Freelancer
The Freelancer, East’s literary magazine, started off the year with two senior editors, Sarah King and Duri Long, along with a staff of between four and five people – some members would come to certain meetings while others would not.
The staff list fluctuated as time wore on, some members left while others joined. Throughout the first semester, King and Long talked to students and put up posters in the hallways in an attempt to attract new staff members. By the end of first semester, the staff had grown to nearly fifteen people from every grade level.
One of the main goals for the Freelancer and its head editors, King and Long, is to increase the different types of submissions to the publication along with the general knowledge of what the Freelancer is and what sort of things they publish.
“We want to be more well rounded with the group of submitters,” King said. “It didn’t work out so well, but we wanted to expand to other things such as music or recipes.”
Even through all of the growth and the change this year, the overall idea for the Freelancer has stayed the same – increasing the variety of submitter and growing the staff numbers. Talking to their peers, Sarah King and Duri Long have found that some students still don’t know what the Freelancer is and what types of content are published in it.
However, along with the expansion of the magazine comes some difficultys. The staff of 15 students, along with advisor Laura Beachy, must do everything for the magazine – from selling and publicizing, to editing and designing.
This can cause the Freelancer to put certain jobs on the backburner. One of these jobs is publicity. Most of the staffs time is spent putting together the different pages, leaving little time for the staff to go out and sell subscriptions and publicize the magazine.
One of the other struggles for King and Long is finding more people to help increase the size of their staff and more evenly distribute tasks.
“There are so many clubs at East that it’s hard for all of the different clubs to get a group of people together who want to work on it and get it put together,” King said.
Stage Managers
“Because of my position, I do an assortment of things,” assistant stage manager Chloe Vollenweider said. “I mostly help keep the show going and get actors on stage. When there is a change in scenery or props, I make sure that it gets done correctly and on time.”
With all of the responsibilites of being a member of the crew also comes with a large time commitment, sometimes making it difficult to find time for homework.
“The hardest part is the really long hours,” Vollenweider said. “ Finishing your homework can be a challenge, sometimes you’re there ‘til nine and then you have to go home and find time to finish your homework and sleep.”
Molly Howland For some members of the staff, participating in musicals is not only a source of enjoyment, but also possible career path for acting. Many of the staff and managers of the crew have been putting in these kinds of hours for years. Many of the crew for musicals started their acting careers in different ways, from starting acting at the age of six to trying out for Frequent Fridays on their first full day of freshman year.
“Freshman year I didn’t know anyone,” junior stage manager Dani Mader said. “This girl in my art class kept telling me to come to an art day, I finally got tired of her asking so I went and ended up really liking it.”
Looking back on how crew members felt for thier first muscial, stage managers look to offer a piece of advice to current freshman and incoming freshman.
“Dont be intimidated,” Mader said. “We are all really close, so freshman get scared, but we are really nice and will help you if you just ask.”
Team Managers
From taking down splits at swim meets to cleaning up sweat and blood at wrestling meets, team managers do a variety of tasks to keep sports running smoothly and on time.
The swimmers dive off the blocks and the cheering starts. As they reach the wall at the 50 yard mark and flip, the clock stops and the managers look up, they then glance at the clock overhead and record the times for the swimmers.
“At meets we take splits for the swimmers,” said sophomore Anne Foster, the boys’ swim and dive team manager. “A split is the time that you go for each 25. First of all we figure out who is in what heats and then [Head coach] Wylie tells us the times for each person in the heat and we write them down. Then we show the swimmer when they come over and talk to us.”
Taking down splits along with setting up for meets is a key part of a managers job.
“The splits are great for swimmers because it allows them to know how well they did in their race and if they should swim like that more often,” sophomore swimmer Ian Lee said. “ The relay start usually makes the swimmers time faster so it gives them more confidence for their upcoming races.”
At the same time that the boys’ swim and dive team is in the pool, the Lancer wrestling team is in the wrestling room practicing for their upcoming meet on Sat. Jan. 28 against Olathe North. As the athletes are wrestling, the team managers are setting up the clock and filling up water bottles.
Molly Howland “At meets we have to take stats so score every round,” wrestling team manager Allie Chesbrough said. “It usually ends up being over 100 rounds, we also have to film every varsity match and otherwise we just take care of things the guys need to help things run smoothly.”
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