Student Council is hosting Hoops 4 Heart on March 22 during 2-11 period.
Student Council member and senior, Tawny Leonardo, describes this event as “a charity event in which students form basketball teams of four to five people and play in a tournament to raise money for the American Heart Association.”
The American Heart Association is a nonprofit organization founded in 1924 by six cardiologists.
The organization’s statement is “To be a relentless force of longer, healthier lives.” Since 1949, the AHA invested $5 billion in research funding: more than any other organization except the federal government.
Since 1949, the AHA has made breakthroughs in cardiovascular and stroke discovery and application.
The AHA has funded 15 Nobel Peace Prize winners.
According to the AHA, based on 2021 data, there are 2,552 deaths from cardiovascular disease each day, and on average, someone dies of cardiovascular disease in the US every 34 seconds.
Heart disease kills approximately 375,476 people annually.
Senior Student Council President Corinne Casenhiser explained why she will be participating, “It’s something to do other than school during the day.” She adds, “It’s fun. It’s one of my favorite events to host.”
One of the Student Council advisors, Alex McMahan, encourages students to sign up.
“Number one, all of the money is going to the AHA, so it’s a really good cause. Secondly, it’s nice especially before Spring Break to do something fun and I think we all need that break from doing school work and getting our bodies. I think it’s a really good way to reduce stress,” McMahan expressed.
Members of Student Council were responsible for coordinating this event. Casenheiser described this process: “It was really easy because we’ve been doing it for a really long time, so everything is in place.”
By participating in this event, the student council will “raise hundreds of dollars to support the American Heart Association and people who struggle with heart diseases and conditions,” Leonardo said.
By participating in this event, students can not only have fun with their friends during the school day, but they can also help raise awareness to the seriousness of heart diseases and conditions.
Starting in 1987, the entirety of March is declared Women’s History Month and dedicated to honoring and highlighting the contributions of women to American society.
According to the National Women’s History Museum, the month had originally started in 1978 in California as “Women’s History Week” and corresponded with International Women’s Day on March 8, which was established a year earlier in 1977. It was not until 1987 when Congress passed Public Law 100-9 and designated March to be Women’s History Month.
The United States was established in 1776, but it was not until 1920 when women were granted the right to vote. For over 100 years, women were forced to submit to laws they had no voice in. In 1871, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, formed the National Women’s Suffrage Association and sent a petition to congress asking for suffrage rights to be extended to women, and that women should be heard on the floor of congress. Roughly 50 years of protesting later, Congress passed the 19th Amendment, saying “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex”.
Following the Industrial Revolution, women had started to enter the workforce. In 1840, roughly 10 percent of women had jobs, and by 1850 that percentage increased to 15. However, for over 100 years women were only making anywhere from two-thirds to half of what men in similar occupations were making. 40 years after women were given the right to vote, in 1963 the Equal Pay act was anointed and prohibited the pay discrimination on the basis of sex. However, to this day, the Gender Wage Gap is still an ongoing issue in the American workforce.
Women were not able to attend college until the 19th century when the first co-ed and women-only colleges such as Oberlin and Wesleyan opened. In 1840, Catherine Brewer was the first woman to obtain a bachelors degree, a few years later in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female physician. In the early 1900’s, only 19 percent of women earned bachelors degrees, but by 1930 the percentage doubled to 40. Now, a little over 50 percent of women 25 and older have at least one degree.
For Dr. Mary Ruehr, one of the science teachers at the high school, when she hears the words “Womens History Month,” the first thing that comes to mind is the ongoing issue of the Gender Wage Gap and the history of women’s employment, “For long periods in our history, women were not really in certain jobs, or women were employed in certain jobs as opposed to men and vice versa.”
For example, according to the Pew Research Center in 2022 the median pay for a working woman is 78 cents for every dollar earned by a male counterpart. From the American Association of University Women, overtime this causes women to earn 16 percent less than men, and at the current rate of change, pay equality will not become equal until 2088.
Throughout her years of school, Ruehr recalled that Meredith Bond at Cleveland State, who was one of her female advisors following finishing her PhD and completing her post-doctoral, was one of the most academically influential female figures in her life.
“She did help mentor me quite a bit,” Ruehr recalled, “I feel that she helped encourage me to attend different meetings, to try and speak more loudly for myself and pushed me to apply for different positions.”
Throughout school and obtaining her degree in Biology, Ruehr said that the academic environment was female-dominant, which provided a more comfortable environment. According to the National Science Foundation, about two-thirds of the STEM workforce are men while the remaining third were women. Ruehr added onto this, saying that she tended to see later on that the higher-level positions were occupied by more men than women, comparing some groups to the “old boy network” and while positions or opportunities may seem available, in reality they were not.
She explained that she especially saw this while she was working at a clinic while she had decided to have children, “I do feel I had some discrimination when I would interview for different jobs, or people would make comments regarding my schedule with my kids. It was kind of frowned upon if I had to take off because my kid was sick.”
Ruehr explained how while she did the same amount of work as everyone else, she had to work her schedule around parenthood.
“I feel for the teachers here who have little kids or are pregnant while they are teaching, even though it was hard for me at the clinic, my schedule was more flexible and I was able to move hours around and still get my work done. I could not do that here, you would have to take off time. That was probably the biggest form of discrimination I have experienced.”
For girls who are pursuing higher education or looking towards graduate or medical school, Ruehr wanted to tell them, “Realize that other people are in that same situation and do not feel like you are isolated, even though it looks like you might be. Do not worry about what other people are saying, focus on your own work and do not let others get you down.”
This year’s new adaptation of the 2004 film, Mean Girls, is not what was expected by audiences. With new and rising stars like Reneé Rapp, Avantika Vandanapu, Angourie Rice, Ashley Park and more, this film allows new audiences to experience the excitement the original film sparked. Some old talent reprise their roles once again like Tina Fey as Ms. Norbury and Tim Meadows as Principal Duvall.
Many reviews seen online have had poor experiences with the movie. The movie currently has a rating of 6.3 stars out of ten on IMDb. Some reviews complain about lyric changes, the fact that this movie is a musical unlike the original and many other critiques.
This film can somewhat be compared to the broadway version of Mean Girls. There are very similar songs that reappear like, “Watch the World Burn”, “Stupid with Love”, “Meet the Plastics”, “Apex Predator” and others.
I believe that the way that the new actresses for the main plastics perfectly represent what Mean Girls is about. Having an experienced musical actress like Reneé Rapp play Regina George was exactly what the film needed.
However, the music backing the vocals was lacking throughout the movie. Comparing the upbeat instrumentals in the broadway version people were expecting, to get a seemingly lofi-version was disappointing. I fully believe that this was an artistic error, not on the actors themselves, but on the directing team who chose to let this happen.
Additionally, I have seen the hate that has been spreading about the actress who played Cady Heron, Angourie Rice. I do not think that it is fair to blame her for her singing. She is an Australian actress trying to sing songs out of her range and also in a different accent entirely. This fault is onto the casting directors who did not understand the effect this would have on the actresses reputation.
With the controversy surrounding the movie, it hurt the movie before it even was released in theaters. Even if it is currently number one in the box offices, the movie cost twice as much to make as its predecessor according to Rotten Tomatoes. Originally costing around eighteen million dollars, the new adaptation cost nearly twenty-four million dollars to make. Although the movie has grossed nearly fifty million dollars after a ten day run, it was projected to earn upwards of eighty million dollars.
Even considering all of these negative effects, Reneé Rapp’s career has been better than ever. Her music is being popularized and she was even asked to play on Saturday Night Live with Jacob Elordi hosting it.
Many other actors and actresses involved with the show have started to receive praise for their renditions in the new movie.
Avantika Vandanapu has been praised for her amazing performance of “Sexy” for being such a young actor at only the age of eighteen.
Overall, the movie is practically the same as the Broadway performance in my own opinion, I thoroughly enjoyed it and being able to see returning actors throughout the movie was enjoyable,
The singing was very fun to listen to, even if the instrumentals were not on par with the talent. Each actor was able to put a modernized spin on the personalities of each character and I enjoyed that they were not trying to make a carbon copy of the original movie.
If I had to rate this movie I would give it a solid 6.5 or 7 out of ten due to a few of the director’s choices. This movie was an enjoyable watch in theaters, but I do not know how many times I would watch it outside of the first time.
This year’s Speech and Debate team has many awards and qualifications under their belt: there are 23 state qualifiers, four national qualifiers and the coaches Shelby and Jimmy Miller have received their first diamond award for coaching 15,000 points. Junior Evan Updegraff, a Public Forum participant–where two people debate against another set of two people about political policies and events–has been in Speech and Debate for three years. This is his second year qualifying for States. He and his partner, senior Alaina Sayre, were debating whether or not to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act; however, they received their first bid while debating student loan forgiveness. “[Alaina and I] think fairly similarly as debaters, so we tend to agree on how to approach arguments and brainstorming,” Updegraff explained of his partnership. “When there are disagreements, we usually just argue our respective sides until we figure out what arguments/responses are better than others.” Senior Tyler Jones is another state qualifier; she participates in the Humor event, and her qualifying speech was about vampires. Jones had never participated in a Speech and Debate tournament before, and she joined because she had friends who were also members of the team. “The day before the event I was really nervous because I was still working on memorization, and I wasn’t sure if I would even be able to actually compete,” Jones said, “but when I heard my name get called out during the awards ceremony for a State qualifier, I was more than shocked.” Jimmy has been a coach since 2013. He was once a participant in Speech and Debate, and he came back to coach because four freshmen joined his event, Duo-Interpretation. He took over from former coach, Suzanne Theisen, who retired. Jimmy joined “to impress a girl–I guess that worked out because we’ve been married for five years now.” Last year the team won the Akron District for the first time. This year’s team is younger than last years, but the team was able to win second in the Akron District. “I’m really proud to say we have more state qualifiers this year than last, and so far in our national qualifying series, we have four students who are going to Des Moines, Iowa, with us in June,” Jimmy said. National qualifiers include seniors Penelope Covey and Lauren Garfield for Duo-Interpretation and sophomores Cece Lattime and Otis Schoenberg also for Duo-Interpretation.
Jimmy and Shelby have won a prestigious award in their coaching career: a diamond award for coaching 15,000 points. Jimmy feels thankful for the students he has coached through the years, as they all led to his award. “Every student contributes to points earned toward a diamond. Some of them place high every weekend and come away with trophies. Some are just there to learn new skills and meet new people,” Jimmy said. “They’re all wonderful to have as part of our program, and I can’t thank them enough for their dedication to this activity.” Qualifying for States was a relief for Updegraff. Not having to participate in more competitions to receive the bid was something for which he was very grateful. “Neither Lainey nor I really wanted to go to the state-qualifying tournament, so qualifying gave us a lot more breathing room in terms of qualifying,” Updegraff explained. Coaches have had a large hand in the success of the team and the individuals. None of the members could have been so successful without the guidance of their mentors. “I wouldn’t be working so hard if my fantastic coaches weren’t working alongside me through the whole process to make me feel ready for each tournament,” Jones said. “They give me great advice and critiques and are always easy to reach out to when I need help.” Many of the members are feeling nervous about their State Tournament. This tournament can be seen as more difficult and rigorous than typical tournaments. “States is a much harder tournament than usual, and we don’t have as much time to prepare, which leaves everyone less comfortable with our arguments and the topic,” Updegraff said. Typically, the topics of events are released a month prior to the first debate on the topic. This gives the debaters time to prepare their arguments and defenses, States can be daunting with less time to ready their defenses. Jimmy has created a bond with numerous people throughout his years in the program–both as a debater and a coach. His advice and guidance has influenced many people. “That’s honestly the hardest thing about coaching is that you have this amazing bond with these people–in some cases just for one season and in others, it’s for four straight years, and then it’s over,” Jimmy described. “It’s a bittersweet feeling that some of my former students are starting families or moving around the world. I miss them often, but it’s so fulfilling to know they’re living their best lives.”
SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING--Anyone can call the tip line: 1-844-723-3764 or email safehs@smfschools.org 