www.coppellstudentmedia.comVOLUME 26 ISSUE 3 December 2014

Teacher of the Year

Mad for Madrigals

SUMMER CRAWFORD & SLOANE SAMBERSON

No parent imagines the re-cent moments with their child could very well be

their last. Coppell has seen more than a handful of tragedies in re-cent years, but who would have thought that so many would be able to make good out of these troubling times.

For the Thompson family, Nov. 8, 2013 was the last time they would behold Zack’s smile.

Coppell parents Joe and Julie Thompson lost one of their three children, Charles “Zack” Thomp-son. Zack died at age 19 from un-known causes, but, although his family, friends and community were grieving, they wanted to find a way to help others who had also lost a child. To do this, the fam-ily created The Zack Thompson Foundation, with Julie as presi-dent and Joe as vice president, aspiring to also create a garden and provide an Angel of Hope for Coppell.

When Zack died, Mr. Thomp-son was in Las Vegas on business and had a while to think on his way home about how the fam-ily would get through this tough time.

“I told [Julie] when I first got home, we went into our room by

ourselves, and I said ‘We are go-ing to do three things: we are not going to blame each other, we are not going to go down the guilt trail [and] we are not going to blame God,” Mr. Thompson said.

IN ISSUE

Pg 19

Golfer swinging her way into record books at Coppell

Senior Sol Lee impresses on and off the course with different passions.

SPORTS Page 23

Moino brings Italian cuisine to The Sidekick

Staff writer Chloe Moino shares family recipes for holiday festivites and sea-son.

ENTERTAINMENT Page 16

Christian groups provide camarderie with student study groups

Organizations find ways to bring teenagers together to learn and worship.

STUDENT LIFE Page 10

Christmas more than just presents

Staff writer Sakshi Ventka-traman rebukes society on the materalistic atmosphere associated with Christmas.

OPINIONS Page 7

Teenage volunteers give parents night off.

First United Methodist Church offers an evening where special needs kids can work and play with high school students.

NEWS Page 3

The Sidekick // Mallorie MunozFamilies and friends gather at a candlelight vigil in remembrance of lost loved ones on Dec. 7 at Rolling Oaks Memorial Center where the recent contribution of a statue from The Zach Thompson Foundation stands. The Thompsons lost their son, Zach, on Nov. 8, 2013, from unknown causes.

SLOANE SAMBERSONStaff Writer

@sloane_avery

Students utilize Turning Point program for an early graduation

If you live in Coppell, you have probably driven past a small red brick building just

off of the southeast corner of Denton Tap Road and Natches Trace Drive. This building is Vic-tory Place @ Coppell, home to

the two educational programs of Turning Point and Compass.

People often have the wrong perception of Turning Point. Turning Point is a by-choice ac-celerated high school program, whereas Compass is the disci-plinary program for the district.

> see Turning page 14

Victory Place houses Turning Point and Compass and is used for consequences and graduating early. It is located at 550 N Denton Tap Rd.

Coppell High School 185 Parkway Blvd Coppell TX 75019W

It was the average, peace-ful night in the city of Cop-pell for Ariane Madison, her

husband and her family. As they tucked themselves into bed on Nov. 25, they awoke to find the third row of their Yukon Denali stolen right outside of their home, where it had always been parked.

“We rarely lock our doors, and before this happened, I felt that our community was safe,” Madison said. “[The neighbor-hood] has cameras as you enter the neighborhood with signs warning that they are there.”

However, that was not enough to stop the theft. From what she was told by local police of-ficers, there was a video on You-Tube that showed the burglary. The robbers broke the lock of the top back window and stole the seats in under two minutes.

One of the more recent and pressing theft issues in the city of Coppell is Burglary of Mo-tor Vehicular (BMVs). Since Jan. 1, there have been over 120 re-ported BMVs, and the figures are not always 100 percent ac-curate. This does not include the unreported crimes and the mis-reported, where people believe they were robbed but were not.

“That number is only the re-

ported ones,” Madison said. “Our neighbor’s third row was also sto-len the same night. He did not report it due to the fact he speaks limited English, and like us, he knew that they were not going to be retrieved so why waste his time in calling that it had happened?”

Many of the items stolen in BMV cases include personal items, but technological devices such as Global Positioning sys-tems and even the valuable metals from the catalytic converter are prime targets. While some dam-ages, like stolen back seats, have a hefty price tag of $1,300, most BMVs only amount to $200 or less.

“A lot of times when they steal your purse, your checkbook and ID are in the car,” public informa-tion officer sergeant Samuel Lujan said. “They will use that check and your ID and maybe try and get someone who looks like you. They will go to a bank and try to pass the check; that is when it becomes illegal. It is defrauding the bank.”

Defrauding a bank is a felony which can amount to two years to life in prison, depending on the severity. The punishment for BMVs is considered a Class A misdemeanor, which has a mini-mum of six months in jail with a maximum of $4,000 fine. That is: if the action is not habitual.

> see String page 5

Coppell alert after recent crime spike JENA SEIDEMANN

Managing Editor@jena_seidemann

“What I have learned is sticking with those three principles has made us stronger in this process and particularly with God.”

On Nov. 15, the Thompsons were proud to present the open-

ing of their butterfly garden to all in the community as a place of re-membrance.

> see Gone page 12-13

In loving memoryToronjo gets the gold (and

blue)

The Sidekick // Nicole Messer

Pg 22 Pg 24

Friends, families honor lives of lost ones

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The Sidekick staff recognizes French teacher Kimberly Moore as Teacher of the Issue. Moore is a very enthusiastic and lively teacher and is not afraid to make funny faces to help her students pronounce the dialect of the French language.

“I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was about 9 and French has always been my passion,” Moore said. “After the first time I was able to teach French it was great to see some of my students start to catch the same love that I had.”

Moore has been a teacher for 16 years but has only been at Coppell High School for three years. She teaches all levels of French but the way she teaches and her methods are very different from other teachers. Students get to immerse themselves in the French culture rather than just the language.

“I try to give them real things from French culture,” Moore said. “I’ll share pictures of my trips or music videos, things that are real from the actual country.”

According to her students, such as sophomore Keegan Reese, Moore is a qual-ity teacher with her friendly attitude and comfortable classroom atmosphere.

AUBRIE SISKStaff Photographer

@aubrie_sisk

Teacher of the Issue: Moore goes beyond language to teach French experience

THOMAS ROUSSEAUStaff Writer

The Sidekick // Aubrie Sisk

Zam-bian people.

“They have a big charity going on

over [in Zambia], Family Legacy is doing amazing work,

but our run will be to build phase two of Jacob’s house,” Mother of Ja-cob Logan, Mona Logan said. “We saw what phase one did when we saw those eight boys move in.”

The run will be very similar to last year’s event. Although the enjoyment of the 2013 run might have been dampened by inclement weather, the success of last year’s efforts have further encouraged the Logans and those who wish to participate.

“I’m so excited, hopefully there’s better weather, but I’m excited be-cause I had so much from last year, just running with everyone and it’s going to a good cause so I’m excit-ed to do it again this year,” Coppell High School senior Bailey Bedi-chek said.

Many of the runners from the community had personal ties with the Logans, and those drove them to come to help their cause.

“I almost didn’t go because it stormed that morning and it was pouring down rain and [I] wasn’t sure if it was going to get cancelled or not, but I’d become really good friends with [Jordan Logan] that year and so I really wanted to go and be there for her,” Bedichek said.

Many refer to Coppell as a fam-ily as well as a community, and the ability for almost complete strang-ers to band together for a particu-lar cause further accentuates this.

“When something like that happens to such a good kid like

The Logan family will soon be holding its second an-nual run as a memorial to

their lost loved one, Jacob Logan, who died during a tragic accident in October 2012. The run will be to help orphans in Africa. In doing this, they seek to change the world for the better and to spread hope in the form of a safe house and a good education in some places in the world where hope is a much need-ed commodity.

The Jacob Logan Run will be on Dec. 20, and all funds collected will directly benefit the building of phase two of Jacob’s LifeVision home in Lusaka, Zambia. Phase one included a house suitable for eight orphans, and phase two will include a mirrored living space with a new breezeway connecting the two living spaces.

“The beauty of Jacob’s house is that we already have the slab in for the second phase, so we can build even in rainy seasons,” run spon-sorship manager Quay Bratton said. “They could begin construc-tion immediately, we just haven’t raised most of our money yet.”

Family Legacy teaches the third largest amount of children in Zam-bia, and the first when it comes to private education. The organiza-tion believes that education is the key to changing the long lasting cycle of poverty that plagues the

him, it really brings t h e community together, and it can make you stand as one,” CHS junior Shane Steiger said.

Inspiring the helpful mindset in Coppell is what has helped the Lo-gans come as far as they have in their goal to give educational and familial succor to the Zambian orphans.

“We’ve really had the commu-nity just back us up 100 percent, and we couldn’t have done any-thing without the whole city of Coppell,” Jacob’s sister, CHS senior Jordan Logan said.

Rewards are offered for those who choose to donate certain amounts. They can be seen under the “Our Sponsors” tab on the run’s website in the various categories. The more money donated by a sponsor will contribute to a higher category on the website and they will have a place on the shirts worn at the run.

“We had 1,200 shirts out there, and they keep getting worn,” Brat-ton said. “That shows that they were involved in a good cause.”

Often after people donate to a charity, the results of the donations are not visible for a long time to come, if ever. The effort behind the LifeVision home is proud to pro-vide quick affirmation of the use-fulness of donations.

“Most people gave their money [in] October, November even De-cember last year, and by June there was a house built and boys moved in,” Bratton said.

Quick action and fast results are partially a result of the highly

motivated in- dividuals who dedicate so much of their time in and outside of Coppell.

“It’s a life changer to them, they were already in the orphanage, but to give them a home where they can live together with older boys and they’re talking to them about their future and what they’re going to do, mentoring to them,” Mona Logan said. “We saw the joy that it brought them when we went to Af-rica, we know what this next house will do for another eight boys.”

All of those involved in assist-ing the work going on in Zambia are quick to remind people of why the work continues, lest the true

goal of the run be forgotten. “You don’t have to run, you

don’t have to compete, you can just walk,” Steiger said. “You go there for the cause and to help.”

The finish line for the runners may only be a few miles into the distance, but there is no finish line in sight for the Logans and Family Legacy who face the seemingly si-syphean task of helping all the chil-dren in need within Zambia.

“This run is a labor of love, it’s not a business. Yes, our goal is to build a house, but the real reason [for] this is to honor Jacob, to honor God and to try and do something good in this world,” Bratton said.

Kimberly Moore

The Sidekick // Regan Sullivan Mother Mona Logan and Coppell High School Senior Jor-gan Logan embrace at the 2013 Jacob Logan Run at Andy Brown East. The family hosts the run evey year in honor of Jacob Logan, who died in October 2012.

Memorial 5k sends aid overseasAnnual Jacob Logan Run to raise funds for orphanage in Zambia

news 3

Upgrades in athletics facili-ties might be the highlight of the Coppell ISD bond

package passed in May 2013 but the student body at Coppell High School will start benefiting from a revamped cafeteria in the fall.

The renovation of the cafeteria was originally planned to go for-ward, but, because of funding, it lost its place amongst the heavy construction.

In October, the Coppell Board of Trustees prioritized the up-grade and size increase of the caf-eteria because of the surge in en-rollment at Coppell High School. The funding found by the board included an approximately $1.5 million increase in the General Fund Balance, which was recent-ly confirmed by the district’s au-ditors, $300,000 from the Child Nutrition Fund Balance and $900,000 from Coca-Cola and gas lease revenues.

The CHS administrative staff and the Board of Trustees saw the need for the kitchen addition, but they needed a way to organize funds in order to go through with

the plans. “In brainstorming various

ideas of how to add the kitch-en back into the projects to be completed in 2015 the idea was proposed to use these monies in order to help fund the kitchen project,” Assistant Superintendent for Business and Support Services Sid Grant said. “Our Board of Trustees agreed that this would be a good use of those funds.”

The project is targeted to rede-sign the serving line to an open concept so that more students could be served at a time and have a larger option of food choices.

“We need to ensure that our child nutrition staff has the abil-ity to prepare and serve larger amounts of food in order to feed more students within the limited time we have for lunches,” CHS Principal Mike Jasso said.

Although the size of the cafete-ria will not increase, the amount of seating will; creating a larger environment for the growing stu-dent body to enjoy their meals.

“While this addition will not increase the size of the student seating area, it will enable our child nutrition department to of-fer more choices for food,” Grant said. “This will allow students to

be served more quickly and effi-ciently.”

Despite the slight disruption of the progress of the overall bond package, the completion of the cafeteria is attuned to the end of the larger construction. in addi-tion to the kitchen addition and upgrades, with the new indoor

multi-purpose practice facility and the new competition arena, Coppell will be fortunate enough to improve even more about the district.

The bond package plans will leave campus to improve another sports area.

“Next year in the summer of

2015, we will be renovating the turf and track at Buddy Echols Field,” Grant said.

With exciting renovations coming to Coppell, the plans for this city detail a future of new in-novations and an improved stan-dard of living.

The Sidekick // Aubrie SiskCoppell High School’s renovations are moving inside to the cafeteria due to the added bonds. This construction will take place during the summer of 2015.

Bond revamps Cowboy diningCafeteria renovations mark another step in construction process

ALEXANDRA DALTONStaff Writer

@alex_dalton04

Balfour Construction continues working on the extension of the field house and a new indoor facility at Coppell High School. Some areas of student and staff parking at Coppell High School have been relocated due to the work site. For students parking far, a sidewalk has been paved for students to safely walk to and from the building. CHS predicts construction to carry into the 2015-2016 school year.

The Sidekick // Mallorie Munoz The Sidekick // Mallorie MunozThe Sidekick // Mallorie Munoz

From the moment a child is born to the time that they die, a parent has an eternal

duty of caring for and looking after their children. Parents must raise, feed and educate them, ful-filling their daily basic needs. But, for parents of special needs chil-dren, their life is another story.

For the past 10 years, one pro-gram in Coppell has been dedi-cating itself towards helping out families with special needs kids. The Loving Hands Ministry at the First United Methodist Church of Coppell (FUMC) provides one Saturday night off every month for these parents with special needs kids of the ages one to 16-years-old and their siblings. Head of the Loving Hands Ministry for seven years is Kathy Braem, who is also the Children’s Ministry Assistant.

“I was approached by Jennifer Scott, who at the time was our children’s minister, and she asked if I would be interested,” Braem said. “I had no idea what to ex-pect, I had really never worked with special needs children be-fore, but I did have and still do

have friends with special needs children and I just have a special place in my heart for them. I get more from them than I feel they probably get from the program, but they come back, they smile and they leave happy, and it makes it all worth it.”

According to the FUMC web-

The Sidekick // Amanda Hair Barb Schmidt talks with and helps one of the kids, Michael Ring, while other children at the table work on making Christmas themed crafts, with the assistance of other vol-unteers. All volunteers and children were welcome to help with or attend the Loving Hands Program at First United Methodist Church in Coppell, on December 6.

SUMMER CRAWFORDNews Editor

@summercrawfordd

site, the Loving Hands Ministry “offers Hope, Acceptance, iNclu-sion, Dignity and Support for all families of young adults, youth and children with special needs.” The most recent Loving Hands night was on Dec. 6.

“It is important to let people know that there is something,

an event, a safe place, for kids to come because there are a lot of families that have special needs children and they don’t get a break, they don’t have an outlet,” Braem said. “This is three hours that the kids can come and play, it doesn’t cost anything and they have fun. It’s a way for us to share God’s love with them.”

Both middle and high school volunteers from Coppell and all over the area, including Flower Mound, Frisco, Plano and Irving, are paired with one of the special needs children. These volunteers get to form close bonds with chil-dren they might not have met otherwise.

“A lot of the volunteers that come have been coming for quite some time, so they get to know the children really well and know what to expect,” Braem said. “[Special needs children] are no different from any other kid. Everybody deserves a friend, and that is essentially what all of the volunteers are, they become friends with the kids that are coming.”

One student volunteer has been coming for the past five years.

“I like working with kids and

knowing [they] are special needs and they appreciate it even more,” New Tech High@Coppell senior Rebekah Moomau said. “It’s just a good feeling knowing you are helping someone out, someone who may not have the same expe-riences as someone else and they get treated differently. It’s nice for them knowing that someone cares about them and wants to spend time with them.”

On a typical night, there are anywhere from 15 to 25 spe-cial needs kids, including their siblings. The most that Loving Hands has had is 36 special needs kids. While parents enjoy a night off and their children enjoy some play time, the volunteers put their whole hearts into the program.

“What fascinates me about the kids is their unconditional love. They go about life not caring and worrying about the things that we worry about every day, and I love that,” Braem said. “It is the little things that make most of the kids happy, I wish more of us could be like that and realize that it’s not all about the things, sometimes it is a smile or a hug. You get the best hugs from all of the kids when they come and that is what I look forward to.”

Parents of special needs children find comfort through Loving Hands

With the grand opening of the first complete-ly “green” school in

Coppell, Richard J. Lee Elemen-tary school, it is no surprise that the Coppell Independent School District is focusing its attention on educating students about the environment and making the schools themselves greener.

In light of this, the Coppell Community Garden has made it a goal for schools to construct and have students maintain a garden at every school in the district.

“There has been a recent resur-gence in the interest of school gar-dens related to the Coppell

ISD Sustainability Challenge begun in the 2012-2013 school year which encouraged schools to consider the following areas when thinking about how to im-prove their campus with an eye to sustainability: waste manage-ment, outdoor air quality and CO2 emissions, energy usage and outdoor green and learning spac-es,” Coppell Community Gardens Representative Beth Reynolds said.

A garden at not only the ele-mentary and middle schools, but also Coppell High School, would help promote healthy eating, a healthy lifestyle and encourage kids to learn more about their en-vironment.

“[A garden] would be amazing, and I know I have a few students

that are researching and looking into that,” Advanced Placement Environmental Science teacher Holly Anderson said. “It does sev-eral things; it will help students understand sustainability in terms of food production because we can bring that into our courses.”

With the increase in education and awareness about impover-ished areas experiencing famine across the world, a garden at each school could be used by other classes besides various science subjects. Learning about other countries with food shortages and how their culture and environ-ment affects how they grow their food could connect the garden to history and be a hands-on tool for kids to further understand what they are learning.

“So with math, obviously mea-surements, measuring height of plants and how quickly they grow using different techniques, which relates back to science and biolo-gy and Environmental Science as well,” Anderson said. “There are lots of ways to apply [a garden] in a math situation. In history, it’s definitely relative to human geography and then looking at the history of food production, in U.S. and World History, looking at food production and population and how it impacts our society. There are lots of connections and ways to bring that into their cur-riculum.”

One school garden doing just that is Town Center Elementary. The first crops grown when the garden was first built in 2013 were used in the school’s cafeteria, and kids were encouraged to taste the vegetables in order to broaden their knowledge and experience.

“At that time [2013], kale, rad-ishes and carrots were planted as these are crops that have short growing times, can tolerate cooler weather and would be easy to pre-pare and serve in the school cafe-teria,” Reynolds said. “Since then, the TCE garden has also produced black eyed peas, cantaloupe, but-ternut squash, spinach, potatoes, peas and swiss chard. Several of these items have been served in the school cafeteria and on the salad bar where students are encour-aged to ‘taste with an open mind’, a

concept promoted by Coppell chef Helen Duran, Child Nutrition Ser-vices and CISD.”

Texas weather permits a garden to be cultivated all year long, so a garden at each school would not be seasonal. It would need to be tend-ed to year round, and plants that fit the temperature and season would be grown accordingly.

“A garden would be great,” ju-nior AP Environmental Science student Sarah Ceniceros said. “It would be really good to bring or-ganic food to our community and would also help reduce carbon by not transporting as many goods [to the school].”

To determine where the garden could potentially be, different fac-tors such as amount of light, rain and accessibility of the location will be put into perspective. Ulti-mately, the best location including place of all of these factors will be chosen.

“[A garden] also gives stu-dents a chance to get outside and do things they normally wouldn’t do unless they have their own gardens at home,” Anderson said. “There are skills [to learn] there: how plants work, how living things grow and what kind of environ-mental impacts they have. There are lots of possibilities for different subject areas to use a garden as a teaching tool, and it gives students an outlet for something different that they haven’t thought about before.”

SHANNON MORGANStaff Writer

@shannonlacyy

The Sidekick // Mallorie Munoz

From roots grows a green sceneCommunity Garden extends devotion to Keeping Coppell Beautiful through plans of constructing multiple school gardens within district

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The Coppell Community Garden, located near Town Hall, is considering bringing and cul-tivating a garden at potentially every school in the Coppell Independent School District.

Arnold brings new twist to award Teacher of the Year nominees gain recognition from staff, students

Counselors, adminis-tration and student media came barrelling

into teachers’ rooms on Nov. 18 to announce Coppell High School Teacher of the Year nominees. Many were initial-ly shocked but later felt hon-ored amidst the recognition and special treats planned for the nominees this year.

There were 15 nominees, a record number of nomi-nees in recent years. The fol-lowing were selected: Scott Mason, Matt Bowden, Sa-mantha Neal, Alissa Wom-ack, Hayley Mitchell, Jessica Caviness, Holly Whiting, Bill Visco, Zach Sherman, Bran-di LeBlanc, Don Kemp, Clint Rushing, Melanie Ringman, Dawn Clyburn and Mike Yakubovsky.

On Dec. 9, Neal, who teach-es English, was announced as the 2014-2015 CHS Teacher of the Year.

“This year’s nominees are very deserving to be nominat-ed for Teacher of the Year,” as-sistant principal Melissa Ar-nold said. “All 15 of them are outstanding teachers, they are dedicated to their profession, to their learners, to growing as professionals, so to know that so many people took the time to nominate those who are so deserving makes me happy.”

KARA HALLAMEnterprise Editor

@KaraHallam

Arnold coordinated the 2014-15 Teacher of the Year process. She managed the submissions via Google Form, the presentation and judging of the nominees and the spe-cial surprises for them as well.

Nominees must be certi-fied to teach in Texas public schools, work for Coppell Independent School District for at least three years, be a classroom educator and plan to work at CISD through the next year. However, along with these basic guidelines, teachers had to be exemplary in other fields as well.

The nomination form contains fields for exam-

ples of how t h e

teacher creates a safe learn-ing environment, helps stu-dents make real world con-nections and models the construction of knowledge in his or her learning. Other considerations includes how the teacher uses the district transformation initiative, de-signs experiences that facili-tate the learner’s conceptual development and measures a learner’s level of understand-ing.

“In years past we have al-ways announced the nomi-nees in the morning at the staff meeting, and in the af-

t e r n o o n we would an-n o u n c e

Teacher of the Year,” Arnold said. “So this year, we want-ed to focus on the nominees themselves, so we did just a couple little treats here and there to really show that they are special.”

Counselors and adminis-tration gathered at the horse-shoe at the start of fifth peri-od on Nov. 18 with balloons and I ROCK CHS shirts to surprise the nominees. They went door to door to an-nounce that they had been nominated.

“They scared me to death, I was standing in a corner and they came in so I thought they were bringing something to a

student, so I j u s t

kind of hid back in a corner and they started going ‘No come here,’” American Sign Language teacher Dawn Cly-burn said.

Quite a few nominees ad-mitted similar initial reac-tions including Caviness, a Pre-AP Math teacher, who jumped into the corner when prize patrol walked in. Rush-ing, an AP Physics teacher, asked one of the counselors presenting the award why they were there in the middle of the announcement.

“We’re so used to recogniz-ing our students, so to be on the other end of that is dif-ferent and it’s nice,” LeBlanc, marketing teacher, said.

Following the announce-ment, the nominees were rec-ognized at the Nov. 19 staff meeting. A poster was hung outside each teacher’s door for students to write appre-ciative things for them. There was a luncheon and they re-ceived special treats includ-ing bundt cakes.

“Last year, I was nominat-ed too and it was like boom, boom, and we found out it was [anatomy teacher Jodie Deinhammer] but this year has been really amazing,” Ringman, English teacher, said. “My kids told me to go check my box [because] ap-parently I haven’t and they were like ‘have you not gotten our stuff yet?’ So it’s cool that they’re honoring all the nom-inees.”

The Sidekick // Kelly MonaghanThe Teacher of the Year nominees were recognized at the Nov. 19 staff meeting. Fifteen teachers were nomiated this year and the winner, Mrs. Neal, was announced Dec. 9.

> from page 1In most cases, robbers take

the stolen cards and purchase small items in surrounding areas such as Lewisville and Grapevine so the banks are not suspicious. BMVs are very sporadic. There have been weeks when there were six on the same street or nothing at all.

“Most [criminals] just want the cash,” Lujan said. “They are unorganized, so we call the BMVs opportunistic crimes.”

Opportunistic is a spur of the moment crime that occurs most often at the local parks, recre-ation centers and day cares.

However, in the past six months, there have been 18 organized thefts. Though not confirmed, it is suspected that the group known as the Felony Lane Gang is behind the stealing in Coppell and neighboring cities.

Originating from Flor-ida, the gang seeks credit cards and checkbooks in order to take larger sums of money. In order to not jump to conclusions without sup-porting evidence, the Coppell Police Department does not pin them for each crime.

“Another reason why we do not say it is them is because we do not want to sensationalize them,” Lujan said. “We do not want to make them seem important when they really aren’t. There are some cities that have had arrests of this group. A lot of [BMV] cases go unsolved. Now, we have had maybe two to three we have caught and in most of these cases, we were alerted by the bank.”

Unfortunately, there is lim-ited evidence to prosecute the trespassers, which inadvertently means most of these cases remain open and unsolved.

“If we do not get anything during the initial investigation from the patrol officers, the case pretty much stays open,” Lujan said. “We won’t solve it.”

For Madison, the theft was disappoint-ing because of the finan-cial strain and the in-creased insurance rates.

“It is unset-tling to know that what was stolen from us will never be returned due to the type of crime that was commit-ted,” Madison said. “It is more unsettling when you pay high insur-ance premiums to only be told that this type of theft is only covered under your collective insurance, and the de-ductible is double the price than if you did damage to your own property.”

Madison has learned to be vigilant at all times.

“The only foolproof way to hinder a theft from stealing any items out of your car in a mat-ter of minutes would be to park it in your garage, which I feel will only cause the thief to have to break into your home if they are bold enough,” Madison said. “I do not believe that those that are out raiding cars are looking to break into a home to steal from your car.”

Within Coppell, there are four police districts that divide the city. When there is a police report for the BMV, they include the dis-trict in which the crime was com-mitted. From www.coppelltx.gov and the public documents, there have been 65 robberies since July to Nov. 30.

O f a l l the

d i s -t r i c t s , d i s t r i c t four has the highest rate of theft in the time pe-riod with 20 total BMVs.

Unfortuanley, the numbers for this crime has become more frequent, but for Coppell resident Sheri Collins, she has dealt with multiple headaches pertaining to auto theft.

Experiencing her first au-tomobile theft at the age of 18, C ol l ins

m a d e the mis-take of leaving valu-ables in her car, therefore, giving the thieves motiva-tion to break in. Naturally, what was stolen was never re-placed, but it did leave her with street-savvy knowledge to pro-tect her personal items.

“Since that, I tried to never leave anything I care about in the car,” Collins said. “I also keep a blanket in my car so, when I am making purchases, I lay the blan-

String of burglaries initiates heightened sense of awareness 5news

ket over them to hide the stuff. [Being robbed] makes you a little more aware of what’s happening.”

In the last month or so, Col-lins has dealt with

i n - c r e a s -ingly more perpetrators. Her last incident was when someone was trying to steal the GPS out of her boyfriend’s truck. Because her boyfriend had a night job, he was able to hear the commotion.

However,

the unidentified person was never caught.

Two weeks before, a suspi-cious man was lurking around

the neighborhood and left as soon as someone confronted him about why he was there. Because of all of the commotion, Collins strongly advocates for a tighter security program to be imple-mented.

“I think [a neighborhood watch group] would be an awe-

some idea, especially with all the activity I have noticed,” Collins said. “People need to lock every-thing up and take it inside. My car stays in the garage, so that helps tremendously.”

For further security measures, the truck

does not have a radio in it

b e c a u s e it stays

o u t -

s ide. It is one

less thing to tempt any-

one who wish-es to rob the truck.

They even leave dogs outside to watch cars and repro-grammed the security light so it is on all the time instead of it hav-ing a motion sensor.

This theft-abundant type of environment is far different than 10 years ago.

“When I first moved to Cop-pell, it was a tight knit group of

people that watched out for each other,” Collins said. “I

knew all my neighbors ,

and we t a l k -ed. We

were more of the whole tribe rais-ing the kids. Now, everybody is trying to keep to themselves and not disturb one another. It takes everyone to work together, meet each other, and put the [safety] back in Coppell so to speak. We have to care enough about it to do something.”

Collins thinks this could have been avoided if people had been more vigilant and attentive to their possessions and their

The Sidekick // Nicholas Brigis

neighbors, because anyone can be a victim.

“It concerns me considering how small we are as a commu-nity,” Collins said. “What makes people feel bold enough to break into the car?”

Collins’ greatest hope is that there will be more unity with-in the community by creating watch groups.

“We need the trust and con-fidence that neighbors care just as much about our stuff as you do theirs,” Collins said. “Its that common Golden rule type of sit-uation. It is building the commu-nity to where it needs to be.”

She also thinks that install-ing more lights in darker areas gives the criminals less area to hide, as they like to dwell in the shadows. Even though she believes in any preventative measure possible, she also understands crime will never be eradicated.

“Crimes are bound to happen, and you cannot [completely] be naive enough to believe that there is none,”

Collins said.While some believe it is na-

ive to think nothing will happen, some also think it is showing the safety of the city.

“I do not think it is ignorant to think that way; I think it shows the local police department is doing their job,” Lujan said. “[People] are calling the police, and they know the police depart-ment is going to take care of it. The [comfort level] says a lot for the city, police department, ani-mal services, school district and fire department. The job is get-ting done. We want them to feel safe and comfortable, but we also want them to be vigilant and call 911.”

It is true the concerns of so-ciety have changed drastical-ly, where it is necessary to lock doors for protection and preven-tion can only happen if people are vigilant.

“We all should be aware of our surroundings but that does not mean we have to walk on egg-shells everywhere we go,” Madi-son said.

Other theft has included a recent break in and entry. Acording to a Coppell police press release, on Dec. 5., the robbery occured near the 500

block of Abbey Court. Three armed men entered the home wearing skii masks. They stole

cash, electronics and other goods while holding the hostages at gun point.

As of Dec. 8, police have connected

this robbery to the robberies in Flower Mound and Allen. They have recovered the lost items to the Coppell family. If any-one has infor-

mation pertaining to this, please contact the police.

For those who wish to send tips about suspicious events, download the CoppellPDTips from the app store.

***The Coppell map graphic is meant to be an abstract pie chart. This is not the exact location of the Coppell police districts. Data is from www.coppelltx.gov from July 1 to Nov. 30. These are only reported cases.***

The Sidekick //Nicholas Brigis

Ferguson, sex ed, gay mar-riage, abortion, political candidates; after hearing

these you are most likely holding your breath waiting for the first person to speak out about any of these topics.

Today, political correctness and fear of censorship seem to be the only things teenagers are worried about. We dare not of-fend anyone, so we use politically correct terms and use speak the “popular” opinion are what we

are taught to think about first. Forming a logical opinion should be made without worrying about backlash.

Instead of creating a positive, conducive environment where everyone is entitled to their own opinions, we have people that are too afraid to speak out because they will either be torn apart by people that disagree or shamed for their opinions.

Differing opinions should al-ways be respectful, but standards

respectful is also subjective. As long as discussion is civil with no one belittling another and disre-garding their ideas, it is positive.

Unfortunately, that scenario would be in a perfect world. A conducive environment is one where each individual has the op-portunity to speak without being censored.

Having contrary opinions is what makes this country great and should be supported, if not encouraged. It is what the cou-

opinions6

editorialFears over political correctness prevent free discussion

The Sidekick is the student newspaper for Coppell High School and is published six times per school year.

The newspaper is a member of National Scholastic Press Asso-ciation, Journalism Education Association and Interscholastic League Press Conference.

The editorials and columns presented in this paper reflect the views of their student writers and not Coppell High Schoool or Coppell Independent School District.

Adverstisements are sold as full, 1/2 page, 1/4 page and 1/8 page sizes in black and white or color.

The Sidekick welcomes all letters to the editor. Letters can be emailed to cwofford@coppellisd.com or delivered to the D115 newsroom at Coppell High School. A current email address and first and last name for the writer must be included for the letter to be considered forpublication.

Contact The Sidekick: 214-496-6239cwofford@coppellisd.com

Executive Editors

Editorial Editors

Photographers

AdviserChase WoffordEditor-In-Chief Alex Nicoll

Managing EditorJena SeidemannEnterprise EditorKara Hallam

News EditorSummer CrawfordStudent Life Editor Allie ArnoldEntertainment Editor Stephanie Alexander

Design EditorRachel Buigas-LopezGraphics EditorJosh MartinPhotography Editor Nicole Messer

Business/Public Relations Manager Tuulia Koponen Business staffChris Sheldon

Staff WritersShivani BurraPranathi ChittaEmma CumminsAlexandra DaltonPriya DesaiAisha EspinosaNicolas HendersonAlex IrizarryMeara IsenbergJoseph KrumMarcus Krum

Shannon MorganShruthika PochampallyAmy RohThomas RousseauGabby SahmSloane SambersonSai SeshadriHailey SiegristChisom UkohaSakshi VenkatramanChloe Moino

Chelsea BanksAmanda HairMallorie Munoz

Kelly MonaghanAubrie SiskSarah VanderPol

Taylor BondManu Garikipati

Christianna HaasNicholas Brigis

2014-2015 Sidekick Staff

try was founded on, freedom of speech.

That being said, with freedom comes responsibility.

Conversations between teen-agers about these topics needs to be stressed. If students don’t feel comfortable enough to talk about topics such as these, they will be forced to make uninformed deci-sions about these topics later on in their life. Without having time to discuss and debate different issues in a no-spin environment,

this could be disastrous for our generation.

Political correctness can often create uncomfortable situations between students, especially if each one is worried about offend-ing the other.

The standards are ridiculous and quite possibly the reason why our generation has so much trouble with free and relaxed conversations about current top-ics. It could also correlate to how we cannot compromise and work together because we are too dog-matic and arrogant to discuss or because we have not been sea-soned into how to properly go about these conversations.

Many Americans have died for the chance to have the right of free speech and the right to prac-tice their own religion in public places without persecution. The opportunity to speak without persecution is each American’s right and recently, corrupt poli-ticians and activists have tried to obfuscate the idea of free speech and religious tolerance.

Maintaining freedom of speech and the right to worship openly and publicly is the foun-dation on which the individual has the opportunity to voice their own opinion. Our forefathers knew that and so should we.

Tolerance is not the absence of discussion, but the ability to appreciate other peoples ways of life.

School littering problem puts burden on janitors by Sai Seshadri // Published on Dec. 3, 2014“Great article! I’m glad someone is taking the time to notice how under-appreciated the janitorial staff is. Just because it may be someone’s job doesn’t mean that we should make it more difficult for them, that’s just incon-siderate.”Username: Seema Patel

Kosh recognized as October teacher of the month by Sakshi Venkatraman // Published on Nov. 7, 2014“As Karie’s aunt, I have first-hand experience with her creative abilities and the personal qualities that she

brings to her math students...CONGRATS TO KARIE KOSH AND TO COPPELL FOR RECOGNIZING A JEWEL AMONG YOUR FACULTY!”

Username: Phyllis McAndrew

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Two years ago, I would have never imagined writing a column about this topic

and these experiences because of the burden of shame that I car-ried in conjunction with them.

For the majority of my life, I always found ways to give back in some way or form during the holidays, however I never truly appreciated these acts of kindness until I was on the receiving end.

In schools, churches and the community in general, we are constantly bombarded with state-ments about the “less fortunate”. Many clubs and organization have been dedicated to helping people in hard situations. More so at Christmas than any other time of the year, peoples’ moral com-passes point straight to the homes of less fortunate families who, without support, will not have a holiday that is up to par.

Growing up in a community as affluent as Coppell, the inte-gration of foundations, such as the Angel Tree was something I grew up with. Donation, even if only a dollar in a box, gave me a sense of purpose during the sea-son of giving.

The way I pictured things, the gifts I donated would make a family of four that lived in a box very happy. Although I regret this way of thinking now, I really did not see the people I was giving to on the same social level as me. I did not necessarily view them as lesser humans than me, but I imagined that all of them were so impoverished that they lacked the necessary means of survival like a warm bed to sleep in or a sturdy pair of shoes/clothes. I did not even give consideration to the fact they might live within my community.

My rude awakening came to me Christmas 2012, when a foun-dation like the Angel Tree made a stop at my house and I realized I was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

My family had experienced a very tough year economically and we had talked about cutting down on material gifts, so I was surprised to say the least, when I woke up on Christmas morning to a whole host of gifts under the tree. The name of my family was

embellished on a large paper or-nament near the tree.

We opened them to find clothes, shoes, board games and gift cards. Each gift was labeled with either my, my sister’s or my mom’s name. At first, like any 13-year-old, I was extremely ex-cited to tear into the gifts. After all the frenzy died down, I began to think about where all the presents actually came from.

I knew from the start it was not my mother’s doing, but I did not think too deeply into it. After we finished opening presents, we all sat down and my mother showed us some pictures. The photos de-picted a group of boys and girls at the mall, buying and wrapping gifts.

My mom informed us she had been asked if our family could be adopted, among other families, by an organization called Making A Change, at a local school for Christmas that year. The boys and girls in the photos were part of a class and given the money to buy gifts for our family.

I was humiliated. It was not the concept of char-

ity that repelled me, or even the fact that we were certifiably poor, but it was the idea that these chil-dren, who were around the age of my younger sister, knew that we were, and not only that, lived so close by.

It was embarrassing that they looked so happy helping us. I felt small because it was then that I realized the mindset I had when donating to others was most likely

the same mindset they had when donating to us.

The idea that we were looked upon with pity by these kids de-pressed me. They thought we were “less fortunate” citizens. I was up-set with my mom for accepting this kind of help; I was not aware we needed it.

I lived in a cozy house where I had my own laptop, where all of us had good shoes and clothes, and we always had food on the table. In my mind, yes, we had sacrificed a few things to the hard times, but it was nothing we could not sur-vive without and the fact that we accepted help from a bunch of kids confused and frustrated me.

I wish I could say that feeling evaporated into thin air, but the truth is, I would still feel uneasy if I was in such a situation today. But what I have come to realize is how much joy those kids must have had when buying and wrap-ping those presents, and how, like me, they must have pictured our smiling faces after opening them.

I also thought about how hap-py it made my mom for us to have all those gifts that she would oth-erwise not have been able to put under the tree. She told us what a blessing this was and that she took comfort in the knowledge that someone was looking out for us, and that we were not alone.

And that kind of happiness and love is what Christmas is supposed to be about. To tell the truth, those kids did make a dif-ference because that year, I be-came aware that the way I thought

about poverty was wrong, and even though my family may have been struggling for money we were nowhere near poor.

We spent Christmas that year with more love than a lot of fam-ilies have, so as far as I was con-cerned we were not “inferior in quality” or “lacking something”.

No family should have to feel ashamed on Christmas because of the size of their bank account; the non-material things that should be shared during the holidays cannot be appraised with mone-

tary values. Although I certainly am an

advocate for giving, the meaning of Christmas should not be lost in the commercialism and mate-rialism of it all. The joy on those children’s faces, the patience with which they had wrapped each toy and the love with which they picked their recipients meant more to me than the presents. Those actions embody the spirit of the holiday season and we felt it more that year than any other year before it.

True Meaning of ChristmasMaterialism hinders traditional holiday spirit

opinions 7

SAKSHI VENKATRAMANStaff Writer@oompapa1

Photo Courtesy // Jyoti MasurekarSmrithi Venkatraman, the youngest member of the family, opens her first present of the morning, a new pair of shoes.

Photo Courtesy // Jyoti MasurekarA multitude of Christmas gifts lay under the tree awaiting to be opened by the still-sleeping children of the Masurekar household.

All over Facebook I see some pictures in people’s photo albums of their senior year

that seem a bit out of place. To me, posing with a dead animal you are about to dissect does not look like it should be in the same album with your weekend lake pictures.

Coppell High School anatomy students seem to think this sort of behavior of taking pictures with animals to be used for dissection is acceptable because of social media’s ability to basically make anything, with the right wording, seem like a trend to follow.

While it is not intended to be a harmful action, it is why they feel that it’s something they need to post that concerns me. For that moment, whether it was their own idea or their friend’s, someone thought it was a good idea to take a goofy picture with an animal that has died for the purpose of their education. It is not goofy, it is dis-respectful.

According to The Humane Society of the United States, most animals that are used for dissection such as frogs, sharks, mudpuppies, birds, salamanders, snakes, turtle and other inver-tebrates are taken from the wild for the purpose of dissection and only dissection.

This not only shows that these animals lives were taken so these students could learn by using their own bodies, but also that these lives should be used and respected for this purpose alone.

While questions about the eth-ics behind it should raise concern for whoever decides to frown or

smile behind a dead frog for some likes, the sheer fact of the nause-ating nature of the whole concept makes these pictures not only in-appropriate, but unpopular.

When I see a picture of some-one grinning next to the dead pig they are about to dissect it is not exactly happiness that goes through me. Rather, it is a feeling of disgust and nausea that hits me. Unfortunately, this happens every time I have to see one of these pic-tures pop up.

It is not just pictures on social media that shows these students’ disrespect though. Often in classes this same behavior is exhibited by considering the dissection to be a joke and often playing with body parts they are suppose to be ob-serving during the assignment and not using equipment in the way it was intended in order to get a laugh out of their lab partner.

Through the hallways I have also heard stories about students daring each other to eat minnow samples they were supposed to be observing for money and respect from their peers. Sometimes, they will even pretend like the animal is talking by moving their mouth as a joke.

Think about it like this: would medical students ever take a selfie or find the need to mess with a ca-daver during one of their lab ses-sions to crack a joke?

Immediately, we think no. But for students, we do not equate these animals with humans and see this behavior as something that can be laughed off as an immature joke.

While this comparison seems too extreme, this is the equivalent for our students and should be taken into account into what type of behavior needs to be exhibited with these animals being used for dissection.

To those that see this equiva-lence, these pictures are not only disgusting, but are also infuriating.

I do see the importance of these dissections. While I do feel

like they should be

very limited, dissections are a hands on way to learn about the body and its biological functions and purpose. What I also believe in however is for these animals to be used for what they unknow-ingly had their lives taken from

themselves for.There needs to be a decrease of

these type of pictures and a seri-ous policy through these anatomy classes to emphasize the inappro-priate and disrespectful nature of their actions and decisions.

Next time you are in anatomy and think it would just be hilarious to make a piggy face with the piglet you are about to dissect, remember why you are really in that anatomy class and what the purpose of that animal really is.

opinions8

Anatomy for science; not selfiesTaking pictures with animals to follow trend deemed disrespectful

PRIYA DESAIStaff Writer

@priusdasani

The Sidekick // Josh Martin

The Sidekick // Rachel Buigas-Lopez

As I scurry through the hallways in between class-es I can always count on

one thing; complaints. One of the best talents of teenagers is to find absolutely any topic on this Earth and rant to their friends about how irritating it is to them.

Because of the consistent oc-cupancy of teenagers in high school, it is not surprising that teachers are the main target to these harsh conversations. From the assignments they give, their behavior and expectations, stu-dents will find any way to argue about how their teacher is the roughest.

Although normally I listen to these conversations unfazed, there is one complaint that up-sets me the most, to the bewil-derment of my peers. Students would rather find the answers to a worksheet on Google than think about the depth of the questions that are being asked.

We should not be upset when a teacher asks us to have a deep-er understanding of the subject because it will only benefit us in the long run. Instead of the hard-er work, we choose to memorize

facts for the test tomorrow, or terms for our language quiz.

My generation is always com-plaining about the complexity of their work and how teachers ask too much of them when it comes to critical thinking, but we should be grateful they are pushing our limits. Without being challenged, there is no growth, and believe it or not, critical thinking is a nec-essary skill to be successful in life.

However, the opportunity to exercise this has been robbed from us. We focus on the thick-ness of our notes or the papers that must have all of the specif-ic requirements over whether or not we understand the big pic-ture.

The Finnish school system has avoided these problems with some unorthodox forms of edu-cation. Not starting school until age seven, students are not mea-sured for the first six years of their education. All students are taught in the same classroom, yet each student receives 30 per-cent more attention in their first nine years of schooling making the gap between the weaker and stronger students the smallest gap in the world.

This results in a 93 percent high school graduation rate com-pared to that of the United States which is at 80 percent.

As much as adults would like to say we do this to ourselves; we are being pushed to new levels and are just trying to keep up. In an attempt to do that, students are finding any way to make sure they are at the same levels of their peers. This is just the generation’s way of dealing with the progres-sion.

While this makes us appear lazy, it also represents the op-posite. If the educational system gave students more time to pro-cess the information maybe they would not feel so inclined to just memorize it. We are coping with their teaching habits, trying to set ourselves up best for our future which is completely based on the numbers, not on how much you really know.

Progress is always beneficial, but you have to give a little to get a little. Give students extra time to learn, extra time to discuss

the topic, dissect the problems and maybe they will surprise you with how much they can really think.

Pondering about something you are learning is the purest form of education and knowl-edge but the school system is more concerned with speed, so the quality is overlooked. In-stead, quantity and meeting a certain point in the curriculum is number one.

There is a need for a fine bal-ance of quantity versus quality, and really, students are just try-

The Sidekick // Manu Garikipati

Quantity over qualityCritical thinking nixed in favor of grades; curriculum too fast paced

9

ALEXANDRA DALTONStaff Writer

@alex_dalton04

opinions

In the late 1500s, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” gave way to a new breed of woman: the

hopeless romantic.Since then, with books and

movies like “Twilight” and “The Fault in Our Stars”, girls’ expecta-tions of the ideal relationship have only become more sickeningly unrealistic.

The stunning good looks, intel-ligence and romantic tendencies in the heroes of modern day nov-els and films set the bar awfully high for the gangly, acne-ridden teenage boys that exist in the real world.

Growing up in the mix of all these stereotypes for the perfect man, little girls are indirectly taught that if a man’s personality and physiology do not remotely reflect the traits of Edward Cullen, he is not a good partner.

In reality, that boy in that mov-ie is wearing more makeup than

SAKSHI VENKATRAMANStaff Writer@oompapa1

Unrealistic, naive expectations about love stem from pop culture

most girls do on a daily basis, and speaks with Shakespearean eloquence because, just behind the camera, there is a machine prompting every word he says.

And all the while, the poor boys of this generation are des-perately trying to climb the lad-der to our hearts that a dozen fictional characters have already surmounted.

Girls, no matter how much we deny this, initially go for guys that are aesthetically pleasing to

us, and we are often disappointed when “prince charming” does not swoop in with roses, chocolates and a suit of armor five minutes after we meet him.

It is a situation many young girls, and even adult women, can relate to. Living in an imperfect world, expectations of perfection are a segway into disappointment when it comes to relationships, especially in high school, but be-yond as well.

A study conducted by the Na-

The Sidekick // Manu Garikipatitional Center for Health Statistics proves that 90 percent of divorces in college-educated couples are filed by the woman. In fact, for out of all the divorces that have occurred in the past one hundred years, the primary filer has been the woman.

This is not to suggest that the only group plagued by distort-ed expectations are women; the way women are protrayed on the covers of magazines give young men falsified perceptions of what

a woman’s beauty looks like or, rather, what a women should look like. These expectations from both parties often cause the level of attraction and interest in a re-lationship to decrease with time and age.

Granted, there are divorces and breakups that take place for reasons that are very real, I know this from personal experience, however, 46 percent of divorced couples give “unrealistic expec-tations” as one of the reasons for their divorce.

This is the result of couples go-ing into relationships with inac-curate preconceptions about what a marriage will look like. A lot of these notions preexist from their teenage years.

What modern day society and romance films/novels char-acterize as love is really a series of chemical changes in the brain involving adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin.

The thing little girls see as true love is actually just a fleeting peri-od of infatuation and lust, some-thing that goes away quite quickly.

To solve this problem, and possibly lower the statistics of failed relationships, girls must be made aware of the half-truths distributed in our modern day world. Also, proper education of what marriage entails, an eternal partnership rather than an eternal romance, would help girls more wisely make life decisions.

ing to do their best with the tools and time limits they are given.

I will still roll my eyes when I see a student complain about the hard worksheets they are hand-ed, but I cannot ignore the fact that they have the right to be up-set. Students want to learn; they just want to learn through some-thing other than a textbook or the never ending number of defi-nitions. Teenagers want to learn about things they will remember next year and memorization or Google cheat sheets cannot do that for them.

In Coppell, three Christian discipleship groups work to mentor young students and

athletes in hopes to guide them through their adolescent years.

Fellowship of Christian Ath-letes was founded in 1954 by Don McClanen. They made it their mission from the very beginning to see the world impacted by Jesus Christ through the influence of coaches and athletes. FCA focus-es on serving local communities by equipping, empowering and encouraging people to make a dif-ference for Christ.

“We all meet once a week on Fridays where the leaders teach a lesson that directly applies to sports and then breakout into small groups and have a worship service,” senior Kaylee Geiser said. “We talk about how we can apply the lesson through Christ into our daily lives.”

FCA has a certain vision for coaches which is to redeem sports through transformed coaches.

Freshman football coach Clint Rushing has been a sponsor of the FCA organization at Coppell High School for six years and was involved with FCA while in high school.

“I like to be able to influence kids in their faith and FCA is a good organization to do that.” Rushing said. “The most import-ant thing in my opinion more so than a student’s grades, sport, or contests it is what someone be-lieves and their relationship with God; so this gives us an opportu-nity to pour into that.”

In addition to FCA, there are other forms of ministry that reaches CHS students, such as Coffee Talk and Young Life.

Coffee Talk is a part of Young Life but serves for ony high school girls to come together and wor-ship once a month. Ten years ago, a Coppell parent, Sharon Mankin, started a Bible study for her daughter and her daugh-ter’s friends. Once her daughter reached high school, Mankin cre-ated Coffee Talk as a way to reach teenage girls and provide them with adult mentors to walk with them through high school.

In its 10th year, Coffee Talk has some Coppell High School gradu-ates that give back to the commu-nity. A 1999 CHS graduate, Robyn Wise, has been leading at Coffee Talk for three years.

“I believe Coffee Talk provides a safe environment for girls to re-late and build community with women of all generations while discussing day to day issues and walking together through their faith journey,” Wise said. “I was looking for a place to serve in the community where I grew up. At the time life was becoming a little too much about me and God put a burden on my heart to share my life and enlarge my sense of com-munity.”

The vision of Coffee Talk is that the Trenta (Jesus) will pour into the ventis (moms and head leaders), the ventis will pour into the Grandes (adult leaders), the grandes will pour into the talls (juniors and seniors), and the talls will pour into the shorts (fresh-man and sophomores).

“The girls I have the privilege of hanging out with challenge and

inspire me,” Wise said. “They also hold me accountable. My prayer is that these girls would feel com-fortable asking me any and ev-erything that they want answers to, and that we would dig into God’s word together to find the answers.”

Junior Maggie Stone partic-ipates in both Coffee Talk and FCA. However, Stone is not just a participant, she sings wor-ships songs at both organizations which strengthens her faith.

“It’s super fun to get to start out my Fridays with hearing God’s word and singing His name,” Stone said. “Having to

prepare a song each week impacts me by having to spend more time listening to worship music as well as pray. Singing at Coffee Talk has also caused me to spend more time with God, which is a bless-ing. A lot of the girls who attend FCA also attend Coffee Talk, so I get to spend more time getting to hanging out and getting to know them.”

In the fall of 2013, Young Life at Coppell High School was start-ed. With the already thriving presence of FCA and Coffee Talk in Coppell made a promising fu-ture for Young Life.

Young Life area director Mi-

chael Hewett began to volunteer at church on Sundays but felt like he was being called into full-time ministry so he headed off to col-lege to pursue a degree in student ministry.

“When I look back and see what the Lord has done in my life and the things He has taught me, I know that Young Life is what He has been leading me to do,” Hewett said. “I love working with students and seeing them grow into the people that they are meant to be. I am excited for what the Lord has in store for Coppell Young Life.”

student life10

Christian groups impart guidanceFCA, Coffee Talk, Young Life provide fellowship for CHS students

SHIVANI BURRAStaff Writer

@ShiviBurra

High school girls meet at the Wise house (host home) for Coffee Talk every six weeks on Sunday at 7:15 p.m. The girls talk with their groups about faith, school and other issues.

Photo Courtesy // Macy Wise

New this year at Coppell High School is junior Nicole Johnson, who

goes by Nikki. She came to Tex-as with modeling experience in California and New York.

Q: When did you first start modeling?A: I was officially signed to an agency when I was 14, about to turn 15. I’m 17 now, and have modeled officially for about two years. My first legitimate au-dition was when I was 13 for a Converse ad, and my first few shoots were during freshman year for independent photogra-phers in New York.

Photo Courtesy // Nicole JohnsonJunior Nicole Johnson, models for Dolce & Gabbana with two other models to her left. She is on the right holding the leash.

Teen model thrives in limelight

Campus serves as new regional testing site for aspiring nurse aids

student life 11

CHISOM UKOHAStaff Writer@uchisom3

Q: Why did you first start mod-eling? A: I’ve always been very thin and have a really strong bone struc-ture. Ever since I was around 11, people have told me, “You should be a model!”, so I guess I sort of had the mindset that I could be a model because ev-eryone told me I could. I’ve also always had a really high interest in the fashion world and how it worked and an interest in mod-els themselves.

Q: What made you want to model?A: One day when I was 13, I was in the car with my mom and an advertisement came on the radio mentioning something about an open call for an au-dition of some sort for Disney Channel. I told my mom that it sounded cool and I wish I did things like that, and that’s sort of how everything began.

Q: How did you get into the modeling industry?A: I had gone through a lot of scam agencies and basical-ly didn’t have any call backs, because none of the people or agencies I was trying to get jobs through were legitimate. The agencies asked for money up front to get me jobs, which was a really big red flag.My family and I had moved to Los Angeles from Dallas in De-cember of my eighth grade year. It was a very good thing for my career because Los Angeles is the [second] biggest center for modeling in the nation, next to New York. The first step for me to model was to update my portfolio so that I could show them to agencies. Q: What did you like about modeling?

A: To be honest, it made me feel good about myself. I gained a lot of confidence from mod-eling. I liked that every shoot was something new and you had to be creative in order for the photographer to have good pictures to work with to use for the advertisements. The feeling of gratification at the end of a shoot was great because seeing the hard work that everyone on set did was really satisfying. I also love traveling, and even if it was just driving to different lo-cations around the state. Q: Where did you model?A: In freshman year, I had the opportunity to travel to New York City for two shoots. How-ever, most of my career was based in Los Angeles. Siona Entertainment in Burbank, Ca-

lif. represented me. My biggest shoot was for Dolce & Gabbana through a photographer named Caleigh. Q: What did you dislike the most about modeling?A: The three things I absolutely hated about modeling were not being able to have a say in any-thing; if you are uncomfortable or tired on set, you have to pre-tend you are fine and not com-plain. Second, I hated not being treated like an actual person. I was often referred to as “the blonde one.” I also hated being told how to “fix” myself. Q: If you could, would you go back to modeling?A: I’m actually thinking about going back into the industry. However, it is very difficult to do

when you have to keep up with school work. In order to get booked, you have to go on audi-tions, and since modeling is just like any other job with regular operational hours, the end of the day for most casting directors is at 10 p.m. By the time I get out of school, half of the day is al-ready gone, leaving a very small time frame for shoots/auditions. If I could, I would definitely go back, but I would have to find an alternate method of schooling. Overall, it’s worthwhile because it’s not a typical person, and you get to meet a lot of new people.

Q: What were some of the pres-sures of modeling?A: The main pressure was people telling me that I had to be per-fect. You have to have clear skin, you have to be a certain height, you have to gain weight. Any model will tell you that. It was stressful because I was constantly worrying about my appearance and how to fix my skin problems. It was also stressful trying to find jobs, given that I don’t meet the standard minimum industry re-quirement of 5 feet 8 inches for height since I’m about 5 foot 6 inches. I had to work extra hard in competing with other models to get booked.

Q: Did you have any modeling role models or someone that you looked up to?A: When I first started model-ing, Kate Moss and Gisele Bünd-chen were big role models to me. [I admired Moss] because she managed to go so far in the in-dustry without being a “typical” model; her height and facial fea-tures were different from most in the industry. [I admired Bünd-chen] because of her personality,

The National Nurse Aide Assessment Program (NNAAP) is an examina-

tion program designed to de-termine minimal competency to become a certified nurse aide (CNA) within each state. The NNAAP exam is composed of both a written and skills section testing the understanding and performance of the tasks of an entry level nurse aide.

“My nephew, who is now in his second year of medical school, was telling me about how much farther ahead his classmates are if they took this CNA exam or even Health Sci-ence classes in high school,” Coppell High School Health Services Program director Deb-ra Johnson said. ”His first time working on a patient he was a nervous wreck but his peers that knew the entry level skills looked so advanced in compar-

ison, so it is good to know these basic patient skills if you are looking into either a medical or nursing career.

In 2013, Coppell ISD Health Services Program applied and was approved to be a training program, and, to date, the pro-gram has maintained a 100 per-cent passing rate.

In addition to establishing a training program, the CISD Health Services Program applied to become a Regional Testing Facility in 2013 and was selected to administer NNAAP examina-tions on the CHS campus.

Health Science Technologies senior Apurva Bachal took the CNA exam her junior year to get an upper hand.

“I also plan on working in a hospital part-time during col-lege and certified nurses get a lot more money than regular student jobs along with the bo-nus experience,” Bachal said. “It recently helped me get an intern-ship because it made me stand out compared to other random

high school students who had no experience.”

Becoming a Regional Test Site enables CHS learners to train and test in their own nursing skills lab and receive funding from the state for every CNA candidate testing on campus.

“We are currently the only high school in Texas that is a test-ing site which is an advantage to us because the state pays our pro-gram for tester,” Johnson said. “It helps offset the expenses of hav-ing a CNA program because we are able to generate some funds. With a full roster we are able to generate a couple hundred of dollars per test.”

By taking this exam, testers are one step closer to achieving their goals of a career in the med-ical field.

“First, I was planning to be a journalism major but then I just realized I did not want to do 60 hours plus being on call along with having to work on the hol-idays,” University of North Tex-as graduate Jaimy Nirian said.

“Both my mom and aunt are nurses and I have the desire to help people so this was just the right thing to do.”

Both CHS students and the testers are enjoying the benefits of the local testing site.

Last year, 55 CHS students took the CNA test and passed. They were well prepared seeing as the testing site was located at their school and they got the op-portunity to work with Johnson

beforehand. “The reason I wanted us to

become a test site is because its gives our CNA candidates here a home field advantage,” Johnson said. “They are not only training in their classroom here but they are also able to work on their skills in the test site. So when they come into to take the offi-cial state test it is a familiar place, which gives them an advantage in being successful on the test.”

SHIVANI BURRAStaff Writer@shiviburra

The Sidekick // Shivani BurraSeniors Cassandra Ching (left) and Jermaine Phua (right) prac-tice patient treatment skills for the Certified Nurse Aide test Dec. 5.

Johnson represents elite designers while balancing home, school life

The Sidekick talked to Allison Whitfield-D’auteuil about the Mer-cy Run in honor of her daughter, Mercy Elizabeth who passed away September 21, 2011 due to Trisomy 13.

Q: How did you get the idea for the 5k and fun run?

A: I began running after Mercy Elizabeth died to help ease the sad-ness. My thought was, “If I couldn’t spend time with my daughter then I could at least get healthy.” My friends suggested, since I was put-ting my efforts into getting run-ning, I combine my new found joy of running with raising funds for the Mercy Whitfield Memorial Scholarship. The MWMS is for the

siblings in families who have expe-

in-depth 1312

The Sidekick // Mallorie Munoz

rienced infant loss.Q: Tell me a little about this

years Mercy 5K. Do you hope to continue the run in future years?

A: 2014 was our second Mercy Run. In addition to the 1 Mile Fam-ily Fun Run and 5K, we added a 10k to the event. We did this in hopes to attract more runners and their families. We wanted to offer some-thing for the entire family: serious runners, novices, and walkers. We had a great turn out. In 2015 we are looking to add a stroller category to the Mercy Run. Our mission in-cludes the whole family, often times that can be the little ones still in strollers. By adding the stroller cat-egory moms and dads can still par-ticipate in the 5k and 10k with their little ones on board.

Q: It takes a lot of strength to turn a tragic situation into

something with a posi-tive impact,

how did you

manage to do this? How have you and your family coped?

A: We did not do this. We have been fortunate to have a support network of super heroes. Friends, family, strangers, the community. There are so many who have prayed for us, delivered meals, listened to our stories of Mercy several times over, taken a walk around the block with one of us, offered a hug, lis-tened, shared their stories - online and in person, allowed us to still be part of their lives and so much more. These people have taken us in, allowing us to grieve, to process, to grieve some more, and have loved us. That is how we do this. The love of others is how we manage. We cope because we know in our hearts we will see our sweet Mercy Eliza-beth again. We have faith. We have love.

Q: How did the community support you during the difficult time(s)?

A: The community has been wonderful. There are businesses in

Coppell that have asked to be a part of the Mercy Run. Get

You in Shape is one of those. With their

help, we were able to

have

over 300 participants in this year’s Mercy Run. The City of Coppell has granted us use of Andy Brown Park for the Mercy Run. We are hoping for next year the Helping Hands Angel Gowns group will be able to participate at the Mercy Run. This would allow the Mercy Run to be a drop off point for people seeking to donate their gowns to be trans-formed into an infant garment.

Q: What is the main goal of the Mercy 5k? What do you hope people take away from it?

A: There are several goals for the Mercy Run:

1. To raise funds for the Mercy Whitfield Memorial Scholarship which is to help other kids facing the loss of an infant sibling.

2. To raise awareness about In-fant Loss and the many Support Resources available to families experiencing infant loss such as M.E.N.D., Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, Hope Mommies, the Warm Place, and so many others.

3. To promote healthy families even in the midst of tragedy.

It is my hope and prayer that no family will ever have to experience the loss of a child, but if they do they will know the love and support of the community. They will feel sur-rounded and uplifted by support from their families, friends, neigh-bors, and even strangers. It is my

hope that people who partici-pate in the Mercy Run will

remember and share us as a resource link for

families experienc-ing infant loss.

Q&A Allison Whitfield-D’auteuilwith

> from page 1“It is the prayers, love, kind-

ness, generosity and support of family, friends and community that make it even somewhat man-ageable,” Mr. Thompson said. “The mission of our foundation is to provide help, comfort and a place of remembrance for parents, families and friends coping with the loss of a child. Our goal was to bring an Angel of Hope statue to the City of Coppell and have our angel reside in a beautiful garden dedicated to all of the children we have lost. Through the generous and overwhelming support from the City of Coppell, Rolling Oaks Memorial Center, our family and friends, we are standing here to-day.”

Another factor impacting the Thompson’s decision is learning that close to 25 percent of the people buried in the Rolling Oaks Memorial Cemetery are 25-years-old and under. The Thompsons saw the need for a place like the garden for grieving parents and were even more inspired.

“We were so very blessed that Coppell has a cemetery, [because] they haven’t had it for forever,” Mrs. Thompson said. “Some fam-ilies have had to bury their chil-dren farther away or they have moved, and this is a nice way to have a local place for them to go to if the grave is far away. This is a tangible place for them to go.”

The Angel of Hope in the cen-ter of the garden comes from

The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans. According to the story, a woman “mourns the loss of a child at the base of an angel monument.” The Christmas Box Angel was dedicated on Dec. 6, 1994, which is also the date of the child’s death in the story. This is also the year Zack was born.

“The memorial butterflies fea-tured throughout the garden pay tribute to those children taken from us and to the parents and families that must go on without them,” Mr. Thompson said. “Each of the memorial butterflies have the name and inspirational mes-sage for a child lost too soon. In many spiritual circles, the but-terfly represents the spirit or the soul.”

“A child does not have to be buried in Rolling Oaks to have a butterfly in the garden, as this garden is for the entire com-munity to utilize as a place of remembrance, comfort, healing and hope. I can’t think of a more beautiful, honorable and respect-ful tribute.”

Throughout the ceremony, several speakers, including The Christmas Box Angel Represen-tative from Salt Lake City, Lisa Johnson, gave their input on the healing power of the garden.

“There are a lot of heavy hearts here, and I can tell the communi-ty is very hard hit by losing chil-dren,” Johnson said. “I know if you could measure your pain scale, it would be at least a 10. I know that

there are many times when your pain is bigger than you are, [and] I also know that it is because you loved so deeply and so completely that you have that pain. My hope for all of you is that you come to this angel and feel the hope and peace that she offers, that is liter-ally in her wings: hope.”

The crowd was full of griev-ing parents, family members and friends for every child lost. Cop-pell parent Mona Logan, who lost her son, Jacob, two years ago, was one of the parents who laid white roses at the feet of the angel mon-ument in honor of a loved one.

“I love [the garden] because it is, like the Thompsons say, a place where you can come and sit, talk to your child, talk to God,” Mrs. Logan said. “It is a garden of hope where, when you walk this horri-ble road, you just need a place to get close to God, and this will be a beautiful place to do that.”

A CHS senior and football standout, Jacob died after an ac-cident at Possum Kingdom Lake in October 2012. In honor of Ja-cob, the Logan family started an annual run in his name.

“One of my moms good friends, Dana Gage, lost her son six weeks before Jacob at Possum Kingdom Lake,” Jacob’s sister, CHS senior Jordan Logan said. “They had a run called The Hon-or Conner Run to honor Conner Gage’s 15 years of life. This got us thinking, ‘What if we did a run that benefited something outside

of Coppell?’ and thats how the Ja-cob Logan Run came about.”

The Jacob Logan Run was only part one of family and friend’s bigger plan to honor Jacob. Fam-ily and friends felt as if so much more could be done, that some-thing could be done beyond the premisses of Texas. The 2015 Ja-cob Logan Run will occur on Dec. 20 at Andy Brown Park East from 9 a.m.

“We started talking with Fam-ily Legacy and they were in need of a house built,” Jordan said. “It was kind of like God leading the whole thing. We wanted to do something and they were in need of something, so the idea of the Jacob Logan LifeVision Home was formed.”

Family Legacy is a non-profit organization located in Irving. It started in 2000 by Greer and Susan Kendall in order to help give love and care to Zambian or-phans.

Because of donations, spon-sorships and over 400 people running in the Jacob Logan 5K and Fun Run, this idea of a house in Africa could truly come to life. Twelve Coppell students and par-ents got the opportunity to head over to Zambia and help com-plete the Jacob Logan LifeVision Home.

“It was incredible seeing peo-ple donate starting in October of 2013, and there being a home built by July 2014,” Logan family friend Quay Bratton said.

The Jacob Logan LifeVision Home provides transitional liv-ing for eight Zambian boys at a time. These boys are orphans who have either lost both parents, have been abused or have HIV/AIDS.

There are lofty goals set for this year’s Jacob Logan Run. Phase two of the Jacob Logan Home is undergo. Once enough money is raised for construction, an exact replica of the Jacob Logan LifeVi-sion Home will be built, a breeze-way in between the two homes.

“Whether or not we get an-other house built this summer, everything were doing is to honor Jacob, to honor God and to try to do something good in this world,” Mrs. Logan said. “It’s a labor of love. Not only do the family’s of a passed loved one feel the pain of a loss, but the deceased friend’s are impacted as well.

Two years ago Coppell High School student Jonah Blackwell took his life, and his friends were left with holes in their hearts. But, one friend wanted to let Jonah’s legacy live forever.

“After Jonah died, it was very obvious that Coppell was not in a good place and I saw that the school and the community were struggling with it, so I got a group together and I wanted to do something that would turn this really negative thing that hap-pened into something that was a good thing,” Georgie Fairchild, CHS 2014 graduate and Run for Life founder said. “We got a group

Photo Coutesy // Mercy Run Facebook

gone but notFORGOTTEN

together and we thought of ways we could honor Jonah, and, since Jonah was in cross country and really enjoyed running, we decid-ed that a 5K would be the most appropriate way to do that.”

Run for Life has been an an-nual event since 2012 when Fairchild began the first run. He wanted to raise awareness about suicide and was able to do this by raising money through the run for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Fairchild wanted to establish an event celebrating his friend’s life.

“After the run, it really changed a lot of the ways people thought of Jonah,” Fairchild said. “They remembered him by the way he used to smile and his personal-ity. We were able to all run this race, we raised $5,000 the first year $6,000 the second year. They thought about Jonah and they re-membered him as the great per-son that he was.”

Fairchild has seen how the community of Coppell has been affected by Run for Life and how people have become more aware and started looking out for peo-ple at risk of suicide. He hopes the run will continue for years to come and inspire Coppell, just as the Thompsons want people to see their garden as a place of hope forever and the Logans strive to help others in the memory of Ja-cob.

Numerous students at Cop-pell High School take part in fine arts programs such

as choir and band, many of whom have an array of musical skills, but one choir student is taking his abilities a step further.

Senior Matthew Thomas is not only a vital part of the choir program for his vocal talents but

for his composition skills as well. He used this to his advantage and thought of a way to get his piece performed by his fellow class-mates, and hopefully help him achieve his college goals.

“I’m applying to be a composi-tion major in college and I need to get my pieces performed so that I can submit them for college,” Thomas said.

After proposing the idea, per-forming a piece titled “The Bird of the Wilderness”, is just what

his fifth period choir class did last week.

“It wasn’t my idea [to perform the piece],” CHS choir director Josh Brown said. “He brought the piece to me along with a couple of others and asked if we could use one of them to record.”

Not only was this an exciting opportunity for Thomas, but for his fellow choir members as well.

“I remember last year that he told me he was composing a song that we might sing so I had been

anticipating it since then,” senior Evana Flores said. “It was really cool to see the stages that went behind the composition and see them finalized in one piece.”

Although this particular piece was written for his choir class, composing vocal pieces is not his only area of writing expertise.

“I’m actually more of an in-strumentalist,” Thomas said. “I just decided that a choir piece would be something different to do, and since I’m in the choir I

thought that Mr. Brown would be more likely to want to record it.”

While this is Thomas’ first choir piece to be performed, he is no stranger to composing and having people perform his own music. What is truly remarkable about his talents is that not only does he write the music, he con-ducts it.

“I recorded an orchestral piece at Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas earlier this year and [got the chance to watch] my-self conduct the piece, and it was really cool,” Thomas said. “It’s one thing to write the piece and hear it, but it’s another thing to actually conduct it, which I also did with the choir piece.”

Though the main purpose of recording and performing the piece is to help get him into his college of choice, the University of Southern California where he hopes to pursue film scoring and eventually get a degree in compo-sition, he also may very well get the chance to show off his work to CHS students at some point.

“The plan right now is to re-cord [the piece] and see how that goes, and if it goes well then we may use it at an upcoming show, or maybe when we go on tour later this year,” Brown said.

Along with achieving his per-sonal goals, Thomas’ work is also serving as an inspiration for his fellow choir students.

“The fact that our friend who is the same age as the rest of the choir composed it, it kind of shows the choir that we are capable of more than we think,” Flores added. “It’s really awesome to see a friend make full use of their talents.”

For now, only time will tell what is next for Thomas’ already successful musical career. Family and friends very well may see his name under songwriting credits for a film soundtrack in the near future.

student life14

The Sidekick // Nicole MesserCoppell High School senior Matthew Thomas spends his spare time practicing piano pieces, along with the pieces that he writes. He is also heavily involved in choir as a member of the A Capella choir and has assisted Respira by playing the drums as well as the piano.

NICOLAS HENDERSONStaff Writer

@happenstance98

> from page 1

“Compass is not for ‘bad’ kids, it is for learners who have made a ‘bad choice’,” Victory Place Prin-cipal Ron-Marie Johnson said. “They have a consequence [days served at Compass], and then they return to their home cam-pus. The recidivism rate is about one percent, we rarely see the same learner sent to Compass again. Everyone makes mistakes and doesn’t deserve to carry a ‘bad kid’ label.”

At Turning Point, a majority of the coursework is online, but there is a PE program, genius hour lessons, service learning, speakers and field trips. Educa-tors facilitate the online classes and design lessons for each learn-er experience.

“They are two separate pro-grams in the same building,” Johnson said. “Just like you have English and math at [Coppell High School], it doesn’t mean that CHS is for English learners only. Turning Point is in its 13th year and about 10 percent of the high school class graduates from

TP. They are still CHS learners and go to prom and to the grad-uation ceremony like every other CHS graduate.”

The relationships amongst peers and between learners and facilitators at Turning Point is very close knit.

“The environment is like ‘one big family,’ everyone here sup-ports each other,” soon to be grad-uate Lydia Lutton said. “At CHS you get caught up in the cliques, but here since we’re together all day in two classrooms, you really get to know everyone on a deeper level.

Facilitators really make an ef-fort to get to know each learner personally, to build trust and to help them when they are strug-gling.

“I have built really strong rela-tionships here, especially with my counselor,” soon to be graduate Ally Bush said. “The facilitators also really understand when I am going through something outside of school and help me when it is affecting me in school.”

The duration it takes for a learner to graduate is purely up to

them. They must master the same TEKS/objectives required, pass the required state assessments and meet the same graduation credit requirement of any oth-er CISD graduate. On average, a learner can complete twice as many credits as they could in the traditional settings.

There are many reasons why students decide to graduate ear-ly. Whether they have completed their credits and want to gradu-ate early to start college in Jan-uary, are experiencing financial difficulties, want to begin career plans, are training to become a professional athlete or just want to be done with high school.

“High school hasn’t been my most favorite period of time. That is why I am choos-ing to graduate early and move on to the next chapter of my life,” soon to be graduate Zach Conners said. “After I graduate here, I will start

working until next fall when I attend college for computer pro-gramming.”

Jimena Flores chose to gradu-ate early because she is an aspir-ing ballerina.

“The lack of time to train was critical,” Flores said. “This past year (junior year), I was President of the Spanish Honor Society, took two Dual Credit courses and time consuming school work. It was difficult to balance every-thing out, but by graduating early it has given me

more time to train and prepare for upcoming auditions.”

Flores graduated in September. Graduating early has positive-

ly affected 2013 graduate Amber Bouressa’s life. Bouressa started attending Turning Point in hopes of getting a headstart on becom-ing a policewoman.

“I am now a step ahead of where I would have been,” Bouressa said. “I have a job and will already have my associate’s degree here in a couple months. I wouldn’t be at this point so quickly if I hadn’t have graduated a whole year ear-

ly. I can now apply to the police academy even ear-

lier because I already have all of the re-

quired college hours.”

Over the last 12 years, more than 90 percent of students who graduate from Turning Point plan to

go to college.“Turning Point provides ex-

cellent tools to take ownership of your education and prepare for success after graduation from high school,” Johnson said.

The Sidekick // Manu Garikipati

Turning Point used for head start

student life 15

High school is often a time of finding out who you are, discovering your true

passions and deciding what you want to do in life. Coppell High School junior Luke McDowell found his passion for weightlift-ing freshman year when he hung up his football cleats and hit the gym.

“Growing up I was a gymnast, but once I got to high school I started playing football and wres-tling,” McDowell said. “It wasn’t until the end of freshman year when I discovered my passion for weightlifting.”

A typical workout for Mc-Dowell includes six to eight exer-cises per muscle group. Four sets each exercise and working until failure every set.

“I personally train high vol-ume because my goal in a work-out is to tear as many muscle fibers as I can so they can be re-built stronger,” McDowell said.

McDowell’s friend and Texas Family Fitness trainer, Cyle Ru-dolf, has been a huge inspiration to him through his bodybuilding journey. Rudolf has previously competed in bodybuilding com-petitions.

“He really pushed me and convinced me to start competing in physique,” McDowell said. “I can’t wait to compete with him.”

According to NPC (Nation-al Physique Committee) News Online, men’s physique is judged based on proper shape and sym-metry of body, combined with muscularity and overall condi-tion. Contestants will also be judged on stage presence, poise and how well their personality is conveyed to the audience.

“Physique is sort of like a pret-ty boy competition,” Rudolf said.

“You don’t want to look too mus-cular. There’s no way Luke won’t win.”

Bodybuilding is a sport re-quiring constant dedication in-side and out of the gym.

“It is unlike any other sport I have played because it is not you versus your opponent; it is you versus yourself,” McDowell said. “The voice in your head that tells you to quit, or that something is too hard, is your opponent, and you are required to fight it.”

Junior Jake Mayes often trains with McDowell though he par-takes in crossfit. Mayes has seen an immense amount of progress in McDowell overall physique and technique in just three years.

“Luke has gotten enormous,” Mayes said. “The amount of mus-

cle he has gained since freshman year is incredible. I tried body-building for a while but I didn’t get near that big. He obviously knows the secret.”

McDowell is always there to boost a friends confidence when they are struggling. He has more than enough motivation for himself so he kindly spots others when they don’t have enough.

“When I think I can’t get the 15th rep in on a lat pull-down, he says words of encouragement, which gets me going,” Mayes said. “You always work harder when you have that kind of per-son next to you.”

Through McDowell’s training, he has had to overcome many physical and mental barriers. Bodybuilding is not a walk in the

park. “When it comes to train-ing, if a workout doesn’t make you want to quit, or second guess why you’re doing what you’re doing, then you’re not working hard enough,” McDowell said. “I am constantly motivated to put in this work simply because this is my passion.”

If bodybuilding doesn’t work out for McDowell he would love to become a personal trainer for others striving to improve their physique.

“The best advice I can give someone who wants to start body building, would be that you have to become obsessed with always becoming better,” said McDowell. “You must constantly be striving to do your best and always focus on your goals. You

have got to want this.” McDowell as well as Rudolf

will be competing in the NPC Lackland Classic in San Antonio next month. For McDowell, this will be his first competition in bodybuilding.

“I am very excited about the competition,” McDowell said. “I have been working very hard for this and I am very confident that I will place well.”

Even McDowell’s friends are expecting great things from him in his first competition because of the progress they have seen him make in the past three years.

“He has got a real shot at win-ning this bodybuilding competi-tion,” Mayes said. “He is overall a great person and has a great phy-sique, I think he could take first.”

McDowell explores unique hobbySLOANE SAMBERSON

Staff Writer@sloane_avery

CHS senior crosses finish line in Dallas marathon

Being an avid long distance runner since elementary school, it only seemed natu-

ral for Coppell High School senior Lovell Cox to end her high school career by running 26.2 miles, oth-erwise known as a marathon.

On Dec. 14, the Dallas Mar-athon took place in downtown Dallas where Cox ran to the finish line.

The Dallas Marathon is an an-nual event hosted by MetroPCS, whose main goal is to raise mon-ey to fight life-threatening muscle diseases. This year Cox decided to run the marathon.

“Running destresses me. I think about a lot when I’m run-ning and I love being outside.” Cox said. “I want to say that I ran [a marathon] in high school to get it under my belt and also be-cause I’m 18. I thought senior year would be a good year because it’s my last time and I always run the Dallas half-marathon.”

Cox trained for the marathon for about two months but has been running in cross country since August.

She thinks running cross coun-try every day in the fall served as

great preparation for her mara-thon.

“It helped my endurance and now over the years I know I can run to a certain amount because of cross country and it also helped my stretching exercises before and after running,” Cox said.

Each week, Cox had a sched-ule of choosing one day to run long distance miles, and then for the next three days, run three miles to pace herself.

Cox’s goal was a 10 minute mile for 26 miles which totaled four hours and 30 minutes.

Her dad, Allen Cox, is also a runner and has an impressive record of 11 marathons and runs about 20 miles a week. Both Cox and her father ran in the Dallas marathon.

“I used to run 5Ks with her when she was in middle school and elementary school but when she reached about 10 years she started passing me and I haven’t caught up with her since then,” Mr. Cox said.

Marathons are often long and strenuous but, according to Mr. Cox, once you finish, it is one of the greatest feelings in the world.

“Once you finish it, it’s a great accomplishment. Everyone, if they’re able to, should try to do

one in their lifetime,” Mr. Cox said.

Having two runners in the family can be quite the respon-sibility for a mother, especially when both her husband and her daughter are running in the an-nual Dallas marathon.

“It’s fabulous having two run-ners but there is someone who has to be the cheerleader at the finish line; someone to cheer them on, park the car and wake up early,” Cox’s mother, Ginger Cox, said. “The Dallas Marathon has so many people there and being at the finish line at the exact spot to take pictures is really hard.”

Running a marathon is a tough challenge, especially as a high school student, but Cox’s parents had complete confidence that she would do well.

“After the 10K the sky’s the limit,” Mr. Cox said. “I [had] no doubt she [would] do well in the marathon because she’s a distance runner.”

Mrs. Cox was also very enthu-siastic to see what the upcoming challenge had in store for her daughter.

“That’s a pretty big deal, 26.2 miles,” Mrs. Cox said. “It’s a long way but I knew she could do it [because] she put her mind to it.”

EMMA CUMMINSStaff Writer

The Sidekick // Mallorie MunozSenior Lovell Cox displays her ahievements earned from over ten years of recreational running. Cox ran the mara-thon on December 14.

The Sidekick // Manu Garikipati

Weight lifting serves as an interesting passion

Although this seems like a difficult recipe, it only re-quires a few ingredients

and little time. High quality in-gredients make this recipe taste delicious.

• 2 bone-in pork chops (1 inch thick)• 2 tablespoons olive oil• Salt and pepper• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme • 2 tablespoons butter• 4 oz frozen cherries• 1 tablespoon maple syrup • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Preheat the oven to 400 de-grees.

Divide the olive oil between the four chops evenly, rub the oil thoroughly into the meat. Season each chop on both sides with a generous helping of salt and pepper, and sprinkle the thyme on top.

Heat up a cast iron skillet with one tablespoon of butter. When you place the pork chops in the pan, it should start to sizzle im-mediately (otherwise it is not hot enough). Sear each side of the pork chop without moving the chop in the hot butter for 3-4

minutes on each side. Then, dol-lop half a tablespoon of butter

on each chop and transfer the skillet into the oven

so the chops can fin-ish cooking, about

5-6 more min-

The Sidek

ick //

Chloe M

oino

Pork chops with cherry balsamic glaze

Traditional minestrone soup has no meat in it, but I think adding beef

makes it that much more deli-cious. This soup is warming and nice to eat on a cold day.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil• 1 onion, chopped• 4 celery stalks, chopped• 1 russet potato, peeled into small cubes• 4 garlic cloves, minced• 1 pound ground beef• 1 tablespoon tomato paste• 2 cups butternut squash, peeled, small cubes • 1 (14 ½-ounce) can diced tomatoes• 2 fresh rosemary sprigs• 2 (14-ounce) cans low-sodium chicken broth• ½ tablespoon fresh thyme• 1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained, rinsed• 1 cup kale, leaves coarsely chopped and stems removed• Parmigiano reggiano to taste

• Salt and pepper to tasteHeat the olive oil in a large

pot over medium heat. Add the chopped onions, celery and potato, sauté for about 10 minutes. Add the ground beef, garlic and tomato paste and sauté until the beef is almost all browned, about 10 more minutes. Add the diced toma-toes, fresh rosemary, butter-nut squash, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer.

Simmer until the potato and squash pieces tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 min-utes. Stir in the canned beans, thyme and chopped kale. Sim-mer until the beans are heated through, the soup is thick and the kale is just wilted, about three minutes. Season with salt, pepper and cheese to taste. Discard the rosemary sprig (the leaves will have fallen off of the stem).

Non-traditionalhearty minestrone soup

This is one of my favorite fall dishes to make. It is a recipe that is warming and has

the Thanksgiving flavors that you crave during this season. Crispy pancetta (Italian bacon) along with other herbs are added to mashed butternut squash to compose a sauce for the cute bowtie pasta.

• 14 ounces farfalle pasta • 1 tablespoon olive oil • 2 cloves of garlic• 3 ounces (usually the amount that comes in packages) pancetta, diced • 1 ½ cups of butternut squash, cubed small • 1 cup of low sodium chicken broth • ½ tablespoon fresh chopped thyme• ¼ tablespoon fresh chopped sage• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley• ¼ tablespoon cinnamon • ½ cup of heavy cream • Finely grated parmigiano

reggiano to taste • Salt and pepper to taste

TIPS> Make sure the heat is on low when adding garlic. Garlic burns easily, and there is nothing worse than burnt and bitter garlic.> The squash is cooked when you can easily pierce through it with a fork and it is soft. > Texture is all about preference; if you prefer to have the squash com-pletely smooth, mash it more. If you prefer it to have more chunks, mash it less. > Always cook the pasta one or two minutes less than the directed time on the pasta box to make sure it is “al dente”. > The smaller the chunks of but-ternut squash, the less time it will take to cook.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta.

Finely dice the pancetta. Add the one tablespoon of olive oil to

Farfalle with pancetta

and butternut squash

utes. You want the internal tem-perature of the pork to be 145 degrees to insure it is cooked all the way through.

Bring out a large pan with edges to make the glaze. On me-dium heat, add the cherries and let them cook down a bit. On a low heat, add the maple syrup and balsamic vinegar. Crush the cherries with a spoon. Let this mixture reduce down until it be-comes a thick con-sistency.

a large saute pan on medium heat and sauté the pancetta for about five minutes or until the pancetta starts to get crispy. Remove the pancetta from the pan and turn the temperature to low. Add the garlic, cubed butternut squash, chicken broth, chopped thyme and sage. Cover the pan and let the butter-nut squash cook until soft or for about 15 minutes.

When the squash is done, mash it together with a potato masher. Stir in the cream slowly and continue to cook on low heat until it thickens or for about five minutes. Season with salt, pepper and cinnamon.

Boil the pasta in the salted water for the directed amount of time. When the pasta is done cooking, do not drain it. Add the pasta to the sauce with a spoon. If the sauce appears dry or too thick, add a little bit of pasta water until you’ve reached the desired consis-tency. Sprinkle the pancetta and grate the cheese on top then serve.

D

DD

Moino brings Italian taste to winter seasonComing from an Italian family, staff writer Chloe Moino has many family recipes she would love to share with The Sidekick. She learned how to cook from her father and enjoys

cooking various meals for her friends and family. Her favorite thing to do is discover new and different restaurants and get inspiration for her own recipes.

entertainment16

Sizzling and laughter were the two main sounds I heard on my adventurous dining expe-

rience at The Carmel Restaurant and Lounge. Recently taking the place of the former Fat Daddy’s and Bistro M this new addition has an exotic menu and ambience.

True to the unique name, this restaurant has a very ethnic menu, adding a spice to the conventional dining options located in Coppell.

After a very short wait on a busy evening, we were seated and quickly waited on. Our server was knowledgeable, friendly and sug-gested several options. With the large crowd, the service was slow and I often found myself having to search for a waitress.

The venue had a good dining room scene; several large tables of birthday celebrations as well as quiet date night tables. I really en-joyed everything about our dining experience from the service to the food and the atmoshpere.

The Carmel Restaurant and Lounge serves mostly Mediterra-nean food but has plenty of op-tions from the land and sea. As a high school student the pricing was a bit high such as the Car-mel’s signature fresh chilean sea bass ($42) and bone-in-filet ($37). However, it would make the per-fect setting for a date night or even a business meeting.

After ordering the sauteed mushrooms ($5) and the roasted free-range chicken ($15), I was particularly taken with the entic-ing seasoning on each dish. Al-though I do not typically prefer

Mediterranean food, I was sur-prisingly pleased with the taste and presentation of the dishes I ordered.

The lunch menu provides op-tions such as the $10 lunch com-bo with your choice of two items

from soup, salad or half sandwich. Soup, salads and sandwiches are all available for under $16.

The dinner menu is pricier than the lunch menu. However to subsidise this, they offer a Happy Hour menu from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

with smaller entrees such as the Israeli feta samosa ($6) and the imported cheese and cured meats board ($12-$18).

After seeing many familiar Coppell faces, it is easy to say that the Carmel Restaurant and

Lounge has quickly become a popular destination. Unlike the previous establishments in this specific location, hopefully it is here to stay.

The Sidekick // Shivani BurraCarmel Restaurant and Lounge opened Nov. 13 at 215 South Denton Tap Road in Coppell, featuring a captivating lunch and dinner menu along with a lounge atmosphere.

A new twist on Mediterranean cuisine opens up for Coppell community

entertainment 17

SHIVANI BURRAStaff Writer@shiviburra

A school-record seven Cop-pell High School art stu-dents have been named

finalists in the Dallas Museum of Art’s Young Masters Exhibition competition.

The Young Masters program is sponsored by the Dallas Museum of Art and gives high school art students the opportunity to show-case their art in an exhibit along other students in the museum.

The CHS finalists are seniors Joshua Martin, Sruti Gorantla, Sagar Ramesh, Youree Bond and juniors Nishali Naik, Allison Li and Avery Pietrowiak.

Naik is honored to be a finalist and her artwork having the pos-sibility of being showcased in the museum. The silkscreen process of her piece was an unusual one. Though it was complex, it still had a playful meaning. She was inspired by the famous characters she loved, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and used this to create her work.

“I chose an investigator as my pun because of my fascination of the relationship between the in-vestigators Sherlock and Watson,” Naik said. “I tried to incorporate that same relationship in the ex-pressions of the characters and emphasize the humorous nature of the pun.”

Ramesh’s art work had a more

serious tone that was done com-pletely on the computer. He was inspired by an exhibition of French poster artists’ work at the DMA and wanted to create a piece that reflected all the beau-tiful facets of Italian culture that he experienced firsthand on a trip two years ago.

“The piece that I submitted for Young Masters was inspired by the stylistic choices of one of my favorite artists, Alphonse Mucha,” Ramesh said. “This was the first time I had produced a piece using a digital tablet, so it was an en-joyable experience shifting from traditional mediums, like ink and

watercolor, to a more digital ap-proach.”

The piece also brings attention to the true talent of the CHS art department, as it has set a new re-cord for students to advance past the first round that has seasoned many young artists and garnered many prestigious awards.

“People are unaware of all the art talent that CHS contains. In a program like this, [the Young Masters competition], your work isn’t judged simply on appear-ance, but also intent,” Naik said.

The competition is a very rig-orous one that starts off with 700 or more pieces entered. The first

Junior Nishali Naik’s prismacolor titled “Investigator Sherlock and Watson” (left) and Senior Sagar Ramesh’s digital drawing titled “Marvel of Venice” (right) were two of seven pieces chosen to move to the final round of judging in the 2014 Young Masters competition. The names of the finalists were released on Dec. 8.

PRIYA DESAIStaff Writer

@priusdasani

Carmel Restaurant and Lounge serves up exotic new flavors

Student artists named Young Masters finalists in esteemed competition round cuts that large number down to 60 finalists. The 60 fi-nalists then compete to be one of the approximately 20 artists who

place and/or earn an honorable mention, giving these students the honor to be displayed in an exhibit in the DMA.

Photo Courtesy // Nishali Naik Photo Courtesy // Sagar Ramesh

GRAND PRAIRIE- The loudest Christmas party of the season was on Dec. 3

at the Verizon Theatre, held by lo-cal alternative-rock radio station 102.1 The EDGE.

Cute little snowmen made out of white Christmas trees stood upon the amps on each side of the stage and above the stage hung rows of garland and tinsel. The EDGE hosts came out in between bands to greet the audience and hype up the crowd for the next band.

The 13th annual How the Edge Stole Christmas featured a wide variety of fans. The lineup of the night featured Bad Suns, Big Data, Walk the Moon, Bleachers, Young the Giant, Rise Against and Wee-zer.

Overall the night was a fabu-lous experience, but there were some moments that were not so fabulous. It felt as if almost a con-cert roller coaster, very energetic highs and the lows were spent out in the lobby of the theatre walking around with friends.

The show started promptly at 5 p.m. with Bad Suns. This new Los Angeles-based band was a strong opener, yet only playing for about 20 minutes with hardly any crowd.

Big Data was, for lack of bet-ter words, awkward. Lead singer and New York City music produc-er Alan Wilkis with Joywave did the robot and it made the crowd uncomfortable. It did an unrecog-nizable cover of Hall and Oates’ “Never Let Me Go” and that was

our cue to go get some water from the lobby.

I immediately bought my ticket to this event when I heard Young the Giant was performing, and was ecstatsic when Walk the Moon was announced just the week before the event.

Walk the Moon’s set was too short, but nonetheless sweet. It played two songs from its new-est album Talking is Hard, which was released the day before the concert, and ended its set with the song that got the band to its success, “Anna Sun”. It was a very intimate acoustic performance.

Bleachers reminded me of a B list 80s movie soundtrack, not only with its music, but with its outfits too. We got cheese fries in-stead.

Young the Giant did not disap-point. It was my second time see-ing the band live and even though it played a shorter set, it managed to take my breath away more than its show at Southside Ballroom in February.

Rise Against seemed out of place for this event, possibly more fit for a 97.1 The Eagle. It had a cool set up and I was about to give them a chance but it was honestly just too loud and I did not feel like being screamed at.

The moment Weezer opened with “My Name Is Jonas”, I re-alized why they were the main headliners of the night. Weezer rocked the night and I was pleas-antly surprised by its welcoming stage presence and playful ban-ter with the audience. Looking around the crowd during Weezer’s performance I did not see a sin-gle attendee sitting or not singing along.

entertainment18

The Sidekick // Christianna Haas

Alternative rock bands Bleachers (top) and Young the Giant (bottom) perform at the 13th annual How the Edge Stole Christmas, hosted by 102.1 The EDGE on Dec. 3 at the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie. Other featured bands at the event included Walk the Moon, Rise Against and Weezer.

HOW THE EDGE STOLE CHRISTMASAlternative radio station 102.1 gives gift of music at annual festival

STEPHANIE ALEXANDEREntertainment Editor

@stephanierose2u

Holiday festivities are back and they are in full swing throughout the Dal-

las-Fort Worth area. There are so many holiday events in the area that it can be pretty hard to choose which ones to visit. Here are some of DFW’s most elaborate and entertaining attractions this holiday season.

Lone Star ChristmasThe Gaylord Texan Resort in

Grapevine is known for its extrav-agant atrium and elegant charm year-round. But during the hol-iday season it gets transformed into a winter wonderland, fea-turing two million lights, 15,000 ornaments and dozens of other incredible holiday decorations. Along with this, Gaylord is also known for its annual holiday at-traction, ICE!, which is themed Frosty the Snowman this year. A new feature to this years event is the opportunity to watch ice carv-ers from Harbin, China create sculptures up close.

The Trains At NorthParkOften called the most elaborate

toy train display in Texas, this year marks the 16th year of its annual residency at NorthPark. The ex-hibit takes the trains across the country with cityscapes including

downtown Dallas, Washington D.C. and many more. The trains will also visit iconic American landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and

even Route 66.

Panther Island IceOne of the most exciting holi-

day attractions this year is North

Texas’ only outdoor ice skating rink, located at the Coyote Drive-In Theater in downtown Fort Worth. The rink is open through-out the holiday season, even on

Christmas day. This is the rink’s second year in operation, and it is a part of Fort Worth’s ongoing Trinity River projects that in-clude the Panther Island Pavil-ion, DFW’s newest amphitheater. The rink is operated by Ice Rink Events, who also operate an out-door rink in downtown Houston. Who knew outdoor skating could do so well in Texas?

Gift Of LightsWhen thinking of places to

go view beautiful holiday lights, Texas Motor Speedway might not be what first comes to mind. But perhaps it should be because the Gift Of Lights display is returning to the speedway this year with an elaborate setup featuring over 600 unique LED light displays. The event is also accepting Toys For Tots donations at the gate, which gives you a $5 discount on entry to the event.

Sparkle! Christmas At The Ana-tole

Much like the Gaylord Tex-an, the Hilton Anatole Hotel is known for its elegance and charm. For its second year in a row, it is transforming its Trinity Hall into a Christmas extravaganza, featur-ing an indoor ice skating rink, 1.2 million lights, light shows every half hour, live holiday shows and much more. It is the complete hol-iday package, all in one place.

NICOLAS HENDERSONStaff Writer

@happenstance98

DFW holiday events in full swing

The Sidekick // Stephanie Alexander

As audience members walked into the Coppell High School cafeteria,

their names and fictionary ti-tles were announced.

Instead of the regular cafete-ria, a grand hall, complete with Renaissance-era decorations and two thrones, welcomed spectators to the 2014 Madri-gals choir show.

With the delicious aroma of Madrigal fare wafting from the kitchen, a stage is set for a king, his queen and a royal court.

When all the guests had been seated, the Madrigals took the stage. “Masters of the Hall”, “Ave Verum” and “Sing We Now of Christmas” were just a few of the songs they per-formed throughout the night.

With a title

like “A Loop in Time”, there was no doubt that the choir captivated the audience from the first mo-ment they took the stage. After a song or two, spectators were en-tangled in a plot to overthrow the king (senior Joshua Kim) by the villainous and comedic Duke Da-gon (junior Mukund Kuntimad).

Overhearing his plot, Team Muffin, the queen (senior Gabby Rouke), the jester (junior Adreesh Roy), Fiona (junior Victoria Ken-nedy) and the town crier (senior Savannah Patrick) worked to foil his plans. With an amnesiac king who forgot every event of the day once asleep, Team Muffin made a plan of their own - make Dagon relive the same day until he could not stand it.

With a humor for all ages, au-dience participation as Sir Lance-lot and Lord Jasso, along with a hilariously oblivious king, the Madrigals show was not one to miss. As Duke Dagon was forced to repeat the same day, his frus-t r a t i o n grew and his

plot was f i n a l l y

revealed to the king and the roy-al court. Dagon was appropriately arrested, with his pink “villain’s journal” in hand.

“The drama this year was real-ly interesting,” junior Sarah Abra-ham, a member of the royal court and younger sister of an alum, said. “Adreesh really made the jester come to life, and Mukund and all the actors and actresses were really great. I think the audi-ence really liked it.”

After a few more songs on Fri-day night, including “Away in a Manger” and “Throw Open Your Shutters”, the Madrigals were joined by the A cappella choir for a few songs.

“I conducted on Friday, it was really great to see the A cappella choir perform. Each night was different, and special because of the things that were happening. They were both very successful in what we set up to do each night, so I was pleased with both nights,” assistant director of choirs Casey Carruth said.

Senior Madrigals king Joshua Kim, senior Madrigals queen Gabby Rouke, junior courtier Robbie Reyes and senior courtier Drew Johnson begin the 20th annual Magicals Madrigal Feast in the large commons at Coppell High School on Nov. 22.

Choir brings crowd on journey through Renaissance on stage

entertainment 19

AISHA ESPINOSAStaff Writer

@aishaespinoza1

The Sidekick // Amanda Hair

Though identical in the drama portion of the evening, Saturday spun a slightly different tale. This year marked the 20th anniversary of the group, making room for a very special set of events on Sat-urday.

“We had the creator of Mad-rigals come on the second night, Jolene Webster,” Kim said. “She conducted a couple pieces with people from the former Madrigal groups, including some from the very beginning.”

Webster, along with more than 50 Madrigal alumni, came back, getting a special peek at to what the CHS choirs are up to now. Be-fore the performance on Saturday night, the former and the current 25 Madrigals along with Webster rehearsed for an hour and a half.

“It was really nice to be able to come back,” David Abraham, a 2014 CHS graduate and Mad-rigal alum, said. “Seeing the un-derclassmen [when I was there], e sp e c i a l ly Kim and Rouke as k i n g

and queen, was pretty cool. I still feel really connected to the choir, since my sister is in it.”

The spectacular Saturday was closed with five pieces from the combined current and former Madrigal choirs, resulting in an event sure to be remembered years down the road.

“This year’s Madrigal singers have done a really wonderful job,” head choir director Josh Brown said. “They have worked really re-ally hard, and I think it really paid off. It’s the first year that I’ve been here that the kids have really been on top of their lines, in the drama part.”

With a memorable close to their 2014 annual Madrigals Feast, the choir is looking ahead to whatever the future brings.

“I’m glad we were able to finish really strong,” Kim said. “I do not regret anything that happened on stage this year. I knew all my lines, which was a first. But on top of that, everything just came together . . . . really well.”

Junior Adreesh Roy, senior Ashwini Allen, senior Priya Desai, junior Melissa Cannon and junior Maha Haque were a few of the many members of the court on stage to join the audience in eating the feast, which is part of the performance. People from throughout the community attended the Madrigals Feast to enjoy the outstanding show and dinner on Nov. 22.

The Sidekick // Amanda Hair

sports20

The Sidekick // Mallorie MunozConstruction continues at Coppell High School and continues to create new issues regarding student and faculty parking.

Arena construction has its perks New facility, field house expansions set to benefit public more than hurt

JOSEPH KRUMStaff Writer

@joseph_krum

If you walked through the hallways at Coppell High School, you would prob-

ably hear at least one complaint about the construction of the field house or basketball arena.

Yet for all the trouble, it is definitely going to be worth it.

The construction all started by a bond package passed in May 2013. Out of the $79.5 million that was used throughout Cop-pell ISD, CHS got $27.1 million for its kitchen/cafe renovation, multi-purpose competition gym/arena and expansion/renovation

of the athletic field house. Both the construction of the field house and multi-purpose competition arena have caused some troubles by blocking off parts of the park-ing lots, yet they add

more benefits than they cause harm.The field house constrution, which will include two levels and a full 120 yard turf room, is part of the three renovations going on at Coppell High School. It will in-clude many more new additions such as new workout rooms for all of the different sports and will also entail more meeting rooms and coach offices. Yet with all these new introductions comes lots of construction, which had the parent loop blocked off for a good portion of the summer.

Although the construction has been a hassle for the many student and parent drivers, the additions will supply much more good than they take away with the blocking off of the roads. For ex-

ample, each and every sport will have better facilities to use, which in turn could improve their per-formance and make the athletics at CHS better as a whole. The improved weight rooms and sep-arate facilities for each sport will allow more room for the activities to be held so that the students will not be as limited in space.

Luckily, the parent loop opened up before school started, allowing one of the main drop-off loops to be accessible for parents who can drop off their kids and for teachers parking.

As for the construction on the new gym, this one has a little more controversy. Because of its location next to the school, the construction has to be blocked off well into the senior parking areas, which in turn moves the se-niors back which also moves the general parking back. Also, since the construction stops right at the pathway that goes all the way

through the parking lot, there are some sharp turns that are nec-

essary to maneuver through the busy site.

Another one of the downfalls, which goes for any new additions, is the seniors that will not be able to use the facilities. The construc-tion will not be finished for the end of this school year so the se-niors will have gone off to college by the time that these projects will be done.

Still, all the hassles do not off-set the benefits that the new con-struction will bring forth. The multi-purpose gymnasium will be immensely expanded with new seating and even a scoreboard above the court. With the new ar-rangements, sports that are played on these courts will benefit greatly from not only ticket sales but the added amount of storage as well. One other big improvement is the wrap-around seating. The seats now run completely around the

gym, rather than the previous set-up with bleachers on each side.

Sports will not be the only ac-tivity benefitting by these add-ons. For example, pep-rallies will be immensely improved with the additional seating, so students will not have to sit on the gym floor. The facility will also have the space to accommodate all class-es, including freshmen. It will also help any class or activity that is held in the gym. From science fairs to dance class, almost every single student will benefit from the new renovations.

All in all, the new projects that Coppell High School is carrying out can add some stress in your frantic struggle to find a parking spot before school, but the ad-vancements yet to come greatly outweigh all of the annoyances.

More information about the bond and maps for the new facili-ties can be found at www.coppellisd.com/bond2013 .

Since the recent district re-alignment and new classi-fications for the sports, the

Coppell Cowgirls’ district in-cludes strong basketball teams such as L.D. Bell and long time rivals Southlake Carroll. In ad-dition to making the postseason, senior guard and captain Adai-wu Nwaiwu also hopes to restore some prestige to the program. “A lot of teams right now do not respect us because of our past sea-sons and our record, but this year, teams are going to have to wake up because we are a completely different team,” Nwaiwu said. “We can be just as good as those that are respectable in our district.” The last time the Cowgirls made it to the postseason was Nwaiwu’s eighth grade year. Having a win-ning record and going to the play-offs for the first time in her high school career would make it a successful senior season. “Getting into playoffs is always a goal,” junior varsity coach Ja-son Hodges said. “District is very tough this year, but through eight games, we have seen the hard work.” In the past, the athletes in the basketball program were multi-sport athletes. In the recent years, there has been an increase in “basketball kids,” whose focus is solely on the sport. This year’s team is underclass-man heavy with four sophomores, three juniors and three seniors. With the youth, there is inconsis-tency, but the work ethic is there. “Our strengths are: we have bas-

ketball kids now and kids that can shoot the ball,” Hodges said. “We have a more uptempo game, but our weakness is our youth. It is going to cause some inconsisten-cy but it is learning experience, and we build on that.” One of the greatest shifts in the team dynamic is the attitude and mindset of the team. “Everyone has a new attitude of working hard and wanting to win, so that is a big difference from last year, and that is going to help us win,” Nwaiwu said. The mentality is worlds differ-ent from last year. If one person did not buy into winning or im-proving, it was infectious across the whole team and brought the morale down. “With last year’s team, the at-titude was nonchalant,” Nwaiwu said. “There was viruses, when one person does not want to work hard. It can bring everyone down. Well this year, it is not the case.” In addition to the mentality change, physically, the team is more prepared. “We are much faster than last year, and we are definitely a more up and down paced team,” Nwaiwu said. “We have people who run track who are fast and can sprint. That makes us better at defense.” Another benefit is the evenly spread skill amongst the team. Instead of a “go to” player, all 10 members of the team can play ev-ery single night and play where needed. “This year we have 10 kids that are all about the same lev-el,” Hodges said. “It fosters better team work because it makes ev-eryone come and play each night.

During the Dec. 12th game against John Paul II, Adaiwu Nwaiwu looks for an opportunity to pass the ball.

The Sidekick // Chelsea Banks

Rebirth of team driving force for Cowgirls’ basketball season We have to rely on all 10 people, not just one on the varsity.” When Nwaiwu was a sopho-more, the team was unbalanced. However, she was able to learn leadership skills under the 2012-2013 seniors such as Rachel Mu-lumba, Sydney Overman and Kara Williamson. “Those girls worked really hard all the time,” Nwaiwu said. “They would inspire me to want to work harder. I want to inspire other people to work harder, which is why I push myself as far as I can go.” Her hope is to inspire the young team to their full potential. “I just want to make everyone care about it,” Nwaiwu said. “I want everyone to want to win and to want to work hard. I try to lead by example, so if we are going sprints, I want to be first. I want to be the person that when peopler are tired or don’t want to do anymore, they look over and say ‘well if Adaiwu is still going, then I can still push myself and go hard.’” Even though she wants to en-courage her team, she also wants to keep them accountable. It is a fine balance being the captain. As a three year varsity letter-man, Hodges has been impressed with not only Nwaiwu’s work ethic, but the young team’s drive to win. “They command the respect of people because of their work eth-ic,” Hodges said. “They work so hard that that draws you to them, and when they do have some-thing to say, [people] listen.” According to Hodges, the lead-ership amongst the team is more by action than by being vocal,

and the skills to lead the team stems from learning from past seniors “Basically, I see the same thing [from the past seniors] as I see in Adaiwu,” Hodges said. “She is a

JENA SEIDEMANNManaging Editor

@jena_seidemann

leader by doing, and I think that is huge. We always say actions speak louder than words.”

The Cowgirls look to start dis-trict strong against Colleyville Heritage on Dec. 16.

For

Seniors take advantage of once in lifetime chance

Passion

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CHISOM UKOAHStaff Writer@uchisom3

For

StudentsShareShare

CRICKET

Signing day is a pinnacle mo-ment in the career of high school athletes. Either you

are committing to play your sport at a college or your teammate is. Yet for the players signing, the experience is much more than just signing their name.

Committing to a college is many athletes’ dream, and after seeing many of her teammates go off to play collegiate volleyball, senior setter Kylie Pickrell is glad it is finally her turn.

“I had a great time,” Pickrell said about her overall experience. “I thought it was cool getting the chance to be the person finally sitting in the chair instead of watching everyone else before me do it.”

For athletes who are go on to play the collegiate level of their sport, it can be a difficult decision. However, for some, there was no question where they would spend their next four

JOSEPH KRUMStaff Writer

@joseph_krum

years.Senior pitcher Jensen Elliot

had no reservations about Okla-homa State University. He ver-bally committed his sophomore year, so all he had to do was sign his name. From the beginnings to now, the overall experience was something that he will always remember.

“It was a blast, especially being next to Daniel Jones, who I have played baseball with for eight years,” Elliot said. “It was just special to finally sign my letter on intent.”

As for both Elliot and Pickrell, it was the experience when they went on the visits that hooked them.

“I just knew that was the place for me.” Pickrell said.

As for Elliot, it was OSU that hooked him from the beginning.

“I narrowed it down to four schools,” Elliot said. “I was going to go on all the visits but I went to OSU first and it felt like home, and I loved it all, and I knew it was right for me.”

The Sidekick // Sarah VanderPolVarsity volleyball player Kylie Pickrell, a four-year volleyball athlete, signs her commit-ment to Arizona State University to play on the next level.

Cricket has long been a tra-ditional sport in both the British and Indian cul-

tures. Bikramjeet Singh Sardar, a new junior at Coppell High School, moved to Coppell earlier this year from India.

Sardar was first taught how to play cricket by his father at the young age of 4, and has been play-ing since. With his recent move, he has started creating a cricket club with the hope of continuing his childhood love for the sport as well as to introduce a piece of his home to his new friends.

Sardar moved to America in the summer because of his father’s business. Many suggested that he switch over to baseball, instead of trying to adjust to a new sport, he opted to continue growing as a cricket player. His endeavours led him to the Dallas County Cricket Club.

It was at the club that he found many other students from Cop-pell who share his passion for the sport. Coppell High School pride’s itself on having a variety of clubs for students to participate in, with groups ranging from the Cupcake Club to Students Against De-

struc-tive De-cisions, or SADD club.

Because there was such an im-mense amount of players from Coppell High School, Sardar thought it would be a good idea to introduce the Cricket Club in order to add to the variety of clubs for students to become a part of. The club is now vig-orously working to put to-gether a group large enough to create a full team.

“It was really hard trying to even create a team,” Sardar said. “It was difficult finding people who also like cricket or want to play it. We had the people from the Dallas County Cricket Club, but that is only a minute amount of people. We still needed more people for the team.

“Also, making out time for us to all meet and practice together at Dallas County Cricket Club was hard. Not only that, but the most difficult part is finding a teach-er to sponsor us. Not too many teachers here know much about cricket. But I saw many people starting clubs like badminton, Ping-Pong, so I know that we can make club. It may take a little longer, but we will get there.”

In addition to school and the club’s efforts, Sardar and his friends still participate in the ever growing Dallas County Cricket Club. There are over 120 youth teams in the Dallas County Crick-et Club. Time to practice and plac-es to play are limited, because of its limited popularity in America.

How-ever, that

has not stopped the group of boys.

“Once you start playing a sport, start loving it, playing it every singe day, you don’t just quit it because of a couple inconve-niences,” Sardar said.

He hopes that one day cricket will be just as accept-

ed in India as a sport as it is in America, and so does the Dallas County Cricket Club.

“We are really trying to pro-mote the game of cricket,” Dallas County Cricket Club representa-tive Jagannath Poosarla said. “We are trying to promote it as much as we can. We want this American crowd to pick up the game. We would like to see it in all schools. It starts with the kids. We are real-ly impressed with the enthusiasm the kids are showing and how they relate it to baseball.”

The club hires highly trained

crick-et play-ers that have years of play.These coaches train the members of the Dallas Coun-ty Cricket Club, as well as many young elementary school chil-dren during the week.

“We go to Garland schools with 42 PE teachers,” Poosarla said. “We have given each teacher a cricket set, and we teach them the rules and how to play. We are going to do the same with Mes-quite. Our goal is to go to every school and get it going at the grassroot level. We just want to promote the game.”

The presidents of the Crick-et Club feels that momentum is heavily picking up for the sport.

“The Indian kids here are real-ly starting to get into it,” Poosarla said. “We want to get big cricket players to come to our league and help popularize cricket in Amer-

i c a , m u c h like Mi- c h a e l Jordan c o m i n g to visit Dallas. To really get them into it, it has to start at the grassroot lev-els, in the schools. The kids are doing a great job and are show-ing so much enthusiasm.”

There is still a lot of promoting to be done for the sport, but the endeavours of young children in schools like Sardar and the big-ger icons like the Dallas County Cricket Club have taken hold. With the effort and time, cricket is sure to emerge as a large sport in the near future. and with this comes new changes.

StudentsPassion

While the majority of se-niors are deciding and applying to colleges

right now, Coppell High School senior Macy Toronjo has known that she will be going to the Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles for gymnastics. She has been ver-bally commited to UCLA since October of her sophomore year.

Toronjo has a full schol-arship to UCLA, after be-ing noticed by their coaches.

“They [college scouts] come to our meets and scout for new gymnasts,” Toron-jo said. “They also come to our gym and watch us train.”

Having been in gymnastics since the age of 5 and practic-ing for 30 hours a week, it was no surprise that Toronjo would go to college for gymnastics. It was also no surprise that many colleges would compete for her.

Toronjo’s reason to choose UCLA was clear: “I chose UCLA because I re-ally love the coach there.”

UCLA was ranked eighth out of the top 10 colleges for wom-en’s gymnastics at the end of the season in April, according to NCAA women’s gymnastics rankings. Toronjo knew that she wanted to go to a school with a coach she liked, so UCLA seemed to be the right fit for her.

Toronjo trains with Kim Zmeskal-Burdette and her hus-band, Chris Burdette, at Texas

Dreams Gymnastics in Coppell. Zmeskal-Burdette is an award

winning gymnast, having won na-tional and world champion titles, including being a bronze med-

al winner at the 1992 Olympics. “Macy is a strong all-around

gymnast, known for her beautiful artistry,” said Zmeskal-Burdette. “She has successfully competed

at the elite level as a senior ath-lete which has given her an out-standing training in both high skill level development as well as the ability to handle high levels of

pressure. Having this background and these qualities will make her a valuable asset to the UCLA team.”

Despite her coaches being her main leaders, Toronjo owes it to her mom for motivating her.

“My mom has helped me the most,” Toronjo said. “She always pushes me to be the best that I can be, but in a good way. If I have a bad day, she is there to support me.”

Longtime friend of Toron-jo’s, Ariana Guerra can not wait for Toronjo to start her new life at UCLA. Guerra is also a se-nior at CHS and will be going to the University of Alabama next fall for gymnastics as well.

“Macy getting accepted to UCLA is so exciting because it’s crazy, we’ve been together since we were 13,” Guerra said. “We’re all going to different col-leges for gymnastics. Like I’m going to Alabama, she’s going to UCLA and another teammate of mine is going to [the University of] Florida . It’s so amazing that we get to compete against each other but still be great friends.”

Toronjo is excited to start at UCLA in the fall and pursue her gymnastics further. She does not think that she will contin-ue gymnastics after college, but there is time for her to change her mind. For right now she is just focusing on becoming a better gymnast and beginning to tran-sition into the college lifestyle.

“I am a part of a really good gymnastics team,” Toronjo said. “I am just able to watch the girls around me and I am able to push myself to become better.”

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Photo Courtesy // Macy ToronjoGymnast and Coppell senior Macy Toronjo scored a total 51.350 at the 2014 Buckeye Clas-sic in Columbus, Ohio on Feb. 14-16. She scored a 13.25 on the balance beam in the qual-ifier. Toronjo has been verbally commited to UCLA since October of her sophomore year.

From balance beams to beachesGymnastics phenom Toronjo signs letter of intent to attend UCLA

SHANNON MORGANStaff Writer

@shannonlacyy

With one of the best teams to grace the golf course in Coppell High School

history, the girls team is poised for a state championship. Behind the team, one player has one thought driving her personally.

“It could be my year,” senior Sol Lee said.

Lee has her eyes set on placing at state, adding on to her already impressive triumphs.

Here is just a list of a few of the accomplishments Lee has achieved in her four years at Cop-pell: four year varsity letterman, three-time all-district selection, two-time all-region selection, honorable mention all-state as a sophomore, second team all-state as a junior and the record holder for a single round score, shooting a 63.

“She puts in a lot of time with golf outside of school, she works on all areas of her game, she works on her conditioning, she plays a lot of tournaments over the sum-mer and she has just, every year, physically gotten better, gotten stronger and her overall game has also gotten better,” assitant coach Jan Bourg said. “She just works, works, works.”

Her training is not lost on her teammates either.

“Her dedication and just the amount of time she puts in [with golf],” senior golfer Chaithra Kat-amneni said when asked how she is different from other golfers in the area. “She cares about it.”

Lee’s training regiment rivals professionals and is almost un-heard of for high school golfers. She practices for about two hours everyday but focuses on, in her opinion, the most important part of golfing for 30 minutes to an hour each day: putting.

“I put a lot of work into golf,” Lee said. “I’m pretty determined to practice everyday. I don’t plan on getting achievements, they just kind of happen.”

If all these are not enough to persuade you of her talent, Lee is also going to the University of New Mexico on a scholarship to pursue her love of golf at the next level.

“It was just a really pretty place,” Lee said. “The practice fa-cilities were great, their dorms were brand new, so that was a big turn on.”

With all her achievements, it is surprising that golf was not Lee’s first love. In fact, another sport captivated her when she was younger.

“I started [playing golf] when I was 9 and I wasn’t really in-terested. My mom just kind of put me in the sport,” Lee said. “I used to play tennis but then my dad could not play with me and she wanted me to play a sport I could play by myself.”

Although she said she never would go back to the sport, due to time constraints of practic-

ing with golf, she did admit that she misses tennis some.

One thing Bourg has noticed in Lee this year that is different from previous years is her level of maturity. Golfers will attest to the fact that one of the most import-ant skills a golfer can possess in her repertoire is a short memory. While she has calmed down now and learned to utilize this skill, she was known for her fiery com-petitive spirit that occasionally got the best of her.

“Golf can be seen as a slow sport, but there is a lot of concen-tration that goes into it,” Lee said. “It is really easy to look back and say ‘Wow, why did I do that?’ and it stays with you and that messes up your entire game, whereas if you played a faster sport, you can just move on really quickly.

“I used to have a really bad temper my freshman and sopho-more year and I would get mad on the course. After awhile you kind of grow and say ‘It’s OK, there’s always the next hole that I can birdie.’”

Bourg echoes this sentiment but also stresses her growth and

how much she impacts the team, not only in competitions, but as a teammate as well.

“She likes to have a lot of fun,” Bourg said. “She has a kind of quirky personality; she’ll just say some really random things at times, but she’s also matured. She use to get really mad at herself and she tries not let a shot affect her entire round.

“Golf is a lonely sport because even though it’s a team score, you never see your teammates out on the golf course. It’s just you on the golf course and then girls from other teams. You have to know how to let a couple of bad shots or a couple of bad holes affect your entire round.”

The Cowgirls golf team, with the help of Lee, has made huge strides towards a state title for the program in past years and has no intentions of slowing up now.

“Hopefully we will place in the top three in state and win district and regionals again,” Katamneni said.

With the golfers on board with this shared goal and a talent like Lee on the ros-ter, the job of a coach be-

comes a little bit easier.“The ultimate goal would be

to a win a state championship,” Bourg said. “If everybody does their part we have a really good chance to do that. If we didn’t win state but at least medaled in the top three it would be a big achievement for our program.”

Lee, known for her skills on the golf course, also knows her way around a pen and pencil, being a part of the Coppell art depart-ment for all four years. Taking a multitude of classes from AP Art History in her freshman year to Digital Graphics and Ani-mation (DGA) her senior year, Lee has been able to explore another one of her pas-sions outside of golf.

S h e

admits that DGA is quite different from the traditional art classes she has enjoyed in the past, she likes the challenges associated with learning a new craft.

“It’s a lot of computer and Photoshop stuff but you still get to draw,” Lee said.

The Sidekick // Kelly MonaghanSenior Sol Lee perfects her golf swing during practice at Hackberry Creek on Dec. 3. Lee also pursues her other passion, drawing, through art classes at Coppell High School. She is committed to the University of New Mexico.

Master of the golf courseOwning numerous awards, only state title escapes Lee’s grasp

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ALEX NICOLLEditor-in-Chief

@nicollmac

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English teacher Samantha Neal has been named 2014-2015 Coppell High School Teacher of the Year.

CHS Principal Mike Jasso led the band drumline to room C233 to crown Neal, who teaches Pre-AP English II and AP En-glish IV.

“I heard the drums come and I don’t even know what to say,” Neal said. “I hope that it means that I can have an im-pact on more kids in this school because that’s my passion.”

Neal has been teaching at CHS for three years. She was nominated for her ability to transform her classroom into a comfortable and inspiring environment for her students. Her lesson plans and strengths as a team leader in the English department were motivating for others to witness.

It is Neal’s first time to be nominated.“I am very passionate about reaching as

many kids on this campus as possible, so, to me, winning Teacher of the Year might mean having a greater opportunity to reach more learners,” Neal said. “I love what I do, and my desire to give kids a positive expe-rience in school and to help grow them in-tellectually and as people is what drives me every day. I hope I am able to use the plat-form to inspire others the way the Teachers of the Year and nominees of the past have inspired me.”

There were 15 nominees, a record num-ber of nominees in recent years. The fol-lowing were nominated: Scott Mason, Matt Bowden, Samantha Neal, Alissa Womack, Hayley Mitchell, Jessica Caviness, Holly Whiting, Bill Visco, Zach Sherman, Brandi LeBlanc, Don Kemp, Clint Rushing, Mel-anie Ringman, Dawn Clyburn and Mike Yakubovsky.

The nominations were submitted via Google Form by other CHS teachers. Their explanations were the basis of the adminis-tration’s judgement for Teacher of the Year.

Nominees must be certified to teach in Texas public schools, work for Coppell In-dependent School District for at least three years, be a classroom educator and plan to work at CISD through the next year. How-ever, along with these basic guidelines, teachers had to be exemplary in other fields as well.

The nomination form contains fields for examples of how the teacher creates a safe learning environment, helps students make real world connections and models the construction of knowledge in his or her learning. Other considerations included how the teacher uses the district transfor-mation initiative, designs experiences that facilitate the learner’s conceptual develop-ment and measures a learner’s level of un-derstanding

Neal was one of five to be nom-inated from the English de-

partment, who have sup-

KARA HALLAMEnterprise Editor

@KaraHallam

ported and celebrated one another during this exciting time.

“This is her third year teaching here so she’s just finding her stride and I’m really proud of her, because she was my student teacher,” Bowden, who teaches English IV and creative writing, said. “Knowing that she’s in here and using what she did learn makes me proud.”

Neal tries to make real world connec-tions in her teaching and made a notable effort for her students to have a Skype ses-sion with the members of LiNK, an organi-zation which aids North Korean refugees.

“My goal as a teacher is for my learn-ers to understand the relevance and value of the novels we read, and to use the ideas we glean from books to help them create a better world for themselves and for the fu-ture,” Neal said. “I try to engage them not only in the Coppell community, but in the global community as well.“

Neal is married to Kris Neal and has a 2 year old daughter named JoLeigh who she considers to be her “mini-me.” Both were present for the announcement.

“I am extremely proud, she works re-ally hard to take care of everyone else, so I am really happy to see her get some recognition,” Kris said. “She tries so hard and everything she does is for the kids and for the teacher so getting this recognition helps her remember that everyone loves her as much as she loves them.”

Last year’s winner, Jodie Deinhammer was there to literally pass on the crown to Neal.

“I’m really excited she’ll represent Cop-pell ISD,” Deinhammer said. “She is a per-fectly amazing teacher and her kids con-nect outside of the classroom.”

Neal wins Teacher of

the Year

Neal wins Teacher of

the Year

Samantha NealThe Sidekick // Mallorie Munoz