Yearbook 2017-2018
I wrote the closing copy for the yearbook this year. I wanted the copy to reflect what happened this school year and to tie into the photos that on the pages. I also wrote the captions for all of the photos used in the closing spreads.
Caption: SCARED SILLY. Knights of the Round Table, Cameron Massey, 11, Matthew Snyder, 11 and Brady McDevitt, 12 hide behind King Arthur, Matthew Lewis, 12 and his loyal assistant, Susannah Walters, 10 during the fall production of Monty Python’s Spamalot. Photo by Andrea Secchi. REMOTE LOCATION. Moving the mat to the library for the day, the robotics team shows off their robots during Hour of Code. Photo by Wallace Milner. RAPPING UP THE WEEK. Participating in the Karaoke competition for Mr. and Mrs. West Linn, Maxwell Becker, 12 sings with his partner William Glausi, 12. Photo by Andrea Secchi. DUNK ON ‘EM. During warm ups before the Tualatin game, Ahmir McGee, 12 practices his shot. Photo by Andrea Secchi. FULL FOCUS. Staring down his opponent, Brett Bell, 12 anticipates his opponents next move. Photo by Faith Varga.
Caption: TUFF COMPETITION. Hitting the ball over the net in the annual Powder Tuff volleyball tournament, Jacob Howell, 12 scores a point for his team as Joseph Campbell, 12 and Ethan Long, 11 get ready for the return. Photo by Emily Martin. DANCING THE NIGHT AWAY. Enjoying Winter Ball, juniors Kaitlyn Barbee, George Ankeney and Sarah Martin are all smiles while dancing along to the music. Photo by Ashley Newbore. SHRUGGING IT OFF. During the Mr. and Mrs. West Linn competition, Claire Newrones, 12 animates her expressions during the group dance. Photo by Andrea Secchi. A HEAD ABOVE THE REST. Using her height as an advantage, Aaronette Vonleh, 9 shoots and makes 2 points for her team. Photo by Faith Varga. EMPTY NEST. Walking around Sauvie Island with the AP Environmental Science class, James Wynne, 12 holds an empty birds nest for the rest of his group to see. Photo by Sarah Heiden.
Closing Copy
We filled this year.
Filled the halls with neil diamond and pinned our opponents to the mat.
We qualified for all state choir and won May Court King and Queen.
We explored future career options, created robots and pushed ourselves to master the perfect free throw.
We welcomed a world full of new opportunities.
We did zumba, put on talent shows and became permaculture experts.
We cooked for ourselves and dressed up in crazy costumes. Leadership and compassion overflowed as we sold donuts
and donated canned food.
and you filled in the details.
WLHSnow 2017-2018
Saving the Bees – April 25, 2018
Saving the Bees – CREST Farms offers Bee Keeping Class to High School Students
Lifting the roof off of the hive, the Crest Beekeeping class lets the bees calm down before pulling out one of the sleeves to find the Queen.
In search for the Queen bee, Swensen holds the hive cap as teacher Geoff Bingham and a Crest instructor inform the class on what the function of the Queen is in the hive.
After finding the Queen, Swensen and Shaaban place the sleeve of bees back into the hive. The class learned that if the Queen dies, the rest of the colony will create a cocoon-like structure to put her in, after finding one of those structures in an old hive.
Opening an empty hive, the beekeeping class scrapes off some of last years honey and prepares the hive for a new colony of bees.
Swenson and Martin finish the inspection of the first hive, putting the sleeve back into the hive for their next class. “Honey bees have been disappearing, so this class is really important to raise awareness and to save the bees,” Martin said.
Yearbook 2016-2017
With all the league competitions and clinics they attend, band students are familiar with travel. Though they sometimes go to Portland concert halls and college campuses, their most frequent travel excursion is no farther than to the football field.
The pep band plays the national anthem to kick off every football game, then sticks around to play the fight song and other fun snippits to keep the crowd cheering.
“I love to play instruments in general,” Sheridan Hardy, 11 said. “The games themselves are exciting, so it makes playing that much more fun.”
Pep band accompanies the cheerleaders, as well as mimicking the athletes’ motions, such as playing drum fills as athletes catch the ball. One of the crowd favorites is the fight song, but the crowd gets involved nad sings along with almost all the pieces the band plays.
“Mr. Egan [band teacher] will pick some songs, but sometimes kids will ask him to play certain songs.” Hardy explains. The band members have favorite songs to play, such as Who Are You and Frakenstein.
“It’s very fast, then slow, the fast again,” Grace Emhoff, 9 said about playing during games. “It’s fun to sit with other people and visit and still play every once in a while.” All of the band classes combine into pep-band to play at the games.
Coed soccer is a community of boys and girls that play soccer on the weekends.
“It’s relaxed, but it’s fun to play against competitive people.” Jaden Goldschmidt, 11 said.
The team consists of a mix of genders, both competitive and non-competitive, as well as players who only participate in Coed and players that play soccer all year long.
“It’s all about having fun and getting to know and play with people who share your same passion,” said Erin Group, 11. Overall, Coed is a fun way to play soccer, and to have a good time doing it, without having all of the pre-game stress and anxiety.
“It’s kind of stressful because I now have to worry about my performance on multiple teams” said Lexie Schachter, 9, who plays on two soccer teams outside of Coed.
“It’s a great feeling to feel like you’ve accomplished something, and that’s exactly how I feel when I score a goal. If I can do that more now that I’m playing on multiple teams, then I will.” The multiple West Linn Coed teams have had a great season and have grown closer and stronger in general.
WLHSnow 2015-2016
Son of Saul Movie Review – February 29, 2016
“Son of Saul” leaves audiences imprisoned with sympathy for Holocaust survivors.
The new movie, “Son of Saul,” released on Dec. 18 of last year, took the world by storm, making over 3.3 million dollars the opening week. The Hungarian film won for the best foreign film at the Academy Awards and has left a lasting impression on both the viewers and the actors themselves.
Saul Ausländer, played by Géza Röhrig, a prisoner at Auschwitz, struggles to accept the work he’s doing in the camp. While clearing bodies, he takes the body of a young boy to give him a proper burial, after becoming convinced the boy is his son.
Recordly nominated for awards in 2016, “Son of Saul” won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.
Röhrig is a Holocaust victim and is one of the best actors I’ve seen. Röhrig, along with the rest of the cast, displayed palpable emotion in their interactions and decisions they made in the camp. Sándor Zsótér, who played Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, showed great sympathy as well, even though he had short screen time, performing the autopsies of the special cases that survived the gas chambers.
The unique aspect of “Son of Saul” comes from the camera angles. Most of the movie shows footage from right up next to Saul, showing what his world looks like first hand.
Éva Zabezsinszkij, the casting director, aimed to hire actors that spoke their characters specific language to minimize complications with pronunciations, which was evident in the confidence of the cast.
The overall movie showed that Saul and most of the men didn’t agree with one another. The characters knew that to survive the camp, they should help each other.
Audiences that enjoy learning about the Holocaust would appreciate this film. Someone who doesn’t understand the Holocaust, or who can’t handle graphic scenes well would not enjoy it. If you haven’t seen “Schindler’s List,” a very graphic Holocaust movie, I recommend seeing it if you’re unsure about this film. Both films show a similar amount of graphic content.
“Son of Saul” is rated R for disturbing violent content and some graphic nudity. Rotten Tomatoes gave an 86% enjoyment rate, and the movie has an average 8.7/10 rating.
I give this movie a B. I really enjoyed the intensity of the death camp scenes, and how the struggles, worries and the focus of the camp workers were portrayed. Knowing a lot about the Holocaust, I felt the movie really captured the honest struggles of the prisoners.
You can see “Son of Saul” February 19-25 at 4:15 pm at Cinema 21 in Portland. It is available for pre-order on Amazon.
Emily Rebekah Martin 