VA Wildfires
By: Ashlyn Bibb' Johnson
On Sunday, Oct 9, 2023, officials got a call about a wildfire located on Parrott Mountain in Pulaski VA. The life of the fire began near Parrott River road, which is on the northeastern side of Pulaski County. The fire spread rapidly through the heavily wooded area. Luckily, there were no evacuations or homes destroyed due to the fire being located on the wooded mountain.
The fire burned almost 500 acres stretching from Parrott River Road, into Dry Branch Road across from Big Walker Mountain into Giles County. Crews were working hard that Wednesday to try and contain the fire, but the winds made it difficult to fight. Officials mentioned the fire being started by someone burning brush that took eyes off the fire as they went to do something inside their house. When they came back out the fire had spread. Currently, the fire is no longer burning.
In Remembrance of Serenity Hawley
By: Adyson Smith
From the ages of ten to thirteen, I did competitive gymnastics with Serenity. To know Serenity was to experience a different type of joy. I would dread going to practice sometimes but she would make it more enjoyable. I remember that she had a diet coke every single practice. Even if the coaches would yell at her and tell her that she needed to drink water, she would always have a backup diet coke in her bag. We both shared our least favorite event, which was floor. Alisha, our coach, would always tell us that we needed to be more ¨outgoing¨ with our floor routines, which we didn´t want to look ¨weird.¨ I remember that Serenity was so good at floor and she would carry her personality through her floor routine. Even if you showed up to practice not wanting to be there, you would leave with a smile on your face after talking to her. She made everything enjoyable and you never had to doubt yourself when around her. She was truly an amazing person and brought joy with her everywhere she went. Serenity was the girl to get me through all the rough practices and the hour torture of conditioning. She would make me laugh even when I was in the mood to cry. We would always be the ones to complain about having to put our hair up in a bun the practice before a meet, we would always end up getting our way. We both stopped doing gymnastics the same year. After a year of not doing gymnastics, I remember talking to her and we both regretted it. You never know how short your time with someone you care about can be, I wish I did gymnastics with her for longer.
By: Kira Crockett
School in itself can be a very controversial topic. Some people enjoy school, some don't, some feel safe in school, some don't. Some people do their homework, some don't, some make good grades, some don't. There are many more examples of why school can be a controversial topic. As the world has evolved the past few years so has technology. With that came a rise in social media use. Since the world has become more accepting of everyone's perspectives, individuals have become more confident on what they post on social media. The point being many people make posts about school. Whether these posts are memes, fights, complaints, good, or bad things, they are all out there somewhere on the internet. It is not at all complicated or hard to find things about school whether it's good or bad on the internet.
One thing that these posts about school have in common is that they paint it out to seem miserable. To explain further, a lot of people make videos about how they dread going to school, play sick to get out of school, bullying, drama, teachers, homework, stress, and so much more all fit in the part. When I started digging deeper, I found more and more videos about how school was negatively affecting kids' mental health. How could this be? Schools care about their students' mental health… right? Kids are struggling in school. As the years go by the more behind and less interested in school kids are getting. Teachers are struggling to keep kids motivated and actually do work. A pure example is homework. There are always those teachers who give you homework, then you come back the next day and the teacher asks everyone who did their homework to raise their hand. At this point we are all too old to be lying about things like this. The teacher looks around and will see that a couple hands might be raised, less than half the class actually complete their homework? I have seen this example many times in my own school. Not just in one class but multiple classes with multiple different people yet it's the same routine.
How could something as simple as homework be causing students' mental health to get worse? Well, some students don't do their work because they don't have time, some don't do it because they just simply can't, and some don't do it because they don't want to. Any of these however can cause mental health to get worse. If a student has responsibilities outside of school like sports, work, or other activities then homework can be very hard to get done. Usually if they do get it done then they are up all night trying to get it done, then they lose sleep which definitely plays a part in mental health. If they are always stressed about having homework and not being able to do it then they will have a lot of anxiety and worries, which causes problems within mental health as well. Either way it goes, homework usually causes students stress and a decline in their mental health. Another example is when students have anxiety or a fear of speaking in front of a lot of people. There are some teachers who will make students get up and talk in front of the class or make them present stuff in front of people. Some might not see an issue in this but personally I do. I have seen individuals have panic attacks because of these actions, those who want to present should be able to present and those who don't want to, should not be forced to do so.
Moral of the story is that school is becoming more and more of a seemingly bad and high-risk place for students. Which leaves us with the question what we can do to improve this situation. I don't honestly know, but I believe there is always a place to start. If we start paying more attention to students, their emotions, and pick up signs if they are in distress, we can better understand each other. If we all better see each other, we can become more comfortable and are more prone to finish work and be confident sharing or presenting things. If teachers always try to come off as intimidating it doesn't help anyone's situation. If they are patient and kind, it always works out better in the end for everyone. In conclusion I believe that to help school be a better and more comfortable place for students, we all need to simply be kind and pay close attention.
By: Alyson Gillenwater
We at Auburn High school were ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. To kick off our school break, we decided to ask around about what people's favorite thanksgiving dish was. We had some of the basic Thanksgiving foods and also some unique ones! Some people liked deviled eggs, mac and cheese in the crockpot, turkey, green beans, sweet potato, mash potatoes, pumpkin pie, hash brown casserole, cranberry salad, ham, cherry pie, cornbread casserole, bacon, bobby sandwich, stuffing, turkey dark meat, and crockpot apples. We got good replies from everyone. Something that we have learned is that most people like different types of Thanksgiving food and each family has different types of foods for Thanksgiving. These responses gave off many different types of outlooks on Thanksgiving even though some people make Turkey, Stuffing, ect. Most people only like certain things when it comes to Thanksgiving food. It was interesting learning about all the different types of foods that families have for Thanksgiving.
By: Maya Spero
t has come to my attention that people have been getting outed lately, and I don't think it’s okay. Here is why I feel this way.
I don’t think it’s ever okay to out a person who is a part of the LGBTQIA+ community unless they are choosing to come out themselves. People in that community deal with enough hatred and abuse as is, why would you make it easier for people to do that? Why would you tell a secret that wasn’t yours to tell? Why and how could you do such a despicable thing to someone just because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
According to the ACLU “It’s against the law for school officials to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents or other school staff, even if the student is open about their sexual orientation or gender identity with friends at school. School officials may think they’re doing the right thing, but revealing a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to their parents not only violates the student’s privacy rights, but can open an LGBT child to hostility, rejection, and even violence from their parents.”. The American Civil Liberties Union agrees that outing is wrong.
According to federal legislation on hate crimes, including the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which allows for the prosecution of crimes against people based on their sexual orientation. Although protection in each state is different, all states uphold the right to be free from discrimination and when people do this, it could cause detrimental consequences.
At this very moment in fact, there are people at this school who have been outed without their consent. Having interviewed them, and heard of the groundings and arguments that they received when their parents found out that they were non-conforminng to their gender/sexuality. That was when I knew I had to get to the heart of the problem. That’s when I knew I had to speak out. It’s not just these small experiences like arguments with your parents because they don’t agree with your lifestyle or classmates. It’s much bigger than that.
I know we might not all agree on what rights people of nontraditional sexual orientations deserve but I know that they deserve equality, the same as all of us want. Every single day, someone dies because of their sexuality. Every single day, a gay or trans person tries to end their life because of all that they face. Not to mention, people who identify as trans gender have significantly higher suicide and suicide attempts than the rest of the population. It is truly heartbreaking what people must go through all because of who they love and what they identify as.
Outing someone can strain relationships both at school and at home. Friends can sometimes be slow to come around, additionally without warning, family dynamics can be thrown into chaos. People should be able to come out on their own time. In summary, please don’t out someone. You could ruin their life and possibly be the cause of a death.
We are better than this, and we know it.
By: Lauren Garnand
he Powder Puff Game was very in lighting, those ladies left everything out on that field. According to the athletes there was some real animosity out on the field. For flag football there were some hard hits, but some were definitely harder than others. In the end the Senior Class team ended up winning over the Junior Class team. I enjoyed watching the smack talk between the two teams. One thing is for sure those ladies have the attitude for football. Stacy Lewis being one of many key players for the Senior Team as well as Katie Light. For the junior team Johana made several excellent plays. So, congratulations to the senior team.
THE BEATLES
By Rylee Lyons
On November 2nd, 2023, The Beatles released their new, and last ever, single, Now and Then. The track was originally written in BLAH, but was never released. That is not the only factor that makes the track an epitome of combining old with new, though. First, the song was released along with a remix of the band’s 1962 hit, Love Me Do, their first single to be released. While Now and Then has been dubbed “the last Beatles song,” releasing the two together makes them symbolic “bookends” for the band’s discography. The song was written by John Lennon in 1977, but was stored away as a demo, for all of its existence, until now. It was finally completed by the two living members of the band, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. With this, all four members of the band were included in the track in some way. Not only did Lennon write the track, but AI generated audio restoration demos of John Lennon’s voice, extracted from the original demo of the song and commissioned by Peter Jackson were featured in the track along with overdubs and restored recordings from George Harrison’s guitar instrumentals from abandoned sessions. The song is one of the band’s many ballads, but the composition of it is much different than most of their older songs. Despite the differences, the song was mostly received extremely well, debuting at number 3 on the UK singles chart, and only taking a week to shoot to number 1, a monumental moment for a band that has not released new music since 1995. But even though the Beatles are one of the most beloved bands globally, they are also one of the most criticized, and that did not stop due to the fact that the band is not all together. Some critics were disappointed in the differences in the song’s production and quality compared to older songs due to the virtual absence of the 2 band members, saying the song felt less like a Beatles song and more like a “Beatles tribute.” But most said they had comments on the song calling it beautiful, tear-jerking, and a “snapshot of the Beatles’ strengths.” But even aside from opinions on the instrumentals, lyrics, and approach to releasing the track, it is well agreed upon that the song is monumental in showing that the Beatles’ legacy proves itself relevant, no matter what decade. To quote John Pareles of the New York Times; “Its existence matters more than its quality.” And even better, to quote McCartney, “It's a new Beatles song, shut up!”