November 2017
PANTHER
the
A SPECIAL EDITION OF
ALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF TO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES ALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF TO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES ALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF TO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES ALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF Sincerely, TO FACES OF PALMETTO The Panther FACES Staff PALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES OF TO FACES OF PALMETTO FACES ALMETTO FACES OF PALMETTO THIS IS US.
We, as journalists, believe that everyone has a story to tell. In emulation of Brandon Stanton’s nationally acclaimed book and social media accounts, “Humans of New York,” The Panther introduces its own version of a publication intended to bring to life the personalities that walk these halls day after day. Based on suggestions and recommendations from our staff and student body, we compiled a list of nine students and faculty members for their compelling stories and unique personalities. Each one has a different story to tell, a different personality to share and a different perspective on life.
We hope these stories enlighten everyone at Palmetto and encourage all of us to get to know the people we walk past - but never engage with - on a daily basis. This is Palmetto. These are our stories.
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PHOTO BY NATALIE ASKOWITZ
ZADA MARAJ
road TO RECOVERY
Zada Maraj is more than the typical teenager at Palmetto. After traveling thousands of miles from her home, she moved to Miami with a positive outlook on life. “I’m from Trinidad. It’s right above Venezuela. It’s my home, but I came [to Miami] because I feel more comfortable being closer to the hospital,” Maraj said. Maraj understood the importance of moving and came to America with maturity and acceptance, unlike many teenagers. “Since I got cancer, we had to come here because it was the only place that could treat me within short distance,” Maraj said. “I got the best care at Miami Children’s [Hospital]. Back home is considered a third world country, so it’s not as advanced, so hospitals here are so much nicer. They took great care of me.” Maraj was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia at the young age of 13. “I was sad to leave Trinidad, but at the same time I was more happy because I was going to be closer to my hospital. It was easier for me because I was getting closer to help,” Maraj said. After 10 months in remission, Maraj was hit with troubling news. “I actually got cancer, was cured and was in remission and then got it back, so that’s why it was two years,” she said. “My cancer was a more aggressive cancer.” The two year long cancer struggle involving multiple chemotherapy treatments ended with a bone marrow transplant to ensure the absence of all cancer cells. “I am done with treatment now,” Maraj said. “I had a bone marrow transplant because the second time it came back they gave me chemo still, but also did a transplant to make sure [it was all gone]. My sister was actually the donor. She donated
the bone marrow which made it even more likely to be successful, and it was successful. I am very grateful to my sister, even if I don’t show it much.” Maraj has attended Palmetto High for four months now. The adjustment from her life in Trinidad to her life in Miami proved a drastic adjustment. “I was nervous about starting school here,” she said. “I did miss two years because of my treatment. I’m in tenth grade. A lot of kids know each other more, so they are more friendly with each other, opposed to someone new. But everyone has accepted me nicely.” Now a cancer survivor, Maraj looks to the future with high hopes, unsure of what it will hold. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m happy that I have a future,” Maraj said. “However, [cancer] is an ongoing thing for everyone who has had it because you have to think about what if it comes back and you have to be prepared for that. I wasn’t [prepared] last time, but now I have to be prepared for my whole life in case it does comes back. But it doesn’t really matter right now. At least I know that it’s gone.” She wants to help others who are experiencing the struggles she went through. “I want to get more into being involved in cancer societies,” Maraj said. “I want to meet other kids who have it. When I had it, it was nice to see other kids who got over it and they come back and volunteer. I want to do that.”
Natalie Askowitz Copy Editor
n.askowitz.thepanther@gmail.com
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larry schwarz
LIVING LIFE IN COLOR Sign language teacher and Alliance sponsor Larry Schwarz has witnessed the LGBTQ+ community blossom throughout his years at Palmetto. “I actually went to Palmetto. And I think it’s an especially moving and inspiring experience for me to be the Alliance advisor here because I get to observe and learn as much from my students as I hope that they get inspiration from me,” Schwarz said. When Schwarz attended Palmetto as a student, social stigma did not permit people to even mutter the word “gay.” “It’s such a totally different world now where people can get together and be open and comfortable about who they are,” Schwarz said. “Most teenagers feel like they don’t fit in - some way or another way. I remember that, and kids are very brave to be able to talk about these things. I think it’s important that they have a place where they can go be social and realize that they are really no different than everybody else.” When he reminisces on his own journey as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Schwarz finds an especially arduous path. Despite being so vocal about his sexuality now, Schwarz did not actually come out of the closet until
he was in his 50s. “I was brought up thinking that I was going to get married, maybe go to grad school, have kids—nowhere in that plan was having a relationship with a man,” Schwarz said. “So I stayed in my marriage [to a woman] for 19 years, a lot longer than I probably should have. It wasn’t until much later that I started to realize that I might have been unhappy because I wasn’t able to make the kind of emotional connection that I wanted with my spouse and that maybe that was possible with somebody else.” However, the idea of being gay was not completely foreign to him prior to that point. “I think maybe I had an idea since middle school. But I was sexually abused as a child, by a babysitter. I was really young at the time, and I think that that being my first sexual experience made it very weird and difficult to figure out - it was a very traumatic experience because I really didn’t understand what it was,” Schwarz said. “I knew, from society, that it wasn’t supposed to happen, but that was about it.” In the 80s, during the peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, one of Schwarz’s colleagues, Rolly Funk, who also worked
in the school system, approached him with a proposition to help out. “When Rolly approached me, I decided to leave the school system to start work at an AIDS program,” Schwarz said. “I had just graduated from grad school, and we decided to go work with an HIV/AIDS foundation called Body Positive. I also did some work with Ryan White to counsel people who were affected and make sure they had the services that they needed.” The opportunity to work with HIV/ AIDS patients and help out was pivotal in Schwarz’s self-discovery. “I was hugely influenced when I was there by how brave the people who were living with HIV were,” Schwarz said. “That experience helped me see people who were gay in a new way. I saw bravery. I saw passion. I saw commitment like never before.” Soon after, when Schwarz finally came out, it made a world of difference in his own life. “I know what it’s like when the pressures of society are so intense that you can’t be who you are,” Schwarz said. “But coming out was so freeing because I was already doing all the things that I loved. I just wasn’t dating
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PHOTO BY VIRGINIA BOONE
who I wanted. It opened a whole new chapter.” Despite the generally positive response he faced upon coming out, Schwarz is not entirely unfamiliar with the heinous prejudices many LGBTQ+ people face. “I feel the judgement even as an adult. I was accosted once in a Publix, where a man saw my rainbow bracelet and was afraid that I was going to touch his child,” Schwarz said. “He threatened me, when all I was doing was standing in line at the grocery store. I didn’t even know what was happening. My reaction was to tell him that as a teacher, I would never hurt a child.” Having experienced and grown so much throughout the course of his life as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Schwarz felt a need to help out others who were struggling with finding proper support to accept themselves. He felt he could do this here at Palmetto. “I was really heartbroken at how isolated some of my students were feeling. There’re all these places where you’d think we’d get support - yet this group of people, because they’re misunderstood, often do not,” Schwarz said. “Some even considered hurting themselves, or suicide, and I could not stand by and watch that when I’d see people survive so much more today
than ever before. Because there’s so much more support, if they can just find it. That’s one of the reasons I left counseling and became a teacher again; I can reach more people at a time.” His own experience with teasing and isolation definitely resonated with him when he decided to sponsor the Alliance club at Palmetto. “I’m gay, and I’m fat, and I’m old so I have had many reasons in my life to be bullied. And I felt like, if I felt isolated because I felt different, then people must really feel that today,” Schwarz said. “It’s unfortunate that in our society people judge very quickly. When you judge others you never see their abilities and their passions. Judgment squelches possibilities, and if I can help somebody either deal with that or avoid it, I’m going to do everything in my power to do so.” For most, coming out is not a one time thing. In fact, Schwarz did not come out to his colleagues at Palmetto until last year, 20 years after he began teaching at the school. “I felt that there were a lot of faculty members that weren’t comfortable with the organization [Alliance], and they didn’t know what was okay to say. So I arranged for a group of people to come in and talk about the legal ramifications of accepting people, and
being respectful of pronouns kids were requesting. It didn’t mean they had to support it, just be respectful,” Schwarz said. His desire to create a more respectful environment at Palmetto drove his decision to come out at work. “We have a lot of people [in the school] who are not supportive of people living an “out” life, but they know me. I’ve been at Palmetto for 20 years as a teacher, and that was the key,” Schwarz said. “When you know somebody, and you’re close with them, it doesn’t make any difference. You care for them the way they are.” Above all, Schwarz is glad that, by coming out to the faculty members at Palmetto, he has managed to start a positive dialogue. “A lot more teachers were able to come up to me and say ‘I have somebody who needs support,’” Schwarz said. “And that’s the best part. Now they don’t have to feel confused. They can actually come up and ask what they can do to make it easier for that person. And that makes a difference for these kids.”
Alexis Garcia-Ruiz Copy Editor
a.garciaruiz.thepanther@gmail.com
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adriana rodriguez PLAYING HER PROBLEMS Sophomore Adriana Rodriguez was first diagnosed with her reading disorder in the third grade. “I couldn’t read and write as fast as the other kids, and I couldn’t comprehend as well as the other kids,” Rodriguez said. Reading disorders are characterized by difficulty in learning to read or interpreting words, letters or numbers, often leading to difficulties at school. Rodriguez became aware of her disorder and was also diagnosed in the third grade with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, a condition including focusing difficulty and hyperactivity. “Honestly, my first reaction was, ‘That makes sense,’ because even I noticed the trouble I was having in school,” Rodriguez said. “I would notice that I’m playing around or not paying attention in class, and so when they confirmed my diagnosis I was not surprised, and neither were my parents.” Despite the diagnosis, Rodriguez never let her reading disorder or ADHD hold her back, and instead, accepted it as a part of who she is. “I didn’t really take it as an excuse for not paying attention,” Rodriguez said. “It was like that one piece in your life, that you just know it’s there but you couldn’t figure it out, and now you know what it is.” Rodriguez said having the disorders never hindered her success, but instead, helped shape her character. “I never let it bother me. It always pushed me. It made me work harder to prove to those kids that, no, I’m not stupid,” Rodriguez said. “My parents got me a tutor for the dyslexia and they taught me a lot of techniques and skills that helped me to overpower it.” Rodriguez is currently pursuing a career in the medical sciences. She hopes to follows in her parents’ footsteps, both of whom are doctors. “I definitely get an inside view of the medical field, which has always highly
PHOTO BY ANNETTE GONZALEZ
intrigued me, and that definitely influenced me wanting to be a doctor,” Rodriguez said. Rodriguez also proficiently plays the guitar, taking lessons at Palmetto, as well as at home. “Honestly my parents just came up to me one day and said, ‘You’re gonna take guitar lessons!’” Rodriguez said. “My dad always told me he regretted quitting because he always felt that playing an instrument was important. That’s why even when I feel like quitting, I never do, and honestly the guitar lessons have really helped me.” She uses guitar playing as a means of improving her focus in school and in her personal life. “Back in elementary, and even in middle school, I would get very distracted and play with my pencils and pens while the teacher would lecture, and I would have a lot of trouble paying attention in class,” Rodriguez said. “But when I started playing the guitar, it helped me focus a lot better, and I immediately started getting better grades.” Rodriguez, as a student at Palmetto, hopes to help other students with conditions similar to hers. “You really just have to push yourself, and you have to try, because it’s hard and it get’s disappointing. I didn’t start showing signs of improvements until many months after I started going to the tutor,” Rodriguez said. “But I just kept going, hoping, that maybe if I keep at it, something is bound to happen, and it did. I did eventually get better. My best advice is to keep going. Don’t let it stop you. Because you may have a reading disorder, you may not be as fast as everyone else, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t smart.”
Garrett Livingston Opinion Editor
g.livingston.thepanther@gmail.com
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PHOTO BY CAMILA MYERS
Darren grusky LANDSCAPING HIS FUTURE
From dusk to dawn, senior Darren Grusky mows lawns for his company DG Lawn Maintenance and Landscaping—the one he calls his whole life. Grusky owns and runs a mowing company, one that has been around for six years now. He built the business from the ground up and it has been his top priority ever since. “When I was in sixth grade, my dad passed, so all the hard work fell onto my shoulders and, instead of making it something that sucked, like, ‘aw damn I have to cut the grass,’ I made it into something I enjoy,” Grusky said. “It just kept growing and growing and now I’m at the point where it’s pretty big. My first clients were usually neighbors and family members, and then they told their friends, and it grew from there. We have about 25 full time lawn accounts on top or larger jobs that are more one time gigs and that takes up my whole life.” He wakes up at the crack of dawn almost every weekend and does the work that many people would turn away. He pours his heart into his work and knows that even on the harder days, the final product makes it worth any addiontal time and effort.
“I feel like I accomplish something and we make the landscapes beautiful, which I like to pride myself on,” Grusky said. “But sometimes it does suck, like when it’s the middle of the summer and we’re busting our asses and it’s really hot. We’re out there all day and sometimes it’s raining, and then a machine breaks.” Being so young, many people would expect that his age would hinder his opportunities. However, his age is beneficial to his business. “I think I get more work because of my age because people would rather give it to me than to any of these others guys because they admire the fact that I’m so young and so dedicated to this,” Grusky said. Grusky does not dread going to work, despite the heat, the rain, or any unpleasant condition or situation; he pushes through and does what he is most proud of - what he enjoys. “Right now it’s awesome and I love it. I have a big truck, trailers, the equipment, and I see everybody during the summer. It’s fun and I’m proud of it and I think a lot of my friends are, too.” Grusky employs three other people
who he hired shortly after he began. “Those guys mean a lot to me, and I mean a lot to them,” Grusky said. “They rely on me for steady cash and they appreciate that I help them, and I try to help them out a lot.” Along with his company, Grusky is also a full time student here at Palmetto. He hopes to go to Florida Atlantic University to study and earn his business degree and expand his company further. “If I go to Miami Dade or Florida International University, I’ll keep the company. If I go to the University of South Florida or FAU, it’ll be fun for me and I’ll keep the machines and the trucks and the trailers. If I get a job working with Florida Power and Light, I can always have this as a side job but I would have to get a license and have to get it insured. I would love to grow and have three to five trucks on the road,” Grusky said. “That would be my ultimate goal - to grow it to a big company out of Miami.”
Camila Myers Life Editor
c.myers.thepanther@gmail.com
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Starla santana
FIERCE INSIDE THE RING AND OUT Taekwondo: not a hobby, not a side gig, and certainly not karate. For Sophomore Starla Diamond Santana, taekwondo has become a lifestyle. Just three and a half years ago, Starla - who comes from an athletic background in eight years of gymnastics, dance, tennis, swim, softball and track - knew nothing about the martial art, let alone how much it would impact her as a person and a fighter. “I first watched, when I moved in with my dad, [Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Ronda Roussey’s] documentary on her life, and it was so inspiring. I was like man, I want to try it,” she said. “So we drove over to some martial arts studio called Hero, and then eventually I moved over to Peak Performance International - the current studio I’m at now - that has Terrence Jennings, he’s one of the Olympians [who] got bronze, Paige McPhearson is a world champ, and then we have James Howie. We have some of the top USA fighters.” Even the massive amount of talent that surrounds Starla at her studio does not dampen her confidence. After her first taekwondo class, she fell in love. “It’s definitely a life changer,” she said. “Because it definitely changed my perspective on life in general. When you analyze a fight, and you break it down, it all comes mental. Everybody possesses the physical ability to be able to kick, to throw a punch - we all learn the same things, we all learn the same kicks, it’s just a matter of who believes in [themselves] the most and who’s able to have that confidence in the ring and express themselves. Like, yeah, you know what, I’m the best fighter here, I don’t care if I can’t do do this or I’m not flexible, I’m not gonna let it limit me, so
you show that in the ring. You put your foot down. You dominate. You’re like ‘I’m that person, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter.’” Starla - now a contender for the U.S. Olympic Team and multi-tier champion across the world - had to work her way up from square one, just like every other athlete who ever achieved greatness; just like Ronda Roussey. “In the beginning, I wasn’t like that. And I’m still struggling with that; mentally, I’ll freeze, or I’ll let my nerves get the best of me, so my muscles won’t cooperate. My brain is like ‘Starla, kick!’ and my muscles are like [no]. It’s what comes with the sport, and it’s taught me so much in life. You’ve just gotta go, you’ve just gotta fight. A fight is a fight. You only win when you fight. So if you stop and you think about it too much, you’ll miss the opportunity. You have to… you just gotta go.” The real battles that we fight in life, at least to Starla, are those we fight not physically, but metaphorically. With a type-A personality, a separated family and three Advanced Placement classes on her plate - forcing her to stay up until 4 a.m. doing homework on days she gets home at 11 p.m. - taekwondo does more than release endorphins; it forces her to stop sweating the small stuff, and ultimately bite the bullet. “I’m such an over-analytical person that I’ll sit here and I’ll contemplate for hours on the simplest question. This sport is like ‘go!’ and I’m like, okay. I’ll just go. You kind of just wing it sometimes. That’s when you get the best results sometimes.” She owes much of her success to her support system: her family. “My dad and my stepmom are
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extremely supportive, [and] my dad comes to every single one of my competitions - even in Costa Rica, I had to stay there by myself for three days and he came on my fight day because, you know, he had to work and he has to make the money so I can travel because it’s not cheap. My sisters, they’re always cheering me on. They look up to me, they always tell me, ‘Starla you’re so awesome,’ whenever I’m fighting.” D e e p d o w n , despite her focus on winning and becoming a better competitor, her siblings have her heart. “I have to set the example and my sisters are very athletic too - they all are really into sports, and my brother is really good at baseball, he has a really
good swing. Cheeky, she’s four she just started kindergarten. She [says] ‘Oh my god, Starla, I want to be just like you; Starla, you’re a queen.’ She’s always supporting me and she’s probably one of my biggest fans - like, one of my biggest fans. She’s tough, bro. She’s very bossy, very tough. She’s so small and so good at gymnastics and ice skating.” But Cheeky constitutes only one of dozens of Starla’s fans, including classmates and teachers - such as AP Capstone teacher John Hayduk - who lovingly calls her by a special nickname. “All of the teachers call me Kung Fu Panda,” Santana said. “It’s so funny.”
Marlowe Starling Editor in Chief
m.starling.thepanther@gmail.com
PHOTO BY MARLOWE STARLING
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SOFIA PIERCE
PHOTO BY GEMMA TORRAS
ALL THE RIGHT NOTES A spotlight beams down on the center of the stage. Sofia Pierce sits in front of the grand piano and illuminates the room with the dramatic melody of Beethoven. Pierce’s musical journey began at a young age. “I first got into it when I was really young, when I was like 6 years old,” Pierce said. “My oldest cousin, she’s a piano player, and my grandmother was actually a pianist in Cuba, so my mom thought it was really important that her kids play the piano.” Through extensive practice, Pierce was able to refine her talent and demonstrate it to a wider, more international audience. “It was summer 2016, going into junior year, my dad posted a video of me playing on Facebook, and he actually had an old friend who later became this successful conductor and for years he had been taking a group of pianists to Austria.” While she was in Austria, Pierce had the opportunity to partake in musical masters classes for the young musicians who had been invited. “At the end of the two weeks, you perform in Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt, Austria,” Pierce said. Even though she was amongst older, more experienced pianists,
Pierce’s prodigious skills were still able to shine through. “I was there alone for a while and it was such a cool experience and I ended up performing at the end in this very beautiful palace. I played Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven and Doctor Gradus’ Children’s Corner by Debussy,” Pierce said. Pierce’s school life has differentiated her from most highschoolers, since she not only suffered from scoliosis but was also homeschooled for most of her life. “I’m the youngest of six children, so we were all in school, but my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she decided she wanted to form a more intimate relationship with her kids, so she really wanted to homeschool us,” Pierce said. “So, I did all of elementary school and middle school with my mom. Freshman year I went to a private school in the grove called La Salle. I really didn’t like it. I didn’t find my niche anywhere.” During her time at La Salle, Pierce struggled to find a music program at the school to fully express her talent, but at Palmetto, she found a much better fit. “I’m in the jazz band right now at school and I’ve been in jazz band
since sophomore year,” Pierce said. Before moving to Palmetto High, Pierce suffered from scoliosis, which is a sideways curvature of the spine. “I had scoliosis and the summer going into freshman year, I had been wearing a plastic brace, and it was really horrible looking and uncomfortable,” Pierce said. “I ended up having to get scoliosis spinal fusion surgery where they screwed 36 screws into my vertebrae and basically just with rods to keep it straight and it was really painful but it made me taller and I don’t have scoliosis anymore!” Although Pierce struggled through the hardships of her condition, she was able to recover after one year. “It consisted of a lot of discomfort and pain considering my spine was completely readjusted but after that year I never had to worry about the pain I had felt with scoliosis and the effects it would have had on my body as I aged.” Pierce has had riveting experiences so far, and hopes to continue on this path in the future.
Gemma Torras Design Editor
g.torras.thepanther@gmail.com
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PHOTO BY SABRINA CATALAN
jacob suarez FROM THE SEA TO THE SKY
On sunny Saturday and Sunday afternoons, Jacob Suarez is seen zipping through the crystal blue waters of Miami’s Biscayne Bay at the Coral Reef Yacht Club. Adjusting his sails to accommodate a new rush of wind is a routine he has gotten used to from the many weekends he spends out on the sea navigating his 420 sailboat. Suarez’s passion for sailing initially sparked when he was 10 years old. “At first, I started off with doing it over the summer,” Suarez said. “I sailed a small boat called the Opti. It was a small single person sailboat. It kind of looked like a bathtub but a little bit wider.” After two years of practicing with the Optimist pram sailboats, Suarez then joined an Opti racing team that practiced yearlong every weekend at the CRYC. Then, as Suarez got older, he moved onto a more advanced sailboat model. “After sailing the Opti for three years, I got too big for them,” Suarez said. “You can only sail the Optis until a certain height and weight, so then I moved into the bigger boat called the 420 when I was about 14. And I’ve been sailing the 420 in the summer camp, and just this year I started the racing team called the C420.” In the upcoming summer, Suarez plans to volunteer at the CRYC and assist young sailors in learning how to navigate their own boats. “When I first started sailing, I always looked up to my counselors who helped teach me,” Suarez said. “Now that I have enough experience to teach someone else how to sail, I want to inspire the same feeling that I had when first learning how to sail to another person. I want [the kids] to have the same passion towards making every move in the boat better than the last time they did it.” While Suarez sweeps along the coast, he
also learns to soar across the sky. “I started taking flying lessons when I was maybe 13 or 14,” Suarez said. “Sailing and flying are kind of similar. When I was flying one time, the pilot told me that sailors often do make good pilots because they are good at critiquing small things and making adjustments. It was cool to find out that sailing and flying kind of went hand in hand with each other.” As it turns out, flying has always been a passion Suarez harbored. “Ever since I was a child, I always thought flying was super interesting. And seeing a plane up in the sky is so cool, so I’ve always had a dream to fly,” Suarez said. “I wanted to fly for longer, but I was just exposed to sailing first.” He aspires to become a pilot and enter the Air Force after going to college and obtaining his engineering degree. “I want to most likely go into the Air Force and fly jets, like an F-16 or F-22,” Suarez said. “And after I get out of the military, I would like to go fly commercial.” At Tamiami airport, Suarez is able to fly a Cessna 172, a plane typically used for learners, for about an hour and half during his lessons. “I’ve only ever really flown a total of four times,” Suarez said. “But I want to get more hours of flying because you need 40 hours to get your private flying license, so I want to work towards that. That’s my first goal to becoming a pilot. And of course, completing ground school is really important, so I am going to start that soon.” No matter where life takes him, Suarez finds himself happiest gliding through the sea and the sky.
Sabrina Catalan Copy Editer
s.catalan.thepanther@gmail.com
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cheryl ruffin more than skin deep A young Cheryl Ruffin sits quietly in the school courtyard with the rest of her friends, ready to take a break for lunch in between classes. The other students around her refuse to sit near her group. As Ruffin and her friends enjoy a small conversation, a group of boys finds its way through the maze of tables and stops in front of them. Derogatory words spew from their lips as she sits there, taking each blow that the young boys throw at her and her friends, unable to fight back for fear of expulsion. “It must gonna be raining today because of all of these black clouds,” one boy says, referring to Ruffin and her African American friends. “Yeah but what would it do to the straw?” another boy says, alluding to their hair. “I don’t know, will it catch on fire?” The first boy says. Each remark digs a little deeper beneath her skin. Their words leave an imprint in her mind as she grips onto the many books that she carries to school each day. One boy takes out a slim box of matches. He strikes one against the box and thumps it at her, attempting to test whether her hair would catch on fire.
Then, Ruffin was only an eighth grader in a small town called Goldsboro, North Carolina. She was born in the time of segregation. The moment in the courtyard was just a small sample of the hardships Ruffin endured in this dark time of history. “Immediately, we went to teachers, and they told us we were just sensitive, even though we were assaulted with fire. They told us to simply deal with it,” Ruffin said. According to Ruffin, integration came in phases. “There was first‑ especially in North Carolina — what they called a freedom of choice,” Ruffin said. “At that point, the white students were not choosing to go to the black schools. So what the black community did with families is they convinced them to send us. We were supposedly the ‘smarter’ kids, so they sent us so that there wouldn’t be any issues of us flunking out.” Though merely in eighth grade when schools were first integrated, Ruffin dealt with many trials, even in typically mundane situations such as walking to school with her friends. “We were walking through the middle
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of the street. We weren’t walking on anyone’s property or anything, and I remember running down the street to get away from the dogs that they sicked on us,” Ruffin said. “The fear of that dog coming at you to bite — not to play with you, not to jump on you, but to bite — that stayed with me for a long, long time.” Ruffin mentions that even though this happened many years ago, she still vividly remembers one thing beyond the fear she felt each day on her walk to school. “The faces on those adults,” Ruffin said. “I remember that. Pure satisfaction and evil.” From then on, she had to change the routes she took to school. Often times, she walked in groups with her friends to prevent any one person from being beaten, but being together did not entirely prevent adverse situations. “That was worse than the civil rights marches because at least in marching we knew what we were up against—the police, the water, the dogs— we were taught how to protect ourselves. But children just walking to school was something different,” Ruffin said. After she finished her eighth year, Ruffin begged her parents not to send her back to school. They obliged. But she returned for her junior and senior years with a new, more determined mindset, ready to take on a challenge. “It was hard on an eighth grader but, as I matured in high school, I knew how important it was for us to be there PHOTO BY VIRGINIA BOONE
despite the brutal discrimination.” Ruffin said, recalling her epiphany. She grew up in a time when signs for colored water fountains, colored restrooms, colored sections of department stores and restaurants could be seen everywhere. The high school that she went to was even called “Colored High School” until her senior year, when it was changed to Dillard High School. Though she was immersed in this discrimination in school, Ruffin overcame these disadvantages. “I had a higher grade point average than the school’s valedictorian but since you had to have one black student and one white student, we were co-valedictorians,” Ruffin said. “I got a full scholarship, and I went to college at the University of North Carolina, but I had to register in a predominantly black school and then transfer over.” Ruffin graduated as a pure math major but could not attend graduate school because of the state of the economy at the time. “They weren’t giving out any scholarships at the time,” Ruffin said. Since she could not afford to go to school this way, Ruffin decided to join the Air Force instead. “My hometown was an air force base,” Ruffin said. “I was a statistician for the state; I got into that program to go to graduate school.” After her time in the Air Force, Ruffin attended Texas A&M University for graduate school, where
she said professors would openly discriminate against her and give her low grades just because of the color of her skin. “That was heartbreaking,” Ruffin said. “But I was a lieutenant in the Air Force, and I got my degree that way and, because of my rank, it made it possible for me to advance.” Recent acts of hate such as the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalist and supremacists came to support a “Unite the Right” rally, have struck a chord with Ruffin. The terrifying reality of it all for Ruffin is that racial inequality is still perpetuated throughout groups all across the U. S. In Charlottesville, this came in the form of torch bearing neoNazis and white supremacists who seek to take America back a giant step. “It’s heartbreaking for me because I did grow up where I was old enough to participate in civil rights marches with my brother and sister and my parents and to fight like that and then see what’s happening now is heartbreaking.” Ruffin said. As for Ruffin, all she ever wanted was for people to look past the color of her skin. “All I wanted was for people to see me for who I am,” she said. “I’m a big, black woman, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Virginia Boone
Multimedia Team
v.boone.thepanther@gmail.com
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nicole markus WEAR YOUR CARE Two years ago, freshman Nicole Markus put forth her passion for helping others by creating her own nonprofit organization, SharingWear, a t-shirt company that donates 100 percent of its profits to a different charity of Markus’s choosing each month. “It was originally my Bat Mitzvah project,” Markus said. “I was going to do something short term, but I was thinking well, short term isn’t enough.” Taking it a step further, Markus extended her project from a small, one time event into a full fledged company, which has sold 900 products in the past four months and made a total profit of $6,359, which was all donated to different charities. Recently she teamed up with the Palmetto PTSA, who is now selling all school approved shirts through SharingWear. Fifty percent of the profits made will go towards the PTSA, while the other fifty percent will go to SharingWear’s charity of the month. For Markus, volunteering comes as second nature. Her company SharingWear strives to help as many charities as it can. In the past, SharingWear has donated its profits to charities such as an animal rescue organization in Miami, an arts organization from northern New Jersey, a homeless assistance organization called Chapman Partnership and a childhood muscular dystrophy research organization called Charley’s Fund. Markus chooses the charity of the month based on the merit of the organization, as well as the size and location. “I choose the charities for those I believe are a good cause and that are small instead of highly commercialized,” she said. Markus has a goal of never turning away a charity that comes to SharingWear for assistance. PHOTO BY ANNETTE GONZALEZ
“I believe that no charity is more important than the other,” she said. Markus’s passion towards helping others, as well as her persistent attitude and selflessness will help her in following her dreams of becoming a doctor. “I want to be a doctor, so all these things like volunteering shapes me,” she said. Volunteering at Holtz Children’s Hospital inspired Markus to continue helping others and motivated her to want to save lives. “Just seeing the kids that were there was a focal point for me because that’s something that nobody should ever have to go through,” she said. SharingWear’s charity that will be receiving all of the profits this month is Victory4Kids Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children battling cancer. This was also futhered by Markus’ time volunteering at the hospital. This is not the end for SharingWear, in the future Markus hopes to partner with more school PTSAs and charities. At such a young age, many would consider the impact Markus is creating in the community as incredible. Her advice to teens like her who strive to make a difference is to maintain persistence and not give up. “Understand that you’re probably going to start small but with a lot of work you can build it into something larger that can make a difference,” she said. The success and impact Markus has created stems from her undying mission to help others and make the world a better place. For Markus, it is simple. “I’m just trying to make others lives better,” she said.
Olivia Solomon Staff Writer
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