Winter is Here!

Here at Grand Canyon, we have many holiday traditions, as does the surrounding area. We celebrate them with decoration, music, and events. But just how numerous are these holiday traditions? How did they start? Are there any traditions that were held, but stopped being held for some reason?

Grand Canyon School has many more holiday traditions than the rest of the community. We host a Turkey Trot, which is a race for mainly the elementary students, but higher grades have also joined in past years. In the past, the first place winner for each grade won a turkey, and the second and third place winners got a pie. This year, it was planned to have the first, second, and third place winners each get certificates, and the turkey winner picked out of a jar containing slips with all the participant’s names on them. The school also hosts a Thanksgiving feast for lunch on the last day before Thanksgiving Break. The feast is free to all students, and to the parents who sometimes show up to eat with their child. The feast was most likely started as a way to celebrate Thanksgiving as a school and provide a Thanksgiving dinner to kids who wouldn’t be able to have a true feast at home. The Turkey Trot was likely started to help promote healthy activity during the holidays. Around the same time as all the school Thanksgiving festivities, the school also hosts an assembly featuring all the Native American students, where they work with others from the community to dance and share some of their traditions. This was most likely started to try and celebrate the heritage of the native students at the school, while also teaching non-native kids about native culture.

After all the Thanksgiving festivities, the high school and middle school bands hold a winter concert in the few weeks between Thanksgiving break and winter break. In the past, under Mr. Monk’s teaching, this was used as the final for all the band students. With Mr. Bo, we don’t quite know what’s happening. A Grand Canyon themed Christmas carol “concert” is held by the elementary every year as well, featuring songs such as Brighty the Burro. The basketball teams also attend an annual tournament called the Holiday Classic every year, which is held on the first full week of December. The tournament takes place at Williams High School, and Ash Fork High School. And last but not least for school traditions: Homecoming. While Homecoming is not traditionally a winter tradition, Grand Canyon School holds it in the winter for basketball, instead of in the fall for football. Homecoming is put on by that year’s seniors. We used to have one other holiday tradition, which was a gingerbread house contest. That hasn't happened for a year or two, but the culinary class is attempting to bring it back.

Grand Canyon School isn’t the only place that has winter traditions, however. Businesses in Grand Canyon and Tusayan have their own traditions. Most of the businesses hold their own versions of Thanksgiving feasts. The feasts were probably originally created as a moneymaker, but they provide a bounty of food to guests on vacation who would have otherwise not been able to have their feast. The El Tovar creates an elaborate gingerbread house that it displays in its dining hall the entire month of December. The Visitor Center hosts a Santa greet during December, and the Bookstore at the Center has a sale on all merchandise after the greet. The Town of Tusayan decorates most, if not all, the trees on the main road in Christmas lights. These were all most likely started to bring some holiday cheer to the area for the month of December, and make it more attractive to visitors.

As you can see, our community has many different winter traditions. Some were started for profit, some for the spirit of the holidays, and some are no longer with us. But either way, they are all amazing.

Best Wishes From your Favorites

“Just write something child! Anything, but at least start!” While writing this feature this quote from Ms. Schoeffel came to mind. Allana and Calley had trouble starting this because it was quite difficult to type up the important and meaningful impact our English teacher has had on our school. On October 3, 2019, we said goodbye to Ms. Schoeffel. Grades 10th through 12th grade as well as multiple staff came to her room while Felix, her son, played her favorite song. We walked into her room and Ms. Zanos handed her a cake, many of us shed multiple tears. She left to join the NAU team and we’re all very upset to say our goodbyes.

Ms. Schoeffel will still be working at Grand Canyon High School with her English 101 class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she will still be missed. On the other hand, what makes a good english teacher? Some characteristics that Ms. Schoeffel had were the need to challenge us, inspire us, help us be independent, and most of all push us to do our best. These characteristics were what made Ms. Schoeffel one of the best teachers we have had.

Along with being the class sponsor of the junior class last year she has also started the Phantom Times. She started this newspaper last year with the senior class and it did really well so she decided to keep it going this year with the class of 2020. This newspaper was really important to her and after she left she expects us to keep it going. Ms. Schoeffel told us to either “step up, or step out”.She wanted us to be successful in the newspaper and in college. Before she left she wrote on her two whiteboards some kind and useful words, "Be good! Be kind! Do your work!" She also wrote some study and test taking tips that you can look at any time in room 434 if you need a boost!

Allana Briones, Rufus Kebahee, and Cordell Bob shared their favorite memory was of Ms. Schoeffel and they all said that they remember walking into the room in the morning to see her standing by her desk with her coffee in her hands in the big black mug she always used, holding it tight with both hands. She would welcome us into class and tell us to do “Read Theory” every morning. Then yell at us for not focusing and taking forever to finish it. Mrs. Scheller also mentioned that she has enjoyed co-teaching with her, "our partnership was a success because the both of us communicated really well" said Mrs. Scheller. She would like to say "Thank you for the best two years, working with you has been great. You surely will be missed!"

These past two weeks without her have been tough, having to walk into class with a different teacher everyday, but we have managed to work through it and focus on this newspaper for Ms. Schoeffel like she asked us to. We will continue this newspaper till the end of the year and hope the classes behind us will continue it as well. Lets keep this newspaper alive!

The Pipelines of Grand Canyon

We all know that our water here in Grand Canyon comes from Roaring Springs on the North Rim (or, at least, I hope we all know). But we rarely ever think about how it gets from Roaring Springs to us here up on the South Rim. Most of us know about the trans canyon pipeline it travels through, but we don’t know how it works. So, let me explain.

The trans canyon pipeline was built in the 1960s. The pipeline, when it was designed, was only meant to last about 30 years maximum. The pipeline is now almost 50 years old, and experiences multiple breaks and leaks per year. How the current pipeline works is water flows into the pipe at Roaring Springs, is chlorinated at the Roaring Springs pumphouse, carried to the pump houses at Indian Gardens, then is pumped from there to the South Rim. For water on the North Rim, water flows into the pipe at Roaring Springs, is chlorinated, and pumped to the rim. Due to the amount of force the water enters the pipe with, it needs no pumping to get to the North Rim or to the pump houses at Indian Gardens.

The amount of force needed to get the water from Roaring Springs to the rims is immense. For most of the water’s journey, it is fighting against gravity. This means that the pipe has high pressure pushing on it constantly. Combine that with an old, outdated pipe made out of aluminum (a metal that will corrode and degrade quickly), and you have an amazing recipe for leaks and breakage. The most recent pipe break, on August 29, 2019, caused Grand Canyon to have to initiate water restrictions starting August 30 and ending September 3.

The current pipeline was constructed in the 1960s, and experiences between five and thirty breaks or leaks a year due to pipe weld failures at joints, internal pipe corrosion, freezing, flooding, and falling rocks, according to park staff. The park has been trying to settle on a plan to replace or fix the pipe. At the beginning of this year, the park settled on a plan that will move the head of the pipeline to the bottom of the canyon, somewhere near Phantom Ranch. From there they have two options. The first is to sink 2-8 shallow alluvial wells, wells generally composed of clay, silt, sand, gravel or similar unconsolidated material deposited by running water, located along Bright Angel Creek. But if that is not possible, the second option would entail a pipe collecting water from Bright Angel Creek built on the south end of Phantom Ranch along Bright Angel Creek. But either way, they will also be replacing the pipe from Phantom Ranch to the South Rim with pipe of better construction and material and changing the head of the pipeline to the South Rim from Roaring Springs to a water source at Phantom Ranch.

So, this all seems like a fairly simple solution, and you may be asking why wasn’t it implemented sooner? Well, there were multiple reasons, including looking at the environmental impact the project would have, but the main reason was money. For the project, the park will need roughly $100 million. Because the project required such a large sum of money, the park couldn’t get funding from the group in charge of providing funding for national park improvement, and instead had to save up money from the park entrance fees.

The project was approved last year. As of now, the park is working on drilling the wells. This will make it so the section of pipe between Phantom Ranch and Cottonwood campground is no longer used, which is a good thing, as this is where most of the breaks occur. This part of the pipeline will provide water for all of the South Rim water sources. But Roaring Springs will still be used to provide water to the North Rim and Cottonwood Campground.

Kurt Repanshek, Kurt. “National Parks Traveler.” Grand Canyon National Park Settles On Plan To Replace Transcanyon Water Pipeline, National Parks Traveler, 9 May 2019, https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2019/05/grand-canyon-national-park-settles-plan-replace-transcanyon-water-pipeline

NPS, Grand Canyon. “National Park Service Requests Public Review of the Transcanyon Water Distribution Pipeline EA.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 10 Oct. 2018, https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/national-park-service-requests-public-review-of-the-transcanyon-water-distribution-pipeline-ea.htm

What is a Mass Shooting?

How do you define a mass shooting? Does someone have to die? Or does there just have to be an active shooter who has injured someone? No matter how you define it, mass shootings have been on the rise. And most people think the trend started in 1966, when a student sniped passerbyers from a clock tower at the University of Texas on August 1st.

If you define a mass shooting as being that four or more people have to die in an active shooter incident, there have been 165 incidents of mass shootings since August 1, 1966, with the most recent being the shooting in Dayton, Ohio, where 10 were killed and 17 were wounded when Connor Betts, a 24 year old, opened fire on bystanders just outside Ned Peppers Bar. Compare the 165 to only 25 mass shootings in the 50 years before 1966. Shootings are on the rise, even according to this narrow view of mass shootings.

But when you define mass shootings as events in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were injured, these numbers skyrocket. Based on this definition, 2,197 mass shootings have happened since December 14, 2012, the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 were killed. And that’s from just 2012. Data was not readily available on shootings with this definition from before 2012, but the data that was available seems to point to a rise in mass shootings since 2012, and possibly before.

The most recent shootings, at the time of this article, with the definition of 4 people have to be injured, happened August 20 in Hobbs, NM, where 3 were killed and 4 were wounded. This data brings into question how many incidents of active shooters we don't ever hear about because the media decides not to cover it.

For example, the most recent shooting in St. Louis, MO, where 1 person was killed and 3 were wounded on August 23, 2019. Did any of us hear about that? Or the Baton Rouge, LA, shooting on February 4, 2019 where 4 were wounded. We may have found some information on local sites, but they weren’t covered by the media at large.

But no matter how you define a mass shooting, they have been on the rise, and we need to be prepared.

Danner, Chas, and Adam K. Raymond. “Everything We Know About the Dayton Mass Shooting.” Intelligencer, Intelligencer, 7 Aug. 2019, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/everything-we-know-about-the-dayton-mass-shooting.html.

Berkowitz, Bonnie, et al. “The Terrible Numbers That Grow with Each Mass Shooting.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 19 Aug. 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/mass-shootings-in-america/?noredirect=on.

Lopez. “Mass Shootings since Sandy Hook, in One Map.” Vox.com, Vox, 9 July 2018, https://www.vox.com/a/mass-shootings-sandy-hook.

“It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and

I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.” - Ernie Harwell

The 12th grade English class would like to thank every reader who has taken the time to read all of our articles. Thanks for becoming our first supporters in this new and difficult journey. We have done our best to report on our school in every aspect, from administration to the students and extracurricular activities. We hope that the newspaper will continue on after we graduate. This was a new experience for us and new skills were taught and developed.

As part of the Class of 2019 we want to thank the Grand Canyon community for all the donations and support that have been given to us over the past four years. We are very grateful to have been able to grow up in the Grand Canyon and call it our home. You have been there through it all with us, from our losses to our victories. So this is..

The SENIOR CLASS

Of 2019

Logging off…

This has been a great regular season where everyone improved by so much and worked their hardest. Sadly it has to come to an end. This year the Track and Field State meet will be held at Mesa Community College on the 3rd and 4th of May. This year’s throwers who are going to state are Alana Keebahe for shotput with a throw of 29 ft and 11.5 inches and Kara Austin for javelin with a throw of 81 ft 6 in. Individual runners going to state are Aleryn Reid, running the 800m with a best time of 2 min and 6.73 sec; Cayli Miles, going for the 400m with a time of 1 min and 6.35 sec and also the 800m with a time of 2min and 35.52 sec; and Ariel Morris, running the 100m with a time of 13.49 sec. This year the only relay teams going to state are the 4x800 and 4x400m boys relays. The 4x400m time is 3 min and 47.16 sec and the 4x800m time is 8 min and 50.98 sec. The boys running the 4x400 relay are Mason Tacey, Joel Gonzales, Aleryn Reid, and Nolan Lyle, and for the 4x800 relay the same people are running, except Jared Torres is replacing Joel. The alternates going for the relays are Rufus Keebahe, Caius Kennedy, and Felix Christiansen. Congratulations and best of luck to all our state-bound athletes!

The scandal of the year is not what we expected it to be. Last month some of the most prestigious colleges were identified in an admissions scam. UCLA, the University of San Diego, Yale, Stanford University, Georgetown University, and others, were revealed to be receiving money in exchange for their children to attend college, from 50 rich and/or famous people, like Lori Loughlin, an actress known for her roles on Full House and its spin-off Fuller House and Felicity Huffman, an actress on Desperate Housewives,.

Investigation shows that William ‘Rick’ Singer, along with eight other coaches at elite schools, two SAT/ACT administrators, an exam proctor, a college administrator, and a CEO, who admitted he “wanted to help the wealthiest families get their kids into elite colleges” are part of this big scam. Celebrities paid their bribes to Singer’s ‘charity’. In exchange, Singer allegedly staged the photos for the students, making it seem as if they had been participating, and convinced the actual students to take online classes while those who paid took their spots on campus.

Parents paid anywhere from $100,000 to $6.5 million dollars. Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, allegedly agreed to pay bribes up to 500,000 to have both of their daughters designated as recruits to University of Southern California’s crew team. Loughlin’s daughters have never participated or competed; instead, the parents took staged pictures with the girls in a rowing machine. Due to their involvement in this scam, they are to appear in court April 3, 2019.

Even though she is due in court in early April, Loughlin has not yet entered her plea. Twelve of the fifty defendants pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy. The judge however has ordered that all involved surrender their passports. Loughlin has lost her contract with the Hallmark Channel, and her daughter Olivia Jade lost her collaboration with Sephora, Gordon Caplan, an attorney and co-chairman of Willkie Farr & Gallagher has taken a leave after charges were announced, according to the Hartford Courant.

The scandal is nothing new for the college students who don’t have rich parents to buy their way in to top-tier colleges. More like an old wound being reopened, it has brought confusion and hurt. How do we know our true limits if the people who are supposed to teach us are also the ones doing the controlling? Our hope for equal education has crumbled and we can only wish that this manifestation brings attention towards any other situations with similar backgrounds.

Thanks to Chef Justin Warnat, the Grand Canyon culinary classes recently made sausage from scratch, which had never been done before. First, we cut up pork shoulder into medium pieces and then seasoned it. Over the following two days Chef had it at his work and while he had it he put it into a meat grinder, which made the meat mushy. Then he brought it back to the class and the students put the ground-up pork into a sausage filler. We then filled cleaned-out hog intestines with the ground pork, creating the sausage. Every fourteen inches or so, we spun the edges tight, tied a knot to make it a circle, and then some students tied a string in the middle. Then Chef took it back to his work and smoked it until it was done. The next day he bought some to cook and put it into our omelettes.

How do you continue moving when everything is telling you to stop? It’s fairly simple-- you just do. It’s like having brand new shoes that wear out over time. They stop being comfortable and feel terrible whenever you take a step, but you know you need to make it to your destination anyway, so you keep walking. In 2012 President Obama announced DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, as a new piece for immigration policy, and so many young people like me with uncertain legal status in the country we know of as home, felt like we had brand-new shoes.It was thanks to President Obama’s executive action that we can now accomplish something for ourselves and for our descendants, too,without worrying that it will all be snatched away.

DACA was a dream come true. It may be a very widely-known policy, but there are many people in our community who don’t know the true effect it has on us. We want to learn, to explore, to live. I, along with many more, knew President Trump winning the election would be a ticking time bomb for us. Mr. Trump won the election in November, 2016, and by early March, 2018, more than 800,000 Dreamers’ futures became uncertain because they had suddenly become eligible for deportation.

Earlier this year President Trump forced a government shutdown over funding for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico that is projected to cost around five billion dollars. Yes, it’s understandable that he’s worried about drugs and weapons that can come and go so easily, but a wall isn’t going to do anything. “Think smarter, not harder.” People will dig; they’ll get on planes; maybe one would be desperate enough for a ladder. After all, the drug lord Joaquin Guzman, “El Chapo,” smuggled drugs through creative and inconspicuous ways for more than two decades.

Debate has been started and fueled throughout the whole shutdown. President Trump is using DACA as a failsafe. He proposed that if he receives donations towards his wall funding, Dreamers will receive protection for three years. Congress denied his proposal which led us to our longest shutdown in history, during which a lot of government workers lost two paychecks. It’s known that many people were expecting another shutdown, especially when it was declared a “temporary end,” until February 15, when Mr. Trump declared a national emergency instead of the expected shutdown. On February 25, the House voted to terminate Mr. Trump's national emergency. If the Senate also votes yes, it is expected that Mr. Trump will veto the bill.

A wall may help you feel safer, but you also have to remember there are still drugs in our country that aren’t coming from other places. Instead of spending the money on something that will only delay them, why not put it towards other things that could use the funding? Like the border security, which we can increase, and becoming more vigilant with security on air transportation. It’s not us against them or them against us, we just need to stop looking at the world as if its only color is black with splotches of white and grey.

We Got Game!

We began this year with a focus on building a safe learning community modeled on game play. Our focus on game play was intended to reinforce the importance having rules: a game of tag for example, is almost always a self-regulating activity, in that the players know the rules, and everyone follows the them or else one or more of the other players will call foul.

Throughout the coming school year, will continue to remind our students, and encourage you to remind your children, that rules are not just something dictated from above. They are the structure which enables our activities to be fun, productive, and, most importantly, safe.