After a band concert Thursday, Oct. 25, eyewit-nesses say junior Dakota Parsons told the kids in the band room to listen, then threw something outside and shut the door. Everyone was quiet, and then they heard a boom. “Iaskedhimwhatitwasandhetoldmeitwasafire-cracker he made,” said junior Liam O’Riordan, who was there. “Then everyone just went back to what they were doing like it never really happened. There wasn’t any panic or anything like it at all. Just Dakota setting offafirecracker.” According to police reports, the “firecracker” wasmoreofaflash-bangdevice. Assistant band director Tim Rischling, who heard and saw the explosion, told band instructor Jim Kor-dik about it as they left the building Thursday night. The next day, Kordik sent an e-mail to the administra-tion letting them know something had exploded out-side. Fourteenth mod Friday, Parsons was called into the office.Hisbackpackwaspadlocked.Inside,adminis-trators found marijuana and explosive materials. As-sistant Principal JeffWagner said hedid not knowhow much explosive material there was. After the materials were found, School Resource Of-

BARACK OBAMA WINS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION After an intense campaign, the Presidentdefeats Mitt Romney, winning a second term.

thelance

November 9, 2012

8701PacificSt.Omaha,NE68114 Volume57Issue3

STUDENT ARRESTexplosivesdiscoveredinpadlockedbackpack

Junior Dakota Parsons poses for his school picture last year. He set off a firecracker after a band concert Thursday, Oct. 25, and band director Jim Kordik reported the incident to the administration the next day. Photo courtesy of Shield

German exchange students visit Westside

German high school student Tim Scharf enters through the front door of Westside High School,eyesfilledwithsurprise.HisGermanfriendshavethesame look as they enter the foreign school. Cameras are out as they snap at every-thing in sight.

The students were as-tonished at the everyday life of an American high school. They were in Oma-ha through an exchange program begun by German instructorDianeWulf.

“The start of the program was in 2003, when I took a group of students to Ger-many,”Wulf said. “Wehada one-week home stay and they assigned us to Crim-mitschau, a town in eastern Germany.”

The students had such a good time that students fromGermanycametoWestsidethenextyear,andthe exchange program has gone on ever since.

The students this year quickly noticed the cultural differences.“Thebiggestdifferencereallyisthateverythingis

so big,” said Elke Stier, an English teacher from Crim-mitschau. “The country, the streets, the cars, the school — everything is so big.”

However,sizeisnottheonlybig difference students fromGermany notice.“There is a difference in

subjects for lessons,” Stier said. “Your choice of electives is much greater.”

German students were seen in different elective coursessimply observing their content.

“They are very impressed by the show choir,” Stier said.

German students were also seen mixing in with the student section at football games.

“The amount of sports you can play amazes them,” Stier

said. “You have this giant swimming pool and all these fieldsyoucanplayon.InGermany,notsomuch.”TheWestside German teachers chose particular

German students help themselves to hamburgers, hot dogs and other food at a banquet hosted for them in the cafeteria. The students were in Omaha for two weeks before continuing on to New York and Washington D.C. Photo by Aaron Boyle

By Emma JohanningsmeierEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

By Connor FlairtyOPINION EDITOR

ficerToddCrnkovichwascalledin.Hecontactedthepolice immediately, and members of the bomb unit were brought in. Parsons was arrested. Around 3:25 or3:30p.m.Friday,accordingtoWagner,explosives-sniffingdogswerebroughtintosweepthebuilding.Atonepointtherewereatleast20policeofficersinthebuilding,buttheydidn’tfindanything. “The school acted in accordance with what the police did, and the police actually were very compli-mentary of the way the school handled the situation,” Wagnersaid.“Whenthepolicegethere,thatinvesti-gation essentially turns over to them, and we’re here to support.” At Parsons’s house, the police reportedly found more materials. Parsons will be tried as an adult on three felony charges: possession of explosive materials, possession of an explosive device and possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, according to the Omaha World-Herald. Students who knew Parsons well believe everything was blown out of proportion. Senior Russ Riley knew Parsonsfrombeingondrumlinewithhim.HesaidParsons didn’t have too many friends, but was rela-tively close to the people on drum line and in band. HedescribedhimasanicekidwhohadsymptomsofADHDandmessedaroundalot,andwasamaster

continued on page 2

continued on page 2

Elke StierGerman teacher

Thecountry,the

streets, the cars, the

school—everything

issobig.

newsNov. 9, 2012 2

BRIE

FLY A delegation of teachers and administrators from

Lexington School District in South Carolina visited Westside Oct. 8-9.

The district had already visited Westside several times before this most recent tour. The district will open a new building next fall around the principles of modular scheduling.

“It’s a brand new school that’s built, from the con-struction to the staffing, on the concept of the modu-lar schedule,” Assistant Principal Tony Weers said.

Weers is in charge of coordinating all visits from other school districts. Many come to observe West-side’s unique modular schedule and one-to-one pro-gram.

“Schools researching one-to-one and modular scheduling very quickly learn who Westside is,” Weers said.

The visitors’ primary focus was to observe West-side’s modular schedule, though they also may have much to glean from the district’s one-to-one model.

Although bigger than Westside, Lexington hopes to institute its own one-to-one initiative. Instead of lap-tops, Lexington will deploy 16,000 iPads.

This is the second visit Weers has coordinated this year with an outside district, and he already has two tour dates set up for the remainder of this quarter.

“People get distracted by the other program,” Weers said. “If they come to look at technology they get distracted by modular schedule and vice versa. As I see it, the two programs overlap well, because they allow both students and teachers to do unique things.”

James Clark, the former Finance Director of Dis-trict 66, has been charged with four counts of em-bezzlement. Clark, who worked in the district from 1988 to 2010, allegedly stole $160,000 between 2006

and 2010.Clark allegedly used his status as a “super user” to

bill the district for numerous personal expenses, in-cluding an inflatable boat, a stationary bike, items from a pornography website, a fountain and $10,000 worth of gas.

The district discovered several accounting irregu-larities after Clark left the district May 3, 2010. After re-viewing these discrepancies with an outside account-ing firm, the district alerted the Omaha police depart-ment, which filed a report in July 2010.

The official indictment of Clark was released Oct 17. The maximum penalty for each count entails 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Clark adamantly maintains his innocence and is optimistic about his chances in his indictment trial.

“We categorically deny the allegations and look forward to the trial in this case,” Clark’s attorney Steve Achelpol told the World Herald. “We look forward to telling our side of the story, which includes the de-struction of records relating to these transactions by Westside personnel.”

Since learning about Clark’s embezzlement, the district has made numerous revisions to its account-ing policies.

South Carolina district tours school

Former financial officer indicted for embezzlement

continued from page 1places around Nebraska to show the students.

“We take them to sites around, like the zoo and downtown,” Wulf said. “We also go to the capitol building for a tour. Our history also interests them. The immigration and native Americans interest them a lot. We just try to take them to as much as we can,”

Many wonder why a location such as Omaha is chosen for exchange students.

“You [Westside] are a very good example in show-ing what high school life is,” Stier said “You are special, with your laptops and your large choice of electives.”

The culture are not the only the only thing the stu-dents came for. Friendship comes out of the stays as well, even to the extent that a student was a grooms-men in the other’s wedding.

“The friendships between the Americans and Ger-mans were very strong at the end of the trip,” said sophomore Brody Hughes, who hosted an exchange student. “They lived with us for a long time and got

used to the American way of life.”For some students, the end came too quickly.“I wish the stay was a lot longer,” Hughes said.

“They were only here two weeks, but we still built friendships.”

Even though the program seems to be successful now, the teachers want to do even more with it in the future.

“I hope it continues,” Wulf said. “The students and the parents really enjoy it.”

The teachers are also thinking of adding new des-tinations to the Germans’ agenda.

“We are planning to add New York to the trip,” Stier said. “It shows the immigration through Ellis Island.”

Teary faces were seen as the exchange students waved before boarding the plane on the way back to Germany. The stay was short but the bond was large as the German students and American students became attached.

“The friendships are forever,” Wulf said.

EXCHANGE: German students visitGerman students from the town of Crimmitschau visited Westside recently. The exchange students spent two weeks learning about Ameri-can culture and living with host families. Photos by Aaron Boyle

PARSONS: thoughts on student arrest differ

continued from page 1at the popular computer game Minecraft. For fun, he also brought his own speakers and strobe lights for the drum room. “He was really good with computers,” Riley said. “He’d find something he was interested in, and then he’d get really into it and good at it.” Riley believes the media have made the incident seem more dangerous than it really was. To raise awareness about Parsons’s case, Riley and some friends have been using the hashtag #freedakota on Twitter, and they’ve talked about making “Free Da-kota” shirts. They’d also like to raise bail for Parsons, since his family can’t afford it. Another member of band created a PowerPoint in-forming students about the Parsons case. The Power-Point includes a picture of Parsons smiling and hold-ing a puppy, and concludes with, “Let’s hope Dakota gets out of this mess.” The motivation? Riley said Parsons’s friends hate to think of a kid having to sit in jail for a couple months awaiting a trial. Parsons’s arrest came on the heels of a Sept. 21 inci-dent in which a student brought two handguns con-cealed in his backpack to school. The incidents were completely unrelated. “I’ve been here 10 years, and these are the only two in-cidents of [their] kind that I’ve been associated with,” Wagner said. “It just happened that the time spent be-tween the two was not very long.” Wagner emphasized the school’s “number one de-fense” is the students, who sometimes know about things that are going on before administrators or teachers do. “When students know about things, or know that students may have something that could be poten-tially harmful in their possession, whether it’s in their car, at home, in a book bag — we need students to re-port those things,” Wagner said. “And I think we’ve got a school that does that pretty well, but [...] I don’t think students report a hundred percent of the potential vio-lent or dangerous situations that they’re aware of.” Wagner said the district has a security task force that looks at school security measures, but said no big changes will be made as a result of this incident. He pointed out that the contents of Parsons’s backpack would go unnoticed by a metal detector. “There’s always a rush to judgment,” Wagner said. “You know…that schools are unsafe, or ‘Make it safer,’ or ‘Let’s do away with something,’ or ‘Let’s implement this or that.’ The problem is that the people who are violating those rules don’t really care about the rules.” Riley, however, doesn’t think Parsons was intending to make the school unsafe, or to hurt anyone. “If you knew the kid, he’s really nice,” Riley said. “He would never hurt anyone. I don’t think that was his in-tention. I think he was just being stupid, not thinking of the consequences.”

news Nov. 9, 2012 3

When Senior Project instructor Jana Brawner came to Westside as a 22-year-old teacher in the fall of 1972, she never imagined she’d still be here in 2012.

“When you’re 22, you don’t know what you think,” Brawner said. “You just think, ‘Okay, I’ve got a job.’ I was just thrilled to have a job at Westside.”

But 40 years and several district teaching positions later, Brawner is still here. And she isn’t ready to re-tire. She had planned to stay a few more years, until she was 65. This year, though, something made her reconsider.

For years, Westside has offered a generous retire-ment package for teachers and administrators who are 60 years of age or older and have been with the district for 20 consecutive years. Under the voluntary retire-ment program, any retiring certified staff member who met these criteria would receive 2.5% of his or her current salary for each year spent in the district, plus $800 for each year. This meant teachers who had been with the district 40 years would receive a payout that was more than their yearly salary.

“Especially if their salaries were higher, their [buy-outs] could be in the $80,000 to $90,000 range,” said Eric Weber, Assistant Superintendent for Human Re-sources. “It was a nice way to reward their longevity.”

In addition, the program had financial benefits for the district. Typically, the person hired to replace a re-tiring teacher would have a lower salary. Weber said this was never the motivation behind hiring choices, though.

In 2006, the voluntary retirement program (in-cluding insurance benefits for retired employees) cost District 66 almost $753,000. In 2010, it cost $1.76 mil-lion.

Westside paid for this program using money lev-ied from taxpayers. Typically, the voluntary retirement program was paid for with funds that would fit inside the spending lid — a state-imposed limit to how much the district can spend on certain things. However, the district had the option of operating outside the lid.

In 2011, to cut down on programs like this, the state legislature passed a law that forced districts to fit such spending under the spending lid.

District 66 anticipates spending between $1.7 and 2 million this year on voluntary separation payouts and benefits. This won’t fit inside the spending lid, because the budget expenditures only leave about $300,000 of room under the lid.

That’s okay for this year, since the law only ap-plies to retirements that happen after Sept. 1, 2013. If the district were to continue with the same policy, it would have to cut educational programs, technology or teachers in order to pay for benefits for retirees. It’s understood this wouldn’t be reasonable.

“The district has to take care of the district,” Brawner said. “They’ve been very, very good to us, and they’ve had some wonderful benefits, like the insur-ance.”

Starting this summer, administrators met with the leadership of the Westside Education Association about the situation. They developed a communica-tion plan for getting information to teachers.

Because the program was obviously not sustain-able as it was, the district administration introduced an amendment to the policies designed to end the

payouts this year. School board president David Woodke said it was approved unanimously by the school board Oct. 15. The amendment lowered the minimum retirement age to 57 for teachers and ad-ministrators who have been with the district 20 years or more and wish to receive a payout.

This change, most importantly, is only for this year. The amendment itself states that it is repealed effective Aug. 31, 2013. As of next year, this retirement package won’t be available. Although the district ad-ministration plans to work on a rewrite of the policy — maybe more of a defined payout contribution from the district, rather than an unlimited amount based on the number of years spent in the district — the re-write will be much different from what’s in place now, and it will have to be sustainable.

“I think the bill’s doing exactly what [the state] intended it to do, and that was to cut these kinds of programs down, and to basically either make them smaller or really to eliminate them,” Weber said. “But in my mind, it’s very unfortunate that we are in a situ-ation where we have to respond to this law in this way. I know one thing for sure — none of us would be sit-ting here wanting to make this adjustment if that law wouldn’t have passed.”

Both Weber and Brawner said teachers knew the voluntary retirement program might not be around forever.

“They have always been really good, especially Dr. Weber, about letting us know, ‘We don’t know how much longer this is going to be here,” Brawner said. “And I’ve kept in contact with him, and he’s done a great job of saying, ‘Here’s the best information I can give you.’ So it really didn’t come as a surprise, but I think when you’ve been here as long as a couple of us have...I mean, it’s just been a way of life.”

Last year, 10 people retired under the voluntary retirement program. Employees with payouts over $50,000 can’t get all the money in one year, but the eventual payouts for the retirees from last year total $861,000.

This year, with the age being lowered to 57, Weber said 42 people qualify for the payouts. He’s met with

By Emma JohanningsmeierEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

60: the mini-mum age at which teachers and administra-tors could quali-fy for retirement payouts, up until this year

57: the age to which the dis-trict lowered the minimum age this year

20: the number of consecutive years a teacher or administrator must have been in the district, to qualify for a payout

$1.7-2 million: the amount Westside antici-pates spending on payouts and retirement ben-efits this year

$700,000: the amount typi-cally spent in a year on insur-ance benefits for retirees; these include life and health insurance up to age 70

42: the number of employees who qualify for payouts this year

30-35: an es-timate of how many of these employees will retire this year

($800 + 2.5% of current salary) x number of years: the pay-out formula

TheStats

TIMELINE

2011State legislature passes a law that forces Westside to fit spending for the program under the spending lid

Sept. 1, 2013Date after which voluntary retirement spending will have to fit inside the spend-ing lid

Aug. 31, 2013Date when the amendment is repealed

Oct. 15, 2012School board approves an amendment with a 6-0 vote. The amendment low-ers the minimum age to 57 and only covers this year

1977The district adopts a voluntary retirement payout policy

2010Program costs the district $1.76 million

2006Voluntary retire-ment program (including insur-ance) costs District 66 about $753,000

RETIREMENTChange in payout policy impacts teachers’ retirement decisions

Senior Project instructor Jana Brawner teaches one of her classes. Brawner came to Westside in 1972 and is one of a number of teachers who may re-tire this year because of a change in district retirement policy. Photo by Estella Fox

almost all of them individually, and said everyone’s situation is different. Some teachers want to meet the state requirement to receive their state pension. To re-ceive unreduced state benefits immediately after re-tirement, an employee’s age and years of working in the public schools must equal 85.

And while some teachers are ready to retire, some simply aren’t. Some who retire from Westside this year because of the change in policy will seek new jobs elsewhere.

“I’m not ready to stop working,” Brawner said. “I really like teaching, so I’m not ready to retire yet. I’ll probably either come back here and sub when I can, or have a full-time job.”

From years of dealing with staff members, Weber has discovered payouts and insurance benefits aren’t the only factors that influence whether someone re-tires in a given year. By making the payout policy avail-able to teachers aged 57 and up, in addition to those over 60, Weber said the district hoped to let people make their own choices.

“The big thing is we just want to support them in whatever decision they make,” Weber said. “I’ve told all these folks — we can meet once, we can meet twice, we can sit down with your spouse, we can sit down with your financial planner. I’m really spending most of October and November just clearing time to be able to meet with these people so that they make the decision that’s right for them. That’s the way it should be done. This is a very personal thing, and we want to make sure they feel comfortable with what-ever decision they land on.”

So far, only three people have officially sent in their retirement paperwork. Those who qualify have until Dec. 1 to confirm their retirement. Weber estimates there will be somewhere between 30 and 35 retirees under the policy.

“If a lot of these people choose not to go, that’s awe-some — we get to keep some great teachers for a little bit longer,” Weber said. “But if they do, we understand why, and we want to support them either way, because we’ve got great staff, and we just want to make sure they make the best decision that’s right for them.”

opinionNov. 9, 2012 4

warrior voice

The Lance is a school-sponsored publication of Westside High School, Westside Community Schools, 8701 Pacific St., Omaha, NE 68144. The Lance office is located in room 251. Phone: (402) 343-2650. The Lance is an in-house publication.

The paper is distributed every month to all students, except in vacation periods. Subscription rates to others are $25 prepaid. The Lance is printed by White Wolf Web, in Sheldon, IA.

Advertising rates are avail-able upon request. The Lance editorial staff reserves the right to edit all ads for clarity and grammatical errors. The edito-rial staff reserves the right not to publish any ads that are libelous or that contain non-factual information.

The Lance editorial staff also reserves the right to nullify contracts at any time without prior notification. The Lance also refuses ads that promote activities illegal to a majority of the student readership.

Reader response is wel-comed in the form of letters to the editor. Letters should be less than 300 words, signed by the author and sent to room 251. Names may be withheld upon special request. Lance editors will decide whether to honor such requests.

The Lance editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for clarity and grammatical errors. The editorial staff also reserves the right to not publish any letters that are libelous or that contain non-factual information.

The Lance is a member of the Nebraska High School Press Association, the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the National Scholastic Press Association and the Quill & Scroll Society.

The Lance staff recog-nizes that the administration of Westside Community Schools controls the curriculum and, thus, sets the parameters of the production process of school publications. The Lance staff also recognizes its own responsi-bilities to inform, enlighten and entertain its readers in a way that reflects high standards of journalism, morals and ethics.

Editors-in-Chief Joe Hack, Emma Johanningsmeier; Managing Editors Zane Fletcher, Sophie Goldberg; Copy Editor Ellie Anderson-Smith; Opinion Editors Connor Flairty, Tom Schueneman; Feature and In-Depth Editor Andrew McVea; Sports Editor Aren Rendell; Arts & Entertainment Editor Skylar Harris; Staff Writers Sophie Clark, Grace Fogland, Kellie Wasikowski; Photo Editors Aaron Boyle, Estella Fox; Adviser Rod Howe.

lance

Yes. I know Dakota and I know that he would not hurt anyone.

CONNOR RANDLEMAN senior

Were you surprised the bomb squad was called on Parsons?

I was not, I knew him in elementary school and he was bullied a lot.MAGGIE KROEGERjunior

I was surprised; I thought he was quiet and kept to himself. BENNET JONESjunior

I was shocked; he is a quiet guy.DU-A LEEsophomore

As students at Westside, we are the beneficiaries of many wonderful and bright teachers who work hard to ensure that we receive top-notch educations.

Nobody becomes a teacher to make money. The cumulative salary a science teacher makes over the course of a 40-year career will never come close to approximating the true worth of the knowledge and skills he imparts to his thousands of students. It seems not only courteous but just to send long-tenured, dedicated Westside teachers into retirement with a little extra compensation.

The district’s previous retirement benefits were a wonderful way to do this. They compensated retir-ing teachers based on the number of years they had worked in the district, while incentivizing younger teachers to stay at Westside. Now, however, new legis-lation mandates retirement benefits be placed under a spending lid along with the budget.

Previously, VRPs (Voluntary Retirement Pro-grams) could be designated as budget exclusions, meaning the district could pay retiring teachers well without the budget being affected adversely. Prior to this year, upon reaching 60, teachers qualified for a re-

tirement bonus and 10 additional years of healthcare, subsidized by the district.

The preservation of the VRP at its current volume would be detrimental to several other important dis-trict programs. Buyouts have cost as much as $1.07 million per year since 2006. That’s $1.07 million that can’t be spent on elementary Spanish instruction, mu-sic programs and food services, were the buyouts to be placed under the spending lid.

Faced with this tricky situation, the district made the right decision and placed the necessity of a qual-ity Westside education over the courtesy of generous buyout packages.

However, the district has done an exemplary job taking care of teachers during this buyout and have done much to make a less than ideal situation equi-table for all the teachers involved.

They have lowered the qualifying age to 57 for the 2012-13 school year to allow long-tenured teachers just shy of 60 to take advantage of the last buyout, yet by no means are they pressuring teachers to retire before they’re ready either.

Eric Weber, the district’s Assistant Superintendent

of Human Resources, has met personally with every teacher who qualifies. He’s prepared to meet with everyone and their spouses again to make sure every teacher involved makes the best decision.

The glut of retirements expected this year will be fiscally beneficial for the district. The new teachers they hire will have smaller salaries than the retiring teachers, and may not have to stay as long because of the lost incentive of the VRP.

The district’s bottom line, though, is tertiary to their concerns about compensating teachers. The district was handed a bad situation by the state, and made the most of it and took care of its teachers.

If anyone’s to blame in this situation, it’s the tax-phobic state legislature that, in order to appease the taxpayers, cracked down on budget exclusions. In the process, they impaired Westside’s and all other districts’ ability to attract teachers and incentivize long careers, and jeopardized the quality of all public school children’s education. The legislature is the real culprit in this situation, not the teachers or the dis-trict who have only acted in the best interests of the students.

District makes best of bad situationGraphic by Samie Steed

opinion Nov. 9, 2012 5

Near the welding and the-atre classrooms various stu-dents can be seen leaving the school at their leisure. One could find this quite irrespon-sible of the school to let the kids run rampant.

This is why it is a privilege found rarely in schools other than Westside. The sense of freedom is normal at Westside; yet a new trend in Texas schools differs. Two more schools in the San Antonio area have equipped stu-dents with mandatory I.D. badges that contain microchips determining their exact location on campus. This new fad has caused controversy. Many think the micro-chips violate the students’ privacy.

This new device was was meant to keep the students safe and to influence them to make better decisions. However, you cannot control kids in this way.

When this chip is imposed on students, what are they to think? There is no trust in this system, which erects a barrier between administrators and students. Just as an over-ly controlling parent’s child is more likely to rebel, students with such constraints are more likely to misbehave. Trust has to be established between students and faculty. Without this trust, a school cannot survive.

Westside’s system is based on trust. It is amazing that kids are allowed to leave the premises, and even more so that they use their time away from school responsibly. The rules have even given students more freedom between last year and this

year, allowing seniors to leave with just one open mod. This freedom simulates a real-world adult experience. Going

through elementary school, the rule was sit down and shut up; yet these high school rules allow us to experience the real world for our-selves. Workplaces and colleges have freedom like this, and isn’t it better to let the students learn how to manage free time before they hit the streets?

Learning time management allows students to recognize their mistakes and grow from them. Wasting too much time going out to eat during an open mod and not getting enough work done is a real-world problem that can be experienced through these privileges. It is in fact better to learn these skills before hitting the real world.

In these Texas schools, students will be used to being monitored, watched at every step and move they take. What happens when they are sent into the business world? No control means all the free-dom they want. The lack of experiences that students in these Texas schools receive will put them at a major disadvantage. They’ll face problems for the first time as adults and will have a smaller margin

for error. Trust is also shown in other aspects of

Westside life, such as our computers. We literally have free computers to use for al-most anything we want, yet the Texas stu-dents receive a microchip and a stern look. Trust is simply not a thing in this type of system, which parents and students un-derstandably hate. The opposite side of the spectrum is when students are given trust, and with the ability to leave the school or use technology, they behave and use the trust well.

This shoots down previous thoughts where kids are just kids and need to be

treated as such. Students can take responsibilities and use them for good. Not all teens in this day and age are mischievous; with a little bit of trust, good things can come.

F

PowerGrade

A+

C

Connor FlairtyOpinion Editor

With the two recent security scares, the administration has kept a relatively cool head, and the Lance respects and appreciates that. The people in charge of our school have reacted with speed and precision, making the student body feel safe.

The lack of experiences

that students in these

Texas schools receive

will put them at a major

disadvantage.

Surveillance restricts students

The Social Studies IMC, as many are aware, is often the scene of heated political debates which, while interesting, create an environment that is not conducive to learning. For an IMC that is notorious for asking students to “get out something to work on,” it can be a difficult place to study.

No-Shave November has become a common ritual for male high school students. Growing a full beard can not be done overnight. As a result, the early days of No-Shave-November can be somewhat awkward, with many young men sporting rough, patchy facial hair, like that of a recently dead rat.

Photo illustration by Tom Schueneman

Affirmativeaction leads to equality

Public percep-tion of the govern-ment is largely fixated on the executive branch. Perhaps it’s be-cause the President serves to personify the government more than any other individual, or because of the perception that it’s more important to

vote in national elections than in state elections, but the other two branches tend to be roundly ignored — particularly the judicial branch, despite the fact that it is arguably the most influential in shaping the future of the country. In fact, only a month ago, the Supreme Court heard a case that may concern many high school students a great deal in coming months: Fisher v. University of Texas.

It is the policy of the University of Texas to admit all applicants who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class. This usually accounts for about 75% of the students admitted to the University. The rest are chosen based on a complicated matrix of factors including grades, extracurricular activities, volunteer-ing and most controversially, race. Abigail Fisher, a Texas student who applied to the University in 2008, believes she would have met these qualifications were it not for the University’s preference towards minority students.

This is not the first time affirmative action has caused controversy; indeed, it’s difficult to think a time in the last 50 years in which it hasn’t been the subject of considerable debate.

At the root of this is the conflict between two pil-lars of American society: meritocracy and diversity. These are commonly seen as complementing each other. People have images in their minds of hard working immigrants, coming to America with noth-ing, and making good lives for themselves. But in real-ity the American meritocracy is not an especially di-verse institution.

While it may seem counterintuitive, the real rea-son for this is actually is our collective obsession with diversity. This obsession has gotten to the point where diversity is now encouraged simply for the sake of en-couraging diversity. This nation’s problem is not, and never has been, a lack of diversity. It is, and always has been, a lack of equality.

Too often, unfortunately, our laws and institutions tend to confuse these things, when reality they are quite different. There is nothing in the Constitution concerning diversity, and as a result, affirmative may very well be ruled unconstitutional. But the document concerns itself heavily with equality, and this is what affirmative action should aim to promote.

Opponents of affirmative action often cite equality in their arguments against the practice. However this argument is no more valid than the cries for diversity by affirmative action proponents.

There are two types of equality, in the social sense: equality of opportunity, and equality of outcomes. Opponents of affirmative action are typically con-cerned that it leads to the latter, which they believe undermines the meritocratic values that this country, and indeed Western culture in general, is built on. But this belief only holds up if the ultimate outcome is just a job, or just an education, when in reality, no ad-vantage rendered by affirmative action can guarantee outright the quality of life that is the real desired out-come, at least if one is to go by the so-called American Dream.

In the next four years, many of the students at this school will be put in situations where race could play a role in determing their future. Those who will benefit will not be given a leg up. They will be given an even footing.

Tom SchuenemanOpinion Editor

Sophomore Jared Musser has always dreamed of playing baseball. For about 10 years, he has been put-ting his heart into the game. It seemed only appropri-ate that he would try out and play baseball for the high school, too, but his sophomore year didn’t work out as he hoped it would.

Musser had just begun lifting and hitting in the batting cages for winter baseball conditioning; he hoped to make the team in the spring. However, baseball conditioning had to be put on hold when he suffered from severe back pains. The pain became uncontrollable, eventually it got to a point where the

featureNov. 9, 2012 6

One day, they were sitting in geography class. Eleven plates later, they had traveled the world. This year in Global Geography, the curriculum is being combined with the cuisine in the cafeteria.

“In Geography, we cover different parts of the world, so I thought we could coordinate,” Global Ge-ography instructor Amy Studts said. “There are going to be foods from the different areas we are studying. Our first area that we are studying is Asia, and then for our next region we will be going to the Middle East and Africa.”

The program has been going on for a few weeks now. It has already made its way through Asia, and is now moving into Europe. Countries ranging from Morocco to India have already been represented in the challenge.

“So far we have done things like garlic chicken, teriyaki beef and veggie pakora, which is similar to a tempura, but with chickpea flour,” Executive Chef Sharon Schaefer said. “We did venture off a little bit into creativity, but tried to keep it very familiar to stu-dents also.“

Upcoming cuisines include Greek, Russian and Australian dishes. The culinary staff is also planning to collaborate with people from the countries repre-sented.

“We’ve actually talked to a local restaurant that makes wonderful gyros, and [the owner] is going to be working with us so we can have extremely authen-tic Greek food,” Schaefer said. “That’ll be a fun menu to do.”

Although authenticity is key for Schaefer and the culinary staff, none of the food they plan to serve is too out there, according to Schaefer.

“We always try to stay within the flavor profile that

By Andrew McVeaFEATURE/IN-DEPTH EDITOR

theWORLD

AROUND

in platesappeals to teenagers,” Schaefer said. “There are lots of things that I would be able to make that wouldn’t sell, and part of my job is to not only make the food, but to fit the food with my audience.”

Exposure to new and different cuisines is also an important part of the program. While the cuisines of some nations, like Mexico, China and Italy, are very well-known to students, foods from other parts of the world are not as well-represented in students’ diets. The challenge of finding exotic food to serve is one of the things Schaefer enjoys about the program.

“When you look up Eastern Europe, there’s a lot of small countries that Americans typically don’t think of as food areas,” Schaefer said. “When we got into Eastern Europe, I had to look into things like finger dumplings. I really had to work hard to look up things that would not only be possible for us to make on our budget, but that would be interesting and exciting for the kids to eat.”

Exposing students to new foods is the motivation behind the program, but many students are still un-willing to try new foods, according to Studts. This is one of the reasons she collaborated with Schaefer for the challenge.

“Last year, there was a Lance article about Schae-fer where she was talking about foods and wanting to help students to try and go outside the box as far as tasting different foods,” Studts said. “We thought that this was maybe a way to get people to try new food.”

As extra incentive for the Global Geography stu-dents, there is extra credit on the line. Those who par-ticipate in the program are given a passport, which is stamped after each meal. At the end of the 11 weeks, the students will get a point of extra credit on their final exam for each stamp, and if they receive all 11 stamps, they will receive a free t-shirt. The ultimate reward, though, will be exposure to world culture through food.

11 One Friday The Diner in the cafeteria provided an African meal that in-cluded Moroccan chicken, vegetable couscous salad and a South African Marshmallow Delite. Photo by Estella Fox

STRIKE OUT CANCERStudent diagnosed with Wilms tumor fights back

By Kellie WasikowskiSTAFF WRITER

family could no longer bear it to see Musser in agony. “His back pain had gotten more severe,” Musser’s

mom, Beth Musser, said. “He was taking ibuprofen night and day and had started having trouble sleeping through the night. His doctors and physical therapist said that it was a muscle pull and he needed rest and back strengthening exercises for it. But that morning he woke me up at about 5 a.m. [...] Immediately I be-gan praying. This was no muscular issue.”

“It was January 26th,” Musser said. “I went to the doctor and they took a bunch of scans because my left side was bloated. Before the scans the doctor told me, ‘You’ll probably be playing video games at home this afternoon.’ After the scans came back, they pulled us out into the ER and showed us this big mass where my

left kidney should have been. He said it was cancer. I thought it was a dream.”

Musser’s aunt, special education instructor Vicki Dorris, remembers the family’s first feelings when Musser was diagnosed.

“Our initial reaction was that we didn’t even say the ‘C’ word,” Dorris said. “We just called it a tumor. It’s really hard for everyone, and it’s really scary because it’s the unknown.”

Beth Musser also remembers there were initial fears that came with the diagnosis, but right away they Mussers decided to attack the cancer head on as a family.

“Jared, Ken (Jared’s dad), and myself became teary continued on page 7

3 to 4: average age of children who are diagnosed with Wilms tumor

1 in 200,000 chil-dren is diagnosed with Wilms tumor each year in the Unites States

Wilms is more common among siblings and twins, which suggests a possible genetic cause

TheFacts

Geography class explores ethnic cuisines

Footballl is a sport both violently beautiful and in-herently dangerous. Even when played correctly, with proper technique, injuries are bound to occur, a neces-sary symptom of the power of 200-pound specimens caroming full-force around the field.

The most common and most scrutinized football-related injuries are concussions. Once dismissed with such euphemisms as, “getting your bell rung,” or “see-ing stars,” new studies and troubling events have pro-voked a wave of concern.

According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly 67,000 high school football players suffer concussions every year. A single concussion is not likely to have any long-term damage, but repeated trauma to the head can be devastating.

Nearly 70% of players surveyed in a sportingnews.com poll live in fear of losing their minds. While few athletes make it to the NFL, most start playing at a very young age. Younger children are more likely to sustain concussions.

In this football-obsessed culture, coaches and trainers are reassessing Westside’s safety precautions and concussion protocol.

“A concussion is a traumatic brain injury where the head hits an object, or an object strikes the head,” neu-rologist and Westside parent Harris Frankel said.

Because of either rapid acceleration or decelera-tion the brain may strike either the front or back of the skull, resulting in a concussion. These concussions are known as coup and countercoup respectively. A person can also sustain a concussion through violent twisting of the head, a rotational concussion.

Concussions are classified as minor traumatic brain injuries. While concussions may result in some bruising of the brain, the physical damage of a single concussion will never show up on a CAT scan or MRI and most people who suffer one concussion make full physical recoveries.

Concussions are therefore primarily cognitive and emotional injuries. Amnesia, lack of concentration, irritability, headaches and emotional instability are all symptomatic of concussions, although the duration and specific set of symptoms experienced varies from person to person.

“Concussions are a very individualistic injury,” athletic trainer Shawn Campbell said. “Everybody re-sponds differently.”

Though there are no conclusive studies yet, adoles-cents consistently take longer to recover from concus-sions and are more susceptible to concussions than adults.

“One could hypothesize that as we develop and grow, there are still some maturation processes in the brain that take longer to recover,” Frankel said.

The frontal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for processing short-term memory, undergoes a large growth spurt during adolescence and is particularly vulnerable.

Campbell cannot give the specific number of con-cussions he has dealt with this year during football season. He says he has treated a lot of concussions over the years, but does not believe the incidence rate is rising.

“The increase can be justified by the fact that more people are aware of what constitutes a concussion,” Campbell said. “People are also more likely to report their symptoms instead of just shrugging them off. I don’t think we’ve seen an increase in severity, but we are more cautious about returning them to activity.”

July 1, 2012, LB 260, the Concussion Awareness Act was signed into law. The law holds high school coach-es, players and parents accountable for dealing with concussions safely.

LB 260 mandates all coaches, parents and stu-dent athletes be educated about the associated risks and dangers of concussions. It prohibits athletes from playing with concussions and demands coaches take athletes out of play if they suspect a concussion.

Finally, the law prohibits athletes from returning to play until cleared by a doctor and guardian.

“It [LB 260] holds people accountable to protect student athletes,” Frankel said. “For too many years, at every level of competition across all sports, the men-tality has been to get the athlete back in the game to win. Their safety is not thought about and this holds people accountable.”

Westside complies with LB 260 and has an addi-tional protocol for integrating players who have sus-tained concussions safely back into their sports.

At the beginning of the season, all athletes in con-tact sports take psychocognitive tests with a program called ImPACT. The ImPACT test asks a series of ques-tions, which target verbal recall, spatial recall, reaction time and impulse control.

The assessment establishes a cognitive baseline for each athlete, measuring the level at which his or her brain should normally function.

When athletes sustain concussions, they take the ImPACT test again. Since the cognitive symptoms of a concussion often include trouble concentrating, im-paired memory and difficulty focusing, the ImPACT test can measure the severity of the concussion by de-creases in test score.

“It’s not like a scrape or a bruise or a sprain where you can see symptoms like swelling and bleeding,” Campbell said. “There are no physical symptoms so you have to use test scores to gauge recovery.”

The tool is sensitive enough to track the cognitive recovery from a concussion with surprising precision. Once the athlete has returned to his baseline, he is cleared to practice again.

Campbell has had athletes who he thought sus-tained concussions perform normally on the ImPACT test and others take the test for a month before return-ing back to the baseline. This reinforces the under-standing that concussions are individualistic injuries with many possible and varied consequences.

In Campbell’s experience as a trainer, avoiding stimulation like texting, TV and video games expe-dites recovery time.

“Concussions scramble all the brain’s processing,” Campbell said. “The brain is trying to untangle all this auditory, sensory, and cognitive input, so that’s why it needs to recover without excessive stimulation.”

The first day back for most athletes includes light jogging and bicycle work. If no complications arise, then on day two the player can do some skill work. By day three the athlete is finally allowed to practice again with full contact.

Frankel says there is anecdotal evidence an athlete is more likely to sustain a subsequent concussion after already having one.

Campbell concurs and believes the best way to pre-vent kids from having repeat concussions is through coaching proper technique. He says he has seen the coaching philosophy and emphasis change during his time at Westside.

Coaches instruct players to lead more with their shoulders now and use their lower bodies to drive through tackles. Players are still rewarded for big hits but only those executed with proper technique.

Campbell and Frankel have a combined 38 years dealing with concussions. They know the dangers of concussions and still condone and support football.

“I don’t foresee us getting rid of football,” Camp-bell said. “There are too many positive aspects to get rid of it.”

By Joe HackEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Five: The number of concussions sustained during a pee wee football game in Massa-chusetts on Sept. 15. Neither the refer-ees nor the coaches intervened in this blowout, although it should heve been stopped according to pee wee rules.

67,000: The number of high school football players who suffer concus-sions each year.

LB 260: A law passed this year that mandates all coaches, players and parents be educated about the risks of concussions. The law also prohibits players from re-turning to activity for at least a day after sustaining their concussions.

25: The age at which the frontal lobe finishes develop-ing. Developing brains are often more susceptible to concussions and take longer to recover, although the longterm effects of concussions sustained in adoles-cence are unknown. Most concussions result in bruising of the frontal lobe and can result in short-term memory loss.

TheFacts

concussionsHEAD ON

School works to minimize risk

in-depthNov. 9, 2012 2

When people picture concussions, they typically think of a fast-paced head-to-head collision. When a lacrosse goalie visualizes a concussion, he thinks of a ball flying at his head at 90 miles per

hour. Junior Darren McGuire has gotten three concussions from lacrosse. Although McGuire’s

concussions weren’t forceful person-on-person collisions, they were just as dangerous.“I play goalie, so I take shots to the face a bunch,” McGuire said. “When I got to fresh-

man year, I would be taking 90-mile-per-hour shots off of my face mask.”McGuire’s most recent concussion was Saturday, Oct. 20, at a lacrosse tournament.“On Saturday what happened was the kid was standing three yards from me,”

McGuire said. “It hit off my head and I just kind of looked around for a while like, ‘Where’d the ball go?’ I kind of just lost focus. I was kind of disoriented for a while, too.”

McGuire’s disorientation caused him to be confused by a normal signal from the referee.

“The ball went out so he said, ‘Keeper ball right,’ which is what they usually say just to let me know where the ball is,” McGuire said. “I was like ‘What?’ just kind of weirded out. I was just confused for the rest of the game, and just off-balance, I guess.”

This concussion was fairly minor compared to a concussion McGuire suffered as a freshman. With his most recent concussion he had a headache for three days. As a freshman he suffered from a concussion for two weeks.

With both head injuries McGuire had problems in school. He had trouble con-centrating during class because of the pain brought on by the concussions.

“The hardest thing to do is to focus,” McGuire said. “You’ll just think about your headache, and then, ‘Oh wow, it hurts,’ and then you’ll just kind of forget what’s go-ing on. Then 10 minutes later you’re called on in class and you’re like, ‘what?’”

On the field, McGuire has faced some trouble coming back from his injury, but has ultimately gotten back into the game easily.

“It really doesn’t make me timid, necessarily, because when I’m playing goalie, and that’s really the only time I’ll be hit, I’m not really thinking about it as much,”

McGuire said. “Say I go out and try to run up the field with the ball. I don’t want to get hit in the head and get a concussion from that. So I guess you are a little more aware of

it and you are a little more worried about it.”Even though McGuire has gone through a few concussions from lacrosse, he thinks

lacrosse is a safe sport and only in rare circumstances causes concussions.

If you ask someone what the most important part of the body is in soccer, most will immediately gravi-tate towards the feet. It is a reasonable answer.

One dribbles, shoots and runs with the feet, but ask a coach the same question and you will hear that the brain is the most important body part in soccer. This organ, though, is vulnerable.

Junior Cheyenne Janicek, who was a member of the JV soccer team last year, has experienced this first-hand after suffering two concussions last season.

“I got [the concussions] both during the same prac-tice and they were both during down time,” Janicek said. “I wasn’t paying attention to where the ball was and they both hit me in the head really hard.”

Concussions in soccer, while not as common as in other sports, have recently been gaining a large amount of attention. Soccer coach Nathan Moseley has seen a rise in education and precautionary mea-sures regarding concussions within the few years he has been coaching.

“Up until a few years ago you didn’t know if a player had a concussion unless it was really obvious,” Mose-ley said. “Maybe five years ago when I was coaching, someone might have gotten a concussion, but you couldn’t really tell and nothing really would have hap-pened.”

Janicek’s concussions occurred when she was hit in the back of the head with a ball. The most common soccer concussions, according to Moseley, occur dur-ing collisions between two people.

“[Concussions don’t] happen obviously as often as in football, but soccer is a contact sport,” Moseley said. “Probably the [most common time] is during head-ing situations. Not usually from heading the ball, but

when you have more than one player going up to head the ball, sometimes there [are] head-to-head collisions.”

Often, the only way to heal from a concussion is through extended rest. This often means players have to miss time with the team.

“Players sit out until they are cleared to play,” Mose-ley said. “That could be a practice, that could be a game or it could be a whole month. It depends on how they recover. They take a baseline test at the beginning of the season and then they have to pass that same test before they’re allowed to play again.”

The baseline test is a test that measures brain func-tion in areas such as balance, memory and concentra-tion. When an athlete is suspected of having a concus-sion, his or her test results from the beginning of the season are compared to current results on the test. An athlete who has sustained a concussion usually scores significantly lower in all categories.

These tests are especially important when the effects of a concussion are subtle. For Janicek, though, the feel-ing of her injury was anything but subtle.

“Right after I got hit I was really dizzy and nauseous, and I couldn’t walk in a straight line,” Janicek said. “Be-cause of those concussions, I had to sit out the rest of the season and the first half of my off-season. I now have to go to a neurologist because I have a little bit of long-term damage, so it has affected my overall life after it happened.”

Despite the lingering effects of her concussions, Janicek is still playing soccer. However, she does have to take some preventative measures to make sure she does not aggravate her injury or hurt herself anew.

“I just have to take it easier and I have to wear a [pro-tective] headband when I play,” Janicek said. “If I start feeling dizzy or anything like that, I have to tell my coaches and I have to stop playing for two weeks just to make sure that I’m all right.”

By Andrew McVeaFEATURE EDITOR

By Aren RendellSPORTS EDITOR

SOCCERHeaders take their toll

Lacrosse players take hard hits too

a stunning, damaging, or shattering ef-fect from a hard blow; especially : a jarring injury of the brain resulting in disturbance of cerebral function

Photo illustr

ation by Sophie G

oldberg

in-depth Nov. 9, 2012 3

Football fans expect to see big hits. Often, they rev-el in big hits. Rowdy fans repeatedly watch two play-ers smash heads, with no more than a cringe. Fans are unfazed by the hits, but players are faced with devas-tating effects.

Westside football players have not always escaped violent hits without painful results. Players who have had concussions have similar stories about the imme-diate reactions to effects of being concussed.

“As soon as I got hit it was almost like you could just tell that something was wrong,” said sophomore Aus-tin Boltin, who had two concussions this season. “You got a headache right away and you were really dizzy and you couldn’t walk straight at all.”

Senior Craig Timmons had a similar reaction to his concussion.

“I didn’t necessarily think I had a concussion, but I knew something was wrong because I just didn’t feel right,” senior Craig Timmons said. “I had a headache right after.”

Although the players immediately knew some-thing was wrong, they didn’t know the severity of their injury.

“There’s times in football when you get it in the head and it hurts, but it goes away,” Timmons said. “This was one of those times that it didn’t, even through the

night. That’s when I went to the emergency room to get checked out.”

Along with headaches, the players experienced other symptoms that complicated their lives.

“[I had] just a constant headache, dizziness, fa-tigue,” Boltin said. “You get that throughout, and you get nauseous.”

Medical problems are only part of the difficulties the players faced. Their abilities to focus and do well were also impacted.

“I wasn’t processing as well as I should have been,” Timmons said. “At the beginning of school that’s one of the things you need to have, because that’s when you’re learning all of your new stuff. I’m still feeling the repercussions of it because I’ve missed sort of the basic learning and I didn’t become fully functional un-til later when we were getting into some of the more advanced stuff, so I had to learn the more advanced stuff from a beginner’s standpoint.”

Boltin faced similar troubles in school. Some of his teachers tried to work with him, but he doesn’t see how teachers can help a student with a concussion.

“You just can’t focus,” Boltin said. “When it comes to tests you are just not there all the way, and trying to study for it you just can’t remember anything. Some of the teachers are [lenient]. Some of them tried to help, tried to maybe give me an extra chance on something,

but there’s just not much they can do.” Even after their concussion symp-

toms had passed, Boltin and Tim-mons faced still another struggle; getting back into the game and feeling comfortable with hitting and taking hits.

“The hardest part about it [com-ing back] was trying to get confi-

dence to hit again,” Boltin said. “Football is a contact sport.”

By Aren RendellSPORTS EDITOR

Seeing starsFootball players most at risk

a stunning, damaging, or shattering ef-fect from a hard blow; especially : a jarring injury of the brain resulting in disturbance of cerebral function

Phot

o illu

strat

ion by

Soph

ie Gold

berg

in-depthNov. 9, 2012 4

What I remember is a huge impact on the side of my head. The lights dimmed and I was spun around on the ice. Then an incessant ringing filled my ears.

I have played hockey my whole life — since I could walk, I could skate. I was always an aggressive player (starting little fights, unnecessarily hitting kids, and the like) but when I switched to goalie I found I could only channel my aggressive play into very few mo-ments in a game, due to my limited mobility. So when the chance came, I went all out.

I would like to interject here that I had not yet learned to keep my aggressiveness in check.

The play resulting in the above description was about three months into my freshman season. If my memory serves me correctly, it was in the second pe-riod of the game when a loose puck popped out about 25 feet in front of me, and I moved to clear it with a “poke check”, a move where the goalie dives headfirst, with the stick extended, in an attempt to disrupt a play (or in my case, prevent it from happening.) In the midst of this play (and for the life of me I couldn’t tell you the specifics) an opposing player skated in from my left, and swung his leg into my head.

Had I not been wearing a helmet and mouthguard at the time (and I don’t normally wear a mouth guard), I’m sure my injury would have been much more se-vere. Even so, it was bad enough.

Here is where I made an egregious mistake that could have been tremendously harmful to my well-being. Being the tough guy I thought I was, I told the

Sophomore Austin Boltin’s mom, Kristy Boltin helped her son recover from one concussion at the be-ginning of the year, and with the assistance of the ath-letic trainers, she was able to confidently let Austin get back on the football field once he had recovered. But on his first day back at practice, he was hit again by another player and suffered yet another concussion.

Although Kristy felt less scared about the concus-sion when it happened the second time, she still felt nervous about the risks concussions entail.

“I was pretty freaked out,” Boltin said. “It’s different when it’s your own child. You don’t want them to be in pain and there is nothing you can do about it.”

Despite Kristy’s concern for her son, she knew Aus-tin was in good hands for treatment.

“I didn’t know if I should take him in to the ER, but the staff at Westside was great,” Boltin said. “Shawn Campbell is an amazing trainer, I love the way the Westside staff handles injuries. They do not take any chances, and that’s how it should be. You can’t be too careful when it comes to the safety of children, espe-cially when it involves the head.”

Boltin is a certified nurse, which requires her to be well educated about concussions. Despite her confi-dence in the Westside trainers when it comes to seri-ous injuries like concussions, Boltin sees why parents get worried.

“Parents do everything they can to protect their children,” Boltin said. “When they get hurt, parents want to take that pain away. Kids are very resilient, though, and bounce back very quick.”

Senior Craig Timmons also suffered from a con-cussion during the football season this year. His mom, Judy Timmons, is a pediatric nurse at Children’s Hospital, and she was very concerned for her son.

“Craig didn’t tell me he got hit in the head at first, but he had a hard time giving me the details of what had happened at football practice and said he didn’t feel good,” Judy said. “When I heard he had a concus-sion, I was kind of worried, as he had one pupil bigger than the other. I knew this was a sign of some swelling in his brain and this concerned me.”

Craig Timmons also noticed his mom’s extra con-

cern for him the night that he got hit. “I was sitting on my couch and my mom came in

and tried to talk to me about my day,” Timmons said. “She noticed something was a little bit off. I told her about the hit, and she was the one that said ‘hey, we need to get you in tonight.’ My dad and I were more like ‘Oh, maybe we’ll see tomorrow, if its really bad to-morrow maybe we should go in.’ My dad and I were more on the side of thinking that maybe the pain will still go away and it won’t be that big of a deal.”

Still, Judy thinks the football program does a good job of educating parents about the risks of playing sports and what the high school does to take care of injuries.

“The school sent information home about concus-sions before the football season started,” Judy said. “The football coaches and the trainer were fabulous resources for us too, and very careful with him.”

Judy also thinks head injuries should be ap-proached with many precautions because the effects of injuries can last for a long time.

It’s not worth risking your future,” Judy said. “I think concussions should be taken more seriously, and we’re starting to see that now. There’s been more research about the recovery time needed and what works and what doesn’t.”

Craig thinks the athletic trainers take a serious ap-proach to concussions, and the trainers are sensible when it comes to taking care of players with concus-sion.

“When I first got back to school I took the concus-sion impact test with the athletic trainers,” Craig said. “That’s where they assess where you are at as far as what the concussion did to you. Once you get back up to your baseline, that’s when you get to start practicing again; going through the process of helmet, helmet and shoulder pads, and then full uniform.”

Boltin and Timmons agree concussions are a seri-ous issue, but parents shouldn’t keep their children from playing just because of the risk.

“I had a mother of another football player who was injured recently ask if I am okay with Austin playing sports, because he also broke his ankle at the first foot-ball game last year,” Boltin said. “My answer is yes. It’s his passion. I can’t take that away from him because I am afraid he will get hurt.”

PARENTSGuardians weigh in on concussions

By Kellie WasikowskiSTAFF WRITER

By Zane FletcherMANAGING EDITOR

A week of fog and pain

Yes, at that age kids do not know what sport they want to play.NICK GROSSfreshman

Do you think football should be banned for kids

before high school?

It’s the kids’ choice. If they want to do something, they should.LUISANA CONTRERASsophomore

I think it should. Kids could hurt their development.ALLY GUENETTEsophomore

I don’t think it should, but hel-mets should be updated. JULIANN HELLMANsophomore

I feel like it is okay as long as they take proper pre-cautions.LAUREN GOHRsenior

It should, and other sports should be played. LI-DUNN CHENsenior

No, but equipment should be updat-ed.MITCH BOLLIGsenior

Yes, I do. They need to take the neces-sary precautions when they’re young. PATRICK COYLEsenior

No, it shouldn’t. It gets kids interactive and teaches team-work. KELLY HEFLIN student teacher

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coaches and referees clustered around me I was fine and could finish the game.

When I got back to the locker room afterwards, my eyes’ increased sensitivity to light and the power-ful ringing in my ears proved too much, and I sat on a bench for what must have been close to an hour before my dad (who was, and still is, my coach) entered and I was able to tell him what was going on.

After a late-night telephone call was placed to a brain surgeon friend of my family, and I described my symptoms to him, I was told I had a concussion. My mother was instructed to periodically wake me up throughout the night to ascertain I was still alive, and annoyingly (though thankfully) she did so.

The next week passed in a blur of attempting to go to school, hearing a ceaseless ringing in my ears, and taking codeine-coated Tylenol pills.

As a formerly concussed man, I’m writing to high-light not only the ill effects and discomfort that ac-company concussions, but also the tremendously negative impact it has on the brain. It is vitally impor-tant that all safety equipment is worn, and worn prop-erly, as this can sometimes prevent concussions from happening. Research looking into the causes of these injuries needs to be continued, and preventative mea-sures need to be enacted. Professional and collegiate sports leagues have already begun putting rules in place regarding concussions, and these have led to the current movement towards protecting players’ safety. This is the right direction for sports to be moving in, and while these reforms may not completely eradicate the possibility of concussions, they certainly are help-ing to eliminate the possibility of more severe injuries.

feature Nov. 9, 2012 7

CANCER: student fights illness with family

Sophomore Jared Musser poses for a picture by the football field. Musser is finish-ing up his chemo-therapy treatment at Children’s Hospital during the month of November. Photo by Estella Fox

ey raised at the event will go towards medical expenses for Jared. The biggest fundraiser is still to come.

Sunday, Nov. 18, a spaghetti dinner will be held at Westside High School to raise money to pay for medi-cal bills that the family has. Musser’s older brother Josh and his aunt Vicki, as well as many other people and organizations, are planning the event.

The event will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and will include dinner, raffles, entertainment and a silent auction. Donations to pay for medical bills will also be accepted by the family.

Even though going through cancer will change him forever, the dreams he had before cancer still remain in sight for him.

“I just have a few more scans, and hopefully those go well; they’ve been good so far. I will definitely be playing baseball this spring,” Musser said with a smile.

continued from page 6eyed at the thought of this wonderful teenage boy and what he was facing,” Mrs. Musser said. “But my mom instinct kicked in soon after, and we were going to face this head on and be Jared’s pillar of strength. I vowed to him that day he would never once be alone in his fight. His dad and I would be there every second and every step of the way.”

Right after the tumor was found, Musser began chemotherapy treatment at Children’s Hospital.

“The next day after I was diagnosed I had a port put in,” Musser said. “The port is what the chemo runs through—it’s a line that’s threaded to my heart. I also had a biopsy on my kidney; at first they didn’t get enough of the tumor, so they had to cut it open again to get more. Six weeks after my biopsies, I had my big surgery where they actually removed the tumor and my left kidney. The tumor was five pounds and the size of a football.”

According to the FHCRC, most children are diag-nosed with Wilms tumor before age 5, but Musser was 14 when his tumor was removed. Because he was so much older than the average age of his diagnosis, his tumor was significantly larger.

Musser’s diagnosis forced his family to adjust to a new way of life.

“After chemo I get hooked up to fluids in my port to ease the pain,” Musser said. “My mom helps me with that. I also have to get shots that help my immune sys-tem; she had to learn how to give me shots too.”

Musser spent many weeks in and out of the hospital after his diagnosis, receiving radiation treatment and chemotherapy.

“I had two different kinds of chemo treatments, one that takes two days and one that takes five days,” Muss-er said. “The five day treatments only kind of affected me; they made me a little bit sick but didn’t really do

a whole lot. The two-day treatments made me really sick because they had a stronger drug, which is why I didn’t go to school, because they made me feel really nauseous.”

Because his treatments happened so often and con-stantly left him exhausted, Musser missed the whole second semester of school last year.

“I made up my classes over the summer when my chemo treatments weren’t as rough,” Musser said. “Now I only have one more class, biology, that I’m probably going to make up next summer.”

Although the diagnosis of Wilms tumor was not a positive experience for Musser, his family has help ed him get overcome it.

“I have been blessed with so many great family members who have always been there for me,” Musser said. “I’m definitely fortunate and thankful to be alive.”

When the summer ended, Musser was far enough in his treatments that he was able to begin his sopho-more year by going to school, even though his school weeks are still different than most students’ weeks.

“I stay home a couple days a week sometimes,” Musser said. “Just because my energy level is so low and I don’t feel good. It’s a lot better to be at school, though, because I spent six months at home just do-ing nothing.”

Within the past year the Musser family has had to deal with many financial obstacles, even though they are not prepared to take them all on. The Westside community and other communities are helping out. Musser’s Fundraisers are being held to help pay for Jared’s treatment.

The baseball team is donating a portion of the prof-its they get from selling the holiday wreaths to Jared and the Musser family.

Sunday, Nov. 4, a pancake breakfast was held at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Council Bluffs, all the mon-

featureNov. 9, 2012 8

CBL 5K raises awareness, funds for refugees

Mosier receives Teacher of the Year awardgest goal is for them to be successful. “Mrs. Mosier always comes to class ready to teach and makes learning fun,” Fajardo said. “She never seems to have a bad day.”

Mosier describes her teaching as open-minded. She said she’s not afraid to try new teaching methods that might benefit students. “I try to work as hard as I possibly can,” Mosier said. “I don’t settle for the bare minimum. I’m constantly looking for ways to improve things, even if it’s a simple lesson. If I think a lesson went pretty well, I still want to try to improve it.” Not only did Mosier receive a trophy, but also a schedule of events to attend this coming year. In April she will meet the President of the United States. She will also attend the International Space Camp, travel to Scottsdale, Arizona for a conference, and visit the campus of Princeton for conferences and work. Mosi-er is looking forward to these events. “It’s a huge reward to get to have those experiences and meet those people,” Mosier said. Previous Teacher of the Year winners from West-side includes science instructor Brenda Zabel in 2005 and science instructor Mike Fryda in 2010. Fryda said the award challenges teachers to become even better and take leadership roles in their schools. He said he learned a lot during the program, through traveling and meeting other teachers. Fryda said Mosier has

In the world of education, an apple symbolizes a student’s appreciation for a teacher. A golden apple sits on math instructor Angela Mosier’s desk. Mosier was awarded 2013 Nebraska Teacher of the Year Oct. 15. She was teaching an advanced algebra class when Nebraska Educational Commissioner Roger Breed, along with a camera crew, came into her classroom and presented her with an award. “I was shocked,” Mosier said. “It’s a very humbling thing, because there’s a lot of tremendous teachers out there, especially in this building.” Mosier was not only shocked by the award, but also by the many congratulations she received from stu-dents and teachers. Mosier said her e-mail was flood-ed with messages from teachers. She also received nu-merous compliments and cards from students. One student even brought her flowers. “When I walked into the math IMC after I was awarded, everyone gave me a round of applause,” Mosier said. “It almost made me cry.” Senior Trevor Fajardo has been a student of Mosier’s in middle school and high school. He said she knows how to get everyone in the class involved in learning, and has helped him become a better student. Fajardo said she always puts her students first because her big-

By Sophie ClarkSTAFF WRITER

Juniors Augusta Thacker and Maddy Witte sat in on an advanced English as a Second Language class, helping adults who were writing short stories. When one of the men in the class who looked to be about 30 got done writing his story, the teacher gave him a puzzle for him to work on. The man finished his first puzzle ever. It was a map of the United States of Amer-ica, his new home country.

The man was a refugee learning English at the Southern Sudan Community Association (SSCA), an organization that helps refugees resettle in Omaha so they can live comfortably and become accustomed to their new life.

Thacker, Witte and junior Catie Thull began work-ing with the SSCA their sophomore year, when the Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) project was assigned in Honors Literature. Each team, made up of three or four students, had to come up with a problem that af-fects teenagers’ coming of age.

“We had just read the book A Long Way Gone, so we were all thinking about refugees,” Thull said. “One of the requirements for the CBL was to relate it to one of the books we had read during the year, so that was a really easy connection.”

Once teams had picked the problem they wanted to address, they had to do research and try to imple-ment their solution in the community.

“Once we started researching, we found out that there are really only two organizations in Omaha that help refugees,” Thacker said. “When we went to the SSCA we realized that there weren’t any programs for kids our age, that’s how we got to our first solution.” The girls’ first solution was to create a club that joined refugee teens and American teens. The goal of the club was to be able to give refugee teens an op-portunity to befriend other teenagers and feel more comfortable living in the United States.

“There was one lady named Mary who was telling us about how her daughter would come home from school crying because she didn’t really know what was going on at school, and she didn’t feel like she fit in with the other kids,” Thacker said. “That’s kind of how we got to our first solution.”

Each group had about two months to work on the project before presentations began in small groups. Each of the three Honors Literature teachers picked three or four of the best presentations to present in large group. The teams were trying to win the $300 grant that accompanies winning CBL to use in the large-scale implementation of their project. Thacker, Thull, and Witte were the winners overall.

“We were kind of nervous when our names were announced as the winners,” Thacker said. “We thought it would be really difficult to do without Maddy.”

Witte was accepted into a program to study abroad in Germany for her junior year, so Thacker and Thull are the only ones who are currently leading the project.

After the girls were recognized as the winners, the end of the school year fast approached. The girls found their first solution to be difficult as the school year came to an end.

“We were planning on having the club meeting twice a month. An hour before we were supposed to go down there, Amelia (the SSCA’s program director) called us and told us that nobody was going to show up,” Thull said. “Part of the project was to try and im-plement it, but the first time it didn’t really work.”

Thacker and Thull both agreed the club probably failed because all teenagers were on summer break by the time they organized everything.

“We would really like to try the club again,” Thacker said. “It would be really beneficial because they don’t have any programs for teens, so if we helped get one started it would be something else that they could work with in the future.”

Although their first solution didn’t work, the girls didn’t give up, but rather took a different approach to

creating a solution. Thull is a cross-country runner, so they came up with the idea of holding a 5K run to raise awareness about refugees.

“We held a 5K run, so at each kilometer were had signs with facts about refugees and how runners can help and get involved,” Thull said.

Because many refugees live in refugee camps with-out basic day-to-day necessities, it was requested that runners go the last kilometer of the race without their shoes.

The race took place the morning of Nov. 3 at Towl Park.

“The run was very successful,” Thull said. “We had about 35 runners, and we raised about $600 that we’re going to give to the SSCA.”

The girls don’t want to stop there; they have many other ideas to implement their solution in other ways, including a coat and winter clothes drive, because many of the refugees don’t have access to a lot of win-ter clothes. Thull and Thacker also want to make a sec-ond attempt to have the club.

“After reading A Long Way Gone, I noticed how kids and teens in the United States live such sheltered lives compared to kids in other countries,” Thull said. “We often take everything for granted; instead, we should use what we have to help other people.”

impressed him not only in her classroom, but also as a leader of the teachers at Westside. “We’re working hard to transform teacher improve-ment at Westside, and Mrs. Mosier has been zealous in her pursuit in of helping our mission,” Fryda said. “She does all this voluntarily because she cares about what is best for her students.”

Mosier said her advice for future teachers is to nev-er forget the reason they went into teaching. “People become teachers because they love teaching and watching students’ light bulbs go on,” Mosier said. “By keeping that frame of mind, I think teachers will always be pushing themselves to do better for their students.”

By Kellie WasikowskiSTAFF WRITER

Business instructor Sydney Kobza and science instructor Tobin Ehlers cross the finish line at Towl Park Saturday, Nov. 3. They, along with over 30 other people, donated money to the Southern Sudan Community As-sociation to participate in the 5K run. Photo by Estella Fox

Math instructor Angela Mosier holds up her 2013 Nebraska Teacher of the Year award on November 5. Mosier will attend a number of events in the upcoming year, and will meet the President. Photo by Estella Fox

sports Nov. 9, 2012 9

The racket swings back and forth, smoothly and effortlessly, without a noticeable breakdown. Behind that smooth and effortless swing is a boy who has lived a rough, and demanding life, but you would nev-er know from the smile on his face and the way he car-ries on a conversation.

Senior tennis player Trent Gardner has had a high school experience full of change. From changing schools to changing households, Gardner has had a tumultuous life. He started high school as a Warrior, living with his father, getting good grades and playing varsity tennis for Westside. The summer before soph-omore year, things started to go wrong.

“The summer between freshman and sophomore year me and my dad were fighting all the time,” Gard-ner said. “We were already fighting all the time, but it was getting worse. First day of sophomore year I came to Westside, but then we got into a huge fight and I got kicked out of my dad’s house, or he could say I left — I don’t know what really happened.”

Gardner was forced to switch parents, and went to live with his mother in Lincoln. He attended Lin-coln High School, where he played No. 1 singles on the varsity tennis team. With the change in parent and school, Gardner’s life took a turn for the worse.

“I just started to get into trouble sophomore year,” Gardner said. “Just skipping school a lot. And I kind of started to use drugs.”

Skipping school and using drugs got Gardner into trouble with the law. He faced a truancy case as a sophomore. His difficulties continued into his junior year, when he was still playing tennis for Lincoln High School.

“The day before state I got kicked off the team for skipping another class, and I had court,” Gardner said. “All in the same day I got kicked off the team, my girl-friend broke up with me and I was told I had to move back to my dad’s.”

Things continued to get worse before they got bet-ter.

“I came back here and it was a really hard transi-tion because I was fighting with my dad all the time again,” Gardner said. “I was still doing drugs.”

Gardner got two possession charges. He had run away from home four times, but ran away again. After being on the run for two weeks, he decided to turn himself in. Upon turning himself in he was placed on house arrest.

“It gave me a lot of time to think,” Gardner said. “It was kind of depressing because everyone else would be out doing stuff with friends and I knew I could be in a lot different place if I had made better decisions. But, I mean, I didn’t. I made my bed so I had to lay

in it.” Gardner’s private tennis coach, Bill Roach, was

caught in the crossfire of Gardner’s decisions. Roach had been his coach since Gardner was 5. Gardner’s de-cisions impacted Roach.

“It was really tough on me because I felt a little bit like he betrayed his parents, but he also betrayed me,” Roach said. “I trusted him on being a good kid.”

Even through Gardner’s tough times, Roach never stopped believing in him.

“I never gave up on Trent,” Roach said. “I knew deep down he was a good kid. He was very respectful to the adults I was around.”

The change Roach was hoping for finally came about when Gardner’s decision-making matured.

“One day it just happened,” Gardner said. “I was like, ‘You know what? I really want to just show every-body that I can do it and that, even though I’ve made mistakes, I just want to show everybody that I’m Trent Gardner and if I put my mind to it I can do anything.’ I knew it wouldn’t happen overnight, but I just started working hard every single day.”

Gardner was still away from tennis after being kicked off the Lincoln High School team.

“[I was] still not playing tennis just because I didn’t want to betray my team at Lincoln High, since I al-ready got kicked off the team and they were mad at me,” Gardner said. “So I didn’t think I was going to play tennis my senior year.”

Gardner changed his mind with little time left be-fore the beginning of the season.

“With a month left of summer I guess I just had an epiphany and I decided I wanted to play tennis again my senior year,” Gardner said.

Despite his tennis experience, Gardner faced diffi-culties returning to the sport, but he was determined to overcome them.

“With a month left I couldn’t even run a lap around the tennis court because I was so out of shape,” Gard-ner said. “But I decided it was my senior year, and I wanted to make an impact, and I just wanted to prove everybody wrong that ever doubted me. So I just started practicing really hard every day.”

The Westside tennis team benefited from Gardner putting in the work to return to being a varsity ten-nis player. Gardner became the No. 1 singles player at Westside and managed to make it to state as the sev-enth seed.

In the tournament, Gardner upset the No. 2 and No. 3 players to make it to the finals. He lost to the No. 1 seed, but took two games from a player who had not lost a match. His teammates were happy to see him succeed.

“It was truly amazing to see Trent make it to the finals, and I knew he could do it,” senior Michael Mel-len said. “He also played well against the No. 1 seed,

who has not lost, and got two games off him, which is still impressive.”

Roach feels making it to the state finals was much needed encouragement for Gardner.

“I couldn’t possibly be happier to see those West-side Kids surrounding Trent, and congratulating him,” Roach said. “He needed that boost.”

Gardner was proud of reaching his goal, and happy to see his hard work come to fruition.

“As soon as it [making it to the finals] happened I was just like, ‘I can’t believe I did it,” Gardner said. “My goal was to make it to the state finals, and I can’t believe I actually did it.”

Gardner’s turnaround has changed his relation-ship with his father and improved his life.

“My dad and I used to fight all the time, and now he tells me how proud of me he is, and that just means a lot,” Gardner said. “I could go back to doing the same things that I did before now that I’m out of trouble, but I’ve come so far. I’m happier now than I ever was, so I might as well just keep doing what I’m doing.”

By Aren Rendell SPORTS EDITOR

TRENT GARDNERSenior turns life around, makes state finals

Senior Trent Gardner polishes his backhand swing on the Westside High School tennis courts after school Oct. 23. After months of practice, seventh-seeded Gardner placed second at state, upsetting the No. 2 and 3 seeds in the state. Coach Kim Gradoville announced on Nov. 6 that Gard-ner was selected to the 2012 All-State Boys Tennis Team by the Class A tennis coaches. Photo by Estella Fox

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Cross-Country

Volleyball

Senior Andrew McVea qualified for state individu-ally for the boys team, placing eighth at districts. McVea also placed 24th at state, running a 16:52 5K. The girls team qualified for state, placing third at districts. Senior Molly Novoa placed third and ju-nior Catie Thull placed fifth. In the state meet No-voa placed 16th and Thull placed 22nd, leading the team to an eighth place finish.

The boys tennis team finished fourth in state. Se-nior Trent Gardner placed second at No. 1 singles, despite being seeded seventh in the state. Sopho-more Sean Padios was seeded fifth at No. 2 singles and placed third. Seniors Michael Mellen and Noah Placzek were seeded fifth at No. 1 doubles and placed fourth.

The volleyball team went 1-2 in the Metro tourna-ment.The team then went 1-1 in the district tourna-ment. They beat Central in three sets in their first game, but lost to Millard West in three sets in the district final.

Boys Tennis

SCOREBOARD FOOTBALLExciting season comes to disappointing end

Westside at Prep, L 35-30Twitter wars were rampant in the week lead-

ing up to this heated rivalry game. The hashtag #thingsbetterthanprep, was a favorite for many Westside Twitter users trying to out-duel their Prep

counterparts. Westside may have been better than Prep, but the out-come of the game did not reflect this. The Warriors jumped out to an early 14-0 lead, but Prep came back with 14 unanswered points to even up the score. Prep eventually went up 35-24. Westside scored a touchdown, but failed the two-point conversion. With the score at 35-30 the Warriors drove down the field, but a fumble with 22 sec-onds left sealed the victory for Creighton Prep, putting Westside at 1-1 on the season. Junior running back Lane Yates had a big game, rushing for 203 yards and a score on 23 carries.

Westside vs. Millard South, W 42-25The Warriors came into a big game against the

No. 2 Millard South Patriots ranked eighth. West-side went up 28-0 before the Patriots found life and put the score at 28-7. The Warriors matched the

Patriots’ first and second touchdowns, while blocking one of the Pa-triot’s extra point kicks to go up by 29 heading into the fourth quar-ter. The Patriots’ managed to score 12 points in the fourth period, but Westside held on to win 42-25. Yates was phenomenal once again, rushing for 220 yards and two scores on 31 carries. Yates also returned a kickoff for a touchdown, going 98 yards for the score.

Westside vs. Millard North, L 34-10Having already faced then No. 2 Millard South

Westside met an even greater challenge in the un-defeated and top-ranked Millard North Mustangs. The teams took a scoreless game into the second

quarter. The Warriors nearly took the lead in the second quarter on a 79-yard punt return by junior Jamaal Conway-Smith, but it was called back because of a clipping penalty. The Mustangs proceeded to put Westside into a big hole, scoring 21 unanswered points. The Warriors never found their footing, and went on to lose 34-10, mak-ing their record 6-2. Millard North out-rushed Westside by a factor of ten, with 472 yards on 60 carries.

Westside at Burke, L 35-18Westside entered the playoffs ranked fifth in the

state. On the opening drive Burke marched down the field to go up 7-0. Burke scored again before se-nior quarterback Jacob Koester cut the deficit on a

nine-yard run and finally put Westside on the board. Burke scored another touchdown before half, sending the Warriors to the locker room down 21-7. Burke stretched the lead to 28-7 in the third quar-ter and then 35-7 early in the fourth quarter. Westside scored two touchdowns, converting neither of the extra points, a blocked extra point kick and a failed two-point conversion, to put the score at 35-18, the game’s final result. The loss ended the Warriors season with a record of 7-3.

The team’s goal going into the season was to play in 11 or more games. Although the team did not reach its goal, the team still had a strong season. With the help of the no-huddle offense implemented over the summer, the team’s offense scored 30 or more points in seven of the ten games. The defense flexed its muscles as well, holding five of their ten opponents to under 20 points.

This year, we were fortunate enough to cheer on one of the better Westside football teams in recent history. The team experienced many highs, from Lane Yates’s eye-popping rushing numbers to the team being ranked as high as fourth in the state. Unfortunately, the team ended on a low. Here are some of the highlights of the season.

Who is the next Dylan?

arts & entertainment Nov. 9, 2012 11

Bob DylanAging musician’s lyrics still amaze, but ‘Tempest’ fails

Let me preface this with a declaration of my un-dying love for Bob Dylan. The man is a prophet for the new life of folk. Dylan is one of the most lyrically gifted musicians of the past 40 years.

Being held to such a high standard must be a ter-rible curse to such a highly criticized man. Bob Dylan’s ego is as ragged as they come. After the initial popu-larity of his 1962 self-titled album, Bob Dylan, Dylan released his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home, in 1965. After performing a number of “electric rock” songs at the Newport Folk Festival, he was rejected for his new sound, and was booed until he continued the set acoustically.

In 2012, Dylan is yet again introducing a new sound, a gritty, dirty, clever noise. This new sound is amplified to perfection in The Tempest, Dylan’s new-est and possibly final album.

It tastes, it smells, it reads like a Bob Dylan al-bum, but it simply is not. As much as it pains me to say this, it’s the truth. It’s simply not a good Dylan al-bum. At first listen, I thought it was some profound new masterpiece by Tom Waits. It doesn’t contain a single Dylan note. Lyrically speaking, it’s the most poetic and wordy album of the 71-year-old’s career. “Pay In Blood” is probably the most lyrical Dylan song I’ve heard, containing eloquent lines such as “I’m drenched in the light that shines from the sun/I could stone you to death for the wrongs that you’ve done.”

The Tempest contains come clear-cut story lines in each song, and ends with a John Lennon tribute, with “Roll On John.” Though each song contains a cer-tain “theme” like most folk and Dylan’s previous work does, all songs are vastly different, yet somehow still

connected. From broken relationships to cowboy days, to death and finally an end, they all reveal something to the listener about life. This album says more about the truths of being than any other has this year.

The waning of Dylan’s instrumental creativity is due to his increasingly painful arthritis. Dylan rarely plays guitar live, due to the affliction. His working band’s gui-tarists are Charlie Sexton and Stu Kimball. Sexton has had a complete solo career, namely his 1985 hit, “Beat’s So Lonely,” which comes off as a cross between David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen. Kimball has a solo re-cord out that is a ‘90s college rock and country mash-up. Kimball has also worked with Peter Wolf and Carly Simon. The vastly different artists coming together for this monumental album may not have been the best idea.

The Tempest is been widely speculated to be Dylan’s final musical endeavor. The title may be giving a sly nod to the title of Shakespeare’s final play of the same name. The title track recounts the story of the Titanic tragedy, perhaps talking about another end to an existence. The song is as unconventional as they come. With fifty vers-es and no chorus, Dylan is breaking all the rules with this 13-minute and 54-second song.

Dylan is, and always will be, a talented artist. The thing about musicians is that we never look at them as humans. They always seem to be immortal in our eyes, as their tunes are.

Bob Dylan is an old man now. That doesn’t make him any less of a musician; it just means he’s played the same style of songs for 35 albums. Maybe he wants to change it. Though I may not like how the Tempest sounds, the messages within the words are still great. Dylan has a mind that’s still sharp as a tack. He’s telling stories as well, if not better, than he did when he started 50 years ago.

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The Omaha World-Herald’s Go section printed a story Nov. 1, with a front page posing the question, “Who Will Be The Next Dylan?” The query was later answered on page nine, boldly stating that the next Dylan was Conor Oberst. Finishing the article, the author egged the reader on to disagree, and to “make your case” on Omaha.com.

Conor Oberst is a talented musician. That’s not the topic at hand. The point is that he is not Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is the only Bob Dylan. Why is there ever a question of ‘who is the next…?” It’s an over-asked, unnecessary query. There doesn’t need to be the “next” whoever. Generation X is almost always trying to emulate someone or something else, and meagerly recycling an idea.

Conor Oberst is not a counter-culturist. He has appeasing and poetic lyrics. He has a different but appealing voice. Bob Dylan is an entirely different artist. Bob Dylan is the only Bob Dylan there is now, and will ever be.

It’s all right to compare styles and characteristics of an artist to another. What must be understood, however, is that there is a difference between emulation and admiration. Conor Oberst is a good indie artist. Bob Dylan is an amazing folk icon. They may have similar career paths, but are not nearly the same artist.

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arts & entertainmentNov. 9, 2012 12

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Approximately3,000highschoolmusicians inthestateauditionedfortheNebraskaAll-StateBand,Chorus,JazzBandandOrchestra.MakingAll-Stateisoneofthemostpres-tigiousmusicalhonorsinNebraska.All-StateChoirauditionswereheldatOmahaNorthwestHighSchoolOct.13.Twenty

studentsfromWestsidemadethechoir.ThechorusmembersincludeKimChristensen,JessicaMurphree,AudreyWardian,EllenFrederickson,MollyHughes,EllieKroeger,Na-taleeNelson,MichaelaGibbons,ArielKohll,WillGigantelli,JoshMontanye,DavidAtwell,ConnorO’Doherty, JoelBeckley,DominickCartledge,Ari Juster,ChrisRothe, JoeHack,DavidPorterandPatrickSawyer.All-StateJazzBandauditionsalsotookplaceatOmahaNorthwestHighSchoolOct.

13.RogerGroth,JazzBandCoordinatorfortheNebraskaMusicEducatorsAssociationandformerWHSbanddirector,announcedthemembersofAll-StateJazzBand.EliHershiser,KarlKhandalavala,HannaIngraham,PaulO’DellandSilasHammelwereamongthe19studentsselected.All-StateOrchestraauditionstookplaceatOmahaNorthwestHighSchoolOct.13as

well.Mr.ClarkPotter,ChairofOrchestraAffairsfortheNebraskaMusicEducatorsAssocia-tion,announcedthemembersofAll-StateJazzBand.JenniferAhn,MaggieKroeger,EricMcAtee,JehongAhnandZachRolandwereamongthe130studentsselected.AnopenconcertwilltakeplaceFriday,Nov.16,attheLiedCenterforthePerformingArts

ontheUniversityofNebraska-Lincolncampus.

All-State ensembles formed

The Westside Marching Band played at all of the home football games andparticipatedinfivecompetitionsthisyear.Ateachcompetition,itreceivedasuperior,thehighestratingpossible.ThebandcompetedintheAppleJackParadeinNebraskaCitySept.15,theColumbus

MarchingBandFestivalSept.29,theLincolnHighLinksOct.6,theOmahaMarchingInvitationalOct.13andtheNebraskaStateBandmastersAssociation(NSBA)Oct.20.Marchingbandjudgesgrademusiceffect,musicensemble,musicindividual,visual

effect, visual ensemble, visual individual, percussionandcolorguard.According tobanddirectorJamesKordik,thejudgingbecomesharderandstifferateachcompetition.Thebandplacedninthoutof28bandsattheNSBAcompetition.Thebandalso

videotapeditsperformanceattheAppleJackParadeaspartofitsauditiontoperforminaDisneyWorldthemepark.Itreceivedfirstplace,whichhelpedDisneyWorldmakethedecisiontoinvitetheWarriorMarchingBandtomarchinaneveningparadeattheMagicKingdomoverspringintersession.

Band finishes marching season

BR

IEFL

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List compiled by Skylar Harris

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