Volume LVIII, Issue 3
15325 East Los Robles Avenue, Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
Februrary 2019
Los Altos ROP Students Conqueror the Night By Damien Alvarado
Conquerors in the La Puente Valley Regional Occupational Program received scholarships on Feb. 20 at the Industry Hills Expo Center. At the center, dedicated students from the La Puente Valley Regional Occupational Program and other individuals from eight schools in the Hacienda La Puente, Basset, and Rowland Unified School District gathered for a catered meal and a night of recognition where 17 Conquerors received scholarships. Students including Alessandro Velasco, Alexander Marquez, Alyssa Meza, Martha Granados, Mikayla Lowe, and Ryan Lau that made it to the first round received a
$100 scholarship. Tianna Trevizo received an $800 scholarship as LAHS’ “Outstanding ROP Student” for her hard work in Medical Core, while three other students were awarded Industry Sector Awards in the medical field. These awards were based on specific career areas from six sectors, third place received $400, second place received $600, and first place received $800. Megan Hackbarth was awarded first place for the Medical Core Sector, while Mary Rached received first place and Alexis Holguin second in the Other Medical Sector. “It was a true honor receiving that award and I am so grateful for all of the Los Al-
tos Staff Members for believing in me and always pushing me to be the best version of myself. ROP has allowed me to learn more about the medical field and it has validated my passion to pursue a career in the field of medicine,” Rached said. Two LAHS Video Production students won “The Arts, Media, and Hospitality” category. Briana Munoz was awarded third place and Tracy Fonseca was awarded second in that category. In Finance and Business Stephanie Ramos received second place for her work, and Vicki Zhai took first place for Engineering, Robotics, Child Development, and Education. The event also featured specialty awards which
award $500 to each selected student. Of the specialty awards, Ramos was awarded the Bill Hauser Memorial Award to pursue Career Technical Education, and Cameron Diaz received the Mary Ann King Memorial Scholarship for business. The Hacienda Heights Women’s Club provided four scholarships to empower future generations, and three LAHS students were selected: Madison Hagerty, Tracy Fonseca, and Munoz. Andre Lagrosa received the Pat McIntosh Award in honor of the woman who founded The Education Bridge Foundation. “When I heard my name being called for the various categories that I was awarded with I was in shock, and
I was super excited. It was honestly a relieving moment for me to know that my interview went really well. It just shows how my hard work really pays off,” Munoz said. LAHS won a total of $14,600 in scholarships, with students who participated prior to the interview rounds receiving $50 each. “I was really excited! I think that the amount of money that came to just students at our school, which I think was a third of all the money they handed out came to just Los Altos students was pretty amazing,” Hess said. “There were eight other schools there and if you think about it mathematically we should have gotten much less than one third of the amount of money.”
Boys Varsity Basketball Wins Fourth Title By Damien Alvarado Los Altos Basketball put on a memorable season for the Hacienda Heights community. The hometown kids advanced to the second round of playoffs and senior guard Jarod Lucas broke records along the way. The Conquerors finished off the year with a fourth consecutive league title and a 24-6 record. Going into the season, many spectators doubted this team. Last year’s squad boasted a pretty 24-4 record and a league title as well. This did not phase the team as they were led by Oregon State commit Lucas.
Guards, Matthew Barrera and Isaiah Barcelo, brought great defense and the ability to shoot the three. Sophomore Christian Cavanias locked down the paint this year and was able to grab a lot of boards. This allowed Los Altos to be effective on the fast break and get a lot of second chance opportunities. Junior Dion Porter was Lucas second hand man along the way. Porter averaged 15 points per game and was a pest on defense due to his length. Cavanias talked about his ability to use his strength in the paint and take hard charges,“It hurts, standing there in the paint and taking the hit. It’s some-
Photo by Megan Hackbarth
thing I have to do, and giving him the body because no one wants the body. That is what helped me and my teammates throughout the season.” Lucas put on a show for the Conquerors first game vs La Puente. He scored a Los Altos record 50 points and made it known to doubters Los Altos is still in it. The team later dropped to .500 at 4-4 but went on a run finishing off the season with a 15 game winning streak. Senior night was one for the record books as the Conquerors closed in on the Playoffs, Lucas closed in on being the All Time Southern Section Leading Scorer. Going into the game on January 31st vs West Covina Lucas trailed all-time leader Casey Jacobsen (3,284, 199699) of Glendora by 51 points. The Bulldogs did everything they could to stop Lucas they spent the night double and tripling him, to not let Lucas break the record. The Conquerors defeated West Covina 97-58, and Lucas was crowned the alltime leader with 3,285 points heading into the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs. Head Coach Jeff Lucas said, “When he got that last point it was very emotional as a parent and a head coach, and for our family and school,” (Continued on Page 4) Senior Jarod Lucas dominates opponents.
Photo by Laila Jibrin
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Mission Statement The 2018-2019 Journalism team strives to provide the school and the comunity with reliable and factual information that encourages thoughful coversations and discourse. On this diverse campus, we hope to report and respect the various viewpoints of all members of our community. We believe this to be an imperative role, as the students of Los Altos are to be future leaders and deserve to be informed. We hold this duty with the utmost respect and responsibility and view ourselves as representatives of our campus.
Staff Editors-in-Chief: Lucy Argaez Danielle Porras
Student Journalists:
Adriana Guzman
Media & Contact For even more content including up-to-date articles and videos visit our website:
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For any comments, questions, ideas, or concerns contact us through our email: 2019lahsjournalism@gmail.com Journalism proudly contributes to LA Conqueror Athletics:
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Senior Delcare Victory By: Giovanna Fernandez The seniors racked up a total of 128 points. Coming very close to victory, sophomores took second place with 123 points. Juniors took third place with 92 points, and the freshmen had 80 points. Eager to escape the cold, the students entered through their grade’s assigned entrances to the gym. Inside, each corner was decorated with creative class posters. “I came back for the hype this year. All the kids in our grade were able to come together, even the ones who don’t go to sports games,” said Lopez. The moments between all the games and tension were meant to bring the school closer together. Entertaining videos like the fear pong challenge with teachers Todd Hedell and Janice Kim let students take a breather from all the chaos. Even with many losses that night, the spirit of the freshman class went on. They won a tough, exhausting game of human chair. “What will bring me back next year is how everyone in gym had a lot of spirit. Everyone is rooting for their own class. It’s also just fun working together, especially in leadership, to create this super fun rally for everyone,” said Valentin.
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Damien Alvarado Adrian Banuelos Giovanna Fernandez Kimberly Gonzalez Laila Jibrin Douglas Lin Briana Muñoz Elias Robles Brandon Soung Briana Trujillo
LA FOCUS
HOSA Spreads Awareness to Conqueror Cancer By Briana Trujillo Health Occupational Students of America (HOSA) starts the semester off by spreading awareness of different types of pediatric cancers. On January 29, HOSA members during lunch created a video to spread awareness of different pediatrics cancers, such as, leukemia, neuroblastoma, and wilms tumor. This kicked off their first year of doing this video. Freshman Aiyanah Mitchell said, “I really like the idea of creating this video because I feel like as Conquerors, we must spread the awareness of pediatric cancer. Not many people focus on the idea that many children have passed away due to these different types of cancers.” The idea of this video was inspired by the collabora-
tion of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and HOSA. The two organizations at our school set up video of “Pop the Stigma!” HOSA wanted to create their own with the slogan “Conqueror Cancer!” On top of that, many other schools under the Chapter of HOSA have done videos of cancer awareness. Vice President of NAMI, Jackie Sandoval said, “I really like the idea as being a member of NAMI and HOSA, makes it cool how HOSA is starting to spread different types of important issues in the world.” Under the charge of Jared Ibarra, Jazmine Alexander, Laila Jibrin and Manjoth Kaur, HOSA will be planning to play this video the day of the Clash of Classes annual night rally. Mitchell said, “The fact
that we are planning to play it the day of the rally is good because the mail goal of the video was to spread awareness on pediatric cancer. Being able to spread the awareness can hopefully make people aware of topics this serious.” In the video, members were able to write a specific type of pediatric cancer and some facts about it. At the end of the video, the group comes together and rips the piece of paper to symbolize children can conqueror cancer. Sandoval said, “This video is such an amazing idea, I wish HOSA was able to do this video earlier! It allows people to understand cancer is an important topic that must be heard.”
3 OP-ED Pop Singer Receives Controversy in Pop Culture February 2019
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By Briana Trujillo Recently, artist Ariana Grande released a new single that led to controversy on social media platforms. Her third lead single for her album “Thank You, Next” called “7 Rings,” released on January 18, 2019 led to extreme praise. Soon, rapper, Princess Nokia, posted on her via Instagram saying a verse off of the new single was copied by one of her songs named “Mine.” In the video she posted, Nokia said, “’Ain’t that the little song I made about brown women and their hair? Hmmm, sounds about white.’” While Ariana Grande’s chorus expresses, “I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it/you like my hair? Gee, thanks, just bought it,” the same rhythm and beat is used in Princess Nokia song when her chorus says, “It’s mine, I bought it.” Freshman Adrian Lopez said, “I think that sonically she didn’t copy Princess Nokia because even though the songs are similar in flow, it’s an overused flow, so you can’t really say that she copied her, however lyrically, it is very similar.”
Social media drama accounts discovered Soulja Boy was the original artist to use this flow in the song “Pretty Boy Swag.” He soon reacted to this by posting a fan made video comparing the similarities of the song and captioned it, “Arianaaaaaaa?” In the defense of Ariana Grande, fans of the pop singer accused Princess Nokia of sampling a song by Kali Uchis.
Senior Paloma Trujillo said, “I find it pretty ironic how Princess Nokia is accusing Ariana Grande for ‘copying’ her song, but at the same time she does the same exact thing to another artist. Nokia just wants the attention.” Despite the controversy surrounding the songs, this single was set praise by hitting number one on iTunes in 73 countries and
was the biggest hit by female artists on global Spotify daily by reaching 8.55 million streams. Lopez said, “Although ‘7 Rings’ hit major success in her career, the song was overall an okay song. I feel like it isn’t very culturally appropriate if the song was actually copied because Princess Nokia’s song talks about empowering women of color that have different hair
styles, while Ariana’s talking about buying hair that could resemble a person of color.” Her third single will lead to her new album ‘Thank You, Next,’ releasing on February 8th of 2018. Grande’s fan army still anticipates her second album within 6 months, following her album “Sweetener.”
College Spam Floods Mailboxes Drowning Students in Mail By Laila Jibrin Another incessant email alert rings from a student’s phone. Irritated, the student glances at the screen. Another no-name college sending an email. It wouldn’t have been a problem if this alert was the only invite to check out a school the student hasn’t heard much of. But its not. It is the tenth email, after four letters in the mail and two calls to the students home, all from the same school. This spam has to stop. Each year, colleges have been sending out more and more excessive amounts of spam through emails and mail, irritating prospective student. “It’s getting hard to find the important emails from the admissions to the schools I’ve already applied to,” said irritated Senior Manjoth Kaur. “The important emails get lost in all the ‘Come check out our school’ junk!” If any student has taken a standardized test recently, they have encountered the question if they wanted to receive materials and publications from colleges, and if the student had
chosen yes, their mail boxes, both at home and electronically, were filled a few weeks later. Some schools can send messages nearly daily, with the same content that could have been covered with one well thought out message. “For some schools I was able to choose the ‘optout’ option, but the majority of the emails I get don’t even offer the option to reply,” said Senior Jasmine Alexander. “I’m having problems keeping up with my incoming mail. For one school, I’ve probably gotten over thirty different messages.” The need for colleges to establish a name through having students that meet their demographic apply is understandable. To find the perfect student, colleges want the students that, in one aspect or another meet their criteria, to learn about their campus. Each college has its own story that it wants to tell. Each school has its own unique quality that they want to share. The mail can be beneficial at times for helping students find that perfect place to spend their next four years in. Some college blogs and advisors even recommend students receiving the mail file it away until
they have to read and decide on the colleges they wish to apply to. “I love hearing from colleges I wouldn’t have heard about if it wasn’t for the mail they sent me,” said Senior Natalie Rodriguez, “I even applied to a few that I heard from and got accepted! But I can understand how some schools go a little over-
board.” Hearing from unknown schools is an opportunity for students on the search to find the perfect college to fit all of their individual needs and preferences, but the admissions of these colleges should also not abuse the possible prospective student’s decision to release their information.
“There needs to be a balance. The student selected to hear from colleges for a reason, but no one wants to be drowned with college brochures and emails,” said Kaur. “One to two messages are fine, but after three, the colleges need to stop. We heard about the school. Now let us decide.”
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February 2019
SPORTS
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Girls Varsity Soccer’s Hard Work Leads to Playoffs
Two Lady Conquerors defend the goal against Charter Oak during CIF game. By Elias Robles After a season of hard work and dedication, the Los Altos Girls Varsity Soccer Team made it to round two of CIF. The team ended their season by beating La Habra High School and moving on to playoffs. The team had made a five season playoff streak, only to be broken after 2 seasons of not attending playoffs. Through the season, the team worked their way to be tied in second place, along with Charter Oak, in league, making them applicable for CIF. Their first round game was played against Western
Christian where they defeated the team and advanced into playoffs. Senior forward Madison Hagerty scored three goals for the Conquerors, leading them to win the game 3-1. Hagerty said, “Madison Hagerty [Senior Forward] and Kaitlyn Bolanos [Junior Goalie] definitely stood out these games from not only their hard work ethic, but their motivation spread to the rest of the team by setting such high expectations.” Second round game was played on the team’s home field, bringing in a large, supportive crowd. The girls were able to end their season on the same field they
laid out their hard work on, which had lead them to that moment. Junior defender/midfielder Alexis Cardenas said, “My teammates motivated me throughout the two games. This year’s team was by far the closest team I’ve ever been on so striving to do my best for them wasn’t a problem and always kept me going.” St. Margarets provided the Conquerors with a tough competition, but they fought through the whole time. Sophomore defensive midfielder Malayna Mercado scored a goal for the team in the second half, leaving the girls with a determined
mindset to move on in playoffs. The game left many on the edge of their seats, with a close game ending in double overtime. St. Margarets advanced in playoffs, beating Los Altos 2-1 in overtime. “Leaving these two games was difficult for me,” said
Photo by Danielle Porras Cardenas. “I wish that we could have had more time to play with each other, but I’m so happy that this season happened and we were all able to get so close to each other.”
Boys Varsity Basketball Wins Fourth Title (Continued from Page 1) Jeff Lucas said. “And for him staying home and breaking the record like that is a great moment.” The Conquerors also announced that the school will open up a Hall of Fame for their athletes. Los Altos held a ceremony afterward to retire Lucas’ No. 2 jersey, becoming the first Conqueror in school history to have his jersey retired. Lucas said, “At the beginning of the year I told my dad, you think I can be No. 1 all time? He said, no you can’t,” Lucas recalled. “The first thing I did was go the gym and make 500 shots. And here I am, No. 1 alltime. It’s a blessing.” In the first round of CIF-
SS Division 1 Playoffs Los Altos outlasted Crossroads 81-70 to continue their winning streak of 16 games. Lucas and Barrera combined for a total of 59 points as Lucas had 36 and Barrera had 23. The two were torching Crossroads from deep and the amount of rebounds the Conquerors were able to grab, helped them create better scoring opportunities and move them into the second round. In the second round Los Altos put up a fight in the first only trailing by 8 but Damien started to run away with the score. The Conquerors were in it most of the game but fell to the Spartans 86-72 in the second round of the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs. Lucas finished with 35
points and will end his career with 3,356 points, which is tops in Southern Section history and third all-time in state history. “We’re a group of kids all from Hacienda Heights and to go up to Division 1 and play with the big boys, I think there were only two publics schools left in Division 1, so, it means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to my dad,” said Lucas. In a season to remember Los Altos finished off the year with a 24-6 record. The team won the Hacienda League outright and Jarod Lucas laced up his shoes for one last joyride. The Hacienda Heights community witnessed greatness and will remember this one special season for years to come.
To secure the lead, Barcelo jumps to dunk the ball. Photo by Laila Jibrin