Clarence Dalton promised a win to his senior teammates and he made sure that happened, running 193 yards on 25 carries and scoring all four of the Tors’ touchdowns in their 28-7 win against the Santa Fe Indians at home in the District 23-5A game.

Ball High junior quarterback, Martavian Jackson, threw 121 yards, going 11-of-18.

The Tors drove the ball down the field on the opening drive of the game and Dalton ran his way into the end zone on a 17-yard touchdown run to give Ball High an early 7-0 lead.

The Indians responded before the end of the first quarter as junior quarterback, Nathan Kruger, connected with senior, Josh Blankenship,

for a 7-yard pass and both teams ended the first quarter tied 7-7.

Ball High didn’t take long to jump back ahead as Dalton scored his second touchdown of the night from an 8-yard run. Santa Fe sophomore running back, Nicholas McDonald, had 84 yards rushing for the Indians on 13 carries.

A fumble by Nathan Kruger led to a 25-yard loss as the quarterback managed to fall on the loose ball. The mistake placed the Indians back at their own 20-yard line where they were soon forced to punt.

Ball High took advantage on their next offensive drive and Dalton scored his third touchdown of the night, running the ball in from 2 yards out. Jackson’s 2-point conversion run gave the Tors a 14-point advantage.

After moving the ball past midfield, a fumbled snap was recovered by the Tors

with 2:39 remaining before halftime. With a two-score lead and time ticking away in the first half, Ball High drove the ball deep into Indians territory but were forced to try for a 27-yard field goal attempt that was no good with under a minute to play until halftime.

Santa Fe got past the 50-yard line but not much farther before time ran out in the first half with the Tors leading 21-7.

After both teams opened up the second half on punts, the Indians fumbled at the Tors’ 36-yard line and Ball

High recovered.The Tors, however,

couldn’t make the turnover into points and they were forced to punt.

It wasn’t until there was 5:55 left in the game when Ball High scored for the first time in the second half, coming off Dalton’s 21-yard run for his fourth touchdown of the night.

Senior safety Austin Lawrence picked off Kruger with 5:00 remaining.

Ball High’s next game is on Saturday at 1p.m. against Fort Bend Marshall.

Homecoming CelebrationThe Ball STreeT Journal

October 2017 Galveston, Texas ballhighstudentnews.com Volume III Issue 1

Homecoming Celebration

BY: OLIVIA BARTONBall High School

Mr. William Nealon, Ball High’s intrepid theater teacher and head director, was born on Manhattan Island, but got Galveston Island sand between his toes at the tender age of one when his family moved to Galveston. Nealon returned to Manhattan after he graduated from high school to attend Yale University where he earned a BA in Theater Studies in 2005.

Nealon has been working at this beloved school for about ten years now, since January of 2007, when he hired on as an assistant director to Mr. Scott Vernon, who retired in 2009. Nealon stepped right into Vernon’s shoes, taking over the program in 2010, his first year of teaching, and has been the head director at Ball ever since, eight years.

“I majored in theater because I found time spent on stage to be the most fulfilling minutes in my life. I loved the challenge of trying to perfect an art that by its nature cannot be perfected.”

While Nealon loves the challenge the theater offers him, his true love is his family, his wife Britney and his daughter Lillie. “I’m a lucky man to have a loving wife Britney and a beautiful, adorable daughter Lillie.”

Nealon is a highly respected instructor at the school and his presentations have already won a number of district and state awards for Ball High. "I get to put on plays, both in class and big extracurricular activities; putting a student in a position where they really show their talent and accomplish something they didn't think they could do."

Taking time out of his personal life to enhance the theater experience at Ball has been very rewarding for the theater director. Last year's UIL one act play, Peter and The Star Catcher, won advancing play at the festival.

Nealon works very hard at what he does, and is currently working on Ball High’s annual Evening of Comedy; a highly entertaining event spotlighting different plays that’s sure to make the audience chuckle. In December the talented director is also bringing us The Addams Family as our all district musical.

"I like being a teacher of a class that kids choose to be in, I like being the place in the building where a lot of these kids feel safe, to be themselves."

Teacher of the

MonthWilliam Nealon

Olivia BartonCecilia Garcia

Barbara GoodeauxJared Hinkle

Madyson JacksonKarmen Juarez

Jazmyn MendezAshleigh Praker

Raisa RitellJaime Saenz

Lauryn SpoonAmy Bellote

Erin FordJulian Reyna

Brook McDanielMargaret Clapper

Ball Street Journal Staff

Homecoming King and Queen Kaila Lee and Sage Walker pose with last years king and queen after being crowned during the halftime.

Tors Destroy Indians

BY: JAZMYN MENDEZBall High School

Deadly, destructive and dangerous are only a few of the words to describe young adult's new favorite pastimes: arson. School building fires have increased rapidly in correlation with the loss of property and the cost of reconstruction. Fortunately, there were few fatalities resulting from the ill-received fires that have been started.

The three leading causes of school building fires are cooking at 42 percent, intentional action at 24 percent, and heating at 10 percent. At 41 percent, intentional fires were the leading cause of non-confined school building fires.

The leading area of origin for non-confined school fires is the bathroom at 25 percent. Nonresidential structure fires appear to be seasonal with more occurrences during the school year and higher percentages happening in high schools and junior high schools leading the belief that most younger adults in their boredom had started the fires for pure jest. Unfortunately, this cannot be determined by NFIRS data alone.

The fatalities of arson aren't as large as the damage done to the buildings Custodians, Otis Brown, Profit Mitchell and Earl

Williams wait with Ball High students during the fire evacuation.

Fiery Fury: Arson

BY: BARBARA GOODEAUXBall High School

The spirited Ball High Band directed by Steven Farrell, led the Homecom-ing Parade Wednes-day evening to the raucous cheers of thousands of spec-tating Galvesto-nians and happy Ball High graduates who lined the sea-wall and Avenue O to cheer on their fel-low alumni.

H o m e c o m i n g King Sage Walker and Homecoming

Queen Kaila Lee waved to the ador-ing masses from their vehicle as the royal couple sailed along the parade route accompanied by their homecom-ing court, the Ball High Band, the Tor-nettes, the Hispan-ic Dance members, the cheer team and Ball High’s wa-ter polo and swim team. Also celebrat-ing the festivities by taking part in the parade were the ele-mentary and middle school cheerleaders

BY: LAURYN SPOONBall High School

Homecoming Parade

Continued on Page 4

Continued on Page 4

A2 • Opinion The Ball Street Journal • October

Changes are important and influential aspects in our lives that, depending on the change, we must adapt and change our lifestyles. We all experience small or big changes. Personally, I have undergone several changes, but the biggest and most influential in my life has been to change countries, to be one day in my beloved country, Honduras and the next day traveling for my future to the United States.

It was a drastic change in my life for which I was not prepared because there was no way to be emotionally prepared. My life changed completely. I had to start a new lifestyle in an unknown society, but I had to adapt to survive because I knew I was in a place I did not belong to. No matter in which direction I decided to look, there was no place I belonged. It was depressing not being able to express myself in the new language I needed because I did not know how to act according to the new rules, so the depression made me think that I was losing control of my own life.

This is the first installment of a series about immigrating to the US written by Cindy Bonilla.

Los cambios son aspectos importantes é in-fluyentes en nuestras vidas, que dependiendo del cambio debemos adaptarnos y cambiar nuestro estilo de vida, todos experimentamos cambios pequeños o grandes, personalmente he experi-mentado diversos cambios, pero el más grande é influente en mi vida, ha sido cambiar de país, estar un día en mi amado país Honduras y al siguiente día viajando a Estados Unidos, fue un cambio drástico en mi vida, para el cuál no esta-ba preparada, porque no había manera de estar-lo emocionalmente. Mi vida cambió totalmente, tenía que empezar un nuevo estilo de vida en una sociedad desconocida, pero a la que debía inte-grarme para sobrevivir, porque sabía que estaba en un lugar en el que no pertenecía, no importaba en qué dirección decidiera mirar, no había lugar al que perteneciera. Era deprimente no poder expresarme en el nuevo idioma que necesitaba porque no lo sabía, deprimida porque no sabía actuar según las nuevas reglas, por lo que la de-presión me hizo sentir que perdía el control de mi propia vida.

Esta la primera articulo

Cambios de la VidaChanges in Our Lives BY: CINDY NICOLE BONILLA

There's a child, we'll call him Antonio, who lives in Brownsville, Texas. Every morning, he wakes up for school. He gets dressed, eats breakfast, says goodbye to his mother. At school, he goes to all of his classes; he enjoys them. He has a few close friends. Before he goes home, he goes to his part time job. It's not hard to imagine, right? It may even sound a lot like you. Now let's add one factor to change his life. He's an immigrant.

Now he listens to his president call him a "bad person". Antonio watches as his peers treat him like bad person. The teacher calls him a dreamer. His country, his home, is failing him. He's worked, he has shown what he can provide, he's always been a good person: he has stayed out of trouble and paid his taxes. Now he may have

to leave to go to a new, strange place that, impossibly, everyone expects him to recognize.

Through Antonio's eyes, his life is different. Antonio isn't just a narrative. Antonio is every student in our schools who doesn't have papers. He's the kid in your class who mentions where his parents are from; he is almost exactly like everyone else. Now we have to listen a morally bankrupt, orange-skinned elitist tell us that the Tonys aren't supposed to be here.

DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Have we forgotten what the word "child" means? Have we decided to ignore all the children who have never seen their "home land", whose lives are built upon the same earth as yours?

What happened to "this land is our land, this land is your land"? As for the king, well it must be nice to throw daggers in 140 characters while you sit in the oval palace.

They Are UsBY: MARGARETT CLAPPERBall High School

The “Word War” started when the two alleged “leaders” of North Korea (Kim Jong Un) and the United States (Donald Trump) gained power in their respective countries. I think, in the beginning, they were only out to prove a point, not to the people, but to each other: who can kill the most people, right? Or, who can intimidate the other with the most outrageous rhetoric?

These two “leaders” sound as if they are planning WW III like it’s a birthday party. Kim and Trump are so stubborn and selfish that they don’t care how many people die as long as they both have power and prestige. As Trump said, “All the fighting will be done over there … “

Donald Trump promised that if Kim Jong Un launches missiles and tests any nuclear weapons over the Pacific Ocean, the “Little Rocket Man” will regret it. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump stated on August 8.

Our country is already regretting it. These two spoiled children, both born with silver spoons in their mouths and their desires never denied, sound like fifth graders in the school yard.

From my perspective Trump and Kim are brothers from different mothers, but childishly jealous of each other. Here’s an example of the rhetoric flashing around the globe. From petulant child one, Kim Jong Un, calling

Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and his speech to the U.N. General Assembly “unprecedented rude nonsense.”

Quote from enfant terrible two, our fearless leader Donald Trump: “We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons on the

loose like that.” Cantankerous

Kim Jong Un’s response: “I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words off his tongue. W h a t e v e r Trump might have expected he will face results beyond his expectations.’’

D o t a r d D o n a l d ’ s response? “Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his

people, will be tested like never before.”

Now it really is the battle between the two petulant children. Who will win? Stay tuned for the next furious exchange of blarney between these two characters as they take diplomacy from the statesmen and fire salvo after salvo at each other on Twitter and the newspapers.

Gentle readers might recall that Senator Bob Corker recently warned his fellow Senators that Donald Trump is leading us to WWIII! Kim Jong Un agreed!

Don’t miss the next episode … enlightening comments from the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The Battle Between Two School Children

Deep in the heart of a hurricane season featuring an unusual number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes coming one right after another, people are beginning to question the well-being of the world and of themselves.

We have had theories about the world ending since the Mayan and Incan times and the theories have only gotten more vivid as controversy swirls about global warming, but recently there have been some interesting theories that are actually sensible about how the world’s end is near.

During the summer of 2017 there was a total solar eclipse that made everyone drop what they were doing to grab welding hoods and special sunglasses to watch this rare solar event. Some people, however, have suspected that this rarely occurring phenomenon is actually the beginning of the end. “There’s a solar eclipse on the same day Big Ben stops bonging, defo feels a little like signaling end of the world.” Tweets Ash (@aislingmm10) on August 21, 2017. The end of the world is something that many people have speculated over time, but could this actually be one of those times when the end of the world might just be coming around the corner?

Of course there’s always two sides to every theory, and not everyone is convinced that the end of the world is in progression. There are some people who

just downright disengage the whole sequence of there even being a planet that will crash into ours and inevitably end our world. “This may prove that the whole Planet X (Nibiru) is real, if we can see another light source that is clearly not the sun next to the eclipse.” Tweeted Justin Skedel (@JustinRSkedel) on August 21, 2017. The end of the world is sometimes just something that many people can’t fathom and don’t want to fathom to even be possible which is not such a bad thing since considering the end of the world isn’t exactly something that makes everyone elated.

Personally, I’m a bit conflicted because both the pros and cons of the

recent theories of the termination of our universe are both equally logical but I always like to have an open mind and although it is pretty scary to consider the world’s inevitable end there is a good possibility that it will happen sooner than we hope. I think that maybe the Solar Eclipse and the recent surges of multiple hurricanes are actually signs and not mere coincidences so I’d say that we better watch our backs because nature might be our biggest enemy and most lethal destroyer.

“End of the World” TheoriesBY: BARBARA GOODEAUXBall High School

A3 • Sports The Ball Street Journal • October

Humility and faith is what drove this man to be who he is today: a considerate, disciplined, dedicated coach. Kimble An-ders was born and raised right here in Galveston and graduat-ed from Ball High in 1985. After high school, Anders attended the University of Houston where he starred four years as a fullback on the potent Cougar teams that dominated their league. In 1991 he was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs where he played for nine years.

Anders enjoyed a great career with the Chiefs, but one of the most amazing things about his tenure with the Chiefs was the fact that he lasted nine years as a fullback when the average career as a running back in the NFL is three years. “Having a dream of going to the NFL didn’t really become a reality until my junior year of college,” said Anders.

Anders returned to his alma mater in 2013 to become the ath-letic director and head football coach for the Ball High Tors. “I’m

trying to make a difference in my community, I just want to do my job the best I can,” Anders stat-ed. “This is the community that raised me. As a coach you have the opportunity to make an im-pact on people.”

The Tor football program went through hard times before An-ders arrived at Ball High, and they continued for the first few years as Anders began to mold the Tors in the image he wanted them to be: tough, hard-nosed players who never quit. “I put a lot of effort in trying to build a culture of our team,” Anders of-fered. “Basically football is fam-ily.”

It has been a wonderful four years with coach Anders proud-ly leading our Tors, hopefully there are many more to come. “Football is a life changing expe-rience. It teacher you discipline, perseverance and hard work. We have grown a lot. The maturity of the kids is much better than I have seen in years. The bond is coming together and that’s what I wanted to do, bring this team together as a family.”

Where Are They Now?

BY: MADY JACKSONBall High School

Kimble Anders

Cross Country Beach Run 2017

Many people love coming to the Island to surf, soak up the sun or even compete in our Fifth Annual Beach Run (Friday, September 8,2017), which is also the first sports event since Harvey hit.

What exactly makes our meet so extraordinary that roughly 900 runners would overflow the island? Well, most meets take place in parks, golf courses or open fields, but ours is on the sand! Many teams showed up to compete in this great event, from as far away as New Caney to our own Ball High runners.

Our varsity boys placed 6th out of 18 team field. Tor runner Kelly Carmicheal came in 4th place out of 116 runners. Carmicheal is the Tors’ fiercest runner as of right now, running 5k in just 13 minutes! Our team had eight other great runners, including Jordan Painter, Angelus Miles, Johnathan Lee, Sergio Rojas who scored points for the team! We should be very proud of our great runners for all placing in this event! Other team member include Nick Gomez, Johnathan Marquez, Anthony Marin and George Reinmiller.

BY: JAZMYN MENDEZBall High School

2017

VO L L E Y B A L L

A4 • The Ball Street Journal • October

DON’T FORGET TO ORDER YOUR

YEARBOOK!

JROTC Marksmanship is competing on Saturday, October 7th 2017 (All Day). We have 12-13 Cadets attending, with 10 Cadets (Varsity & Junior Varsity) com-peting in the Cavalier Cup at College Park High School in the Woodlands.

Schools from all over Texas will be competing in both the Sporter & Preci-sion categories. We will be competing in the 3-P Air Rifle Match, but not the In-ternational Standing Match.

Upon the completion of the Finals (7pm) we will arrive back at Ball High School at approximately 10pm.

Major Mark Knight said “Our goal is to Medal as a team, & have two shooters qualify for the evening finals.

The Cavalier Cup Air Rifle Compe-tition will be held in the Woodlands, Texas over the weekend of 6, 7 and 8th of October 2017. This Air Rifle Match is to provide a season opening competition for high school teams and includes two separate competitions:

3-Position Air Rifle Match. This is the main event. It is an open match. The match is sanctioned by Civilian Marks-manship Program. Competitors may earn EIC credit points for the Junior Distinguished Badge. They may also set national records.

Open International Standing Match. This 60-shot, Sunday-morning event will allow teams staying overnight to compete in a match before heading home. It is an open match.

Finals Competition and Award Cere-mony. These finals events start at 6pm Saturday evening and will be completed by 7:30pm. Finals for both Sporter and Precision categories will start at 6pm. Individual medals will be presented at the conclusion of the finals. The evening concludes with the presentation of team awards.

Also, Orion League starts this week. We are located in the LEADERS Divi-sion of Army JROTC: Coral Glades H.S. (Coral Springs, FL.) vs Ball High School (2-8 October)

Ball High AJROTC defeated Coral Glades AJROTC 975 to 837 last week in the National Air Rifle League. With the win, Ball AJROTC is in first place in their division with a one to zero record. Ball AJROTC was led by Maricela Salinas who shot a 250. The remaining contributing members were Christopher Bonnette, Dreylon Blankenship, and Fatima Estrada. Ball AJROTC is from Galveston, TX, and is coached by Mark Knight.

Next up Ball AJROTC will compete against West Valley AJROTC from Yakima, WA. West Valley AJROTC currently has a one to zero record. Coral Glades AJROTC will compete against Dinwiddie AJROTC from Prince George, VA. Dinwiddie AJROTC currently has a one to one record.

These two teams are competing in the Army JROTC Leaders Division of the Orion National Air Rifle League. Sponsored by the Orion Scoring System, the league is a national team league for high school teams and junior rifle clubs. The league has two parts. An eight-week round-robin regular season going on now, where teams compete for their Division’s title. Followed by the post-season, comprising of two single elimination tournaments. Only the top 16 teams across all divisions advance to the post-season, to compete for the league title.

In each game the teams compete in what is known as a Three-Position Air Rifle match. The match is modeled after Olympic Rifle competitions but adapted to high school age athletes. Each athlete will shoot ten shots in three different shooting positions, prone, standing, and kneeling. Each shot is worth a maximum of ten points. The sum of points scored in the 30 shots is the athlete’s total. The team score is comprised of the best four athletes from each team.

JROTCSweet Victory

STORIES BY: JARED HINKLEBall High School

Cavalier Cup

SPOTLIGHT

thankfully. However, there are fatalities; school building fires has 0.4 percentage of fatalities, 13.5 in injuries, and $14,060 in dollar loss from the fires compared to nonresidential building fires with 1.0 in fatalities, 9,8 in injuries, and $27,350 in dollar loss from the fires. In 71 percent of the school fires, they all occurred from 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. around the time that the students would be attending school.

Youth fire setting is a commonly presumed dilemma. Youths that are involved in fire setting generally fall into four basic psychological classifications: curious, crisis, delinquent and pathological. The first group I'd like to call

the "Curious Georges" are usually young children who are just experimenting with common sources of ignition such as matches or lighters with lack of supervision; they don’t normally understand the consequences of the fire or the threat it poses. The second group, the "Crisis Chrises" are the group of youths that do not have adequate problem- solving skills or cannot sufficiently express their feelings and as a result use fire as a reactionary way to convey their feelings. The third group, "Delinquent Dannys" consists of older adolescents who exhibit antisocial behavior and set fires with the intent of causing destruction. Many do not realize the legal repercussions of their actions and so it may

cause them to start fires more frequently until they are punished. Fourth, and final group, "Pathological Patricks" are typical teenagers who most often have mental disorders, few social skills, and rarely any personal relationships with peers; they use setting fires as a coping mechanism.

Overall, most of the fires are started during school, in areas of origin such as bathrooms or kitchens. Over 40% are started intentionally by youths who are possibly troubled, curious, or mentally disabled. Fatalities are minimal but damages are maximal and arson is only becoming as widespread as the fires themselves as the young adults get more bored, troubled, and curious.

FIRE: Continued from Page 1

from the GISD schools.The parade began behind Ball

High, traveled down to 39th Street before heading back to Av-enue O and Ball High.

The parade and all those who came out to watch were rewarded with a homecoming victory Friday night against Santa Fe Indians. The purple and gold never grew old! Once a Tor, always a Tor!

PARADE: Continued from Page 1

Who doesn’t want to see danc-ing beauties full of Ball High spirit when they attend sports events? That’s what the Ball High Tor-nettes bring each time they step onto the playing field. According to Coach Lauren Butaud “I just feel like to alumni it represents ev-erything positive that Ball High can put out there in the communi-ty”

The Ball High Tornettes are a 45-mem-ber dance team founded by Barba Crow, the oldest dance team in the state of Tex-as. To become a Tornette an ap-plicant must go through addi-

tional processes with three teach-er reps, which is 30% of the score, as well as atten-dance, attitude, and tryouts in front of judges.

According to Tornette Caila Humphrey “I’ve always want-

ed to be a Tor-nette since I was younger, seeing all the girls in the pretty uniforms. I love the fact that future Tornettes can look up to me.”

Also finding inspiration as a Tornette is Rae-

lynn Parfait. “Tornettes are a fun hard working team and makes people become more than then as in dancing and themselves.”

The Tornettes will participate in the Homecom-ing Parade next week, so come out and catch the whole crew in ac-tion.

BY: JAIME SAENZBall High School Tornettes