By: Paige Clemmer
The first time I walked through the doors of Land O’
Lakes High School as a transfer student I was amazed by the amount of
opportunity it held. “Gator Ranch” took
my breath away with its fields of cows, goats, and hogs. A lake adorned with
little yellow butterflies and cattails. A garden stretching behind the barn
laid all agriculture had to offer at my feet.
And the culinary program with it’s own garden and state of the art
equipment at your finger-tips amazed me. I came from a school
with very little compared to what is offered here at LOLHS. Most classrooms lacked the proper amount of
desks, air conditioning, and sometimes had boards for where there should have
been windows. There was a lack of teachers and the one’s who were there didn’t
have the proper materials to teach students.
This ragged school lacked a lot but was loved by students and staff. Everyone helped each other for the greater
good. So, I ask you Land O’ Lakes
with so much to have pride in, where is it? Chests should swell when you walk
through the doors of LOLHS. This school literally gives you the world at your
feet, opportunities only some are so lucky to have. Gators… you’re the lucky
ones! Take a big step back and look at
the big picture. The big, beautiful, opportunity filled picture of Land O’
Lakes High School. It’s time Gators, time
to have pride in who you are!
Lack of Pride In Spirit Week
By: Grant
Pawlak
Spirit Week is one of the few times in high school where you are
truly allowed to express yourself through the avenues provided by the school.
However, it would seem to some that Spirit Week is an underwhelming experience
as a whole.
From the first day of wearing pajamas, to dressing up and painting
your face to show school spirit, many students don’t participate in Spirit
Week activities. Instead, they treat the special occasion as just another
mundane week in their lives as students.
While Spirit Week is not mandatory for all students, the lack of
participation has the potential to bring the entire school down. “It would be
interesting to have activities involved with the theme of the day,” states
senior Amy Lastinger.
Many students believe that encouraging constructive, friendly
dialogue between students and administration would increase participation and
give students the incentive to give it their all. With administrative approval,
the inclusion of games or prizes for the most spirited or craziest costumes
could increase participation and add an element of competition to the affair.
After all, bringing the school together is what Spirit Week is all about.
Captain's Outlook
By: Bobby
Austin
The captain
of the football team has many responsibilities, these responsibilities range
from being a leader on the field to making good choices off the field. This
football season has been extra challenging for LOLHS because a team is only as
good as its weakest link. We lost several of our starting seniors last year and
are now restarting the program with mainly under classmen.
As
Captain, my plan to help the fighting Gators bring home a big win was to
encourage my fellow teammates on the sidelines. I talked to them about putting
their personal life aside unless it provides fuel to make a big play on the
field. Otherwise, personal issues should
never take a player's focus off the game.Communication
was also a huge part of the Homecoming game. Once on the field in battle,
players have to communicate with one another or the defense will fall apart. If
a player recognizes a play before the ball is snapped he must notify the
defense so that the team can make a big stop. Our final priority was to play smart and have
fun playing the game we love. A team never wants to get penalties because it's
more work to have to continuously stop the opposing team in a short yardage
rather than stop them on a three and out.
Overall there was no
question that when the Gators walked onto the field, the team had their heads
held high and made the opposing team remember that they played the Land O’
Lakes Gators. Regardless of the outcome, we wanted it to be known that Gators
will shed blood, sweat, and tears to do our best and come out on top.
Reflections
on a Protest
By: Zachary Conn - National Journalism Award Winner
A
group of students and I protested out in front of the Mitt Romney rally which
took place at our school. Throughout the night, we endured heckling. Most
often, the heckling took the form of elderly Caucasian people telling us to
“get a job” or that we’ll “understand when we have to pay taxes”. Occasionally,
though, it got as extreme as calling one member of our group a prostitute,
telling Stephen Garcia, a Colombian-American who held up our "Students
Against Romney" sign, to go "back to his people" and that he was
a foreign exchange student, claiming that we are for the devil, and saying to
one protester, who was holding up a sign which read “My body, my business”,
that the first time she had sex was with Obama. There were also more comical
incidents such as a 12-year old girl yelling, with genuine anger, that we are
communists.
I
have no problem with political disagreement. I was protesting, after all. But
what I can’t understand is the nasty, often racist vitriol which spewed
liberally from the mouths of many rally-goers. I saw parents with kids buy
“buck Ofama” stickers as they left the rally, multiple people call Obama a
Muslim, and one man who held up a blatantly sexist sign, featuring Nancy Pelosi
in a bikini, which a certain local news organization disgracefully labeled as
mere “political satire” on a broadcast.
Then again, a woman also told our group
to “watch Fox News”. Why should I be surprised? Well, I suppose a part of me
believed in the fundamental reasonable nature of humans. I had hoped for conscientious
conservatives but mostly got drivel copy and pasted from The Blaze and Rush
Limbaugh. To be fair, the people I’m describing were the most vocal, the ones
that made them heard. But I do partially condemn others who recognize the
ridiculousness of such radical things, for not speaking up and making their
party one in line with facts and reason.
Despite the somewhat negative
impression of humanity I gleaned from my experience, I am glad others and I
protested. We were a voice of dissent in a crowd of raucous unanimity and I
relish every time I vocalized to a passing crowd that Mitt Romney’s policies do
nothing for the 49 million Americans who live in poverty. I’m glad they heard
me.
Safety of Public Schools
By: Allyson Fairchild
Concerns over the safety
of public schools rose to astonishing levels following the Sandy Hooke
Elementary School shooting on December 14th in Connecticut. A gunman carrying a
handful of assault rifles and coated in a bullet-proof vest broke through a
window of the elementary school in Newtown on Friday morning and made his way
into the building to slaughter 20 small children and 7 other adults, including
himself. This horrific massacre has sparked the popular argument on whether the
2nd Amendment’s right to bear arms should be enforced as well as the
topic of mental disease. Some people are shoving these political and social
debates aside, focusing primarily on how to make our public schools a safer
haven for young people. Returning to school on Monday morning
after having digested the gruesome events of the shooting proved to still cause
severe anxiety. Schools all over the country were saturated with police
officers, armed with weapons. Staff members were ordered to wear their badges
at all times and asked to take part in training sessions on how to react during
a similar crisis. Some districts even plan to install metal detectors in the
schools and arm the teachers with rifles to ease the weariness of their
communities. Congressional correspondents wish to push legislatures to increase
security in all schools across the country, determined to keep others safe from
this terrible fate.
These measures are met with various
mixed feelings. Some people feel that these new plans are too dramatic and
albeit inappropriate to have among their children in a public school
atmosphere. The gunman simply did not just walk through the entrance of the
building; he fought his way in through the window, hell-bent on causing such
mass chaos. Still, others feel as though security should be enforced all the
same, fearing the safety and well being of their offspring. Even if schools
become secure with officers and ready staff, how safe are they? Are we really
safe anywhere? These measures may just serve as a security blanket to our
nation in such pandemonium after this cruel and thoughtless crime.
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