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TIGER - FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2015
Feature
Feature
Out and About
The Arts Crawl is coming to South Pasadena on Saturday, February 21. The event, which displays works of local artists in area businesses, starts at 5 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m. In conjunction with the Arts Crawl, the Fremont Centre Theater is hosting Performance Night, with presentations showcasing singers, dancers, comics, and actors. /Faye Witherall
Peer mediation: help is on the way By Kevin Park Staff Writer
Stephanie Kim
GOLDEN KEY WINNERS Back row L to R: Katerina Levandis, A aron Ogita, Lauren Richards, Matthew Ng, Ross Lelieur. Front row L to R: Denise Huang, Lily Round, Maya Crain, Faith Kawakami, and Somi Jun (not pictured).
Student writers and artists earn 90 awards By Ross Lelieur Staff Writer A total of 55 individuals from South Pasadena High School won awards as part of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards western region. From both the writing and art categories, SPHS students collectively earned 90 accolades. The awards for writing were broken into three categories: Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mention. Of the 80 writing awards received by South Pasadena students, 13 were Gold Keys and the remaining 67 awards were Silver Keys or Honorable Mentions. The Gold Key recipients
in both art and writing will move on to the national level of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Their works, along with award-winning works from other regions of the competition, will be resubmitted to a jury of luminaries. “I wasn’t surprised by the number of students who won regional awards this year because I knew going into the competition how strong our student writing was,” AP English Language instructor Ms Diane Shires said. The Western Region-At-Large encompasses California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, and is the largest region in the
Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. South Pasadena students face a consistently competitive awards landscape each year due to the size of the participant pool. Over 300,000 students have entered the national competition for 2015, which offers a multitude of scholarship opportunities for finalists. Prizes include a $10,000 scholarship for Portfolio Gold Award winners in addition to the millions of dollars offered by colleges and universities partnered with the Alliance for Young Authors and Writers. For the full list of winners, go to pg. 13
Campus supervisor Ms Rebecca Hippenmeyer and freshman Will Hoadley-Brill are spearheading the reestablishment of a peer mediation program at South Pasadena High School. The program is currently in its training and planning stages and will be ready for implementation in about three weeks. Peer mediation is training about 20 students to be peer mediators who will help teachers, administrators, and other students solve their interpersonal problems. “In a nutshell, the goal of this group is to teach students empathy, tolerance, and leadership skills in order to empower them to make positive changes in school climate,” Hippenmeyer said. “Some of our group goals are to become better problem solvers, change campus culture, and get to know new people.” The program used to exist at SPHS until its leader Ms Janet Wichman left the school for an administration position at the district office. Now that Wichman has returned as vice principal, she has urged Hippenmeyer, who has experience in social work, to lead peer mediation. The program had its first training session last Wednesday, February 11, at 7 a.m. Hoadley-Brill led the session and has been training peer mediators for about two years. He received his own experience from a similar program at the middle school. The peer mediators were recruited through a combination of teacher referrals, recommendations, and volunteers. After training, these students should be able to act as neutral mediators between conflicting interests on campus.
Matt Scholtz
Freshman Will Hoadley-Brill leads discussion during a peer mediation session in the library tutoring room.
Personality Profile: Elise Matsusaka By Karen Hsueh Copy Editor
Senior Elise Matsusaka’s playful interest in art is visible in the way she embroiders her stuffed animals with their names. For many students, this fascination would not translate into anything tangible, but Matsusaka has allowed it to nourish one of SPHS’s fastest growing organizations. Matsusaka is known on campus for her intelligence and fashion sense, but only recently have people found out that she is the highest scoring decathlete in the history of Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon. Out of 500 students on 55 teams, Matsusaka had the highest combined score of 9,119.2 points out of 10,000 points possible in 10 subjects ranging from mathematJenny Luo ics to essay writing. “[Matsusaka] knows how Senior Elise Matsusaka was the first student in the L.A. to get work done,” senior and County Academic Decathlon program to break 9,000 points. fellow decathlete Oscar Gar-
cia said. “And not only can she do this, but she also helps other people to achieve their maximum potentials as well.” Matsusaka’s role as the copresident of the SPHS Academic Decathlon team has allowed it to score higher than ever before, with a shot at placing in the state and national Academic Decathlon competitions. Although team members are chosen by test scores and not experience, Matsusaka has been on the main competitive team for every year since the program’s inception in the 2012-2013 school year. “At first, I thought Academic Decathlon looked really challenging, which intrigued me,” Matsusaka said. “I was also really inspired by Mr. Valcorza and everyone on the team. I felt like all along there was something of a shared vision that we would do really well, and that created a lot of good energy and motivation, so I loved the environment.”
Matsusaka’s passion for learning goes beyond the realm of Academic Decathlon. Although she is a well-rounded student in terms of academics, her favorite subjects are science and language. In her free time, she likes to binge-watch movies, search up fashion runway shows, and cook. “I like to paint my nails and travel with my family, but my passions lie in food. I like to try lots of restaurants,” Matsusaka said. “I really like art, but I like consuming it, not producing it.” Even though Matsusaka has plenty of personal accomplishments under her belt, she credits her success to teamwork. “If you work hard alone, you alone will do well, but if you work hard as a team and put energy into motivating everyone then you all do well together,” Matsusaka said. “Winning feels best when you have friends to share it with.”