired a new assistant coach, Brigid Webb, who is also a preschool teacher and participates in Iron Man Triathlons.

“She’s awesome!” Lizzie Brown ‘15 said. “I’ll be really happy when she comes back next year.”

There have also been some chang-

es to the way practices have been run, with a shift towards cross training and overall conditioning. This year swimmers spend more time in the weight room and running, as well as keeping up with doubles in the pool.

The team has started a new tradition of having a lake swim at some point during the season, instead of a normal Saturday morning practice.

“That was an experience. I wasn’t really sure what to expect at first, but I really enjoyed it,” Randi Pitzen ‘13 said. “It was nice to get a change of scenery and a variation in the workout schedule.”

The Little Hawks may be few in numbers, but they’re never intimidated. Outnumbered 3 to 1 at their second meet of the season, the outcome hung on the results of the final relay, with City losing by one point, 92-93.

“Swimming is one of the most amazing sports at City,” Hayes said.

“But it isn’t as popular here as it is at other schools.”

At the “Pink Out” meet the team hosted on September 11th, Lizzie Brown ‘15 shattered an eleven year old school record in the 100 breaststroke.

“I got to the wall and felt like it had been a really good swim. Then I looked up at the scoreboard and saw a 1:08 and was like, Yay! I did it!”

Brown said. “Everyone was cheering and saying, you did it! And then they announced it and the team congratulated me and it felt really awesome.”

Brown qualified for the State Championships last year in the 100 breaststroke. She placed 15th overall in the event and was the first breaststroker on the City team to qualify since 2008.

*

BY THE NUMBERS * * 6,000 *

2 4 6 13 5

The team had the “Pink Out” meet to promote breast cancer awareness. The girls wore pink caps sporting the Little Hawk logo and a breast cancer ribbon.

“I think it is important for all the girls to be aware that breast cancer is something that can affect and has affected many people’s lives, and could even affect them,” Coach Ivan Sanchez said. “It is a good way to honor our relatives and the people close to us that have battled the disease.”

Each member of the team has worked extremely hard, and hopes to meet their personal goals at the end of the season.

“I like the dedication, effort, and enthusiasm that the 17 Little Water Hawks show day in and day out,” Sanchez said. “This team has the potential and spirit to do amazing things at the end of the season.”

2012-13 SCHEDULE 9/25- Linn Mar 10/2- @ Williamsburg 10/6- @ CR Washington 10/9- @ CR Jefferson 10/11- @ CR Washington 10/13- @ CR Washington 10/20- @ Dubuque Hemp 10/25- @ Regional Diving 10/27- @ Regional Swim 11/2- @ State Diving 11/3- @ State Swimming

visit thelittehawk.com for more sports coverage

4 kilometers is the length of a girls cross country race 7.5 feet is the height of a regulation volleyball net 281 the number of rushing yards Amos Lavela ‘13 has so far this season

meters is the average distance the girls swim team swims everyday

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Boys golf aims for state

After struggling in the first half of the season, the boys golf team has picked it up and is poised to make it to the state meet in Polk City.

By Olivia Hamilton & Daniela Perret

oliviahamilton@thelittlehawk.com danielaperret@thelittlehawk.com

With a combination of hard work, focus, and a positive attitude, the City High boys’ golf team, led by captains Nate Goddard ‘13 and Andrew Hein ‘13, is determined to qualify for this year’s state meet.

“The main goal for the team is to make it to the state meet for the third year in a row,” Grant Simpson ‘13 said. “Which hasn’t ever been done at City High before.”

Other than the leading four returning seniors, the team is younger this season, with five juniors, two sophomores, and five freshmen.

“We’re very fortunate to have four seniors that do the things they do,” Coach Gregg Andrews said. “The seniors are carrying a lot of our load, both scoring wise and leading in general, but we have also had good production out of Zach Mcmillan ‘14, and we’re seeing a lot of improvement in Brady Swenning ‘14.”

The team has been focusing mainly on being more consistent and efficient. Putting in long hours on the course, they are completing their tasks working on better execution for more success in their coming tournaments.

“The kids work exceptionally hard,” Coach Andrews said. “I couldn’t ask for better work ethic from any of them.”

They achieved this optimal level of focus and consistency when they won the CRANDIC meet on September 4th.

“Winning the CRANDIC was a great feeling,” Simpson said. “Considering it hadn’t been done in fifteen years, since 1998.”

Although winning the CRANDIC was a major accomplishment, the team struggled throughout the first half of the season with a negative win-loss record. The team then turned the season around and came through the second half with a positive win-loss record.

“The beginning of the season didn’t work well,” Coach Andrews said. “The kids have now turned that around. We’re trying to step up for the district competition.”

Along with winning the CRANDIC meet, the boy’s golf team placed first in last Monday’s Triangular meet against Dubuque Hempstead and Cedar Rapids Washington.

“I feel like so far we have done well.” Zach MacMillan ‘14 said. “I think everyone has been doing well.

We just need to dig down, keep trying, and pull through for the rest of the season.”

B3

Boys cross country in full swing

By Malin Craig

malincraig@thelittlehawk.com

ABOVE: Andrew Hein ‘13 tees off on hole seven at Pleasant Valley Golf Course. photos by Olivia Hamilton

ABOVE: Grant Simpson ‘13 gets advice from head coach Gregg Andrews.

SPORTS

ABOVE: Nate Goddard ‘13 hits his approach shot on hole 6 at the divisional meet at Pleasant Valley Golf Course. Goddard shot an 82, placing 13th at the tournament.

The City High boys cross country team’s season is now in full swing.

The Little Hawks are expected to have a great season with experienced leaders Brook Price ‘13, Mohamed Traore ‘13, Chris Ohrt ‘14, and Ryan Dorman ‘14 leading the way.

“I think as a senior my ultimate goal is to win first at state,” Price said.

“I have been working towards that my whole career as a runner so far, and this is my last shot.”

The Little Hawks started the season ranked number seven in the Des Moines Register’s preseason ranking, but Traore has much higher expectations for the team.

“We believe that we are the best team in the state, and we will use that number seven ranking as motivation to prove how good we actually are,” Traore said.

City ran its first meet at IMS, finishing second behind Muscatine.

The Little Hawks were led by Will Seydel ‘13, with a time of 18:08. The boys showed they were a force to be reckoned with in The Little Hawk Invitational, where they crushed the competition and took first in their own meet.

“You can see by our showing [in the Little Hawk Invitational] that we are one of the premiere teams in the state and why we think we are the team to beat,” Price said of City’s dominance at their home meet.

The cross country team has shown they are one of the best squads in the state, and they are not to be doubted.

“It feels great to win a meet like that, when you have put in all the work with lifting and running what feels like billions of miles over the summer, that is what you do it for, to whip other teams,” Traore said.

B4 SPORTS

B5

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

LITTLE HAWK FOOTBALL

RETURN TO GLORY

After a slow 0-1 start, The Little Hawk football team had to redirect their focus. After weeks of hard work, the team has improved their record to 3-1, and are going strong into a critical point in their season.

By Alex Moen

alexmoen@thelittlehawk.com

photos by Kierra Zapff

In their fourth game of the 2012 season, the Little Hawks will play Dubuque Hempstead and are hoping for another “No Doubt” victory to expand their record to 4-1.

“Our goal is to be conference champions first,” Mitch Wieland ‘14 said. “Then move on to the playoffs and the state championship. But before we do that, we have to keep the boot at City!”

The City High football team opened up the season with an away game in the UNI dome losing 28-14 against Cedar Falls.

“We came out and played hard,” Sam Dennis ‘13 said, “but we didn’t take care of the ball.”

The Little Hawks gave up six turnovers that Friday night.

“We have made it a focal point in practice and I think the squad is ready to take on anyone in the state,” Dennis said.

Since then, the Little Hawks have turned it around. At their first home game, they maintained control of the football for the majority of the game, crushing Waterloo West with a final score of 49-19. Using two experienced quarterbacks, Tyler Stika ‘13 who passed for 67 yards and Wieland , who passed for 77 yards. Both athletes passed for touchdowns.

The team also had some ‘baby powder’ encouragement, instigated by Emily Ward ‘13. The powder was distributed through the USA themed student section and tossed up during the opening kickoff.

“We learned a lot from our mistakes in the first half of the game, and came out ready to play in the second half,” Matt Lee ‘13, offensive lineman, said. “We didn’t let the extreme heat and humidity get to us and played harder than the other team.”

The offensive line led the way for Xavier Washpun ‘14, who rushed for 89 yards and Bryson Runge ‘15, who rushed for 80 yards.

“We did make a lot of mistakes overall, but we’ve practiced hard this week and have made a lot of improvement in our game,” Lee said.

Tight end and defensive end, Malin Craig ‘13, agrees.

“The team took advantage of our opponent’s turnovers,” Craig said.

Even with middle linebacker Amos Lavela ‘13 injured, the aggressive team was able to force turnovers and make things happen.

“We also have had much better execution on special teams plays and we were able to hold on to the ball this game,” Craig said.

The following week, the team played the other side of Waterloo.

“Waterloo East has a division one quarterback that is being looked at by several schools including Iowa and Iowa State.

Desmond Van Arsdale, has the combination of speed, passing, and athletic ability that can make a good challenge for our defense,” Dan Sabers, head coach said.

In the Red Zone, or student section, City High glowed neon, while on the field they turned two first quarter fumble recoveries into touchdowns, and built a big lead. In the end they held off Waterloo East by a final score of 38-26.

Jake Leohr ‘14, was a key contributor for the Little Hawks’ first touchdown of the night when his punt landed on the Waterloo East 1-yard line. On third down from the 4-yard line, Tanner Odle ‘13 had sacked East quarterback, Desmond Van Arsdale when he threw the ball up for grabs and City’s Tyler Hill ‘13 was able to intercept it at the 8-yard line.

“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Hill said. “I was really pumped up after that play.”

In his return, Lavela finished the quick drive with a short 1-yard run for the touchdown, putting City up by seven.

However, The Little Hawks’ score did not come without a cost. Lineman and cocaptain, Lee was injured on the third play

in the first quarter.

When Lee stood up, there was an uproar of chanting “Matt Lee” from the student section in support of their fellow classmate. Lee did not return for the rest of the game.

The victory against Waterloo East was a team effort shown by multiple Little Hawks who stepped up to make big plays that night. Making the highlight reel for the night was a onehanded catch by tight end Tony Perry ‘13.

Perry also had a 51-yard return to put the offense into great field position later in the second quarter. The Little Hawks had a great passing play from Leohr to Washpun for 55-yards down the sideline. The play would not have been a touchdown without the influential block by Craig. Craig hit the safety who was guarding Washpun out of bounds, opening up the rest of the field up for him to complete the run. The Little Hawks went on to win the game 38-26.

“It was a good win,” Wieland ‘14, quarterback said. “They are a very good team this year and we did a lot of good things early and took them out of their own game.”

The offensive line is backed with Odle , Lee , Parker Reineke ‘13, Luke Posivio ‘14, and Daren Jones ‘13. This offensive line is leading the way for Lavela who has rushed for 281 yards, and Bryson Runge ‘15 who has rushed for 222 yards and Washpun who has rushed for 126 yards.

Last week, City took on the J-Hawks from Cedar Rapids Jefferson. Lavela lead the team to a 38-0 shutout victory. He carried the ball 15 times for 144 yards in the first half, and scored three touchdowns before the break.

The team will be facing the two Dubuque teams, Hempstead and Senior in the next weeks. Two weeks from tonight, the Little Hawks play across the river for an ancient, infamous battle: The Battle Of The Boot. West High is currently ranked second in the state behind Ankeny. The Little Hawks are currently ranked seventh in the state.

B6 SPORTS

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Girls XC focus Head injuries in athletics is on the team

By Annika Wasson

annikawasson@thelittlehawk.com

ABOVE: The girls XC team at the start of a race. photo by Olivia Hamilton

By Daniela Perret and Annika Wasson danielaperret@thelittlehawk.com annikawasson@thelittlehawk.com

Coming into the season, the City High girls cross country team had a lot to prove. Finishing eighth at last year’s state cross country meet, the team broke the 20 plus year streak of placing in the top three.

“I think last year we had a rough finish at state and that was really hard on everyone,” co-captain Erin Danielson ‘13 said. “Once the summer started going, we realized that we again have a wonderful team, and that’s what it’s about. It doesn’t matter where we finish at state, as long as we’re all doing our best.”

Any doubts the Little Hawks had coming into the season quickly went away once the team came together and began to run with each other.

“What we’ve done this season has been awesome,” Morgan Sammons ‘14 said. “We’re working to make each other better.”

Throughout the rest of the season, the Little Hawks hope to continue to emphasize the team as a whole, rather than just an individual person.

“I think the focus is the team,” Molly Shepherd ‘15 said. “The coaches have been talking about working as a team and moving up in place. It’s not all about your personal time, but it’s about pushing other people so that our whole team gets stronger.”

Concussions have become a hot topic across the country, athletic trainer and program director of the UI Sports Medicine Outreach Program, Matthew Doyle, attributes this to the surge in new studies coming in over the past few years.

“I think because we’re learning more and more about it, and we’re more aware that there are some significant effects that people weren’t aware of before,” he said.

More serious information on long term damages to the brain such as Second Impact Syndrome and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy are also drawing extra attention to this topic.

Both of these can result in permanent or life threatening brain damage. This is why Doyle says it is critically important to make sure an athlete is fully recovered before returning to his or her sport.

“The focus is that when something happens, identify them, so [athletes] don’t try to return too soon and make it worse.”

According a MedStar Health Research Institute study, the overall concussion rate has gone up over the past 11 years. Concussions are not uncommon at City High either. Because of this, every athlete that participates in a contact sport takes a baseline concussion test called the ImPACT test.

“ImPACT test is a neurocognitive test. It is composed of many different parts that test different functions of the brain,” City High athletic trainer, Jennifer McHenry said.

The first time an athlete takes the test the results provide information on how their brain works under normal circumstances. If a student receives a concussion, they can take the test again and the results can be used to

help tell when that athlete has recovered from his or her injury.

“ImPACT testing is useful for improving the sensitivity of our examinations before we allow an athlete to return to a sport,” Dr. Andrew Peterson, Director of UI Sports Concussion Program said. “It definitely helps us figure out when someone is completely recovered from their injury.”

Concussions aren’t just limited to football. Girls soccer players Emilie Burden ‘14 and Ruth Grace ‘14 received injuries resulting in a concussion which kept them out of the sport for over a month and a half.

“I was just really frustrated because I couldn’t do anything except sit around,” Burden said.

Burden got her concussion when she collided with another player during a soccer game last spring. She says at the time she felt light headed and dizzy and had headaches for a while after that. She could not play soccer or do any physical activity until she passed the ImPACT test. Everyday tasks such as doing homework and taking tests were difficult for Burden.

“I wasn’t allowed to do school work and my teachers got angry with me,” Burden said. “I had to tell all my teachers that I couldn’t do anything, so I basically had to just sit in class and listen.”

When Grace got her concussion while playing soccer in the spring of her freshman year, she also had a difficult time returning to the sport. However, this was not her first concussion.

Grace had already had a concussion earlier in the year during basketball season, and one just over a week before she was kicked in the head while playing goalie.

“I was pretty confused, but I still wanted to play,” Grace said. “Later that night we decided to go to the hospital because I had more symptoms.”

Grace had to take the ImPACT

test 14 times before she was cleared, but by that time the soccer season was practically over. Due to the string of injuries, Grace’s recovery and return to her cognitive baseline took an extended period of time. Other area soccer players have suffered symptoms so severe that they were forced to stay in darkened rooms on weekends to keep their ailments in check.

Concussions’ effects can become so severe that they lead to the end of an athletic career. City High graduate and University of Iowa basketball player Virginia Johnson was forced to give up her athletic career this summer after multiple concussions led to recurring symptoms that would have forced her to have a reduced quality of life if she had continued playing her sport.

Unlike other injuries received in sports, concussions are difficult to prevent. Wearing properly fitted safety equipment like helmets and mouth guards can help prevent facial and oral injuries but not concussions.

“There are some ways you can prevent impacts and collisions from occurring, for example using proper tackling and blocking techniques, but there’s always going to be these collisions, that’s just the way sports are,” he said.

Since prevention is difficult, Peterson says the most important thing for athletes to remember is that full recovery is essential if they want to lower their risk of long term effects.

“By far the most important thing for athletes is to make sure they are completely recovered before they put themselves back at risk.”

Despite health concerns, coaches go a long way to protect their athletes.

“Football is safer than it has ever been,” Head Football Coach Dan Sabers said. “Jen [Athletic Trainer] has the final say. All coaches know and respect rules and the benefits for athletics far out-weigh the risks.”

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

SPORTS

B7

ABOVE: Mickey Hansche ‘13 celebrates after scoring a point in the game against Dubuque Hempstead. The team beat Hempstead 3-1. photos by Ryan Young

Volleyball claims No. 1 ranking

With a promising season underway, the Little Hawks hopes to continue building on their success from last year. A team lead by 11 seniors, the girls hope to return to the state championship game.

By Ryan Young

ryanyoung@thelittlehawk.com

The girls volleyball team looks for redemption this season, and they seem to be moving in the right direction. The Little Hawks started the 2012 season ranked number one in the state in class 5A. Currently, the team is ranked number one in the state, and has a record of 14-3.

“We have all five our hitters back from the team who took second place at state last year, and that makes a huge difference.” Head coach Tricia Carty said.

Last year, The Little Hawks got second in the state tournament. They just fell short to West High, losing 3-2.

“After we lost everyone was really upset.” Abby Saehler ‘13 said. “I know for the girls returning have a lot of motivation to get back to the same place and win this time. We would love to be the first 5A volleyball champions.”

The team has plenty of experience this year as well, with 11 returning seniors on the squad.

“We have a lot of depth this season, which makes practices more intense and aggressive.” Starting Libero Mickey Hansche ‘13 said. “We work hard and have fun, but our main goal is to win state.”

City has a new setter this year too.

After losing Erin Muir ‘12, now playing at Youngstown State in Ohio, there was some uncertainty on who was going to fill her shoes. But Ruth Grace ‘14 is fit-

ting in just fine.

“To all of a sudden be the varsity setter after everything that Erin had done was definitely a challenge.” Grace said.

“But being put into this position just makes me want to work even harder.”

Grace has not always been a setter at City High, but is not completely unfamiliar with the position.

“I’ve always been a right side hitter at City, but I’ve set for my club team for few years.” Grace says. “When the coaches had me try it out, everything just seemed to fall into place.”

Also, starting middle Abby Saehler ‘13 has come up big for The Little Hawks again this year. She suffered from a minor ankle injury early in the season, but is recovering nicely.

“In the game against Davis County, I went up for a block and came down on the outside hitters foot.” Saehler said. “I have returned to practice and helping the team work toward our main goal.

Winning state.” Saehler has committed to Wingate University, a DII school in North Carolina, to play volleyball next year.

The team is hoping to continue to draw big crowds going into a critical section of their season.

“It is awesome to see so many fans at our matches.” Coach Carty said. “The student section has been absolutely impressive this year!”

The Little Hawks will take on the Trojans on October 2nd, and have the MVC tournament on October 13th.

ABOVE: Aliyah Gustafson ‘13 and Elizabeth Hubing ‘13 prepare for a serve.

ABOVE: Abby Saehler serves the ball in the game against Dubuque Hempstead.

ABOVE: Head Coach Craig Pitcher talks to his team during a time-out.

B8 SPORTS The Little Hawk: When did you start playing golf?

Andrew Hein: My dad made me my first club when I was 18 months old.

LH: When did you start taking it more seriously?

AH: I started to take golf seriously during 8th grade, but I kind of re-focused on it this past summer.

LH: What got you into golf?

AH: My Dad

LH: How’s the season been going so far?

AH: At first we were just looking to get into a groove. We have been improving a lot and hope to peak at the right time.

LH: How’s team bonding going, are you guys getting along?

AH: Yeah, we all get along pretty well, even though we do pick on Nate a lot.

LH: What’s your favorite course to play on?

AH: My favorite course is Pleasant Valley.

LH: Do you plan on playing after high school?

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

PLAYMAKER PROFILE Seniors Nate Goddard and Andrew Hein Share Their Golf Experiences

By DANIELA PERRET & OLIVIA HAMILTON

The Little Hawk: When did you start playing golf?

Nate Goddard: Ever Since I can remember.

LH: When did you start taking it more seriously?

NG: When I was about 12 years old.

LH: What got you into golf?

NG: My dad.

LH: How’s the season been going so far?

NG: We got off to a bit of a slow start. But we worked really hard and were able to win the CRANDIC for the first time since 1998. Ever since then, we have been focused on getting ready for our district meet and qualifying for the state meet.

LH: How’s team bonding going, are you guys getting along?

NG: We get along great.

LH: What’s your favorite course to play on?

NG: My favorite course is probably Finkbine.

LH: Do you plan on playing after high school?

AH: I’m just going to play for fun after high school.

NG: I want to continue to play for fun. I’m not sure that I am going to play competitively though.

LH: Is it tough without the seniors from last year?

LH: Is it tough without the seniors from last year?

LH: What are you looking forward to this season

LH: What are you looking forward to this season

AH: We did lose a lot of talent with the seniors last year, but we also have some underclassmen that are stepping up.

AH: I’m looking forward to divisionals, and making it to state.

LH: How has it changed since freshmen year?

NG: Yeah, we lost a lot of talent from Ryan Duncan, Trent Bedford, and Patrick Jordan.

But we are working hard to replace them.

NG: Stadium Clean-up.

LH: How has it changed since freshmen year?

AH: As freshmen, we were all kind of complimentary players, but now we are counted on and have a much bigger role.

NG: When I was a freshman, I was just trying to help the team out anyway I could. But now that I am a senior, I have been put into more of a leadership roll on the team.

LH: What’s your favorite club?

LH: What’s your favorite club?

LH: What is your funniest golf experience?

LH: What is your funniest golf experience?

LH: Who is your favorite pro golf player?

LH: Who is your favorite pro golfer?

AH: My driver for sure.

AH: Too many to pick a favorite.

AH: Rory McIllroy

NG: My 1 iron.

NG: I hit the clubhouse at Pleasant Valley and almost broke a window from hole 18.

NG: Rory McIlroy.

LH: What’s your favorite food?

LH: What’s your favorite food?

LH: Any shout outs?

LH: Any shout outs?

AH: Grilled Cheese or Mac and Cheese.

AH: Follow me on Twitter @eweno23.

LH: What’s your favorite accessory?

AH: Rage-dana for sure.

LH: What are your Pre-tournament rituals?

AH: P.G.P.

LH: What is your nickname on the team?

AH: Jim and “girl”.

LH: Do you have any goals for the rest of the season?

AH: My personal goals are to become more consistent and to peak at the right time. But the main team goal is to make it to state.

NG: Cinnamon Rolls.

NG: Shout out to Benroni and my idol Mickey Hansche.

LH: What’s your favorite accessory?

NG: European Satchel.

LH: What are your pre-tournament rituals?

NG: P.G.P.

LH: What is your nickname on the team?

NG: L.O.F.T.

LH: Do you have any goals for the rest of the season?

NG: Personally, I would like to be able to consistently shoot low numbers. Also, I want to make it to state as a team for the third year in a row.