the standard vol. 5, issue 1

Sthe standard

blue valley southwestvolume 5 | issue 1

CONTENTS

04

05

06

08

10

12

14

15

the latest trends

a novel review

going for the goal

2014 innovation

Prarie Fire

facing “The Tempest”

sizzlin’ summer

star-spangled students

vol. 5 | issue 1overland park, ks

august 2014

10

15

0405 14

LaysClassic

Mini

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08

When I was in middle school, I thought basketball was life. I went to multiple skills

camps and club team tryouts. I even got up at 5 a.m. to go to the gym before

school. My whole life revolved around what I thought was the most important

life goal: making the high school team.

And my hard work paid off. I made the junior varsity team as a freshman.

But as I continued to play, I realized that basketball didn’t make me as happy as it used to.

So when one of my friends suggested that I run cross country, I decided I would give it a go.

When sophomore year ended, long distance running had become my passion. In the span

of a year, my life had taken a 180-degree turn, and I traded in my Nikes for racing spikes.

I cannot describe how utterly nervous I was to make that transition, but once I did, I be-

came much happier than I had ever been. I started down a path that I never thought I would

take.

Throughout the journey, change is inevitable. High school has taught me that it is ex-

tremely important to keep an open mind to all the possibilities life has to offer, and that I

should not be afraid of trying something new.

I have no regrets about my basketball experience, because I know it shaped me into the

person I am today. However, I also know that, as a freshman, it would’ve been nice to have

someone tell me that it’s okay to not have it all figured out.

This year, the BVSW News team is here to connect with the students, so we can be a part

of each other’s journeys — and to not have it all figured out — together.

|copyeditor

editor’s note

Front cover: CAPTION.Cover photo by Don-

na Armstrong.Graphic by Riley

Martin.

4 | aug. 2014 | southwest | www.bvswnews.com | special sections

editor-in-chiefananda bhatia

managing editormargo johnson

web editornicole becker

writing coach-esmichael magyar

nicole becker

design coacheslauren stonelexi tarter

copy editorellie augustine

adviserheather lawrenz

photographersdonna armstrongkate bowlingriley martindelaney oliverabby yi

staff writerslillie hoffartblake gustafsonmadison leightybroc putnam

| thesouthweststandard The Southwest Standard is published seven

times a year for students, faculty and surrounding community of Blue Valley Southwest. It is an open forum for student expression. Therefore, the opin-ions expressed within this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the administration of Blue Valley Unified School District #229.

Letters to the editor and reader responses are encouraged for publication. The Southwest Stan-dard reserves the right to edit all submissions for both language and content and encourages letters to be no more than 350 words. All letters must be signed and names will be published.

Letters should be submit-ted to room 118 emailed to [email protected] or

mailed:

The Southwest Standard c/oBlue Valley Southwest High

School17600 Quivira

Overland Park, KS 66085

The Southwest Standard also encourages guest photography.

# T

R E

N D

I N

G

TRENDSthe latest

e x p re s s yo u r s e l f

I dress nice for the classroom because it enhances my

preformance.” | sophomoreEmoryFullington““

My style reflects my laid back personality, but it can also show that I clean up well.”

| juniorSydneySwyers““

UNIQUE is in, BORING is out. These students portray their individuality through style.

| lexitarter

| sophomoreLilyKlima

Scan this to follow bvswnews on Pinterest to keep up with the latest trends. read full interviews on www.bvswnews.com.

Photos by Riley Martin.

5 | aug. 2014 | southwest | www.bvswnews.com | opinion

In The Maze Runner, James Dashner intertwines codes, riddles and mysteries for the reader to solve. In the beginning, even the characters are virtually clueless as to what’s going on. Because of this, the first few chapters are a bit slow. In addition, the main character is rather repetitive (“What is going on? Why won’t anyone answer my questions?”). The story is definitely plot-based, which makes the reader feel somewhat detached from the characters. However, unlike in stories where the structure of society falls apart, the boys in The Maze Runner actually band together to make a community for themselves, even

when disaster strikes. The novel empha-sizes that nothing is purely good or purely evil. Dashner does a great job of keeping the reader guessing what’s going to happen next. Soon, the pieces fall into place, and the plot starts moving, making for an intense read.

| ellieaugustine

Like most John Green books, Looking For Alaska is a work of realistic fiction, with a little romance and comedy weaved in. The reader feels extremely connected to the main characters and begins to feel their pain and their happiness on a deeper level throughout the story. There is a countdown leading up to the main event, and then the novel counts away as it moves forward from this event, so the suspense continually builds throughout the novel. But fair warn-ing: this is not a light book. Green does a great job of handling the recurring themes of the meaning of life and death’s inevita-ble role in the human experience. He also touches on themes such as independence, guilt and self-discovery. The characters

find themselves unprepared for the circum-stances that await them. This forces them to grow up later, rather than sooner, after a personal tragedy has occurred in each one’s life. The uncertain but lovable char-acters make the story remarkably relatable. None of them are perfect, and they are all trying to find their places in the world. Like all teenagers, they think they are invinci-ble, until tragedy strikes and forces them to wake up; this amazing story makes the reader come to terms with reality. As Green writes in the novel, “It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only per-son in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.”

A Nov el Re view. .

“Just follow me and run like your life depends on it. Because it does.” – James Dashner, The Maze Runner

“I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and

she was a hurricane.” - John Green, Looking for Alaska

critiques of the best summer reads

6 | aug. 2014 | southwest | www.bvswnews.com | sports

Our goal is to improve our performance as a team and to not only make it to State, but win it as well.”

| sophomorenigelking

There is nothing that would make this team more proud than to make it to State and

win it all.”| sophomorejakoblopez

The boys are trying to place higher at State than they did last year, and the girls are trying to go as a team instead of sending individual qualifiers.”| juniorpipermisse

We only have two returning varsity players, but we are hopeful that at

least two will come up to varsity from JV. If we do get two people, we’re hop-

ing to qualify as a team for State.” | seniorjamierickert

““

““

““

““

Going

With our new coach this year, I’m really hoping that we will all come together and push each other to achieve our highest potential as a team.” | juniormckennaadamson

I expect us to do even better as a tennis team this season. We’re all

really excited to play together again this year because we have such a

fun group of girls on our team.” | seniortaylorwestrom

student athletes spend the sum-

mer gearing up for the upcoming fall

season

““

““

40athletes expected

to try out

70athletes expected

to try out

25athletes expected

to try out

60athletes expected

to try out

10athletes expected to

try out

45athletes expected

to try out

September

13

September

9

September

4

September

5VS

September

13

For The Goal

August

29VS

VS

VS

at

Graphics by Riley Martin.

|brocputnam

Lone Elm Parkat Olathe KS

7 | aug. 2014 | southwest | www.bvswnews.com | ads

10 percent discount on film and paper with student ID

8 | aug. 2014 | southwest | www.bvswnews.com | news feature

“Frankly, I think our advisory program has lacked in direction and needed to be improved and needed a shift,” principal Scott Roberts said.

The new advisory is split into classes based on grade level. The fresh-men have different needs such as transitioning into high school, which is a lot different than the needs of the juniors and seniors, who are exploring college options.

This year throughout advisory, juniors and seniors will be exploring more tools in the Naviance program. Naviance provides help and ideas with future college plans as well as career options.

Roberts still wishes for each class to build bonds not only with the teacher, but with the students as well. As of now, both the teacher and the

students in the classroom will remain the same throughout high school. They will also be pairing senior and sophomore classes with freshman and junior classes to do bonding activities during advisory. The staff, includ-ing Roberts, hopes to keep advisory engaging, but would also like to have students get something out of it.

As far as HUBS, it will be completely separate from advisory. Fresh-men and mentors will be with different teachers for HUBS and advisory.

“I like how we will get to know people in our grade and they would probably be able to help me with class work because we will be taking similar classes, but I’ll miss my advisory teacher,” sophomore Tatum Mays. “It made it easier to be with the same teacher for advisory and HUBS for the mentors.”

2014 innovationdrug policy alteration

| blakegustafsonGraphics by Kate Bowling.

Join the conversation and share your thoughts on the drug and alcohol policy at www.bvswnews.com.

According to principal Scott Roberts, the new drug and alcohol policy has not changed as far as consequences of students using illegal sub-

stances. However, what has changed is the amount of enforcement and location of usage. In the old policy, stu-dents were only punished if they committed an offense during their playing season, when they were at school or at a school-sponsored event. Coaches have always had the authority to enforce a stricter policy than the district; nonetheless, some coaches told their students in the past that they were not allowed to participate if any of that type of behavior occurred throughout the entire year, not just during their sports season.

“I personally think [the policy] is a little severe, but I think it will do its job of keeping players focused on what really matters on and off season,” junior Matt Wilkin-son said.

The new district policy is now able to take action 365 days a year, 24/7. For the first offense, the punishment is suspension of extra-curricular activities for up to half of the season. If a student self-reports before the school finds out, the suspension may be reduced. Roberts also stated that the main idea of the policy is that the offense has to be verified for the school to take action. For exam-ple, the most common way for something to be verified is by a police report, not by a rumor the staff may hear or by one student telling the office about another student.

“The reason that the board pushed for this policy so much was to give reason to people to do good outside of the season,” Roberts said. “It holds students to stan-dards. The student gets all the glory, college scholarships and recognition of being in an activity, so they should be held to that throughout the whole year. We also hope that this gives students an out in a bad situation.”

Lunch food that was provided last year will differ greatly in this up-coming school year. Blue Valley’s

goals for a healthy lunch this year are to provide fruits and vegetables, raise the amount of whole grain being served and serve only low-fat or fat-free milk. They also intend to limit calories and portion size based on the age of students. Lastly, they want to reduce sodium and fat in each meal. Under the United States De-partment of Agriculture’s [USDA] laws of lunches being sold at school, many food items that were provided last year will no longer be sold at school because they do not pass the new regulations. In addition, the lollipops previously sold at lunch will be sugar free.

All foods sold in schools must have their main ingredient as a whole grain, a fruit, a vegetable, a dairy, or a protein. Or, instead, they must contain 10 percent of the Daily Value that kids aren’t getting enough of, such as vitamin D or calcium.

Nutrition labels will be of high con-cern as well. Snack items cannot exceed 200 calories, while entrées cannot exceed 350 calories. Sodium limits are 230 grams for the snack and 480 grams

for the entrée. There should be zero grams of trans-fat in any food provided, and the total fat cannot be greater than 35 percent of calories, the saturated fat can only be 10 percent of calories, and the maximum sugar weight in foods cannot be greater than 35 percent.

“Just because we have obese Ameri-cans doesn’t mean they won’t go home and eat, so I should be able to eat what I want at school,” junior Sydney Fitchett said.

advisory transformation

junk food elimination

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Taken from the Blue Valley Districit website.


Prairiefiresouthern Johnson County is becoming a shopping hub

Coco Bolos5621 W. 135th Street Ste. 2610

Priding itself on its flavorful food and spicy atmosphere, Cocos Bolos has a savory vibe. Head chef Michael Smith puts together a

restaurant with the soul of Latin America.

The suburbs are getting more shopper friendly. Prairiefire, located in southern Overland Park, is starting to gain buzz around the Kansas City area. Being the area’s latest and greatest shopping center to open up, I was anticipating my

visit. Filled with uncommon ventures and unique experiences to be had, I was hearing plenty of good things about Johnson County’s newest claim to fame. Prairiefire certainly

lived up to the hype.

A brainchild of a group of friends determining there was no better combination than rock ‘n’ roll and adult beverages, Rock & Brews is a joint with classic American food. Founded in California, this chain serves up great food with a rock ‘n’ roll flair

Rock & Brews5701 W. 135th Street,

Pinstripes 13500 Nall Ave, Overland Park, KS

A unique, elegant gourmet bistro and bowling alley offering “upscale fun.” With locations in other major cit-ies, Pinstripes brings a new meaning to bowling lanes. Pinstripes also offers indoor bacce ball, a classic Italian lawn game.

Museum at Prairiefire5801 W. 135th Street

After hearing about how Overland Park was getting a branch of the world famous American Museum of Natural History in New York, I was incredibly excited. As of right now, however, the museum didn’t live up to my expectations, and understandably so. The museum, being very new,

at this point doesn’t have many exhibits. For a $5 general admission price and added on costs to see additional exhibits, it really wasn’t worth it for the money I paid. The museum boasts a beautiful exterior, but the interior lacks content. Five years from now it may be considered one of the area’s top attractions, but as of now, the museum was disappointing.

Cinetopia is truly unlike any other movie theater I had experi-enced before. The theater offers an absolutely luxurious movie watching experience. Cinetopia provides a wide assortment of viewing options in its differ-ent theaters. The movie parlor experience offers grant seating and in-theater restaurant services, while a movie in a GXL theater room with more standard seating is shown on a giant 70-inch screen. Two of the rooms, the living room and one of the movie parlor experience rooms however, do not allow those under the age of 21 in. Cinetopia can be on the pricy side, with a matinee showing in one of the parlor rooms setting you back $17.50; however, opting for a midweek show in one of the theater’s less extravagent settings will only cost you $8.50. Cineto-pia is a place I would definitely recommend to movie fanatics and for those looking for a fun night alike.

Cinetopia5725 W 135th Street

Photos by Delaney Oliver.

|michaelmagyar

| 11

12| aug. 2014 | southwest | www.bvswnews.com | feature

Th e lights flick-

er rapidly and a wave of movement descends

upon the stage. People and colors swirl together

amid the sound of crash-ing waves. Then almost as soon as it appeared, the fren-

zy fades. The ship has been wrecked on an island.

The school theater depart-ment hosted a summer pro-gram in which students from Blue Valley schools auditioned for, rehearsed and performed Shakespeare’s play “The Tem-pest”. This was the first year the program was held at South-west.

The play begins with a ship carrying Alonso, the king of Naples, being wrecked on an island by a tempest, or storm. The island is uninhabited ex-cept for Prospero, a wizard, his daughter, Miranda, and their slave, Caliban. Prospe-ro was dethroned many years ago by Alonso and wants re-venge.

Prospero eventually confronts the king and his comrades. He casts a spell and freezes everyone, re-

ceiving a chance to kill them and carry out his

revenge. Instead, he forgives them for

their wrongs.Theater di-

rector Dan Schmidt re-

m e m - bers participat-ing in summer theater pro-grams during college. He wanted to let the students have a similar experience.

“The Tempest” was a good choice for the program because of the large flexible cast. For ex-ample, the spirit Ariel was origi-nally one character, but was ex-panded to six roles.

“[This play] has a fantasti-cal setting — it is on an island, has magicians and is funny,” Schmidt said. “‘The Tempest’ is a perfect summer show.”

The students auditioned for the play in July using a mono-logue they memorized from a se-lection given to them by Schmidt. They then presented to him and were cast. The rehearsals oc-curred four days a week for two and a half weeks.

Sophomore Bailey Cocker-ham has been involved in the-ater since the fourth grade. She was encouraged by Schmidt to try out for the summer program and was cast as part of the spirit Ariel.

“A lot of people are intimi-dated by Shakespeare because they’re worried they won’t under-stand it or it’ll be boring,” Cock-erham said. “People normally learn about Shakespearean texts in English class, [which] I think takes away from the actual per-formance — I think reading the

script doesn’t do it justice. The way Schmidt directs and the way the people in the theatre depart-ment perform Shakespeare, they make it very easy to understand, and they make it fun.”

The beginning acting class at Southwest studies Shakespeare, so Cockerham didn’t have as much difficulty with the dialect. Instead, the most challenging part for her was the choreogra-phy.

“There are about three actual dancers and one of them [senior Amanda Miller] did all of the choreographing [for the show],” Cockerham said. “She did an amazing job of choreographing for five people who did not know how to dance.”

Junior Adnan Islam played Alonso, the king of Naples. He enjoys theater and chose to par-ticipate in the summer program so he could have more time for other activities during the school year.

Islam spent time at home working out how he portrayed his character. This aids in getting the meaning of the words across. Islam said people may be turned off by Shakespeare because it was written so long ago.

“[Schmidt] emphasizes great acting so the audience can un-derstand it, despite the difficult language,” Islam said.

lillie|hoffartcont. to bvswnews.com

Facing the

Temp

est students prepare for and perform a summer play

1) Sophomore Libbie Louis performs an arabesque as the spirit Ariel. 2) Junior Zach Miller, who plays the prince Ferdinand, contemplates the shipwreck. 3) Alumni Tristan

King and Mason Wilkinson as the jester, Trinculo, and butler, Stephano, enjoy a drink and plot against the king. 4) Senior Caleb Jenkins as Antonio and BV Northwest junior Melissa Rakos as Sebastia plot to rule the island, while being influ-

enced by the spirit Ariel. 5) Senior Sam Neel, a BV Northwest student, and alumn Lauren Henke who play Prospero and his

daughter, Miranda, share a father-daughter moment.Photos by Donna Armstrong

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Sizzlin’ summerstudents submit pictures of their favorite memories of summer

(1) Traveling with the abroad program Adventure Cross Country, Junior Jessica Sorcher plays with local children in Peru. Photo submitted by Rachael Sorcher. (2) As Junior Freddie Charlesworth swims in the Lake of the Ozarks, freshman Nick Allen leaps off the dock into the water. Photo submitted by Freddie Charlesworth. (3) Seniors Jack Tobin and Charlotte Davis attend the Power and Light District watch party for the USA FIFA World Cup game. Photo submitted by Charlotte Davis. (4) Sophomores Grace Davis, Greer Corcoran, Ava Davis, Lilly Hall, Kristen O’Keeffe, Emma Rose, Summer Cohee and Halli Clark run The Color Run, which is known as “the happiest 5 on earth.” Photo submitted by Halli Clark. (5) Juniors Harrison Carney, Zach Keeling, Tristan Eastham and seniors Ty Constant and Megan Paule travel to Pueblo, Colorado for a running camp. Photo submit-ted by Tristan Eastham.

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| nicolebecker

16 |

(1) Timmy the Timberwolf sports an American Flag, displaying

pride for the school and the country. (2) Senior Jordan Schar-nhorst rides the float through the

Stilwell community, waving the American flag. (3) Senior Aaron

Yew shows Southwest spirit from atop the float. (4) Senior Hannah Huffman ties ballons to the float.

(5) A Southwest fan joins in on the Independence Day festivities.

(6) Seniors Charlotte Davis, Hannah Huffman and Ingrid

Yew greet the parade viewers.

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the standard vol. 5, issue 1

Documents

high school team

southwest standard

middle school

possibilities life

important life goal

sophomore year

club team tryouts

junior varsity team