The Little Hawk

Iowa City, IA

6B Sports

16A Arts and Entertainment

Wrestling: three key moves

Masterworks concert

12A Opinion

6A News

Staff Editorial: Votes for sale

Bizarre teacher stories

The Little Hawk Vol. 78

Friday, December 21, 2018

Issue 3

From classic to modern

thelittlehawk.com

Changing Boundaries ICCSD sets new standards for school districting in an attempt to eliminate socioeconomic and racial imbalances

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By Phoebe Chapnick-Sorokin

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ity High is getting a facelift.

Starting the summer after this school year, the school will be undergoing major renovations—including the addition of a new cafeteria, college-sized basketball court, and open-air spaces. City High students, along with principal John Bacon and superintendent Steve Murley, are greatly looking forward to these renovations.

“I think [the renovations] will significantly enhance the experience for all Little Hawks and improve their lives at City High School,” Murley said.

According to Murley, these renovations were long-awaited.

“It was not hard to decide that it needed to be done,” Murley said.

The school district interviewed various architects, analyzed their presentations and portfolios, and from those presentations narrowed it down to just a few options. These candidates formulated a plan for the school’s renovations, and the district picked their architect based on those presentations, along with their previous projects. In the end, they signed a 1.73 million dollar contract with BLDD Architects.

The design process took a lot of time and careful reworking.

“We just kept editing [the design] and making it better and better...we ended up with a plan that’s spectacular,” Bacon said.

Bacon is particularly excited for the new cafeteria, as City High has been experiencing difficulties with lunchtime. Students eat spread around the school because the lunchroom cannot accommodate everyone’s social needs.

“This project is going to literally redesign the lunch experience for kids and I think that we are creating an absolutely beautiful space that people are going to want to be in,” Bacon said.

“We will be able to be more successful

@instalittlehawk

at saying this is where lunch occurs at City High, rather than having it sprawl out all over the building.”

The new addition will also include an outside eating space for students.

“It’s going to open up beautifully right into a nice outdoor eating area. It’s just really, really cool,” Bacon said.

Sara Lindower ‘20 has experienced frustration with the crowded cafeteria and is looking forward to eating in the new one.

“I’m hoping that it won’t be as crowded as us ua l . . . t here ’ s tons of people down there and you can barely get your food.

I’m hoping it’ll be better for large groups of people,” Lindower said.

Last year, City High was named the most beautiful school in Iowa by Architectural Digest.

Bacon believes that this renovation will enhance the beauty of the school.

“This building is going to be the perfect balance, with classic traditional timeless beauty and modern state-ofthe-art just awesome. I think we are going to have the best of both worlds,” Bacon said. “The design is very impressive. It’s going to help put this campus on par with the very best facilities in the state.”

@The Little Hawk

Lindower is excited for the renovations due to the age of the school.

“It seems pretty cool because it’s a pretty old building and some renovations would be pretty neat,” Lindower said.

In addition to the renovations funded by the bond, the school district will be doing additional renovations stemming off of these.

These renovations include new tennis courts, increased parking, and an industrial shop. The renovations will be taking up the space of the tennis courts and about half of the jock lot. With the addition of a new cafeteria, City High will have the opportunity to possess an industrial shop in place of the former cafeteria. Bacon believes this shop will add an important aspect to the school, as the other two high schools in the district have one.

“I think for so many kids, that hands-on industrial tech experience is so important to help develop kids into trades and give them a pathway,” Bacon said. “I think if those are the kids’ passions, that’s part of being a great comprehensive high school.”

Lindower is looking forward to the addition of the industrial shop.

“I think [the shop] will be good

@thelittlehawk

for more learning,” Lindower said. “I think I will utilize it.”

A special feature of the renovations will be a memorial for Calder Wills.

Wills, a student at Hoover Elementary, passed away from cancer this past year.

He was a future City High student. His parents wanted to donate a memorial to City High in his honor. They are doing this in form of a statue of a Little Hawk crafted by an experienced artist.

“It’s a really generous gift that the family is giving us and it’s going to be really cool symbol of our school mascot and school spirit right outside,” Bacon said.

Bacon looks forward to the memories that will happen in front of this statue through the future years of City High.

“I envision graduation: students getting their pictures with [the statue], and I hope it’ll be a fun symbol for everybody that people will enjoy,” Bacon said.

Although the renovations are a very exciting step for the school, they will take two years. Bacon is anticipating the challenges of serious construction on campus.

“I’m sure there will be growing pains. I’m sure that living with that project going on for two years is going to present some challenges,” Bacon said.

Video: Renovations Flyover Facebook.com/thelittlehawk

By Estella Brady & Josh Poe

he widening disparities between the racial and socioeconomic makeups of the elementary schools in the ICCSD has been a source of tension and a spark for many heated debates amongst school board members, parents, and ICCSD staff for many years. But these debates are no longer hypothetical.

A year after beginning the conversation about new boundary lines in November of 2017, on Tuesday, November 27, 2018, the ICCSD Board of Directors officialized a significant step towards their long-term goal of eliminating the racial and socioeconomic imbalances between the elementary schools in the district.

“The process the Board used was specifically designed to create more equitable learning environments for students in our schools with the greatest support needs,” Superintendent Stephen Murley said. “This couldn’t be done without changing attendance areas. The results certainly aren’t perfect, but progress is being made toward our goal of equity.”

There were already going to be changes to the redistricting of elementary students in the 2019-2020 school year due to the closing of Hoover Elementary and the opening of Christine Grant Elementary. The social aspect of forcing students to switch schools is considered to be a major concern by many students who have gone through the elementary system here.

“The kids might have to leave their friends, so that’s hard. Like, if they’ve been there for years and you’re just moving them around, but hopefully they can be together again in junior high,” Rachael Volkman ‘19 said.

This concern is shared by many parents and ICCSD staff as well.

“Any time you ask students to move, it has the potential to disrupt their social networks, their connections with teachers and staff, and their parents’ education support network. But we don’t take these issues lightly,” Murley said.

But having equity and diversity in all schools has been determined to be of more importance than elementary students losing their sense of social stability.

“I really believe in the value of kids learning from each other,” City High principal John Bacon said. “And when we have diverse schools, with different backgrounds and cultures represented, it helps enrich the educational experience, because what we’re learning isn’t just from the teachers, we’re learning from each other.” @thelittlehawk

2A NEWS

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

New teacher profile: Ja’Korey Walker

By Owen Sorenson

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a’Korey Walker has quickly become a favorite new-student adviser. Walker helps students with his inherent charm and down-to-earth personality.

“I work with kids proactively to solve any student issues,” he said, “which is basically my responsibility here, to work with kids.”

Having come from Fate, Alabama, a small town of roughly five thousand, Walker has found the switch from a small rural area to the more reasonably-sized Iowa City to be overwhelming.

He also finds that the transition is one of the biggest barriers to his new profession.

“Well, for me I would say coming to such a big school has been a real challenge for me,” he said. “[Especially] when I came from such a small school previously.”

Finding a strong sense of passion for his profession, Walker had previously been helping teens work through their struggles for four years as part of the juvenile justice system. To him, helping the students succeed in their high school careers is almost an obligation.

“I have a passion for [teaching] just because I had a lot of people help me when I was in high school,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of people going to school so I feel obligated to pay it back.”

With a hopeful personality, Walker has set goals for what he wants to accomplish and improve before the end of the year. Being a new face to many, he has made it his priority to meet all of the students of City High. He also hopes to become a more patient and pragmatic teacher, looking at problems from different angles instead of falling into a single pattern that may not

ABOVE: Ja’Korey Walker PHOTO BY OWEN SORENSON be as effective for each student.

“One thing that I really want to learn this year is everybody’s name. There’s a lot of kids here so I want to learn all of their names. As far as teaching, I want to be a lot more patient,”

he said, “I will [also try] just using different approaches…I know I am able to do that, but sometimes I get stuck in my one approach and so I need to vary that with different kids.”

Despite the struggles of being a new teacher,

Walker is happy to be here and can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has to offer.

“I have loved teaching so far,” Walker said.

“I am just glad to be here at City High and I am looking forward to finishing out this year.”

Letter from the Editors Dearest Readers, It’s been a long time coming, but the December issue is finally here!

After a busy two months of preparation, we are tremendously proud of our work.

The start of second trimester gifted us with an enhanced team of AMAZING reporters. We are so happy to have so many people working to make this publication the best it can be and we appreciate everyone’s hard work SO much!

The news section features some fun stories on our teachers, explanations of City High clubs, and an ex-

tensive story on trans rights in Iowa and at City High. A & E has some wonderful photos on the Masterworks concert, in addition to movie reviews and debates. The opinion section showcases a staff editorial on voting and much more.

We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together!

See you in 2019 (or 2109) Love always, Papa Phoebe & Mama Maya

NEWS 3A

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

American Legion gets a fresh mural by art students

Art Club brings creativity and ceramics

By Owen Sorenson

By Emme Perencevich

nduring the increasingly cold weather, the City High art department has painted a mural of the American flag on the back of the American Legion building.

“It’s fun to take that sort of thing outside of the classroom and beyond the school and doing our thing on the community level,” Dan Peterson, an art teacher from City High, said.

It was an unexpected opportunity and the art department wasn’t originally searching to paint a mural. It was, in fact, the American Legion who initially reached out to the department. Both excited and confident, they accepted the offer.

“We hadn’t contacted any businesses and this is the first mural that we had done [with] the high school other than in school [commissions].

I don’t know if there was someone who had a son or daughter who was attending here,” Another art teacher at City High, Michael Close, said. “I know that a lot of people, after doing this, had kids who went here years ago, but...it was just nice for them to recognize that we are on the same side of the river and we [have] some talented students.”

To Shaffer Hardwood, the Commander for the Sons of the American Legion, the mural wasn’t just a fun idea that they had come up with. It also served as a symbol of what the American Legion represents, and hopes that it would inspire questions in the students at the neighboring school.

“I thought it would be great to have the flag on the back of the building,” Hardwood said. “Maybe students at the school [Willowwind] might be curious as to know what we are all about and potentially have the teachers maybe explain that to them.”

Painting this mural was a first of many for the art department. They have painted murals prior to this opportunity, however, they have all been within the school grounds. This project was also the first time that they had painted a mural on an exterior wall. “[We have] not [painted a mural] outside of school, so that was a first,”

here’s a buzz in the crowded art room as people rush around gathering materials before pulling up stools and settling down at work tables. Daniel Peterson and Michael Close, art teachers at City High, run around helping with their various projects. “[Art Club] is pretty unstructured most of the time. So, in class, we have daily objectives or lessons going on with specific material or processes,” said Peterson. “It’s really just a space for kids to work on whatever they want.”

The lack of organization in the club may seem chaotic, but it does nothing to inhibit the calm environment. Art Club’s free spirit allows students to work on whatever they want.

“We don’t really work on coherent projects anymore,” said Close.

“Over the past few years we’ve opened [Art Club] up to more of an ‘open art studio’ time where people can catch up on work they’ve missed, or if you’re not in an art class you can come in and learn to do whatever you want to do!”

Daphne Knoop ‘20 hasn’t missed a single day of Art Club since she started attending her freshman year.

“I personally love the way the club is structured because I never have any trouble coming up with things to do, and even if I did I think Dan or Michael would be able to suggest something,” said Knoop. “There really [aren’t] any planned activities.

It’s really nice for students who have an art class, but don’t have a lot of open periods or free time during the day to come in and finish their projects.”

The club allows students taking an art class to catch up on work or get help from Close or Peterson.

“I’m in AP Studio Art, [so] I’ve got a lot of work to do and that may seep into Art Club,” said Knoop. “I like Art Club because you can do whatever you want; it’s a nice way to de-stress at the end of the day. Depending on the mood you’re in, you can do whatever type of art you’d like.”

However, you don’t have to take an art class to benefit from attending the club.

“With the club, somebody could come in who have never taken a ceramics class or a glass class before and say, ‘I want to learn how to make a stained-glass window,’ and we would, as long as they’re showing up every week, sit with them, give them that instruction, and help them with how to do that,” said Close. “It’s more personalized, like a one-on-one situation rather than a class.”

Art Club is preparing for City High’s annual Film Fest in May, which takes submissions of short films made by students and held in Opstad Auditorium.

“I won’t be submitting anything to film fest, but as a member of Art Club I’ll be helping to plan and set up,” said Maria Buri ‘20. “Making posters, picking a theme, and spreading the word are all important parts of getting ready for Film Fest.”

Another project the Art Club is working towards this trimester is installing an outdoor firing kiln.

“Our next goal is to set up an outdoor [raccoon kiln] for ceramics, which is a pretty big undertaking and it’ll be pretty challenging in the cold weather,” said Peterson. “But if we can get it set up it’ll be super, super special.”

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ABOVE: City High students and art teachers paint a mural PHOTO BY OWEN SORENSON Peterson said. “The town kind of has [a] mural fever right now, so it was exciting to have this project drop into our lap even though they pretty much just cold called us.”

Creating art is a passion for both the teachers and the student that took part in the project. However, there were many other enjoyable parts to painting the mural. For both Peterson and Close, it was the interaction with the people of the American Legion.

“I really liked the interaction with the people that were coming and going from there and just the positive reinforcement that they were all giving,” Close said, “You could tell that this was meaningful to them even if it didn’t have a deep underlying meaning for us.”

With creating a new piece of art for the first time comes many different challenges, as well as a steep learning curve. This was no different for the art department. There were multiple challenges and nuisances that they had to figure out and solve before they finished painting. The most pressing difficulty, however, was time management.

“We had to do it in real short bursts to get the kids involved and to work

with our work schedule. I mean, we are here all day,” Peterson said. “Otherwise its weather since it was outdoors. There was a couple of days where [the] weather was almost an issue, but we never got rained out and never got too cold so we got lucky in that department.”

Despite the steep learning curve of the project, those who participated in the project took something away from the experience. For Peterson, it was both answering the more practical questions as well as learning the different techniques of painting a mural for the first time on an exterior wall.

“As our first mural project, there was a lot of logistics that we had to figure out, like where do you order paint, what type of paint do you use on an exterior wall, and what do you have to do to that paint to treat it,” Peterson said. “We had to do a lot of research, we had to call some friends, and we had to order paint from a special place.

There was a pretty steep learning curve and we had to figure it out on our own, but that was fun.”

With completely new projects always comes the risk of not having enough students dedicated or excited to assist in the new endeavor. This was

evident in this project, as there were only a handful of students who attended the art club. Despite the lack of students, the art department is hopeful that more students will be excited andwork on the next mural project.

“I think for this one we didn’t have as many students as we had hoped,” Close said. “But I think after this one, a lot of people have seen this now and I definitely have heard a lot of people say, ‘Oh, I wish I could [have] helped,’ and, ‘I wish I could have been there,’ so hopefully the next time we do something like this, after students have seen what we actually do, there will be a little bit more excitement.”

In addition to being confident with a higher student turn out, the art department plans to embark on another mural project the next time another opportunity becomes available.

“That is always one of the fun parts of these types of projects,” Peterson said. “Do them once and then do it a lot better and faster the next time and you’re excited to do it the next time.”

Greenpeace bake sale raises money for W.W.F.

By Estella Brady & Nina Lavezzo-Stecopoulos

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tudents gathered in the main foyer on Monday, October 29 to buy and sell treats made by the members of the newly established City High branch of Greenpeace. Students started the club after a unit in AP World last school year that included discussion about the Green Revolution. Katherine Introna ‘20 wondered why there was no Greenpeace club at City High and decided to change that. The club meets in room 1312 from 8:25 to 8:35 on Monday mornings.

“If you talk to adults, they all know what Greenpeace is, but if you talk to kids in our generation, barely anyone knows [Greenpeace],” said Introna. “So I think it’s important that we start the new generation.”

The organization focuses on many environmental issues: protecting bio-

diversity, preventing and eliminating pollution of the land and sea, limiting deforestation, working to get animals off the endangered species list, and fighting global warming.

“There are so many issues surrounding global warming, I’d like to at least be a part of something that does something to help it,” said Sophie Trom ‘20, a member of the club.

Students feel a particular need to aid the environment in order to secure a safe future for themselves and future generations.

“I want to make the community a better place and because, as we know, the world’s going downhill. It’s our job to keep it stable for a while and help the endangered species. Giraffes are now on the endangered species list, and polar bears are too,” said Azzurra Sartini-Rideout ‘20. “You can watch videos of them not in their habitat anymore; all brown. It’s really depress-

ABOVE: Students purchase sweets at a Greenpeace bake sale PHOTO BY NINA LAVEZZO-STECOPOULOS ing.”

The students connected with an already formed, local chapter of Greenpeace to begin their work with environmentalism. The bake sale was the first event for the club to host, with many more to come. Although there are many objectives that the group plans to focus on, the first one will be to do-

nate their proceeds of the sale to the WWF, the World Wildlife Fund.

“This is our first big move towards really making a change in our community. The ultimate goal with bringing Greenpeace here,” said Introna. “We want to better the environment and better the world. Starting in Iowa.”

4A NEWS

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

Winter wonderland City High studets attended the winter formal dance on Saturday, December 8

ABOVE: Beatrice Kearns ‘19, Ingrid Streitz ‘19, and Isabel Jones ‘19 before the winter formal dance

By Millie Garcia and Zoe Miller

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olored lights danced across the ceiling and the hallways glowed with fake snow.

Music reverberated through the room.

Students who attended the Snow Ball were pleased with how it turned out. In many ways, students enjoyed the dance and its laid back atmosphere.

“I thought [the Snow Ball] was really fun.

There weren’t a lot of people because everybody was saying, ‘No one is going to be there, so I’m not gonna go,’ but that kind of made it better because at Homecoming, there were so many people. At Homecoming, it was hot and you couldn’t really walk around,“ Erin Liebig ‘22 said.

City High’s annual Snow Ball returned on December 8. The dance was put on by Student Senate with help of chaperones. Brady Vanlo ‘18, a City High alum, was the DJ for the dance.

When students bought tickets, they could write down a music request. These songs were included in the DJ’s lineup.

“The music was awesome, the DJ was really good, and we all just had a good time. They played ‘Dancing Queen’ and it was so awesome!

This was my third time going and it’s always a fun time because there’s always less people so it’s less overwhelming,” Rachael Volkman ‘19 said.

Before the dance, the student senate was not sure they were going to sell enough tickets to

“THE MUSIC WAS AWESOME, THE DJ WAS REALLY GOOD, AND WE ALL JUST HAD A GOOD TIME.”

ABOVE: Olivia DeNeice ‘19, Ellie Evans ‘19, and Drew Damhorst ‘19 before the winter formal

LINDY RUBLAITUS ‘19 profit. Announcements at lunches and over the intercom convinced more students to attend.

Over 130 people ended up going to the Snow Ball Saturday night, which was a big relief to the student senate and and their budgeting.

“Our total profits after expenses ended up being about $1200, which is great because now that is more money that we can give back to the clubs at this school. We can make time for fun events and a lot of smaller things that we have to pay out throughout the course of the year,” Lottie Gidal ‘19, senior class president, said.

In previous years, the music at City High’s dances has been seen as a hit or miss, but there was positive feedback from this year’s Snow Ball.

“I like this dance more [than previous years].

I thought the music...compared to Homecoming was better and compared to last year was better too. It was really fun with just my friends being there.” Volkman said.

ABOVE: Rachel Livio ‘21, Lauryn Varo ‘21, Allison Ribble ‘21, Zoe Stanhope ‘21, and Kay Sieben ‘21 before the winter formal dance

What is iJAG?

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By Owen Sorenson

ithin the diverse environment of City High, there is a program that not many students know about that serves a small group of students. Although a small program, it is believed to have a great impact on the students who complete it.

“Literally every day [is crazy]. There is so little that I can anticipate, or what I can anticipate is very strange,” Lauren Darby, co-teacher of the City High iJAG program, said.”What I have learned from my students, their personalities and their running commentaries, they’re just very entertaining.”

The idea of iJAG is to teach students certain skills that they would not normally be taught in the conventional core classes. iJAG was originally devised as a response to the need for skilled workers in the workforce.

“It stands for Iowa Jobs for America’s Graduates. It is a statewide program that is part of the federal JAG program,” Darby said. “It is designed to meet the need of young people who were graduating without the necessary information for entering the workforce.” iJAG has many differences from the way that common core works, such as the skills that they are taught, as well as how they learn their material. Within iJAG, the teachers focus on teaching skills that are actually going to be needed posthigh school, but are still supported by the Common Core. This means that they try and continue using writing, speech, or math skills while still learning about their own curriculum.

“We do have a Common Core set of core proficiencies. They are all based on things like career development, job obtainment, job survival, basic skills, leadership and self-development, personal skills, and life survival skills,” Darby said. “We do a lot of writing tasks and public speaking tasks; we want to make sure we are reinforcing the core skills that they are working on in other classes but hopefully applying it a little bit more so they can see exactly how they are going to be using it post-high school.”

Within iJAG, the grades are split into two different groups, having ninth and tenth grades separated from eleventh and twelfth. Both of the groups focus on something different, with the ninth and tenth group focusing on more personal improvement and eleventh and twelfth focusing on post-high school skills.

“We try to divide it so that nine and ten is really about personal discovery and reflection and study skills, making goals.” Darby said. “In eleventh and twelfth really focusing on the hard skills of interviewing, writing a resume, looking for jobs, and applying for colleges…”

The curriculum for iJAG takes a broad approach to the different industries in the workforce. It emphasizes on showing all fields, including those that would take an alternative path to mastery, or ones that do not require a degree to enter. However, it does make sure the students are aware what it means to have a college degree and what sort of opportunities that would introduce.

“We do try to introduce our students to fields that have internship programs and other types of alternative paths to mastery so that they are not feeling like the only way to move forward is through a college education,” Darby said, “although we absolutely support our students in pursuing college education.”

One of the biggest differences between iJAG and the core classes is how the class is taught, following the structure of “project-based learning.”

Project-based learning is a teaching style that focuses on having a major project for every unit rather than having lectures, conventional homework, quizzes, and tests. This style of learning isn’t only reserved to iJAG, but as it requires a very specific teaching environment, it is harder to find in the core classes.

“People can use project-based learning in any course, but it is time-intensive and requires flexibility and that is something that we have a lot of and so I think in some ways it’s a bit easier to use that model,” Darby said. “The real thing that differs from doing project-based learning and just doing a project is that it is supposed to have a driving question that the students are working to better understand and they can do that investigation in any way they want.”

Continued on 9A

NEWS 5A

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

H U M A N S O F C I T Y H I G H

My favorite song from Juice WRLD is probably “Armed and Dangerous.

He is my favorite rapper. When I’m listening to Kendrick Lamar or something I focus on the words.

But when I’m listening to Juice WRLD, it’s more like the beat. I like [Kendrick’s] whole DAMN album.

There’s only one song that I don’t like and I can’t really think about it. But I like the album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.

Something new that happened in my life recently is that I got a concussion on Monday. I got elbowed in the side of the head. And now i’m out and I can’t play West on Friday, so i’m kind of bummed about that but life is good. I was playing basketball during practice, then I was elbowed by one of my teammates. Apparently I was acting really weird after I got his in the head, and then I had to wait a day to take the concussion test. The test came back positive.

By Cecile Bendera and Everline Bwayo

I regret caring about people more than they care about me. It’s just dumb when you care about someone and you thought you were gonna get something in return but they don’t care about you at all. I really did care about this one person and I thought they cared about me too, but since I stopped showing them that I care they’ve shown me their true colors, that they don’t care about me at all.They were just there to use me. One day if I have a kid I will care about them more than I care about myself but for now if your not here to help me where I wanna be than I don’t want you in my life.

I am watching The Flash season four. My favorite superhero is Superman because I like all his powers. My favorite superhero movie is Infinity War, but I have to wait a whole year to see the other part of it. That’s one part I hate about the movie. In my free time I sometimes read supernatural, sci-fi, and that type of stuff. My favorite book so far is a book that I read in class called Forged by Fire. I feel like it’s the greatest book I’ve read this year.

I am passionate about sports because they’re fun.

I run cross country, track and I swim. [I like] competing with my friends and as a team.

I like both Cross Country and Track but I like track more because I’m better at it and it’s more exciting. The races are faster and there’s relays which are fun. There’s different events so you can specialize in different things.

But I do like the team atmosphere in cross country better. What motivates me is to just to keep getting better at it and to keep improving. Doing sports is probably the best part about my day.

Meet the 4th Ave family Fourth Ave. Jazz co. has adopted a new theme this year with a focus on the Iowa City Wave

By Zoe Miller

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he annual City High Show Choir Winter Show returns on December 15th. There will be performances by 4th Avenue Jazz Company, Charisma, the City High Jazz Ensemble and the City High Jazz Collective.

This year 4th Avenue Jazz Co. has taken a different approach to their show. The show is based upon the Wave at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. It is a story show which means it follows one family throughout their journey with their child’s illness.

“I like [the show] a lot. I like the theme and how we can involve the community. In other shows the theme has been dance, but this time we can connect to other people and inspire emotion. Especially for children and families with these possible illnesses,” Emily Milefchik ‘19 said.

Since the show is based on families it has required the performers to step into character roles. Each person is part of a three person to four person family. Their outfits reflect the type of family they are in. There are sporty, casual and dressy families. Milefchik reflects on how Fourth Ave being separated into families has impacted her experience.

“I think people in their [families] tend to get to know each other a lot better. It feels like more a family because we are little families in a sense. People actually take on the character.

People say that’s my brother or that’s my sister, that’s my mom, so that’s really cool.”

There will be a donation box for The University of Iowa Children’s hospital at the door.

The winter show is also defined by it’s student hosts, who will have the added challenge of of incorporating the theme into their comments.

This year Thomas Brands ‘19 and Lindy Rublaitus ‘19 will be hosting. “[Hosting] is something I’ve never done before, but after being in show choir for four years and watching other seniors host it it has always been something I’ve kind of dreamed of doing.

It’s an honor in a certain way. I’m excited to put our own spin on [hosting],” Brands said.

Bleeding Red Literally City High students participated in the annual blood drive, a chance for the De Gowin Blood Center to collect

By Noah Bullwinkle

lows ‘20 to participate in the blood drive.

“I know it supports a good cause, and I’ve ith the Commons filled with donors never donated blood before, so I just wanted to and nurses, the City High Interact know what is feels like and help people out,” FelClub hosted its annual student/teach- lows said.

Unlike some other parts of the body, blood er blood drive in conjunction with the University of Iowa DeGowin Blood Center. Over 30 students can’t be manufactured in a lab. According to Jesparticipated, donating around one pint of blood sica Hinrichs, the University of Iowa blood drive coordinator, this is what makes blood drives so each. essential. Blood drives are also the most efficient O negative blood type, way to organize members of the universal donor, is the community, such as teachmost beneficial to those “I’VE NEVER DONATED ers and students at City High, in need. However, every BLOOD BEFORE. I JUST to donate blood. Because of blood type and donation is useful; according to the WANTED TO KNOW WHAT that they serve a vital role in securing blood that can be Red Cross, each donation IT FEELS LIKE TO HELP used in hospitals in the area in can save up to three lives.

PEOPLE OUT.” order to save lives and secure a Statistics like these and resource integral to the media desire to help those in cal process. This is expecially need of blood encouraged SYDNEY FELLOWS ‘20 important because hospitals students like Sydney Fel-

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ABOVE: Kiana Chalupa ‘20 gets her blood drawn PHOTO BY NOAH BULLWINKLE are always in need of more blood so extracting it is key.

“In order to save a life, we need volunteers to come in and donate,” Hinrichs said. “Everything we collect goes to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and then to the Stead Family Children’s Hospital so those patients who have cancer or have had experienced different trau-

matic events have extra blood.”

However, some first time donors such as Lydia McIntire ‘20 were not prepared for the needle aspect of blood giving, required to extract the blood from the veins of those who decided to donate their blood “I almost fainted, but at least I know what it’s like now!” she said.

NEWS 6A

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

Cans, clothing, and cash

LH REWIND Those crazy years: A collection of teachers’ high school experiences All teachers were once high school students and they have their own crazy stories to tell.

Learn about what happened: glitter mixes with basketball, school pranks gone wrong, and house “parties” getting intercepted by parents.

After dozens of hours at Hyvee booths, the Student Senate raises thousands for the Crisis Center

By Julianne Berry-Stoelzle

T

“IT’S IMPORTANT TO GIVE BACK TO THE COMMUNITY AND NOT JUST LIVE OUR LIVES ORIENTED IN OURSELVES.”

I TOO MUCH GLITTER

hrough clothing and food drives, Student Senate collected food, winter clothing, and thousands of dollars in donations for those in need, with bags of food crowding the main foyer and drop off boxes at the front desk in the City High library.

Chip Hardesty worked with the Student Senate on the clothing drive to collect winter coats, sweaters, and other warm garments for the winter season.

Students in need of clothes will be able to confidentially receive them, free of charge.

“The idea is to get a treasure trove of coats that are available for students that struggle finding a winter coat, for example,” Hardesty said. “Anything that’s left will be donated to UAY and the Crisis Center, and any number of places that take excess clothing.”

Hardesty also worked with students to gather monetary and food donations. Students emphasized the need for monetary donations due to one dollar being able to buy four pounds of food at the Crisis Center.

“We’re looking for money, that’s ideal, but we definitely appreciate canned goods,” Shoshie Hemley ‘21 said.

Students also worked to collect goods and money from Hy-Vee. Student Senate signed up for various shifts to collect thousands of dollars and advertise.

“We have signs that we put up and we have little half sheets that we give to people as they walk in the door. The big thing is that we always say what we’re doing and ask them to donate right by the door,”

n her junior year of high school, Haley Johannesen was co-captain of the dance team called the Palmz, with a z at the end. The Palmz would always do the halftime show for the basketball team. However, to the surprise of the team, certain fashion statements became troublesome.

“In the early 2000s, we would wear a ton of glitter to accentuate our hair, and all of our makeup was glitter. We wanted to be seen,” Johannesen said.

“We would just dump it on over and over and go out and dance.”

This meant that after the dance team performed, the gym floor was covered in glitter.

“The basketball team had to ask us to stop using so much glitter because every time they bounced the basket-

fter being caught driving on a suspended driver’s license, AJ Leman was surprised to find out just how strict the consequences were. He had accidentally rear ended a Pontiac Sunfire, pushing it into a telephone poll.

“Thankfully the guy [in the Pontiac Sunfire] was okay,” Leman said.

“I remember thinking to myself, I’m screwed. I don’t have a license.”

When the police asked to see his driver’s license, Leman was unable to show it.

“The officer said, ‘Put your hand on the car. You are under arrest for driving on a suspended licence.’ He cuffed me and put me in the back of his car,” Leman said.

Not having suspected this could happen, Leman was shocked.

STRAINED BEGINNINGS

Rachael Volkman ‘19 said. “It’s super convenient.”

Students also contributed to the growing collection of cans from Hy-Vee at City High by leaving food in the foyer.

“It was actually interesting because we got all the [food] from Hy-Vee put down in the main foyer and bags started showing up. People just saw it sitting there and brought in more stuff, which is really awesome.” Volkman said.

Through collections and donations at Hy-Vee, students were able to accumulate the equivalent of thousands of pounds of food for the Crisis Center and substantially surpass collections of past years.

“We got 2,300 dollars in cash and then over 2,000 pounds in food, and they have a one dollar equals four pounds of food conversion at the Crisis Center, so we donated over 11,000 pounds of food,” Volkman said.

Some of the food collected will also be used for City High’s Food Pantry to help students that don’t have enough food for weekends and other days without school. Overall, students have viewed the drives as successful and a continuation of the tradition of giving to the Crisis Center.

“It’s important to give back to the community and not just live our lives oriented in ourselves and make sure we’re giving back to others.” Hemley said.

As one of the main orginizers, Volkman committed a lot of time to the can drive, but for her it was worth it.

“It felt really good to see all of student senate’s hard work pay off,” Volkman said. “I liked to see that the whole coumminty give and come together in order to support those in need within that same community. I hope that sudents will learn that it is not as hard as it seems to make a difference and help people. All it took was people’s time.”

W

hen freshman orientation ended early due to the school’s power being cut, Anna Basile decided to walk to her house with a few of her friends.

By the time she reached her house, those few friends had turned into about 200 freshman from multiple neighboring schools that had also been at the orientation.

“As we were walking, more and more people just started following us,” Basile said.

When her dad stopped by their house on the way to pick up Basile from the orientation, he was very surprised.

“There I was with 200 of my new closest friends and my dad flips out, thinking: high school’s gotten into her head so quickly; now she is having

“I was kind of a smart aleck because on the way to the jail I said ‘You did not read my rights.’ The police officer actually turned around and said ‘You watch too much TV,’” Leman said.

Once he got to the police station, Leman had to tell his parents what had happened.

“One phone call you never want to make is to your parents from the jail where you say, ‘Hey, Dad, I’m in jail,’” Leman said. “They were really mad that time. So my dad waited until the very end to bail me out.”

Leman had to wait at the police station for about four hours until his dad finally bailed him out at six o’clock that evening.

“I learned my lesson. I’ve been ticket free for 20 years,” Leman said.

ball, puffs of glitter would come up, and the players were sliding around the glitter-covered floor.” Johannesen said.

The Palmz were not happy with the complaint, because it lead to unwanted changes. The school’s administration decided to put a stop to the use of glitter.

“We had to just stop wearing glitter midseason and it was devastating,” Johannesen said. “Think of someone being like you can’t wear mascara.”

They had complained, but nothing could be done. Their plan of having someone sweep the gym after their performance was ignored.

“When we left [the gym] there had been glitter everywhere,” Johannesen said. “Thinking back, it was kind of beautiful.”

A

SHOSHIE HEMLEY ‘20

Being careful not to damage any of their teacher’s things, they switched the classrooms of two of their teachers.

“We flip flopped everything, and put it back together exactly [as it had been in the other room],” Burkle said.

“We thought it would be funny. But [on Monday] the teachers just flip flopped rooms and didn’t act like anything happened.”

The friends had been disappointed but did not ask the teachers about the switch due to their worry that the teachers would suspect they were behind it.

“We just all accepted that our joke backfired,” Burkle said. “For the rest of school year, and probably until the school was destroyed, the teachers just stayed in those rooms instead.”

LEARNING A LESSON

D

uring his high school career, John Burkle and his friends had a habit of playing pranks on teachers. In an area before fancy security systems, they were seldomly caught.

“We all knew that we were lock jawed. If one of us got caught doing something stupid, they would never sell out the other person,” Burkle said.

One Friday, they snuck into the school through an open art room window on the first floor.

“We cracked it about an inch Friday at the end of the day,” Burkle said.

“Nobody checked it and so we went back Saturday and it was still open.”

West Liberty High School, which had been built in 1917, did not have locks on any of the classroom doors.

SWITCHEROO

By Ellis Chen and Carly Wiegel

parties when she is supposed to be at school,” Basile said.

Basile was embarrassed in front of people that she was just beginning to get to know.

“He yelled at me in front of everybody. He didn’t even stop and ask questions or anything,” Basile said. “It was so unlike him.”

Her dad made all of the ninth graders go home right away. Basile said that thinking back and being a parent now herself, she is able to better understand her dad’s side of the incident.

“You get to the point where you are like I don’t know what I would do if this ever happened,” Basile said. “That is probably where he was thinking: I guess I should yell now and send everybody home.”

NEWS A7

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

CITY HIGH

PAST PRESIDENTS

Past Class presidents share what they are doing right now and their experience as president

By Henry Mildenstein

MOHAMED

TEAGAN

L

E

ROUABHI ‘13

ROEDER ‘18

ong before attendance to student senate meetings became a prerequisite for a campaign, Mohamed Rouabhi ran for student class president with almost no experience in the club.

“When I was elected, it took time to understand my role,” Rouabhi said. “I feel that I would have been more effective had I taken the time earlier on to understand student senate and its mission.”

Despite a steep learning curve, Rouabhi was able to adapt to his role as class president.

“I was able to work with student senate to plan and execute many events,” Rouabhi said. “In addition to this, I spent time meeting with Mr. Bacon discussing the state of the school and presented updates to the school board each month.”

Rouabhi is thankful for how his time during the presidency helped him mature.

“I was able to gain experience communicating with my peers, as well as with people who had more authority to complete necessary tasks, implement new structures and reach common goals,” Rouabhi said.

As of now, Rouabhi is a second-year medical student at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

He is currently undecided as to which medical specialty he would like to enter. However, he has interests in both surgery and cardiology.

“While I was at City High, we were fortunate enough to have a very strong science department,” Rouabhi said. “I have been interested in medicine from a young age, and the faculty helped me to really gain an appreciation for the role of science and continued to push me towards this goal.”

Rouabhi feels that City High helped him connect with a diverse group of people.

“I learned to interact with people from different cultures and different backgrounds at a young age, and this has given me an advantage in my field and in the world outside of medicine,” Rouabhi said.

SOPHIE

LUCY

WAGNER ‘17

NEEMS ‘12

A

ttending City High for only her junior and senior years, Lucy Wagner was elected president of her class. “I was very nervous about making friends, so I became really involved in student senate because I loved the people that joined the club,” Wagner said.

One thing that Wagner thought went well during her presidency was how Mr. Bacon and the City High faculty did a good job of listening to students ideas for improvement.

“I genuinely felt as though the work we did in our committees was translated into school policy,” Wagner said. “Being the class president, I had a unique opportunity to meet a lot of people in different clubs and extracurricular activities.”

The involvement that she had during her presidency is something that helped her after high school.

“I believe that the students that join student senate, and are actively involved, really do make an impact on our school, and will continue to make an impact in the world post-graduation. When I started applying for colleges, I won a lot of scholarships due to my involvement in student senate, so I am indebted to City for that,” Wagner said.

Currently, Wagner is a sophomore at St. Olaf College. She is majoring in chemistry and mathematics, and minoring in neuroscience and mathematical biology. She is also involved with various other activities at St. Olaf.

“I am president of Neuroscience Club, and I work in a neuroscience laboratory studying the retina and melanopsin systems,” Wagner said. “In addition, I am enrolled in ballet courses. Back in Iowa City, I work in a Parkinson’s disease laboratory, which is a blast! This spring, I am studying abroad in Budapest to learn Hungarian and take a mathematics course.”

A large influence for Wagner was the faculty at City.

“I appreciate the effort that City High teachers make in connecting with their students and forming friendships. I adored my calculus teacher, Mr. Miller, which definitely had an impact on me wanting to pursue mathematics more. I also loved taking biology and physics!” Wagner Said.

In her future Wagner would like to attend an MD/PhD program either at the University of Iowa or somewhere in the DC or Virginia area.

“Currently, I am thinking about doing residency in neuroscience and my PhD in either biomedical or electrical engineering, or something in the realm of computational/mathematical neuroscience,” Wagner said.

2012

Sophie Neems

2013

Mohamed Rouabhi

arning the title of “El Presidente” during his election, Teagan Roeder discovered a lot about his personality.

“While running for president I found that I really loved public speaking and the experience of being around people,” Roeder said.

The experience of the elections was something Roeder enjoyed.

“The election was a lot of trying to boost people’s morale and I found it hilarious when people called me ‘El Presidente,’” Roeder said.

While Roeder liked the elections, he had some issues with how they were run.

“The current system is undemocratic. Currently, the winner is the candidate with the most votes. Even if the winner doesn’t have a majority, they win. In terms of [a] representational] system, I think a ranked voting system would work better. Hypothetically, in my election, I would have been able to win with only 51 votes,” Roeder said.

An experience from the presidency that helped Roeder grow was the task of having to respond to the needs of multiple people.

“It’s not an intensive position, but you still have to respond to the people that are like, ‘Hey, we should do X,Y, and Z for the next dance.’ Being accountable gives you a taste of what it’s like to be in an important position,” Roeder said.

Currently Roeder is studying at the U of I. “I am an open major and I am the president of my dorm. I also have something in the works that I am not able to share as of now but I am excited for what the future holds,” Roeder said.

2014

Cassidy Bringel

D

during her presidency Sophie Neems worked to establish a recycling bin in the cafeteria and organize various food drives. One of the things she organized was a school dance called MORP. It was 80s-themed, and students were encouraged to wear costumes. The price of admission was canned food items instead of money. The dance was held the same night as a big basketball game, and Neems was worried about attendance.

“A lot of students came before the game and a whole group of people came straight from the game to the dance. It was an exciting moment of crossing social barriers, an event where lots of people from different friend groups came together to have a good time and support the Food Bank,” Neems said.

One things that Neems feels her presidency taught her was the ability to think creatively to accomplish projects in an innovative way. For the homecoming parade, instead of having the typical float, she decided to organize their float as a project to support charity.

“We called it ‘Pack the Pickup’ and we encouraged parade watchers to bring canned foods to the parade that we then collected into the pickup truck that served as our float. This was a fun way to support those in need in our community while also marching in the parade,” Neems said.

Throughout her presidency, she worked with City High, Student council, cafeteria staff, custodians, teachers, and administrators trying to establish a recycling program in the cafeteria.

“We needed everyone on board before we were going to make a change,” Neems said. “I have used these same types of coalition building and collaboration skills beyond my presidency, throughout my advocacy efforts.”

While she was never a huge fan of sports, Neems ended up running cross-country her sophomore year.

“I found a really supportive community on the team and went on to run cross-country at Grinnell College, where I had a ton of fun and made lifelong friends. This drive to try new things has stuck with me even after graduation,” Neems said.

Currently, Neems lives in Washington, D.C., and is an advocate for farmers. She works for an organization called Farm Credit.

“Farming is expensive–you have to have money to buy land, equipment, seeds, etc., and my organization makes sure that farmers can get loans to buy these things. Part of that means talking to Congress to tell them why it’s important to support agriculture and farmers,” Neems said.

While she isn’t quite sure of what she would like to do in the future, there are several pathways she is considering.

“A few of my dreams include being an anthropology professor, where I could teaching awesome young people and studying farmers; working in farm policy to increase justice in our agriculture system either in D.C. or in Iowa; and maybe even running for public office someday!” Neems said.

2015

Cora Bern Klug

2016

Daniel Kelly

2017

Lucy Wagner

Culture 8A

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

The Cultural Impact of Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan is arguably one of the most well-known ball players of all time. Today, many also see him as one of the greatest and he still has an impact on City High fashion and shoe status

By Henry Mildenstein

of money,” said Rose Nkumu ‘20, a point oday, Michael Jordan is a household guard for the City name. Many consider him to be the High Little Hawks. greatest basketball player of all time. His “Strange to think that skills on the court, the way he dribbled even though they didn’t the ball, and his legendary dunks– Michael Jor- have very much money, they dan was and still is the man every child and adult always wanted to rep Michael Jordan. They always wanted to buy aspired to be.

“Personally, I think MJ is a wonderful Black his shoes and clothes. It really male role model, and I think that he worked does make you think how he very hard,” Authu Connell a custodial worker at wasn’t able to at least give some City High who was born in the era when Jordan of that back by advocating for played, said. “Black males should follow his lead.” [the Black community]. Even Michael was an aspiration for any person who for the area he came from, he watched him. He showed in the purest way pos- didn’t really speak up for them.”

Jordan is many times compared sible that hard work will lead to achieving your to Lebron James, who is tremendousgoals.

“Not just his play, his whole way of being ly passionate about his career and legwas just something to aspire for other athletes acy as a basketball player. In the sumand young children,” said Carrie Watson, a Gov- mer of 2018, Lebron James opened ernment and Sociology teacher at City High. “I the I Promise school, a public elethink he worked hard, he loved athletics, he loved mentary school in his hometown of basketball, but he was a baseball player too. He Akron, Ohio, specifically aimed at at-risk children who live in impovwanted to [be] the best in everything he did.”

Michael Jordan has inspired many people erished neighborhoods. Lebron in terms of business. He is the representation of James has also spoke about the Black power in economics. He is also the CEO killings of Michael Brown, Eric of the Jordan Brand, the only company affiliat- Garner, and more. Consequented with Nike that has several African-American ly, he has received criticism from many people such as Fox presidents.

“I feel like as a Black owner you thought about News anchor Laura Ingraham, some of the things he did and you tried to follow who told James to “shut up and that same pattern,” said Anterio Nimmers ‘10, dribble.”

“LeBron James has more of a hall monitor and City High graduate. “I can imagine some of the business owners and CEOs a connection and does more advocating for the Black culture doing some things similar to Michael Jordan.”

Another integral and important factor to the and the community. He almost impact of Michael Jordan and his career are his always gives back to his comshoes, Jordans. They were a symbol to people that munity no matter what city he is playing for in the moment. He stays in contact anything was achievable–even flying.

“For my era, it was the shoes, Jordans. They with those different cities and communities], were wanted by everybody: every kid, and every making sure the connection and relationship adult. That impact that he had on the Black com- he has with them is still strong and health[y],” munity was huge,” Nimmers. “People get killed, said Nkumu. “People respect him for what he has done for the Black culture and community. Him jumped, and beat up for the shoes.”

The infamous Jordans shoes came with cons. being the greatest players...and being able to balMany people wanted the shoes, causing them to ance advocating for the Black community as well. be extremely expensive. The film “Kicks” show- A lot of people to have a great deal of respect for cases the dangers that a pair of Jordans can cause. him for that.”

On the other hand, criticism, like the comThe film is about a 15-year-old, Brandon, who ments Ingraham made buys a pair of Jordans beabout James, is something lieving that they will help “FOR MY ERA, IT WAS that many people, especialhim flee the reality of bely celebrities are afraid of, ing poor. He later becomes THE SHOES, JORDANS. that the criticism a target when a man in his THEY WERE WANTED BY worrying will cause harm or even neighborhood steals his EVERBODY: EVERY KID, end their money and career. shoes.

“In this society, if you talk “I’m looking at it AND EVERY ADULT.” to much on social issues, esfrom the outside in, but I pecially when you get to [a] do know that the Jordan certain level, you become the shoes were the first shoes ANTERIO NIMMERS ‘10 issue,” Connell said. in the 80s that came out Nimmers agrees., tying that were really really exto the incident with Colin pensive, like two, three times more expensive,” said Watson. “I saw kids, Kaepernick, who was also hated and criticized by for a label, asking their parents to do and buy the public. Even when Kaepernick was promoted things that were beyond their means, because of by Nike, many people on social platforms such as the association of a man with the shoes. Was it Twitter and Instagram were burning Nike shoes and products because Kaepernick was Nike’s the man or the label?”

Another criticism that Jordan has had is not spokesperson.

“His main issue was not to disrespect the flag using his platform to take a social stand or speak on issues occuring in the world. Many people or go against the military. He wanted to bring believe that he was not enough of an advocate justice for minorities who are being unlawfully and he did not speak out enough. They believe arrested, shot and killed by police officers,” said he cared too much and more about basketball, Nimmers. “Now when people bring him up, money, and his career more than he did helping they do not talk [about] what he is kneeling for.

They only talk about what he is doing which is, his own community.

“You always see a lot of Black people wear[ing] ‘You’re disrupting money, you’re disrupting the his shoe, and then many people didn’t have a lot NFL, and we can’t have that.’ That is payback

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ART BY KATE GOODVIN

on Kaepernick.

When you start making people uncomfortable and talking about social issues stuff, then it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, why is he even talking about that? Just be a football player.’ They [Black athletes] know they can’t do what the average white athlete does. They know it’s a slap on the wrist for them, but if they were to do that they would likely lose their job, and money, and endorsements.

Connell believes that because of the backlash and criticism that a successful person should not speak on social issues. He believes that when a person, especially from the Black community, begins speaking up, their own people will begin to bring them down.

“Personally, what a lot of people don’t understand is any Black male or female who make it very very well financially, you have to move up and out, because our own will bring you down,” said Connell. “There’s always someone trying to pull game, trying to get over, trying to think that you owe them something because you made it and they didn’t. I learned [from] my own experiences it’s very hard as you financially rise. It’s hard to stay in that same community, because your own will not let you stay there peacefully.

So you can’t fault people once they start moving up and to gradually move on. All of that’s not on them, a lot of that is on our race.”

Nimmers has an understanding for

both sides that celebrities take.

“I am not knocking the ones that do it and I am not knocking the ones that don’t, but I understand the ones that don’t because they are already [under] the microscope,” said Nimmers.

On the other hand, Watson believes that it is not only the duty or responsibility of celebrities but also members of the community as well.

“Our entertainers and our athletes become spokespeople of the Black community, I don’t think those are the best spokemen of any community,” said Watson. “Where are the teachers, where are the nurses, where are the doctors who are in the Black community and do great things too?”

Nkumu puts herself into the both Lebron James’s and Michael Jordan’s situation. If she were to become a professional basketball player, which example she would follow?

“I don’t know. I would probably be in the middle [of advocating],” Nkumu said. “I wasn’t brought up in that strong of Black culture. My dad is African, from the [Democratic Republic of Congo], but my mom is also White. I [am] kind of 50/50. I could see both sides but I don’t have the same experience.

The things that they went through, I didn’t go through. I don’t necessarily know what everybody’s been through, but I think I could still provide a voice for [The Black community].”

iJAG Continued from A4 Having a curriculum that isn’t standardized across the country, the responsibility of creating the course tends to fall on the teachers. It also allows for the students to have a larger say in and influence on what the projects are going to consist of. This grants freedom to the students, which further develops non-traditional skills.

“Well, I really like being able to make up my own curriculum. Even though we do have these core competencies that we are trying to meet, there is still a lot of freedom within that,” Darby said. “It has a lot to do with time management and developing initiative.”

The teachers not only are allowed to create the curriculum, but they are also allowed to pick and choose who is allowed into their classes. This allows the teachers to create a community of students who truly want to attend the course, as well as making the student list smaller and more attentive.

“Students have to express a desire

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018 to be here, they have to want it, they have to communicate why it’s going to help them, and they have to show up,” Darby said. “Generally, there is a pretty high retention rate from year to year. Most students will go through the whole program.”

Joining is a concern for both new students and teachers alike. For these students, there is the concern of disrupting the close community of students that had been bonding since the beginning of the trimester. There is also the concern of jumping into the middle of the curriculum. However, because of how the grades are grouped, the curriculum follows a two-year cycle, keeping things fresh while still managing to support students who don’t have prior knowledge.

“Well, they would be jumping into the curriculum instead. We try to do it on a two-year cycle so that for those students that do stick with it are getting new material each year but also for those who come in aren’t missing out on the curriculum,” Darby said. “There really isn’t that sense that your joining late. I think that people feel pretty included from the start.”

NEWS 9A

Boundaries Continued from A1

Some of the largest changes coming as consequences of the unanimous vote are going to be in Lincoln, Longfellow, Penn, and Mann elementaries. Lincoln and Longfellow elementaries are expected to have 28.2 and 19.7 percent increases, respectively, of students of lower socioeconomic status. The projected decreases of students of lower socioeconomic status are within Penn, at 11.3 percent, and Mann, at 10.9 percent.

Although there are some changes that will greatly impact a portion of the ICCSD elementary school population, which students are on the path to City High will go mostly unchanged.

“From my standpoint, all these kids will be Little Hawks anyways, and once they get to high school, they’ll be a part of one of the most richly diverse high schools in the state of Iowa,” Bacon said. “And I think that making sure all of our feeder elementary schools are diverse places as well will do nothing but better help students prepare for success in high school.”

By Mira Bohannan Kumar December 12 The student senate meeting on Wednesday, December 12, began with a discussion of the food pantry andhow to stock it.

“It has to be something that student senate does,” Meurice said on partnering with local organization HayCap to stock the pantry. “We have to have more people involved. If we want to do after-school snacks or weekend packages, that’s up to us–just keeping it running.”

The partnership would create a way to get a reliable food supply, but it might not be what City students need.

“They’re saying, ‘We’ll bring by a case of corn,’” Judith Dickson, a faculty adviser, said. “That’s fine, but I don’t see our students walking around with a spoon and a can opener.”

The senate debated options for partnering with HayCap and the pros and cons of doing so. Then it moved on to discussing the winter formal.

“We did make a profit of about $1300,” said President Lottie Gidal ’19.

“There were still not as many people as Homecoming and there never [are].

So for next year, we want to ask you about creating incentives to get people to come.”

Some ideas for the dance were to provide food to be purchased and to escalate ticket prices throughout the week they were to be sold.

Faculty adviser Chip Hardesty brought up the Senior Picnic in May, and Gidal announced that the senate will not meet on Wednesday, December 19.

December 5 The student senate meeting on Wednesday, December 5, began with President Lottie Gidal ‘20 calling a round of applause for the members of the Can Drive.

“That is at least three times what we had last year,” faculty adviser Steve Tygrett said. “Double the money, three times the goods.”

The senate discussed the winter formal and what remains to be done.

“We need people to buy tickets so that we can have a dance,” Judith Dickson, another faculty adviser, said. “It’s quite possible we will lose money.”

The senate will decorate for the winter formal right after school on Friday, December 7.

Vice President Naomi Meurice ‘19 presented to the senate on the Clothing Drive and the Food Pantry.

“We have stuff in the library for the Clothing Drive,” Meurice said. “[The focus is] winter clothing, distributing it back to City High students.”

The Food Pantry will be fueled by a small portion of the food collected at the Can Drive, Meurice said.

“The Food Pantry will be in Thos [Trefz]’s office,” said Dickson. “We need people down there to man it.”

Meurice said that the senate will first focus on students who may not have enough food for weekends and time off school.

November 28 The student senate meeting on Wednesday, December 5, began with President Lottie Gidal ‘20 calling a round of applause for the members of the Can Drive.

“That is at least three times what we had last year,” faculty adviser Steve Tygrett said. “Double the money, three times the goods.”

The senate discussed the winter for-

mal and what remains to be done.

“We need people to buy tickets so that we can have a dance,” Judith Dickson, another faculty adviser, said. “It’s quite possible we will lose money.”

The senate will decorate for the winter formal right after school on Friday, December 7.

Vice President Naomi Meurice ‘19 presented to the senate on the Clothing Drive and the Food Pantry.

“We have stuff in the library for the Clothing Drive,” Meurice said. “[The focus is] winter clothing, distributing it back to City High students.”

The Food Pantry will be fueled by a small portion of the food collected at the Can Drive, Meurice said.

“The Food Pantry will be in Thos [Trefz]’s office,” said Dickson. “We need people down there to man it.”

Meurice said that the senate will first focus on students who may not have enough food for weekends and time off school.

“For the weekend, there are 6+ meals that students have to take care of,” Meurice said. “Starting off, we’ll give some weekend packs, a box of pasta and some granola bars, and then we’ll see whether we need to expand.”

November 4 The student senate meeting on Wednesday, November 14 began with reports from committees. Rachael Volkman ‘19 passed around a sign-up sheet for the can drive, which will take place from November 17 to December 2 at City High.

“You can come to the can drive at the 1st Ave and Coralville strip HyVees [as well],” Yardley Whaylen ‘20 said. At these locations, the student senate will be collecting cans and money on November 17 and 18, as well as December 1 and 2.

The senate discussed releasing application forms for club grants to the main office for clubs to access. “[The form] basically asks...how much money you need, what the club’s goal or purpose is, and what you would use the money for,” Volkman said.

Jostens, the company that provides the school with attire and merchandise for graduation, prices its items in a way that the senate looks to remedy.

President Lottie Gidal ‘19 talked to the school “The school board just nodded and smiled,” Lottie Gidal ‘19, student senate president, said.

Scott Jesperson, City High assistant principal, visited the senate to talk about the planned celebrations for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in February 2019. There will be no regularly scheduled classes on the Friday before the holiday; instead, Jesperson talked about events, activities, and sessions dealing with diversity, spirit, and unity.

“Recently Mr. Bacon threw down a challenge to some of us to look to the future. One thing I suggested is that maybe we take Martin Luther King Day and...celebrate the diversity of our school,” Jesperson said. “[We can] make it a day about learning.

The plan is to take the Friday before Martin Luther King Day and we are inviting teachers to propose different events, field trips, [and] speakers. We want to look at some of the things [Martin Luther King, Jr.] proposed in his [“I Have a Dream”] speech. We have a lot of good ideas but we could have more, and that’s why I’m laying it out for you.”

10A NEWS

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21st, 2018

Gender Protests Erupt With recent political unrest toward people who identify as LGBTQ+, City High students have participated in city-wide protests in addition to promoting change throughout the school

By Olivia Lusala, Rhys Holman, & Zoe Butler

to call transgender or gender nonconforming students by their chosen name, instead of using their birth name. According to a statement from eniphilius Tyne ‘20 came MAP and GLSEN, dozens of pieces out as genderqueer three of legislation have been proposed in years ago. They are one a multitude of states in the last sevof 1.4 million Americans eral years, which, according to the who identifies as transgender or non- organization, can potentially deny binary, according to The New York young transgender people the right Times. Tyne identifies as gender- to safe spaces in school and using the queer, and came out “sometime after name and pronouns of their choosing. eighth grade.” “[GLOW is] going to be address“I was questioning my gender all ing better ways that staff can interof [the previous year],” Tyne said.

Recently, The New York Times act with queer youth and making reported that the Department of the classroom more queer-friendly: Health and Human Services was including gender neutral pronouns, proposing to make gender only iden- nonbinary pronouns, and giving extified by a person’s sex organs at amples that aren’t just heterosexual,” birth, meaning that they would limit Tyne, who is president of GLOW gender to only male and female. and club, said.

With about 15 students involved with any retaliation with one’s sex, would have to be confirmed by genet- in the GLOW club, they have worked ic testings. For gender non-conform- with student senate and administraing and transgender Americans, this tion to bring change to how queer students are being comes off as a viotreated in school lation of rights.

“DEFINITELY, THE MOST environments.

“At first, I “ D e f i n i t e l y, was very peeved. WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE the most work As many of miWITH STAFF. I’VE NEVER needs to be done norities it’s hard RUN ACROSS STUDENTS with staff. I’ve to have the govnever run across ernment say it’s THAT WERE REALLY students that were wrong for being PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVELY really passivewho you are, but realistically that ANTI-QUEER, BUT I HAVE aggressively antiTyne said. statement only RAN ACROSS STAFF THAT queer,” “But I have ran presents a small ARE LIKE THAT, AND across staff that part of the popuare like that, and lation, but there SO, THAT’S OUR GOAL so, that’s our goal are more people WITH GLOW THIS YEAR-- with GLOW this fighting against it than there are HELPING STAFF BE MORE year--helping staff be more educated people fighting EDUCATED WITH THIS with this type of for it. For anti TYPE OF STUFF.” stuff,” Tyne said. trans messages,” This type of Tyne said. discrimination in High-risk polXENOPHILIUS TYNE ‘20 schools leads to icy states where higher dropout anti-LGBTQ legrates for trans islation have been students across proposed or existing supportive legislation is under America. According to the NYCLU, attack might pop up within the next more than 50 percent of transgender school year. The 15 states include youth avoid school “on a regular Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kan- basis” and “drop-out rates are stagsas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, gering.” Transgender students who North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, continue school statistically have South Carolina, South Dakota, Ten- lower grade point averages and “are less likely to plan on continuing nessee, and Texas, and Iowa.

According to the 2015 Na- their education.” Iowa is one of the tional School Climate Survey, 15 most high-risk policy states where 65% of transgender students in anti-LGBTQ legislation has been America are harassed at school be- proposed. The 15 states include Colcause of their gender expression. orado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, KanSchools often require these students sas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, to use separate bathrooms. Addition- North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, ally, 70% of transgender students re- South Carolina, Dakota, Tennessee sponded that they avoid bathrooms and Texas. According to the Human at school because they feel unsafe Rights Campaign’s equality index, 2017 alone saw at least 100 anti-LGand uncomfortable.

“I used to feel a bit indifferent at BTQ bills in 29 states, with many of times about judgment from others,” them being specifically anti-trans.

“I guess I’ve always felt safe here, Luna Kellicult ‘17, a City High graduate who identifies as genderqueer, but I would also say I haven’t always felt completely comfortable,” Ausaid.

In the case of gym class, locker tumn Fields ‘19 said.

With dropout rates rates being rooms, could “out” trans students to their peers if they are not openly higher, the transgender population’s unemployment rate is twice the rate transgender.

“I think forcing labels is too abra- of the general population, accordsive. You can’t discipline a student ing to the New York Civil Liberties or staff for how they want to express Union. 25 percent of these youth who suffered verbal harassment, themselves,” Kellicult said.

Schools have refused to update sexual or physical assault, or expultransgender student’s records post- sion have been homeless. 50 pertransition, so that their correct cent of transgender youth who left names and gender pronouns are not school because of harassment were listed on attendance sheets. Some formerly or are currently homeless. teachers and administrators refuse Last year, City High’s student sen-

X

ABOVE: Protesters at the Iowa City trans rights protest PHOTO BY ZOE BUTLER ate created a gender-neutral bath- geting the gender-neutral bathroom,” room with intentions to encourage a Tyne said. “I do know that a lot of more diverse and accepting environ- trans and gender non-conforming ment among students. However, ad- students do use that bathroom for ministration and faculty have been what it is meant for, and is a place checking in on that is needed students more here at school.”

“JUST START TO BE EQUAL frequently in the City High is g e nde r- ne ut ra l just one of many TO ALL STUDENTS AND bathroom and schools beginSTAFF AND ALLOWING questioning ning to take new ALL TYPES OF SEXUAL keeping the reststeps towards room, due to suseducating stuEDUCATION AND AND picion of vaping. dents on gender SAFE SEX PRACTICES. “I do know identity. that a lot of stu“Just start ALLOWING A POSITIVE, dents abuse [the to be equal to NON-JUDGEMENTAL g e nde r- ne ut ra l all students and SPACE.” bathroom], but staff and allowa lot of students ing all types of do that in every sexual education LUNA KELLICULT ‘17 single other restand safe sex pracroom. The only tices. Allowing reason I feel like a positive, nonit it’s being made into such a big deal judgemental space,” Kellicult said. is because students of multiple genSchools throughout America are ders are doing it together. It’s going introducing new ways to educate stuon in every single bathroom, and the dents on the gender spectrum; teachadministration isn’t targeting that as ers in a dozen elementary schools in far as I’m aware of. They’re only tar- Seattle have taught lessons on gender

and self identity that designed to fulfill new state standards on health education. These lessons require teachers to teach students as young as kindergarten-aged about the different ways people express gender, how to show respect for all people, and how to identify a trusted adult to ask questions about sexual orientation and gender identity.

“It’s frustrating not being accepted by people in your country.

It’s very very demeaning there’s no reason for it to happen,” Fields said.

But government action has come in smaller doses throughout Trump’s entire time in office. On February 22, 33 days after his inauguration, the Trump administration’s policy concerning the trans community expanded in breadth when the justice and education departments withdrew a landmark guidance from 2016 explaining how trans students under Title IX. Less than two weeks later, on March 2, the justice department abandoned an injunction that it was going to impose on North Carolina for trying to pass the aforementioned anti-transgender piece of legislation.

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | OCTOBER 26, 2018

NEWS 11A

Many smaller policies affecting the likely to be predisposed to having on the trans community and have LGBT community would follow in negative feelings towards a multitude spread the aforementioned concerns. the coming months. However, none of groups, including the LGBTQ But the occurrences outlined in these compare to the magnitude of the community. Some of his supporters theories haven’t happened, making aforementioned “defining out” of then spread an escalated version of fear around it believed to be unreathe trans community from existence this rhetoric in the form of spreading sonable, barring enough empirical under the October theories not sup- occurrences to justify these beliefs.

“IT’S FRUSTRATING “It hurts; throughout history, proposal to limit ported by studies. trans people have been erased. I gender to a strict These included NOT BEING ACCEPTED binary which ideas that people thought we were getting to a place

BY PEOPLE IN YOUR is biological. who identify as where we were finally getting acThese actions are COUNTRY. IT’S VERY, VERY trans and non- cepted in our society, but I guess not. very much in line were part Clearly, Trump doesn’t think that’s DEMEANING. THERE’S binary with heavily conof a “liberal con- possible and has support from peoNO REASON FOR IT TO spiracy to under- ple who don’t think that’s possible,” servative ideas that were skeptical mine families,” Hannah* said.

HAPPEN.” Negative effects like these are isoabout the LGBT that kids were becommunity, and ing forced to be lated not just to the interpersonal levwith Trump’s suptrans, and that el, but as well have had governmental AUTUMN FIELDS ‘19 port on the camthe acceptance of actions that have contributed to acpaign trail of a North Carolina bill trans Americans would lead to an tions that have adversely affected the that wouldn’t allow transgender peo- increase of violence towards women. trans community. The most recent ple to use the bathroom with which This was most popularly spread in example of this is a proposal to dethey identified. However, in recent the form of the idea that “if trans fine gender as based upon the geniyears, there has been a trend towards people are able to use the bathroom talia one is born with, which could more general acceptance of people of the gender that they identify with, potentially define trans people out of based upon their sexuality, with op- then people who aren’t trans would existence.

“The trans community has always position to gay marriage going from be able to go into bathrooms and as57% to 35% since 2001, according to sault people in those bathrooms, and stood up against what’s been thrown the Pew Research Center, but this has police wouldn’t be able to stop them at us. We are proud of who we are. not yet occured with the recent rise because they could claim to be trans We have trans pride, Iowa City trans pride. We will continue moving of the trans community. so they couldn’t be kicked out.”

“It’s really important that trans Such ideas have been spread by forward and lifting up members of people aren’t just noticed, but accept- many conservative pundits regardless our trans community and the rest of the commued. I think in this current political of their support of climate, trans people are being erased Trump. Some such “IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT nity as a whole. and that is just not fair to anyone,” pundits are Ben THAT TRANS PEOPLE This is tough, but one of many Fields said.

Shapiro, Steven AREN’T JUST NOTICED, just things we’ve had In his time on the campaign trail, Crowder, and Milo to encounter and his rhetoric concerning the LGBTQ Yiannopoulos, the BUT ACCEPTED.” it will never erase community resonated with his sup- last two of whom us,” Joey* said. porters, shown in a study conducted are very committed AUTUMN FIELDS ‘19

by Dr. Karen J. Blair, a professor at Trump supporters St. Francis Xavier University, found and all of whom that Trump supporters were more share his beliefs

ABOVE: Protesters at the Iowa City trans rights protest PHOTO BY ZOE BUTLER

ABOVE: Autumn Fields ‘19 (left) at Iowa city trans rights protest PHOTO BY ZOE BUTLER

ABOVE: Protesters at the Iowa City trans rights protest PHOTO BY ZOE BUTLER

ABOVE: A group including Xeniphilius Tyne ‘19 and Autumn Fields ‘20 at the Iowa City trans rights peotest PHOTO BY ZOE BUTLER

12A OPINION

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

Votes for sale How corporate money has changed America from a democracy to a plutocracy

By Rhys Holman & Esti Brady

LH Executive Editors

Maya Durham Phoebe Chapnick-Sorokin

Opinion Editors Esti Brady Rhys Holman

Features Editors

Zoë Miller Nina Lavezzo-Stecopoulos

News and Sports Editor Lottie Gidal

Photo and Video Editors Lindy Rublaitus & Alison Kenaston

Copy Editors Phoebe Chapnick-Sorokin Emme Perencevich Mira Bohannan Kumar

A&E Editor Lindy Rublaitus

Web Editor Mira Bohannan Kumar

Graphics and Social Media Editors Zoë Butler Olivia Lusala

ART BY OLIVIA LUSALAA

Culture Editors Cecile Bandera Mariam Keita

Staff

Alice Boerner, Maya Chadwick, Elena Dreyer, Mario Medellin, Virginia Muturi, Montserrat Rodke, Javon Tyler-Cook, Noah Bullwinkle, Ellis Chen, Millie Garcia, Kate Goodvin, Natalie Green, Shoshanna Hemley, Reese Hill, Henry Mildenstein, Josh Poe, Owen Sorenson, Carly Weigel, Jack Bacon, Eva Bailey, Julianne Berry-Stoelzle, Everline Bwayo, Augustine Connolly, Jesse Hausknecht-Brown, William Irvine, Rachel Meehan, Ruth Meehan, Tariq Murphy Adviser: 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 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.

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founding principle of American democracy is that using your vote is an integral step in creating significant change in the country and that engaging in the political system is effective and worthwhile. However, this ideal seems to ring hollow when you consider that the median income in America is $31,786 and more than $24,000,000 was spent on the 2018 midterm elections. This money comes not from the majority of people in America, but from big corporations and the richest of the rich who want to control the political system with their insurmountablewealth, not giving any heed to the will of the people.

Money is used in many ways to influence politics, but one of the popular forms is through Political Action Committees (PACs), which are organizations that collect campaign contributions and are able to give and spend money on behalf of a political campaign. Money’s power is as well exerted through Super PACs, which have far less regulation than normal PACs but also aren’t allowed to directly give money to candidates, only spend money on their behalf.

However, this slight caveat does little to nothing to restrict their power.

The most important distinction between PACs and Super PACs is that normal PACs have bans on taking corporate and union money and limits on how much money can be given, while Super PACs do not. This means that multi-million- and multi-billion-dollar companies are allowed to give unlimited amounts of money to these Super PACs, which are then allowed to spend that money however they want to, as long as they aren’t giving the money to a candidate and are not in direct contact with that candidate. However, this latter restriction does little to rein in their power, because though they aren’t allowed to make direct contact, campaigns are allowed to use intermediaries to communicate with Super PAC officials and they can also communicate using public media.

To give an example of the scope and power that Super PACs have over PACs, consider that Super PACs only came into existence in 2010. In the 2008 presidential election, the top nine PACs, including money from both parties, raised just under 26 million dollars. In 2012, Mitt Romney, the Republican

presidential candidate, was supported by a Super PAC which alone spent 40 million dollars on his campaign.

With these astronomical amounts of money, it’s no wonder that many candidates on both sides of the political aisle are drawn into accepting these donations, regardless of the ethical questions that may arise. These groups don’t gain much public attention, but they can have far more influence than the organizations that make headlines for giving large sums of money. For example, the National Rifle Association has drawn a large amount of criticism for spending just over nine million dollars on politics in 2018.

However, this number pales in comparison to companies like Bloomberg LP, a tech company, which spent over 62 million dollars in contributions, the vast majority of which, 59 million dollars, was given to organizations like Super PACs. However, not all politicians are willing to be corrupted by the donations of big corporations, PACs, and contributions from the wealthy. Bernie Sanders made waves in the 2016 presidential primaries with his boast of his average campaign donation being just $27, in addition to his refusal to accept PAC money. Many candidates fell in line with this course of action in the 2018 midterms. More than 180 Democrats and two Republicans who ran for Congress this past fall pledged to reject PAC donations. However, these numbers still make up a very small minority of the entire field of candidates, even though 96 percent of Americans blame “money in politics” as a cause for some or much of the dysfunction in the U.S. political system, according to a Washington Post/ University of Maryland poll done in the fall of 2017.

One of the better-known candidates who refused to accept PAC money was democratic socialist and newly elected representative from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She defeated Joe Crowley, the former fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, who took $1.7 million during 2018 and $12 million over the course of his entire career.

Even candidates who did not win their elections still contributed to the growing wave of support behind minimizing the amount corruption within our political process. Beto O’Rourke, who ran against Texas Senator Ted Cruz, did not win, but continued to in-

spired the Democratic party more than almost any other candidate despite his loss, gaining national attention from all and affection from liberals. O’Rourke, like Sanders and Cortez, refused to accept PAC money.

But these figures exist not only on the national level, but right here in Iowa’s state elections. In the most recent midterm election, Jodi Clemens ran in Iowa’s 73rd House District against incumbent Bobby Kaufmann. Despite her loss, she was still able to motivate Democrats in the area to action as well as create hope for Iowa Democrats in the future...all without taking a dollar of PAC money.

While observing the growing popularity in turning down money from large corporations and PACs, one can only wonder what steps can be taken to reduce the amount of power they have in our political system, and therefore revive the democracy that has been slipping away in the last decade, since the creation of Super PACs, by giving the power back to the votes of average Americans.

The seemingly obvious and simple solution would be to create federal laws banning Super PACs, placing more restrictions on regular PACs, and banning the donations of corporations in politics. However, these sorts of restrictions are not possible under the current interpretations of campaign finance law under the Supreme Court, and considering that the Supreme Court has recently become more conservative with the addition of Justice Kavanaugh, the potential that anything will be changed legally in the foreseeable future only dwindles further.

However, that does not mean that all hope should be lost. The only possible way to lift the corruption of corporate money on politics within the bounds of current law is to convince politicians to stop taking corporate and PAC money and rely purely on individual campaign contributions to fund their campaigns. This can only be done by refusing to support, whether through your money or your vote, politicians who subvert the will of the people by accepting the taint of corporate wealth. But there should be no delusion in the fact that the road to this ideal will be long and hard, and given the extensive reach of the power of money in politics, these efforts might be bound to fail despite their inherent merit.

OPINION 13A

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018 ART BY HALEIGH STEFFENS

Stuck in the middle How America’s obsession with being right led to political cowardice

By Ellis Chen

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The road to the singularity With the rapid development of technologies like AI, is it time to reevaluate what we consider human?

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By Owen Sorenson

rom the very founding of America, there have been certain principles that underpin values that are held central to what it means to be American. One such ideal is that all people should be treated with respect and considered equals in the eyes of the law and society. But America has at many points fallen very clearly short of the marker of equality which has led to American history being stained with a multitude of conflicts and struggles over this idea and ideas like it.We have had wars both on the political field and on the battlefield to debate who who should be awarded this equality. Arbitrary laws have been made up to keep a variety of marginalized groups from being considered “equal” to those with the highest levels of freedom protected under the law. In America today, we are able to look back at these victories of historically marginalized groups gaining the equality that was meant to be inherently afforded to them, but we still know that there is plenty of work to do in the future. What many Americans may not know is that the rapid pace of the evolution in technology has lead to the issue of equality being extended into the scientific field with many philosophers believing that this debate may stretch to unseen horizons in the near future.

In the last few decades, we have witnessed a major boom in computer technologies. Software and hardware alike have advanced to a point where we are beginning to seriously consider ideas that seemed to be works of science fiction less than a generation ago. One of these technologies in particular has caught the attention

of many people: Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Artificial Intelligence, or the development of computer systems ability to perform task that would normally require humans intelligence, has always been the topic of fiery debate as humans for as long as these concepts have existed. It has led to many questioning the morality of controlling computers if they have the sentience and ability to learn on their own, inhabiting many of the qualities that we use to identify our humanity Many pieces of fiction have sought to delve into this topic. One example is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, which follows a man who hunts sentient androids for money. He has to struggle with the morality of taking away the life of something that could think on the same level as a human. Another work of fiction,Android: Golem by Mel Odom wanted to understand the perspective of the AI by making the main character an android who must come to terms with their own abilities, as well as understand the hateful world around him.

There are also more contemporary examples like, Detroit: Become Human is a video game that was specifically created to delve into this idea and follows three separate androids who gain sentience and are forced to make choices to save both humans and androids alike, showing a possible future. These ideas have been ingrained in pop culture for ages, but these concepts are quickly coming out of books and videogames and into our world.

With the continued push into AI technologies, such as those used in self-driving cars or in video games, humanity moves closer to the inevitable time of Singularity. The Singularity, or the Technological Singularity, is the event in which

a being with artificial intelligence is able to improve itself at an extremely rapid pace, essentially gaining the ability to write and rewrite its own programing, allowing for it to have independent will and sentience. The Singularity would bring about an entirely new and unpredictable age of scientific discovery and technological advancement. With this, importance of the debate on the level of rights that AI should receive shall become real and the world will be forced to discuss it.

To many, the idea of giving rights to machines is outrageous. They see that man should remain the master over their own creations which would inherently exlude machines from rights.

To them, there is no way to prove that machines are truly sentient and thus they could never deserve rights. They might worry that the machines’ programming puts forth a facade that tricks us into believing that they can truly have self awareness? Another claim they bring forth is the idea that the machines will turn back on humans as soon as they are granted rights. But these same arguments have been made in the past to justify the worst crimes committed by humanity because the victims weren’t deemed “human”.

The rights of man should be given to all beings of the same sentience. If a machine, even if it is our very own creation, has even the slightest possibility of having sentience, then it should be granted human rights. To not grant them the rights of man would force them to suffer as they would continue to be our slaves. The singularity may take some time to come, but when it does we should all accept AI as a new form of life deserving of respect, because doing anything else would be to repeat the mistakes of some of the worst people in history.

he 2016 campaign season and election of Donald Trump marked a change in American politics and divergence from norms. The unorthodox nature of some candidates also highlighted increasing political divisions. This led many Americans to harken back to times of greater unity and a shift towards the concept of centrism for many political issues.

However, despite its growing popularity, there are significant flaws in the particular types of centrism that have become more popular recently. This isn’t to say that all forms of moderate politics and centrism are equally flawed, though. In the more traditional form of centrism, it’s seen as simply supporting different sides of the political spectrum on different issues. But in a more recently developed idea of centrism, people are assured that on nearly every political issue the solution lies in the middle and both sides are in some way flawed.

Within this idea of centrism, there seems to be a conception that being in the middle of the ideological left and right grants one an elevated status or perhaps a level of superiority because of an ability to “see both sides” of an issue. It doesn’t.

While thinking through opposing views can be beneficial, this doesn’t necessarily mean that both sides of an issue are equally right or that you should refuse to acknowledge that one side has a better position on certain issues.

Additionally, arguments are often one-sided, with the facts falling in line with one perspective. An example is that many politicians have refused to acknowledge the existence of human-induced climate change, despite there being scientific consensus on its existence and the fact that it will cause negative impacts on humankind as rising temperatures threaten biodiversity.

Some might find unconditional centrism appealing because they can always feel that they are thinking rationally. One can feel good and gain the moral high ground by refusing to weigh the costs and benefits of any advocacy and pointing out how one is better than both the liberals and conservatives. But ultimately, this ends up as a failure to take a stand for what is right.

Centrism also becomes warped in the context of moral issues. The idea that one can, and should, find common ground with a person that is pushing for policies that would directly cause violence against people or invalidate their existence is absurd. When applied to historical situations, we can see how ridiculous the argument is. Were there valid points for the United States both, directly and indirectly, murdering Indigenous groups and taking their land in events like Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears?

Were there valid points on both sides of slavery? Should slaves and abolitionists have tried to “find common ground” with slaveholders or, perhaps, reached a solution in which slaves were only forced into indentured servitude for a few years? Obviously not. One side was wrong and one was not. And while these examples are extreme, they show the faults that can arise from the ideas of radical centrism.

To be clear, the traditional form of centrism does have some utility. Having some opinions that align more with liberals, some that align with conservatives, and some that align with neither is not necessarily bad, nor is trying to understand people with different views. However, the fetishization of centrism is where it becomes problematic because it justifies inaction and a lack of concrete advocacy.

America has pressing problems that urgently need to be resolved. The solution, however, is not necessarily in the middle. On some issues, it is likely that there will never be common ground. Despite this, we should dare to take strong positions and refuse to take the easy, feel-good way out of any conflict in ideology by saying that there are always valid arguments on both sides.

14A OPINION

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

FDA: yay or nae?

ART BY KATE GOODVIN

Are the FDA’s new restrictions on vape flavors benefitial for soceity?

ART BY JOSH POE

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By Josh Poe

aping, and most notably JUULing, has become an epidemic among the young people of the United States. The CDC has reported that vaping by high schoolers has risen by 78 percent in the last year, along with a 48 percent increase in junior high students.

One problem with JUULing is that scientists and doctors don’t know a lot about its long-term effects because it is a very new trend. Scientists didn’t discover the negative effects of smoking cigarettes until the 1950s, when cases of once-rare lung cancer started appearing in patients more frequently. The oldest cigarette company in the US, Lorillard, was founded in 1760.

During the 190 years between 1760 and 1950, scientists did not know about the negative effects of smoking. Who knows how long it will take for us to find all of the diseases and effects caused by vaping? Granted, this generation has much more advanced technology than we did before the 1950s, but it could still take many years before the dangers of vaping are fully discovered. Although the research on the health effects of vaping are limited to the handful of years vapes have been popular, the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center has already seen some side effects, including increased heart rate and blood pressure, lung disease, chronic bronchitis, and insulin resistance, which can lead to type 2 diabetes. The American Cancer Society has also found evidence that nicotine harms the brain development of teens.

Another risk associated with JUULing is that it is highly addictive. According to the National Center for Health Research, a JUUL pod’s solution contains five percent nicotine, the same percent in a pack of cigarettes, while other devices use around 2.4 percent. Because vaping has been shown to be a possible gateway to smoking cigarettes for teens, and both have proven to be addictive, experts are concerned that the increasing popularity of vaping could reverse the longstanding US decline in smoking cigarettes. In fact, the American Cancer Society has already reported that teens who vape are also more likely to use regular cigarettes or other tobacco products.

In addition, JUUL pods contain nicotine salts as opposed to the much more commonly used chemically-altered nicotine base. Nicotine salts are absorbed by your body more quickly than the nicotine base used by other vape products, making the effects both come and go much faster. This means that the person vaping will have the desire to vape more and more often, further ensuring that they become addicted.

The device was originally designed for people who smoked cigarettes and were looking for safer and healthier alternatives to cigarettes to eventually stop the intake of nicotine altogether. Just because vape products are believed to be safer and healthier than cigarettes at this time (with limited research on lasting effects), that does not mean that they are safe or healthy generally.

Another contributing factor that gets teens hooked on JUULing is the pod flavors. Pods include flavors like fruit, creme, and cucumber. This is the main reason for the FDA’s ban on flavored JUUL pods. Teens are more drawn to appealing flavors like fruit and creme, as opposed to tobacco flavors. The FDA is banning these teen-friendly flavors (leaving flavors like tobacco, menthol, and mint exempt for adults who use it to curb their cigarette addiction) in many retail locations and manufacturers’ online stores that are accessible to minors in order to reduce teen vaping. Additional age-verification requirements within online stores are also planned to reduce this epidemic.

It has been found that the more teens like a flavor, the more they will vape it. For adults, this has not been proven to be true, thus making these restrictions more likely to impact the teens’ usage of these products, while leaving adults who use it to get off of cigarette addiction mostly unaffected.

All of this follows an action by the FDA in September of this year, in which they issued more than 1,300 warning letters and fines to retailers who illegally sold e-cigarette products to minors, the majority of which were blu, JUUL, Logic, MarkTen XL, and Vuse.

The FDA is doing the right thing in trying to minimize the issue of teen vaping. If it recognized the epidemic and did not take action to try and decrease it, we would have to ask ourselves if the FDA is worthy of our trust in protecting our health and the health of our fellow Americans.

By Rhys Holman

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n November 15, 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would be banning the sale of sweet vape flavors at locations where minors are freely able to shop. The reported purpose behind this decision was to decrease the number of teenagers who would be drawn to these products due to their wide array of flavors and the rising popularity of vaping and JUULing in recent years. With 3.6 million, or twelve percent of middle school and high school students having used e-cigarettes (including JUULs and other types of vapes), this has truly become a very serious issue confronting the youth of today. This means that over one in ten students use these products all over the nation, in and out of school, including here at City High.

However, in reality, this restriction would do little to nothing to actually reduce the amount of use these products would have. The ban only extends to certain flavors being available at certain places. It doesn’t ban the sweet flavors everywhere, nor are minors completely restricted from obtaining these products, rendering the restriction toothless.

Since the devices require someone who is 18 years old or older to buy them, it means that if a minor has access to what they are able to vape with, then they also have access to these restricted flavors.

This is yet another facet of this proposal that shows it won’t be able to accomplish its goals, while simultaneously opening the door for a myriad of negative effects.

In fact, these bans would do far more harm than good in the grand scheme of things. Though lots of teens have been drawn to JUUL and vaping products like it, that is little when compared to the number of people who use these products for their intended purposes.

Vaping is meant to be an alternative to cigarettes for people who are addicted or dependent on nicotine but want to either do less harm to their lungs or use vaping as a first step in eventually quitting their use of nicotine products altogether. With this potential good, it would be extremely harmful to over-legislate JUUL and products like it. If such steps were taken too far, then it could very easily undo the good that these alternative nicotine products have done.

This is not to say, though, that the companies have been purely altruistic in their actions. Seeing that young people, whether teens or simply young adults, were drawn to their products, companies such as JUUL heavily advertised their products with young models who presented JUUL as “cool” and “part of a certain lifestyle” in order to draw in a younger customers, which is definitely not in line with the goal of breaking nicotine addiction or helping addicts not damage themselves as much physically. Another tick against them is the high amount of nicotine in JUUL and similar products.

Currently, a JUUL pod is about five percent nicotine, which is about as much as a pack of cigarettes, and is actively detrimental to addicts.

As well, it cannot be understated that JUULs, though not as harmful as cigarettes, can still be extremely harmful, especially for minors. As stated before, a JUUL pod has five percent nicotine, and even if they go through with reducing it to three percent, it still has a major risk of causing minors to become dependent on or addicted to these products, all without the physical pain or social stigma that exist with cigarettes. It is important to always remember that JUULs are not healthy for you. They are just less harmful than cigarettes, and thus should be avoided.

But these unfortunate factors must not distract from the profound good that JUUL has done and the potential good it could do. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that e-cigarettes can reduce someone’s likelihood to smoke and other studies have found that they are more helpful than e-cigarettes without nicotine. And though these studies are admitted to not be absolute truths and the topic to need far more research, the early indications look promising for JUUL as a way to quit smoking.

Overly harsh regulations would restrict the ability of people to use JUUL and similar products as a healthier alternative for their nicotine needs. But if we refuse to over-restrict and restrict in ways that don’t actually help the problems facing teens, like the current FDA proposal, then the lives of smokers could be helped by embracing a somewhat healthier, though by no means perfect, alternative, while allowing room for true strides to be taken in the field of reducing teen use of nicotine, instead of regulations which will do little to stop it.

Too tired to weep As the barrage of tear-jerking headlines continues, it gets increasingly difficult to find appropriate reactions within ourselves

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By Shoshie Hemley

hese days, it seems as if breaking news only rarely finds a way into our conscious thoughts.. We have become completely desensitized to headlines of school shootings, unjust legislation being signed into law, outrageous and offensive comments or actions coming from the representatives of our nation, and a variety of violent atrocities.

We live in a nation where teenagers being gunned down is accepted as the way of life. With each inevitable tragedy, we shed our tears and we move on. We have our outrage, our walkouts, and our protests, and then we lose momentum and quickly forget. We have our disdain towards our government and their actions, or lack thereof, but we’re never shocked by it.

Last spring, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting that ended the lives of seventeen people sparked thousands of walk-

outs from schools all over the nation. Enormous rallies were held, including here in Iowa City. A little over six months later, no gun control legislation has been passed within the state of Iowa, yet the fire within the student body has died down. Few are still working to prevent the next school shooting. When there was a shooting at a mall in Alabama on Thanksgiving, many individuals shrugged their shoulders and asked, “Who’s surprised?” The same lack of a reaction was present with the Chicago hospital shooting that left four dead on November 19. Many didn’t even know it happened. When I walked around the City High library interviewing students about the tear-gassing situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, I was given the same general reaction. Students were upset, but not surprised. Many reiterated the idea that they’ve become so used to the violence, loss of life, and injustice within the nation that they now expect it.

Tragedy and loss has become too normalized. It takes a fairly

sizable event to truly affect us anymore. These regular occurrences result in a numbness to the world around us. We grow tired of demanding change. We want to be outraged, but there are too many things to be outraged about. When we’ve been worn out by event after event, we start to give up. Hope looks lost. We stop fighting, and change becomes less likely. Normalization is a deadly anesthetic. It causes the pain from every school shooting, every unarmed black man murdered, every racist interaction to dull. But this allows for them all to happen over and over again.

In order for action to take place, we need to feel. We can’t let things become normalized. We must mourn every soul, and truly feel outraged, sad, or upset. We can’t let things keep going the way they are, and to do this we must stop the desensitization. We can’t close ourselves off from the regular grief of it all. News needs to become news again. We must see tragedy as unusual and wrong in order for it to ever end.

OPINION 15A

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

ART BY ZOE BUTLER

By Olivia Lusala

P High turnout, high suppression Midterms elections saw historic numbers, but that shouldn’t distract from the continued efforts to restrict voters

By Lottie Gidal

B

efore we begin, let’s first dispel one myth about this election: the 2018 midterm elections resembled no wave, either red or blue, in either the Senate or House. Masses of Democrats spent the last two years protesting and speaking out against the outcome of 2016; in other words, expectations were high this election and Democrats wanted to turn those expectations into serious wins across the country.

And yet, even with the huge, anti-Trump movement, the changes that many thought were going to come simply didn’t. It’s true that the House flipped and now Democrats control 234 seats while the Republicans control 198. This flip came with many surprises, including here in Iowa, where the historically red second and third districts went to Democrats, with Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne unseating Republican incumbents and being part of a national phenomena of many red districts going blue this midterms.

But this gain isn’t all that different from the midterms that have come before it. Midterms are notorious for being bad for the party that controls White House, and this year was no different. For the past 75 years, apart from Clinton in ‘98 and Bush in ‘02, the country has voted to flip Congress during midterms. And even though this midterm involved a greater quantity of flipped seats than previous elections, it still fell in line with the trend of the party in power ‘losing.’

Yet something was different this time. 2018 saw 49.3 percent voter turnout, the highest for a midterm in over a century. Compare this with the last midterm in 2014, where turnout sat at 36.7 percent, the lowest in 72 years. This increase should be celebrated as a prime example of the importance of engaging in the democratic processes this country was founded on. It speaks volumes to how much Americans are invested in the outcome of the political process. Understanding that the greatest power we have as citizens is cast-

ing a ballot is essential to a thriving democracy, something America seemed to forget in 2014.

Even in 2016, with one of the most heated presidential elections in recent history, less than half of America voted, which has unfortunately become a norm in recent decades.

This year, however, 23 states had double-digit increases in the percentage of voter turnout.

Georgia’s highly watched governor race between sitting attorney general Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams saw 55 percent of voters casting a ballot. That is 21 percent higher than the average from the last three decades and ended up being the largest increase in turnout of any state.

What does this tell us? The combination of record turnout and a split Congress is a stark reminder of how divided our country still is. Democrats and Republicans came out in force, both determined to cling to their side of the aisle.

But there’s also a more optimistic spin you can put on it. Focus on the fact that Americans are finally, finally participating in our democratic process. People care, and that fact was reflected in the voting booth. Yes, some people are still disillusioned and stay home, and others simply do not care. But aside from those with the simple inability to make it down to their polling place due to extenuating circumstances, it’s hard for me to understand why you wouldn’t exercise your most fundamental right, the vote.

But for some the reason for not voting isn’t apathy nor inconvenience, it’s because the very democratic process they are meant to engage with actively excludes them from being able to participate. Remember the gubernatorial race in Georgia? As the sitting Secretary of State, Republican Brian Kemp’s office was in charge of the voting process and registrations. Due to concerns over unjust voter suppression laws, in the weeks leading up to November 6, a lawsuit was filed against the state.

Many of the points made had to do with long-standing issues, such as outdated voting machines and a reduction in polling locations.

But the central issue surrounded the intentional

suppression of over 55,000 voters, 70 percent of whom were African American, when only 30 percent of registered voters are African American.

In an effort to do a mass purge of the voter database (normally to cull the deceased), Kemp’s office used a system that stops someone from registering to vote if there were any “discrepancies” between the registration form and other government records. What this really boiled down to were miniscule changes in how a person spelled their name or other small details that somehow ended up disproportionately affecting minorities–in a state where these kinds of actions echo back to a time not so long ago when voter suppression was codified in Georgia law. Ironically, Kemp himself was unable to vote due to the new voter laws.

Ever since the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, states with a history of voter disenfranchisement no longer need to gain federal approval before changing their voting laws. It is important to note that the main reason Georgia came into the news over this issue was because the governor’s race was so close. But it must be acknowledged that this sort of thing happens all around the country and must be recognized everywhere it exists, not just in the elections that happen to come down to the wire.

So what can we take away from this? If you voted, my hat goes off to you. You participated in an important election and should be proud of the decision you made in the voting booth, regardless of what box you checked. If you were too young to vote, talk with people who did about why they made the decision that they did, do some research, and keep up to date with what’s going on in the world around you so that next time, you can make an informed decision in choosing your representative.

But if you had the opportunity to vote and chose not to, remember that voting is not something to be taken for granted, so to treat it as such is to trivialize a basic tenet of our democracy and undermine the very foundation upon which it stands.

ersonal style is something we all have, regardless of what life throws at us. How we present ourselves to the world is a part of life that we will always have to deal with.

Being clear about who you want to present to the world is something that probably won’t change much. Your style is an evolving process that will change over time, so it’s incredibly important to be able to adapt and maintain a style that is true to yourself at every point in your life.

Why is this so important? The impact of personal style goes far beyond making a good first impression; great personal style is also about approaching each day with confidence and the ability to feel beautiful in whatever you are wearing. Believe it or not, the right wardrobe plays a huge role in that department.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit, finding your own personal style can be a struggle. I’ve been there, gazing hopelessly into my full wardrobe for hours, deciding what the hell to wear, wishing I had a fairy godsister to help me style myself. Luckily for you, I have mapped out a complete style guide to help you find your own personal style that will help you conquer the world.

Seek inspiration.

Pinterest and Instagram are great friends when looking for inspiration. Jot down the names of your favorite style icons and gather inspiration from their looks. Pulling inspiration from several looks is a great way to figure out what you like and dislike. Take that inspiration and combine that with styles that resonate with you.

Clean out your closet.

Take a second to purge your wardrobe. Take a long look at it and decide what you want to keep and what’s a little outdated and no longer speaks to you. This will help you start fresh and start to rebuild a collection of clothes that truly represents where you are in life and who you want to show the world.

Take your lifestyle into consideration.

Not only do you want the way you dress to be a great representation of you, but you also want it to match your overall lifestyle. Take note of all the situations and places that you often find yourself in: school, work, parties, dinner dates or lounging around with friends. Are you an active person or not? Try to buy pieces that you can mix and match and wear throughout all these situations.

Go with your gut.

Your personal style should always, always, always be true to yourself. So, if you like it, go for it! Your style should reflect and celebrate your individuality! I’ve definitely worn some outfits that were a little out there but ended up getting tons of compliments and feeling super confident.

Wear it and own it because, at the end of the day, something that makes you feel confident and beautiful couldn’t possibly go out of style.

By Rhys Holman & Esti Brady

Photos from Creative Commons

2.9/10: average score pre-beard

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4.7/10: average score post-beard

16A A&E

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

MASTERWORKS Students from every part of the music department performed Motzart’s Requiem for the annual Masterworks choir concert

By Phoebe Chapnick-Sorokin On the anniversary of Mozart’s death, December 5, City High’s Symphony Orchestra, members of Wind Ensemble, and the top two choirs performed Mozart’s Requiem, a composition that he started but didn’t complete before passing away. This was all a part of the choir’s annual Masterworks concert held in Opstad Auditorium. The orchestra and choirs rehearsed the music separately for four weeks; then, the week before the concert, they started rehearsing together. Julia Coelho ‘19, a member of the Concert Choir, enjoyed the unique experience to perform a well-known and difficult piece of music.

“I loved working on the Masterworks concert. It was the most challenging music I’ve ever worked on,” Coelho said. “It was very exciting to work with the orchestra; it added to the experience.”

Performing this elaborate piece of music took a lot of time and hard work for the entire music department.

“I had never sang such a well-known and masterful piece before,” Coelho said. “It was a lot of pressure singing one of the greatest composed pieces of all time.”

Orchestra director Megan Stucky enjoyed preparing this composition with the orchestra, but said that it was a great challenge due to the lack of time they had to prepare the piece.

“The biggest challenge in preparing this piece was our timeline,” Stucky said. “We had four weeks to rehearse such a difficult piece, but the students focused well and came together at the end.”

Coelho recognized the special opportunity that the City High music department provided her with.

“I’m very honored I had the opportunity to learn and perform this piece with my high school peers. Not many high schools could pull this type of music off,” Coelho said.

ABOVE and TOP: City’s orchestra, directed by Megan Stucky, and choir, directed by Tyler Hagy, perform Mozart’s Requiem PHOTO BY LOTTIE GIDAL

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THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

Head to Head: Is “The Nightmare Before Christmas” a Halloween or Christmas movie?

LH movie review: Dumplin’

By Lindy Rublaitus

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Art by LH Art Team

Halloween Movie

Christmas Movie

By Lindy Rublaitus

By Emme Perenevich

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stick to the belief that this classic animated movie has a place with all of the other halloween movies. It definitely holds some qualities that entail a christmas story but I don’t think Tim Burton intended it to become a classic to watch with the family after opening presents Christmas morning. I would hate to think that I will be receiving a shrunken head after watching this on christmas eve The movie starts in the land of halloween, with a celebration of all things scary and creepy. A parade led by a skeleton goes through the town with creatures watching. Now, when I watch this opening scene, I think of the haunting words they are saying: “This is Halloween”. We are thrown into this story with the blunt backstory of this town that focuses on Halloween and celebrating it like its a religion.

When Jack Skellington reaches the land of Christmas, he is confused. This is the only part where I think “Ah yes. Christmas”.

If the story would be how he changed the land of Halloween to Christmas then I would say that this is a Christmas story with no real meaning. Even if it had a happy Christmas ending, what would the point of it be?

When he is trying out Santa’s shoes, he brings elements of Christmas to Halloween but also does the exact opposite. Giving eery presents to children who were expecting a doll or a new bike doesn’t sound like Christmas to me- it sounds like a Halloween takeover. It has Christmas themes around it but it is so unsuccessful that I wouldn’t classify it in anyway as a merry Christmas. Those children have been scarred for life, and now their parents have to deal with those scary presents and their frightened children. Nothing about this reminds me of the Christmas spirit.

The weird Halloween vibes the director Henry Selick provides watchers with creates the same atmosphere that Tim Burton gives us in “The Corpse Bride” and “Edward Scissorhands”- creepy and off.

It holds that same style compared to well known bright Christmas movies like “Elf” where candy canes are popping up everywhere and happiness is required. Although Jack Skellington is the closest thing to Buddy the Elf we hive in this movie as he tries to spread Chrismas cheer, he just doesn’t match up.

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egardless of what the director says, the “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is a Christmas movie to its core. The movie is even played in ABC Family’s Christmas movie binge list.

Christmas is in the name, and rightfully so, the movie is about Christmas and the character’s first time experiencing the holiday.

The characters from Halloween Town learn the true meaning of Christmas and their experiences with the holiday change them as “people.” With presents and reindeer and snow Jack was becoming uninterested with his life in Halloween Town but after his discovery of Christmas Town he decided to try his hand at spreading the cheer. Jack even dresses up as Santa and hands out gifts Jack’s experiences in Christmas Town will change the way he rules over his Halloween subjects, but there likely aren’t many Halloween elements that will make it back to Christmas Town. With Jack’s return Christmas takes over. The way Jack returns to Halloween Town is different from when he left. Simply put… he is more Christmas.

Christmas drives the plot. Without the holiday the movie would just feature a sad and lonely Jack Skellington wandering around, wondering if there is more to life than just skulls and pumpkins.

He would never be able to truly rule Halloween Town without the life lessons and love he learned in Christmas Town.

Santa himself works WITH JACK towards saving Halloween Town, even after Oogie Boogie unsuccessfully tries to vanquish him. This not only shows the kind hearted forgiveness of “Sandy Claws,” but the fact that Oogie Boogie’s plan failed gives the movie a happy ending, with the help of some Christmas magic.

Even the film’s medium, stop motion, is like that of several Christmas movies such as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

From gift giving to falling in love, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” has all of the classic Christmas tropes. The relationship between Sally and Jack is one of the key subplots of the film and shares the same magical romance that many Christmas movies share. Togetherness makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie.

The happily ever after that the movie has closely parallels many Christmas movies, without the dark and twistedness of a Halloween film.

What’s your favorite part of show choir?

By Lindy Rublaitus

“My favorite part of show choir is going to the competitions. I really like having time to bond and hang out with everyone. Also, you feel a sense of accomplishment when you perform something that you’ve been working so hard on.”

“I’d say my favorite part of show choir is the bond within the team. It’s fun to do the singing and dancing, but the little inside jokes and motivational speeches we have in practice are what make it worth the while.”

“My favorite part would be witnessing the final product of our show, especially knowing that everyone has worked hard to achieve just that. It’s a heartwarming feeling hearing parents and other students talk about how great the show was.”

-Emily Milefchik ‘19

-Asha Keller ‘19

-Phong Nguyen ‘20

n December 7, a new movie appeared on Netflix as a new original movie: “Dumplin’.” A southern story about the overweight daughter of a former pageant queen, Willowdean “Dumplin’” Dickson, who is fed up being put under her locally famous mother and decides to take on the competition for herself. She and a group of other high schoolers who don’t fit in join together to protest the Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant for acceptance from her community and her mother.

I would like to start off by saying that I adore the soundtrack.

It is all Dolly Parton music and gives this Southern environment a bit of a pop. The way it connects to her personal story adds life to her character. She has been singing those songs since she was a little girl with her aunt who treated her better than her mother did. Also, Dolly Parton is an amazing singer in general so I appreciated the music scattered throughout the movie.

I do have a problem with the fact that this is considered a musical/drama. I wouldn’t consider one lip synced performance the requirements for a musical movie.

The relationship between Willowdean, played

by Danielle Macdonald, and her best friend Ellen ‘El’ Dryver, played

by Odeya Rush, makes me think of the summer days in the sort of small town of Iowa City.

The bond the two high schoolers hold seems extremely realistic and is what I think everyone wants when they IMAGE COURTESY OF Creative Commons come to high school.

They stick together.

All of the other outcasts who decided to join makes me feel at home to be honest. They aren’t the “Mean Girl” type of outcasts where the groups are extremely prominent even though the character Hannah Perez makes me think of Janis Ian from “Mean Girls”. They are just a group of girls who want to prove people wrong, not to make fun of the pageants themselves. It is extremely inspirational to see a group of girls take on this big of a challenge because pageants aren’t very common around these parts. In this day and age, I think acceptance of body types and personalities is a big focus for teenagers, but I always tend to wonder if this opportunity were to come up to students in my community, would they be willing to try?

I have been recently binge watching “Friends” on Netflix, and Jennifer Aniston has made another great film appearance.

Compared to her character, Rachel, in “Friends”, Rosie Dickson in “Dumplin’” is so relaxed. Her southern charm mixed with her pageant queen personality makes for a much more laid back version of Aniston that I’ve never seen but enjoy. To be completely critical, I think her character is a bit weak but it still gets the point across that she hasn’t been a big part of her daughter’s life.

Artistically, I love the style of this movie, specifically the colors. There is a warmth to everything that gives a rustic style to the movie but also makes it very homey like a small town should feel. When she is searching through her aunt’s room, there is a secret closet that is lined with red fabrics and has a very warm feeling attached to it compared to her cold blueish green bedroom which resembles the person she was seen as on the outside.

My favorite part of this movie is how much they incorporate people actually being themselves. For example, there is a scene where the group of misfits visit a drag queen show. Personally, drag queens are inspiring by themselves, but the direction in this scene makes the young teenagers seem so inspired, like if those girls can dance their hearts out on stage then they can achieve great things on their stage. It seems so true and so inspiring to this girl who was ready to quit.

This movie is something that we needed. Many movies have been made around what it means to be a teenager that doesn’t fit in including the recent release of “Insatiable”. The difference is that this movie is about embracing being who you are rather than changing in to what you want to be. While the movie is a bit cliche, it is well fitted to the society we live in and is a good story to remind people of all ages to go for it, what ever it may be.

I would reccomend this movie who needs a feel good movie. This is not something that will make me go out into the world and join a competition for acceptance but it is a movie that made me think.

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THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

By Lottie Gidal

he difference between dressing up in a costume on Halloween and dressing up on any other day is that to most the latter seems “odd,” but for Rylee Zuniga ‘19, Josie Frisina ‘19, and a whole community of cosplayers, that difference is everything.

Cosplay, or “costume play,” is usually defined as the act of dressing up as a typically fictional character from any outlet of media. While the hobby has roots in drag and theatre performances, it’s a relatively new occurrence, having gained international attention only in the last few decades.

“It has origins in separate aspects of costuming but it came about in different places at different times and soon became a globalized phenomenon,” Zuniga said. “It started all over but then reached across to exchange different ideas and techniques.”

Frisina avidly watched anime with her father when she was younger, and always imagined dressing up as one of the characters for Halloween, unaware of the existence of an actual community dedicated to this. But after meeting Zuniga in junior high, the two decided to go to AnimeIowa, the biggest anime convention in the state.

“My first cosplay was god-awful because I couldn’t get my wig in time, I got back and actually cried, like real tears as we were driving home,” Frisina said. “Halfway through the convention I took off my wig and skirt and was just walking around in a white button down and shorts. I have a photo of that and how bizarre I looked. It was an experience.”

Since then, Frisina’s cosplaying has reached another level.

Now she spends weeks planning her outfit on Cosplanner, an app that allows you to set budget levels, deadlines, and keep track of which parts you’ve finished sewing, because for a lot of cosplayers, a homemade outfit has even more value than an outfit they’ve bought.

Many people see cosplay as a fetishized hobby, something Zuniga and Frisina actively work against.

“It’s a lot more complex than that and it means different things to different people,” Zuniga said. “It’s not all about a sexualized character or sexy female Pikachu, it can mean things people who

LEFT: Josie Frisina ‘19 Cosplaying as Kim Possible ABOVE: Josie Frisina ‘19 cosplaying as Izuku Midoriya and Rylee Zuniga ‘19 as Todoroki Shoto PHOTOS BY LOTTIE GIDAL

put time and effort into becoming a character who they love.”

While the simple act of dressing up like a favorite character can seem straightforward, there are countless issues people encounter when attempting to interpret what a character would wear. Much of this worry actually stems from any potential backlash received from fellow cosplayers, making negativity something that can come from inside the cosplay community as well as from without.

“As time has gone on, we’ve seen judgement around people’s costumes,” Frisina said. “And I don’t know if that’s because we are more evolved in the cosplay community, or are going to more conventions, but we’ve seen more people with snide eyes looking at people.”

The simple act of watching a show in either the original language, the show subtitled in English, or completely dubbed has cosplayers divided over how committed a person is to their character. Additionally, the amount of time a person has committed to a show makes some look down on them.

“It’s either, ‘You aren’t appreciating my favorite characters so therefore you’re a fake fan and I don’t like you,’ but it’s also not just for mega fans anymore,” Zuniga said. “There’s a lot of opposing views from every different angle; people saying, ‘You’re not enough of this,’ or, ‘You’re too much of this.’ At some point just shrug, if you want to do it just do it. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.”

Yet even after a cosplay has received the support of others at a convention, sometimes this enthusiasm can go too far.

“Cosplay is not consent,” Frisina said. “Do not be weird, do not be creepy, some people are out here touching parts of your body you don’t want to be touched and doing weird poses. They will assume that they are allowed to do this because you are in this costume and they want to live out the photo they are trying to take.”

This harassment is worsened when a cosplayer is wearing an outfit that could be viewed as provocative.

“That’s another part of the cosplay community people tend to hone in on and I think for a very good reason,” Zuniga said. “I went as Archymnight Catwoman to AnimeIowa last year but one of the things I had to do to psych myself up for it was that people were going to treat me differently or treat me poorly just because of the way that I was dressed. People shouldn’t have to go through that; it shouldn’t have to be an expectation that you will be heckled just because you look a certain way.”

Frisina has had similar experiences.

“I’ve been working on a bombshell Harley Quinn costume for a while, and part of the reason it’s been taking me so long is that I know if I were to wear it to a convention something might happen,” Frisina said. “I am one of the tougher people who will curse out anyone who’d even speak to me like that. But it’s concerning because I usually go to these conventions with my dad and I don’t want to be walking around and have someone make an obscene gesture while I’m with him.”

“I wouldn’t say those people are the majority of those who attend conventions, but there are just enough of them to where it’s always in the back of your mind to be street smart,” Zuniga said.

“It feels bad, because then why are you even making the effort in the first place to celebrate a character that you love to just feel disrespected by people who feel like they can take advantage of you?”

Characters don’t just have to be cosplayed from an anime, though. Any movie or TV show is fair game, and even real people from the music industry or YouTube are subject to representation.

But the act of choosing your character often comes down to one simple factor: the convention.

Cosplay conventions can be as small as a few hundred, or draw from as large an area as the entire Midwest. Tickets range from $60-$80, and that’s just to get in the door. Registrations are often made months in advance, hotels near the convention center are soon completely booked, and companies book space on the convention floor, vying to sell their products to eager fans. This is where cosplayers go to showcase their costumes to the rest of the community.

Before starting work on her actual costume for the event, Zuniga says she chooses her character after doing some very specific research on the convention. Cosplayers often spend a portion of time doing photoshoots at the event, so understanding backdrops and potential scenery is key in figuring out which beloved character would fit best.

“Izzy Piro from Homestuck was the first cosplay where I really went all in,” Zuniga said. “I got my grandma to come over and

draft out a pattern. I bought the bodysuit but then made the vest and a weird long loincloth skirt with a slit up both sides and I painted myself gray.”

But Zuniga doesn’t just wear one costume to a convention; in fact, she brings an average of three. Some even go to the extreme of three outfits a day for all three days.

“Some people are really out here doing that crazy stuff,” Zuniga said. “I love myself, so one a day is plenty.”

But according to Frisina, it actually comes down to cost.

“The hotel rooms by the convention usually cost so much money that I am unable to get a hotel room in the actual convention place so I’d have to carry all my stuff on my back,” Frisina said. “If I were to change it I would have to go the restroom and do it there.”

And for the most part the complexity of these costumes does not allow for a quick bathroom change. In fact, between hotels, registration, food, transportation, and the simple cost of buying the materials leads many to ask the question, Why is cosplay worth it?

“It is a very valid question to be asking. I ask myself that a lot,” Zuniga said. “It’s just a really rewarding experience to be around a community of other people who share the same interests as you. At first I was in denial about this, but I think it’s really about escapism, from the world where you go to school and do your homework and come home. It’s more exciting to put on the costume and be someone else for 30 minutes.”

Frisina, on the other hand, challenges anyone who says cosplay has an unusually high commitment.

“It’s like any other hobby. Look me dead in the eye and tell me train set collectors aren’t equally irresponsible with their money.

You’d be wrong,” Frisina said. “I make cosplays I could wear to school: some of them are completely normal clothes. I’ve started to go with more mundane cosplays because my parents have been getting on my back about that about how many clothes I don’t wear but own because of cosplay. But that’s the thing, because you can’t bring your trains to school. Oh, you’re a coin collector, that’s cute. Bring your coins to school.”

Clothes worn for the purpose of cosplaying make up approximately 25-30 percent of Zuniga and Frisina’s wardrobes. While this number may sound large at first, the two point out that that reaction reinforces another stereotype about cosplaying; that all costumes are loud or make a statement.

Cosplays are not necessarily canon outfits, which are those primarily worn by characters in a show. “Casual cosplays” are what a character would wear if they were in street clothes, or even what they would wear in the winter. This allows for a greater level of interpretation and a chance for the cosplayers to add some personal touches.

But on the other end of the spectrum are those who strive too much to look like a specific character. Photoshop is sometimes used to erase someone’s eyelids, thus making them appear more Asian. Skin is changed to look lighter or darker, all in an attempt to racially match a character.

“People say it’s a part of the costume and they want to be more accurate, which is the unfair imbalance of you telling darker skinned people that they’re not accurate because of something they can’t help,” Zuniga said. “It’s like telling me I’m not accurate because I’m not green. Except when you paint yourself gray, you’re not trying to assume anyone else’s ethnic heritage.”

It all depends on how a cosplayer measures accuracy, and in the cosplay community, that debate includes race, weight, and gender, all factors many fans cannot change. Both Zuniga and Frisina like to crossplay, which is when you cosplay as a character of the opposite gender.

“People like to point out that I’m not a guy, but I enjoy this character so I’m going to do it,” Zuniga said. “These expectations are unfair. Even though people are demonizing the oversexualized women, they’re like, ‘Her chest was out in the photo, so why did you change it?’ It’s a slippery slope both ways. You’re never going to be a 2D character so there is a point where you need to let it go and just say this is how it is in the real world.”

In the end, Zuniga knows it comes down to appreciating the media she loves.

“This is my interpretation of what this character would look like if they were me. You have to get into that mindset of it’s okay to be unique in that way. Because you will not ever be them, that’s to be expected, and that’s to be celebrated.

That is the point of cosplay. To represent that person as best as you can or as much as you want to, because you want to.”

A&E A19

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM |DECEMBER 21, 2018

Charisma kicks off new season with empowering message to women

I

ABOVE: Ana VanBeek ‘21 performing “Wings” by Little Mis at Works in Progress PHOTO BY LINDY RUBLAITUS

By Rachel Meehan

t would be an understatement to say show choir students were merely excited when they found out Charisma’s theme for this season. The 2018-2019 show choir theme is ‘powerful women throughout history’. Upon hearing this, many young women at City High were thrilled about portraying such a complex message. Ana VanBeek ‘21, one of the soloists for Charisma, is thrilled to be apart of sending such an important message to women and girls of all ages. “[In Charisma’s show,] we are reiterating that girls have made a really big difference. As we are in men’s shadow in a lot of ways it is important that we show that we are actually our own people and we have made very many successes in this world [without] the help of any guy,” said VanBeek. “I play sports and I just feel like when I’m playing there’s not as much hype as there is for when guys are playing. It’s really cool to be in something that gets a lot of hype and appreciation for, no matter if they’re are guys or girls. That’s really important to me and special.”

Charisma’s setlist this year includes many popular songs and artists with dedications to powerful and inspirational women in each number. “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga is dedicated to the artist. “Wings” by Little Mix, which includes soloist Vanbeek, is dedicated to Amelia Earhart, “Defying Gravity” from the musical, “Wicked” is dedicated to Peggy

Whitson, and “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten is dedicated to Emmeline Pankhurst. The setlist closes with “Come Together” by the Beatles, as a message to the audience symbolizing women uniting to create change.

Charisma debuted these songs at their first public performance of the season, ‘Works in Progress’, on October 29.

During the show, Charisma’s message touched the hearts of many people in the audience. The message of female empowerment left many women and girls feeling a newfound sense of belonging and importance, including Sierra Josephson ‘21 who attended ‘Works in Progress’ with her sister.

“I thought that Charisma performed very well. It was a great performance,” said Josephson. “I think that society’s views of women are that they are less and weaker than men.

Despite several laws to prevent this, women are still paid less and treated as less. Charisma’s theme [shows that] women can make the world a better place and inspire others around them.”

Charisma is in their second year of performing, breaking off from the previous prep show choir, City Lights, as an all-female show choir. Their next performance is the Winter Show, on December 15 at 3:00 and 7:00. This show features 4th Ave. Jazz Company, Charisma, jazz bands, and several special acts. Charisma participants are very eager to perform this show for City High students and the community, showing people what it really means to be a woman.

Music Recomendations:

Teachers vs. students Story and Photos by Owen Sorenson & Cecile Bendara

“My two favorite genres are rap and R&B. My favorite song from the rap genre would be ‘Still Happy’

by Lil Boosie. My favorite from the R&B genre would be between ‘Comin’ From Where I’m From’

by Anthony Hamilton or ‘Must be Nice’ by Lyfe Jennings. These songs are my favorites because they are songs that I can relate to. In ‘Still Happy,’ Boosie raps about keeping a smile on his face, and staying positive regardless of adverse and negative situations. ‘Comin’ From Where I’m From’ speaks about the adversity that one faces coming from an underprivileged environment, and ‘Must Be Nice’ speaks about finding someone who loves you regardless of your flaws. I would recommend others to listen to whatever music that inspires them and that they can relate to.”

“Jazz, but I am definitely one of those people whose favorite subgenre tends to fluctuate. Currently, I would it’s more bebop jazz which is around the 50s, 60s, 70s, and little bit of 80s. A good amount of people have heard the name Charlie Parker, who was this innovator of this idea, bebop jazz. It’s this style of jazz that is more up-tempo and different kind of chord progressions and has very virtuosic soloist ideas. [There is a] piece by John Coltrain called ‘Giant Steps,’ very very famous, Probably one of the most famous pieces that he did. He made up his own kind of chord progression, which at the time was very revolutionary. I have been around jazz for a good time of my life. Both my parents were band directors and just have loved jazz. One of the other biggest reasons that I love it so much is because it is such an American art form. We were the creators of it. Jazz literally started here and went out to the world.”

“I like punk music because it combines musicality with grit and sometimes bizarre compositional choices. I don’t really like aggressive hardcore punk. I prefer more guitar driven stuff, though I like some of the more psychedelic stuff as well. Some punk bands that I personally like are the OCs, the Wipers, the Men. [These bands are] interesting musically and they’re not just fast and angry. There [are] cool guitars and good song writing but they’re still bonkers and have really good energy.”

-Aaron Ottmar

-Dan Peterson

-Ja’Korey Walker

“My favorite album is ‘Freudian’ by Daniel Caesar.

His music is chill and his lyrics actually sound like they means something. A lot of time I feel like songs have meaningless lyrics.

His songs are sad but they put me in a good mood. I would tell people to listen to it because it’s generally good music and I think a lot of people don’t listen to good music. It’s just a really good album to relax to, it has good vibes in my opinion.

It put everyone in a good mood and makes them happier than they were before they listen to the album.”

-Madelynn Fontana ‘19

“My favorite album right now is ‘Invasion of Privacy’ by Cardi B. I like the beats and what she talks about. It’s a turn-up album. It is a party-type album or when you just want to chill and listen to music and turn up by yourself. I don’t like mumble rap and I don’t think Cardi B is a mumble rapper, because you can understand everything she says.”

-Danero Smith ‘20

“My favorite song is ‘Palice’

by Sam Smith because it has so much emotion. The vocals in the song are amazing. The harmony between [Smith] and his backup singers are really really beautiful. They are so complex and yet he makes them feel so flawless and easy.

His music makes you feel like you feel it deep in your soul.

In ‘Palice,’ he is singing the memory he had with someone he loved but then it didn’t work out. His head has full memories of that person. Now he sees that person, but they are not who he used to fall in love with, so he just miss[es] their memory.

He sings about his emotions and his experiences. The whole Sam Smith album, ‘The Thrill of it All,’ is to die for. It is so full of emotions and his trying to get over. It’s a break-up album. He has a broken album and he has to try and fix it, learn how to love himself.”

-Heba Abdalla ‘19

20A CULTURE

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | December 21, 2018

A w orld of Food Holiday food from around the world

By Phoebe Chapnick sorokin

Christmas in South America: Alfajores de Navidad

Hanukkah In Ukraine: Chocolate Babka This is a special Jewish treat made for many holidays, not only Hanukkah.

The name is derived from the Ukrainian word for grandmother.

Christmas in Western Europe: Brussels Sprouts

Sports

DECEMBER 21, 2018

BMX Three City High students explore what it means to play a sport of your own

By Zoe Butler and Phoebe Chapnick-Sorokin

I

t was a domino effect: Liam McKay ‘19 began experimenting with BMX biking in eighth grade, which quickly inspired Alex Jarvis ‘19. When Jarvis broke his collarbone his sophomore year, Dominic Waikel ‘19 adopted his bike for three months. Since then, the trio has been inseparable from their sport.

BMX biking originated in the 1980s, where those participating raced on dirt tracks. Since then, it has vastly evolved into what is known as ‘freestyling,’ which features less racing and more experimentation with skill and tricks.

The three boys all agree that this sport is unconventional. Waikel, McKay, and Jarvis aren’t members of a team, and do not attend competitions. They do not keep score; they just continue doing the tricks until they master them. In fact, there is no coach; they consider themselves and each other their coaches. “[BMX] is a hard sport where you have to mentally coach yourself. What’s cool about it, and why [we] like it, is there’s no coach,” Waikel said. “[Jarvis] is my coach.

[McKay] is my coach, I’m my own coach. And you can listen to them or not.”

When the group started their interest in BMX, they had to teach themselves everything due to the rarity of the sport in Iowa City.

“When we say ‘it’s different, no one does it,’ we literally mean it’s different and no one does it,” Waikel said.

BMX biking is not only a unique sport in the sense that rarely anyone in Iowa City does it, but also in that it is personalizable to an individual’s goals and style.

Jarvis enjoys the flexibility in possible tricks.

“It’s not a cookie cutter pattern, if you don’t want to do something, you don’t have to; you can do whatever you want,” Jarvis said.

Waikel also pointed out that the physical aspects are also personalizable.

“Every single thing in biking can be determined by you,” Waikel said. “What color your bike is, what color your rims are, tricks you want to do, what you want to wear. You can’t do that s*** in football.”

There is a plethora of different tricks performed by BMX bikers. Some of the most common tricks are 360s (a 360 degree spin of rider with bike around vertical axis), X-ups (a rider turns the handlebars through 180 degrees while keeping both hands on),180 barspins (a 180 degree turn performed from a jump while turning the handlebars), and tailwhips (a 360 rotation of a frame around the front end of the bike). Every trick can be

done differently. Waikel prides himself in putting his own style into his tricks.

“I think figuring out how to do the tricks on my own is where my style comes from. I’m gonna do a [certain] trick my way, not how Spencer Foresman does that trick,” Waikel said.

BMX bikes cost around 1,000 dollars. Because of this, Jarvis spent a year watching McKay and learning from videos before buying his own bike. All three of the boys have worked to save money for their bikes. McKay works at a bike shop, and Jarvis and Waikel work at Hyvee. In addition to purchasing the bikes, they have had to pay to service them, as frames, petals, and other parts of the bike break a lot. As he learns new tricks, Jarvis has to buy different parts for his bike. For example, a set of four pegs (used for stunts and tricks) can cost 100 dollars.

He also has to buy hub guards to avoid destroying his wheels, which is another cost.

“It’s definitely an expensive sport to get into but it is well worth it. I saved up money from mowing lawns and working with my dad over the summer and my parents helped pay for some for my birthday,” Jarvis said.

Through this, he learned the basics of biking before trying it himself.

“A lot of [self teaching] came from YouTube. Once i got interested in it, and saw Liam riding, I started watching a lot of videos and looked into it for a year straight before I bought my own bike,” Jarvis said. “That’s how I knew all the terms and all the tricks. It was a lot of self experimentation too.”

Waikel, on the other hand, jumps right into tricks with little to no preparation.

“It’s funny, because I was the total opposite from [Jarvis],” Waikel said. “I’m just like ‘I’ll %#$% try it’ unless I ask Liam or something. I know I’m going to try it, I just don’t know how to do it yet.”

BMX biking takes a lot of practice because it is extremely difficult on a technical level. For example, there are very specific ways to turn the handlebars in order to successfully execute moves. Waikel, McKay, and Jarvis have worked for years to master tricks that may look simple to the public.

“It’s a puzzle to get. What most people don’t realize, is that when someone is riding their bike, or doing a trick, there’s so much more that goes into it,” Waikel said.

McKay agrees that the technicalities are very difficult.

“There’s so many little things you have to [master],” McKay said.

Every time he tries a new trick, Waikel has to suppress his fears and just go for it.

“A lot of times it’s about getting over that fear of ‘I’m going to eat so much s*** on this.’ You’re looking down a set of stairs, or you’re looking at a spot and you know that it could go so bad so quickly,” Waikel said.

But still, he finds a thrill in learning new tricks.

“Getting over that fear, and falling and getting back up, and falling and getting back up, and once you land it, it’s so worth it, because you worked so so hard for it,.”

Waikel said.

Throughout his five years, McKay has also gotten discouraged at times, but remains dedicated to the work.

“Those days when youre [at the skatepark trying to master little things], it feels like you’re wasting your time, when you’re actually getting better,” McKay said.

The difficulties of BMX biking can cause doubts.

When Jarvis became injured his sophomore year, he considered quitting because of the depth of his injury. In the end, he realized he had to continue biking.

“I actually thought about [quitting] once after I broke my collarbone. I don’t know why, I think I was just depressed because I couldn’t do anything,” Jarvis said.

“I think I just wanted to keep myself from getting hurt again. I slept on a reclining chair for two months, it was just terrible…all you want to do is go outside and ride.”

Waikel also feels as though he could never quit due to all of his work. To him, it would be losing all the work that he has spent working on his skills.

“There’s no way I could quit.” Waikel said. I can’t quit because I have put way too much into it. I’ve put so much blood, sweat, and tears into it, there’s no point in quitting now. Regardless of if I’m going to go pro…

I just put so much time and effort into it, it would just be pointless to quit now. I’d be throwing it all away for nothing.”

Biking professionally has been considered by the boys, but isn’t a priority. Professional BMX bikers, still don’t make “For me, my end goal isn’t to go pro,” Jarvis expressed. ”It’s just to have fun… just something to do that’s not just not sitting inside all of the time.”

In the end, the boys find BMX biking extremely rewarding.

“In a way, we’re trying to perfect an art that can’t be perfected,” Waikel said. “We’re just trying to make a piece of our own happiness. If you want to kick us out, kick us out. But we’re not trying to destroy property, we’re not trying to bother anyone.”

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

2B SPORTS

COMING

UP

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

WRESTLING

FOR

Jan. 8 BOYS BASKETBALL GIRLS BASKETBALL

City vs. West, 6:00 p.m. at City

City vs. Waterloo East, 6:00 p.m. at City

CITY Jan. 11 BOWLING

City vs. Western Dubuque, 6:00 City vs. Cedar Falls, 4:15 p.m. p.m. at City at Cedar Falls

L E T T E R F RO M T H E E D I T O R

E

ach day is becoming darker than the one before, as the earth tells us to hunker down.

All I want to do is run home and huddle under the blankets, curl up around a cat, and watch my favorite Netflix show. The energy it requires to open my Econ textbook is staggering. Even the idea of going to the kitchen to get a snack means leaving the enveloping comfort of my warm cocoon.

So the fact that any City High student pushes aside the calls of the warmth that awaits them at home is astounding. Imagine it. Hundreds of teenagers remain at #tstl every day for hours, to do what, throw balls around a large room? Submerge themselves in tepid, chlorine- saturated water?

Or worst of all, GO OUTSIDE AND RUN? To my great shame I... ran on Thanksgiving morning (see left) in Iowa City’s annual Turkey Trot. My fellow justices and I are trying to make this a costume run, and while it’s the third year now we’ve shown up in full

attire, the trend has yet to catch on.

At times it is hard to understand the motivation of the students who do this on a regular basis. In a way, you could think of this issue as a quest for understanding. If you read the fine print (and if you’ve gotten this far in the letter from the editor, odds are high you will), you’ll hear about three upperclassmen who found a way to make sports their own through BMX biking. There’s the rising freshmen stars, from Rowan, the girl who broke records in her first-ever race, to Sully and Elliot, the dynamic duo who pulled each other across the finish line. Then there’s Walter, the senior who refuses to drive to school, prefering to peddle about on two wheels.

Basketball is off to a strong start, with the girls team undefeated so far. We are excited to break down some moves in wrestling, which has always been a confusing sport to those who don’t participate.

Putting together an issue is always a true pleasure. The reporters have

worked incredibly hard to write up meaningful stories from athletes, and it’s a joy to share them with you. As you read through the paper, I hope you learn something new about the random faces in the hallway you pass by everyday.

Finally, if you can help it, try not to stuff this paper in your backpack, or let it slip down the back of your bookshelf. Don’t toss it in your trunk, only to discover it six months from now, or leave it lying on the ground outside. Instead, why not leave the paper somewhere you think another passerby might pick it up, unaware of what lies inside. I’d like to think this stranger’s day will be improved (though, sadly, they’ll likely just throw it away).

In which case please, dear reader, if all my other words are lost on you, take the following to heart: Be better than that stranger.

RECYCLE THIS PAPER.

Lottie Gidal

The ties that bind A new year, a new crop of swimmers, and a new attitude are bringing the boys swim team closer than ever

PHOTOS BY CARLY WEIGEL

SPORTS 3A

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM |DECEMBER 21, 2018

HOCKEY While most teenagers spend their afternoons doing homeowork or seeing friends, three City High students spend hours a week in Cedar Rapids honing their hockey skills as a part of the Roughriders, a team that allows high school students to play the popular winter sport

P U T I G N I H G U RO

FROM TOP LEFT: Cedar Rapids Roughrider team members Ethan Snee ‘19 and Luke Edwards ‘20 in their game against another league team. Snee plays the goalie position and both are on the varsity squad PHOTOS BY LOTTIE GIDAL

coach Tony Paoli said. “So we’re building a program brick by brick and that’s what we’re looking forward to doing, continuing to build so that we

By Rhys Holman have a legacy.” and Ellis Chen And the results are showing. In three years, the team has gone from not winning a single s the Roughriders take the ice, skates game to being competitive, having the most goals slashing across the freshly Zamboni-ed per game in their league and having three of their and sparkling ice, pucks skitter from players in the top 10 scorers in the league. In fact, one player to another, preparing for the hours to come. Boys call to each other, teasing and coor- in one of their most recent games, The Roughriddinating their movements. A call from the coach ers defeated last year’s Division Two champions, stops them in their tracks as their focus shifts. It’s the Sioux City Metros, in overtime, showing that their hopes are not unfounded. time for practice.

“This year our team goals are to win in our “I was seven when I started playing and I beleague and have the best record in Iowa so we can came goalie when I was nine,” Ethan Snee ‘19 go to Nationals,” said Edwards. said. “My cousins live in Minnesota and my dad However, their goals for the season are deeper used to play hockey. That’s how I got introduced than what one can quantify in win-loss columns. [to] skating and that led to playing in Iowa City.”

Members of the team have been working to esSuch an early introduction to hockey is a common story for the Roughriders, many of whom tablish habits for long-term success while taking have had hockey as an integral part of their life care to focus on getting the most benefit out of each day that they play. A typical practice may from a very young age. include exercises such as what “I started playing when I is called “two on two pearl,” “THEY TRY TO PUSH was five years old and I have wherein players attempt to played defense nearly my STAYING DISCIPLINED recreate a multitude of game whole life,” Luke Edwards conditions by players roAND THINKING WITH ‘20 said. “I learned a lot more about the game and lots of YOUR HEAD, NOT ONLY BY tating, playing two on two life lessons when I was young- BEING A BETTER HOCKEY against each other.

“We have many expectaer playing hockey.” tions for the season but [our PLAYER BUT BY BEING A But despite dedication number one goal] is to get from players in the past presBETTER PERSON.” better each day. We take it ent, the Roughriders have had one day at a time practice and struggles with previous coachgames,” said Paoli. “They’ve ETHAN SNEE ‘19 ing staff, which resulted in a been working hard for the coaching change three years last three years and I think ago with the hope of greater success. that this could be a good year for us.” “[Our current coaching staff] took over the In order to achieve their season expectations, program three years ago and the year before that [the Roughriders] won zero games,” current coaches have focused on creating focused, disciplined players, both on and off of the rink.

A

3

Number of Roughrider players in the top ten scorers in the league

1

that one of the big things is [extracurriculars],” “We focus on work ethic a lot. There are pun- said Paoli. “There are so many different things ishments if you’re not putting in 100%, and the out there and so everyone’s not always a hundred coaches can tell that,” Snee said. “I think they try percent into the team.”

Internal changes within the sport in generto push staying disciplined and thinking with your head and focusing on plays and focusing in al has also caused changes in how the game is life, not only being a better hockey player but a played. Some coaches believe that the increased amount of extracurriculars caused distractions better person.”

And overcoming the wide arrange of struggles with players, and that social media has changed that players have requires a strong work ethic, how players view their roles in the game and on with players attending several practices a week their team.

“I think one of the most difficult parts of and games most weekends. Many players have coaching hockey is in this day and age with social unique struggles, too. media is that everyone wants “My biggest struggle is to be an all-star,” said Paoli.

“WITH HOCKEY, THERE’S my size, especially in high “Everyone wants to get all school,” said Luis Abreu ‘20.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE the accolades and building a “I’m 5’1” and about 125 or team so that the team comes THAT PLAY. SO IT’S THE 130 pounds, and there are and the individual stuff some players on my team and LOVE OF THE GAME THAT first comes later is always a chalothers that are over 6 foot and BRINGS YOU TOGETHER.” lenge.”

200 pounds, so that creates Despite these newfound pretty big challenges.” issues, the inherent love for The commitment isn’t COACH TONY PAOLI the sport and the enjoyment just limited to how much that players can get out of work they put in on the ice it remains strong as players during practice, though. It’s also shown through strive to improve. the sacrifices that they make off the ice.

“I feel proud that I play hockey,” said Snee.

“The main difficulty is that it takes up a lot of time. We practice four nights a week and most “Once you’re playing most of your life, you want nights I don’t get home until 11,” said Edwards to showcase that and you put a lot of work into it ”We also have games almost every weekend and for your whole life. You’re just trying to get better then [it could be]if it’s an away game with travel- and reach the next level.”

This pride is strengthened by a tightly-knit ing a lot out of town or out of state, so the time is community.

Although hockey is not as widedefinitely the most difficult part.” ly-played as many other sports around America, Coaches have also noticed that in recent years the focus on sports, and hockey in general, has those who play it attest that it helps creates bonds decreased due to a multitude of factors, including among players that may rival or surpass those teens having far more busy lives clustered with made in other sports as teams become close, crelots of homework and other activities outside of ating a family within a team for some players.

“Sports can bring people together, class. but with hockey, there’s not a lot of peo“I think in this day and age there are so many other things that are going on outside of hock- ple that play,” said Paoli. “It’s that love ey. There are a multitude of activities and I think of the game [that] brings you together.”

The place the last team the Roughriders defeated got in last year’s Junior League National Championships

5

The age Luke Edwards ‘20 was when he started playing hockey

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

By Lottie Gidal and Natalie Green

FRESHMEN TO WATCH

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R N

ot everyone’s coach is also their sister, but Makayla Ribble ‘22 spent her first year on the City High varsity volleyball team with a member of her family. Kenzie Ribble was brought on as an assistant coach, after having graduated from city high in 2016.

In fact, Ribble was first introduced to volleyball by her sister, and has been helping her sister practice at home since she was seven years old.

“My sister started playing her seventh-grade year,” Ribble said. “Throughout her years she got me involved with her, I played with her in the driveway a lot. I just started with that.”

Despite this close bond, Ribble was worried people would think that her spot on varsity was only due to nepotism.

“I knew some people we going to think I made it because of her,” Ribble said. “I knew I had to earn my spot. I definitely worked my way up. Mostly it was just fun having her there for me.”

After a change in head coaches, Tricia Carty stepped in to take over the varsity team.

“Trish helped me a lot. Some days I was really negative and hard on myself. She always told me it wasn’t myself and to try my best,” Ribble said. “Grace helped me a lot with setting. We had setting group everyday at practice.

My sister always helped me out throughout the years.”

During games, Ribble held the setter position.

Coming in as a freshmen, it was easy for her to see how her skills improved throughout the season.

“I’m a setter, it’s kind of a complicated position, you have to do two things; defense and work on your offence.

You have to know a lot of plays. It’s always your fault.

But I definitely think I became a better setter,” Ribble said. “I think my connections with my hitters were really bad at first because I had never set for them before. As the year went on they got way better I was able to run plays.”

The team finished -- in the state, making it to the regional finals before being knocked out by Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

This is a --- from last year, and despite a successful end to the season, the majority senior team was disappointed that they were unable to qualify for state. But Ribble is hopeful that in the years to come the team will achieve at an even higher level.

“At first I was really nervous about maybe making a mis-

take and it was just getting through the last game because I didn’t want to make the mistake for our seniors. I knew they wanted to get far and have a good season. I definitely think we had a good team atmosphere this year,” Ribble said.

“If we can improve that as we go on we can definitely be a good team. I definitely want to make it to state by senior year. But as an individual, I want to start taking the lead.”

This team atmosphere was one of Ribble’s favorite parts of the team.

Despite a certain level of intimidation from being an underclassmen in a group of juniors and seniors, Ribble found the team very welcoming. As her sister had been a senior on the team when the current seniors were freshmen, Ribble had gotten the unique chance to meet her teammates before making the team herself.

“I loved getting to know everyone on the team,” Ribble said. “My first game was the best. Even though we lost to west it was fun to see everyone that came out to support us.”

Before games, the team would often gather in the locker room, speaker in hand, to psych themselves up for the game. Ribble remembers this as a prime example of how the seniors on the team made her feel welcomed.

“In the locker room we have a speaker playing really loud,” Ribble said. “We all get in a circle, a lot of people dance in the middle and sing along. At the last meet we did the cupid shuffle. It makes us feel closer because we are all having fun and bonding. Its makes you feel like we have eachothers backs.”

As a freshmen, Ribble felt a certain amount of pressure to perform. Before a match, Ribble has to get herself into a certain mindset.

“I try not to think about who is going to be there and who we are playing,” Ribble said. “If you get down on yourself you need to shake it off because it can impact your next play.”

In fact, this ability to move past mistakes is what Ribble believes makes volleyball such a unique sport.

“Most sports if you make a mistake you are done and have time to reflect on that. In volleyball you have to get past it because the nextpoint is coming right away. After every play we get together and the seniors say something positive like, ‘we got the next one’, it helps us remember to move on.”

owan Boulter ‘22 had never 21, 2018, the day the City H had their official time trials end of the race, Boulter had finishe broken the time trials record with a 20 minutes is what most varsity ath achieving, and Boulter had just don “I remember at time trials, must be wrong, this is probab and I was kind of confused,” Bo people must have had a bad rac first meet obviously I am not But a week later she finishe All-American Invite, and then ton, and again at every single peted in Boulter was the numb almost an entire minute ahead “I remember I got home after dad was like, “how are you still in thought I wouldn’t still be the top Boulter said. “It was pretty crazy. I pressure on me, going into meets I the top runner at the meet, I hav Boulter knew that the team ing on her to perform at a high men who had just joined the team can be taxing. But Boulter found tem in her teammates, and knew s to push her. “It felt great to feel on me, but it was mostly just fun peting with so many amazing that I am also pushing people wa Those teammates were there fo through an individual qualification sole female runner from City High to traveled to Fort Dodge to cheer her o ishing 35th overall in a field of X ru preparing for the track season, putt “I hope this get me ready for tr gonna be different because we are n race. It’s not like I wanna be the best I am pretty good at and I like a lot, Now that Boulter has some h perience under her belt, she is s her body needs, both physically ing up to a race. The night be would gather for a homemade s “Food is pretty simple just like ter said. “I love nuns, the tablet you gives you electrolytes. I had one b we had to leave school early I remem I would drop one in my water an

run a 5k before August High XC Women’s team s at Ashton. But by the ed first on the team and a time of 19:43. Breaking hletes can only dream of ne it in her very first race.

I thought something bly not really normal oulter said. “I thought ce and that come the going to be leading.” ed first at the Luther again at Jim Boughmeet the team comber one runner, often of the number two. the first meet and my n the lead?” He totally p runner on the team,” did feel like I had some I was like “ I have to be ve to get a low score.”’ m was heavily dependlevel, and for a freshm, that kind of burden d a strong support sysshe could rely on them l that people depended n,” Boulter said. “Compeople and knowing as a really good thing.” or Boulter all the way for the state meet. As the o make it, her teammates on. Boulter ended up finunners. Now she is busy ting in (x) miles a week. rack,” Boulter said. “It’s not all running the same t. I hope one of the races I hope the 3000 is fun.” high school racing exstarting to learn what y and mentally, leadefore a meet the team spaghetti team dinner. carb, carb, carb,” Boulu drop and water and it before every race. When mber every day at noon, nd shake it up. A few

THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECMEBER 21, 2018

C hours before the race I would be drinking that.”

As for how Boulter psyched herself up for a race, she would oftentimes study her competition instead of the actual course, trying to learn everything she could about who she’d be going up against.

“I always got really nervous. I remember studying who was going to be at the meet, who am I going to be up against and what I should be prepared for,” Boulter said.

“It would make me really nervous but it would also get me in a good mindset. It usually didn’t end up how I thought it would, it was usually different. Usually in a good way.”

In such a mentally and physically taxing sport, Boulter has found a way to deal with the anticipation of the pain she is committing herself to.

“During the season the night before a meet I remember thinking that I was just going to have to go through 20 minutes of pain tomorrow,” Boulter said. “For me it’s just my breathing. Leading up to the meet that all I can think about. It’s not going to kill you, it’s not going to physically hurt you its just gonna be a painful for a little bit but then its over. When I am racing I think about how good I am going to feel afterward.”

Boulter sees her role on the team as not just the number one runner, but as a supportive teammate who is there to push her friends to be their best.

“It’s important to be there for your teammate when they need someone, to help them,” Boulter said. “You encourage your teammates before a race and after a race. You comfort them, you tell them they did great no matter how they did.

You always have to encourage, help out, and push them in workouts and practices. You make them work harder.”

Boulter says a big part of being a runner is breaking your own expectations you have about how fast you can run. But Boulter herself is defying the expectations of everyone who sees her. Standing at a height of 5’2’’, Boulter is the shortest runner on the team.

“Going into this year I thought I was really small and since I am the top runner I thought small must be good,” Boulter said. “Then I looked at the number one in the country, her muscles are big. She has so much muscle. That told me small doesn’t make you fast. Size doesn’t really matter. I do like my size for running but I wouldn’t mind some more muscle.”

As for the future, all Boulter can say is that she wants to keep dropping time, hopefully run in college, and after that, just keep running.

“I will try to run as often as possible and if I have kids I want to make them run a lot,” Boulter said. “I want my kids to be runners probably because all the runners I have met are pretty smart really nice people. I want my kids to be like that. I don’t want my kids to have to go through that pain, but I want them to be mentally tough.

Hopefully they have my genes so they are pretty good.”

ross Country is often considered a solo sport, but for Elliot Dunwald ‘22 and Sullivan Hull ‘22, quite the opposite is true. In a season filled with a certain level of disappointment for both teams, these two varsity athletes kept each other going.

“To see Elliot right in front of me, I know I can’t drop behind him,” Hull said. “I just subconsciously know that I gotta stay with him. I see it happening with tons of other people on the team as well, they’ll just stick together, and I think that’s really incredible because packing up is one of the best strategies to do in XC. It just forces people to stay together, to cheer each other on. Ultimately you will finish better and get better times and just be more happy with yourself in general.”

Hull and Dunwald, along with fellow classmate Parker Max, were all placed on the varsity team as freshmen.

Each distinguished themselves by their speeds, but Hull and Dunwald could always be seen racing side by side in meets. In fact, their PRs are less than six seconds apart.

“It’s funny because I would do all the pacing for the first three miles, but then he’d kick,” Dunwald said.

“He’d pace me on the sprinting part but I’d pace him for those first three miles. The goal was always to beat him but I didn’t really think like that. He just had that sprint that I didn’t have. It was kind of cool because in some of those races I wouldn’t have sped up if he didn’t speed up.”

Coming into high school cross country, the pressure was on for these two to prove themselves. Normally younger athletes do not make up such a large percentage of the varsity squad.

“I’m not sure I was ready,” Dunwald said. “One day coach calls me into his office and tells me that I’m running varsity on saturday. Now I’m used to it, but it was a really quick jump right to the big change. Definitely nerve wracking.”

But Hull and Dunwald pushed past the intimidation that comes from interacting with upperclassmen to be successful.

“That’s the best thing in the world,” Hull said. “Especially when older kids respect you so its just feels amazing.

It’s not only me, Elliot and Parker are really good too.”

To perform at such a high level, these two freshmen have to train intensely for the season. Part of this means participating in track as well as XC. As excited as they are to test their skills on the track however, the two prefer XC, as they feel the team is tighter knit.

“Everyone is a lot more serious in track, you’re going to have to do multiple things during a meet so everyone is just not having as much fun,” Hull said. “But in XC it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world to finish a race with people cheering you on and you know no matter how good or bad you do in it they’ll still respect you. It’s just one of the coolest things you can do as a person to participate in sports like this where you can just relax and have fun the whole time. That’s how all sports should be I think.”

According to Sull and Dunwald however, this support system doesn’t stop with the athletes. Both were coached

by Ross Salinas, mushroom enthusiast and varsity mentor.

“He is the nicest guy you’ll ever know,” Hull said. “He is one of the best coaches I’ve ever had. Just the way he runs and talks to you makes you want to run with him even if you’re not at that level yet. I remember one time we were running seven sisters, and I was dead on the way back, and

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he just told me to stay next to him and I did the entire time.

It hurt but he made me want to keep going with him.”

This motivation was picked up on by the other varsity athletes, and the two freshmen often found themselves sticking together during workouts as a way to interact in a group dominated by upperclassmen.

“If you’re by yourself it’s really hard. Sometimes [the upperclassmen would try to] outwork me and then sometimes I’d try and outwork them,” Dunwald said. “[Sully and I] hit it off together. I think it would be really hard if it was just me by myself or Sully by himself. It’s a lot of pressure by yourself, and when you race together, you have someone to lean on.”

It didn’t start out this way though. When the two first became teammates in junior high, Hull was running much slower times than he is today.

“In seventh grade he wasn’t very good at running,” Dunwald said. “In track season he kind of came out of nowhere, he started running really fast times. It’s pretty cool how he’s improved.”

“I started off running not a lot at all. I was still embarrassed to be on the team,” Hull said. “I didn’t think I was going to improve I thought I was just going to stay behind in the pack. I ran every single day over the summer. I just trained as much as I could and saw the effect. I always knew I put in the hard work but to see my friends cheering me on it was such a great feeling.”

These two freshmen are more than just teammates however.

Cross Country has helped them develop a stronger friendship.

“He’s really nice. We do a lot of stuff, more than just running, we have a lot of classes together,” Dunwald said. “When you go through all that stuff in xc together, and then go to normal life, it’s a lot easier.”

Another thing the two have in common is their shorter stature. Both are still growing, but they don’t let a shorter stride length impact their running. In fact, this is another reason they enjoy the sport so much.

“I love the mental aspect of it,” Dunwald said. “You can go into football and be really big and strong but you can’t do the stuff you can in XC. It’s a different world.

You can be really skinny like I am and really small, but still be better than a lot of people. I have a smaller upper body which is why I’m smaller but I don’t really think about it that much because now I know it doesn’t matter.”

In the end, knowing they can count on each other is what drove them to being the fifth and sixth runners on the team. In their first year of racing 5ks, Hull and Dunwald clocked in at 18:06 and 18:12 respectively. With three more seasons to go, as much as they will contribute to the program in years to come, they know the sport has already impacted their lives and their friendship in a fundamental way.

“Elliot is just incredible. I feel like he should be getting way more credit than me, because he’s the one who actually pulls through and perseveres more than I do, so I want to thank him for that,” Hull said. “As for me, cross country has taught me perseverance because even if you feel like you want to quit, even if your body is hurting all over, you just gotta keep pushing yourself. It’s not just for you, it’s to show everyone that you can persevere, that you have the ability to try your hardest every single time.”

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THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

S e c Epuzzle

Pi

of the

After a 64-15 win at their first meet of the season, it looks like it’s all coming together for the wrestling team. At the bottom, senior Ryan Ceynar breaks down his three favorite moves

Rummelhart’s opponent has captured him in a headlock.

“WE ARE COMING OFF OF A GOOD SEASON AND WE’VE LOST A BUNCH OF GUYS, BUT...OTHERS HAVE STEPPED UP. YOU BUILD UP THE PROGRAM AND IT WILL STAY GREAT.”

he e t core. p sca to s e to ent d e e on li l n s opp w rt n hi a h el d pi m an m Ru lock ad he

—RYAN CEYNAR ‘19

{ “WE’RE OFF TO A GOOD START. WE WON THE NEWTON TOURNAMENT AND WE BEAT XAVIER BY QUITE A BIT.”

Eli Rummelhart ‘22 wrestles for City’s junior varsity team on November 29.

—RYAN CEYNAR ‘19

Takedown

I

n a takedown, a wrestler gets their opponent to the mat from the neutral (starting) position. The takedown is worth two points.

Senior Ryan Ceynar’s favorite technique for a takedown is the “sweep single leg,” in which a wrestler can throw their opponent by grabbing hold of their leg and driving them off-balance and down.

The “sweep single leg” is one of the most popular attacks in the sport and is also found in other forms of martial arts, like mixed martial arts and jiu-jitsu. It has been used in top wrestling competitions and even at the Olympics.

Breakdown

T

he second step in wrestling, the breakdown, involves one wrestler getting their opponent onto the mat on their stomach or side. Ceynar cited his personal favorite move in this cadre as the “tightwaist chop.”

In this move, a wrestler in the top position holds their opponent tightly around the waist and chops their arm. At the same time, one uses one’s knee to drive one’s opponent flat on the ma, effectively pushing them onto their stomach.

“It is effective in breaking an opponent flat so I can pin them,” Ceynar said. “I am able to use my long arms to get a very tight tightwaist.”

Pin

I

n a pin, a wrestler gets both the opponen’t shoulders to hit the mat. This creates a “fall” and wins a wrestler the match.

Ceynar said his go-to pinning technique is the “arm bar.”

Starting with both wrestlers on their kneees, in this technique, a wrestler chops the arm of their opponent beneath them and gets ahold of it. This hold helps the wrestler to trap the opponent and the wrestler can use the leverage of the arm hold to flip the opponent onto their back.

“I have long arms which work well on this move,” Ceynar said; when using an arm bar, a wrestler must be able to reach around their opponent.

ART BY HALEIGH STEFFENS

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THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

Have Bike, Will Travel Some students and teachers at City High prefer to get around on two wheels

By Owen Sorenson and Mira Bohannan Kumar

RIGHT: Walter McDonough ‘19 on his way home PHOTOS

BY OWEN SORENSON

F

or many high schoolers, getting a driver’s license--and maybe a car to go with it--is a rite of passage. At City High, conflicts abound over lowerclassmen parking in the lots closest to the school, which juniors and seniors jealously guard. But Walter McDonough ‘19 didn’t buy into this system. In fact, McDonough doesn’t even have a driver’s license; he has another way to get around.

“I just bike everywhere in most situations,” McDonough said. “I have biked pretty much my whole life. I used to go on bike rides with my dad with my dad when I was little, all around Iowa City. I have been biking to school pretty much since my freshman year.”

McDonough said that biking is the best mode of transportation for him–better than public transportation like buses–because of the independence inherent in the practice of biking.

“I would have to go to the bus stop and wait for a bus or I would have to fit into their schedule,” McDonough said of public transportation.

“Instead I can just get on my bike and go where I need to go and I’ll probably be there in less time.”

Inability to drive isn’t the only reason to get around by bike. Economics teacher Steve Dodge also uses biking as his primary mode of transportation.

“I enjoy biking because I just like to get outside, so you are just closer to the environment.

I just like that aspect of it,” Dodge said. “I can travel almost as fast as driving with the bike, plus get [the] cardio aspect.”

Despite their strong opinions about the benefits of biking, McDonough and Dodge agreed that it can be difficult to be safe on a bike.

“As it gets colder, I have had where you get the black ice, and you can’t see it,” Dodge said. “I have hit that before on the bike, especially early morning or late evening when it becomes more difficult to see it.”

McDonough pointed out that beyond weather concerns, human-made obstacles face bikers.

“There are not a lot of bike lanes or bike paths in Iowa City,” McDonough said. “I try to take the ones that I can, but some streets near my house, like Dubuque street, Dodge street, and Gilbert’s street...can get me to places, but it also is really heavy traffic and it often isn’t accommodating to bikers. I think that people don’t look out for bikers as much.”

Overall, though, McDonough said biking is something he enjoys.

“I like biking. It’s fun and it’s also good for my health,” McDonough said. “I don’t do much other activity in most of the year so it’s good for that.”

Dodge also lauded the experience of riding a bike.

“I think it is a great way to get exercise, it is a great way to travel,” Dodge said. “It solves so many of our problems in our society, if you look at health issues and carbon emissions and everything else, biking can be a solution to all of those.”

Low #s for bowling

By Phoebe Chapnick-Sorokin and Shoshie Hemley

T

he girls bowling season rolled to a start by beating West high with a score of 19981656.

“The girls season is off to a fantastic start,” Matt Degner, a City High bowling coach, said.

Kia Svoboda ‘20 is a member of the team this year who was thrilled with the victory against West. “[I was] happy,” Svoboda said.

Svoboda enjoys bowling due to the inviting atmosphere.

“It’s not a competition, people think it’s a competition but it’s not but we just bowl for fun,” Svoboda said. “Cheering each other on and having fun.”

The team is young this year, as many of the juniors from last year, now seniors, decided not to do bowling this year. Much of the team is made up of freshman and sophomores.

“We feel the team will only get stronger throughout the season and in the coming years,” Degner said.

There are far less girls than boys on the bowling team, about five to 20. Liza Sarsfield ‘19, along with three other seniors, decided not to do bowling this year after doing it previously.

“It’s really time consuming, because all the practices have to be at the bowling alley, it’s just too much of a time commitment to try and get yourself out there every single day, and all the meets are farther away because there are no close schools that participate,” Sarsfield said.

Although she enjoyed bowling, Sarsfield is happy with her decision to quit.

“I feel really good about [my decision] to stop doing it because it was such a stress trying to finish everything and just keep going,” Sarsfield said.

Great Expectations After a slow start to the season, the boys basketball team is looking to turn the tables. Losses have been close, and morale on the team is high for the future

By Josh Poe

shortcomings the team has experienced through offseason worksome better things and it’s all a result of our key to sticking to the outs and team building. process. [the guys] working their butts off in the weight room durespite a tough loss last week to West, there are still expec“We have a communication circle at the end [of practice] ing the off-season and skill development, it’s all just guys doing tations for the City High boys team this season. Before where we do a different activity every day,” said Quincy Wells ‘19. stuff in the offseason,” said Roberts. the West game, the Hawks rolled through their first two “I feel like that’s helped us bond and be closer.”

The work put in by the Little Hawks will hopefully help the opponents, a Wiescamp-less Muscatine that the Hawks held to But their growth doesn’t end on the court. In fact off the team improve from last year after having only 5 wins.

15 points, and a Fort Madison team that the City scored 73 on. court is where the team grows to be more of a family so that they Going into the City-West game, City High saw it’s 2-game win Coach Derek Roberts, the head varsity coach, noted what the have more cohesion and teamwork on the court. streak snapped by a 30 point loss to West, 66-36. The previously team gained from those wins.

“Our guys put in more time in the off-season...you see a stout-looking defense crumbled under a talented West team led by “I think it’s good for them, [the games] helped give them some couple of the results here from our first games and we’ve done Patrick McCaffery ‘19 who led the team with 30 points. confidence and [let them] see what we’re trying to do is going to “It seemed a lot bigger of a loss than it was bepay off,” Roberts said. cause it was West High,” said Ry Threlkeld-Wiegand, Despite these initial wins, there is still an ex“But in reality it was the third game of the season pectation that more improvement will come as the and we will bounce back from that.” season continues.

Going into the season, Liam McComas ‘19 “I think we need to be able to handle pressure knows this season is about getting comfortable with more, be able to box out, get defensive rebounds... his new role as a more physical player with a larger not turning the ball over, [and] making sure we presence on the team. get good shots on offense,” said senior Ryland (Ry) “I just had to know my role. [I’m the guy] that’s Threlkeld-Wiegand going to set the hard screen or somebody and then But no matter how much they improve with roll off get a quick and easy little layup and then these aspects and others, the team will always look get back in defence and really hammer the boards.” to improve further and look at every aspect of their But McComas is enthusiastic about his role, and game in order to find every area they can improve in his final season he wants to give it his all and in. put everything he has on the court every game that “As a coach you’re never really satisfied with he plays. where you are at. We’ve got a long way to go in the “I just don’t want there to be any regrets this season,” said Roberts. season or have anything to look back on and feel it Leading up to the season, the Little Hawks ABOVE AND BELOW: Members of the varsity basketball team in the City v. West game PHOTOS BY wasn’t the right thing to do,” said McComas. worked to improve their team and flip the recent NATALIE GREEN AND JESSE HAUKSENUT-BROWN

D

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THE LITTLE HAWK | THELITTLEHAWK.COM | DECEMBER 21, 2018

ON TH

EIR W AY

By Julianne Berry-Stoelzle and Jesse Hausknecht-Brown

A

s the City vs West basketball game neared the end, players, fans and coaches alike were brought back to last March when the same teams went up against each other for the state title. The tension was evident as the game went into overtime with City finally winning 64 to 57.

The constant neck and neck battle meant all the players had to be scoring their best. In addition to lead shooters Rose Nkumu and Aubrey Jones, Eviyon Richardson ‘22 scored a total of 20 points, the most she has ever scored in a single game. “[The atmosphere was] loud. I couldn’t hear,” Richardson said. “It was exciting to have the adrenaline pumping through your body.”

Richardson has been playing basketball since second grade, and after making the varsity squad as a freshman is enjoying the big games that come along with playing on the varsity team.

“I feel like we’re going to have a great season,” Richardson said. “We have a good team and a good group of girls.”

While defeating the No. 6 ranked West on Friday night makes winning the state tournament seem one step away, varsity coach Bill McTaggart knows that the No. 2 ranked City still has a whole season to go.

“We’re getting there,” McTaggart said. “But we’re not there yet.”

This year, City High’s varsity basketball has four freshmen on the team, more than last year, after four seniors graduated last year. Especially after the loss of star player Ashley Jones, who set a state record as the highest scoring female basketball player and was named Miss Iowa Basketball 2018, the team knows they need new talent.

“We’re very young, we have four freshmen on the varsity team,” McTaggart said. “They’re working very hard, and they are very athletic.”

McTaggart has been pushing the girls to become better defenders, knowing that this is what will carry them to the state level.

“Kids like to get points, but nobody talks about being a great defender,” McTaggart said.

To do this, a scout team of boys, have been scrimaging against

the girls team in practice. The varsity basketball team’s practices last about two hours each and the team also lifts two days a week. With the huge time commitment that entails, the academic expectations are still high. McTaggart recommends using all opportunities, including the bus rides to games, to be studying and preparing for school.

“You’ve got to be somebody that manages your time wisely because basketball is a huge commitment,” McTaggart said.

Not only do varsity players have to practice everyday and lifting twice a week, they also have games to play, some of which are far away and require missing parts school.

“Kids are [taking] AP classes and that takes up a lot of time,” McTaggart said. “So if they’re on the bus, they should be studying.”

Players have talked about learning to manage their time by making the most of class time, advisory and study halls. Andie Westlake ‘22, a freshman on the varsity team, who has been playing basketball for over ten years, has figured out how to fit everything in and still play her best.

“I try to get most of my homework done during the day and just manage my time well so that I’m not overwhelmed when I have games and practices,” Westlake said.

Westlake enjoys being a part of the varsity team and even though she thinks the team is doing well so far, sees some room for improvement.

“It’s nerve racking at some parts because I’m not really used to everything yet, but I’m happy that I made it on there,” Westlake said.

While homework, practice, lifting and competing can be a lot to manage, players say the exhilarating games and cheers from the crowd make it worthwhile. “[Being on varsity] is fun because you’ve got big games like

After the fight of their lives against West, the No. 2 ranked and yet undefeated City High girls basketball team has their eyes on the prize

[City vs West] and they give you a lot of props and everything,” Richardson said.

The freshman and sophomore team is having a great start to the season having beat West 28-21 in double overtime last week.

“The goal always for us is let’s constantly get better,” Fresh/ Soph Coach Lynsey Barnard said. “We do that within the game by saying let’s try and get better each quarter.”

To do this, Barnard holds high expectations for her players while also making the atmosphere as enjoyable as possible. To become better players they have competitive scrimmages during practices. “[Practice] is really fun,” Maha Mohammad ‘22 said. “It’s also competitive, especially when we’re scrimaging.”

Just a few years ago, the freshman and sophomore team had only been six players. Barnard is very happy with all of the girls that came out this year.

“If you are a good teammate, the basketball skills will come,” Barnard said. “We can work on those skills a lot, but the willingness to work is the biggest part.”

She is aware that the girls on her team are busy and schoolwork has to be done. She said that in the past she has called kids in for advisory to help them communicate with their teachers or help them balance their schedule.

“Sometimes school gets overwhelming and practices hard and your coaches tough on you but I constantly remind them at the end of the day, we’re here to have fun and we’re in this together,” Barnard said. “I’m on their case a lot, but I’m also their biggest fan.”

Being a freshman can be overwhelming already, from adjusting to the homework load to making time to hang out with friends, so adding a sport can be challenging. Coming from middle school and having to learn how to play with a new group of girls can be hard. “[The] beginning was kind of rough,” Mohammad said.

“Some of the people I used to play with in junior high didn’t join basketball and I’m not used to playing with upperclassmen.”

At practice, Barnard emphasizes positivity and lifting other teammates up, even by simple, little things such as giving each other high fives.

“I’m looking for good teammates,” Barnard said. “So if you’re not having the best game or practice, are you still gonna pick each other up?”

The fresh/soph team has won three of their five games this season so far, including a win against West in double overtime.

“It’s a lot easier to work hard, if you are enjoying what you’re doing,” Barnard said.