The Student Publication for Sunrise Mountain High School M EXPRESSUSTANGVolume 15 Issue 3 December 9, 2010 myhsj.org/mustangexpress www.twitter.com/mustangexpress . . .

Featured in this issue:

Dispatch

Spotlight

2 Cents

Playing Field

Horseshoe

Scene

The Pride of Sunrise travels to Disneyland to perform.

Early graduates discuss their future plans.

Reporter Kellie Reynolds complains about the childish trend of silly bandz.

Staffers give up valued posse-sions for one week.

Brandon Kocmoud wins the cross country State Champi-onship.

Reporter reviews the All Star Weekend CD.

Children of Eden set to dazzleFor years, the theat-

rical productions of the Sunrise Mountain Drama Department have dazzled the school. This winter, the drama department is expected to continue their tradition of excellence by performing the musical Children of Eden, with music and lyrics by Steven Schwartz (who also wrote the musical Wicked).

The musical is based on the Book of Genesis, focusing mainly on the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and Noah and the flood.

“It has a lot of leads, and…we have a lot of really great voices this year,” said Director Tanya Boehme.

Freshman Audrey So-renson plays one of the many strong leads, Eve.

“I like that [Eve’s] play-ful and fun,” said Soren-son. “She’s like a little kid, but she’s also the mother of everything.”

The musical has a cast of over 70 people and is expected to be the most elaborate show yet to be performed at Sunrise.

WALK LIKE A CAMEL: The Children of Eden cast walk in succession while trying to learn a new move for one of their songs. The cast tried to pick it up quickly in hopes of getting it down before the break.

“It’s huge,” said senior Tyler Knight, the stage manager for the produc-tion. “It’s a huge cast…our set design is going to be out of this world, it’s go-ing to be over the top.”

Putting on a show of this magnitude requires a large commitment on the part of the actors and

really hard and have ev-eryone focus towards a common goal, and then to have the performances…It’s when our hard work pays off and people ap-preciate it,” Boehme said.

Children of Eden will be performed January 13, 14, 15, 20 and 22 at 6:30 p.m. Knight encourages

crew. Rehearsals are held

Tuesday through Thurs-day for almost three hours.

Boehme recognizes the hard work and dedication that the students demon-strate and said that it all is worth it in the end.

“It’s so great to work

everyone to come and see the show.

“I think this will be our best show at SMHS,” Knight said. “It was cast extremely well, and the music is amazing…Any of the technical aspects are just going to be fantastic, so it’s definitely a really good show to see.”

Chelsey Schmid Page Designer

Override passes, district cautious towards further reductionsBrandi PorterCopy Editor

The Peoria Unified School District foresaw trouble after the Novem-ber 2nd election, when it seemed the maintenance and operations (M&O) override would fail. But af-ter a close race, it passed.

The override is a hous-ing tax that gives an ex-tra $18 million to the district’s budget annually and lasts seven years. The district’s budget, exclud-ing the override, is $195 million.

“In essence an M&O override is the district go-ing out to the community asking them to increase our revenue control limit on our budget by 10 per-cent,” PUSD Public Rela-tions Director for the Peo-ria Unified School District Danielle Airey said. “Any resident of the district that resides within our boundaries has a tax that they pay where a per-centage goes towards our M&O budget.”

The override first

like laying off administra-tive workers.

Finn believes that af-ter the one-cent sales tax, which passed in May (Prop 100), “Voters were feeling as though they just gave education a boost six

months ago and now they were being asked to boost it again.”

What happens next is the question. If the over-ride had not passed, the district would have faced many cuts and students would likely have been af-fected.

“The monies will be

used to keep class sizes at current levels, avoid increasing participation fees for extracurricular activities, as well as keep-ing dedicated teachers for elementary P.E., band, chorus, and art,” Finn

said. “Assistant princi-pals would have also been reduced to a minimum.”

Although the override passed, this does not en-sure the financial stabil-ity of the district in the future.

“There have been sig-nificant cutbacks to fund-ing for education over the

past couple of years. We have done our best to keep those cuts from affecting students,” Airey said.

When asked if the dis-trict was expecting anoth-er budget reduction Airey said, “We’re cautiously op-timistic but the state tells us that there may have to be reductions coming so we keep in close contact with them.”

As a school in the Peo-ria district, Sunrise Moun-tain students would be af-fected by reduction cuts since the budget is based on the student popula-tion. For now, the school can breathe a little easier and plan for next year as-suming the budget will re-main the same and make cuts from there.

“We’ll plan on going through the spring, [then] looking into next year, we’ll plan on having…the same budget we have this year, until we get told it’s going to increase, or it’s going to decrease,” Assis-tant Principal Clay Car-penter said.

passed in 1996, then again in 2001, and again in 2006, but the depressed economy has put pressure on schools.

“I think the fact that the state is in such a ter-rible fiscal crisis right

now has everyone trying to pinch pennies as much as they can,” PUSD Chief Financial Officer Michael Finn said.

The most recent cuts have been in areas that would not normally be noticed but, according to Airey, the district has to make some difficult cuts

Photo by: Jessie O’Cheltree

December 9, 2010

theDispatch02

Tips on preparing for the FAFSA, what you need to know to succeed

It’s January first and you’re sitting in front of your computer without any idea of what FAFSA is, what it decides or how impor-tant it is for colleges to decide how much money you will receive in financial aid.

FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and gives the federal government and col-leges the information they need to know to determine how much your expected family contribution for school, or EFC, will be.

“When a student submits the FAFSA and provides all of the information requested, the gov-ernment takes it all into consid-eration and runs it through a for-mula called federal methodology,” Grand Canyon University Admis-sions Counselor Candace Wilkins said. “The result of the formula is a number called EFC which is based on the family’s financial ability to assist the students in paying for college.”

The outcome of submitting your FAFSA is a financial aid package for students who colleges

feel need them.Financial aid packages can

consist of grants, work-study and student loans; the amount of fi-nancial aid you get depends on your EFC. The lower your EFC is the more financial aid you are likely to receive.

In order to make sure your EFC is as low as possible, send your scores to as many schools as possible, even if you already know where you want to go.

“The financial aid officer that will put together your aid pack-age gets to see the information you submit on the FAFSA and you want to create competition for yourself,” College Funding Advi-sor, Christopher Ordway said. “If you list just one school on your form, the financial aid officer does not have incentive to offer you a better financial aid package because he knows you are attend-ing his school regardless.”

According to Ordway, Arizona is one of the worst states to hand out financial aid because most of the schools are public and the state does not have the money to help students finance their education. He suggests looking at

private institutions or out-of-state schools, because although they may seem to cost more, they may actually cost less. “Never let the price tag of any school deter you from considering that school,” Or-dway said.

One of the biggest mistakes students make is procrastinating. It is important to apply as soon as possible.

“If you apply early, there are more funds available so you have the opportunity to get a better fi-nancial aid award package by ap-plying early,” Ordway said.

When applying, the form will ask you if you have filed your taxes for 2010. You should know that you do not have to have filed your taxes in order to apply. Parents and students can use their last pay stubs to estimate how much mon-ey they made that year. Then, after you have completed your taxes, you can update and resend in your FAFSA for completion.

“The sooner they put in their applications, the sooner [schools] can process it and the sooner they can determine how much money you receive in financial aid,” Ca-reer Specialist Cindy Fair said.

Brandi PorterCopy Editor

Pride of Sunrise marches to California, performs in Disney parade This December, the

Pride of Sunrise March-ing Band traveled to Cali-fornia to perform in a pa-rade at Disneyland. The band was invited to apply for this honor and under-went a formal application process in order to be chosen.

“Disneyland’s picky about who they allow to perform in the park,” said Band Director Chris Vail.

The band has been preparing for the trip since mid-fall. It cost each member $200 to attend, so the group has done sev-eral fundraisers together.

“We [worked] the lunch cart, sold Sardella’s [pizza] cards and sold Homecoming [barbeque] tickets,” said freshman Teresa Bell, a clarinet player.

All of these activities have helped members to

offset the cost of the trip. While in California,

band students were able to have fun in the park before and after they performed on December 3. The parade itself pro-ceeded from “It’s a Small World” to the front of the park, and the band per-formed “Raiders March” from Indiana Jones, “You’re a Grand Old Flag/America the Beautiful” and “An American Christ-mas Medley”.

Sophomore TaNea-sha Comsa, who is part of the flag line, was excited about the trip.

“I’m looking forward to marching through Dis-neyland and going to all the rides,” Comsa said.

This was the band’s final performance of the year. The Pride of Sun-rise qualified for the state competition this year where they earned a rat-ing of excellent.

Chelsey SchmidPage Designer

SLIIIIDE TO THE LEFT: Sunrise Mountain marching band practices for their upcoming performance. The band earned a rating of “excellent” at this year’s state competition.

Photo submitted by Maddie Pado

Flu season is in full swing, and school is a virus’ playground.

You can prevent yourself from getting sick with these helpful hints.

Flu Shots: Flu shots are available at stores like Walgreens or in doctor’s offices. These will vaccinate you, so you have less of a chance of getting the flu. The dead virus strain in the vaccine is introduced to your immune system so it can deal with live germs.

Avoid sharing objects/food: If there is chips and dip, a person does not have to double dip to share germs. Turning a chip around in their germy hands,

they dip it into the salsa and infect everyone sharing the chips and salsa with them.

Cover your coughs: Ideally, you should cough and sneeze into a tissue or a towel so germs do not spread. Unfortunately, no one carries a handkerchief anymore, so the next best solution is coughing or sneezing into your upper arm or inside of elbow. Sneezes and coughs are the top way to get sick, so set a good example.

Wash your hands: Wash your hands often, and with warm water and soap. Rinse your hands for at least 20 seconds under the water, the same length as the “Happy Birthday” song.

Do not touch your face: Touching your eyes, nose or mouth could get you sick. Hands pick up many germs, no matter how many times you wash them.

Stay away from sick people: While hard to do

at school, try to avoid contact with people who were recently sick or still are.

Stay home if you are sick: If you have had a fe-ver, you should not come to school. You should wait until 24 hours after you had a fever not using fever-reducing medicine.

Be aware of your surroundings: Germs can live up to two hours on a surface like a table, desk or doorknob. Do not assume that the desk you sit in for your classes is clean, and wash your hands before you eat lunch.

Take care of yourself: If you put your body under stress, your immune system is more likely to have a hard time keeping germs out. The best thing you can do if you feel you are getting sick is rest. Information from cdc.gov, redcross.org, flu.gov.

Flu Etiquette: Tips for staying healthy

Fafsa Tips -FAFSA is based only on financial aid.

-You can receive grants, loans, or work-study

-grants are free money -loans must be repaid but usually have low interest rates

- students who receive work-study

-”F” stands for free, so watch out for scams claiming to be FAFSA

-The official website is www.fafsa ed.gov

-The application will ask for: -parent and student social secu-rity numbers -alien registration or permanent resi-dent card (if not a US citizen)

-driver’s license -income from the prior year’s tax return

work part time

Kellie ReynoldsOnline Supervisor

2CentsDeCember 9, 2010

03

Managing EditorNatasha Hossain

Copy EditorBrandi Porter

Online SupervisorKellie Reynolds

Page DesignersEmily Bridgewater

Tiffanie RiessAlex Korsick

Chelsey Schmid

Staff ReportersMultimedia EditorMorgan Brewster

Photo EditorKelsey Luft

Advertising ManagerJamie Warren

AdviserKristy Roschke

Jessica O’CheltreeKaitlin Vickers

Bryce Ulm

The Sunrise Mountain High School Mustang Express is a student newspaper whose purpose is to inform the community of events that are relevant to SMHS and its surroundings, to interpret and analyze cur-rent events and to provide entertainment. The staff aims to be fair and impartial, ac-curate and responsible, and to adhere to the SPJ Code of Ethics. Letters to the Editor are printed at the discretion of the editorial staff and SMHS administrators. Opinions voiced in the letters do not necessarily represent those held by the staff or Sunrise Mountain High School. The staff reserves the right to edit all letters for grammar and content. Anonymous letters will not be published.

Editorial Policy

Members of:

The Mustang Express Staff

On Twitter: @MustangExpressOn Facebook: facebook.com/mustangexpress

Alex KorsickPage Designer

Aim for the moon: the war against low expections

Teenage voting standard proves to be disappointingAccording to

Civicyouth.org, the percentage of citizens under 30 who vote is 20 percent. The Center for In-formation and

Research on Civic Learning and En-gagement (CIRCLE) provides another shocking statistic. The percentage of teen voters ages 18-19 that cast a vote in the recent midterm election is a stag-geringly low 14 percent in Arizona, the lowest in the entire country. These sta-tistics show the lack of teen turnout at the polls, which is very worrisome. The opinion of teens and young adults is ar-guably the most important amongst vot-

ers as decisions made now directly affect our future for years to come.

Many teens have the mentality of, “my vote doesn’t count.” This keeps them from doing the research on candidates, propositions and city officials that is necessary to make an educated decision when casting their ballot. It is difficult to feel like your individual opinion is heard in a city of thousands and in a country of millions, but it is absolutely necessary to get to the polls. If every teenager had the opinion that their single vote did not matter, the young adult age group would not be represented at all. This is becom-ing more and more probable as elections continue to roll by without teen voter participation.

Today, we are a part of the most excit-ing political climate in years. In our life-time, we have experienced the first black president, the second female in history

to be a vice presidential candidate and the biggest mid-term upset in over 20 years. These events are huge and sub-ject our country to radical change that will ultimately affect the teen population more than anyone. Plans for collegiate financial aid, unemployment rates and healthcare are quickly becoming issues that we cannot be ignorant of. The offi-cials that are running for election in the fast approaching years will be deciding these issues. If teenagers do not vote, we do not get a say in our future.

A lot of apprehension about voting comes from the enormous amount of re-search that is necessary to cast an edu-cated ballot. It is imperative that teens form their own opinion and do research to really decide who the right candidate for them is. This is usually the aspect that pushes kids away from voting. Our gen-eration as a whole must actively choose

to fight ignorance and take the time to become educated. No one can do it for us, and it is a part of being an adult. Stu-dents have such a huge desire to grow up and be on their own but do not want to take the required steps to get there. They can’t have it both ways. Voting is a huge step towards self-sufficiency and independent thought.

Ultimately, your vote does count. Whether it is for president or a city of-ficial, every election is an important one. It is our job as American citizens to inform ourselves and make our voice heard. We have the privilege to choose our own government that many other countries long for but do not have. This is something that should be remem-bered and taken advantage of. The low rate of teen voting must be changed and our generations must start showing up in force to secure our future.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I just had one of the highest-grossing opening weekends of all time. Why is this?

What is it that people find so fascinat-ing? Well, the general awesomeness of it all…but I digress. One of the main things that makes stories appealing to people are the heroes found in them.

Heroes are those people who go above and beyond the call of duty, who had dozens of chances to give up, to turn back, to quit, but they didn’t. They kept going, they kept fighting, and they kept giving it their best shot. We expect a lot from those heroes and are not often dis-appointed. When it comes to ourselves, however, many people expect a lot less. We give up, we quit, and we say it’s only natural. But the time has come for us to start challenging this model.

Many people give up on holding teen-agers to any kind of standards. “You can’t expect too much,” seems to be the watch-word of the day. But why is this? Why do teenagers need to be viewed as rude or lazy? Why can’t we challenge those low expectations, and defeat them? We tell ourselves “I can’t do it” or “It’s too hard” or “Maybe tomorrow”. But the truth is,

we don’t know. We never know the im-mense power inside of ourselves, our enormous ability to do that which we set our minds on, unless we can embrace those challenges set before us and per-form to the highest possible standards.

Let me be clear. I do not expect per-fection. I am a highly imperfect person. I mess up. I make mistakes. I get to the point where I want to just give up. I am not saying that you need to work your lives away or bury yourselves in home-work or community service. All I’m ask-ing is that you expect a little more from yourselves and from the people around you. As someone once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” So let yourself know that you are going for your moon, whether it be an A in a difficult class, a better relationship with your parents, or the job of your dreams. You will be able to then walk away stronger and more ac-complished, filled with the knowledge that you gave it all you had.

John F. Kennedy had one of my fa-vorite quotes of all time when he spoke about landing a man on the moon. He said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our en-ergies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

Chelsey SchmidPage Designer

If you go through your life taking the easy path, never aiming for your high-est potential, never discovering what you can truly accomplish, you will be doing yourself a monumental disfavor. Easy things are rarely great. It is the things that are difficult, that take time, and effort and dedication that are great. And you have the potential to do these

things. I won’t pretend that all of you can become great scientists or President of the United States, or something of comparable prestige, because it’s simply not true. But you can all become some-thing great. All you have to do is open your eyes, look around at the world and take the plunge. And may you land on the moon every time.

Teens & Politics20.9% of young voters voted in the 2010 midterms.Most voters chose Democrats over Republicans by a 57%-40%. 60%-40% vot-ers decided that Barack Obama was fit for the job of President.

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Source: CIRCLE

December 9, 20102cents04

Silly Bandz: trendy or just plain sillyKellie ReynoldsOnline Supervisor

From Barbie to Bieber and Potter to princesses, Silly Bandz are every-thing and everywhere.

But where is the appeal in the cheap plastic rubber bands intended for kids and worn as bracelets?

Originally, the popular children’s toy was aimed at environmental pur-poses. A Japanese design team wanted a more environmentally-friendly rubber band, one that would be kept rather than thrown away.

Back in America, Robert Croak made a living selling custom T-shirts, mugs and silicon bracelets, much like the popular Lance Armstrong kind. He never really hit the big time, but did moderately well. He happened to see the rubber bands mentioned before on a business trip to Japan. Upon his return home in Toledo, Ohio, he began producing and selling his own Silly Bandz, thicker and larger than the Japanese rubber bands created as office supplies. Croak marketed his as a children’s toy and accessory, and it only went up from there.

Never resorting to paid advertis-

ing, Croak relied only on viral market-ing – people telling their friends about the bracelets via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. He does not have a publicist and does not plan on advertising. His success was merely luck.

Or was it? Fads have come and gone since the dinosaur times (or so it feels). While Robert Croak may be piling $10 million dollars annually from the sili-con bracelets this year, he may be rak-ing in next to nothing after the new year. Silly Bandz may become the next Aaron Carter: spoken of only in the past tense, unless you mention his Dancing with the Stars stint.

But why should a high school paper have anything regarding the silly fads of children? There should be nothing in common, yet there is. Clearly, the only answer is that teenagers and some adults are nostalgic for their childhood.

Yes, I realize you are an indepen-dent young lady/gentleman. Yes, I un-derstand that you are growing up and maturing with everyday. But these are designed for children and the student population is wearing them as if wearing a toddler’s toy will not influence adults to treat you as the kid you are pretend-ing to be.

If the bracelets are marketed for children, come in bright colors and are unlike anything else in the stereotyped teenage world of fashion, why have they become such a hit? I suspect it has some-thing to do with the teenage need to be different. Every high school student has the urge to shine and stand out from the crowd around them. Perhaps going for a nostalgic look that reminds everyone of that childlike wonder when receiving a new toy is just the thing teenagers were looking for in the next trend. In that case,

Croak lucked out. His product came at the perfect time, and he has been raking in cash every since.

There is nothing wrong with wearing Silly Bandz. Wear them if you wish. But if you want to get ahead of the trends, stop wearing them now sincce the toys are not going to last much longer.

For extra credit, wear a plain rubber band in place of your Silly Bandz. If any-one asks, remove it, set it on the desk and say, “Look! A rubber band!” They will be absolutly amazed, guaranteed.

Emily BridgewaterPage Designer

Photo by: Tiffanie Riess.

When a teenager is sixteen or seventeen, maybe even fifteen, they get jobs to pay for col-

lege, a car, or just to have money. But, teenagers who have jobs are usually frazzled coming home from work and having a paper to write for their English class.

Students work hard to keep up in school and work even harder for the money they make at their job. I work and go to school but for some great rea-son I am able to keep my grades up. It is not easy to do both. When school first started, I was working up to 24 hours a week because I was promoted to a new department. On top of learning new things at work, school was not easy. I stayed up late doing my homework and often went to be late because my home-work wasn’t done. That is when I knew something had to change.

The work load doesn’t get easier if you also deal with multiple after school activities. Students have to make sure that their school work is up. Whether it is sports, work, or other extra-curricu-lar, the student should balance the best they can with school.

Students, who balance sports and work, always manage to keep up their grades and they are lucky because they

could crash and burn. They may be able to keep their grades up, but what about their homework?

The best thing to do is work on your homework assignments as much as possible. As I adapted to the work and school situation, I found it easy to try to get as much done as you can in class.

Whenever your teacher gives you down time, do your homework. Do not sit and talk or text; work on your assign-ment so that you do not have to worry about later. If you wait, then it is your own fault. Although money for college is important, you always want to make sure that your school work is kept up.

One thing I do is make sure that my work schedule gives me enough time to come home and get things done such as start my homework. I always come home from school and start homework and if I don’t get it done, I start back up when I get home from work. Having your priorities in order and being focus is important.

A big contribution to help with stress is your work availability. When your manager comes around to get your availability, talk to them and tell them you have school. They know what its like and will be understanding to your cir-cumstance.

Do not make your availability from 4:00 to 10:00, because then you come home late and you are scrambling to get your homework done, take a shower, and get a good night sleep.

Kaitlin VickersStaff Reporter

China becomes new leading superpower Ultimate juggling act: work vs. schoolIn our grandparent’s

day, America was the leading superpower in the world. However, as China becomes a new global superpower, our

generation may live in a country that is not the leader in the global economy.

China has recently overtaken the market with automobiles, exported goods and energy, according to CNN. Its enormous population of over 1.3 bil-lion people has given it a leap ahead of Japan, who had been the second most powerful in the world market.

Many of China’s neighbors are wor-ried, and they should be. China’s cheap labor makes it a great place to produce goods, but makes it hard for Japan and India to compete globally, according to CNN. The Chief Economist for the Asian Development Bank, Jong-Wha Lee, noted to the New York Times that Japan and South Korea were once viewed as juggernauts, but China is different.

Many of the world’s superpowers are becoming envious of China’s growth.

Chinese economists, of course, dis-agree.

“(The U.S. has) to look at their own economic structure, their own macro-economics policies, to identify the real causes of their problems,” China’s Dep-uty Foreign minister Cui Tiankai said in an interview with CNN. “If they caught a cold, they cannot ask China to take medicine because this will not cure their cold.”

America should be freaking out right now. Where did China come from? The massive country stayed mostly silent for years but is now becoming top dog in al-most everything, including, most impor-tantly, the global economy.

If things continue at this pace, our generation will be living in the Chi-nese Era. The United States has been a world superpower since WWI, but while we’ve been dealing with our own inter-

nal economic problems, other countries like China have risen in power. Ameri-cans can’t recall when the U.S. wasn’t in charge, but we may soon see this.

I read that China has no plans to con-quer anyone or become a supergiant, but how do we know for sure? Its gov-ernment controls everything that is re-leased from within the country.

China is also reportedly hiding re-sources that may be beneficial to them in war, according to CNNMoney. Are the officials in Washington worried about China’s rise to become a global super-power?

Certainly the U.S. is finding it hard to negotiate with a country that has differ-ent political ideals. China has delayed defusing North Korea after they fired nuclear missiles, according to The New York Times. China is the most influen-tial to North Korea, but American offi-cials are becoming frustrated over the lack of control over the situation.

But does the U.S. need to be in charge all the time? Maybe in this high-risk sit-uation with North Korea’s nuclear weap-ons, but in matters of global economics we might not need to. Many shifts of power have changed throughout history and this just might be another one.

The United States has been in power for a very long time, but our global po-sition in the market is being threatened by China. As China continues to rise as a new global superpower, it will be impor-tant for the U.S. to keep an open eye on the situation.

Fun Facts about working teenagers•57% of people interviewed held some type of job while they were age 14. •Freelance jobs were held more often by 14-year-olds than employee jobs (43% to 24%). •8% of all 14-year-olds worked during the school year and averaged 15 or more hours per

week during academic weeks. •9% worked more than half of the weeks during the school year. •4% of all 14-year-olds are working at high intensity (15 or more hours per week.•64%of youth worked at 15-years-old. •8% of all 15-year-olds are working at high intensity (15 or more hours per week and more

than half of school-year weeks).

Source: The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997

Source: Google Maps

theSpotlightDecember 9, 2010

05FCCLA, COOP join forces, raise money for charity

For a child, there is nothing better than receiving gifts during the holi-day season. But every year thousands of children miss out on this simple joy. Whether they are homeless, growing up in single-parent homes, suffering from an illness, or part of families struggling to make ends meet, children feel the burden of being left out during what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

Luckily, clubs at Sunrise Mountain, along with many other organizations, are there to help.

Every holiday season, clubs such as Student Council, FCCLA (Future Ca-reer Community Leaders of America), DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) and NHS (National Honor Society) participate in charity events to help those in need.

“So many teachers and students at Sunrise Mountain are so generous and willing to give to others,” FCCLA spon-sor Gail Svor said.

For the past seven years, FCCLA has

been in charge of the Christmas Angel Tree Program, a program that collects Christmas gifts for less fortunate chil-dren. Every classroom is given an angel tree, and students are encouraged to pick an angel and buy the child the re-quested gift.

“They’re really humble about things,” junior Anissa Saenz-Ochoa, FCCLA president, said. “They don’t ask for too much. It’s like clothes, maybe a little ac-tion figure, a stuffed animal or shoes.”

Last year, over 600 gifts were given, and over 100 students went to the angel tree warehouse to help package them.

“We are obviously more fortunate than these kids are,” Saenz-Ochoa said. “We’re able to enjoy a good Christmas, and I think these kids should too.”

FCCLA is not the only club bringing holiday cheer this season. The COOP kids dressed up as Santa’s little help-ers November 29-December 3 and sold candy canes to raise money for a local food bank.

“The kids love doing this project,” COOP Coordinator Jody Dowler said. “Even at this age, they find helping oth-

Jamie WarrenAd Manager

Winter Formal preparations in full swing for next semester

Many students return to school after Winter Break excited and ready for the start of the new semester, with a chance to show off their new clothes and start their new classes. They also look forward to one other event.

Winter Formal is a dance held not too long after the start of the second semes-ter. Tickets for Winter Formal will go on sale a week before spirit week, which is the week before Winter Formal. Winter Formal is on February 5 from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

At Winter Formal, students get a

chance to dance to good music and be with friends or a date. Last year’s Win-ter Formal was held at Rio Vista Recre-ational Center. Although the room was small, there was good music, and the outside view of the lake and fountain was incredible. Even with these good attributes, Winter Formal may be differ-ent this year.

“It’s not for sure yet, but [Winter For-mal] may be held at Arrowhead Country Club,” Jackie Vanover, senator for the junior class, said.

Vanover is not exactly sure what the theme for Winter Formal will be, but she says that spirit week will lead up to it.

“I think [Winter Formal is] going to be a lot better [this year] because we’re looking into a new DJ and new decora-tions,” Vanover said.

Sophomore Monique Martinez agrees with Vanover. She attended Winter For-mal last year and her favorite part was the music. Martinez’s expectations for Winter Formal this year include better decorations.

Junior Tyler Salinas also agrees with Vanover and Martinez.

“I think it will be better than last year,” Salinas said. “It will be much more fun.”

Salinas enjoys the music and dancing most.

David GarciaJunior Reporter

Improv club be-gins on campus

Improv Club has recently been add-ed to the list of clubs on campus and is drawing a large crowd of members in only its third week.

“Improv is short for improvisation,” Tanya Boehme, club advisor, said. “And basically it means creating a scene or creating a dialogue right on the spot. No scripts, nothing like that, on the fly.”

Improvisation is an important part of drama. In order to join, students must also be a part of Drama Club, which meets once a month. Improv Club meets every Monday from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

“An actor’s ability to improvise is very often a reflection of their acting ability,” senior Nicholas Wescott said. “In an im-provised scene there are no scripts or cues. The actors have to give that scene a distinct setting and define their charac-ters on their own.”

Not only does improvisation help with a student’s acting ability, as West-cott mentioned, but it also builds trust among peers.

“When you’re in the middle of the scene, you don’t have time to stop and tell your partner or fellow actors what you’re about to do and how to react; you just do it,” Wescott said. “You have to trust the other actors to hold their char-acter and react accordingly. It’s team-work that makes an improvised scene successful.”

The club’s creator, senior Phillip Nikola, started the club because of im-prov’s popularity in the drama room.

“It seems like improv is one of the most popular things students want to do, so I thought we could do a lot more of it,” Nikola said.

Right now the club is just a fun place where students can play games and work on improving their acting skills through improvisation. One of these such games is called Family Photos.

“Two people hold up a little curtain and there’s a speaker and a bunch of other players go behind the curtain and pose and while they’re doing that the speaker has to make up a story about a family trip,” Nikola said.

Future plans for the club include helping members improve their impro-visation and later on become an actual troupe and perform during play inter-missions.

Tiffanie RiessPage Designer

ers to be very gratifying.”Student Council is lending a hand by

taking part in the adopt-a-family pro-gram, which usually is aimed toward families who have a child with a medical condition. The program allows Student Council to buy the family toys, clothing, food and other basic necessities.

“Normally the families have a lot of kids,” senior Seth Brimley said. “[They’re] mostly struggling families or people that need help because they have medical expenses or don’t have a job.”

Brimley believes student council should give back to the community, es-pecially during the holidays.

“These kids are at the hospital all the time,” Brimley said. “They need something to kind of brighten their day, something to help them out.”

Helping out is an easy thing to do. From animal shelters, retirement homes to food banks, there are a variety of plac-es in need of assistance. If you are look-ing to brighten someone’s day, check out the map at www.myhsj.org/mustangex-press and find out how you can make a difference this holiday season.

1 2

3

Pictures By Emily Bridgewater and Tiffanie ReissClockwise from left: 1. Jake Burlaka, Julia De Reese, Ty Gruenemeier. 2. Anthony Cetta3. Jessica Brown, Ben Ruth-erford, Alexis Arementa 4. FCCLA students begin making Christmas Angel tress. These trees can be found in every classroom.

ON THE SPOT: Seniors Nick Wescott and Mi-chael Lewis share laughter at the Improv Club meeting. Improv Club meets every Monday.

Photo by Tiffanie Riess

4

thehorseshoeDecember 9, 2010

07

without

Five days. Three bags. Zero room.I decided to stay out of my room for

a week because I wanted to give some-thing up with the rest of the staff. I thought about what to give up. What was important to me?

Bing! The answer hit me in the face, so I immediately squawked it out. Soon, I wished I had taken a normal story.

The first night was peaceful as I watched leaves dancing in the wind through the window. The second night changed that peaceful scene into a hor-

Everyone has something that they are sure they cannot live with-out. Almost everyone claims to need something, whether it be the Internet, their cell phone or choco-late. But do people truly need these things? Or are they simply com-forts that we have become accus-tomed to? This is the question that I aimed to answer as I embarked on five-day school week free of any and all processed foods.

I had to begin by determining what constitutes a processed food. Essentially, anything that comes in a box or a bag was off-limits, as well as anything with unnatural ingredients. I could not eat store-bought bread, cereal, chocolate or anything with sugar in it. I basi-cally stuck to the bare minimum: meat, homemade bread, fruit and vegetables.

My level of resolve tended to waver as the week progressed. One moment I would be fine, happily munching on some grapes; a few hours later, I would be going into chocolate withdrawal. I managed to remain committed, however, and did not cheat.

Only once during the week did I break my purge of processed foods. I had a swim team pasta banquet

Movie addict looks to end of challenging week

ror film as I wondered where the leaves went.

My sense of humor was up and my homework production rate down. As I strolled through my house to head to my couch, I was surprised to find my door open and my light on. Instantly, I jumped to a (fake) conclusion: ghosts in my room must want me back. When I told this to my friends who recently watched a horror film, I got some inter-esting responses.

I was mad the next day because of a sore back. I stormed around my house and napped on my mom’s bed. I began

to miss my bed more after that. Being out of my room, I completed

less homework and participated in more discussions with my parents on every-thing from basketball games to election news. I had nowhere else to go, so I talk-ed and avoided my homework’s gaze.

“Oh, Thursday doesn’t even start: It’s Friday, I’m in love,” my iPod sings from one of Cure’s songs, summarizing the last two days.

On Thursday, I slumped through the day without much thought. And it was Friday. As I walked home from school the sun shined, the birds sang and I

skipped with glee. I would sleep in my bed soon!

I might have missed a major lesson, but at least I tried. While easier to focus in my room, it’s also easier to be dis-tracted. It’s easier to socialize outside of my room, in addition to snapping at people when I am in a bad mood.

For the sake of sanity, I compromise between the two now. I work on my homework diligently with breaks to so-cialize and move around the house.

I found the Hannah Montana of the homework world: the best of both worlds.

Forced socialization results in forgotten homeworkKellie ReynoldsStaff Reporter

on Thursday night, and because pasta is processed, it would have been off-limits had I strictly ad-hered to the rules. However, I made the conscious decision to forgo my diet for one evening to enjoy myself with my team-mates.

This event, however, brought up the conundrum faced by those people who are simply unable to eat certain foods. Those with Ce-liac disease, for example, cannot eat gluten, a composite found in wheat, rye and barley. When they go to restaurants, these individu-als have to go through the menu with a fine-toothed comb in order to ensure that nothing they eat will cause an adverse reaction. Similarly, at potlucks and par-ties, they have to be very careful about what they consume. My ex-periences this week have inspired a great deal of respect for those with special food requirements.

All in all, giving up processed foods was a highly difficult thing to do. Chocolate was probably the food that I missed the most, especially because no viable sub-stitute for it was available. In the end, however, I was able to rise to the challenge and, as a result, have a greater appreciation of the foods that I enjoy.

Departure of processed foods poses challengeChelsey SchmidPage Designer

I’m an addict. Well, to classic movies and TV that is. Every morning I

wake up to the tune of the great movie musicals of the 50’s,

and after work I fall asleep to the great dra-matic films of our century. So it only made sense to give up movies and TV during this week.

Day one was terrible. I didn’t know what to do when I was home. I reluctantly pulled out my homework, but made no progress. The room was just too quiet. So I gave that

up and decided to draw, and ended up producing some great pieces.By the middle of the week, I was fed up. I organized all my movies so I would

know which one I wanted to watch first. I know, pathetic. And even though musical rehearsals kept me busy, I was still frustrated that every TV in my house was on. I was forced to stay secluded in my room, and felt so out of the loop by not being able to watch the news.

Music was a subtle substitute for my movies and shows, but it wasn’t the same. By Friday, I was doing more homework and reading my assigned books.

I suddenly had a sort of obvious epiphany. TV and movies never distracted me, it really came down to the amount of effort I put into my work instead of procras-tinating.

TV and movie are something that I love being entertained by, but know that too much can be too much. As long as you multi-task and have more focus on what’s important, movies or TV don’t need to be cut out of your life forever.

?

Kaitlin VickersStaff Reporter

December 9, 201006 thehorseshoe

can you go withoutInspired by professional journalists, specific members of the

Mustang Express newspaper staff decided to sacrifice something important to them, and most teenagers, for five days. The items vary from processed foods, to technology, all the way to giving up a room. The staffers kept a daily blog about their journey with-out that one item on the Mustang Express online web site, www.myhsj.org/mustangexpress.

Page Designer Alex Korsick gave up Facebook.Page Designer Emily Bridgewater gave up her iPod.Page Designer Chelsey Schmid gave up processed foods.Staff Reporter Kaitlin Vickers gave up movies/TV.Online Supervisor Kellie Reynolds gave up her room.Staff Reporter Jessie O’Cheltree gave up her radio.

Ah! The beautiful noise of an iPod was taken away from me on the week of November 1 to 5. It was not as hard as I thought it would be.

At the beginning of our challenge, I dealt with the idea of living without my iPod very well. I was okay without my iPod and I had the radio. I pretended I didn’t even know what an iPod was. Though, I have two iPods; iPod Touch and iPod Nano. I feared that if I picked up my iPod Touch and went on Face-book, Twitter, or to check my email that would be cheating. So I didn’t use any Apple Products, though I did use my iHome for the radio. I don’t think my docking station is an Apple Product. I hope not, otherwise I cheated, and that would be against the rules.

Another frustrating thing about the no iPod deal was that I had just down-loaded a new band on my iPod. I couldn’t listen to them, and that was kind of sad.

On Thursday and Friday, I found it hard to cope, but during the school day I forgot about even owning an iPod. The only hard part about this challenge was

that I was not able to fall asleep for the life of me. Usually when I fall asleep, I HAVE to listen to my iPod. If I don’t listen to my iPod then I am usually cranky the next morning. It took me an hour to fall asleep during the week.

On Wednesday, I went out to dinner with my mom and dad and the restau-rant is across the valley. On a normal day I would listen to my iPod, but I had to sit in the car and actually talk to my parents. Just kidding, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy talking to my parents. I missed my iPod in the car because I like to sit in the back seat with the windows down and listen to my lame movie scores that I enjoy, but others don’t.

But on Friday, I knew it was the day I had been waiting for. Sadly, I had to work after school, but at the moment of when I got off at 8:30 p.m., I jumped in my car and drove home. It was sad that I fell asleep be-fore I even got to listen to my iPod. I did wake up at 2 a.m. and realized ‘Hey! I can listen to my iPod.’ The first song I listened to was “Intro” by The xx. It was beautiful and I slept blissfully.

Teenagers spend an extraor-dinary amount of their time on social media sites. With free wi-fi becoming more common in public places and the ability to access it being available on almost every cell phone and iPod, people have be-come addicted to updating statuses, sharing videos and communicating over the web. While technology has certainly made life easier, there is a certain danger in becoming ad-dicted to networking. So, to exam-ine the affects that these sites really have on my own routine I gave up Facebook for an entire school week. Out of everything I have in my life, my Facebook addiction is certainly the greatest of my vices.

In the beginning of the week, it was hard to break the habit of get-ting on Facebook everyday. I pan-icked, thinking that I would be com-pletely out of the loop on everything that happened with my friends and therefore have no friends at all by the end of the week. Obviously, my perception was a little warped and more than a tad dramatic, but that is initially how I felt. Without my ground breaking status updates to

Withdrawal from Facebook makes for productive student

read, like and comment on, my friends would certainly forget about me!

As the week went on, howev-er, I was finding that I had more time to get things done that actu-ally mattered to me. I finished my homework, completed a college application that I had been work-ing on and had more than a two-sentence conversation with my parents. I began to realize that I would lock myself in the comput-er room and waste an inordinate amount of time on Facebook in-stead of getting the things I need-ed to done, or seeing the people that matter to me. This was cer-tainly a startling realization, but not necessarily a bad one.

This “No Facebook” experience has definitely been a good one. I have not sworn off Facebook entirely, but it has certainly slid down my list of priorities, which is definitely a good thing. I would encourage readers to try it for a week, or give up some other as-pect of their daily routine and see what happens. To read day-by-day accounts of my experience, log onto www.tinyurl.com/mus-tangexpress.

Alex KorsickPage Designer

Five days of listening to the same songs over and over is so boring.

Every morning when going to school I would turn on the radio. It has been a routine for me since seventh grade. I turn on the radio and listen to Johnjay and Rich like so many other students probably do. I’ve gotten attached to that whole routine. Being without the radio proved difficult when I was in the car with my sister because she loves to blast the radio so loud that it is near impossible not to hear it, though I did manage not to hear it.

For the five days of my ban from the radio I mainly listened to the new Taylor Swift CD that my sister’s boyfriend burned for me, or, when my sister was in the car, blasted my iPod in my ears. I

was stuck in the car a lot so I didn’t have many choices as to what songs I could listen to. It was very hard and I was sad because I missed a ton of stuff on Johnjay and Rich in the mornings, such as; After This Week-end I’ll Never do __ Again, Psycho Ex-Boyfriend/Girlfriend Poker, Confession Wednesday, and War of the Roses. They are awesome seg-ments and are hilarious to listen to.

It was way harder than I thought, giving up the radio because my sis-ter who has an interest in extremely loud music, decided to blast the ra-dio while I am listening to my iPod. It is really hard to give up something you are so used to having. It shows how much we take for granted. Giv-ing up something can end up being quite refreshing by letting you go so long without it you end up valuing it more.

Reporter driven mad after week without Johnjay and Rich Jessie O’CheltreeStaff Reporter

Removal of iPod gives reporter perspective

Emily BridgewaterPage Designer

December 9, 2010theSpotlight08

So long, farewell: Students prepare to graduate earlyThe semester is begin-

ning to wind down, and many students are look-ing forward to a nice long break before school starts up again in January. But for 10 Sunrise Mountain seniors, there will be no coming back.

These seniors have all chosen to graduate early, before the spring semester starts. They have a num-ber of different plans for their newly acquired free time, including beginning college, working and just relaxing before starting college in the fall.

“I have 13 years of college that I’m going through, so I want to get an early start on that,” se-nior Stephanie Goff said.

Goff plans to earn a degree in anesthesiol-ogy or some other aspect of the medical field and will be starting at Glen-dale Community College this spring. She will then transfer to either Arizona State University or Uni-versity of Arizona.

Senior Forrest Rolland, on the other hand, will not start college until the fall, when he will begin at DeVry and major in infor-mation technology.

“It’s a good field, I like computers, and it makes a lot of money,” Rolland said.

Juniors Kerri Schaf-fer and Kelsie Hastings are graduating a full year early. Schaffer spoke about how she has had to take full class loads plus

numerous online classes in order to make up for a whole year.

“I just finished two on-line classes, and I’m taking two more now, and then I need to take two more next semester,” Schaffer said. “It gets very overwhelm-ing after a while. You get out of school, you’ve got to go home and sit on the computer.”

She is eager to be leav-ing school early.

“[High school’s] the same thing over and over again,” Schaffer said. “[Graduating early is] kind of like a new start.”

This summer, Schaffer will be moving to Oregon and will begin community college there in the fall. She hopes to become a child psychologist.

“I’ve wanted to be it forever,” Schaffer said. “I really like helping peo-ple…it’s this passion.”

Despite the advantages of graduating early, these students will miss some

of the things that they are leaving behind.

“I’m missing out on some school like assem-blies and stuff like that,” Goff said. “But I can still go to…prom and stuff so it

doesn’t really bother me.”Wherever their paths

in life may take them, the early graduates will hope-fully have been well pre-pared by their high school careers at SMHS.

Chelsey SchmidPage Designer

The secret life of library books: Where do they come from?Finding a book worth

reading at the Sunrise Mountain library is not too hard in this day and age, but sometimes the book you want to read is not in stock. The good news, though, is that the library allows students to suggest books they want to read and will try to meet requests by obtain-ing a copy for the Sunrise Mountain library.

“When somebody sug-gests a book either they give me the suggestion or Mrs. Yurkovich or one the teacher assistants,” Librarian Roxie Blackson said. “It comes to me and what I do is I have a file that I keep all requests in… and what I do is I de-termine what Mr. Nunez has given me in terms of a budget and then we start prioritizing.”

Teachers also are able to request books for their

curriculum or mass order specific books for classes that need to read them.

“Then after that I look and see which ones are the most requested from stu-dents in terms of maybe continuing a lot of series because there are some series that are really pop-ular,” Blackson said. “And they always have books coming out every year or every couple of years.”

After making sure the series are up to date, the

librarians look into other suggestions and put them on a future book order.

“If a book is, like, a re-ally hot seller, we know the kids want to read it, and then we’ll get it,” Lisa Yurkovich, assistant li-brarian, said. “Especially if there’s money because we want the kids to have books.”

“I have several selection tools that I use in trying to get young adult books in here to our library, and

the first one [is that] I’m a member of the Young Adult Library Services Association [YALSA],” Blackson said. “Anybody can get on YALSA site ac-tually, I advertise it on the flier we have for the Printz award because if you go to that book site they have wonderful book lists.”

Students are encour-aged to check the site for any books they may want or are interested in.

“I do take all sugges-

tions under consider-ation,” Blackson said. “I do try to make sure that the students here at Sunrise Mountain are getting the books in their hands that they really do want to read… I try to make sure that every request gets met. And just…come in and talk to me because I love talking about books, and if somebody has a suggestion I would just love to hear it.”

Paul StewardJunior Reporter

SMHS students ‘aim high’, ‘get an edge on life’As a child grows and becomes a

young adult, the decisions he or she is faced with become increasingly impor-tant. Young adults soon are faced with the question of what they want to do with their lives. The options are vast, ranging from a scientist to a record pro-ducer. Each teen has their own reason for choosing the path they do, whether that path is considered “prosperous” or not.

One choice available for teens is to serve in one of the military branches: the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and National Guard.

Although the act of joining is consistent, the reasons behind the choice can dif-fer.

Haley Kent, senior, is experiencing the process of applying for the Air Force Academy. She wishes to receive an edu-cation and military training at the acad-emy.

“If I do not make it into this [Air Force Academy], I will do an AFROTC [Air Force Reserves Officers’ Training Corps] scholarship at a university,” Kent said.

ROTC (Reserves Officers’ Training Corps) programs are available for all four major military branches. The pro-grams are offered as college electives and the scholarships offered by the pro-

gram pay for college tuition in exchange for periods of active military service.

Kent is joining the Air Force because she has dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot and found inspiration in other peo-ple.

“I have been inspired by many in-dividuals in my life who are in the Air Force, and I see their character and wish to be a person of the same integrity,” Kent said.

Hunter Cotton, junior, has also been inspired by someone into considering joining the Army after completing high school.

“The Pat Tillman story inspired me,” Cotton said. “I want to protect my coun-try.”

Pat Tillman played for the Arizona Cardinals, but in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack he left be-hind his football career and enlisted in the Army. He served multiple tours be-fore being killed due to friendly fire.

Cotton also wishes to acquire charac-teristics such as respect and discipline through service in the Army while gain-ing financial support for a college educa-tion.

These educational opportunities in-clude $4,500 dollars a year in tuition as-sistance to take approved classes or an active duty soldier could qualify for up to $72,900 for college.

Kent also hopes to gain personal traits

through her service in the Air Force.“As a member of the United States Air

Force, I hope to become a leader and an individual of exceptional moral charac-ter and courage,” Kent said. “I want to know that I made a difference in defend-ing our country’s liberties.”

Mathew Christy, freshman, agrees with the notion of wanting to protect the United States by joining the Marines right out of high school.

“I want to serve our country and pro-tect it,” Christy said.

Although he had family in the mili-tary, he is not choosing to join to uphold the family legacy. He hopes to be able to meet people and, “travel the world” while serving.

A general theme found through these three students planning to join the mili-tary is patriotism. While some of their reasons differ based on personal aspects, they all stated that serving and defend-ing our country and its freedoms are motives for joining the armed forces.

Rebecca WoodJunior Reporter

FULL SPEED AHEAD: Naval recruiters Chris Schulze and colleague sit on the SMHS campus during lunchtime. They were available to answer student’s questions about the naval reserves.

NOT JUST A JOB: Naval recruiters Chris Schulze and colleague wait to talk to students. Recruiters from the armed forces come to the school almost every Wednesday.

Photo by: Chelsey Schmid

Photo by: Chelsey Schmid

WALKIN’ EARLY: Junior Kerri Schaffer, senior Stephanie Goff and junior Kelsie Hastings are all early graduates. 12 Sunrise Mountain student will be graduating early and are looking forward to their future plans.

Photos by: Jessie O’Cheltree

theSceneDecember9,2010

09

Super-fly Bomb Aight Boo

For the full reviews go to tinyurl.com/mustangexpress

Escape The Fate’s re-cently released album, Choose Your Fate is, for lack of a better word, epic. Lead vocalist Craig Mab-bitt, bassist Maz Green, guitarist Brian Monte, and drummer Robert Or-tiz have created a “Gor-geous Nightmare”.

No two songs on the album sound alike, and

Escape the Fate

-Mandie Crego

they are all addictive. This is most definitly a step up from their second CD, This War Is Ours, which sounded like something from a Disney movie.

Although there has been controversy over whether a third “Guillo-tine” was a smart choice, it adds a good touch to the CD .

Choose Your Fate

Courtesy of metalwarez.com

DOWNLOAD THESE:

“The Aftermath”“Georgeous Nightmare”

Though slightly clichéd, Allstar Weekend’s first al-bum, Suddenly Yours, is definitely full of catchy tracks that will keep you dancing and humming along for days on end.

The new CD contains songs about love and that significant other, such as “Coming Down With Love” or “Can’t Sleep Tonight,” but also has

Allstar Weekend

-Valerie Payne

songs like “Catching Up” that talk more about not procrastinating on your dreams and goals.

Allstar Weekend has done a pretty decent job with creating relatable songs that will stay in your head, with no way to get them out, and wheth-er that is a good thing or a bad thing, you can be the judge. Courtesy of gomoxy.org

DOWNLOAD THESE:

“Dance Forever”“Catch Up”

Suddenly Yours

Winter fashion tips for girlsThe winter season is here and it’s time

to put on some warm clothing. Make sure to pull out those jeans from last year or that old sweater you found in a box, because you’re going to need it this winter.

There are many new trends this winter, for example “jeggings” which are a combination of jeans and leggings.

“[What is “in” this winter are] jeggings and boots because they are warm and comfy,” senior Tierney Coats said.

Senior Brandon Gatti has a different view on what to wear.

“[What is “in” this winter are] jackets, pants, long socks, gloves and hoodies because it’s cold outside,” Gatti said.

Freshman Tatume Birt agrees with Coats and Gatti.

“[What is “in” this winter are] jeans, sweats, hoodies, Uggs and vans because you can look cute but still be comfortable throughout the day,” Birt said.

Girls have a wide variety of boots they can rock this winter: Fold-Down, Flat, Over-the-Knee and Faux Fur Trim boots. Fold-Down boots include UGG

boots and you might see quite a few peo-ple around school wearing them. Over-the-Knee boots are boots that go over the knee with a low or high heel, which-ever you prefer.

“[My favorite winter garment would have to be] my Ugg boots because they are warm and com-fy,” Coats said.

Unlike Coats, Gatti doesn’t have a favorite garment.

“I don’t have a favorite winter garment. I have too many, but I do own seven jackets,” Gatti said.

Birt has a different type of style she likes. “[My favorite winter gar-

ment would have to be] big jack-ets because they are comfortable,

warm and cute,” Birt said. Jeans are definitely “in” this

winter. Any types of jeans are “in” but if you want to be one of the “pop-ular kids,” you might want to wear Miss Me’s, L.A. Idols, BKE’s or Rock Revival’s.

“[My favorite designer jeans are] Miss me or seven jeans,” Birt said.

For girls you can also wear sweater dresses with leggings underneath and boots. It is a great style and will also

keep you warm during this chilly sea-son.

Picture: Lynn Pham demonstrates her winter style.

Danae KingJunior Reporter

Students reveal beauty secretsAlexy ShinJunior reporter

In high school, beau-ty, fashion and attitude are everything to a girl who wants to strut her stuff.

Many girls find these attributes to be very im-portant espe-cially if they are trying to live a teenage dream.

Girls at Sunrise were interviewed for beauty tips that they thought were most important.

“I think the most im-portant beauty tip is do not overdo your eye make-up,” senior Julia Perkows-ka said. “Especially for school. Keep it simple and natural because natural beauty is the best.”

Perkowska, in particu-lar, is one to wear makeup lightly so that she has an “all natural” look.

To keep that all- natural look, some of Perkowska’s must-haves are her Mac Studio Fix powder and her Estee Lauder Dou-ble Wear foundation.

“You should invest in foundation if you don’t have good skin,” Perkowska said.

Most of the facial beauty products tend to be a little pricey de-pending on how well the product works.

The Mac Studio Fix powder costs $26 and the Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation costs

$34. Perkowska says

that the most important hair product is con-ditioner and the most important

facial product is face wash, Neutro-

gena face wash, to be exact.

Her last beauty tip was to, “always do your eye makeup and your face makeup. You can’t do one and not the other,” Perkowska said.

Balance is an-other key to beauty as well as always staying on top of your hygiene and keeping yourself clean.

“Cleanse your face daily,” senior Aida Arias said. “Your face secretes oils daily and if you don’t

wash your face, that dirty stuff will stay on your skin, which is the cause of pimples and blackheads.”

Arias’ most impor-tant beauty tip was to keep a clean face. In doing this, she uses products like Clinique

Daily Moisturizer which can cost up to $24 and

Clinique Clarifying Lotion which is about $11.50-$20 depending on the amount.

Her must- haves? “It would have to be the cleaning supplies for my face, “Arias said.

Arias spends time on her face, making sure that it is clean and blackhead- free by keeping up her daily routine and always moisturizing.

A bit of inside informa-tion about Arias is that she does not wear any makeup at all. So keeping up with her facial hygiene is something that she re-ally focuses on the most.

A daily routine for junior Pau-

lina Alaniz w o u l d be wake

up, shower, make sure

to let her hair air dry and get dressed.

Like Arias, Alaniz agrees that a girl’s face should always be kept clean so that dirty germs will not be around. This was her most important beauty tip as well.

Alaniz also believes that a girl should not use any hair products because it damages their hair.

Although, a makeup product that she does use is the bareMinerals face powder which can cost about $28.

Reviews of recently released albums

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows ‘charms’ reporter

Toni MillerJunior Reporter

“It all ends here.”The first part to the final installment

of the Harry Potter series came out on November 19. The second part is due to come out on July 15, 2011.

There were a few scenes that weren’t part of the book, as to be expected. Af-ter all, the director does deserve some creative freedom with what he’s doing.

As a fan, I have to say it followed the book pretty closely, although I would have loved it if they added the whole back story with Kreacher and Regulus.

The movie should have expanded more on Ginny’s hate for Fleur and show Molly trying to keep the trio apart.

Still, book fans should be happy with how the movie stuck so closely to the book.

Some scenes that are easily enjoy-able are the seven Potters scene, the Ministry invasion scene and the locket scene.

The seven Potters scene was highly amusing. Seeing Daniel Radcliff, Harry Potter, in a piece of girl’s undergar-ments definitely got chuckles from about everyone.

The other characters’ personalities showed through their Harry appear-ance, and made the scene more comi-cal.

The invasion of the Ministry of Mag-

ic was filled with action and laughs. The actors who are the polyjuiced versions of the trio are hilarious and great actors; the casting was well done for that par-ticular part.

The reappearance of Delores Um-bridge was very angering and made me want to hit something.

The fact that she was one of the min-ister’s favorite pets now was absolutely irritating.

The destruction of the locket was in-tense. Really intense. The explosion of goo from the locket reminded me of a better version of the black goo from Spi-derman three that had attached itself to Peter Parker in the movie. Ron’s deepest fears were portrayed in a very disturbing way.

The competition for the saddest scene would have to be the scene where Harry goes to visit his parent’s grave in Go-dric’s Hollow.

The graveyard scene made me bawl like a baby, thinking of all the pain Har-ry must be feeling and yet he still tries to make a positive comment by telling Hermione Merry Christmas.

There were some boring camping scenes in the movie, but it was expected since that’s what happened for a lot of the book.

Overall, the movie was fantastic for either a book fan or just a plain movie fan. I know that the next part of the movie cannot come any faster.

….C’monnn, July! I’m ready!

December 9, 2010

Playing FielD10with wrestlers Brennan Smith and Cord Coronado

Student athletes accept NCAA college sports scholarships

Brittany BadeJunior Reporter

Wrestling may get most of its attention be-cause of the skintight uni-forms, but varsity wres-tlers and juniors Brennan Smith and Cord Corona-do can tell you that wres-tling is much more than just singlets.

Bade: What is your favorite part about wres-tling?

Smith: The uniformsCord: In no other sport

can you wear a man leo-tard.

Bade: That is true, we are all very fortunate guys like you get to wear uni-forms like that. What is your least favorite part?

Smith: not being able to go to Krispy Kreme, and put down 12 (dough-nuts) that really sucks.

Cord: (laughs) cutting weight.

Bade: What weight class are you guys in?

Smith: 52.Cord: 25Being in weight class

25 means that the wres-tler weighs 125, and being in weight class 52 means the wrestler is 152.

Smith: Hahaha 52 and 25 are opposites. That’s cool.

Cord turns to Brennan with a look of excitement, that is equivalent to a child’s first Christmas and the pair share a laugh at the new discovery.

Bade: How much weight do you have to lose to be in these weight classes?

Smith: This is really awkward talking about. I need to go sit down.

Smith slumps up against the wall, closes his eyes, and shakes his head, reliving the match where he wrestled a girl.

Bade: What do you guys do to get ready for the season?

Smith: Meditation by candle light.

Cord: Seriously, medi-tation. We stretch, do hot yoga.

Smith: Sometimes I get up in the morning and eat raw steaks, really just whatever.

Bade: You’re telling me that you will literally just do anything you have to?

Cord: Yes, like again, I’d eat dog food.

Bade: Well that is ded-ication. So do you have high hopes for the sea-son?

Cord: Well I hope to at least win a match.

Bade: So you guys are definitely planning on bringing Sunrise another Wrestling State Title?

Smith: Definitely.Cord: nods. Yes!Smith: Our odds are

pretty good.Cord: We’ll dominate

this season.Bade: So other than

meditation by candlelight or eating raw steaks, do you have any other rituals that you do before or after a match?

Smith: Usually we listen to techno to get pumped.

Cord: Yeah, before we get pumped.

Smith: Fist pumping!Bade: Nice, what about

after?Smith: You’re dead af-

ter.Cord: Yeah after you

just sit down, I mean you can do whatever you want. You can stretch.

Bade: What do you do to celebrate the end of the season? Do you go to Krispy Kreme and down 12?

Smith: Yes, I usually put on 30 pounds of pure fat.

Cord: It’s been a tra-dition since my brother, Seth Coronado, was here and we go to Old Country Buffet the following Mon-day (after State) and we

just eat our butts off.Bade: You just pack on

the pounds as a form of celebration?

Cord: Yeah, we just don’t have to care any-more.

Smith: Yeah, we go back into the eight months of eating junk food.

Cord: And the other four months are like pure hell.

Wrestling season may be like taking a vacation to Hell for the wrestlers, but it is a time of year that Sunrise can look forward to. This season, according to Smith and Coronado, you can count on state titles for Sunrise in weight classes 25 and 52.

Brittany BadeJunior Reporter

On Wednesday, Nov. 10, senior Sunrise athletes Tyler Crawford, Aaron Bummer, Dani Bonnet, Mickayla Heller, and Ka-rissa Haleman officially signed their athletic tal-ents away to various Di-vision I universities, in a signing ceremony held in the library.

Crawford and Bum-mer were both signed to play baseball. Crawford will play for the Univer-sity of Arizona, and Bum-mer will play for the Uni-versity of Nebraska.

“Of course I’m happy about going to the Univer-sity of Nebraska,” Bum-mer said.

Crawford’s school was at the top of his list.

“I’m extremely happy to play at UofA,” Craw-

ford said. “UofA was defi-nitely at the top of my list. I knew I wanted to stay close to home.”

Bonnet, Heller and Haleman were signed to Division I universities for softball.

“I’m going to the Uni-versity of Pacific,” Bon-net said. “It’s far enough for me to have my own life, but close enough to my family that I’m only a plane ride away. I’m very happy to be going there.”

Heller and Haleman may be moving away from their families, but the two are moving closer to each other. Both girls will play softball at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

“We are really excited to be going together,” Haleman said. “We got really lucky.”

All five athletes have been talking to the schools

they signed with since last spring. Haleman and Heller were ambi-tious and contacted Texas A&M for opportunities to play there, while Bum-mer, Crawford and Bon-net were scouted by their schools.

“I e-mailed the coach (of Texas A&M),” Heller said. “He came to watch Dani play, and he talked to Karissa and I after the game.”

Unlike Heller and Haleman, Bummer was contacted by the coaches of the University of Ne-braska.

“(The University of Nebraska) contacted me awhile ago and during the summer they came and watched me play in a tour-nament,” Bummer said.

All of these athletes are happy about getting division I athletic schol-

Photo by Brandi PorterGET READY TO RUMBLE! Juniors Brennan Smith and Cord Coronado prepare to wrestle during practice. Smith and Coronado have been wrestling since freshman year and hope to bring Sunrise another State Wrestling title.

Photo contributed by Kyle CliftonGO, FIGHT, WIN: (from left) Seniors, Aaron Bummer, Tyler Crawford, Mickayla Heller, Dani Bonnet, and Karissa Haleman signed with various colleges.

Cord: About five pounds.

Smith: Ten pounds.Bade: What is the most

outrageous way you have lost/gained weight?

Smith: Sometimes we meditate by candle light.

Bade: Huh, what about you Cord?

Cord: I mean you have to eat really small amounts of food, not eat-ing just doesn’t work. If you don’t eat you don’t lose weight, so like small amounts are good. Just not Krispy Kreme.

Smith: Yeah, eating like once a week is nor-mal. Like sometimes we eat dog food. It’s high in nutrition, low in calories.

Bade: Oh, so dog food is just the way to go?

Smith: Dog food or meditation.

Cord: In an incred-ibly fake yet serious tone, Yeah, or laxatives. Those work well, clean you out.”

All laugh.Bade: Have you ever

had an awkward moment during a match?

Both mutter ummm, with looks of extreme contemplation on their faces, trying to remem-ber all the uncomfortable moments they have ever shared. In perfect sync, the boys turn their heads toward me with a look of something near horror in their eyes and reply:

Smith: Well, I’ve wres-tled a girl.

Cord: I’ve wrestled a girl, too. I just didn’t know what to do. Like, it’s a girl.

arships in the first place. Baseball Coach Eric Gard-ner is excited and proud of these athletes.

“It was a great accom-plishment for the athletes and our school,” Gardner said. “There aren’t many

schools out there that can say they had five seniors get scholarships to a uni-versity in an entire year, yet alone in early Novem-ber. We will have at least five more in February.”

It is indeed an exciting

time for the five athletes. As an added bonus, with all of these scholarships already offered, it is likely that Sunrise’s baseball and softball programs will do well in their upcoming seasons.

Q A&

Playing Fielddecember 9, 2010

11

Swim and dive team succeeds at region, state championships

Boys, girls bowling teams aim to continue tradition of excellence

Kocmoud named fastest boy in state

Bryce UlmStaff Reporter

Swim and dive wrapped up their season for the year with the boys taking sixth place in state and the girls taking eighth out of 50 schools.

The state swim and dive meet was November 5 and 6. Junior Rachael Hicks was the state cham-pion in the one-meter dive with the highest score in the Peoria Unified School District and the entire state.

Senior Thomas Wahlers

took second place overall in the 100-meter breast stroke and he took third in the 100-meter free. He hopes his scores will help him swim at the next lev-el.

“I’ll be heading off to college next year,” Wahlers said. “Hopefully I’ll be swimming some-where I get a scholarship to.”

Swim also took third in the 200-meter free relay. The relay team included sophomore Trever Mi-gliorino; junior Michael

McConaughy; junior Kyle Wahlers, who also took fourth in the 50-meter free; and Thomas Wahlers.

Other medalists were senior Alexa Kucharo in the 100-meter breast stroke and sophomore Haley Kucharo in the 100-meter free. Both girls took fourth place in their events.

The swim and dive team is happy with its re-sults from this year and enjoyed all the memories they made.

Brody KilgoreJunior Reporter

By spare or by strike, Sunrise bowling has their eyes on the prize.

The bowling team has won their first two match-es and looks to go unde-feated this season.

“[Our chances are] pretty good, our only com-petition would be Deer Valley,” freshman bowler

Robert Lucero said.Bowling sponsor and

Boys varsity coach Brian Stephens agrees.

“Two years ago we won state, and we beat Deer Valley both times,” Ste-phens said. “And last year we won division and we beat them once and they beat us once.”

The season is looking up for Sunrise bowling.

“[Our season looks] pretty strong,” Lucero said. “It’s not the season we’re worried about, it’s regionals.”

It’s “too early to tell” if the team will win state, says Stephens. But it is “definitely not out of the question.”

There are many fun things about bowling.

“[The best part is]

Jamie WarrenAd Manager

There is a new Cross Country State Champion this season, and for the first time ever, the title goes to a student right here at Sunrise Moun-tain.

Senior Brandon Koc-moud won the Division II boys’ race at the State Cross Country meet No-vember 6, and the win was sure to put a smile on his face.

“It’s the best feeling ever,” Kocmoud said. “A dream come true.”

Kocmoud’s winning time was 16:02.33, beat-ing his competitors by about 10 seconds.

“He knew he could do it,” Head Boys’ Cross Country Coach Torrin Lattie said. “He ran it just the way we talked about and made his move at the right time.”

But winning big did not come without a little bit of nerves.

“He was really nervous beforehand,” Lattie said. “But he actually didn’t let it get to him, and he was super excited.”

Kocmoud knew there was a lot riding on him coming into the race since his running recently caught the attention of several colleges.

“I hope to go to college for cross country,” Koc-moud said. “I’m not sure

where yet, but hopefully winning State will open a couple doors.”

Kocmoud’s dedication to the sport has played a big part in his recent suc-cess.

“He did two-a-day workouts a lot in the sum-mer and even into the season,” Lattie said. “He’d run before school and then do our workouts af-ter school as well. He put in a lot of time and a lot of effort.”

With such dedica-tion, it is hard to believe Kocmoud’s love for cross country came quite unex-pectedly. Kocmoud origi-nally picked up the sport in order to stay in shape for basketball.

GO FOR THE GOAL: Freshman Brylee Hawkins goes after the ball in the Friday, Nov. 3 home game against Liberty.

Photo contributed by Sara KucharoKEEP ON SWIMMING: Girls Region Champions celebrate after their victory. The girls have been preparing for the state for the past few months and were happy with their relults.

“Now it seems like I like [cross country] more than basketball,” Kocmoud said. “So I don’t know, we’ll see how it goes.”

Wherever his future lies, it is safe to say Koc-moud, along with the rest of the cross country team, have represented the Mustangs well according to Athletic Director Chris-tine Gutierrez.

“I am extremely proud of the time and dedication exhibited by all members and coaches of the cross country program,” Guti-errez said.

Overall, the boys’ team did well, placing second in State out of the top 24 teams who qualified through Sectional meets.

Photo contributed by Torrin LattieRACE TO THE FINISH LINE: Coach Torrin Lattie and senior Brandon Kocmoud hold up state boy’s Cross Country trophy. Kocmoud won the District II State Boys’ Cross Country race.

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM: Freshman Shelby Ryan tries to get the ball away from a Liberty player. Sunrise won the game 6-0.

GO FOR IT: Forward Maddie Pado runs to get the ball back. Pado has been on the varsity team for the last four years and scored one goal in the game.

Swim and dive coach Dr. Jim Kenyon had a lot to be proud of this season, “My favorite memory is when the girls team won the district championship beating Liberty, Centen-nial and Ironwood.”

The team is looking forward to next year and hopes to have more stu-dents try out.

“I would recommend swim team to people,” Wahlers said. “It’s a good thing to be involved in, it has nice people and a good environment.”

beating other people,” sophomore bowler Shelby Dempsey.

Lucero also enjoys be-ing on the team.

“It’s fun because it’s un-like other bowling leagues I’ve been on, we actually do drills for bowling,” Lu-cero said.

Dempsey explained what its like being on the bowling team.

“It’s pretty fun, it’s cool to meet people from dif-ferent teams,” Dempsey said.

Coach Brian Stephens put in words what his fa-vorite part of coaching is.

“[The best part of be-ing coach is] watching the kids grow as athletes, improve as a bowler, and also seeing the competi-tions,” Stephens said.

The bowling team has an outstanding history. The girls team in 2007-2008 went undefeated and won state. In 2008-2009 the boys were state champs, and in 2009-2010 season they were league champs. History seems to be repeating it-self, and how the pattern will unfold this year no one knows.

SOCCER

GIRLS’

VARSITY

Photos by Kellie Reynolds

December 9, 2010theScene12

MONE, TWO, THREE: As Drum Major, senior Jacob Anderson composes the pride of Sunrise at various times during football season and at competitions. The marching band won an excellent at State and were chosen to perform at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Photo by Maddie Pado

Holiday Movies to Watch

Buddy the Elf was raised by elves in the North Pole. Upon becoming of a nuisance because of his size, he is sent to New York City to find his fa-ther Walter Hobbs. During his hilari-ous exploits, Buddy experiences all New York City has to offer, but when Buddy’s presence affects his father’s business, Walter must reassess his priorities.

Two World War II Army buddies, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, who started producing Broadway shows af-ter the war, team up with two sisters, Betty and Judy Haynes. The two men travel with the sisters to the Columbia Inn in Pine Tree, Vermont. The inn is about to go under due to lack of snow and patrons so Wallace, Davis and the sisters devise a plan to bring business back to the inn.

After playing Santa in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Kris Krin-gle is assigned to be the Santa for the Macy’s on 34th street. When it be-comes known that Kris believes he is the true Santa Clause he is commit-ted to a mental hospital and becomes increasingly discouraged. Fred Gaily, a lawyer, promises to secure Kris’s release. In this classic holiday film a miracle is needed to save Santa.

Rating: PGGenre: Family/Comedy

Rating: NoneGenre: Family/Drama

All Ralph “Ralphie” Parker wants for Christmas is an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot BB rifle with a compass. He tirelessly tells everyone about his one Christmas desire, but is repeatedly put down. Ralphie fears he will never overcome all the obstacles of life and make it to Christmas, in this hilarious take on a dysfunctional, yet loving, family during the holiday season.

Rating: PGGenre: Family/Comedy

Rating: NoneGenre: Comedy/Musical

By: Becca Wood