March 2019 Jim Caruso gets lunch from Boeing volunteers Marisa Borer and Matt Williams at the Sunshine Acres Picnic. See more, page 12
Two students leave lasting mark Senate approves suicide on Red Mountain High School prevention training By Jason Stone
By Jim Walsh
Seniors Adrian Kwiatkowski, right, and Geethika Ameneni are two of the most decorated students to pass through its halls.
When a great athlete passes through a neighborhood high school, future students will always have a chance to relive the glory. Nearly every school has athletic trophies in a case, retired numbers on a wall and records in the history books. But when the greatest academic minds leave their marks on a school, it’s almost never easy to tell who they are. That means you just have to take the principal’s word that some of the best students to ever attend a school are currently enrolled. Red Mountain principal Jared Ryan thinks he has a pair of those students right now.
(Photo by Jason Stone)
Students...continued on page 6
Jennifer Stewart’s 14-year-old son committed suicide as a freshman at Red Mountain High School. (Photo courtesy YouTube)
With only a Gilbert and a Mesa senator voting against it, a teen suicide prevention bill was overwhelmingly passed by the State Senate last week. The bill, which moves to the House this week, requires that all school personnel dealing with students in grades six to 12 receive training every three years on how to recognize the early warning signs of teen suicide. Unbeknownst to the Senate, a Mesa mother underscored the need for that training a day earlier, February 26, as she told the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board about her 14-year-old son’s suicide
Suicide...continued on page 7
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