News

By Angela Gin

From being hung up on the walls to being scribbled on whiteboards to being performed on stage, student art at Lincoln is everywhere . But, some students take it to the next level. 

Last year, the school administration commissioned Student artist Sophia Truong to paint a mural on the wall of the hallway between the first floor and the New Building. While the connecting hallway may seem to be a random placement for a mural, Principal Sharimar Balisi specifically requested that Truong paint it there because it was where a previous mural was located. 

Several years back, in 2018, Balisi had commissioned students caught tagging the school to paint a street-art inspired mural where the new mural will be located. 

“It’s street art; it’s graffiti. It’s not meant to be permanent,” Truong says. 

The new mural is centered around the topic of mental health and uplifting the student body, particularly the upperclassmen because of how stressed they are due to college applications and AP classes. Truong dedicated the mural to her friend who previously struggled heavily with mental health. 

The center depicts three people in the water: one of them is near the surface, pulling the second one with them. The second person is reaching out to the third person, trying to pull them to the surface too. Truong says the illustration is supposed to send the message that we should uplift each other.

Surrounding these people are happy little blobs, or “wellness blobs,” as coined by Tam, that are pushing them to the surface.

Painted in the margins are golden poppies, plants native to California, and a seagull with a piece of pizza in its mouth as symbols of California and San Francisco. And arching over everything else is a sunset as a nod to the Sunset neighborhood. 

“This whole section was designed to invoke the feelings of Lincoln and the Sunset, without more mustangs and horses,” Truong says.

Truong picked seniors Sophie Wall, Cheri Tam, Sophia Chen, and junior Luke Hu to contribute to the mural. And because almost everyone working on the mural is a senior, Truong hopes to finish the mural before graduation. She has also partnered with Paolo Salazar, Lincoln’s art and architecture teacher, for almost two years. 

Prior to teaching at Lincoln, Salazar has worked on larger scale pieces like this. He had been a professional artist for 15 years. However, for Chen and Wall, this is their first time working on such a large scale art project that impacts their community so much. 

“I’m really proud of this and really honored. And leaving this as a parting gift for the school is really nice,” Chen says.

Wall says, “I’m really glad to be a part of it. It feels really good to see my art up on a permanent wall. And other people are actually gonna be seeing it.” 

Keeping in the theme of the mural, Truong hopes to uplift and inspire other aspiring artists. 

“My advice really is, take risks. Take some shots, put yourself out there. It may sound scary and crazy and impossible, but nothing’s really impossible.”

By Karina Lam

The Cherry Blossom Festival started after the war between Japan and the U.S. ended. Japan sent a cherry blossom tree to Washington D.C. to signify friendships. San Francisco has already had a tie with  Japan. The festival is to celebrate the welcoming of spring and to celebrate Japanese culture. 

The festival consisted of different booths that were selling food, toys, etc. Other than people being different types of performances happening during the festival. Students from Lincoln High School volunteered at the festival as well. Going to the festival was a nightmare; trying to find parking was daunting. The number of people there was enormous; people were walking, taking the bus, and not to mention the amount of cars that were there. 

Emily Hypes, a junior at Lincoln High School,  went to the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival and was delighted by what the festival had to offer. 

“I liked how many people showed up to support the communities, and they had a bunch of different booths, like, selling food to support the community,” added Hypes. 

Hypes also stated that she used to be in one of those booths that sold food and when she visited the booth again, she said, “It was fun buying from it instead of working in it for once.” 

“Japantown was just so packed for those two weekends. It was kind of overwhelming, but overall I liked it, it was a really fun experience, and it was a sunny day,” said Hypes.

It was so packed that Hypes had spent two hours walking around.

Hypes also mentioned, “We would walk around and then get stuck and then there would be a stoplight, where we had to wait a while.”

When I arrived at p.m., the festival had already begun. The first thing I saw was a Hello Kitty character named My Melody in a car blasting a song called “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan. Walking forward a bit more, I saw a van that consisted of a lot of people waving , while the exterior of the van was promoting the winter olympics that would be taking place in February of 2026. 

Rosa Park Elementary School is located close to Japantown and would raise funds from the festival by using their school as a parking lot and selling a spot for $35. All the areas for parking were full, and it was dreadful to find. Some people were lucky enough to just turn and find a parking spot. Sadly, I was not one of the few lucky people that were able to take a turn and get a parking spot right away. 

A lot of high school students were volunteering at different booths that were placed all around the festival. 

“It was fun hanging out with friends. Even though we were there for a really long time, it didn’t really feel like a long time,” said Hypes.

By Dalton Brown

Every spring, UC Berkeley hosts a bioengineering competition for high schoolers across the world. Students are challenged with identifying a problem in health or biology, and then they work in groups of four or five and receive guidance from bioengineering mentors to design a bioengineered solution in seven weeks. At the end of the weeks, each team will present a slideshow and poster detailing their proposed solution and analysis. 

This year, Lincoln entered into the competition for the first time and went against 65 other schools. Lincoln's team consists of Haley Yan, Khoi Nguyen, Kim Tran, and Joanna Ma, with two mentors named Vivian Chung and Vienna Huang, seniors from UC Berkeley that were studying bioengineering. However, before they could enter, they asked Teacher Suh, Lincoln's Biotechnology teacher, to be their faculty sponsor to approve Lincoln joining the competition. First off, the team decided on their problem to solve, while the majority of the group suggested health-related problems, Nguyen pitched a solution to a bioengineering problem, landmines.

Nguyen argued that landmines have been carelessly placed around the world and even more are deployed today, decades after conflicts end these mines are still active, and harm those with no part in the conflict at all. He also made the case that current solutions in dealing with landmines are inadequate, making this a very pressing issue to be addressed. After identifying their problem, the team researched multiple case studies and scientific papers. One of the more notable organizations is called APOPO, which trains rats to smell and detect explosives. Another was called Mine Kafon, a company that uses drones to map areas for mines, detect the mines, and then remotely detonate them. 

After researching, the team concluded that removing mines from the ground would be too hard, and opted to deactivate them instead. Eventually, the team came up with a landmine that deteriorates over time. The dirt surrounding the mine will deteriorate a bag, revealing fungi that deactivates the explosives. 

When it came to presenting their problem and solution, all teams had to submit a slideshow and a scientific poster. These were judged separately, first students had 10 minutes to present a slideshow presentation in an auditorium. This slideshow went into depth explaining their problem, the science behind their solution, how the solution works, research they conducted, and why the solution is viable to the world. Secondly, teams stood in a massive room with scientific posters while judges walked around the area. Each team had two minutes to pitch their problem and solution to the judges, as if they were trying to sell the product.

Lincoln’s team ended up winning second place in bioengineering, losing to Harker high school, a private school. The school's yearly tuition is $65,000 and runs from kindergarten to senior year of high school. Lincoln won several hundred dollars worth of lab equipment as a reward, which included glassware, sterile plates, treatments and more. Suh says that the equipment proved useful to ninth grade students year-round, as well as in his biotech class.

One of the challenges Lincoln’s team faced was figuring out how to solve a problem without a definite answer. Oftentimes, when students in school are presented with a problem, teachers will expect a certain answer. However Berkeley’s competition challenged the students to continue working through dead ends, until they found a solution they found worthy.

“If you are discovering something new, you have to make the tools to figure out the answers. And no one’s gonna tell you if you are measuring it right.” says Suh.

Another of the challenges Lincoln's team faced early on was working as a team. In a typical group project, one team member will have a plethora of ideas which may be adequate in k-12 education, but college-level work necessitates a different approach. 

“The best work we do needs to integrate multiple ideas,” says Suh. 

Part of the challenge Lincoln’s team faced early on was that not all ideas are good ideas, and just because someone said it first, doesn’t mean it is right. Suh eventually met with the team to confront their challenge, 

“They took it beautifully, and within half an hour, they got back together, and were able to put something out that won second place in a multi-school competition,” says Suh. 

By  Joseph Isaguirre Portillo

Philip Ferringo has been coaching the boys varsity football team since 2002. Recently, P.E. teacher Ferringo decided to step down as coach due to health concerns. 

Ferringo comments, “I think I was gonna be thinking about doing it next year, but I had some health concerns that I needed to get fixed and I kind of weighed out all the time I spent doing this, and I thought it was time for a change.”

Before Ferringo was the head coach of the varsity football team here at Lincoln, he was an assistant coach for several other high schools such as Mission, Sacred Heart Cathedral, and Archbishop Riordan . Additionally, he coached at the City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University.

In 2002, Ferringo took over as head coach at Lincoln. 

Throughout his time on the varsity team, he has accomplished many feats. 

“We’ve won [the] state championship three times. We’ve been [to the] NorCal championships five times. We lost two of those, but we’ve won ten turkey days, and we’ve been in the playoffs 15 times” said Ferringo. 

Michael Washington, junior and running back/safety for the varsity football team, comments, “He’s very disciplined, hardworking, makes sure everybody is on task, does their job and makes sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.” 

Troy Ieremia, junior and Defensive-liner/Offensive-liner for the varsity football team, also comments, “He’s very accountable, he holds everyone accountable on working hard just like him and teaching us all he knows.”

Ferringo’s three keys to success are Dedication, Discipline, and Desire. His methods for coaching the boys varsity football team are very old-school. When most coaches would tell their team to pass the ball, he would confidently tell the team to run the football down the field. His mentality led to the success of his career and for the team. 

“He’s a winning guy, he likes to win, but even when we lose, it's always about how we’re gonna win the next game and what we’re gonna do to win the next game,” said Washington.

Ferringo strives to bring the best out of his team, making sure that everyone is pushing themselves past their limits.

“He always talks about working harder and fix our wrongs,” said Ieremia

Ferringo makes quite an impact on the football team with Washington stating, “He’s the heart and soul of the Lincoln Mustang… he’s been here for a while, winning seasons…”

Ieremia comments, “He’s the reason the Lincoln Mustangs football team is what it is now, he built it from the ground up.”

The next head coach is currently unknown at this time. 

Washington comments, “It’s all about how the players wanna work and how they’re going to achieve their goals in winning…his presence is still gonna bring a lot of energy to the field and how the players work.”

Ferringo also teaches P.E. and weightlifting here at Lincoln and is head of the P.E department. 

Since he won’t be coaching next year, he still encourages many students to take his class.“...I wanted to say, hopefully everybody comes and takes my class. It’s fun, you know,” Ferringo said.