May 31, 2013 Founded in 1933 inklingsnews.com Inside the Issue Inklings HANNAH FOLEY ’14 Editor-in-Chief O n April 23, U.S. News and World Report re- leased its annual lists of the best high schools in the country and the best high schools in each state. Sta- ples, which was named the top high school in Connecti- cut in 2008 by Connecticut Magazine, dropped to sev- enth in the state and 269th in the country this year. Even so, it was awarded a Gold Medal for placing as one of the top 500 high schools in the nation. U . S . News, which partnered with the American Institutes for Re- search, col- lected data from over 21,000 pub- lic high schools in 49 states and the District of Colum- bia (Nebraska did not report enough data to be included in the rankings). According to the rank- ings methodology, a school must be able serve all of its students well and must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes across a range of performance indi- cators, such as the Connecti- cut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) and Advanced Placement (AP) tests. There was a three- step process to determine a school’s national standing. The first step was to deter- mine if a school’s students performed higher on state proficiency tests than the average student in the state. The second step focused on whether the school’s least- advantaged students— blacks, Hispanics, and people of low-income— performed higher than average when compared to simi- lar students in the state. If a school made it past the first two steps, it then moved on to the last step of the process. U.S. News created a college- readiness index based on the number of students who took AP or International Bacca- laureate tests and recorded how well they did on them. The score they received on this index indicated a school’s national ranking. State rankings were then derived from the national rankings. Principal John Dodig said that he was happy that Staples was named one of the top ten high schools in the state. “When you get up to the top five, 10 or 15 high schools by somebody’s rank- ing, the ranking doesn’t make a difference. You’re just be- ing recog- nized as ex- ceptionally good,” he said. Robby Gershowitz ’14 echoed Dodig’s beliefs. “I think the rankings are important, but they aren’t the most impor- tant thing,” he said. “I think all of the top schools are similar with hard working and motivated stu- dents.” PHOTOS BY CAROLINE O’KANE ’16 AND CLAUDIA LANDOWNE ’15, GRAPHIC BY CADENCE NEENAN ’15 AND CLAUDIA LANDOWNE ’15 Lucky Number Staples Ranked Seventh in State “I think the rankings are important, but they aren’t the most impor- tant thing.” -Principal John Dodig AND CLAUDIA LANDOW Promposal Problems 8 Gatsby Obssession 16 Continued on page 4 Staples by the Numbers: Statistics from U.S. News and World Report Student to Teacher Ratio: 12/1
Transcript
May 31, 2013 Founded in 1933 inklingsnews.com
Inside the Issue
Inklings
HANNAH FOLEY ’14Editor-in-Chief
O n Apri l 23, U.S. News and World Report re-leased its annual l ists
of the best high schools in the countr y and the best high schools in each state. Sta-ples, which was named the top high school in Connecti-cut in 2008 by Connecticut Magazine, dropped to sev-enth in the state and 269th in the countr y this year. Even so, it was awarded a Gold Medal for placing as one of the top 500 high schools in the nation.
U . S . News, which p a r t n e r e d w ith the A m e r i c a n I n s t i t u t e s for Re-search, col-lected data from over 21,000 pub-lic high schools in 49 states and the Distr ict of Colum-bia (Nebraska did not report enough data to be included in the rankings).
According to the rank-ings methodology, a school must be able ser ve al l of its students well and must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes across a range of per formance indi-cators, such as the Connecti-cut Academic Per formance Test (CAPT) and Advanced Placement (AP) tests.
There was a three-step process to determine a school’s national standing. The f irst step was to deter-mine if a school’s students per formed higher on state prof iciency tests than the average student in the state. The second step focused on whether the school’s least-advantaged students—blacks, Hispanics, and people of low-income—performed higher than average when compared to simi-lar students in the state.
If a school
made it past the f irst two steps, it then moved on to the last step of the process. U.S. News created a col lege-readiness index based on the number of students who took AP or International Bacca-laureate tests and recorded how well they did on them. The score they received on this index indicated a school’s national ranking.
State rankings were then der ived from the national rankings.
Pr incipal John Dodig said that he was happy that
Staples was named one of the top ten high schools in the state.
“When you get up to the top f ive, 10 or 15 high schools by somebody’s rank-ing, the ranking doesn’t make a dif ference. You’re just be-ing recog-nized as ex-c ept ion a l l y good,” he said.
Robby Gershow itz ’14 echoed Dodig’s beliefs.
“I think the rankings are important, but they aren’t the most impor-tant thing,” he said. “I think al l of the top schools are similar w ith hard working and motivated stu-dents.”
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Lucky NumberStaples Ranked Seventh in State
“I think the rankings are important, but they aren’t the most impor-tant thing.”
-Principal John Dodig
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Promposal Problems 8 Gatsby
Obssession 16
Continued on page 4
Staples by the Numbers:Statistics from U.S. News and World Report
MemoriesMemories This Monday, May 27, residents of Westport gathered downtown
to honor those who have given their lives for our country. The Police Depart-ment, Fire Department, members of the armed forces and many other or-ganizations paraded down the Post Road amidst fl oats, cars, and army vehicles. The Staples Marching Band participated in the parade,
serenading parade-go-ers with patriotic tunes. Other Staples students participated as members of groups like the Boy Scouts. The crowd was awash in red, white, and blue, decked in fl ags and colorful clothing. Howev-er, the festivities weren’t limited only to people: even some four-legged friends showed their spirit in patriotic garb.
ABOVE: Teen members of the Boy Scouts march in the parade in remembrance of those put their lives on the line in World War II.
LEFT: Canine festivities continue as Westport dogs dress up for Me-morial Day.
LEFT BELOW: Veterans and their families ride in a military jeep dur-ing the parade.
RIGHT BELOW: Westport families dressed in patriotic clothes look ahead in the parade.
PHOTOS BY BELLA GOLLOMP ’15 & CAROLINE O’KANE ‘16
3NewsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
I t’s a harsh, mechani-cal drone, a motorized, whirr ing soundtrack of
summer, a grating advertise-ment for a mate. It ’s the fa-miliar noise of a cicada, but this year, it wil l be amplif ied a million-fold.
Dubbed the “bug plague,” “cicadapocalypse” and a “sex invasion” by blogs and news articles, the cicada emer-gence of Brood II Magicica-das will occur this spring in Connecticut, Mar yland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The insect inf lux will involve from 100,000 to over a million insects per acre, according to John Cool-ey, a cicada researcher at the University of Connecticut.
The occurrence, which Connecticut entomologist and agricultural scientist Chris Maier described as a “biological phenomenon,” will commence when soil temperatures are warm enough, forecasted for the end of May or the beginning of June. The cicadas will sur v ive for roughly two to three weeks and will be con-centrated in areas of central Connecticut, close to trap-rock r idges and rocky slopes. “They’ l l be ver y numerous in certain hotspots,” Maier said. “In what’s known as a mating aggregation, certain trees can have 10 to 20 thou-sand.”
The cicadas, winged,
red-eyed insects of about 1.5 inches, have spent almost the past 17 years underground, feeding on xylem from plant roots. Af ter this lengthy, subterranean puberty, the cicada nymphs will emerge, crawling from below ground to molt into full-f ledged, winged adults. The insects reproduce, then perish, hav-ing laid their eggs on plants and trees. The immature cicadas that hatch then sink back into the depths, inv isible and si lent for the next 17 years.
A l t h o u g h almost two decades have passed since the last emer-gence, some sti l l remember past cicada events. “I re-member all the noise,” math teacher Lenny K lein said. “It sounded like it was from a sci-f i movie, a screeching and buzzing that would fade away.” K lein r e m e m b e r e d f inding cicada carcasses smashed on the ground dur-ing the period of the emer-gence.
Haley Randich ’14 re-members a 2007 occurrence
from a tr ip to Il l inois. “It was horrif y ing because there were giant, prehistoric-look-ing bugs ever y where,” Rand-ich said. “When they landed on you–which they did–they made a shril l scream.”
The ver y suggestion of a cicada mating call is enough to worr y many students. “I’ve seen pictures of the cicadas; they’re really scar y,” Lexi Lubin ’14 said. “I probably
Inklings / May 31, 2013 / inkl
red eyed insects of about 1 5 from a trip to Illinois “It
The Cicadapocalypse
y
w o n ’ t go outside for the t ime they’re here.”
“I’m so annoyed,” Vidur Nair ’14 said. “I won’t be able to sleep because of al l of
those stupid cr ickets chirp-ing.”
Oliv ia Day tz ’16 also har-bored hosti lity towards the insects. “If there was a ci-cada in my house, I’d f lush it down the toilet,” she said.
Gabi Duncan ’15 had a slightly more optimistic per-spective. “It seems kind of cool because I’ve never really seen cicadas before,” Duncan said. “I think the emergence
is going to be interesting on the f irst day that they come out, and, then, af-ter, it ’s just going to be gross.”
Experts encourage a more open mind when it comes to the insects. “Some people are freak-ing out, which is re-ally counterproductive,” Cooley said. The bugs rarely enter houses, gen-erally stay ing in trees. Furthermore, cicadas, with a taste only for plant sap, do not bite or st ing humans.
Even the plants won’t suf fer dire harm, experi-encing only some discol-oration of the stems and leaves, Wesleyan Biology Professor Michael Singer said. “It ’s a temporar y syndrome and doesn’t harm the plants in the long run,” Singer said. Cooley suggested wrap-
ping delicate, ornamental or fruit trees but was also un-concerned.
“People shouldn’t tr y to kil l them because they’ l l
end up using so much insec-ticide,” Cooley said. “I also tend not to eat them because some literature suggests they are mercur y bile accumula-tors.”
“They’re just out there doing their thing. They don’t st ing or bite, and they’re not a threat,” Singer added.
Math teacher William Walsh didn’t see the upcom-ing inf lux as something to worr y about. “I k ind of l ike the sound they make,” he said.
K lein also had a more passive att itude towards the cicadas. “If it happens, it happens,” K lein said. “I’ l l be interested to see how my kids react.”
Never theless, indiv idu-a ls a f f l ic ted w ith cicada-phobia may be in luck. Based on histor ica l data, Maier predicts that the bugs w i l l not be emerging direct-ly in Fair f ield Count y. He projects higher numbers in centra l Connect icut tow ns l ike Mer idan, Hamden, and Nor th Branford. However, Singer feels that the occur-rence locat ion is less pre-dictable. “It w i l l depend on where the eggs were la id and whether there are trees around that they can l ive under,” he sa id.
Only time will tell if the cicada emergence will af fect Westport. Some may dread it, but entomologists are looking on with anticipation. “People should sit back and enjoy the emergence,” Cooley said.
ELIZA LLEWELLYN ’14Web Managing Editor
GRAPHICS BY OLIVIA CROSBY ’13
BUG’S LIFE:A full size cicada has a wingspan of roughly 7 cm.
NewsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com4
JORDAN SHENHAR ’13Staff Writer
A rlene G ot tesma n, pr incipa l of Da r ien Hig h School , which wa s ra n ked number one in t he state , sa id t hat she wa s happy to receive t he news about her school’s ra n k ing.
“It i s a lways exc it ing to receive great news t hat va l idates t he ha rd work our st udent s a nd teachers dem-onst rate ,” she sa id.
G ot tesma n a lso added t hat cred it for Da r ien’s suc-cess belongs to ever y teach-er in t he d ist r ic t , t he Boa rd of Educ at ion, a nd t he com-munit y, a mong ot hers.
West por t School Dis-t r ic t Super intendent E l-l iot L a ndon bel ieves t hat , despite Staples’ ra n k ing, it i s t he at mosphere of t he school t hat i s most impor-tant .
“ The ‘ feel ing tone’ of ind iv idua l h igh schools i s never mea sured, such a s whet her s t udent s feel sa fe w it h in t he school a nd a re made to feel wor t hy by school s ta f f ,” he sa id. “On t hat mea surement , I wou ld place Staples Hig h School a s number one on a ny na-t iona l l i s t .
D o d ig e c ho e d L a ndon’s b el ie f s .
“In West por t we have a h ig h concent rat ion of wel l-
Staples Ranked Seventh-Best by U.S. News and World Report
GRAPHIC BY CADENCE NEENAN ’15 AND CLAUDIA LANDOWNE ’15
educ ated people who wa nt a top notch educ at ion for t heir ch i ld ren,” he sa id. “We spend a lot of ef for t to
ma ke sure k ids enjoy h igh school a nd feel sa fe a nd va lued. A nd we send t he message, a long w it h fa mi-
l ies at home, t hat even i f you’re great , we st i l l ex pec t you to be respec t f u l , k ind, a nd c a r ing.”
Westport Public Schools will fi nally hold full-day kindergarten every
day of the week, after 12 years, four contentious votes and over 300 signatures on a Change.org petition.
The change will take effect at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year after being ap-proved by the Board of Education in April. However, parents and teachers alike remain heavily di-vided over the benefi ts and reper-cussions of the new system.
The Board struck down the proposal three times before, in 2001, 2007, and 2010. However, with the state of Connecticut mandating specifi c standards starting next year as part of the nationwide Common Core cur-riculum, Westport residents and school administrators became concerned about the short length of the kindergarten day.
Board of Education Chair Elaine Whitney, one of six board-members who voted in favor of the initiative, believes that add-ing instructional time to kinder-garten will help reduce student stress by giving teachers enough time to fi nish their lesson plans without having to rush.
Whitney voted against full-day kindergarten when it last came up for a vote in 2010. How-ever, Whitney believed the Com-mon Core’s curriculum demands could only be met if a change was made.
“There are greater expecta-tions and increased curricular needs because of the depth of understanding we’re trying to achieve now,” Whitney said.
For Allison Keisman, a parent whose son will enter kindergarten next year, the change signals a shift in the right direction, especially in light of the new standards.
“From the student perspec-tive, they won’t be as rushed,” she said. “Now there will be more time to fulfi ll the curriculum re-quirements.”
However, not every parent agreed with Keisman’s assess-ment. Educational psychologist Jill Greenberg, who has kids enrolled in the Westport Public School system, fears that extend-ing the school day will take away too much free time from young students.
“My kids spent a lot of time playing and get-ting dirty and going to the li-brary and just sorta hanging out,” Greenberg said. “These chil-dren are losing opportunities to play—and that’s something they defi ne, not teach-ers or parents.”
Brooke Petrosino, a mother of three and former kindergar-ten teacher at King’s Highway Elementary School, also felt that students would benefi t more from time to themselves than from ad-ditional regimented lessons.
“The social time that these shorter days allowed was amaz-
ing for my students and my son,” she said. “But I’m sad for our fu-ture kindergarten kids. I feel like they’re getting robbed of their childhood—getting to explore and learn things outside of the structure of school.”
Petrosino advocated con-tinuing the current kindergarten schedule of three full days and
two half days each week, which has been in place since 2010. She also suggested adding an opt-in program for parents who wanted their children to have fi ve full school days a week.
Greenberg was concerned that spending more time on aca-demics at a young age would lead to high levels of student stress. As a psychologist, she’s already
starting to see the negative by-products of what she describes as “the factory version of education.”
“Kids are getting highly anx-ious in fi rst grade. They believe they’re stupid,” she said. “Par-ents are lulled into thinking it’s OK, but kids are crying, agitated. They don’t want to go to school.”
Mark Mathias, the only Board of Educa-tion member to vote against the proposal last month, agreed that additional time in school might not be necessary for k i n d e r g a r t e n -
ers.“Young children in kinder-
garten really just need time to play,” he said. “What they’re like when they graduate high school won’t be any different whether they have a half or a full day.”
However, Whitney was not concerned that the extended school day would detract from
students’ creative endeavors.“The Board understands the
importance of joyful learning, choice time and time for creative thinking,” she said. “We dis-cussed the value of unstructured play and choice, and those com-ponents are being integrated in the curriculum.”
Similarly, Keisman was con-fi dent that the school system would act with the best interests of its students in mind.
“I trust the school admin-istrators to determine the right amount of time for all subjects, including playtime,” she said. “I know they want to make sure it’s a balanced curriculum.”
Both Mathias and Whitney cited the Common Core as the biggest reason the proposal fi -nally passed on its fourth vote. Mathias understood that the Common Core presented a com-pelling reason to vote for full-day kindergarten this time but felt confi dent that the district would be able to meet all the new re-quirements without having to ex-tend the school day.
“The Westport Public Schools are considered high-achieving. We were already in compliance with the Common Core,” he said.
While Keisman agreed that the Common Core was a ma-jor reason the initiative fi nally passed, she also cited the emer-gence of digital and social media as a factor in its newfound suc-cess. Technology, she said, helped organize and amplify the voices of those in favor of the proposal, and it was she who started the online petition that garnered 320 signa-tures before the vote in April.
Yet, in spite of the controver-sies over extending the school day, Greenberg felt that both parents in favor of and against full-day kindergarten had the interests of their children in mind.
“All these parents want what they think is the best,” Greenberg said. “They’re trying to make the best decision based on the infor-mation they have.”
Ruling on Full-Day Kindergarten
“These children are losing opportunities to play—and that’s something they defi ne, not teachers or parents.”
-Jill Greenberg
Continued from page 1
PHOTO BY CADENCE NEENAN ’13
5NewsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
SAMI BAUTISTA ’13Staff Writer
The hallway outside the cafeteria bustles as herds of students collect around ta-bles cluttered with posters, sign-up sheets and, of course,
candy. It’s Club Rush, and stu-dents are eager to put down their names for after-school activi-ties. However, those who wish to participate in Best Buddies have to provide more than just their names and email addresses. In-stead, interested students are met with a stack of application forms.
Next year, Best Buddies is changing their application pro-
cess. According to faculty ad-visor Patty McQuone, Best
Buddies is a volunteer orga-nization that is dedicated
to creating one-to-one friendships, integrated
employment and lead-ership development
for people with intellectual and
developmental d i s a bi l i -
ties.
In previous years, Best Bud-dies followed the same process as other school clubs by allowing everyone interested to be a part of the organization. However, according to Beth Lester ’13 this year’s president of Staples chap-ter of Best Buddies, it is time for a change.
“As the club has grown, we've noticed that there are a lot of people who join but don't follow through on their responsibilities. Best Buddies deals with people fi rst hand, so it's better for us, as well as for the buddies, to have a few dedicated members as op-posed to a large number of unen-gaged members,” Lester said.
According to next year’s president of the Staples Chapter of Best Buddies, Victoria Pappas ’15, the club usually starts with about 200 members, and then goes down to 30 or 40 members by the end of the year. Due to this
problem, McQuone and Special Education Advisor Deb Gallon decided to limit membership.
“We feel that the large crowd at our meetings and some events causes anxiety for some of our buddies, and we feel bad about that and want them to be relaxed,” Mc-Quone said.
The new process involves a brief application where stu-dents must list all their extra-curricular activities and their usual availability. Students who were part of the club last year must reapply and are not necessarily guaranteed
SIMON STRACHER ’14Social Media Editor
a spot. Once all applications are turned in, McQuone and Gal-lon will review each application and choose the applicants they feel will be able to give the most energy to the club. In addition, McQuone says that they will have a three-strike policy for admitted students who do not display enough commitment.
“We may fi nd that we won't have many students apply. That is the purpose of this new process-to weed out those who are in it for the right reason and not for college applications like so many have already done,” McQuone said. “We will not give into that anymore.”
Gea Mitas ’14, a current member of Best Buddies, says that the new application process will upset people because it will lessen their chances of joining the club.
However, Pappas says that she believes the new application process will be extremely benefi -cial.
“Having a small group allows us to really get to know each oth-er and see the same people every week. The friendships built will probably be a lot stronger, which is what our club is all about,” Pappas said. “We aren't trying to make the club hard to get into at all. We just want to make sure that everyone who is in the club is dedicated.”
Currently, Best Buddies meets every Tuesday from 2:15 to 3 p.m., and has a bake sale the second Tuesday of every month.
Don’t bank on the banks. In the past, test
banks - loosely defined as a “bank” of questions and answers provided by textbook publishers - have been some-times used by teachers to de-vise their own tests.
However, many of the test banks are actually available on-line. If a student ever got a hold of the test bank, a teacher was using, it could spell trouble.
With rumors abounding that students use the test banks to cheat on tests, when is it okay to use a test bank, and when is it not? And will tests in the fu-ture rely on test banks?
In fact, many students find a useful purpose for the banks, particularly at exam times. Ex-tra questions and answers can only help students achieve mas-tery of a subject, students said.
“I still use test banks this year to study. They are still rel-atively useful for preparing for tests,” said Avery Wallace ’15.
However, even the Col-lege Board seems to grasp the predicament of the tests. Be-ginning this year, the College Board overhauled the AP Biol-ogy curriculum in an attempt to focus less on factual recall and lessen the emphasis on test banks. Consequently, Staples’ AP Biology adjusted its cur-riculum.
“The AP curriculum changed in that there was a decrease in content but an in-creased emphasis on inquiry-based labs and application of content,” Dr. Michele Morse, an AP Biology teacher at Staples,
said.The goal is, according to
the College Board’s AP Biol-ogy Curriculum Framework, to shift from a traditional model to a “model of instruction to one that focuses on enduring, conceptual understandings and the content that supports them. This approach will en-able students to spend less time on factual recall and more time on inquiry-based learning of essential concepts, and will help them develop the reason-ing skills necessary to engage
in the science practices used throughout their study of AP Biology.”
This new curriculum has directly affected the types of questions students see on regu-lar AP Biology tests.
“The open-ended part is more about labs and coming up with questions, rather than listing facts,” Claire Sampson ’15 said. “The multiple-choice section is different in that it is less fact-based than what I have seen from old tests. Rather than ask what something is, they
would give a long lab procedure for you to read, or a passage of information and then ask ques-tions about it.”
She added, “I think the point was to make it more like ‘real life science.”
Dr. Morse echoed Samp-son, saying, “The multiple choice questions are not as content driven as in previous years, but contain more reading comprehension-type questions - analyzing graphs and data, for example.”
Overall, students agree that
this method of critical thinking is better than the former factual recall method.
“Open-ended questions have helped me learn the sub-ject more in-depth because it forced me to learn all the little details about each biological process in order to write as much as possible on a given topic,” Reni Forer ’15 said.
Sampson agreed. “I like the push towards making the test more ‘thinking-based’ rather than pure memorization and facts,” she said.
Best Buddies Changes Application Process
A.P. Bio Test Format Changed
GRAPHIC BY NATE ROSEN ‘14
PHOTO BY JULIAN CLARKE ‘12BUDDIES AT THE BALL: Members Peter Giffords and Julia Kaner
MAKING BANK: In some A.P. Classes test banks are less guarded.
6 OPINIONSMay 31, 2013
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All the opinions, news, and features in this paper are those of Staples High School students. Inklings has a circulation of 1,800. The paper is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the National Scho-lastic Press Association and supports the Student Press Law Center. All letters to the editor must be signed before they will be published. The editorial board reserves the right not to publish letters and to edit all submissions as it sees fi t.
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Staples is constantly lauded as providing not just an outstand-
ing education but an out-standing preparation for college and the mythical “real world” that follows. And in this “real world” we speak of, technology is king. Entire industries, journalism for example, are threatened by the in-ternet, internships want to know how many Twit-ter followers you have, mp3 players get smaller by the day, and even us-ing the word “mp3 player” probably just dated us.
There is no question that Staples should be in-
corporating technology in our curriculum.
In theory, the district has taken a lot of steps toward this end. Class Facebook groups abound, iPads did a stint in the li-brary, and the new Google apps program is up and running, soon to com-pletely replace Microsoft Word, another word that, apparently, is dated.
In practice there is a disconnect. Some teach-ers who have SMART Boards hanging in their classrooms lament the loss of valuable space. Some teachers can barely use Blackboard, let alone the Google drive. Home Access Center was a nice thought.
Just as frustrating are teachers who are obsessed
with technology. Not everything
projected has to be elec-tronically highlighted, starred, written in every color imaginable and sur-rounded by a computer-generated border.
The amount of clash-ing colors will cause a sei-zure.
Every other week, world language students head to labs to use com-puters to learn. And by learn, we mean sit for half an hour while half the class tries to connect to Sony Soloist. As cool as it is to wear the big head-phones, and as comfort-able as it is to talk with an anonymous and identi-cally clueless class mem-ber, maybe it’d be just as helpful to sit at desks and
speak.We spend money on
underused and overused technology when we don’t have enough foreign lan-guage textbooks for a classroom set.
What are our priori-ties? What’s the point?
We don’t love Glog-ster’s stickers and spar-kles and the unlikelihood we will ever use it in that mythical “real world.” We’re sick of making PSAs. We don’t like being told that using a Prezi is cool.
If anyone knows tech-nology, it’s our generation. We can’t imagine a time without the internet. We can barely make it from class to class without look-ing at our iPhones. We’re our parents’ Geek Squad.
We know technology, or at the very least, we think we know technology.
So when you take the same teacher whom we actually saw trying to talk to the SMART Board the week before, and have them tell us that Glogsters are the next big thing, there’s bound to be some skepticism. We’re teenag-ers. We think we know everything. If you’re going to try and prove us wrong, you have to try harder.
Technology should be purposeful, married seamlessly to important content and curriculum. It needs to enrich our educa-tion, not enhance our rep-utation. Technology has a place in the classroom. Just don’t use Google Maps to fi nd it.
Inklings EDITORIAL
Technical Diffi culties How Much is Too Much?
GRAPHIC BY OLIVIA CROSBY ’15
There are two types of people in this world: those who sit around and let others obtain fame and
renown and those who seize that glory for themselves. The fact here is sim-ple—those who want to be the fame seizers are getting to school at 7:30 a.m. if not earlier. End of story.
A lot of has been made recently about how America is falling behind in the world. And you know what, it’s true and it’s also our own fault. Do you think that kids in China or Japan are lazily strolling into school at 9:00 am? No, they’ve been there been there since fi ve, and that’s why they’re fi ve years ahead of you in math.
The world doesn’t wait until noon to start functioning; it is constantly in motion. Do you think that Julius Cae-sar, Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan slept until lunchtime? No, no they didn’t: they were up at the crack of dawn, ready to conquer the world.
Don’t get me wrong; I love sleep as much as the next person. It’s some-times painful to pry myself out of bed in the morning, but, every day, without fail, I manage to get myself to school on time. You’re not going to be able to stroll into work at anytime you please; the mindset should be the same for
7:30a.m: Let’s Get Ahead
DANNY COOPER ’13
7:30a.m: I’m Still in BedERIK SOMMER ’13
Early Bird vs. Night Owlschool.
Most scientists estimate that an av-erage human spends one third of his or her life sleeping. That is over 20 years that you’ll waste on meaningless dreams. Don’t increase that time; take control of your life, and make the most you can from it. Maximize every minute.
However, we can’t ignore the fact that sleep is necessary for our survival. Here’s another fact: if you don’t sleep for 11 days straight, you will die. That statis-tic shouldn’t really worry you though; I mean, when was the last time you casual-ly pulled 11 consecutive all-nighters? My point is that it would be wise to respect sleep as a necessary evil. Don’t deprive yourself to the point of exhaustion, but also don’t let sleep dictate your life. Set a schedule and stick to it; you have to be the one calling the shots.
Some might make the claim, “How am I supposed to be successful through-out my day if I constantly feel tired?” You know what, that is a fair point that I am going to address now. Like I said, we must respect sleep. One cannot sim-ply wake up at any hour and expect to feel completely refreshed. There are techniques one must employ to re-main sharp throughout the day.
One possible method is to set your alarm for a good 10 minutes earlier than you actually need to wake up. You can then remain in a half sleep mode for this additional time, which will leave you feel-ing much better rested.
Another strategy is to exercise in the morning. Go on a run, do some sit-ups; just do something to get your heart beat-ing. You’ll fi nd that lingering tiredness soon abates with the aid of physical exer-cise.
Last, eat a good breakfast. How can you expect your body to perform to its maximum if you do not provide it with the proper fuel for the day? It’s simply nonsensical.
So, to those who say that the start time at Staples should be pushed back, I have one simple question: do you want to seize the world and make it your own? If the answer is no, then I have nothing left to say.
Sleep to your heart’s content. If the answer is yes…then go and set that alarm.
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
VS.
ZACH SPEED ’13
#PPP: Prom Proposal Problems
When seniors enter their second semester, they might think that they are done with work. They might think they can finally lie back, relax and put their mind at ease. Wrong. There is still one more very im-portant task at hand: coming up with a prom proposal.
Prom proposals are pos-sibly the most stressful part of a high school career. Why? No-body can get by on a heartfelt but simple invitation to prom.
Let’s face it: it’s not just the thought that counts.
In this day and age, people need to come up with exciting proposals. You need to ask in a way nobody has before.
But that can be a little dif-ficult. As Colin Davis ’13 said, “dances have been around since
Ezio Auditore’s time.” If you don’t understand the reference, go buy Assassin’s Creed right now.
The point is that, by now, people have proposed in every way imaginable. Jackson Yang ’13, a rugby player, recalled one of his favorite prom proposals, which happened a couple years ago. The captain of the rugby team had a bunch of teammates paint their chests spelling out “P-R-O-M?” and had them run to the tennis courts where his girlfriend was playing.
Impressive.Taking it up another notch,
Julia Kaner ’13 recalled that her date did a fake proposal in Times Square on the red steps.
Excuse me? How do you beat that?
Perhaps the most creative proposal idea came from an
anonymous source, who, be-ing a pilot, planned on f lying a plane over his date’s practice field where he would drop little plastic parachuting army men holding slips of paper printed with the question: “Prom?”
Needless to say, that idea was shot down for legal reasons (No pun intended).
But how far are people will-ing to go to come up with a cre-ative and exciting way to ask a date to prom?
I’d like to stress that, if you’re putting your life on the line, you might be going a little bit too far. But just a little bit.
Prom is the night to cap off your high school career. Prom is the night you’ll relive 20 years later at your reunion. You need to be clever.
Keeping in mind that a clever proposal is only going to
Guest Writer
I’ve always had a special talent for being late in the morning, and, undoubt-edly, there is more than one contributing factor to this. But truthfully, I’m just too lazy to take responsibility for my own laziness. I’d rather just deceive myself by saying my tardiness is the school’s fault. Even if I did just destroy my own credibility, there is surely an argument to be made here; 7:30a.m is too early on so many levels.
To start off my argument, I’ll say that I’ve never met a teenager who was happy about waking up at 6:30 or earlier to come to school. I would bet the couple dollars I currently have in my bank ac-count on Nancy Grace saying something annoying before wagering I could fi nd a kid who feels differently about a dawn wakeup.
The slumped over kid drooling on the table across from me as I type this is proof.
Now, I am adding to what I just wrote there seven hours later it’s now 11:40p.m -- because I pro-crastinated like any unwise teen, proving my point once again. My
species is not built for waking up or going to bed early.
And I actually found real evidence, scientifi c evidence to back what I am say-ing– Danny’s column probably has none of that. According to kidshealth.org, kids of my age have a weird circadian rhythm because the hormone melatonin is pro-duced later at night; I don’t know what any of that means so I’ll leave it up to you to interpret (that’s how everyone writes songs these days so maybe it’ll work for columns).
But, anyhow, that’s my excuse – you see, it’s the melatonin’s fault. Clearly, we adolescents have some brain defect, so why can’t teachers show me any pity
when I lumber into school 10 minutes late everyday and distract the whole class with my aggressive groans? Teachers can be so selfi sh.
Not to mention there is clear research linking poorer grades to sleep depriva-tion. How am I supposed to learn anything when sleep is begging for my company? I can literally do anything I want when I’m dreaming, but I can’t even fi nd a slope in Calculus, so why would I restrict myself to the reality of a high school classroom? Do you have a problem with me overdramatiz-ing my argument with so many rhetorical questions? I bet Danny hasn’t learned that trick either.
As a side note here, if you’re going to sleep in class, then just own it. If you get called on in the midst of your snooze, don’t try hiding the truth. There’s nothing that bothers me more (except maybe war and poverty) than when a kid tries covering up the fact that his head was in his knees by saying something generic like “I was listening – that was a good use of pathos” or “that’s an interesting point Ms. Some-thing.”
I have to get up at 7:30 tomorrow again, so I’m going to hit the sack now- my column probably would’ve given Shake-speare a run for his money if I could’ve spent more time on it. But, nay, we’ll never know because I have to get at least a couple hours of sleep and it’s 12:13. And falling asleep isn’t easy when I got this melatonin defi ciency. I guess I’ll try counting sheep.
“My species is not built for waking up or going to bed early.”
PHOTO BY LARISSA LIEBERSON ’15PHOTO BY CLAIRE SAMPSON ’15
-e-
k a
f
ne any pity
help your chances of her saying “yes.”
You want to impress your prom date and make her happy. So how do you come up with an original idea?
I’ll be honest; it isn’t easy. You have to grit your teeth, bite
your lip, and really think about it. I’m sorry; I know thinking isn’t a strong point for second semester seniors.
Luckily, I think I found an original idea.
Ellie Kalatzi ’13, will you go to prom with me?
GRAPHIC BY OLIVIA CROSBY ’15
7OpinionsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
Gun Violence is a Reality, Not a GameIt’s that time of year again—those few precious weeks when the trees bloom and the
fl owers blossom and seniors run around town on missions to as-sassinate one another in a “Hun-ger Games”-style shootout.
Spring bliss. Despite this, I can soundly
say that I won’t be an AP Assassin this year.
Sure, it may be a long-stand-ing tradition. Some seniors see it as a fun way to spend their time before graduation. It’s even called a fi rsthand application of critical thinking.
But I won’t be taking part in it.
My reasoning isn’t compli-cated—I simply think it’s in bad taste. Not even half a year ago, 26 innocent people were shot dead in an elementary school rather close by. I know I’d feel a bit uncom-fortable, mournful even, driving
through Westport in an effort to shoot a fellow classmate with a Nerf bullet.
It just doesn’t sit right with me.
Since that devastating day last December, the gun has rapid-ly become a symbol of contention. I’ll be frank—I endorse the Second Amendment, but I entirely sup-port comprehensive background checks for gun owners, and I also don’t think citizens should have access to military-style fi rearms.
But, regardless of my gun control opinion, in this post-San-dy Hook day and age, I know the absolute last thing I’d want in my passenger seat is a gun—real or fake.
Less than a month after the gruesome Columbine High School massacre in 1999, The New York Times published an ar-ticle about Staples students who bowed out of that year’s AP As-sassination. As the article put it, those students had decided that it “might not be the best time to lurk
in bushes and hide under cars in hopes of knocking off a target, even if the deed is done with a foam dart.”
My thoughts exactly.After everything that’s gone
down over these past few months, I would feel a bit troubled partici-
following through with it affi rms that we’ve made virtually no headway in recognizing the gun’s socially signifi cant connotations.
In a recent interview, Princi-pal John Dodig made the Staples administration’s stance on AP As-sassination clear: they don’t sup-
yard or someone driving by and seeing a student shoved into the trunk of a car.”
He later added, “I think this year, in particular, it’s poor judg-ment to be pretending to shoot high school students.”
Bingo.Let me be clear, though, I
absolutely do not think AP Assas-sination should be cancelled this year. I strongly believe in indi-vidual liberty, and I do appreciate the tradition and culture deeply rooted in this annual event. It would be a shame to entirely pre-vent people from participating in it.
But, at the end of the day, guns aren’t toys. It’s as plain as that.
Why aren’t we spending these weeks holding a fundraiser for families affected by the San-dy Hook shooting or something along those lines?
Why are we wasting these treasured spring days playing pointless shooting games?
BEN REISER ’13Staff Writer
Scary Name, Fun Game
Deep in the heart of Africa, lion cubs chase and claw at one another, all in the name of hav-ing fun, living life, and form-ing social bonds with the other members of their pride.
Thousands of miles and several taxonomic orders away, countless American kids spend school recesses and summer days darting around swingsets and running through cul-de-sacs in an endless attempt to avoid being “It.”
And in the darkened drive-ways and shady streets of West-port, Conn., newly liberated high school seniors spend their fi nal days before graduation plotting, stalking, lurking, armed with nothing more than a plastic ap-
paratus capable of launching foam pellets no more than a few dozen feet away.
Much like the fi rst two activ-ities (unless an unfortunate an-telope or wildebeest gets caught up in a battle on the plains), AP Assassination is not intended to hurt anyone. There’s even a rule explicitly protecting hoofed mammals from combat, making NERF war-torn Westport a far safer environment than the Afri-can savannah.
Yet, after a year of especially horrifi c gun violence, AP Assas-sination has turned into a light-ning rod for controversy. The game of hunting targets has now become a target itself.
I can understand why. When tragedies like the mass shooting in Newtown or the handgun vio-lence that has plagued the streets
of Chicago take place, it’s easy to condemn anything associated with war or guns or combat. In some instances, the rush to an-tagonize guns isn’t such a bad thing—it’s created an immense public pressure to reform this nation’s screwy gun laws.
But when the movement gets taken too far—like when the pro-ducers of video games such as “Call of Duty have to face legal challenges to their industry, or when second-graders can be sus-pended for brandishing pencils at their classmates—the result is a nuisance for those taking part in benign activities like AP As-sassination and detrimental to the gun-reform cause as a whole. By focusing extensively on issues that don’t matter, like whether or not a group of teenagers should play a game with plastic pro-
jectile launchers, we’re wasting time and energy that could be spent trying to prevent future catastrophes.
As one of the AP Assassina-tion coordinators, I don’t see any-thing disrespectful about what amounts to a biologically ad-vanced form of lion mauling and a socially advanced form of play-ground tag. Instead, I see history in the form of one the few major traditions passed down through the years at Staples. I see dozens of ecstatic kids dreaming of the chance to become heroes or vil-lains or mercenaries, or create new legends (urban or other-wise) that’ll be remembered for generations to come. I see people cutting loose and hanging out with their friends after intern-ships start. And mostly, I see people just looking to have fun—
harmless, victimless, and volun-tary fun, in a controlled setting to ensure the maximum level of player safety.
Now, whether it makes sense or not, there will always be peo-ple who consider AP Assassina-tion disrespectful. Those people are free to enjoy their “civilized” forms of entertainment without fear of being targeted by a rogue assassin wielding a child’s toy that expells foam munitions. By the time the notoriously time-consuming and paranoia-induc-ing game ends, they might even be the only sane ones left.
But until then, everyone else will enjoy planning, stalk-ing, chasing, collaborating, and ultimately catching a target, all while evading predators them-selves. After all, it’s in our na-ture.
JORDAN SHENHAR ’13Staff Writer
Two Views on AP Assassination
“I would feel a bit troubled participating in something that makes light of guns and weaponry.”pating in something that makes light of guns and weaponry. The big gun control debate has effec-tively consumed virtually every facet of our lives—our emotional lives, our political lives and what now seems like our daily lives.
After all that we’ve debated, discussed, developed and still have left to do, I see AP Assassi-nation as a form of regression—
port it.“What students don’t under-
stand,” Dodig said, “is the po-tential danger in this activity by someone in the community mis-taking a toy gun or a hidden assas-sin as an actual dangerous event. There have been some close calls over the years with people calling the police when they see someone crouching behind a bush in the
PHOTO BY DEANNA HARTOG ’16
OpinionsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com8
ALEXANDRA O’KANE ’13Staff Writer
I know how you are probably feeling right now because I was in the exact same position just a short year ago. You may be feel-ing stressed about the end of ju-nior year; you may be wondering what on earth the college process means; you may be confused as to where you want to be and what you want to do in the future.
That’s totally normal.It doesn’t help that seniors
are now off on internships and that they have been checked out of class for the past few months. But just remember that next year, you will be in the same position, and you will love it. Use that as your motivation.
There is no doubt in my mind that the period between the start of second semester junior year and second semester senior year is tough. But having been through it, I have some tips for you that I wish I had known be-fore senior year.
You may have heard these bits of advice a thousand times over; I know I did. But it can be hard to accept advice from a par-ent or teacher who seems so far removed from the process you are going through. So, since I just fi nished high school, perhaps you will accept my advice.
Tip #1:No one thing is the end of the
world. When the pressure is on, it
may seem like every quiz, every score, every dot on the Naviance scattergram is crucial. For your own sanity, please remember
that it’s not. Standardized testing is like
a looming cloud over your heads. But seriously, one test cannot de-fi ne you, and it cannot be the one determinant for where you get into college. If you have not taken the SAT or ACT already, be sure to prepare so that you are not stressed when you’re taking the test. But don’t kill yourself over your score, and don’t think that you have to take the same test fi ve or six or seven times to raise your score by 10 or 20 points. Save yourself the mental stress.
And like a test score, your GPA is just a number. None of these scores can be the one thing that defi nes you.
Tip #2:Use your summer wisely.As you walk out of your last
fi nal this year in June, it will feel like a massive weight has been
lifted from your shoulders. You will feel free.
Enjoy the summer by doing whatever it is that makes you hap-py. Don’t try to build your resume any more than you already have. Don’t try to discern what would be a “good” use of your time. The
by doing a little bit of work over the three months of summer. This isn’t meant to stress you out at all; it will actually do the opposite. If you spend maybe a few hours a week getting yourself ready for the college process, you will be thankful during fi rst semester. It can be as simple as fi nalizing where you plan to apply, fi lling out your basic information on the Common App, or reading over the supplement prompts so you can start planning your essays.
Speaking from experience, I barely did anything for col-lege last summer. On top of all my classes and trying to do well in them, I had to write countless drafts of countless essays, while also tweaking where I applied, and when. So, use the summer to get ahead in the college process.
Tip #3:Don’t let the college process
own you. At the end of the day, you
are so much more than the col-lege process makes you out to be. Don’t let the colleges that accept you, or even deny you, become the way you defi ne yourself. If you face disappointment, remember that every single person ends up where they are meant to be.
If it seems hard, or if you feel defeated at any point, remind yourself of how hard you have worked, and how much you have done to get where you are. No col-lege should be able to take away your confi dence and self-esteem. Don’t give them that right.
Tip #4:Take it all in.Though some weeks feel
unbearably long or it seems that special dates such as December 15, April 1, or May 20 couldn’t come fast enough, it all goes by really fast. Reading this, you may think that all you will want is to be done with high school. I did, too.
But, at the same time, re-member not to let the stress get to you so much that you can’t enjoy your last year of high school, your last year in Westport. Take time to enjoy yourself by giving your-self some time off and don’t forget that sleep is more important than an extra hour of studying.
I wish I could tell you that it’s going to be easy. I wish I could tell you it’s all going to be perfect. I can’t. What I can tell you though, is that no matter how it feels now, how it feels in December, or how it feels in April, you will make it through. I promise.
Dear Juniors, Here’s What You Should Know
BEN GOLDSCHLAGER ’14Web News Editor
Crutch Master: Staples’ #1 Speed Crutcher
If crutching were an Olympic sport, I’d win gold easily. This is the fourth time I’ve been
on crutches, so I’m practically a professional crutcher.
In fact, one time, I crutched two miles twice in the same day.
Which is why, when I got injured and was put back on crutches, I stayed positive. For example, without the crutches, people might not ask about my injury, and then I would not get to tell of my heroic actions.
But with crutches—BAM—instant conversation starter: “Oh, Ben, what happened to your leg?”
“Oh, you know,” I respond,
“I sprained it saving 200 or-phans when the orphanage caught fi re.”
Some people actually be-lieve that story, and those who don’t fall into a fi t of laughter. So, I do get some benefi ts; it sure is fun telling that story.
Then people ask what ac-tually happened. If they didn’t laugh the fi rst time, they usu-ally laugh when I tell them I sprained it playing ultimate frisbee and that my alleged heroism was actually just my own clumsiness.
But there are some other benefi ts for having crutches besides getting to tell a good tale. You can move pretty quickly on crutches if you know what you’re doing. The
day that I crutched two miles twice was the fourth of July the year after I was in fi fth grade. My family and I had a tradition of walking down to Compo Beach and back to watch the fi reworks, and my crutches weren’t going to stop me from seeing the show that year.
While you might think I lagged behind, hobbling along on my crutches, the truth is that I beat my family home that year. Me, on crutches. I practically fl ew.
It’s not hard to crutch quickly. Crutches out fi rst. Then, swing your body through, put-ting your weight on the crutches. Land on your uninjured leg; do a short jump for momentum; land on your good leg again with
your crutches out in front of you again.
Now repeat.Speed crutching is actually
one of the best parts of being on crutches. It’s basically like jump roping, except you use only one leg and you go forward rather than stay in one place.
Speed crutching is a bit harder in the halls of Staples, when you often get caught be-hind a gaggle of freshman girls who have their eyes glued to their phones.
Then, all I can do is imagine the sound of a car horn—BEEP! BEEP!—and continue on at a mile-an-hour pace.
But I did get to take a “magi-cal mystery tour” of the school elevator. I thought it would be an
exciting prospect—until I actu-ally rose in. That Thyssenkrupp elevator was more of a Thyssen-crapp elevator. I can’t imagine who would win in a race between the elevator and the freshman girls.
Still, it was a great way to meet new fellow injured people. My fellow crutchers and I have since formed a Secret Order of the Elevator—wait, I’m not sup-posed to tell non-crutchers about that!
Ugh. Now you know about our Secret Order of the Elevator. There’s only one thing I can do now to right my crime of telling a non-crutcher about our Order.
It looks like I’m going to have to break your leg.
“At the end of the day, you are so much more than the college process makes you out to be.”
CAN YOU SPOT HIM?: Ben Goldschlager ’14 speed crutching across the halls of Staples High School due to his injury.
PHOTOS BY CLAIRE SAMPSON ’15
beginning of senior year is going to be hard, and you want to feel refreshed and rejuvenated by the time you walk back through the front doors in the fall.
This being said, don’t be afraid to get ahead of the game
GRAPHIC BY KATIE SETTOS ’15
9OpinionsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
10
does note the signifi cant differ-ences between his daily life and those of his former classmates.
“It’s [Annapolis’s] one true purpose is to develop military of-fi cers. For this reason, leadership takes on a much greater impor-tance here than it does at most other schools,” Gallagher said. “You will be required to sacrifi ce most of your personal time and selfi sh instincts for the purpose of helping your classmates, at-tending military exercises, work-ing out, and getting school work done. Your personal needs are al-ways second to the needs of oth-ers.”
Degener, who chose to enlist with the Marines rather than at-tend an academy, faced a com-pletely different set of challenges. “The biggest difference since leaving Staples has been being
without my family and friends. It’s been over a year since I’ve been home and not having them around has been a diffi cult ad-justment,” Degener said.
Current Staples senior Emily Troelstra will face an additional set of challenges when she begins her time at Annapolis in the fall, since females make up only 20% of the overall student body.
“Females do make up a very small minority, but I will be on the track and fi eld team where I will instantly have a group of girls to talk amongst all the guys,” Troelstra said.“But when I visited the Naval Academy, the women were given just as much respect and responsibility as the men.”
Once their respective time at Annapolis is complete, both Gal-
Life After High School: Staples Students in the Military
Choosing what to do after graduating from Staples is a daunting task which will
eventually be faced by most stu-dents. Do you take the traditional route and immediately begin at a four-year university, go to a trade school or take a gap year?
For an elite group of Staples students, choosing a college had a lot less to do with the vicinity to the beach or the amount of room to play Frisbee and more to do with a sense of purpose.
“I didn’t like the idea that someone else was out there on the front lines looking out for me while I was more than capable of joining the military myself,” for-mer Staples student and current United States Naval Academy Midshipman Sean Gallagher ’11 said.
Although joining the mili-tary is not as prevalent of a choice in Westport as it is in other com-munities, nearly every year there are a few students willing to rise to the occasion and serve their country.
“In a way, it is my chance to contribute to what makes this country great,” Gallagher said.
After arriving at the Naval Academy, colloquially referred to as Annapolis, Gallagher noted all of the positive attributes he acquired as a result of the rigor-ous training “I have gained an ex-treme sense of time management. There are always a million things that must get done in a day, and fi guring out how you will fi t them all in is diffi cult,” Gallagher said.
Lance Corporal Kyle Degen-er ’11, who is currently stationed at a Marine Corps air station in Iwakuni, Japan, echoed a similar view to Gallagher’s and noted the numerous changes he has made since joining the military. “I’ve gained a lot of maturity and sense of responsibility, that comes with living on your own and making decisions for yourself,” Degener said.
Although Gallagher will a college graduate with a degree like his fellow Staples alum, he
lagher and Troelstra are expected to serve a minimum of 5 years as an offi cer in either the Navy or Marine Corps.
While Troelstra will choose her path later on, Gallagher al-ready decided to fulfi ll his re-quirement in the Marine Corps.
Recognizing that the mili-tary is not a popular student choice at Staples, Gallagher en-
couraged students to get a better understanding of what the acad-emies are truly about.
“While I was growing up in Westport, I was not subject to much of a military presence,” Gallagher said, “I think this de-taches kids in Westport from the military, and I believe this is a bad thing. The U.S. military is very much a part of every Ameri-
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NOT YOUR AVERAGE STUDENT: Emily Troelstra’ 13 will attend Annapolis Naval Academy in the fall, where she will run on the track team.
can’s life whether they realize that or not, which is why Staples students should at least hear what the Academy has to offer.”
For Degener the hope is the same: “Staples students should know that the military can be a truly rewarding and enjoy-able experience if you have the strength and determination to do it.”
“In a way, it is my chance to contribute to what makes this country great”— Sean Gallagher ’11
West Point Military Academy
• Located in West Point, N.Y.• Founded by Thomas Jeffer-
son and George Washington in 1802
• Oldest continuously-occu-pied military post in the U.S.
• Famous graduates include Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee
• Acceptance rate is 11 per-cent
Annapolis Naval Academy
• Located in Annapolis, M.D.• Founded by George Ban-
croft and James K. Polk in 1845
• 13 to 14 percent of Fresh-men are women
• First woman accepted in 1976
• Acceptance rate is 7 per-cent
PHOTOS FROM BRODYLEVESQUE.BLOGSPOT.COM AND CYPRESS CARES.ORGINOFRMATION FROM USNA.EDU, USMA.EDU AND COLLEGEAPPS.ABOUT.COM
FEATURESMay 31, 2013
Military Academy Quick Facts
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J W -R ’13Staff Writer
SET TO SAIL ABOVE : Sean Gallagher ’11, in his navy uniform, poses on a naval ship.GOOD STUDENT, GOOD SOLDIER BELOW : Sam Goodgame ’07 is ready for action with his military equipment.
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY SEAN GALLAGHER ’11
11FeaturesInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
When a high school senior logs on to Facebook, there is a slim chance
there won’t be a notifi cation from their college Facebook group. Whether it’s an incoming fresh-man asking about which classes to take, begging for someone to room with them, or inquiring the rest of the group about what their favorite Pokemon character is, college Facebook groups are al-ways active.
“People say the weirdest things in my group,” Meghan Coyne ’13, who will be attending Gettysburg College, said. “Some-one was begging for a prom date in my group even though they don’t know anyone in the group personally.”
Prom invites are not too typi-cal in college Facebook groups, but some types of posts are quite common. People often ask if there is anyone in the group who lives in their region and wants to have a “meet up” before orientation. Out of excitement, many members count down to when move-in day is.
“People in my college group count down to orientation using helium half-lives,” Lindsey Gra-
ber ’13, who is attending Duke University in the fall, said. “It cer-tainly shows off how nerdy some people are.”
Some people use the Face-book groups for laughs. Patrick Connolly ’13 joked on his room-mate-fi nding function of college groups by asking his University of Texas college group asking for a roommate, just to see if he would get any humorous comments on his post.
“I was bored and fi gured I’d get some funny responses,” Con-nolly said. “A guy whose profi le picture was of him holding a gun with the caption ‘Guns don’t kill people, I do’ responded saying he was interested in rooming. I defi -nitely got a kick out of it.”
Another common type of post in college Facebook groups is a list of the other colleges mem-bers of the group were accepted to. Sometimes these posts include scholarships they received for those specifi c schools, and a re-quest for advice on which school he or she should choose. Many people fi nd it obnoxious when people post the other college they were accepted to, as it seems like they are bragging.
“There is nothing more an-noying than when someone posts
CHLOE BAKER ’13Staff Writer
the other colleges they got into. No one cares if you got into Ivy Leagues and got a full ride to them. If you post your other ac-ceptances, you probably just want to brag to random strangers,”
CLAIRE LEWIN ’15News Editor
When They Were YoungHave you ever freaked out
after seeing one of your teachers outside of school? You thought that your teachers slept, ate, and lived at school, right? Turns out, teachers do more than just grade; they actually have lives! They even went to high school, just like you and me! Weird, huh?
Now try and imagine what your teachers were like in high school. Were they jocks, theater geeks, or computer nerds? Or were they just regular teenagers? It’s hard to say just by looking at them. When we look at our teach-ers, we just see adults, and it’s
pretty hard to imagine what they were like when they were our age.
Robin Hurlbut is a beloved math teacher at Staples. Not only do the students she teaches love her, but she was also adored by her fellow high school peers.
“I was voted everyone’s best friend,” Hurlbut said.
Hurlbut also received other awards, as she was voted home-coming queen twice during her high school years.
Now, what about the school pranksters? Believe it or not, but some faculty members at our school were just those kinds of students.
“My friends and I toilet papered our history teacher’s
house,” Attendance Coordinator Patty McQuone said. “Then when I was putting toilet paper on his door he turned on the lights. I took off running, and I was cry-ing because I was so scared.”
Staples High School science teacher, Christine Hirth, also admits to playing a few pranks throughout her high school days.
“In high school my group of friends and I swayed the prom song by doing a write in,” Hirth said. “They were going to be all romantic songs but we changed it to ‘Shook Me All Night Long.’”
Teachers have basically spent their whole lives in school. All of their adolescent years, college years, and years as an adult have
been spent either learning or edu-cating, so it’s no shock that many teachers were good and motivat-ed students in high school
“I was serious about doing the best I could,” said Staples High School English teacher DelShortliff. “It didn’t take a lot of effort for me to be a good English student.”
Along with being a serious student, Shortliff was also the leader of many of his school clubs including the president of the stu-dent government and the editor of the literary magazine.
Last but not least, we get to the fi nal high school stereotype: the jock. Sports are common amongst many students, and
teachers got to play a part in the fun when they were high school students as well.
“I was physically active and I played three sports a year,” gym teacher Janet Zamary said. “I played fi eld hockey, track and fi eld, and basketball.”
Although we students may feel like teachers don’t under-stand our stress, they do. They were students once, just like us, and they had many of the same experiences.
So next time you see your teacher out of school, remember that they were once high school teenagers and give them a friend-ly “hello,” instead of running away.
GRAPHIC BY EMMA RHOADS ’14
Coyne said.Whether making jokes or
writing real posts, Staples seniors fi nd great entertainment in using college Facebook groups. While seniors may have different opin-
ions about using the site, most would agree that college Face-book groups provide a wonderful remedy to senioritis and a source of excitement for the college expe-rience to come.
GRAPHIC BY NATE ROSEN ’14SEEING CLEARLY: Many students participate in college Facebook groups, but their reasons for doing so often vary.
GRAPRHOA
ng th
A Wild Circus of Posts: Exploring College Facebook Groups
GRAPHIC BY GRETA BJORNSON ’15
12 FeaturesInklings / May 31, 2013/ inklingsnews.com
CLAIRE QUIGLEY ’14Opinions EditorThe students of Staples High
school simply cannot stay put.
One would think that after a terribly long year of 6:30 a.m. wake ups, students would be thrilled to be able to sleep in until the late hours of the afternoon.
One would think that after lugging around stuffed back-packs, students are ready for their bodies to mold into their favorite La-ZBoys.
One would think that af-ter the interminable treks to the third fl oor math periods, a cer-tain degree of immobility is de-sired.
However, for some students, this just isn’t the case.
Sarah Ellman ’15 is planning a three week bike tour through California. Starting in Oregon and ending in San Francisco, Ell-man, along with 12 other high schoolers, will bike an average of 45 miles a day through the Apo-gee Adventures program. “I’m really excited! I’ve never really spent a lot of time on the Pacifi c coast, and I think a bike tour is a great way to see as much as pos-
sible in only three weeks,” said-Ellman.
She won’t spend her whole trip on two wheels, though; she will also take surfi ng lessons with professional instructors near the beautiful Crescent City, volunteer in the Redwoods National Park, and explore the sights of San Francisco.
Ellman fi rmly believes that there is no way she’d rather spend her summer. She says, “I think it’s the worst when you feel like you’ve wasted time doing nothing, but it’s too late to fi x, so I wanted to be sure to get in as many oppor-tunities as possible this summer.”
Looking for more of a cultur-al experience, Brooke Berlin will head almost 4,000 miles to the Southern Coast of France. Ber-lin ’14 plans to attend a boarding school in the city of Nice, where she says she will, “take morning French classes fi ve days a week, and afternoon fashion classes three days a week.”
When she’s not attending classes at the school, Lycee Mas-sena, Berlin will have time to explore the nearby beach and vil-lage. “Weekends I will have off to explore and whatnot. I will have a lot of down time, so it’s not too stressful,” said Berlin. She plans to explore the surrounding cities of Cannes and Saint Tropez while at Massena as well.
But she’s not done yet. After a month in Nice, Berlin
will also move location to the fa-mous city of Paris, where she will check out the many sights that the city offers.
Finally, junior Cassie Feld-man will represent the Staples community back on the East coast. She will be working as an intern this summer at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Feld-man will work 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every weekday for a month, and will be paid full compensa-tion for the time she gives to the Center. Feldman hopes to learn more about the fi eld of biomedi-cal sciences, assisting in all of the research done at the Center. She says, “I am so thrilled to be given this opportunity. I think it’s much more productive than stay-
ing home and watching TV on my couch.”
The most exciting aspect of the internship, according to Feld-man, is that she will be working on a research paper with the pro-fessionals at the program, and she hopes for the paper to be pub-lished, giving her a name in the fi eld.
Feldman will be renting an apartment in Manhattan for the month that she is working at Sloan Kettering. Despite living alone in a new city, Feldman has no worries. “I’m not nervous re-ally. I’m just excited for the inde-pendence. I honestly think it will prepare me better for life after high school,” she said.
It’s safe to say that the stu-dents of Staples have quite the summer ahead of them. Whether it’s a physical, cultural, or aca-demic expedition, these students are prepared to take on anything that the summer of 2013 throws at them.
“I wanted to be sure to get in as many opportunities as possi-ble this summer.”— Sarah Ellman ’15
Summer JourniesFrom France to New York City, Staples Students Spend their Summers in Interesting Places and Unique Ways
13FeaturesInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
A Wild Ride
KELSEY SHOCKEY ’14Web Sports EditorWith weeks of studying for i-nal exams still looming, many stu-dents may think summer is still far off. But the truth is summer will be here in a blink of an eye, and it will be time to take a trip to an amusement park.
“Summer is the best time to go because it’s warm out, it's shorts weather, and you have the time to go there and have a good time,” Sydney Crossfi eld ’14 said.
There is nothing like wearing hot pink Soffee shorts, a Sugar-lips tank top, and Havaianas fl ip fl ops on a hot summer day and cooling off by riding the Splash Mountain log fl ume ride.
But don’t forget about the
deliciously unhealthy food that brings back nostalgic memories for the simpler times of child-hood.
“After going on the teacup ride, I like having pizza or mac and cheese,” Joey Schulman ’14 said, and Campbell Marsh ’16 added, “The sweet smell of fun-nel cake can bring back the mem-ory of going to fairs when I was younger.”
Amusement parks also offer delightfully sticky desserts such as fried Oreo cookies, churos, and coconut cake.
Yet, everyone knows that the rides at amusement parks are the main attraction. Six Flags is the go-to amusement park for most Staples students, where Kingda Ka and Bizarro are the “must ride” roller coasters. Kingda Ka climbs 456 feet high and it lasts for a thrilling 52 seconds.
“You get the thrill of shoot-ing up so fast and then feeling superior when you get off the ride, knowing you accomplished something so scary,” Alexa Da-
vis’15 said.However, if you’re looking for
a longer ride, Bizarro extends the excitement for 3:15 minutes while taking you through seven inver-sions, including a vertical loop, a dive loop, a zero-gravity roll, a cobra roll, two interlocked cork screws, and a high-speed helix.
But if you have exhausted yourself riding the nearby coast-ers and are looking for new rides and adventures, here are some suggestions:
In Texas, there is the Mr. Freeze ride. It is the longest roller coaster in the United States, with 1,480 feet of track.
At Denmark’s famous Tivoli Gardens, you could ride one of the oldest wooden roller coasters in the World. The coaster’s name is
Rutschebanen and it is infamous for having a brakeman to operate. That means, the coaster is so old that there is a man whose job it is to ride in a designated seat and pull the brake in order to control the speed and to bring the train to a stop at the end of the ride.
For all you speed demons out there, Australia is the place to go for the world’s fastest ride: The Tower of Terror. Reaching a top speed of 100 mph, you just might feel like you’re fl ying.
While it is undeniable that the park rides are delight and the food is unhealthily delicious, the memories of time spent with friends is truly the greatest part about visiting an amusement park.
“I love going to an amuse-ment park,” Schulman’14 said. “You can hang out with friends, play games, try to pick up girls, and enjoy the moment.”
“You get the thrill of shoot-ing up so fast and then feeling superior when you get off the ride knowing you accomplished something so scary,”—Alexa Da-vis ’15
All About this Summers Most Fun Theme Parks and Most Thrilling Rollercoasters
GRAPHIC BY OLIVIA CROSBY ’15
14 FeaturesInklings / May 31, 2013/ inklingsnews.com
Germs! Germs Everywhere!
SOPHIA HAMPTON ’15Features EditorCan you open that door for me?”
Erica Hefnawy ’15 asked as we approached chemistry classroom
3028. She pulled her sleeves over her hands before sliding into the room, avoid-ing touching the door at all costs.
Hefnawy is a self-diagnosed “germa-phobe” and avoids touching handles or doors as much as she can.
“Just thinking about how many people touched something before me grosses me out a bit” she said.
The tiny microorganisms, called germs, may be invisible, but they can have a very visible effect on those who are afraid of them.
The fears actually are not unfounded. The world we live in is crawling with germs. Germs live in dirt, in water, on countertops, on skin, and just about every surface you touch.
According to ABC News, just fl ushing a toilet can spread germs as far as six feet and those germs tend to land directly on your toothbrush. Surprisingly, however, the kitchen sink contains about 100,000 times more germs than the bathroom.
It doesn’t stop there. The doctors offi ce might seem safe, but the University of Ari-zona researchers who tested 616 surfaces in nine professions for germs found that a medical doctor carries around 2,000 bacte-ria per square inch.
While an average person may not give much thought to the germs, germaphobes make it their business to obsess over them.
“If we’re shaking hands at a lacrosse
“ game, or even punching in my code at lunch I put my sleeve over my fi ngers,” Col-by Kranz ’15 said.
On a recent Builders Beyond Borders trip, Kranz picked up a small child. She heard someone say, “‘Ella esta enferma!’ which means ‘she is sick!’ And I yanked her off me and put her on the fl oor as fast as I could!” Kranz said. “I thought I could die.” (On a side note, Kranz loves kids and men-tioned she held nothing against the child).
Avoiding hugs and most contact is just Kranz’s way of minimizing her chances of being contaminated.
Most “germaphobes” take care of their own cleanliness, but it’s the thought that other people don’t that creates fear.
Lilly Valente ’16 said, “Just knowing that someone has touched [something] with their germs and those germs have been inside their dirty body all day makes me wanna puke.”
Valente even gets anxiety when some-one takes a small sip from her water bottle. “I don’t even know if they brushed their teeth that morning, so they’re just not un-derstanding the terror it brings to my eyes,” she explained.
Germs: they’re everywhere! The con-diment dispensers in the cafeteria. Your friends cellphone. The inside door handle of a bathroom stall. And classrooms have been confi rmed as the most germ-infested areas with 17,900 bacteria per square inch!
However, Jennie Blumenfeld ’15 keeps her worries in checkbecause she has her own way of keeping the germs away. “When people touch me, I just slap them,” she joked.
GRAPHIC BY ERKINA SARTBAEVA’ 14
“Just thinking about how many people touched something before me grosses me out a bit.” —Erica Hefnaway ’15
A Look Inside the Lives of Staples’ Germaphobes
15FeaturesInklings / May 31, 2013/ inklingsnews.com
AP Classes Take on Projects After Testing
Not Enough Time: Teachers Struggle With Technology Due to Lack Of Training
RACHEL LABARRE ’14Managing Editor
The week of May 13th marks big in a high schooler’s world. It’s the frenetic
week before junior prom, the long-awaited fi nal week of a se-nior’s high school career, and the stressful second week of Ad-vanced Placement testing.
While the excitement of prom and a senior’s fi nal week apply only to their respective grades, the stress of AP testing affects teachers and students across the school, marking a change in the function, dynamic, and structure of many classes.
However, when this week ends and the excitement dies down, AP classes experience a shift—the set curriculum for AP classes dies down, yet an entire month of school remains.
Sara Pinchback, who teach-es AP Economics, notes that all teachers want their students to succeed, so calendars are planned based on being prepared for the national exam. However, when the exam is over, teachers have the leisure of creating their own mini-curriculum.
Some students think that this remaining month is a time for AP students to slack off, watch mov-ies, and make paper airplanes. This is not reality. Yes, the pace of the class may diminish slightly, but almost all AP teachers look forward to this month during which they can embark upon a
project in which students can ap-ply the information that they have learned over the year.
So while it could be consid-ered a bit “relaxing,” teachers, and students, get an opportunity to apply their newfound skills to the real world.
Suzanne Kammerman teaches AP U.S. Government and Politics, and hopes to link up with some of the AP Economics and AP U.S. History classes.
“The goal is that the students can bring together everything they’ve learned in the year and use that knowledge in a specifi c area, spending time on an issue of their own choice,” Kammerman said. “They can use their knowl-edge in a way that has real world implications.”
Sam Addelmann ’14 said that AP classes can be rigorous and exhausting at times, so it is nice to be able to slow down a little and enjoy a project that might be a little more fun. “I know that I personally look forward to the opportunity to do some fun labs now that the AP Chemistry test is over,” he said.
Others agree. “We are at-tempting to emulate this intense college experience where we spend lots of time cramming and racing through material. Letting us have a month of relaxation shouldn’t be too much to ask,” Melissa Beretta ’14 said.
STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN ABOVE : After a year of hard work, students in A.P. Biol-ogy continue to pay close attention to their teacher, Mr. Kabak.
CLASS ACT LEFT : Students working in Kabak’s A.P. Bio class PHOTOS BY JILLIAN KLEINER ’16
BAILEY ETHIER ’15News Editor
There are iPads in the li-brary, SMART Boards in class-rooms, and a Staples iPhone app so students can record homework and follow their daily schedules. But what happens on any given day can be a different story. Some Staples teachers struggle with technology, in part because they haven’t been trained.
“The amount of technology in this building in the last cou-ple of years has exploded,” said James D’Amico, social studies de-partment chair and Co-Chair of the Staples Information Technol-ogy Laboratory (ITL) Committee. D’Amico said he was referring not just to classroom technology but devices and programs used by students as well.
Many students report classes that use technology to supple-ment and facilitate learning. But some technology can be more diffi cult to use, which can cause teachers to struggle in the class-room.
One recent week, according to Brenden Price ’16, a teacher almost drew on a SMART Board with a dry erase marker be-cause he didn’t know the board would be ruined. The students in the class ended up helping the teacher by writing on the SMART Board using the electronic pens.
Alex Uman ’16 also described a teacher who struggled with technology of a different sort -- setting up movies, for example. “She doesn’t know how to use it,”
Uman said.Student responses to teach-
ers’ diffi culties vary: some are more tolerant of the struggles than others; some might even make fun of a teacher who isn’t as skillful.
On the other hand, a number of teachers successfully use tech-nology to enhance the learning experience of their students. Rob Rogers, a social studies teacher and Co-Chair of the ITL Commit-tee, allows students to build web-sites and use “any kind of technol-ogy they want to take notes on.”
“Looking at next year, I’m planning to go to more of a digi-tal curriculum where just about everything will be primarily on-
line,” Rogers said.Students may see a teach-
er’s technological struggles as a weakness, but Rogers, who re-
GRAPHIC BY GRETA BJORNSON ’15 AND ANDREA FROST ’15
“Everyone’s skill set is different.” — Rob Rogers
ceives several questions a day from teachers regarding technol-ogy, views it differently.
“If you put me in front of a car and said ‘Could you change the oil?’ I know it’s a pretty simple thing, but I don’t really know how
to do it; so I would have trouble with that,” Rogers said. “It is like someone who can use [Microsoft] Word, but may not be able to ma-nipulate it because all they know how to do is turn it on, type in it, and print something out. Every-one’s skill set is different.”
D’Amico agreed that “the technology use is kind of spotty [among teachers],” but added that the problem stems from a lack of time to train teachers.
Teachers only receive tech-nology training a few times a year during professional development days, including the three days be-fore students begin school, and at a handful of after-school meet-ings, D’Amico said. And during
each of these professional devel-opment days, only a small por-tion of the time is dedicated to training teachers. D’Amico also said that, in those hours, time is mostly concentrated on learning the uses for Gmail or Blackboard, and that little to no instruction is provided for “creative uses of technology in the classroom.”
“The main issue we have is coordination. We have the re-sources to train them and we have staff members who can train them,” D’Amico said. “I think the biggest thing we need to do to get teachers more training is fi gure out the best way to schedule it so we can get the most use of the time that we have and make sure the technology training fi ts in with the other stuff teachers are doing in their curriculum.”
Despite a lack of time to train teachers, D’Amico is excited about several pilot classes next year. Two health classes will be using Chromebooks in class to see if it is possible to run a curric-ulum entirely off of a web-based platform, and another class will do the same with iPads.
The ITL committee is also looking at possibly putting in a “genius bar” in the library where students and teachers can go to ask other students and teachers technology questions. “Every kid at Staples knows if you have a math question you can go to the math learning center and there’s a teacher there,” D’Amico said. “We want to create a student driv-en technology learning center.”
A&E16May 31, 2013
AARON HENDEL ’14Breaking News Managing Editor
The fact that F. Scott Fitzger-ald lived part of his life here in Westport makes the
people of town feel a special con-nection to the famous author. So, when “The Great Gatsby” movie was released, it was not a surprise that it caused a burst of interest in Westport that some people claim has not been seen since the release of the fi nal Harry Potter fi lm.
The movie has inf luenced clothing design and fashion. In fact, walking down the
streets of downtown West-port, there’s a decent chance that quite a few men will be dressed like Jay Gatsby. This return to wingtips, boater hats, suspenders, or white linen herringbone suits can be credited to Brooks Broth-ers, which has one of its men’s shopping outlets on Main Street.
This men’s clothing line designed the outf its worn by Leonardo DiCaprio and the other stars of the pic-ture. On April 15, the com-pany released some of their selections to the public to be available for purchasing,
which explains why multi-ple attendees at junior prom made the decision to sport Gatsby att ire.
“I f igured that if I looked like Jay Gatsby, I’d be like Jay Gatsby,” said Nick Dedo-menico ’14, one of the Gatsby look-alikes from prom. “Who wouldn’t want to be Gatsby? He’s r ich, handsome and suave.”
Gatsby’s extravagance and elegance inspired many students to consider having their junior prom af ter-party theme be based on Gatsby’s own parties, as depicted in the book and movie. Howev-
er, that idea died down when people f igured out that they could not, contrar y to the movie, get a zebra for their parties.
Though no known Gats-by-themed af ter-party was thrown, groups of students from the Advanced Place-ment Language and Compo-sit ion course st i l l gathered together to see the movie immediately af ter complet-ing their A.P. exam. These juniors saw it as an opportu-nity to see a movie that was based on one of the books they read in their A.P. Lang class.
“I really enjoyed the book and the movie,” Baxter Stein ’14, who is enrolled in A.P. Lang and went to see the Gatsby movie with several students from his class, said. “I went to the theater tr y ing to forget my opinions on the book and I came out really enjoy ing the way it was por-trayed.”
Westport isn’t typically inf luenced by f ict ional pop culture characters. So even though Fitzgerald passed away in 1940, his spir it l ives on as his creation, Jay Gatsby, continues to take the town by storm.Inklinations:
GRAPHIC BY ALICE MCDONALD ’14
“The movie itself makes the book easier to understand and the lighting brought out every emotion.” -Nick Bader ’15
“I don’t think it really captured the spirit of the book...It wasn’t ‘Gatsby.’” -Amanda Mezoff ’14
“Everybody really wants to see the party scenes.” -Kasey Hertan ’16
What’s the Gatsby Buzz?
The inals are coming! The inals are coming!
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Staples Players have shown consistently that they can shine at the high school
theater level, and now the time has come for them to show off their talent to the world outside of Staples.
Next stop for Players: New York City.
On Monday, June 3, the cast of Staples Player’s A Cho-rus Line will perform at a ben-efit for the American Cancer Society in a birthday celebra-tion for the late Marvin Ham-lisch, who wrote the music for the orginal A Chorus Line pro-duction The event is called One Centennial Sensation and will be held at the Hudson Theater
in New York City. Hamlisch’s wife, Terre Blair
Hamlisch, attended the last two performances of A Chorus Line at Staples and loved the show so much that, after the last perfor-mance, she went on stage and invited the cast to per-form at this special event.
P l a y e r s will perform a large sec-tion of “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen,” “What I Did for Love,” and another song that is not from A Chorus Line.
However, Players will not be the only stars attending the celebration in June. Celebri-ties like Idina Menzel, Matthew Morrison, Kelli O’Hara, Berna-
dette Peters, Michael Douglas, Lucie Arnaz, and Klea Black-hurst will also be present.
“There will be stars at this event that many Players stu-dents look up to and aspire to be like, so the fact that we are
performing at the same show as them, and possibly on stage with some of them, is surreal to most of us,” Danielle Frost ’13 said.
To ensure that they will give their best performance in front of these big names, the cast has been staying in shape
and preparing for the event by rehearsing once or twice a week. They even had a rehears-al with Ernest Green, the music director for A Chorus Line in New York City.
Players are ecstatic and g e n u i n e l y thankful to be able to perform at this event.
“I feel ex-tremely privi-leged to be
given this opportunity,” Clay Singer ’13 said. “It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I can't begin to explain how ex-cited I am.”
This opportunity says a lot about the hard work that Sta-ples Players puts in throughout the year. Players are proud that
Performing in NYC? Staples Players Say ♪“I Can Do That”♪
ZOE BROWN ’15Features Editor
their six-day-a-week rehearsal schedule for A Chorus Line paid off in a way they never could have thought possible.
“Because Marvin played such a crucial role in the origi-nal creation of the show, this is essentially the highest form of recognition we can get,” Frost said.
Although everyone is grateful for this rare opportu-nity, it especially inf luences senior Players. Many seniors agreed that it was the perfect end to their time in Players.
“This will be so memorable because I will be sharing this night with my closest friends who are really my family,” Ty-ler Jent ’13 said. “To share this memory with these wonderful people is a dream come true.”
GRAPHIC BY IAN BARSANTI ’14
“I feel extremely privileged to be given this opportunity,”
-Clay Singer ’13
17A&EInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
A&EInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com18
“Arrested Development” aired for three seasons starting in 2003 on Fox, before being
cancelled because of low ratings. Its cancellation upset the show’s fans and many critics who be-lieved that the Emmy and Gold-en Globe winning show was one of the best comedies of all time.
Now “Arrested Develop-ment” is coming back.
Netfl ix, along with the origi-nal creator and cast of the show, produced a new season to begin on May 26. “Arrested Develop-ment” developed a cult follow-ing, which grew as more people watched it via Netfl ix or DVD, and the fans are ecstatic about the new season. All 15 episodes of the new season will be re-leased at the same time to stream on Netfl ix.
Many Staples students are excited about the return of the show. Peter Lagerloef ’14 said, “I’m glad it’s going to be on Net-fl ix. It’s cool that they’re making it there instead of a network.” Jeremy Langham ‘14 agreed. “I think it being on Netfl ix instead of a network is a good thing be-cause of its convenience. I can watch every season there easily.”
Every fan of “Arrested De-velopment” has a favorite mo-ment from the show. Lagerloef’s was “the burning down of the banana stand. It was hilarious.” Sam Neufeld’s favorite moment was “when Buster became a stripper named Candy Sandy.”
The quirky minor characters
are also favorites for some fans, “like Enrique the gardener,” Neufeld said.
Gob, a narcissistic magician who rides a Segway, is Lager-loef’s favorite character. “I think he’s the funniest person on the show,” he said.
“Arrested Development” left a number of cliffhangers in the fi nale of its third season. Lucille (Jessica Walters) was stealing a cruise ship and being pursued by the SEC’s commandos; George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) was stowing away aboard the cabin cruiser; Michael (Jason Bateman) was piloting down to Mexico with George Michael (Michael Cera); Buster (Tony Hale) was facing his worst nightmare in the form of a seal, a cuddly, but vicious sea-mammal; and Gob (Will Arnett) was acting insane (as usual). We also found out that Maeby was not George Michael’s cousin; however, that George Michael’s crush on Maeby was still creepy as all get-out.
Fans like “Arrested Devel-opment” for its excellent cast, outstanding writing, and quriky style, though some of the fans’ interpretations of the show are even quirkier.
“The underlying metaphor that promotes Marxist ideals and encourages young women to be satisfi ed with their bod-ies, exhibited, for example, in Buster’s reaction to his hand being bitten off by a seal. He be-comes extremely insecure, but by the conclusion of the episode he comes to terms with his fl aws and blossoms into a beautiful young man,” Neufeld said.
C R ’14Staff Writer
Arrested Development: No Longer Under Arrest
GRAPHIC BY AMY PERELBERG ‘15
Although the premiere date has yet to be set, we’re soon to be hit with the shiny new version of “Boy Meets World”: “Girl Meets World.”
If “Girl Meets World” ends up being anything like “Boy Meets World” it will be great. No doubt. The show does have the co-creator of the original show, Michael Jacobs, act-ing as executive producer and showrunner as well as the original Cory (Ben Savage) and Topanga (Danielle Fishel) as parents to the star, Riley Mathews (Rowan Blanchard).
On paper, “Girl Meets World” is essentially the same show as its predecessor. The main character Riley is a cute and witty adolescent who faces life lessons through her friends, family, and school with her best friend Maya Fox (Sabrina Carpenter) at her side.
But while the idea of bringing back such a beloved show is great, it may not fare well with this new younger
generation because if “Girl Meets World” is anything like “Boy Meets World”, it’s going to be heart-warming, simple, and innocent.
That’s not exactly what younger viewers are interested in these days.
The interest in the whole-some family show is no lon-ger there. Instead they watch
“Gossip Girl”, “Pretty Little Liars”, reality shows like “The Jersey Shore”, and shows about being famous, rich, and popular.
Their interests don’t lie in learning life lessons in a 20 minute period filled with wit, sass, and that classic heart-warming, slightly cheesy end-ing.
OLIVIA KALB ’14A&E Editor
It’s A Girl’s World: One Fan’s Opinion
If “Girl Meets World” is truly like the original, it’s for a generation that’s moved on. It’s for the generation of “Full House” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”.
Of course, who knows? It may end up being popular. Perhaps original “Boy Meets World” fans will become a ver-sion of bronies: teenage boys
and girls watching a children’s show on Disney Channel.
More likely though, there’s going to be more f lash, spar-kle, and showmanship than there was in the original.
But a f lashy new version is going to take away from what made “Boy Meets World” so great. It was down to earth, sweet, and taught valuable lessons on how to be a good person. You just won’t get that with “Girl Meets World” if the show’s focus is on grabbing and keeping the attention of tweens whose minds wander off to their iPhones every 30 seconds.
Maybe with these chang-es, the show would be popu-lar. Sassy female leads are the trend lately. But, it just wouldn’t have the same magic. The producers are trying to recreate a show that was per-fect as it was.
“Boy Meets World” was a great show, witty and touch-ing, but as many people know, sequels tend to fall a bit f lat.
GRAPHIC BY NATE ROSEN ’14
GRAPHIC BY EMMA RHOADS ’14
19A&EInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
Painting the Walls of StaplesTATI MORALES ’15
Staff Writer
QUE ES ESTO?: This mural was the first to be put up at Sta-ples High School and can be found in the language hallway on the first floor.
LIVE FROM STAPLES: Across from the music mural, this one depicts the media room.
I n the hallways of Staples High School, students rush by as if they are on
the busy streets of New York City. Students speedwalk from the third f loor math department to the f irst f loor gym locker room, and vice versa, trying to make it to class on time. But if students travel down the media hallway, it is a time to slow down and stare in awe at the walls.
There, sprawled across the wall, is an impressive painting that looks like an exploded beige brick wall re-vealing a classroom inside. The painted depiction of a long metal table, some chairs, curtains, microphones, and detailed posters looks very similar to the real media room.
This wall painting is a mural, and, thanks to the mu-ral painting class, students at Staples will be seeing a lot more like it.
According to Tracy Wright, the teacher of the Mural Painting class, the im-
ages for the murals aren’t de-cided on solely by the mural class. The departments also have a say as to what image is created.
“The mural is based on the request of the ‘client,’ which, in this case, means a school department or admin-istrator,” Wright explained.
“The client presents their ideas and the mural paint-ing students design it from there.”
Usually departments in the school request the murals. Then the students and the ‘cli-ent’ work together, coming up with a theme and design for the mural. After the design is made and agreed upon, the students get to painting. Ev-ery student in the class par-ticipates in bringing the de-sign to life. Once completed, the f inal mural is placed on a wall near the department that requested it. The whole pro-cess takes about a semester.
The f irst mural to go up was the one found in the Language Hallway. The most recent mural is located by the media room. They are all amazing and so it is no sur-prise that they are in high demand; each school depart-ment wishes to have a mural of its own displayed proudly
in the hall-way.
However, meeting the high demand is diff icult. “We cannot accommodate
the number of requests we have as quickly as we would like,” Wright stated. “Mu-ral painting is a process that takes some time.”
But the murals are woth waiting for. Unlike the halls in other schools, halls at Sta-ples are f illed with color and brilliant representations of the different classes taught.
Wright is pleased that the murals have had a positive ef-fect on the school. “It brings happiness, color, and a sense of community,” Wright said.
“Plus, I think they look really cool,” Nicole Williams ’15 added.
1. The class and client meet to decide the mural’s placement, size, and subject.
2. Students research and then design the mural.
3. The students present their designs to the class. A vote sends one or more choices to the client for approval.
4. Wood boards are cut to size, and the students prime them, then use a grid system or projector to place the design.
5. Students paint using a variety of techniques.
6. The murals are sealed, signed, and hung.
Step-By-Step Process
PHOTOS BY CLAIRE SAMPSON ‘15
In the Media and Music Hallway, this mural shows off many musical icons like the Beatles, Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, and more.
COLORFUL CAFE: The Staples cafeteria displays this unique and colorful masterpiece upon its wall.
Taylor Burg ’16 and Emma Fasciolo ’16 work on an upcom-ing mural
“The school wouldn’t be the same [without the murals],” Daryl Choi ’16 stated. “It adds to the spirit of Staples.”
PHOTOS BY BEN GOLDSCHLAGER ‘14
20 SPORTSMay 31, 2013
Take Me Out To The Ball GameKATE BIESPEL ’13
Staff Writer
It’s 3:30 on a Wednesday, and Zach Morrison ’13 can usu-ally be found at Fortuna’s.
As he finishes eating his sand-wich, he takes his bag of chips for the road and heads back to school. Many of his friends are in tow. Arriving at the Staples baseball field for the 4:00 game against Wilton, Morrison and his friends approach right field, lawn chairs in tow, and begin to set up camp.
“The bomb squad” has as-sembled.
To onlookers, the bomb squad consists of about 20 members, although the number f luctuates depending on the day, game, or weather. These Superfans do not take the typical route of sitting on the bleachers, behind the opposing
team’s dugout. Instead, they have taken to the right field, lining up lawn chairs behind the fence.
Self-proclaimed co-found-er and CEO of the bomb squad, Jack Roof ’13, began attending the baseball games on a regular basis this year. What started as just “several kids bringing lawn chairs and parking themselves in right field,” turned into a large fan base by the third game of the season. The origi-nal squad began with 12 mem-bers and is still growing.
According to varsity player Matty Campbell ’13, baseball games in the past have usually only been attended by family members, with the exception of particularly important games. The entire team, coaches in-cluded, enjoy having the sup-port of the squad.
“We all understand base-ball isn’t the most captivat-ing sport to watch, so [the right field] gives them room to throw around the Frisbee or play catch while they watch
the game,” he said. “Also, they can’t ruin the lives of the other teams’ center and right fielders from the bleachers.”
The location choice of right field gives the game-watching experience a whole new mean-ing. Free from the confines of limited room and other fans, the bomb squad spends their time in right field doing more than just watching baseball.
They enjoy playing a myriad of sports behind their lawn chairs, whether it be tee ball, football, or Frisbee. Besides sports, they also spend time relaxing in their lawn chairs,
lying in the sun, and the ever-popular snacking on sunf lower seeds. It’s a game-watching cul-ture.
When it comes to cheering on the team, the squad particu-larly enjoys heckling the op-position; the proximity to the outfielders allows them to do this easily.
“Every home game, perched from our dugout, we
can see that same big group of enthusiastic, yet elegant, line of seniors,” said varsity baseball player Greg Salamone ’13.
As the season progresses, the group of seniors is look-ing to garner more fans. Cur-rently consisting primarily of boys, some members from girls sports teams have begun at-tending the games after their practices. Morrison attests his regular attendance to the de-sire to “hang out with pals and watch some of America’s past-time” as opposed to going home to do work. He encourages oth-ers to do the same.
“‘The bomb squad’ is no ordinary group of people,” Sal-amone ’13 said. “It’s a special group of Wrecker fans who provide an intangible sense of meaning to the game of base-ball.”
“‘The bomb squad’ is no ordinary group of people.” –Greg Salamone ‘13
THE BOMB SQUAD ASSEMBLES: Members of the infamous baseball fan group gather to watch the game.
FIVE MUST-HAVES:(According to Bomb Squad co-founder Jack Roof)
1) McDonald’s meal2) Sunfl ower seeds3) A mitt to play catch4) A lawn chair5) A baseball cap
GRAHIC BY KATIE SETTOS ’15
PHOTO REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION FROM ROSS WHELAN ’13
21SportsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com
AMINA ABDUL-KAREEM ’15Staff Writer
Have you ever tried treading water in a six-foot deep pool for
an hour while balls f ly toward your face, all the while being attacked by four vicious girls from the opposing team? For the girls on the Staples Water Polo team, this is nothing new.
“You can practically get drowned, and the referee won’t call a foul as long as you’re holding on to the ball,” Laine Crowder ’15 said.
Girls Water Polo may not be the most well-known sport at Staples, but it’s definite-ly one of the hardest. It re-quires a great deal of physical strength, speed and coordina-tion.
Practice starts at 2:30 with a 30-minute swim. Then, the team passes the ball around to loosen their arms. To warm up their whole bodies, the team works on distance passing. Leg workouts are important to improve treading water, and, to help the goalies warm up, the team takes practice shots on the goal. For the last hour of practice, the girls scrim-
mage and work on strategies like driving and corner shots. Practice goes from 2:30 to 5:00 every weekday, and un-like most sports, the team also practices from 8:00 to 10:30 a.m. on Saturdays.
“Next year, we would like to spend more time on condi-tioning and introduce more
advanced techniques and plays,” assistant coach Bran-don Arias said. “We are going to do some serious condition-ing for next year’s season,” So-phie Mafilios ’15 added.
Many of the girls were on the fall swim team, which con-tributed to their pre-season conditioning. The girls also
The Water Wars of Girls Water PoloTournament, which is their traditional end-of-season tournament.
However, the girls value their team progress more than their record.
“If at the end of the sea-son we can look back and say that each player demon-strated an increased under-standing of the game and grasp of the fundamentals, then we’ll look at the season as a success,” Arias said.
Although the Water Polo program has been around for over ten years, many students still aren’t aware of or do not know much about Girls Water Polo. Staples and Green-wich High are the only two public high schools with water polo teams.
“We don’t really have Monday night water polo
like football does, and the sport doesn’t tend to get that much attention on a national level unless you’re specifical-ly looking for the latest water polo news,” Cooperman said.
With the rise of Water Polo at Staples, the girls hope more people will join next year.
POLO PRACTICE: The girls water polo team practices in the Staples pool.
had practice with boys to pre-pare them for the season.
According to Angus Arm-strong ’13, one of the assistant coaches, the girls won their first game of the year, 13 to 9, with Captain Sarah Cooper-man ’13 scoring nine goals against Suffield Academy. They also won the Hopkins
PHOTOS BY DEANNA HARTOG ’16
SportsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com22
CHEYENNE HASLETT ’13Staff Writer
After six months of off-season training, the rug-by team returned to the
field this spring with a fierce determination that quad-cap-tain Matt Cozzi ‘14 describes only as “second to none.”
Despite being a sport that may receive less student at-tention when compared to its spring-counterparts like base-ball or lacrosse, a brief sit-down with the team or any of its 45 members will tell you that the Staples rugby team is vastly underrated.
Rugby coach and Spanish teacher Joseph Barahona, who has played rugby for 20 years and coached for an additional six years, saw the positive ef-fects of the team’s hard work firsthand. “I feel that the boys had more at stake in the games [this season] because of all of the hard work they have done throughout the year. They had a
Wrecker Rugby Risesharder time giving up and bat-tled to the end,” Barahona said.
“I really think [rugby] is a combo of every sport. You need to be strong but fit. You need to be able to catch, pass, and kick. And you also need to be able to run and tackle,” Cozzi said.
This year, they improved in each of the many areas that must be mastered by a rugby team and have already im-proved their statistics tremen-dously.
Last season, the team only won one scrimmage and came in last in the state’s Division 1.
This year, the team is five games and two scrimmages in and has only lost once. Addi-tionally, they have worked their way into the top 5 of the state’s Division 1.
With the bitter taste of last season still in their mouths, they went into the 2013 season ready to win. “We worked very hard in the offseason and took care of the small things, then everything just started clicking
and before we knew it, we were top 5 in the state in Division 1,” said Yang.
This year, in keeping with the team’s new reputation, they took Fairfield Prep on in a “close, intense battle.”
According to Yang, the team was up 19-12 going into the second half. “Some calls didn’t go our way and we ulti-mately lost 24-19,” Yang said, in a tone surprisingly devoid of regret. “That was the closest we’ve come to beating them in program history,” he added.
The team’s improvements may come as a surprise to the general population, but the team itself knows better.
Quad captain Umberto Pucci ‘14 said, “We knew that we were going to do well this season, but we didn’t let that get to our heads.” The mindset is simple. “We take the season one week at a time and just try to go 1-0 every week, focus on each team individually rather than taking the season on as a
whole,” he said.Barahona calls this the
“ELM tree style of coaching,” his newly adopted strategy which focuses on “Effort, Learning, and Making mistakes.”
“I encourage players to make mistakes and not to be afraid to try something just for fear of making a mistake as long as they were willing to learn from it,” Barahona said. The team puts this into action by going over mistakes after every game and working to cor-rect them.
The ability to learn from mistakes, comes from the strong sense of camaraderie on the rugby team. “[Rugby] is a universal fraternity/brother-hood,” Barahona said. The sea-soned rugby player claims that “you can go virtually any place in the world and have a place to stay if you hook up with the lo-cal rugby team.”
Pucci agreed, stating, “The difference between rugby and other sports is that no sport has
a network of fans/players like rugby does. Being a rugby play-er (not to sound cheesy) really brings you into a sort of loose family.”
Perhaps a more clear-cut example of this inter-sport culture comes from the tra-ditional post-game meal. “In other sports, the teams will ig-nore each other once the game is over, and in rugby, the teams actually sit down and have a meal together,” quad-captain Brian Book ‘14, who is also a member of the football team, said.
This tradition goes all the way up to the men’s club level, and oftentimes transforms into participation in community service or other bonding activi-ties.
The Staples’ rugby team has worked hard to get to where they are. But it’s not all about the rankings. The team has big-ger goals. “We’re more worried about what we do on the field,” Book said.
PHOTOS BY DEANNA HARTOG ’16
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: The rugby team performs their practice routine.
SportsInklings / May 31, 2013 / inklingsnews.com 23
Row, Row, Row Our BoatCAROLINE COHEN ’15
A&E Editor
The sun is shining down and the water fl ows along with the current of the rowboat.
Being a sport that requires tech-nique, teamwork and a whole lot of effort, rowing seems to attract a population of Staples students who, despite rowing’s grueling workouts and tiring workouts, can’t get enough of being out there on water.
“Rowing is a sport that tests both your physical and mental boundaries,” Alison Morrison ’15 said. “If you put in the hours on land, it will show on the water and during the races.”
According to Morrison, practice is from 3:00-6:00 every day, and during the fall and spring competi-tion seasons, races occur almost every weekend.
“A typical prac-tice workout is around an hour to an hour and a half on the water either doing timed pieces or technique work. Races are either 2 or 6 kilometers de-pending on the sea-son and [last]…. well, as fast as you can go” Morrison said.
James Banbury ’16 distinguishes rowing from other sports because it constantly requires movement and ef-fort and it hurts like hell,” Banbury ’16 said.
According to Sammie Kurtz ’15, the girls rowing team stays in shape by running two loops that vary from 1.5 miles to 3.5 miles, taking part in yoga, biking, and perform-
ing erg tests, which are infamous among rowers.
Erg tests are practices on ergs (rowing machines) that track the rowing speed and distance the athlete rows. The tests focus on mental toughness, endurance, power and, overall, how much pain can be handled.
“If you talk to any rower, you will know they are extremely painful,” Kurtz said. “Basically, when you test, it feels like you are in living hell and you’re going to die and everything. Your mind and body just hurts.”
But somehow, rowers fi nd the pain bearable and the work-outs maintainable. “Often it’s said that rowers only talk about rowing, and I believe there is a
reason for this,” Julia Schorr ’16 said. “It’s because the sport has impacted everyone who does it to the point where you don’t know what else to talk about.”
S c h o r r was so in-spired that she took her love for rowing and entered the “Row to Rio” contest, where she and other artists submit-ted designs for the logo that will be the offi cial symbol of U.S Rowing during
the 2016 Rio de Janiero summer Olympics. Julia’s father saw an advertisement for the contest and
enc ou r a ge d her to create a logo since she had just started her Design and Tech class at school. Her father thought this would be a good chance for her to use her newfound skills.
“I have always loved art and graphic de-sign, so when my father said it
was for rowing in the 2016 Olym-pics, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to merge my two passions,” Schorr said.
Her logo was chosen by the US Rowing Selection committee as a fi nalist and she campaigned hard and well to get online votes. Schorr ended up having the lead by the end of the online voting. Although the selection commit-tee ultimately announced Uni-versity of Cincinnati rower Jake Mercuci as the fi nal winner, Ju-lia’s logo was in the top 5 and will be used for events leading up to the games.
Schorr said, “I was disap-pointed, but at the same time proud that I was able to compete in a contest which had many en-
tries from profes-sional graphic de-signers.”
Schorr was pleased but not sur-prised by the support she recieved since showing suppor to teammates is such a part of Rowing cul-ture.
“You learn how to be a good team-mate. You make friends” Schorr said. “[Rowing] allows me to spend my time do-ing something that I truly love with team-mates who are in-credibly supportive.”
Despite the de-manding exercise and back-breaking commitment, row-ing continues to keep its crew breezing through the river in boats.
“Most people who row are com-pletely in love with it. There is no way you could do such a phys-ically, mentally and emotionally draining sport without loving it,” Morrison said.
ROWING ON A RIVER: The Saugatuck Rowing Club rowers practice out on the river. PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS BY MAX BORTNIKER ’15
CLEANING UP: Rowers work together to bring their boat out of the water.
Julia Schorr’s Row to Rio Contest Logo
The Wreckersports
IN
SI
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RYDER CHASIN ’14Web Managing Editor
High school students stood alongside Olympians on May 25 under the over-
cast New York sky. Finish lines were hung, shoelaces were tied, and competitors were overcome with excited anxiety as they got themselves ready for the hal-lowed Adidas Grand Prix.
One of those competitors was a face familiar to Staples High School: track and cross-country captain Henry Wynne ’13. Invited to compete in the High School Dream Mile, Wynne took to the track with the top 14 American high school runners.
Out of the 14, he was pre-ranked tenth.
He fi nished second.Yes, with a time of 4:05:02,
Wynne fi nished behind only New Jersey’s Edward Cheserek as the top high school mile runner in the United States. Now, at least among some spectators, a partic-ular question is being posed: can Henry Wynne run a four-minute mile?
“I believe Henry has the po-tential to break four some day,” Head Coach Laddie Lawrence said. “If he does, it will take the perfect race on a perfect day to do it.”
While this past Saturday was not nearly the perfect race
or the perfect day, Wynne fi n-ished barely fi ve seconds away from the four-minute plateau, eclipsing his previous personal record by a full three seconds — and did so in front of a national audience.
But Wynne is no stranger to the national stage. In his Staples tenure, during which he has re-ceived an All-American selection fi ve times over, Wynne has not only received recognition from some of the most signifi cant run-ning publications like MileSplit, LetsRun, and Runner’s World, but has also taken home two na-tional championships in the dis-tance medley relay and, perhaps most recognized, the mile.
“When it gets to that level of competition the energy is ridicu-lous, and you look around and realize this is the best competi-tion in the country,” Wynne said. “I get a sense of pride that what I am doing is really paying off.”
Accordingly, his work is also paying off at the local scale. Over his Staples career, Wynne holds school records in 14 separate events, has taken home 22 state championships to go along with several other New England titles.
Nevertheless, according to Lawrence, the accolades aren’t what make Wynne the person he is. While the awards are great, Lawrence enjoys just spending time with his team’s captain.
“Hopefully I have not yet ex-perienced my favorite Henry mo-ment,” Lawrence said. “Although there are already so many good memories it would be hard to pick my favorite.”
One memory that Lawrence recalls is when Wynne fi rst joined the cross-country team his freshman year. According to Wynne, his freshman lacrosse coach Paul McNulty offered two options to his players of how to work out in the off-season: lift-ing weights or running. Fate-fully, Wynne didn’t want to lift weights.
“During indoor track in his sophomore year, he made a ma-jor breakthrough in lowering his times,” Lawrence said. “Today he is a much stronger, faster, smarter and more coachable runner than he was when he fi rst showed up in the program.”
Needless to say, Wynne no longer participates in lacrosse,
as he devotes his time almost entirely to running. Between his periodic competitions, daily workout regiment, and constant leadership of the rest of the team, Wynne, at least to co-cap-tain Sam Cohen ’13, consistently shows his dedication.
“Henry has a way of getting people to listen,” Cohen said. “I respect him as much as a person as I do a runner.”
He continued, “he has an attitude that makes it seem as if he really has not yet realized how good he actually is,” Cohen said. “No one I know would be that humble given his inhuman talent.”
It’s exactly this “inhuman talent” that has propelled Wynne to a spot in the class of 2017 at the University of Virginia where he’ll continue his running career through college — and beyond.
“I haven’t really thought about after college,” Wynne said.
“But looking back on this year, I’ll look at my medals and still get nervous and excited thinking about all the amazing races. I’ll think about the ridiculously fun times I’ve had with the team.”
And, according to Lawrence, the fun times will go on.
“After he graduates, I will miss everything about him that he brought with him into the Staples track program,” Law-rence said. “However, I do look forward to having him as a friend once his Staples running days are over.”
Wynne is still waiting for that perfect race on that perfect day to come around for him to break 4:00. However, as he con-tinues to get better and better, that day is fast approaching.
“Personally, everything that has happened still feels surreal, but I know I have a lot more im-portant meets to race in,” Wynne said. “I’m not reminiscing yet.”
PHOTOS BY CAROLINE O’KANE ’16
Chasing 4:00Henry Wynne ’13 and His Pursuit of the Remarkable
4:05.02MILE TIME
AND THE RACE BEGINS: Henry Wynne and fellow racers line up as the Fairfi eld County Interscholastic Athletic Conferencc mile run begins.
