While Key Club president Rachel Chang conducts the meeting, secretary Josh Schwartz takes minutes. Seniors Autumn Hattcliff, Cailtin Rusk and Shelby Baron listened while they created pillows. Beside creating pillows, the club also talked about the results of Peanut Days, where they made $448, and future fundraisers. READ MORE ON PAGE 3.
PHOTO BY TARA MAGAña
the mentor Debate team defeated at first tournament Volume 103 // Issue 3 // Sept. 22, 2015
ELIZABETH UNDERWOOD
Features Editor
Clustered together under the sharp fluorescent lights, eight debaters and their coach went through final preparations and nervous habits before heading off to Washburn Rural for their first tournament of the season. After an hour long bus ride to the state’s capitol, the four teams worked hard both Friday and Saturday to place and show the power of Manhattan High School. “It could have been better,
but it definitely could have gone worse. All the teams that went won at least one round and so, we went pretty well,” sophomore Lily Colburn said. “I think everyone is pretty pleased with how this tournament went and is looking forward to the next one.” Even though no one on the team made it past the preliminary competitions, debaters kept up their confidence and positivity. “We started a little ambitious, but you have several teams ranging from sopho-
more to senior that we can now say compete competitively on a Varsity level,” junior Sean McGimpsey said. The majority of this year’s Varsity Debate competitors have jumped right into it, whether it be their second or fourth year debating. This first debate was used to benefit the newer Varsity members’ education and preparation in how they should go about winning these tournaments. “Most of our teams this tournament were young teams encountering Varsity competition
for the first time for learning and future competitive purposes,” coach Benjamin Sutherland said. Varsity Debate hosts a more challenging competition for the team, especially those who have little clue what to do to become successful in these challenges. “I think we all just need a lot more practice. I think everyone is really nervous, we only have one returning team that’s been in Varsity before,” Colburn said. “But I think we just need some more experience and practice,
in real debate ground.” The next tournament will take place on Saturday in Emporia, where more of Manhattan’s teams will compete in hopes of scoring higher than they did at this one. “It’s definitely a good sign because although we might not have done the best, it’s pretty clear how much we can improve,” McGimpsey said. “It’s just a matter of, like, preparation and understanding different arguments that you make.”
Marching Band wows at annual KSU Band Day Sophomore Jordan Shadburn and other members of the Manhattan High School dance team perform during halftime of the Kansas State University-Louisiana Tech game on Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium as part of K-State Band Day 2015. For more about Band Day, see the story on Page 3. PHOTO BY MORIAH PRESLEY
Earth Club takes on recycling BSU discusses racial issues, two members show DAKOTA SANTIAGO
Staff Writer
Earth Club kicked off this year with a goal to restructure the club so that it could become more active in the community. The huge surge in membership, from 10 signing up last year to 75 signing up this year, will assist them in this goal. “We’re not going to have nearly that many though,” club sponsor Andrew Farmer said. “Probably around 30-40 of them will stay and attend meetings regularly.” Meetings happen once a month for non-officers to discuss the club’s ongoing and future projects. “Last year, since it was my first year, we really didn’t ac-
complish that much in terms of projects,” Farmer said. “This year we’re really trying to restructure the club to become more active and meet more often since we have more members who want to participate.” The club is attempting a new recycling initiative this year. “We are taking on a new recycling program on campus,” Farmer said. “Right now we only recycle paper, however through Howie’s, we could recycle everything except glass.” There are two main issues that have been encountered by the project so far. The first issue is organization. “There’s a lot of logistics that
SEE EARTH PAGE 3
GLOBAL NEWS MADELINE MARSHALL Print Editor-in-Chief
Global news is a vital part of news today and can directly affect MHS students. In order to inform our readers, The Mentor has compiled small summaries describing some of the largest happenings in the world today. We encourage the reader to read about these topics, and others, in greater depth.
IS defectors speak out more
A growing number of defectors from the Islamic State are speaking publicly about their decision to leave, according to a new report by the International Center for the Study of Radicalisation. The defectors risk reprisals by members of the militant group and imprisonment by their home nations, the report says, leading most to go into hiding. estimates that hundreds of former militants have now defect-
ANDREA LU
Graphic Editor This past Tuesday, members and officers of BSU gathered for their second weekly meeting. Despite the profound discussions that occurred during the meeting, there was one glaring characteristic: only two members showed up. “I feel like a lot of people are afraid to join BSU because I think people are kind of dreading the whole race talk, you know, because racism is the elephant in the room, you know, and people don’t want to talk about it,” junior and BSU Vice President Adanna Okere said. “They want to avoid it.” The club plans on hanging up flyers soon on top of send-
ed or attempted to defect. Dozens are thought to have made it out via Turkey while others have reportedly been caught and executed. The ICSR claims that the 58 cases in their study are “likely only a fraction of those disillusioned, ready to defect and/or willing to go public.”
Pope Francis visits Cuba This past Sunday, Pope Francis visited Cuba. He returns this afternoon. The Pope spoke with Cuban nuns, priests, seminarians and bishops, along with Fidel Castro. Francis called for the church to embrace a “spirit of poverty,” saying that “wealth takes away the best of us,” according to CNN.
ing out text messages to members to hopefully get the word out about BSU and what they are about. What started out as a lessthan-desirable meeting soon
“It made me realize how much I didn’t know about my own history and now that’s my new goal.” -Okere took a turn for the better. The meeting started out with the two attendees taking a quiz on black history to examine how
Francis had a “friendly and informal” meeting with Fidel Castro at the former Cuban president’s residence, the Vatican said. It lasted about 30 minutes, with the Pope and the communist leader exchanging books about religion. Francis could play a major role in restoring diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba.
Fiorina trumps Carson, second only to Trump Republican candidate Carly Fiorina has jumped up to second, beating candidate Ben Carson and falling just behind Donald Trump. The CNN/ORC poll, conducted in
much they really knew on the topic. “I enjoyed it, like, it made me realize how much that I didn’t know about my own history and now that’s my new goal, you know, to learn more and educate myself more on my history so that I know where I come from and my background,” Okere said. “The purpose was to really open their eyes to how much of their history that they don’t know and how important it is that they do know, like, their history and where they came from,” Jamera Ewing, senior and President of BSU, said. “How can you educate others if you don’t know the history
SEE BSU PAGE 3 the three days after 23 million people tuned in to Wednesday night’s GOP debate, shows that Trump is still the party’s frontrunner with 24 percent support. This is an 8 percentage point decrease from earlier in the month when a similar poll had him at 32 percent. Fiorina ranks second with 15 percent support -- up from 3 percent in early September. She’s just ahead of Carson’s 14 percent. The force behind Fiorina’s rise was the GOP debate in which 52 percent believed Fiorina was the winner. The front-runners in these polls depict an evident suport for “new power” as none of the top three contenders have ever held political office.