“When I found out, I was really happy,” Ridgway said. “My family is really proud of me.”

Ridgway received the letter confirming his success two weeks ago and is required to fill out applications and write multiple essays for the chance to be chosen as one of the 141 finalists.

Principal Karl Krawitz considers having students in the running to be Presidential Scholar’s an honor. East has had finalists for this scholarship program in the past and Dr. Krawitz is proud to be a part of that.

“They reflect on the entire student body and the school and the staff,” Dr. Krawitz said. “And in turn, their honor becomes ours.”

Wiles and Ridgway have to turn in their applications by Feb. 23 and the final results will be announced on April 18.

Sherman will have to undergo scans every 60 days for the rest of his life to confirm that the cancer has not returned to his system.

“It’s been a tough battle,” Sherman said.  ”But at the end of the day I am just happy to be back with my players.”  At the end of the season Sherman told the team in a post season meeting that his return to the head coaching position relied solely on his cancer treatment.  Simply put if he beat cancer he would be back as the head coach and if the cancer came back he would have to take a season off to be with his family.

Watch a recording of the boy’s 58-52 victory over Lawrence.

It is, by far, the most rewarding experience of my week. It also teaches me more than I ever thought I would learn volunteering. Every time I volunteer in Purple 3b, I relearn that most Americans have misinterpreted happiness. Because I have seen true happiness, and it came from those kids.

But why should they be happier than me? I’m from the suburbs, they’re inner city. Their parents are lower class, mine are upper middle. For Christ’s sake, I have a car; they barely have tricycles. Yet, they possess a genuine sense of euphoria that I could only hope for.

I, similar to most Americans my age and older, have become jaded with the little things in life. A telephone that can show you videos, check your mail, and allow you to talk face to face with someone half way across the world no longer interests us. That’s just an iPhone. Who cares?

But these kids…these kids get excited over the tiniest little things, like graham crackers or a new book about trains. The way their faces light up when they hear they get to go outside and play is enough to put anyone to shame.

I think Americans need to rethink what makes us happy. TV commercials show us at our happiest right after we’ve bought a car, or our parents have given us the latest and most expensive Apple product. But after spending an extended period of time at Operation Breakthrough, I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to happiness than just a price tag.

To view the full bill click here.

Contact your representative about this bill:

Share your opinion on this bill, or pose a question to your fellow voters.

State Aid to Pupils

Live in the present, not the past.

If passed, this bill will make the Cairn Terrier as the official dog breed of Kansas. Representative Ed Trimmer is the sponsor for this bill.

To view the full bill click here.

Think that a different dog breed should be chosen? Contact your representative about this bill:

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Official Dog Breed of Kansas

Our generation doesn’t know how to make eye contact. Political efficacy has come to mean commenting on Facebook statuses instead of picketing in front of the Capital. We have become so invested in remaining in a stagnant setting: sitting at a computer screen in the safety of our homes. When we do take action in the flesh, we hardly know what to do with ourselves.

Our generation doesn’t know how to make eye contact. What would happen if we put a group of Redditors in a room with nothing but a couple of phones and a phonebook and told them to take action. No computers, no memes, no Internet resources. Would they be able to make a difference?

Our generation doesn’t know how to make eye contact. If you are standing alone in the hallway, how many of you whip out your phone? If you manage to engage in conversation and it starts to die, I can almost promise that you will start texting.

Our generation can’t make eye contact, and there is no excuse for the lack of face to face interaction. The thing is, our world is changing. Those face to face interactions aren’t as important anymore. The SOPA/PIPA online protest was probably one of the largest protests ever orchestrated by young people and when that becomes a cultural norm, our generation won’t need to know how to make eye contact.

Matt Baker a Maryville University wrestler and 2008 East graduate is being featured on NCAA “All Access”. In this video mini-series the NCAA selects a school and one of their athletes to do video blogs of their daily life. So far Baker has shot four videos, and he is continuing to shoot them weekly. After Baker shoots the videos, he submits them to one of his assistant coaches where they are passed on to “All Access” and posted to be viewed on the NCAA’s Website.

Currently Baker is a fourth-year junior, but his first three years of college were not spent at Maryville. After graduating from East in 2008, Baker began his wrestling career at Division II wrestling powerhouse, the University of Nebraska-Omaha (UNO). Baker redshirted his freshman year, earned 24 wins the season after that and was a Division II All-American last season. After a national championship win in the 2010-11 season, UNO and head wrestling coach Mike Denney had won their third straight, and sixth out of the last eight Division II National Championships. Just hours after winning the national championship, Baker received a text from assistant coach Ron Higdon to return to their hotel as soon as possible.

“I didn’t know what was happening,” said Baker, “My first thought was that maybe someone had gotten hurt, but really I didn’t know what to expect.”

Nothing could have prepared the team for the news they were about to receive. After gathering in the lobby of their Kearney, Neb. hotel, the team was told that UNO athletic director Trev Alberts was proposing moving from Division II to Division I. If the school made the jump, they would join the Summit League which does not provide funding for football and wrestling, and therefore the programs would be cut. On the eve of their third consecutive national championship, a night that should have been spent celebrating, the UNO Mavericks were in utter disbelief.

“At that point I thought no way,” said Baker. “No way this could come true, there is no way they could let this happen.”

When the team made their return to Omaha, they began to organize any kind of student resistance they could muster up. Unfortunately, the resistance was a waste of time. Alberts had told Denney that the move was just a proposal, and nothing had been decided yet. But in reality, it was too late. Upon meeting with the wrestling and football teams for the first time, the decision had already been made; the programs were going to be cut.

Fortunately for Denney and his team, their success was admired and sought after by many other schools. Within a day of hearing the proposal, Denney was bombarded with phone calls and e-mails from schools interested in offering him a coaching job. However, one of the offers seemed to stand out from the rest. Maryville University, a private school in St. Louis did not have a wrestling team, but was highly interested in adding one. Jeff Miller, the vice president of Maryville made an offer for Denney, his coaching staff and the whole UNO team to make the move to Maryville. Upon hearing the offer, Baker and some of his teammates began to discuss it, and could not deny its appeal.

“I remember thinking, if we get enough guys, and the right guys, we can win a national championship next year,” said Baker.

Denney accepted the offer from Maryville, and the wrestlers began examining their options. Ideally, the whole team and the recruits they signed would have been able to make the move, but due to everyone’s individual academic and family needs this was not a reality. Being that Maryville is a private school, the tuition was also more than everyone can afford. Even after these hurdles, 12 of the 19 wrestlers on Maryville’s roster either wrestled at UNO or were incoming freshmen planning on wrestling there.

After figuring out who would be joining him in Maryville, Baker soon realized that a National Championship may not be in the cards for this season. But that does not mean that the future for Maryville’s program is not bright. On campus, the interest level in wrestling is high and gaining even more support. The roster is set with one of the top freshmen classes in the country and with leadership from upperclassmen like Baker they are getting better week by week. Three of these freshmen start, and have gotten first place finishes for the team at multiple meets this season. Denney says that he believes he has about eight years left of coaching, and Baker is confident that during his tenure Maryville will bring home a national championship.

“It probably won’t happen this year,” said Baker, “But Coach Denney will be able to in his time here, I have no doubts.”

For more on the cutting of UNO’s football and wrestling programs, check out the ESPN Outside the Lines report.

As a member of TAB, Vollenweider and 14 others meet every fourth Monday of the month and discuss ways to improve the hospital. The board also takes trips to the hospitals “teen room,” where teen patients admitted to the hospital can go to play video games and socialize. TAB visits the patients as well as organizes special activity and game nights for the teens.

“The teen room has a Wii, tons of video games and an air hockey table.” Vollenweider said. “It is a really nice place for teens admitted to the hospital to go and have fun.”

Over the next few weeks, the members of TAB will be selling Pedia Pals I.D. badges in the shape of happy-faced animals for $7 each and Children’s Mercy lanyards for $1. All of the proceeds will help to fund the making of a new pre-operational surgery video for children and families.

“The video explains what the kids will go through, what equipment is in the room and what to be expecting.” Vollenweider said.

The video is used to help calm children and make them comfortable with the operation they are about to undergo, as well as inform the family what their child will experience. The video currently used by the hospital is over 13 years old and with the development of new technology and procedures, is largely outdated.

The company the hospital must use to create the new film charges $1000 dollars a minute, currently having raised $3000 the hospital is hoping for 10-12 minutes of footage.

“I want to give back to the hospital because they have helped me so much over the past 16-and-a-half years,” Vollenweider said. “ I want to give back to the community that gave so much to me.”

On Jan. 26, Governor Sam Brownback proposed to the state Senate a bill that aims to completely rework the way state education is funded. When the recession hit in 2007, the state tightened its belt and started making cuts, and the amount of money allocated for Kansas education plummeted. Districts statewide have felt the effects of the decrease in funds, and the Shawnee Mission School District is no exception.“There are almost 300 school districts in Kansas,” Principal Karl Krawitz said. “And a year ago Shawnee Mission was fourth from the bottom of money received. The current formula that’s in place, it doesn’t help Shawnee Mission at all.”

Shawnee Mission’s lack of funding has become increasingly noticeable to patrons throughout the last year. Last semester, students watched and often protested as Mission Valley Middle School was closed and fellow Lancers suddenly became Raiders and Indians due to budget cuts. The same cuts have caused class sizes at East to grow to 30 students a class, and teachers are having to take on heavier workloads without any change to their salaries.

Dr. Krawitz hopes that Brownback’s new bill will solve these problems. The bill proposes that the state do away with its current formula for school funding, replacing it with a program that will increase spending across the state and give each district the freedom to raise money locally for its own budget needs.

The first change it would make is the amount of money spent per student. Since 2004, the amount spent on each Kansas student has dropped from $4,492 to $3,780. Brownback’s proposition will require the state to raise the amount spent per student back to $4,492 by the 2013-2014 school year. The second change allows local governments to raise taxes to fund education. Craig Denny, the SMSD Board President, has been hearing this idea for years, and believes it can solve many of the state’s school funding problems.

“I had so many patrons coming to me saying, ‘Please, don’t cut this program, we’d be happy to pay more,’” Denny said. “I had to tell them that we couldn’t, that we weren’t allowed to… People here will pay for it, so let them.”

Brownback’s proposition would do exactly that. The bill allows districts to levy local taxes to raise money for their district. A percentage of the money raised will be given to the state education budget, which will in turn spread the money evenly throughout state schools. The rest of the money can be spent freely on education by the district that raised the funds. Denny believes that this will bring in additional money to the Johnson County area, and help the district to avoid future budget cuts and job losses.

The chairman of the Kansas Board of Education, Dave Dennis, agrees that the bill would give the Shawnee Mission School District more funds, but he cites this as one of the Board’s concerns. The state of Kansas strives to provide statewide equality in education, Dennis said, and the new bill would not allow that standard of equality to be continued.

Since 2004, the amount spent on each Kansas student has dropped from $4,492 to $3,780.

“If you’re living up around the Kansas City area, by raising your property tax one mill (one tenth of a cent) you can raise millions of dollars,” Dennis said. “But in Western Kansas you’d only raise a couple thousand dollars. Rich school districts can give a Cadillac version of an education, while poorer districts could only give students a Model T version.”

But Dr. Krawitz and Denny say that statewide education is already unequal. They both cite the fact that larger, wealthier school districts such as Shawnee Mission are falling into the bottom 10 percent of money received. Dr. Krawitz says that SM East struggles with major inequality in special education funding. He said that the state education budget guarantees to pay for 75 percent of special education costs, yet SMSD receives only 67 percent funding from the state. While SMSD has to find a way to pay for that extra eight percent Dr. Krawitz said, other districts are being given over 200 percent of their special education costs in funding from the state. The state attributes these extra funds  to the higher poverty levels and lower test scores in other districts, but Dr. Krawitz still believes they are unjust.

“You know, we can’t spend as much on special education students at East,” Dr. Krawitz said. “But in other districts, they might be spending two and a half times what we’re spending. Is that fair? No.”

Dr. Krawitz also worries about the quality of education that East and SMSD can offer if budget reforms are not made. He notes that, since he became principal at SM East four years ago, the average core class sizes have grown from 20 to 30. The number of teachers teaching six periods instead of five has also increased dramatically. When Dr. Krawitz first came to East, only nine or ten teachers taught the extra period, but currently 44 teachers have had to add the sixth period. Dr. Krawitz wishes for more funding so that the teacher-to-student ratio can drop back to its original place, and he believes that the new bill is the best available solution.

The state Senate and House of Representatives are now in the middle of a 90 day session of reviewing and revising the bill. During this time, Dennis said, the bill could be altered to a point of being “unrecognizable”, or be vetoed completely. Despite general SMSD and Johnson County support, Dr. Krawitz is not optimistic about the bill’s chances of surviving this session.

“There is practically no support,” Dr. Krawitz said. “So who knows where we’re going to end up after this session.”

Dennis agrees that the future of this proposition is undecided. The state Board of Education has not even been able to agree on which side to take, he said, so the outcome of the session is impossible to predict.

“Will there be something at the end? Yes,” Dennis said. “Is there a possibility of the formula we have right now being kept? Certainly. Could the Governor’s bill be passed? Possibly. It could be anything right now. It’s gonna be an interesting session, and everyone needs to keep an eye on it.”

Grade: 12

Tools: Pencil to sketch out initial piece. Oil pastels and acrylic paints for AP concentration. “I like the vibrant looks acrylics get when I’m finished with them.”

AP Studio Art Concentration: “Through each piece I try to highlight animal qualities in people. Because we’re different species, but we share similar qualities. In each piece, I’m putting an animal head on a human body. The one I’m working on right now is a bull’s head on a business man’s body and he’s holding money.”

Future: “I want to major in fine arts or graphic design. I’m not totally sure about which school I want to go to, but art is something that I love and I’m very passionate about it. I plan on doing art even if I’m homeless; it’s what I want to do and what I plan to do. Even if I don’t have a lot of money, art is what gets me through most days, and that happiness is more important than money.”

Inspiration: “This sounds weird, but I get a lot of inspiration from Lady Gaga. Those who know me know that I’m Lady Gaga obsessed. She inspires me to do my own thing and that’s what draws me to her. When I first found out about her, I thought she was weird and she almost made me uncomfortable, which was interesting and daring. I try to do that with my art. I want to make people uncomfortable so it leaves an impression. That’s what people remember. It may not be accepted, but I’m fascinated by weird things.”

And then I started reading.

At its core, “The Fault in our Stars” is a romance book wrapped in a cancer story. It charts the romance of two teens dealing with tragically fatal cancers as they fall in love and travel the world. John Green sticks to his unique style of blending dialogue that reads exactly as a teenager would really speak with philosophy that causes the reader to see the world in a completely different light. Unfortunately, when it comes to writing the relationship between two cancer patients, Green falls short.

The lovers in the novel, Hazel and Augustus, have an infuriating habit of believing that they are somehow on a plane above healthy people because they have suffered. They treat everyone without cancer as if they are less intelligent, less able to understand the reality of life. I am not saying that their view of life would not be different after dealing with cancer, I just feel that the fact that their parents have not does not mean that their thoughts are of no merit.

Green also falters when writing the dialogue between Hazel and Augustus. It may be speech that is very close to how I speak in real life, but scenes that are full of emotion and power are struck down by a few stupid quips by one of the teens. While on a perfect date in Amsterdam, Green describes everything in mellifluous tones until the couple decides to talk. Bad jokes, ridiculous flirting and banal lust-filled lines kill any hope for a scene that doesn’t end with me face palming at the similarities to a “Twilight” movie.

This is not to say that the book doesn’t have merit. Several chapters contain Green’s thoughts which show the hours he spent studying philosophies and world religion at Kenyon college. He talks about an author’s connection to his work, dealing with the eventuality of death, and a study of the concept of infinity. Green does a fantastic job of describing the death of a close friend, how it feels to think that you may die without making a difference and whether it is actually possible for someone to live and love without making a difference.

So no, its not the pinnacle of pubescent publications. Its not the next book to make the SM East tenth grade required reading list. But it is not a stereotypical teen book. It’s not a stereotypical cancer book. It’s a book that shows that no matter who you are or what you are dealing with, there is always hope and there will always be love.

View other episodes of Harbie Practice Squad

Wrestling

Lowe and Ator’s dance was chosen for the performance and they began teaching it to their teammates this past Monday. With only a week to learn, the dance had to be kept short and the team had to work hard to have their steps perfected by half time of Friday’s game.The girls described their dance as a “mixture of sassy hip-hop with a ghetto part in the middle.” The dance is to a mash-up of the songs “You’ll Find a Way” from the movie Fame, “This Instant” by Sophia Fresh, and “WOP”. Ator and Lowe both feel as if they have learned a lot from this experience, both about choreographing itself as well as teaching their contemporaries.

At the game’s tentative start, however, neither side jumped out to a big lead. Immediately after the tip-off, East had the initial advantage after the Lancers favor as they gained possession of the ball and junior Vance Wentz sunk a deep field goal to put two points on the board. It appeared to be the perfectly scripted start the Lancers were looking for. But as the first quarter continued, the advantage slowly went to Rockhurst. Players like Kyle Wolf and Clay Guy put points on the board for the Hawklets with deep field goals. Their defensive full court press shut down East, who couldn’t get anything going inside the paint or from the three point line. And as the somewhat anticlimactic and low-scoring first quarter drew to a close, Rockhurst was ahead 8-5. Not at all how East wanted to start the highly anticipated match-up against the Hawklets.
As a matter of fact, Head Coach Shawn Hair has told his team again and again how they need to put up at least 60 points in a game. According to Hair’s philosophy, if you get 60 points you win the game.

The second quarter didn’t push the Lancers much closer to this goal. Juniors like Vance Wentz and Zach Schneider, who normally put up big points from the three point line, were virtually silent. Whether it was jitters or a mental break-down, East wasn’t producing offensively like Hair had hoped for. And for Rockhurst–they did a wonderful job of maintaining. They held on to their lead, lengthened it, and ended the quarter with senior Andrew Kramer sinking a half-court shot to put an exclamation mark on the impressive first half. It was Rockhurst ahead 23-12.

East could never really recover. The third quarter began and the Lancers appeared to become more desperate as time wore on. Wentz, Schneider and even junior Chase Hanna, who normally do well inside and beyond the three point arch, were throwing up desperation three pointers from way outside that weren’t falling. Credit is due, of course, to the Hawklets who had players scoring from all over their roster. Role players like Wolf and senior Pat Roberts held their own, while lesser-known junior Connor Kuhlman was involved in almost every scoring opportunity. An even offensive and defensive attack helped Rockhurst gain a convincing lead.

The fourth quarter, for the Lancers, was ultimately more like a funeral–in the sense that East fans and players looked to be mourning something that was already dead. Rockhurst held a commanding lead and didn’t let up; they won the game 54-28 when it was all said and done. East fans got excited when Hair put senior Chris Heady, who has been with the program since his freshman year, in the game but there were not a lot of highlights otherwise. However, even with the defeat, Lancer fans left the court by singing the school song. Obviously, they’ll be ready to do it all again next year.

Watch a recording of the JV boys 44-42 victory over Rockhurst.

Watch a recording of the Varsity boys 54-28 loss to Rockhurst.

The Varsity Lancer Dancer’s Halftime Dance

To view more photos click here.

A group of thirty students entered Arndt-Helgeson’s first hour class and Morgan Satterlee made the announcement. Satterlee said the vote was close but Arndt-Helgeson edged out several other close contenders.

“Yoda deserved the teacher of the year because she enveloped the four pillars that NHS is all about. She is committed to developing not only the mind of her students, but their character as well,” Satterlee said.

Arndt-Helgeson will accept the award at the National Honor Society induction in February.