Chowing down at MHS 'Throwdown' - My High School Journalism

Page 6 Features
‘Tis the season to not be shaving: November’s furry reign of terror
by Colleen Sherman
Features Editor
Leonardo da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, Michelangelo
Buonarroti and Albus Dumbledore
are all considered great men, and they all
seem to be linked by one uniting force: great
facial hair, something which has recently been
seen around the halls of Monarch. The first
week in November marked the beginning of
scruffy faces, the hallmark of an annual tradition
known as No Shave November.
No Shave November is a marathon of manliness,
a strike on shaving for the entire month.
Some people do it for a sports team, such as
Week 1
Week 1
MHS football players for the state playoffs.
Others participate for attention. According to
NoShaveNovember.org, this annual holiday
was actually dedicated to Darfur genocide
awareness this year. No matter what the reason
for participating, this November was a
razor-free spectacle to see.
Unfortunately, No Shave November is only
an option for a few mature students who have
the ability to grow facial hair.
“It’s kind of like asking a bald man to have
long hair; if you’ve got it you can flaunt it. But,
if not, then you might try choosing something
else,” history teacher Andrew Buhse said.
Buhse is a noted member of the bearded com-
Students throw up at ‘Throwdown’
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1)
Many teams felt this
contest wouldn’t come
down just to a team’s
ability to eat, instead,
they thought whoever
had the best strategy
would be victorious.
“We are going to mix
the cranberry sauce with
the mashed potatoes to
combine the two nasty
foods into one,” junior
Tyler Slade said.
Some of the better
teams in this year’s
contest included Team
Boss, the Dilfers, Tyler
and the Phaties and The
Taylor Swift Groupies, who all finished the
meal in around seven minutes.
However, their creative names and uniforms
Sophomore Ryan Muller finds out that mashed potatoes
look as good coming up as they do going down.
Week 2
Week 2
Photo by Collin Walentine
couldn’t overcome the
sheer eating ability of
the Big Boiiis. Freshmen
Adan Morquecho,
Travis Schlueter, Kenny
Dienst, and Ian Steele
ate the entire meal in
an astonishing time of
5:37.
“I kinda want to go
again so I can eat some
more,” Schlueter said
after his turn.
This year’s contest had
everything an eating fan
could want. There was
food eaten off the floor,
faces crammed full,
and plenty of vomit. It’s
all part of the unique
Monarch eating tradition known as theThanksgiving
Throwdown.
buffboy1991@yahoo.com
Monarch High School Final Exam Schedule
(Good Luck) Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
7:30-
9:00
9:05-
11:20
11:20-
12:05
12:10-
2:25
2:30-
3:00
Tutor
Time
Period 1
Exam
Tutor
Time
Period 2
Exam
Tutor
Time
Period 3
Exam
Tutor
Time
Period 4
Exam
Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch
Period 5
Exam
Tutor
Time
Period 6
Exam
Tutor
Time
Period 7
Exam
Tutor
Time
Make-up
Exams
Make-up
Exams
munity at Monarch who strives for a Chuck
Norris look.
Seniors Alex Puldy and Chris Contini are two
students who pride themselves on their ability
to grow full beards. Contini is a No Shave
November veteran, but this was Puldy’s first
year participating. They turned the event into
a full-on competition, Puldy aiming for a Jack
Sparrow look and Contini attempting a Sean
Connery appeal.
“It’s nice knowing that I can grow facial hair
a lot better than my friends,” Contini said.
Undisputedly, there is a sense of pride within
the male, beard-growing community when
it comes to who can grow the best facial hair.
Week 3
Week 3
Teacher features: Weird science
by Leah Fultonberg
Howler Staff
Have you ever wanted to know more about
some of the members of the Monarch Science
department? Well, here’s your chance.
Laszlo Vass, Dave Thomas, Kristin Donley, John
Stillian, Peter Shannon, and Kevin Lowe admit
that at one point, they were in high school…
just like you.
Q: Was science your favorite subject
in high school?
Vass: Drama was my favorite. I was
in all the plays.
Thomas: Most definitely not. I had
the most evil science teachers in
high school…so I became one!
Donley: Science, of course! Genetic
engineering.
Stillian: English. I didn’t take any
serious science until college.
Shannon: Science.
Lowe: Math and science.
Q: What were you like in high school?
Vass: The same as now, just weirder and
younger. Outgoing, less gray hair, well known.
Thomas: I was completely messed up freshman
year. Typical freshman boy problems. Then
I got good grades and tried to hang out with the
honors crowd.
Donley: I was just weird. I did sports and was in
lots of social groups. Oh! I cloned a geranium
plant in high school!
Stillian: I ran cross-country.
Shannon: I played football, track, volleyball,
Week 4
“The beards here at Monarch are pretty
good,” Buhse said. “I’d be curious to see of
all the students who have beards here at Monarch,
what their love life is like.”
Contini and Puldy agree that women aren’t
usually attracted to the facial hair which has
been gracing the faces of participating students.
However, this is a tradition that gathers
fresh, matured faces every year, and with
a cult following it doesn’t seem like it will be
going away any time soon.
“I just hope no one treats me differently because
I have a crusty-ass beard on my face,”
Puldy said.
collsherman@aol.com
Week 4
Photo provided by Kristin Donley
MHS science teacher Kristin
Donley’s high school photo.
and was NHS president.
Lowe: I don’t know. I had hair.
Photos by Colleen Sherman
Q: What’s something few people know about
you?
Vass: I’m from Transylvania.
Thomas: I’m kind of, like, into death metal.
Donley: I was a Def Leppard groupie.
Stillian: I was in the Air Force in Vietnam.
Shannon: I ski a lot. I’m from Breckenridge.
Lowe: I coached wrestling for over
20 years. I coached track for 15
years.
Q:Experiment gone wrong?
Vass: I had a girl throw up during
a video. She had a good healthy
breakfast. It was very stinky.
Thomas: My friend who was a doctor
brought in a human brain to
show in biology. A kid passed out and his head
landed in the full recycling bin. Had he been
standing anywhere else, he would’ve cracked
his head open.
Donley: One time, I set my projector on fire in
class accidentally. All the kids were like, ‘Do it
again!’ and the projector was all melted.
Shannon: A kid had an explosion once. He
only read the first direction of the lab and then
skipped to the sixth step. The sixth step said,
‘stick it in the flame.’ It exploded, but nobody
was hurt.
Lowe: It was a radioactivity lab in college. I
measured the radioactivity and got knocked
out of the shield.
Features Page 7
Invisible Children inspire MHS
a school, they can’t go to school. They don’t
have the opportunity to complain,” said
junior Max Stanford, co-president of Monarch’s
Invisible Children Club.
This school year, Monarch students have
become more involved in the crisis in Uganda.
Co-presidents Stanford and senior Jennifer
Spear run the Invisible Children Club
with the help of Donley. They meet every
Photo provided by InvisibleChildren.com
The children of the Ugandan crisis wonder if peace will come.
by Morgan Kozin
Howler Staff
Three years ago, seniors in the 2007 graduating
class, Jason Cashdollar and Hayley Schneider,
brought the Invisible Children organization
to MHS as a Future Business Leaders
of America project, and each year the organization
has gained momentum and popularity
within the Monarch community. This year, the
club is bigger than ever. The movement has
begun to reach even those who know little
about the crisis in Uganda.
Since the early 1980’s, northern Uganda
has been in the midst of a civil war between
the corrupt Ugandan government (GOU) and
the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Twenty-two
years ago, Joseph Kony created the LRA saying
that he wanted to fight the GOU to end
prejudices against an ethnic group called the
Acholi people. However, most of his attacks
have been towards this group.
The LRA has terrorized the Ugandan population
through harassment of suspected sympathizers
of the GOU by cutting off their hands,
ears, or lips. In addition, Kony has supplied
his army with mostly child soldiers that have
been violently abducted and forced to enlist.
Young boys are trained to fight, while girls are
used as sex slaves for the older LRA soldiers
and officers.
In 2002, the LRA killed 48 people in a
northern Ugandan town. Elderly people and
adults were brutally killed with machetes and
spears. According to informaworld.com, an
online database and reference website, babies
were thrown against trees.
Ugandan families have been torn apart by
this civil unrest. Many parents, if they haven’t
succumbed to the violence or disease, fear
for their children’s lives. Young boys and girls
roam the streets at night to try to find a safe
place to sleep and avoid being kidnapped by
the LRA, risking never seeing their families
again.
This violation of human rights is a forgotten
crisis due to the world’s lack of involvement.
The GOU is morally corrupt and not doing
nearly enough to protect its own citizens.
Since Invisible Children’s involvement, the
number of child abductions has decreased in
Uganda but have become more frequent in
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The
problem now is the great influx in the displacement
camps from both Ugandan refugees
as well as those from the DRC. These camps
are cities of people crowded together in huts
with little or no resources. People die daily
from malnutrition, disease, abuse and rape.
Children can’t afford to go to school, which
prevents them from escaping the camps and
danger.
“We take for granted our education, but
then when you look at it, these kids don’t have
Wednesday afternoon in room B111. So far,
they have sold boo grams for Halloween,
participated in the penny war alongside Junior
Senate and recently finished a book drive.
They aspire to raise $4,000 to $5,000 this
year to contribute to the cause.
“We can all make a difference. If we all donated
a dollar, that’s $2,000. You can make
a big difference with a lot of little people,”
Spear said.
Spear also wants the Monarch student body
to know that 99 percent of all profits go to
help the children in Uganda. None of it goes
to the government, so every dollar really does
help those that can’t help themselves.
For more information on the crisis in northern
Uganda or to get involved with Invisible
Children, visit www.invisiblechildren.org or attend
a meeting on Wednesday after school. It’s
not required to attend all meetings or events,
the officers simply want the awareness spread
throughout the school.
The brutal injustices in Uganda are ongoing,
and now, thanks to Invisible Children, Monarch
students can contribute to ending this
horrible war.
mkozin13@gmail.com
Photo provided by InvisibleChildren.com
Children and adults alike live in crowded refugee camps
like this one in Uganda due to displacement.
Brightening a winter’s night
by Ashley Ward
Howler Staff
Each year on the first Friday in December,
a dark winter night in Louisville is illuminated
with holiday spirit. Bright floats
covered in lights come by the dozen through
Old Town, accompanied by bands playing
festive music and costumed children giving
out candy.
The Parade of Lights is scheduled for
Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. Much of the Louisville
community gathers along the sidewalks of
Main St. to watch this holiday tradition.
“The Parade of Lights is one of the only
events the community does together,”
junior Arlene Brugal said. “I’ve gone for
three years and the lights are always nice
and bright. It’s so fun!”
Senior Sara Paine experiences the parade
from a different point of view. She is
in Monarch’s color guard and has been in
the parade for four years.
“I love seeing the cute, small children
and their happy little faces as they watch
all the floats go by,” Paine said.
For more information, email the Louisville
Chamber of Commerce at
chamber@h2net.net.
award4313@bvsd.org
Portraits showcase student talent
by Evanne Montoya
Editor in Chief
Forget those expensive professional photographers,
Monarch photo students are well
on their way to becoming experts. For the second
year, students in
levels two and above
had the opportunity to
work with models and
professional lights in
a portrait studio located
in a room off of
the art room.
Jenna Kendall was
a Photo One student
last year, and her
mother works for a
Photo by Evanne Montoya
Junior Katelynn Johnson poses with a plant prop for
junior Megan Cousins as she takes a photograph.
company that sells
lights. Monarch photography
teacher
Claudia LaStella, was
able to purchase an entire set of professional
lights at half-price.
“The value of [the project] is learning to
deal with lights, learning to deal with models
in a much stricter sense than ‘here is my friend
posed,’ and seeing what different lights do,”
LaStella said.
The class learned about different lighting
methods and got tips on posing models from
professional photographer Rick Christie.
From there, they brainstormed ideas, enlisted
classmates as models and found props.
This was a favorite project for senior Blakely
Farrow.
“When I was little I had a
bunch of ballerina pictures
and paintings in my room
and I thought it would be
cool to remake them,” Farrow
said.
Junior Lilly Moody found
coming up with ideas to be
difficult, but she really felt
that the project improved her
skills.
“It taught me about using
lighting and how to look at
things and find the beauty in
them,” Moody said.
LaStella plans to continue to include this proj-
ect in the class’ curriculum.
“It has been very successful, and I have high
hopes for this semester’s pictures,” LaStella said.
Pictures from the portrait studio will be displayed
around the school the week of Dec. 15.
evy224ever@juno.com