19 minute read
Neighbors
Chandler native bound for big time on stage, screen
BY KEN SAIN
STSN Managing Editor
Actor Casey Likes’ career is about to reach a new level as he prepares for his Broadway debut and feature roles in two new films. It’s probably not a surprise to those who knew Likes as he was growing up and a student at Chandler High School.
He has always been a bit theatrical. But how quickly he’s rising comes as even a surprise to Likes.
“You know, I was just talking to someone about it last night about how before I booked ‘Almost Famous’ I thought that I wouldn’t reach Broadway or films or TV for another, I mean at the very least five years, but realistically I thought at least 10 years,” Likes said from his grandparents’ South Chandler home.
He was back in Chandler for a few weeks before leaving Aug. 2 to prepare for his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of the Academy Award-winning film, “Almost Famous.” Preview performances begin Oct. 3 and it debuts on Nov. 3 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York. The 20-year-old Likes also has the lead role in a horror film called “Dark Harvest,” and plays KISS rocker Gene Simmons in another film, “Spinning Gold.” Both of those films are scheduled for release this fall.
That’s a fast rise for a young man who just a few years ago was building an elaborate Haunted House at his grandparents’ house every Halloween.
“Little did I know what we were getting into,” said Diana Likes, after her grandson asked if he could turn their home into a haunted house. “Every year he had between 40 and 50 costumed actors. And he built and directed the whole thing.”
She said he would take over their home for about a month and a half and had hundreds of people streaming through each night. Likes asked for a food donation that was given to a local food bank.
But now he’s ready for a bigger stage. And despite how fast his career is accelerating, he still had to wait to make his
Casey Likes (front) works on building a haunted house attraction he made at his grandparents’ South Chandler home a few years ago. The black-and-white portrait is Likes now. (Courtesy of Diana Likes)
See ACTOR on page 30
Chandler theater’s film series addresses youth crisis
SANTAN SUN NEWS STAFF
Chandler childhood and education advocate Katey McPherson is returning to Majestic Neighborhood Cinema Grill to host a series of film screenings and interactive panel discussions focused on trending parenting and family issues.
The film series is part of the Helping Chandler Families Thrive program and is presented jointly by Majestic and Chandler Education Foundation.
McPherson, a parent and educator, draws from her 25 years of experience working with students and families to bring valuable insight and guidance to community members of all ages navigating the complexities of today’s social environment.
“To support the needs of families in our community, it’s critical to promote positive and candid discussions and share real stories and experiences,” said McPherson, who also serves as director of professional development for Bark for Schools, an artificial intelligence app that protects more than five million children nationwide.
“It’s gratifying to partner with organizations like Majestic and Chandler Education Foundation who share my passion for investing time, energy and resources to benefit Chandler families.”
The first installment of Helping Chandler Families Thrive will feature a screening of the documentary “Childhood 2.0” Aug. 24 at Majestic Chandler 9.
The film highlights the challenges resulting from growing up in the digital age, with particular emphasis on topics like cyberbullying, online predators, suicidal ideation, and more.
After the film, McPherson will lead an expert panel in an interactive discussion with event attendees. A portion of proceeds from the August event will benefit notMYkid, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides training and support programs focused on substance abuse, vaping, trauma, body image, mental health, internet safety, and other key issues.
“Majestic is proud to debut Helping Chandler Families Thrive this month with highly respected partners like Katey McPherson and Chandler Education Foundation,” said Craig Paschich, CEO, Majestic Neighborhood Cinema Grill. "We are proud to utilize our theaters in unique ways to make a lasting and positive impact on area families.”
On Sept. 21, Majestic Chandler 9 will screen “My Ascension,” an autobiographical documentary about Emma Benoit, who survived a suicide attempt at age 16 which left her paralyzed.
The film chronicles Benoit’s journey to inspire others to find hope through her painful experiences, as well as her efforts to bring a teen suicide prevention program to her home state of Louisiana.
Benoit will attend the film event virtually and participate via Zoom in the post-film panel discussion with McPherson and other local experts.
On Oct. 26 at Majestic Chandler 9. McPherson will host “The First Day,” a movie filmed at public and private high schools over the course of a year that “leverages the power of personal storytelling to explore the issues, relationships and events that deeply affect our youth.”
After the screening, experts in family advocacy and education will join McPherson for dialogue about the film and its themes.
“Chandler Education Foundation is proud to work with Katey McPherson and Majestic Neighborhood Cinema Grill to bring leading-edge family and educational programming to Chandler,” said Jennifer Hewitt, the nonprofit’s executive director.
“To truly strengthen our community, we must collaborate and find innovative ways to reach those in need, and this film series supports those objectives.”
Tickets to the upcoming Helping Chandler Families Thrive film events are limited and on sale now at MajesticPHX. com. Majestic Chandler 9 is located at 4955 S. Arizona Ave in Chandler, on the northeast corner of Arizona Avenue and Chandler Heights Road.
“Childhood 2.0” examines the impact of digital devices on children’s mental, physical and spiritual health. (Childhood 2.0)
Gilbert MOMS Club North founder honored
SANTAN SUN NEWS STAFF
Arizona’s early childhood agency, First Things First has recognized Kathy Alsop of Gilbert as the 2022 FTF Southeast Maricopa Region Champion for Young Children.
The award is given to local champions who actively volunteer their time to raise public awareness of the importance of early childhood development and health.
“Alsop is a strong advocate and ardent volunteer for early childhood awareness and sharing the importance of early childhood with families in the community,” First Things First said in a release. She is the founder and president of the MOMS Club Gilbert North – a local chapter of the International MOMS Club.
After moving to Gilbert, she quickly connected with the FTF Southeast Maricopa Region and started the MOMS Club Gilbert North chapter because of her passion to support young children and their families.
“I choose to support young children and families because we as a community must take care of our future generations,” Alsop said.
“I fi rmly believe that it takes a village to raise a child,” she explained. “With the support and programs off ered through First Things First, our families can fi nd comfort in knowing our questions have answers and there is help when we need it. First Things First gives families the tools and knowledge to raise young children, and my mission is to make every family aware of those opportunities.”
First Things First said, “Alsop enthusiastically volunteers her time to educate and empower parents and caregivers to feel confi dent in their important role as their child’s fi rst teacher.
“She’s always willing to share FTF educational materials paired with early childhood messages when supporting parents at her MOMS Club open houses and events.”
Alsop also distributes First Things
First family guides so that parents and caregivers know about free programs available for families with young children. She keeps the agency’s materials in her trunk and shares the resources throughout the community.
Alsop helps organize her MOMS Club monthly service projects. One project supported NICU families at Banner Children’s at Desert in Mesa. The club donated 70 welcome bags that included FTF-sponsored children’s books and bookmarks with the brain development information.
She also regularly shares First Things First digital content on the MOMS Club Gilbert North Facebook page to connect parents with resources and support.
“I’m motivated to support early childhood because I am a mother of young children,” Alsop said. “When my fi rst son turned two, I learned about
First Things First, and early experiences shape how successful children are later in life. As I became aware of the programs and resources off ered, I wanted to spread the word. I will continue to advocate for our young children and promote awareness about FTF.”
As Arizona’s early childhood agency, First Things First funds early learning, family support and children’s preventive health services to help kids be successful once they enter kindergarten. Decisions about how those funds are spent are made by local councils staff ed by community volunteers. To learn more, visit FirstThingsFirst.org.
Kathy Alsop of Gilbert was honored by First Things First for her work on behalf of
families. (Special to SanTan Sun News)
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ACTOR from page 28
Broadway debut.
Likes was cast as the lead in ‘Almost Famous’ in 2019, playing the teen-age reporter who gets to follow around a band to write a story for Rolling Stone magazine. The show was making its pre-Broadway run in San Diego, where they were tinkering with it daily, trying to improve it before it reaches New York. The story is semi-autobiographical for the writer and director of the fi lm, Cameron Crowe.
“Every day you’d go to your mailbox, and it’d be a new few pages to learn. And then sometimes, when we were in these things called previews, you would get a new song, or you would get a new scene on the day of and then you perform it that night. So yeah, that was a really insane process. I’ve never experienced that before.”
But before they could reach Broadway the pandemic began and theaters around the world went dark. He appeared as Brian Moses in the TV series, The Birch. And he wrote, produced and directed two short fi lms to stay busy.
He said when he’s not performing eight shows a week for the next year on Broadway, he hopes to work on some new writing projects that he’ll be able to direct in the future – something he very much wants to keep doing.
Both Likes and his grandmother can pinpoint the moment his career began to take off .
“It was the Jimmy Awards,” Diana said.
Likes had played Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables” while at Chandler High School. That performance was nominated for the National High School Music Theatre Awards, also known as the Jimmys.
It was a moment of serendipity. Likes credits most of his success to his mother, Stephanie, who performed on Broadway in “Les Miserables.”
When he placed among the fi nalists, Likes started getting calls.
“When I booked ‘Almost Famous,’ it was right off of this thing I did call the Jimmy awards. I was only 17,” he said. “Spinning Gold” is a biopic of Neil Bogart, who signed KISS to his new record label, Casablanca. Likes said when he auditioned for the role of the legendary KISS bassist, they never asked him questions you would think would be obvious.
“Do you know how to play bass? Are you in a KISS cover band? Did he ask you to do the tongue in the audition? And the answer to all of those things are no,” Likes said. Instead, he said the key moment in the audition came when he was asked why he was perfect for this role and why it should be his.
“I’m sitting there, I’m like, ‘I don’t think it is mine.’ But I’m gonna lie to this guy, I’m gonna straight up lie to him.”
So Likes answered the question like he thought Gene Simmons would, fi lled with confi dence.
“I basically just went on a rant for about 10 minutes, at the end of it I said, ‘you know, you can take your other meetings, but you’re just not going to fi nd anyone else, because I’m your guy.’” In “Dark Harvest” Likes plays a young man trying to escape a town by proving himself against the local monster, called October Boy. The fi lm is adapted from the Norman Partridge book. He may have left those haunted houses he used to build at his grandparents’ home behind, but he’s still scaring people.
“I love horror,” Likes said. “It’s great, because seeing someone in the most primal state of themselves, which is fear, is insane. You just see exactly who they are.”
Gary Kay Gary Kay is the Rotarian of the Month
SANTAN SUN NEWS STAFF
Gary Kay has been named Rotarian of the Month for August by the Sun Lakes Rotary Club.
Kay is a retired commercial banker, college administrator and adjunct professor who got his degree at the University of California/Riverside and served in the U.S. Army with tours in Germany and Vietnam between 1966 and 1969.
A native of Brawley, California who lives in San Tan Valley with his wife, Mercedes, Kay is past president of the Rotary Club of Friendswood, Texas, where he served on its foundation board and Rotary International Interact/Exchange program.
At the Sun Lakes Rotary Club, he also has kept a busy pace. He’s the club’s education chair, leading all its activities related to scholarships, STEM projects, teacher awards, Rotary Interact and that program’s clubs in Valley high schools and universities and colleges.
In addition to the rewarding community service projects, the club continues to grow its calendar with a variety of speakers – including innovators, legislators, military offi cials, sports fi gures artists, educators, business owners/professionals – as well social events.
Information: sunlakesrotary.com.
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Hamilton grad, senior impress Bank of America
BY KEN SAIN
STSN Managing Editor
Challenging times are an opportunity for a new set of leaders to emerge. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged all Americans in ways they had not experienced in more than 100 years.
It also gave two Hamilton High School students a chance to step forward with solutions.
Bank of America selected five student leaders from across the Valley and had them work paid internships with the company this summer. Hamilton graduate Charles Zhang and current senior Kristopher Luo were two of those chosen.
“One of the things that we look at is in their applications if they’re being timely, right,” Trisha Constas, Bank of America’s community relations manager. “So being able to be nimble, understanding what the need is, and then reacting quickly.”
Both Charles and Kristopher did just that during the pandemic.
Charles says he lives near a hospice center and saw that a lot of older residents were dying alone, unable to see their friends or family because of the pandemic. Just as sad, some of the hospice patients had no one to visit them.
The Gilbert resident started his own nonprofit, the Wishing Crane Project.
“We fold these origami paper cranes for hospice patients,” Charles said. He came up with the idea after they told him he couldn’t volunteer at the hospice anymore. “And I had a really deep connection with the hospice patients, so I still wanted to help them. Over the past few years, I’ve folded like a couple of thousand and we’ve been able to impact hundreds of hospice patients and be able to bring and instill hope and optimism into their lives during like these challenging times.”
Kristopher read news reports about the lack of personal protective equipment during the early days of the pandemic. It was the doctors, nurses and hospital staff that were putting their lives at risk and he wanted to help.
“A lot of these frontline workers are pretty much reusing their masks, which is really dangerous because reusing those masks can … cause these nurses and doctors to get COVID,” the Chandler resident said.
“So I first created a handmade UV [ultra-violet light] sanitizer. Then I wrapped it around with reflective UV, or reflective car shading material, to keep the UV inside and not hurt others. And basically, that took off.”
Kristopher raised more than $10,000 to make his product and used that to donate PPE to local hospitals.
These were not the only times they’ve shown leadership. Kristopher is the vice president of the Alliance of Youth Leaders in the United States Phoenix branch. He also teaches robotics to younger students. In addition to volunteering at the hospice before the pandemic started, Charles has been involved in numerous clubs.
Bank of America partnered with a local nonprofit, the Boys and Girls Club of Arizona on the student leadership program. As part of their internship, both Charles and Kristopher worked at a Boys and Girls club.
“I had an awesome time,” Kristopher said. “And it was really interesting to see how the for profit sector worked with the nonprofit sector. And you know, Bank of America is one of those few companies that really focuses on giving back to the community. So I really just tried emulating that mission.”
“I actually really liked the experience, because most of the time, I was able to work with like small groups of kids, teaching them tennis,” Charles said.
Charles will attend the University of Arizona this fall. He plans to study neuroscience, with the goal of eventually becoming a doctor.
Kristopher has not made up his mind about where he will go to school after he graduates from Hamilton. He does know what he wants to pursue a career.
“Definitely,” he said. “Engineering, I’ve just always been interested in it, so I plan to just stay in robotics.”
So what does it take to be a leader?
“There are three pretty important qualities of a leader,” Charles said. “The first one is you have to take initiative. … And the second one is you want to be you always want to listen to your team. … And the third one I feel like is really important is persistence.”
“I think just being a leader requires you to make decisions and know when to take risks and when to not take risks,” Kristopher said. “And really, just not be afraid to fail.”
Charles Zhang (left) and Kristopher Luo were two of the five student leaders Bank of America chose for its paid summer internship program. Both either attended, or are still attending, Hamilton High School. (Bank of America)
EV clinic warns of back-to-school stress
SANTAN SUN NEWS STAFF
Back-to-school is a time of stress and anxiety for kids of all ages and this often leads to an increase in adolescent and teen suicides, according to a licensed clinical social worker at Evolve Counseling and Behavioral Health with offices in Phoenix and Gilbert.
According to the CDC, the suicide rate among 10 to 14-year-olds has more than doubled since 2007.
A freshman girl at Chaparral High School in Scottsdale took her life with a drug overdose over the last weekend of July and was removed from life support Aug. 1.
“Suicide is the third leading cause of death for school-aged children over the age of 10, and the second leading cause, behind accidents, for those over 15,” said Evolve social worker Michael Klinkner.
“While children are resilient, the last few years have been very trying. Between the global pandemic, increase in school shootings and the continued negative impact of social media, times are challenging for kids and their parents who aren’t equipped to handle this continued level of crisis.”
A spokeswoman for Evolve said a study by the American Psychological Association revealed that teenagers are the most stressed and anxious people in the U.S. It also unveiled that 83% of kids cite school as the main cause of their stress and that during the school year, 27% reported experiencing “extreme stress” compared to 13% reporting that during the summer.
Klinkner and his team at Evolve Counseling are offering Valley parents an opportunity to increase the tools in their parenting toolbox through a five-week workshop called Parenting Evolved.
The program consists of five 90-minute weekly group classes where trained counselors provide an understanding of various parenting styles, changes in the brain during development, tangible ways to strengthen the parent-child relationship as well as effective methods to increase compliance and successfully modify behaviors.
“Today’s kids are fraught with anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies - much more than when we were kids,” added Klinkner. “We need to cultivate strategies to give our children a safe space to share their feelings and recognize anxiety is normal. It’s also essential to give our kids coping strategies to tap into when they feel overwhelmed.”
Klinkner gives some tips and advice about how to best support students as they transition back into the classroom: communicate openly and honestly; become engaged in school activities and help with homework; volunteer at school and with sporting activities and hobbies; communicate regularly with teachers, administrators and coaches about your child’s wellbeing and emotional needs; encourage your child to make healthy decisions; spend quality time with your child to increase bonding.
For more information about the Parenting Evolved workshops: evolvecounselingaz.com.
Evolve Counseling and Behavioral Health Services offers individual counseling, couple’s counseling, family counseling, teen counseling and child counseling. Its Gilbert office is at 1206 E. Warner Road.
