Features

Town Hero Wins State Wrestling Championship

By Josh Bair

Ryan Larson joined 8 other wrestlers and became St. Croix Central’s ninth state champion in school history and the first state champion since Adam Delander in 2004.

After missing over half of the 2017-18 Wrestling season, Ryan Larson managed to fly through the State Tournament, notching a State Title in an intense 6-6 overtime match versus Prairie du Chien’s Stephen Ronnfeldt. The run began when Ryan obtained a record of 10-2 during the regular season before wrestling at Division Two Regionals at Saint Croix Central High School.

The Town Hero, also known as Ryan Larson, received a bye in the first round of Regionals. During the next round, he defeated Amery’s Oscar Brickel by fall in 1 minute and 26 seconds. Wrestling in the first place match, he beat Luck/Frederic/Grantsburg/Siren’s Dominic Carron also by fall in 2 minutes and 26 seconds.

Moving onto Sectionals, Ryan’s first match ended in a win over Ellsworth’s Logan Peterson in a 9-1 Major Decision. During his semifinal match, Ryan defeated Lucas Ingold in a 19-4 technical fall, propelling him into the first place match. Larson faced Ty Sanford of Prescott in a overtime match, with the outcome of Ryan winning in a 3-1 decision placing him at first place in the 195 pound weight class at Sectionals.

Starting out the State Tournament at the Kohl Center in Madison, Ryan wrestled his first match against Matt Hanke from Lomira. Ryan defeated Hanke by fall in 56 seconds. Wrestling in the Division 2 semifinal match, Ryan defeated Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau’s Bryce Burns by fall in 1 minute and 12 seconds, propelling Ryan into the State Championship match.

This match was the biggest of the Town Hero’s career, wrestling in a State Championship match. Ryan Larson faced Stephen Ronnfeldt of Prairie du Chien. Ronnfeldt, who was 41-9, and Larson, who was 19-2, started off the match not too aggressively. At the end of the first period, Ryan led 2-1. Ronnfeldt escaped at the beginning of the second period tying the match 2-2. Ronnfeldt then got Ryan back with a takedown and two backpoints making the match 6-2 in Ronnfeldt’s favor. Ryan put in work during the third period tying the match 6-6 and sending it into overtime. Ryan fought through a long overtime period lasting 1 minute and securing a takedown and a pin with 6 seconds to go in overtime, sealing his Division 2 State Title at 195 pounds.

New Grading Policy

By Trevor Germain

As many in the community know, recently the school has changed to SBG or standard based grading. This is a system that works on specific topics within a subject to try and help students understand functions better. It may take a topic such as algebra and grade the students based on their knowledge of multiplication of polynomials, addition of polynomials, and solving polynomials set equal to zero. This system can more easily show teachers what the students are not understanding and what they need to work more on. In theory it is a good system; however, it has had a mixed reaction between students and teachers and has been a large topic of discussion in classes and in the halls. I made a poll for anyone in the school to fill out in the library. The results are in the pie charts below

Poll out of 25 students

The students who took the poll had all heard of the new system (see pie chart 1) but it had negative feedback (see pie chart 2). One reason is because if a student gets below an 80% on one of their finals they have one day to make corrections. If their grade is still below an 80% they will have to attend summer school. What do you think of the new system?

Wordsmiths Coloring Your World

By Vanessa Denton

Success. It is something that most people strive towards and dedicate most of their lives to achieving. Listening to veterans and award winners give speeches about never giving up and accomplishing their goals can be enough to inspire some people to take action on their own dreams. However, some dreams people find very hard to achieve. For instance, getting a book published while you’re still in high school or getting your research findings on cancer published in two local journals. The stereotype that teens are more into drama than figuring out their future has taken over people’s minds like the plague. But even though it may be difficult, Deep Patel and Nikita Kondapalli have proven that it’s not impossible to achieve your dreams while you’re still in high school.

Deep Patel, a sixteen-year-old in his sophomore year of high school, was able to write and publish a business book called A Paperboy’s Fable while he was still in high school. Patel got the inspiration for his book from his father, who worked as a paperboy until age sixteen, only being able to manage minimum wage. Yet somehow he was able to scrape together enough money to purchase a dry cleaning business with both his brother and father, and it went on until they were able to buy a hotel. According to Deep, when his father told him about his experiences, Deep realized that his story was both inspirational and entertaining. He realized that a book that uses a paperboy as its central theme to be able to illustrate business points would be groundbreaking. And so, he began his process by googling it, reading about all the steps that came with writing and publishing a book. Reading about the statistics in which literary agents only accept 1 out of 500 manuscripts that are sent to them intimidated him, but he had nothing to lose, and he pushed forward. After developing his rough draft, Patel posted it to the book listing site Publishers Weekly, and the database gave him information for hundreds of literary agents. He called most of them, and eventually sealed a deal with Post Hill Press. When he was asked how he was able to achieve success at such a young age, he replied, “Your mindset is one of the most important parts of your business because what you think affects the action you take.” And when asked for advice for other aspiring others or entrepreneurs, “Start on something that matters, get to work on something you care about. Age is just a number. You’re never too young or old to write a book, start your own company, or even create global change. Be willing to take risks, learn from your mistakes, take action, and most importantly, keep hustling.”

Seventeen-year-old Nitia Kondapalli spent a month scouring a national medical database searching for links between the Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer survivors, curious to know the chances of developing cancer five years after they had beat the disease. She worked in a team with three other high school students, and they submitted their findings to the American Society of Hematology, or ASH, for short. They were invited to unveil their findings at the ASH conference, where Kondapalli reported that other researchers and doctors were amazed by their findings and requested that the team continue researching to expand their findings. Her findings were soon published in two medical journals, one in the United States and the other in Japan. Kondapalli has received the opportunity to attend the University of Texas Austin because of her findings, and even though achieving a scholarship wasn’t her main goal, she was still able to earn success for researching about something she’s passionate about.

As seen, these teen writers were able to not only prove the stereotype wrong, but they were also able to get a steady start on their career and accomplish their goals. It can be seen as a final push to many people, including myself, to start getting to work on your own goals and dreams. Reading and gathering information on these two teens standing out from the rest helps inspire me to share some of my own writing with the entire Hammond community. And even if I do not achieve any success or fame for my work, as there are millions of other astounding authors out there, at least I would have gotten the chance to share my writing with those who have never read it before. Here is a sample of my own writing, from a novel I have been working on for multiple months called Elafi and Lykos. I too hope to get published one day and share my work for the enjoyment of all. If you enjoy this sample and would like to read the full story, you can contact me at vdenton21@student.scc.k12.wi.us.

There is no warning that comes with getting cursed. One does not simply receive a pigeon post warning them of their inevitable fate or find a black cat crossing your path every time you go outside. That’s just how it has always been; curses are kept secretly until curiosity gets the best of you. At least, that was the case for me.

Ever since I can remember, life has always been handed to me on a silver platter. Enough pounds to buy myself a new kingdom, an army of servants that’ll come running at just the flick of a wrist, and the freedom to wander the many plains of our land. But I was forbidden to cross the stone wall that separated the Patelas from the Arjuns. According to our history, one of my ancestors ruthlessly murdered one of the Arjuns, driving the mother of the victim into a dark pit of revenge. It was rumored that she had practiced black magic and had cast a curse upon the Patela’s first daughter, but no one could muster up the courage to test the theory, so they covered it up with a thick blanket and pretended like it didn’t exist.

Many years passed, and soon everyone forgot about the witch’s threats, as no one had heard from her in ages. Some of our villagers had reported sightings of her at the edge of the Forgotten Forest, scooping up some of the sparkling river water into painted jugs and carrying it back into the trees before anyone could stop her. Wanted posters were hung and guards swept through the forest, but their attempts prevailed, nothing was found. Everyone lived in silent anticipation until I grew old enough to understand the hardship of living under the threats of the witch. A sense of her presence forever hung in the atmosphere, constantly giving all the harmless villagers the feeling that someone was watching them while they went about their day-to-day activities. I was shocked when I heard about the threats, though not phased. Growing up under the protection of the soldiers had made me positive that no one would ever be able to raise a finger at me unless they had a death wish. Being the only daughter of King Aditya Patel and Queen Amulya Patel caused a lot of over-protectiveness on their behalf. I wasn’t allowed to associate with anyone who wasn’t from our bloodline, as the fear of something terrible happening to me was always glued to the back of their mind. But I was born with a stubborn mindset, sneaking out through the back doors in the afternoons when the staff was distracted, and the guards weren’t watching.

My favorite place to go to escape from my life as a princess was deep in the weeping willows of the Forgotten Forest. When our ancestors had built the wall around our kingdom, there was a small section of it that they had left open that lead into the Forgotten Forest and its neighboring kingdoms. Not many people were even aware of its existence, as they had gotten used to living life in a dome, closed off from the rest of the world. But if you ventured far enough through the damp soil and the dancing tree leaves, you could make it to the edge of the kingdom of the Arjuns. I became obsessed with climbing up the old limbs of an elderly apple tree and camouflaging myself among the leaves so I could watch the people of the Arjun kingdom go about their business. I had been kept inside the Patel walls for so long that anything other than the villagers regular routine was as new to me as a bird flying north for the winter.

Merchants attempting to sell the last bits of merchandise before taxes were collected, the poor waving rusted mugs at the higher ranked, begging for money. It all seemed so new to me, like a foreign language. The way they moved when they walked, the flow of the ladies skirts, the way the men shone their shoes. But even though there were millions of people I could have chosen to obsess over, there was one certain boy that stuck out from the rest of the crowd. He was the son of the King and Queen of Arjun, Lykos Arjun. He was let outside for most of the day, but he was always followed around by two soldiers dressed in armor, like mine. He had shiny, light brown hair, and a skin shade that I had never seen before set off with a mysterious pair of eyes; one a dazzling jade, and the other a maple brown. Being as handsome as he was at such a young age, it was no wonder he was a descendant of royalty. As for me, Elafi Patel, I was the exact opposite with plain fawn colored hair and crystal blue eyes, nothing special. But for some reason, every time he would come outside, I would always pay the most attention to him until the sun began to set and I would be forced to head home. Giving anything to just talk to him, I knew better than to venture any further than the tree limbs into Arjun territory.

But little did I know that falling for Lykos would be what tied my fate together, only for the worst.

Sources:

1 Fox, MeiMei. “How a High School Student Wrote and Published a Book at Age 16.” HuffPost, Dec 06, 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/meimei-fox/how-a-high-school-student_b_9937648.html.

2 Barnett, Gigi. “High school cancer researcher, published in two journals, presents findings.” Kxan. Dec 15, 2017, http://www.kxan.com/news/education/high-school-cancer-researcher-published-in-two-journals-presents-findings_20180312075024390/1031449289.

Baldwin, WI Boasts One of the Best Riding Facilities in St. Croix County

By Kayci Ellefson

Pine Lake Pastures is one of the best riding facilities in St. Croix County. Cheri Morton, owner and head trainer, strives to create a family-oriented and friendly atmosphere where everyone can feel welcomed. This small-town barn has an amazing lake view (where riders and horses can go swimming in the summer!) along with numerous large pastures for our herd to roam in. We have two large outdoor arenas, two indoor arenas, and trails that have some Cross Country jumps.

We offer beginner lessons to ages as young as three to advanced lessons that work on teaching riders how to train green - or untrained - horses. Whether you are a new rider, dreaming of your own horse or trying something new, Pine Lake Pastures has something for you. Riders can learn anything they want, whether they only want a few lessons or want to start their equine career. PLP riders do not have to be competitive and do not need to want to show, all you need is to be willing to work hard and learn.

PLP focuses on mainly Hunter/Jumper, along with some Dressage and Gymkhana. Year-round lessons are offered multiple times a day every day of the week by Cheri and numerous Junior Trainers. Lessons are at an affordable price and range from privates to groups of six and we can help you find a lesson group that works best for you. We have the best horses around that are very patient with all riders and can help move a rider’s capability up very quickly. Our horses excel in helping riders learn the frustrating and hard task of riding without the stress of an unpredictable horse. Cheri is also very willing to work with students on finding their perfect horse and perfect lesson group.

Many riders show in shows throughout the year and also show in the St. Croix County Fair in July. We attend shows that range in competition from schooling shows to A-rated shows, and thanks to the amazing training our riders receive, we always bring home ribbons. In the summer, multiple riding camps are offered during the warm weather. Camps, depending on the level, have different lessons throughout the day that focus on specific tasks that span from the basics of jumping to trail classes. Camps are super beneficial to riders, whether you attend just the camps or are a student at PLP. Our camps go into great detail about riding and the basics of training that are very beneficial to riders who are exploring their future horse careers.

Training and boarding is also a major part of PLP. Cheri and Junior Trainers are able to offer various training options for horses, whether they need a refresher course or have no training at all. Horses in training receive lots of on the ground training as well as numerous capable riders getting the horses used to the feel of different riders. The PLP training method is safe for both horses and riders involved. Horses receive the best training and care while at PLP. Along with training, we also offer boarding. Students can board their horse here at a very affordable rate that you cannot find anywhere else. If you are attending a summer camp, you are more than welcome to bring your horse to camp as well!

If you have any questions at all or would like more information about Pine Lake Pastures, please contact Cheri Morton with the contact information below.

Contact Information

Address: 1183 205th St, Baldwin, WI 54002

Website: http://pinelakepastures.com

Cheri Morton’s Phone #: (651)-245-6900