The Final Battle: Seniors play one last game

Ben Jackson Online Editor-in-Chief

Water guns, umbrellas, and chaos. The class of 2023 has been on the hunt in a senior assassin game that has lasted for two months. The game consisted of nearly 80 seniors in a battle to be the last man standing for a over $300 cash prize.

The game ended with a climactic battle between two prominent seniors: Isaiah Rasmussen and Amari Lang. The final showdown was made even more dramatic in that the final two had previously been in an alliance throughout the game.

“I had an alliance with two other people,” Lang said, “Isaiah Rasmussen and Braytn Nespor, and I kept Isaiah alive while he killed everybody.”

The stage was set for the final battle and on April 27 the two met to settle the score.

“Amari and I were kind of like playing cat and dog in the parking lot,” Rasmussen said. “She had to go down for an interview on the track. And I was just waiting outside her car,” he said.

Lang was trapped and needed to find a way out. “I was locked in my car for like 15 minutes,” Lang said. “Then I just slightly rolled down my window and just shot my water gun up in the air. And it got him. He was trying to get me but I realized that if I was going to get him out I was gonna have to find a way to do it,” she said.

And with that, Amari Lang became the class of 2023 senior assassin champion.

“I did not expect to win. I really didn’t,” Lang said, “I thought it was just going to be more of like a fun thing to do with all of my friends.”

The winnings were ultimately split between the two friends and the rest was water under the bridge.

The mastermind behind it all was Cam Kozeal. He had the idea for senior assassin after a chaotic event in Nashville.

“I was in Nashville, Tennessee, staying with some family friends,” Kozeal said. “One morning I woke up to these people running throughout the house. I thought we were being robbed. And then I asked him what it was and they said it was like a game and they called it ‘senior assassin,’” he said.

There are many variations to the rules of senior assassin, as every school does it differently. Kozeal decided to make the game as simple as possible. The rules were: 1) To get someone out you must spray them with water from a water gun, 2) to defend yourself you may use an umbrella but nothing else, 3) the only safezone is inside school, and 4) do not break the law.

Barrett Luce was in charge of operating the game from behind the scenes, affectionately called “the gamemaster.”

“Everyone paid $5 to play,” Luce said, “So everybody had a target, and once they got their person, they took their target’s target. So it just was kind of a self feeding system. The winner would receive the pot.”

With everyone paying $5, the winnings pot quickly grew to over $300, leading some to join for an easy payday. “I saw it as an easy way to turn $5 into like $300,” senior Isaiah Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen made it far through the game as an experienced assassin, getting 11 seniors out of the game.

“My favorite kill was probably Aiden Robertson,” Rasmussen said, “He was my second kill. I had to wait outside his house for like, probably a combined five hours.”

One senior had another strategy for staying alive. “No one really knew where I lived,” senior Dylan Schiessler said, “And I kind of just laid low. I was definitely camping.” Schiessler committed zero eliminations, but made it all the way to fourth place.

The beginning of the game was complete chaos as seniors began dropping like flies. The first senior out was Aden Williams, and despite his desperate attempts to gaslight his way back into the game, Williams would later be proven to be eliminated by security footage.

Gamemaster Luce had to walk a tightrope making sure that controversies such as this did not destroy the fun of the game. “I think it was hard to please everybody,” Luce said. “There’s 70 Different people with 70 different ideas. And with, like, $360 on the line, it’s pretty difficult because some people wanted to win so badly that they were willing to complain about things that weren’t really an issue,” he said.

Nonetheless, the class of 2023 came together to pull off a complicated event.

“I think our class is just unique,” Kozeal said. “We all come together really well. It got a lot more people asking about other people in the class. Athletes were talking to other people and vice versa. So it really brought the class together that was already really close.”

Culinary teacher cooks up success in Millard

Anna Gurciullo Staff Reporter

Emily Murphy is a new fixture at our high school. She leads the classroom with enthusiasm and love every class she teaches. She guides each student with a deep passion and care. Before coming to our school, she spent 10 years teaching at Bryan High School, where she specialized in family consumer science. She taught culinary and food, which she still loves. She was also the freshman academy coordinator for two and a half years.

When asked what motivated her to join our school, she replied, “I live five minutes away, so that was a big deciding factor. There were a lot of structural changes going on in Omaha Public Schools at the time. And I was adjusting, so I was ready to adjust to and to take a leap of faith,” Murphy said.

Diving into her passion for teaching food, to which she explained, “I’ve wanted to be a high school FCS teacher since I was in high school. I took my first food class when I was a freshman, and took it all throughout high school. One of my high school FCS teachers was Mr. Sulzmans mother-in-law, and she was really an inspiration for me when I was in high school. She guided me towards it, and I knew that there were people needed, so I pursued it.”

Managing a schedule as a teacher can be tough, and especially when adjusting to a new schedule. “It takes a lot of off contract time,” Murphy said. For example, I always had to go pick-up what I needed for my classes in the grocery stores, but now, online shopping has really saved me a lot. But nevertheless, I’ve always been a busy person, so it doesn’t bother me, and I’ve always liked moving and trying to improve things.” Despite this, she said she loves what she does and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Murphy said her favorite aspect about being a teacher is watching the students grow, “like today they’re doing something new and they’re just fumbling along, but they’re figuring it out as they go,” she said.

When asked about what she would be doing if she were not teaching, Murphy responded, “I was very much a teacher’s pet. I never got in trouble for being naughty because I always had good relationships with my teachers.” It’s clear that her love of teaching and building relationships has been a part of her for a long time.

If Murphy wasn’t a teacher, she thinks, “Before I wanted to be a teacher I wanted to be a lawyer, but if I left education tomorrow I would go into real estate”

Her students say they have enjoyed taking her class this year. Olivia Ludo said, “She’s a fantastic teacher. She has a great sense of humor, and she’s more like a friend in the classroom.” Braytn Nespor said, “She’s a kind teacher who knows what she’s doing and gets things done. She is an underrated teacher.”