The Lodge Vol. 2, Issue 3

Unbridled success

Olivia Yukon is an equestrian champion

When the Saints come marching in St. George’s deepens connection to St. Jude

The great Star Wars debate

Listen in as critics discuss the newest film

The

Lodge

St. George’s Independent School Collierville, tn Vol. 2, Issue 3 GryphonLodge.com @ NewsGryphs

JAN. 29, 2017

L

ABOUT US

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D G E

STAFF

The Lodge is dedicated to serving as an authentic voice for the students of St. George’s Independent School. We at the Lodge strive to be an open forum for student expression, to act in the best interests of the student body and to embody the principles of journalistic excellence. The Lodge is affiliated with the Tennessee High School Press Association and the National Scholastic Press Association.

The Lodge is funded by advertisers, donors and St. George’s Independent School and is published once every six weeks during the school year by schoolprinting.com. The Lodge prints and distributes 300 copies of each issue to 700 students and faculty on the St. George’s Collierville campus. Bylines indicate the primary writer(s) of each article, and additional contributors are indicated in the shirttail. The Lodge provides free advertising for student clubs, events and activities and paid advertisements for local businesses.

The Lodge welcomes letters to the editor and article submissions. To submit a letter, article or request for advertising, email our staff at thelodge@sgis.org.

Editor-in-Chief

Carolyn Lane ’18

Managing Editor Annie Murff ’18

Editors

Annika Conlee ’18 Lauren Purdy ’18 Merryn Ruthling ’18 Caroline Zummach ’18 Emma Bennett ’19

Designers

Katelyn Grisham ’18 Laura Beard’19 Kaitlyn Bowman ’19 Will Brown ’19 Andrew McDowell ’19

Photographer

Alice Crenshaw ’18

Illustrator

Emily O’Connell ’18

Web Editor

Spence Burford ’18

Reporters

Hudson Beaudry ’18 Connor Lambert ’18 Emma Pounders ’18 Omar Yunus ’18 Evan Dorian ’19 Rainey Zaugg ’19 Andrew McDowell ’19 Sidney Marr ’19 Cary Robbins ’20

Advisor

Dr. Margaret Robertson

Cover photograph by Alice Crenshaw.

TABLE OF CONTENTS JANUARY

2018

A CONTROVERSIAL SOLUTION

4

UNBRIDLED SUCCESS

10

MEMPHIS BY THE NUMBERS

16

HIDDEN HATE

22

CHALLENGING THE ROUTINE

6

WHEN THE SAINTS COME MARCHING IN

12

“THE LAST JEDI” OR THE LAST STRAW

18

A passerby takes a photo of the Jefferson Davis Statue base in Fourth Bluff park after the statue was removed on Dec. 20. After the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. last year, anti-statue rhetoric escalated in Memphis, eventually leading to the statue’s removal. Photograph by Annie Murff.

A controversial solution

City of Memphis finds a way to remove Confederate statues

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By Lauren Purdy ednesday, Dec. 20 proved to be a historic day for

the city of Memphis.

Onlookers watched as crews removed two monuments between 9:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m, one of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a prominent Civil War general, a slave trader and the Ku Klux Klan’s first “Grand Wizard,” and the other of Jefferson Davis, the president of the former Confederate States of America. The statues’ removals were possible after the city of Memphis sold Health Sciences Park and Fourth Bluff Park to Memphis Greenspace Inc., a nonprofit, for $1,000 each.

The operation was planned for months, as the city struggled to devise a legal method to remove the statues in light of opposition

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by the Tennessee Historical Commission.

The statues have been a source of controversy in the city for decades and support for their removal has been gaining momentum since the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. last year.

As The Lodge reported in November, Memphis’s Confederate monuments were not constructed directly after the Civil War but instead at times of controversy over civil rights for African Americans. During the early 1900s when the Forrest statue was erected, Jim Crow laws established in the wake of Plessy v.

Ferguson significantly restricted the rights of African Americans and instilled a widespread fear due to lynchings. The Davis statue was installed during the Civil Rights era and three months after the Civil Rights Act was passed.

“I think you have to look at things from a historical perspective and look at what was going on.”

– Councilman Martavius Jones Opponents of the statues argued that their true purpose was to intimidate African Americans from pursuing greater freedoms.

Memphis City Councilman Martavius Jones was one of many who made remarks about the matter.

“I think you have to look at things from a historical perspective and look at what was going on with Nathan Bedford Forrest here in Memphis and Jefferson Davis with the Jefferson Davis

statue in Memphis,” Councilman Jones said. “You have to look at what was taking place at the time and pretty much the only thing we can do is speculate based upon what has been documented in history about what the motives were when people put them up, why they put them up and what they represent.”

The city government had long vied with the Tennessee Historical Commission over the removal of the statues because of the 2013

Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. This law “[prohibited] the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial that is, or is located on, public property,” according to the Tennessee Historical Commission’s website.

In 2016, the city council first applied to the Tennessee Historical Commission for a waiver to remove the statues, but it was denied. Following an additional denial in 2017, the council voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance for the immediate removal of the statues. However, without state approval, this could not be

circumvented the state law by removing the statues without the consent of the Commission.

“It is a deliberate attempt to avoid the state law, and the city is breaking the law,” Lee Miller, a representative from the local branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said in an interview with WREG-TV. The Facebook group known as “Confederate 901” rallied in several locations around the city after the statues’ removal.

A small group was led by white nationalist Mr. Billy Roper, who demonstrated near Health Sci-

“It is a deliberate attempt to avoid the state law, and the city is breaking the law.”

– Lee Miller, Sons of Confederate Veterans Representative done.

Instead, the city took a different approach, selling the the Health Sciences Park, home to the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue, and Fourth Bluff Park, home to the Jefferson Davis statue, to Memphis Greenspace Inc., a nonprofit led by Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner. Selling the parks to a private entity enabled the city to bypass the protection act, allowing them to remove the statues.

Mr. Luther Mercer, the nonprofit’s treasurer, believes that the group made the best decision for the city in removing the statues from the public sphere.

“As a whole, the city of Memphis applauded the transition, and it was important for the city itself to see this move,” Mr. Mercer said. “Symbols matter and removing symbols that represent things that are not present leaves us to focus on more substantive issues, such as poverty and education. It is a matter of how we hold those things in history, not in honor and not in places of prominence.”

The council’s vote to remove the statues angered some, such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who believe that the government

ence Park. Others traveled from Mississippi, waving Confederate flags while driving in their vehicles. There were no reports of violence or deaths.

Mayor Jim Strickland, who was a fierce proponent for the immediate removal of the statues, signed the agreement with Memphis Greenspace on Dec. 15, pending approval by the council the following Tuesday. Removing the statues was especially a goal of Strickland before the city commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in Memphis.

“This is an important moment in the life of our city,” Mayor Strickland wrote in a public letter on Facebook. “People from all walks of life came together to make [this] a reality. [That day] showed us just how successful we can be when that happens.”

The removal of the statues was a victory for grassroots movements, including Tami Sawyer’s activist group called “Take ‘Em Down 901.” The group coordinated demonstrations and protests in the months leading up to the removal using their social media hashtag #TakeEmDown901 and protested outside FedExForum in black clothes, holding signs and

staging “die-ins,” where they laid on the plaza pavement. Sawyer and others, along with the city government, traveled to Athens, Ga. and spoke with the Tennessee Historical Commission.

“It makes me glad that representation has changed. We are no longer living under structures that are hateful,” Sawyer said.

“I think the removal is going to show that people have the power to organize and bring the issues that they care about to the forefront.”

University of Memphis History Professor Aram Goudsouzian agreed that the removal holds a symbolic meaning for the city and is a sign of progress.

“It is a signal that the city understands that it cannot be trapped by racist symbols of the past, and it creates a more progressive and modern image for the city, which can attract more talented people and entrepreneurial ventures to Memphis,” Professor Goudsouzian said. “It is also a small recognition that the perspective of our Afri-

can-American citizens deserves recognition.”

Mr. Mercer believes that the removal of the Confederate monuments shows young people that they have the ability to affect change.

“Hopefully they see that there is activism and action and the ability to come together as a community with a collective body of people that said ‘we are going to work together, and we will make a difference that will affect lives,’” Mr. Mercer said.

Although the removal of both statues was a long time in the making, for the statues’ opponents, it marked a significant step for equity and progress for Memphis.

“It is not a cure-all for the city’s problems, of course, but no one ever said it would be,” Professor Goudsouzian said. “It is a necessary step toward any movement for a more just society in Memphis.”

An American flag flies behind the base of the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue. Health Sciences Park, where the statue stood, was sold to Memphis Greenspace, Inc., allowing the statue to be removed with being restrictured by the 2013 Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. Photograph by Annie Murff.

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Challenging the Routine Dr. Jieyong Qian shares her re-education story

Dr. Jieyong Qian motions while speaking to the sophomore class. She shared her powerful story about experiencing Chinese re-edcuation when she was 16. Photograph by Alice Crenshaw.

B

By Merryn Ruthling

y sophomore year, students across the country generally know what to expect when reading a novel in class: read, annotate, discuss and then make a presentation or write a paper.

But this routine was challenged at St. George’s by Mrs. Ricketson’s 10th grade English classes, who had the opportunity to learn about the cultural context of their novel “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” firsthand from Dr. Jieyong Qian.

“Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” opens in 1971 during the Cultural Revolution, a time Dr. Qian remembers well. During this period, Communist Party Chairman Mao ZeDong decided to reinforce his party’s ideals by sending intellectuals and members of the upper and middle classes to villages and rural areas to be re-educated by means of menial labor.

Students had the opportunity to hear about this directly from Dr.

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Qian, who was sent to a village in Inner Mongolia at the age of 16 as part of the re-education process.

“My older brother left for the countryside in 1967, thinking that by going himself he would save me and prevent me from going,” Dr. Qian said. “He told my mother ‘Keep her with you. Let me go.’

So he went, but that didn’t happen.

The next year I went, and three years later my [younger] brother had to go. No one avoided that.”

In the countryside, Dr. Qian was introduced to an entirely new way of working, eating and living.

Like the characters in “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress,” Dr. Qian questioned the value of re-education and the effect it had on her generation.

“Yes, we learned a lot from the herds people. We learned how to survive hardship, and we learned how to find happiness from small, simple things,” Dr. Qian said. “But is it worth it to basically take the best five years of your life to go to the countryside like that? I think

not. But unfortunately that was my generation’s experience.”

Many students were intrigued to hear about her real life re-education experience.

“The most interesting thing that she said was how after all of the things she learned in inner Mongolia, it still wasn’t worth it and how she lost a part of her life that she could have spent in other ways,” sophomore Silas Rhodes said. “What I enjoy about this type of learning is the firsthand experience from the speaker. It allows me to have a personal connection to their stories.”

St. George’s students had this opportunity because of Dr. Quian’s connection to junior Lindsey Pepper and her family. After earning a doctorate in economics, Dr. Qian began her career at FedEx where she met Pepper’s father, Mr. Randy Pepper, and became close with the entire family.

When Mrs. Ricketson reached out to the St. George’s community

to see if anyone had a connection to someone who had experienced re-education, Mrs. Vassy Pepper eagerly responded, describing Dr. Quian as “extraordinary.”

“If those listening could grasp things properly,” Mrs. Pepper said, “they would realize that they too can accomplish almost anything, regardless of the circumstances, if they remain dedicated to their education, determined in their efforts and focused on what they want to accomplish in life.”

Since hearing her speak, Mrs. Ricketson has described the whole experience as “enlightening.”

“Even having done a lot of research in order to teach this text and having read other fiction and nonfiction texts from the time period beyond this novel, so much of what she shared was nothing like I would have imagined it,” Mrs. Ricketson said. “I think [my students] really appreciated that part of it.”

Q&A

with

By Carolyn Lane

Deb Ireland

Deb Ireland is a U.S. Attorney who specializes in Internet safety. She hosts educational expos for students, teachers and religious organizations that detail the ins and outs of cyber crime and privacy throughout the Memphis area. On Jan. 11, Ms. Ireland came to St. George’s to speak about cyber safety to Collierville campus students.

Q. So what is the most important lesson that people who weren’t here should know from your speech and your program?

nothing private on the internet. Period. Stop. End. We are A. There’s giving away information that we don’t even realize we’re giving

away, and unless we know how the technology works, we’re not able to make truly informed decisions about how we interact online and what platforms we choose to use.

Q. Do you think anything is truly private on the internet anymore?

A.

No, it never was. We just let ourselves think that. It is human nature to only see our experiences and assume it’s the same for everybody else. We are not trying to find out stuff [about others that] we shouldn’t know, so we would never assume that a giant internet company would do that, but they do.

Q. Do you have any final comments? internet’s not evil. It’s just that we need to understand it, so that A. The we can use it.

Q. Why did you decide to become a lawyer with a focus on technology?

law school, they teach how to analyze the law and how to make A. Ina legal argument, but they don’t teach about communicating. Those two fit together for me perfectly. The way to explain a complicated thought isn’t as easy as it seems. It just fell into place for me. I was lucky.

did you have the opportunity to come speak at St. Q. How George’s? of the important things that my office – the U.S. Attorney’s A. One Office – does is prevent crime. It is way better than trying to clean

up the mess after it [happens] because nothing ever makes you what you were before something bad happened. We make it a point to go out and share information, hopefully preventing some things.

We hope to give people tools that they can use proactively to keep themselves safe and the people that they care about safe.

Q. How would you suggest balancing the risks and the rewards of social media?

A. I think everybody has to decide for themselves, but the biggest two

things I can say is that once you share, post or comment, it can’t be undone, and once you share, post or comment, you’re stuck with whatever consequence comes from that. So instead of acting in the moment, even though it’s really fun, take a breath, count to five. It’s like what they used to teach you when you were little about fighting: count to ten and by that time hopefully you’ve calmed down. We really have to learn to self filter.

Q. What do companies do with the information they collect about you?

A. They analyze it. They run it through spreadsheets and processing

and develop profiles. For example teenagers in the Mid-South might act differently than teenagers in Northern California, and if they can tell where traffic is coming from, they can use that difference to help fine-tune ad campaigns or market different products. Big data is one of the most valuable commodities, and all that comes from us.

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Athletes in Action

Story by Evan Dorian, Connor Lambert, Hudson Beaudry, Emma Pounders and Emma Bennett Design by Andrew McDowell CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

COMPETITIVE CHEER: The competitive cheerleaders give it their all while practicing a routine in the gym at the Germantown campus. Competitive cheer is getting loud this year with the team pulling out all the stops on their way to the top. “This is one of the most difficult months, but everyone is putting in hard work, and it’s really going to pay off at nationals,” sophomore Hanna Gilmore said. While it may be tense before the competition, the team knows it is prepared, and the cheerleaders are confident that they will perform well. Photograph by Emily O’Connell.

GIRLS BASKETBALL: Sophomore Adi Thrasher catches a long pass on her way to the basket. The girls varsity basketball team has struggled to win games this season, but to be fair, there are only eight girls on the team this year.

Last year’s team that was twice its size, yet the team seems unfazed. Instead of focusing on its record, it’s focused on getting better. “It’s hard, but I think that with the numbers we have, we’re doing the best we can and we’re giving a lot of effort,” junior Katie Schaefer said. “We’re pushing it and we’re trying, so I think that says a lot.” As for the remainder of the season, Schaefer is optimistic that things will get better and better. Photograph by Laura Beard.

BOYS BASKETBALL: Senior Harrison Mullaney rises to the basket for a layup. The boys varsity basketball team is off to a solid start. Junior Dylan Anderson has high expectations for the team and believes they are “playing more like a team than last year” and being “very active on defense.” Winning a state championship may be a lofty goal, but Anderson believes the team has what it takes to do just that. One of the keys to success will be finishing games strong and not slowing down at the end. “I can’t wait to play against Christian Brothers and Lausanne,” Anderson said when asked about what he looks forward to about the season. Photograph by Laura Beard.

WRESLTING: Junior Jaylen Spears, the only member of the wrestling team from his class, faces off against an opponent. With the arrival of Coach Eddie Martin and a bigger team, spirits are high and team morale is higher. “My favorite part of the sport has always been the team aspect,” senior varsity captain Matthew Doucette said. “This sport can really suck at times with all of the conditioning we do, but getting through it with your team and then winning matches has always been rewarding and a great experience.” Photograph by Andrew McDowell.

WINTER CHEER: Senior Braylyn Little leads a cheer for the boys basketball team. The winter cheer team can always be seen hyping up the crowd and players from the sidelines at both guys and girls basketball games. The group has a strong foundation of existing cheerleaders and saw an influx of new sophomores and freshmen this year. “My favorite part of winter cheer is cheering at games,” senior Chloe Boggan said. “It’s pretty nice to get out there and support the boys and the girls. Plus it’s always fun to show off what we’ve learned, especially the stomps.” Photograph

by Laura Beard.

SWIMMING: Freshman Sarah McDonald dives into the pool at a swim meet amidst swimmers from other schools. The swim team is looking to make a splash this season. Spirits are running high and the team has seen major improvements with 13 swimmers qualifying for state, according to Coach Rob Snowberger. Senior Julia Fogel is eager for the rest of the season. The team has “been working really hard and are really excited about state,” Fogel said. Photograph by Hudson Beaudry.

Unbridled Success Olivia Yukon is a national equestrian champion

Junior Olivia Yukon jumps a hurdle. Yukon has been riding for 10 years and trains extensively every week in order to achieve national recognition. Photograph by Alice Crenshaw, Photo Illustration by Katelyn Grisham.

By Annika Conlee Design by Katelyn Grisham

W

ith long brown hair and flashing brown eyes, junior Olivia Yukon carries herself around St. George’s with warmth and regularly a blanket. Bubbly and sarcastic, Yukon talks about what she loves with passion, jumping from one thought to another mid-sentence.

Training on her horse, Worthy, Yukon transforms, becoming intense and driven, described by her trainer as a leader.

Despite having ridden for 10 years, this year has been the most defining for Yukon as a rider.

“My parents told me, ‘you have one year to make it to

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nationals and do the best that you can,’” Yukon said. “I was just praying to get a ribbon every time and ended up coming out national champion.”

At the Pennsylvania National

winning the $2,500 Claire Mawdsley Scholarship, which is granted to exceptional riders who attend “brick and mortar” high schools. On Dec. 7, she was announced as 2017’s National

“My parents told me ‘ you have one year to make it to nationals.’”

Horse Show on Oct. 13, 2017, Yukon claimed the title of National Junior Hunter Champion in her division of Large Junior 3’33 15 and under, also

Champion, Zone Champion and Region Champion.

Attending St. George’s, a full-time educational institution, places Yukon at a disadvantage

since a large majority of riders at her level are homeschooled, giving them a nearly-unlimited amount of time to hone their craft.

In order to balance both her riding and academic responsibilities, Yukon maintains a packed schedule. During the week Yukon has a riding lesson and “hacks” three days, which is a combination of stretching, riding, exercising and grooming her horse, and travels many weekends to shows. Any additional time she has is spent at school or catching up on missed work.

Olivia Yukon’s brother, senior Brendan Yukon, is amazed by his sister’s ability to balance her busy schedule.

“I think it’s impressive,” Brendan Yukon said. “If I miss one day I struggle, but she misses weeks on end and is always working on homework, always working on horseback riding.”

Being so accomplished in a non-school-sponsored sport creates a unusual set of circumstances.

“I would tell someone ‘oh, I was champion’ and it was like ‘oh, good for you,’ but I literally won nationals,” Yukon said. “It would be like soccer winning state and then going on and winning against the whole nation.

That’s how big a deal it is.”

This misunderstanding not only arises from some being unaware of Yukon’s level of success but also the hard work it took to get there.

“People make fun of me all the time for riding because they think I just sit there and bend over when you go over a jump, to make it look pretty, but I really don’t,” Yukon said. “I tell my horse when to jump and how many steps are in between the jumps. I tell him when to change his lead, I tell him when to go, I tell him when to stop. It’s not just yeehaw. I ride horses.”

Not only is it a big deal that someone from St. George’s has been so successful on the national level, but it is also important for the horseback riding community in Memphis.

“There’s big [horseback riding towns] like Wellington [Florida] or Washington D.C. or New York that are big places,” Yukon said. “So the fact that someone from Memphis, a city that no one knows nationally, went there and won was absolutely insane.”

Her involvement in this sport has provided Yukon with an extended community.

“I have friends from California to New York, to Florida, to Texas, to back home,” Yukon said. “We don’t mean to meet, but we always end up showing against each other, so it’s really cool to hang out and see them.”

Although this competition season has had the highest stakes, in reality Yukon and her fellow riders face a physical threat

almost every day.

“Anytime you get on a horse you have the potential to get really, really hurt,” Yukon said, “because you could fall off, they could step on you and you could literally die.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “the rate of serious injury per number of riding hours is estimated to be higher for horseback riders than for motorcyclists and automobile racers.”

Properly controlling a horse requires nuanced technique as well as great physical strength in order to not only perform well but to stay safe.

“You have to have leg strength to kick him [the horse], but you

also have to have arm strength to slow him down,” Yukon said. “I look small, but I have strength.

You are controlling a 1000 pound beast beneath you.”

Yukon trains at Spring Mills Farm with owner and head trainer Mr. Dave Pellegrini and assistant trainer Ms. Naomi Gillen.

“It has been so much fun watching Olivia get better and better every time she comes to the show ring,” Ms. Gillen said.

“As a trainer, I had to be tough on her about many things, but she rallied to the pressure and now is someone I can count on to be prepared every single time.”

Spending so much time

training, Yukon has also formed a connection with her horse Worthy.

“My horse knows my car when I pull into the barn, he knows my voice and gets so excited when he sees me,” Yukon said. “He’s awesome, he’s really really big, and he’s brown, and he’s so cute.”

Yukon has enjoyed her success, in particular with her horse.

“Just being able to do it with my horse, not with just some stranger’s horse,” Yukon said.

“Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for three and a half years has been with the same horse, and now all that hard work has finally paid off.”

It would be like “soccer winning state

and then going on and winning against the whole nation.

”

Yukon cools down on her horse Worthy after a riding lesson. She competed on Worthy in the division Large Junior 3’33 when she won first place. Photograph by Alice Crenshaw, Photo Illustration by Katelyn Grisham.

The Lodge 11

The Saints Come Marching In

Three legacies deepen the relationship between St. George’s and St. Jude

By Cary Robbins Design by Kaitlyn Bowman

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hen alumnus Adam Cruthirds was diagnosed with leukemia at age 16, his first response was one of bravery.

“I am not afraid,” he remembers saying.

His second response was the beginning of a journey.

“What’s leukemia?” he asked.

“I didn’t really know what that meant. And then the doctor said it was cancer,” Cruthirds said. “I still didn’t really know that I had two and a half years of treatment ahead of me or all the side effects that would come. It didn’t really hit me until years later probably how sick I was, and I think it’s good that it didn’t hit me until then.”

Cruthirds was diagnosed with leukemia on July 29, 2014, two weeks before beginning his junior year at St. George’s. He then spent his 11th-grade year completing his school work at St. Jude while undergoing chemotherapy treatments. His senior year of high school and freshman year of college, Cruthirds continued to receive treatment at St. Jude but was still able to go to school.

Now a sophomore at Rhodes College studying business, Cruthirds is in remission. He finished treatment in early March of 2017 and continues to be a major contributor to St. Jude.

Cruthirds began fundraising for St. Jude when he was a senior in high school, choosing to focus his Senior Independent Study on raising $100,000 for the hospital by creating dog watches, zumbathons and a half-marathon. In total, he ended up raising $140,000 for the hospital that saved his life.

But Cruthirds is not stopping there.

By the time he is 26, Cruthirds wants to have raised $1 million dollars for St. Jude. By October 2017, he had raised $500,000.

“We’re halfway there,” Cruthirds said. “We won’t stop at a million either. That’s just the goal right now.”

The Beginning of a Dream St. Jude Research Hospital was founded in 1962 by Danny Thomas, an actor who pledged

to build a shrine to St. Jude if he would help him find success in life. St. Jude treats approximately 7,500 patients annually from all around the world at no cost to their families. Alongside providing treatment, doctors and scientists conduct research aimed at both preventing and curing those with cancer, immunodeficiencies, genetic disorders and additional diseases.

For Ms. Kristen Hildebrand, a clinical researcher, working at St. Jude is a dream come true.

“I am from Arkansas, and I can remember when I was a little girl, coming to Memphis on the weekends with my family and seeing the gold dome at St. Jude and always thinking that was such an incredible place to work,” Ms. Hildebrand said. “I never thought when I was a child that I would grow up and work there. I started working in clinical research in Arkansas and then the opportunity came up for me to apply for a job at St. Jude, and it’s really the best place that I’ve ever worked. It’s amazing.”

Ms. Hildebrand recognizes the importance of fundraising for St. Jude.

“We treat patients from all over the world, and any patient that ever comes to St. Jude is never asked to pay a dime,” Ms. Hildebrand said. “That’s why fundraising through these events, like the marathon and the ride and the walk-run, and all of those are so very important because all of that goes to pay for the treatments and for the research that we provide for St. Jude.”

Her wife, Ms. Rachel Hildebrand, a St. Jude nurse who treats children with cancers of the blood, appreciates how St. Jude wants all of the kids with cancer to live a normal life.

“Our goal at St. Jude is not to keep our patients in hospitals because that’s no way to live,” Ms. Rachel Hildebrand said. “We want them to be able to go out and live as normal of a life as they can and go and have fun, so we really try not to keep them in a hospital unless we really have to.”

Ms. Rachel Hildebrand says that the kids at St. Jude are the best part of her job.

“These patients, they give more to us than they know,” Ms. Rachel Hildebrand said. “You walk in,

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especially.”

The connection between St. Jude and St. George’s grew deeper as a result of Carson Head’s fight with osteosarcoma cancer, which she was diagnosed with before her eighth birthday in 2014. Head became a patient at St. Jude, and everyone from the doctors to the volunteers knew who Head was.

Sadly, she lost her fight and passed away in the summer of 2015.

Head’s passion for raising funds for St. Jude led to the development of Coins for Carson at the Germantown and Memphis campuses in 2014 and at the Collierville campus in 2016.

“Carson wanted the money in her own piggy bank to go to

by, and she was always telling us that we can up the goal. We can do more. We can get people to raise more money, and she was always pushing because if you met the goal, then why couldn’t we raise the goal higher?”

Head’s passion for fundraising was so strong that it inspired her mom to work for American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charity (ALSAC Board of Directors), St. Jude’s fundraising company.

“She has really shown what kids can do because I think – and when I say kids, from younger kids to teenagers – because it shows that they can make a difference, that their pennies count because pennies added together make significant dollars,” Mrs. Head said. “When they put their own heart into it, it can change things, and I think that Carson truly did believe that.”

Everyday $2.6 million are spent to keep St. Jude running, from paying for patients’ medicine to paying for the electricity at the hospital. As a result, many fundraising events are held to ensure that the hospital continues to run.

Two important St. Jude fundraising events in Memphis are the St. Jude Walk/Run to End Childhood Cancer in September and the St. Jude marathon in December.

The goal for the 5K run in September is to raise awareness of childhood cancer in the world.

This year, St. George’s collaborated with the Head family and Cruthirds family to create St. George’s first team. With 237 team members at the 5K, it was the largest group to have ever competed from St. George’s and

St. Jude because it might be the money in her piggy that ended up finding a cure for childhood cancer,” Head’s mother Mrs. Paula Head said. “I think that she truly believed that, and I think that she always thought we could do more because even the very first marathon team that we had when she was sick, Carson and I stood on the sidelines on campus cheering runners on as they went

the largest contributing school in the Memphis metropolitan area.

Many groups of people, from St. George’s, including the varsity football team, came out to support the race.

“I went to the St. Jude race because our whole football team decided to go together, and Cameron Head [Carson Head’s brother] personally asked us to go, and I wanted to be there for him,”

Mrs. Emmy McClain, Assistant Director of Student Life, cheers on the Gryphons at the St. Jude Marathon. A large group of students and faculty setup outside of Upper School Director Mr. Morris’ house to support the runners. Photograph by Laura Beard.

A Coins for Carson jars sits by the front desk of the Collierville campus. Head chose pink and purple piggy banks because they were her favorite colors. Photograph by Kaitlyn Bowman. and you think you’re having a bad day and then you see a little four year old that’s getting chemo and smiling and laughing. It really puts life in perspective. Kids are tougher than any adult that I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

Unite to Fight The middle and upper school students’ history with St. Jude began when seventh-grader Ali Mills passed away as a result of neuroblastoma in 2005. But her legacy lives on with Ali’s Way, a nonprofit organization that helps kids with cancer and their families. This organization has been around for over a decade,

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and Ali’s Way continues to raise money through its annual Ali’s Cup Women’s Tennis Tournament and through individual donations.

Seventh-grade civics teacher Mr. Chris Miller was close with Mills and remembers her as someone who wanted everyone else around her to be happy despite everything she was going through.

“Here’s a child, a 12 or 13-year-old child, who’s so sick, and she was still trying to figure out a way to make other kids at St. Jude happy,” Mr. Miller said.

“She would take coloring books and other things down there for the other kids to play with. That’s just something you don’t see from anybody really but from a child

“These patients, they give more to us than they know.”

“He has to carry the torch for Carson because she can’t cross the finish line herself” sophomore Reagan Burford, who plays safety for the St. George’s football team said. “It was really cool to see that many people out there supporting the cause.”

The St. Jude marathon in December is an even larger event than the St. Jude 5K, bringing in runners from all over the world.

In 2017, the marathon broke the record in raising over 10.3 million dollars for the St. Jude hospital.

25,000 people participated in the race and 40,000 spectators were present.

St. George’s has participated in these races for years, and this school year students were able to cheer on runners at the St. George’s Bunkhouse and Upper School Director Tom Morris’s house.

Mr. Morris has been working at St. George’s since the Collierville Campus began and has seen this relationship with St. Jude and St. George’s grow stronger because of Mills, Head and Cruthirds.

“The relationship lives on in a multifaceted way that honors Head and Mills but also honors the work that Adam is doing,” Mr. Morris said. “I was also struck by how our connection with St. Jude, which is fueled by Adam now, is because Adam is still with us. Mills and Head live on in our hearts and in our prayers and through their families.”

Mr. Morris finds it amazing that kids can go through such a difficult process while still giving it their best in school.

“That Adam completed his high school journey while going through chemo is unbelievable,” Mr. Morris said.

Even Cruthirds has trouble believing that he made it through therapy and was able to finish his senior year.

“Looking back I don’t know how I did it,” Cruthirds said. “I probably couldn’t do it now, but it was really hard, let’s just say that.

Cruthirds credits his relation-

ship with Head for keeping his spirits up and continuing to support other patients at St. Jude.

During Head’s similarly difficult journey, Cruthirds and she formed a close relationship with one another.

Mrs. Head remembers that Carson Head gave Cruthirds a gift he keeps with him to this day.

“Carson saw Adam, and she said ‘Adam, your face mask doesn’t have enough bling on it. It needs to be blinged up.’ She pulled one out of her bag and gave him one of her pink bands that went on the back of the masks that you wear when the ANC counts [Absolute Neutrophil Count] were low and put that on his mask,” Mrs. Head said. “He wore that, and he still has that around his mirror on his car now, hanging down because that was the first thing she ever gave him.”

Cruthirds conquered his cancer and has raised thousands of dollars for St. Jude. Cruthirds lived through his cancer, so he considers himself the face for all the kids who have cancer.

“I say I’m like the voice for the voiceless,” Cruthirds said, “like the voice for the little kids at St. Jude who can’t talk or the ones who have died.”

Mrs. Head thinks of Cruthirds as the living legacy of her daughter and other patients at St. Jude.

“I tell him all the time in the races and different places that he has to carry the torch for Carson because she can’t cross the finish line herself,” Mrs. Head said.

“Adam will carry that torch to cross the finish line for all those children that won’t be able to, and he will always carry that for Carson.”

The headband that Carson gave to Adam hangs on Adam’s rearview mirror. When Head and Cruthirds first met, she gave him the headband because she said he needed more “bling.” Photograph by Adam Cruthirds.

Junior runner Ann Wallace Scott gives senior Maggie Vento a high5K. Many St. Georges students came to support Team Carson and Adam’s Army at the St. Jude Marathon. Photograph by Laura Beard. five during the

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BY THE

NUMBERS

By Annie Murff and Omar Yunus Design by Carolyn Lane

MEMPHIS 4

th most GRIZZLIES value is $790 SEGREGATED city in the U.S. million

1074 MOST 26% songs mention

Memphis, the of any city in the world

ST. JUDE is the #1 children’s hospital for CANCER

18th LARGEST

city in the U.S. 16 The Lodge

Shelby County of people are Schools UNABLE TO have a BUY FOOD graduation rate of for their families

78.7%

2nd largest

cargo AIRPORT in the world

The MEMPHIS ZOO has 2 PANDAS, Le Le and Ya Ya.

4

th

MOST dangerous city in the U.S.

20.1%

of SHELBY COUNTY residents live at or below the POVERTY line

3

FORTUNE 500 companies

headquartered here

Shelby Farms Greenline is 10.65 miles long

20% of the earliest

inductees in the ROCK ‘N’ ROLL Hall of Fame are from Memphis Memphis College of Art is closing after years

89

The aquifer holds 100 trillion gallons of water Shelby Farms is composed of

4500

acres of land

#4 CITY

where millennials are moving

Bass Pro Shop is the 6th largest PYRAMID in the world The Lodge 17

“The Last Jedi” or the last straw?

I think “The Last Jedi” was just as good as almost every other Star Wars movie.

Don’t you guys agree?

Absolutely not. There were only two good scenes in the entire movie: the light speed ramming of Snoke’s ship and the scene in which Rey and Kylo fought Snoke’s guards. Most of the movie was pretty dull, pointless and emotionless. I wanted it to be over.

Dark side

Light side

SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read this if you haven’t seen “The Last Jedi” yet. If you have, enjoy the following banter between the light side and the dark side, as they debate the newest Star Wars movie. Representing the light side are Evan Dorian and Emma Pounders while Hudson Beaudry, Spence Burford and Andrew McDowell represent the dark side.

How can you say that? I would watch this movie every day if I had the chance! There’s so much to like about “The Last Jedi.”

It was a boring mess! Disney is starting to do things differently — and badly. In the past, Star Wars has done a good job of going to the edge of what is believable, but they’ve never crossed that line.

I don't see the problem! Bringing change to the franchise and adding some borderline-unbelievable elements is exciting.

I agree that they need to change things up so they’re not doing the same thing repeatedly, but it would be better if they avoided contradictions.

Like what? You mean the Force?

Yes! The Force-sensitive characters were made out to be godlike wizards. In “The Last Jedi,” the Force totally changed, to the point where Leia, someone who is not a trained Jedi, can harness the power of the Force to keep herself alive in space.

And what’s wrong with that?

That’s not how the Force works!

But it’s exciting to think that people as incredible as Luke, Leia, Rey and Kylo Ren are capable of doing things like projecting themselves across the galaxy, bridging their minds and harnessing the Force’s energy to escape certain death. It's fun to be able to marvel at what you don't understand when you're watching a movie.

Speaking of what I didn’t understand, why were certain terrible characters so involved with the story? Admiral Holdo is presented as being important, but I know nothing about her! She could

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have easily been replaced by Admiral Ackbar, a well-established character. Also, the entire storyline surrounding Rose ended up being pointless, and accomplished nothing aside from serving as an outlet for Disney’s political commentary.

Politics aren’t part of this! You can read into it all you want, but I care more about the key elements of the story. The character development around Rey, the obvious protagonist, was interesting and gave us a new sense of what it means to be a Jedi.

Rey has no excuse for being so powerful! I don’t want to accept that she’s just “special.” That’s a cop-out. When you’ve written a character into a hole, you should find a creative way to find a way out of that hole for the character, either by killing that person off or resolving the problem with good writing.

Don’t you think the movie accomplished that?

No! There were too many things that weren’t believable, and there were plot holes all over the place. If there are plot holes, the movie doesn’t have anything going for it.

Yes it does! The salt planet Crait was a an interesting new planet, and the visuals in Snoke’s throne room and at the ancient Jedi temple were perfect. Also, it was exciting to see the allusion to “Rogue One,” when the First Order was able to track the Resistance through hyperspace.

Fair enough. The visuals were definitely very appealing, and I appreciated the nod to “Rogue One.” Obviously, the franchise is changing. I recognize this is a sensitive issue to many fans, but in our view, it is changing for the better. People need to stop disparaging the movie for production issues or minor problems in the plot, and appreciate it for the beauty of the story.

Yeah…we’re just hoping for more anthology films like “Rogue One.” Keep those up, Disney, but maybe stop making trilogies. No more bad movies, please.

Thumbs All the Way Up Illustration by Emily O’Connell

John Green portrays mental illness in the modern landscape

M

By Rainey Zaugg ental illness has been portrayed multiple ways by the entertainment industry, but often to the detriment of the one in five Americans who have a mental illness.

More often than not, media portrays mental illness as either curable or completely unmanageable. The “cure” depicted by the entertainment industry often comes in the form of love interests, epiphanies or friendship, and the “unmanageable” depicted in those films can end in death, institutionalization or even the dramatized villainization of those diagnosed.

The film “Split” that came out in January 2017 stigmatizes schizophrenia by having Kevin Crumb, a man with 23 personalities, act inhumanly and commit murder, while the 2001 film “A Beautiful Mind,” set in the 1950s and 60s, depicts schizophrenia with compassion and realism.

With some films inaccurately

portraying mental illnesses and others notably out-of-date, few young adult novels, TV show or films in recent years have captured the truth of mental illness in today’s society — until now.

“Turtles All the Way Down”

by John Green released on Oct. 10, 2017 gives a long-awaited, refreshing and truthful depiction of mental illness.

In the novel, Green conveys his experience with mental illness through the story of his protagonist Ava Holmes, who like him, has obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety. The story is set in John Green’s home town of Indianapolis, where Holmes attends high school as a 16-year-old.

Yes, there are cliché elements to the story – like many other highschool based young adult novels today – but “Turtles All the Way Down” overcomes these typical clichés to create an odd and wonderful adventure involving a missing person’s case, breaking the law (a few times), a prehistoric lizard-thing named Tua and the accidental discovery of $100,000.

This story’s wannabe detective, Ava Holmes is a not-so-subtle reference to literature’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. The story follows Ava as she combats media portrayal by investigating a missing person case despite her OCD, not because of it.

Green intricately leads the readers through the highs and lows of just a few months of Ava’s life, following her through her everyday life and struggles, from texting a cute boy and to talking with a distant friend.

While the novel’s beginning is relatively slow and confusing, it builds momentum until it is entirely impossible to set down, even for a minute.

This book brings forth important, necessary questions as well as an entertaining adventure, as it discusses mental illness, wealth, a parent’s love, dating, friendship and so much more.

All the while, the reader becomes more understanding and knowledgeable about the navigation of mental illness in the modern age from seeing Ava

manage the pressures of relationships and communication and the high expectations from teachers and parents.

The most admirable aspect of the novel is the fact that, while Ava does have doctors, love interests and adventures, these elements are not intended to be her cures. Instead, Green allows her to reach a state of understanding of her mental illness as it continues throughout her life.

I am not diagnosed with a mental illness, but after seeing the struggles those with mental illness face, I understand much more about being a teenager and respecting other people’s stories and lives.

This novel and its irreplaceable lessons about true friendship, the power of the mind and self love are incredibly important for people of all ages to read.

If you choose to read this book, you will not regret it (unless you’re in it for turtles).

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OPINION

T

“Fake news” threatens American democracy, world

By Carolyn Lane he term “fake news” refers to false, often sensational, news stories written for the purpose of generating ad revenue or discrediting public figures.

“Fake news” does not refer to biased journalism or sloppy reporting, which journalists actively avoid, and it does not refer to simply getting information wrong.

Yet people seem to confuse these terms, applying the term “fake news” inaccurately.

On Jan. 17, President Donald Trump revealed the winners of his 2017 Fake News Awards, awarding prizes to reporters from The New York Times, CNN, ABC News, Newsweek, Time and The Washington Post.

However, these publications do not post fake stories. The New York Times, for instance, and its reporters have received 122 Pulitzer Prize awards – the most well-regarded award in the journalism industry – and the newspaper has 9.8 million readers, according to Statista.

Yet President Trump’s criticisms did not end there.

At a rally in Melbourne, Fla. last February, President Trump called the media “part of the corrupt system” and claimed that they do not want “to report the truth.” Three months later in Louisville, Ky., he again

spoke about the media, reiterating his belief in the prevalence of “fake news,” pointing at the press box as he spoke.

Fons Cervera, senior at Kentucky’s Dupont Manual High School, was in the press box at the Louisville rally and received backlash from the crowd after President Trump’s comments.

“I was at the front of the press pen...[and] I remember the people who were there turned around and started yelling at us and gesturing at us,” Cervera said. “Some of them even spit at us.”

Like many journalists at mainstream news organizations, prior to attending the rally, Cervera had never published a false story, although President Trump’s speech may have led attendees to believe he did.

Continued attacks on “fake news” organizations have begun to impact the world.

In November, CNN published a story highlighting the rise of slave auctions in Libya.

The story, which launched a formal investigation, gained the attention of President Trump, though not in the way some may have suspected. “@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation

to the WORLD very poorly.

The outside world does not see the truth from them!”, he tweeted 10 days after the story was published.

To many American news outlets, the tweet may have seemed insignificant, but its biggest effect occurred outside of the United States, where Libya 218, a Libyan-based news organization, questioned the validity of the story as a result.

According to The Guardian, the newspaper “used the tweet to question the credibility of the CNN video, [suggesting] many of CNN’s reports often [arise] out of collusion to serve political objectives.”

By diverting attention from the crime itself, Libya 218 highlighted a dangerous aspect of the “fake news” narrative: that fiction could override truth and that the media will cease to be trusted.

These possibilities are already a reality. A recent poll conducted by POLITICO shows that 46 percent of Americans believe the media makes up stories about President Trump. So maybe President Trump has been partially successful in pushing his “fake news” agenda, but at what cost to American democracy?

Our founding fathers etched freedom of speech and of the press into the very bedrock of

American government, inscribing both in the first amendment of our Constitution. As citizens once under rule of the tyrannical king who restricted their ability to speak, not having that right as part of our country’s founding was unthinkable. Yet today, our president is attempting to intimidate the press into silence, publishing dozens of tweets attacking the press and continually berating journalists for any small errors in their stories. The president is meant to uphold our Constitution, not shake its foundation to the core by breaking two of its core pillars.

The press and elected officials do not get along, but it does not permit those in power to diminish reporters’ role in society, an ideal agreed upon by those on both sides of the political spectrum.

During an interview on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, Senator John McCain of Arizona explained the dangers posed by losing a free press.

“I hate the press, but the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital,” Senator McCain said.

“And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”

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OPINION

Hidden Hate

America’s struggle with hate within

T

By Omar Yunus he image of uniformed men chanting racist slogans and carrying torches is not new to the minds of most Americans.

We see this a lot in our history classes when we watch films of Nazi or KKK parades. But that was in old black and white stock footage from decades before our parents were even born. Yet just this summer an eerily similar scene unfolded in the quiet college town of Charlottesville, Va. The tension between the protesters and counter-protestors erupted into violence that left many injured and one person dead.

No one saw this coming.

How could white supremacists terrorize a small American town in 2017? Sadly the blame in part lies with us. For too long we have been sweeping under the rug the simmering hatred that is alive in today’s America.

As Americans the way we have dealt with hate speech in the past few decades is simple. We have ignored it. In our daily lives on social media and in person we shut down these people and close them off from our communities.

After the events of Charlottesville, one of America’s most prominent Neo-Nazi publications, The Daily Stormer, found itself without a website because the companies that hosted the site, GoDaddy and Google, revoked their domains.

Of course this is the natural reac-

tion for a society that has come so far in the ways of equality, but it might not be the most effective approach.

All we did was just cover up the problem. We don’t hear the hate anymore, but these bigots still communicate with each other, building their own communities over the years while the rest of the country ignored them.

In a recent New York Times article the paper interviewed a white nationalist living a seemingly average American life. Although stating that he is not a Nazi, his ideas are almost exactly the same as theirs, they just go under a different banner. His hate now goes by a new name, but it still retains many of its racist ideas.

Fighting an ever-changing ideology of hate may seem futile, but there is one proven way to defeat it: talking. If you can engage with someone who holds these ideas out in the open, you can accomplish two things.

First you make them show their true colors to the point that no amount of rebranding can hide their bigotry. If you shut someone down just because they call themselves a white nationalist, you run the risk of sending them underground and making them infinitely more dangerous. Some of the most harmful bigots in history were the ones the world never even know existed until they had struck.

Men like Oklahoma City

bomber Timothy McVeigh and the Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof were relatively unknown by the world until they violently exploded onto the world’s radar.

The second benefit is that by engaging with these people you may be able to change their hateful opinions. An article in The New Yorker described how Megan Phelps-Roper, a member of the hate group the Westboro Baptist Church, decided to leave the group after having conversations with people on Twitter, who exposed her to parts of society she had not been able to see. They approached her as a human being and not as a monster.

A more influential figure who left a life of hate came in the form of Senator Robert Byrd. He started out his career in the Senate as a white supremacist-supporting Southern-Democrat who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He ended that career as one of the strongest supporters of civil rights in the Senate and advocated for the creation of the

National Monument and Memorial Day for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although some may argue this man just changed with the times, the many relationships he made in the Senate, including his strong bond with Senator Ted Kennedy, were contributing factors in his change of heart.

America loves to quote our heros but rarely do we ever heed their advice. Dr. King said “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” So why do we think putting hate mongers into a dark corner will ever change their ways? Time has proven that it won’t. Only the light of our attention can drive out this darkness.

As Dr. King said, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Illustration by Emily O’Connell

OPINION POLICY: The Lodge opinion section is a venue for the free expression of the student views at St. George’s Independent School. The opinions represented in this section are those of the authors alone and do not necesarily reflect those of the Lodge staff or of the St. George’s community at large. The Lodge strives to be an open forum for the thoughtful and deliberate exchange of comment and criticism and therefore welcomes letters to the editor. Letters to the editor will be printed in the opinion section of the newspaper, should not exceed 300 words and must be signed and accompanied by a verifiable email address. These letters will not be printed if the content is judged obscene, violates the privacy of others or encourages physical disruption of school activities.

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OPINION

Editorial:

We deserve the “Right to be Forgotten”

T

HAT woman. You know the one we’re talking about – the woman with whom Bill Clinton claimed he did not have an affair. You probably know her name, we definitely do. It’s a frequent answer to trivia questions, sometimes being shouted before the question “With whom did President Bill Clinton have an affair?” even finishes. We may even know it better than the name of the 25th president.

You might have noticed that we haven’t written her name yet, and we’re not going to. In fact, we’re going to argue that, if she wants, she should have the right to have her name erased from Internet searches – forever.

As United States Attorney Deb Ireland reminded us on Jan. 11, nothing on the Internet is ever completely erased. The Wayback Machine, a nonprofit organization

based in San Francisco, Calif., has archived over 310 billion web pages since its launch in Oct. 2001, saving billions of gigabits of information. In 2010, the United States’ Library of Congress began archiving Twitter’s entire cache of tweets since 2006. If you put it out there, it still exists somewhere.

And it can have devastating consequences.

In 2012, after a friend posted a photo of her jokingly disrespecting a “Silence and Respect” sign at Arlington cemetery, Ms. Lindsey Stone found herself publicly shamed on the web and without a job. Though she apologized profusely, when you Google “Lindsey Stone,” the first item that appears is an article titled “The Internet Shaming of Lindsey Stone” from The Guardian, and the first image is the infamous Arlington Cemetery photo.

Stone made a mistake, but

should she have to live with public knowledge of that for the rest of her life? Should this always be her legacy?

If she lived in Europe, she might have had other options.

In 2010, the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) ruled that individuals have the “Right to be Forgotten” on EU Internet searches in cases where information is “inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive.” It is important to note that the “Right to be Forgotten” ruling does not erase any information on the Internet, but instead hides specific websites when terms are searched through corporations like Google, making it harder but not impossible to access.

If Stone or “that woman” petitioned for information about themselves to be removed, who knows if the court would have ruled in their favor, but they might

have. They were ordinary citizens thrust into the national spotlight alongside America’s most famous political figures, despite never having run for public office.

Of course there may be mistakes that some people should never be allowed to put behind them, but for everyone else, there should be another option.

Although it may be hard to forget some mistakes, we as a society should give people the opportunity to redeem themselves.

Never before have we been so utterly unable to escape the past, to move forward, to start over.

This EU decision was the first step, but in society’s ongoing Internet expansion, it cannot be the last.

We are humans, we mess up, but that does not mean it should define our entire lives.

Staff editorials represent the opinion of the editorial board. The following count represents our editorial board’s stance on this editorial.

As always, letters to the editor in response to the editorial are encouraged.

The Editorial Board: Carolyn Lane, Annie Murff, Annika Conlee, Lauren Purdy, Merryn Ruthling, Caroline Zummach, Emma Bennett, Katelyn Grisham, Kaitlyn Bowman and Will Brown

Agree: 10/10 Abstain: 0/10 Disagree: 0/10

CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS: The Lodge strives for accuracy in all articles. However, mistakes are sometimes made.

When this happens, you will see corrections here.

The Lodge 23

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown!

February 8-10 @ 7 PM February 11 @ 3 PM

Tickets $10 adults, $5 students Germantown Campus Chapel/Performing Arts Center 8250 Poplar Avenue

24 The Lodge