SPRING 2020
A publication of the
WESTSIDE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION alumni.wcsfoundation66.org
Westside Students Show Positivity During Pandemic By Claire Benson
As a Westside High School senior and Co-Editor in Chief of Westside Wired, I felt it was absolutely necessary for my staff to continue to write and report on events occurring within the community throughout our current situation. I believe that journalism is one of the many great forces that holds a community together during difficult times. There are many unknowns and inconsistencies in all of our lives, however, with Westside Wired continuing to write and publish stories; although small, it is one thing that remains stable and consistent despite the chaos occurring in the world around it. Not only is it beneficial for the community but it also allows us to feature the recent experiences of our fellow Westside students, staff and families as well as their unique perspectives. Westside High School sophomore Luke Steiner has been doing more than just his online learning assignments during this time; Steiner created “The Distance Project” which features buttons that encourage community members to social distance in public settings. “I’ve been selling buttons through a website I created; I call my project ‘The Distance Project’,” Steiner said. “So far I’ve made four buttons, one for Nebraska, one for Cape Cod, and two that are like the U.S. flags, and I’ve just been selling them and trying to promote them to promote social distancing and community unity.” Steiner was interviewed about his project by three local Omaha media groups, those being KMTV, WOWT and
KETV. Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts also acknowledged Steiner’s project during one of his press conferences. Steiner said that his project has gained popularity, selling upwards of 1,000 buttons and that there are participants in many different states. “We’re in 14 states now,” Steiner said. “We even had a hospital in New Jersey that bought 45 of them, and their medical staff are wearing the buttons and they even sent us a photo of all of them wearing the buttons which was really cool.” Steiner said he is selling his buttons for $2.00 at thedistanceproject.net and all profit will go towards the First Responders Foundation. Westside is known to be a diverse school district in many areas; one of these areas arguably being the various athletic opportunities students have. The 2020 spring sports season was canceled due to public health and safety concerns from COVID-19, forcing seniors to miss out on their last high school sports season. Westside High School senior and varsity baseball player Harrison Kreiling is one of many seniors in that situation. Kreiling did not get to experience his last high school baseball season and said that with the large number of seniors on the team, they were looking forward to their last season and hopefully a state championship. “I think the bigger deal was that we had 12 seniors on the team, so we were ready for a state championship, and it just kind of got taken away from us,” Kreiling said.
Westside senior Harrison Kreiling acts as the catcher during a Westside varsity baseball game.
Kreiling said that although he was disappointed to be missing out on the season, he is making an effort to use this time to practice for next spring, when he will be playing collegiate baseball for University of Nebraska-Omaha. “I think for about the first week, I didn’t really know what had happened, it didn’t really feel real if that makes sense but then it kind of sunk in after a week and I was like, ‘I can either mope about it and feel bad about it or just go do what I can to get ready for [collegiate baseball] next year,’” Kreiling said. As previously mentioned, Westside Community Schools has always been a diverse school district that prides itself on supporting its community. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, Westside has emphasized this by providing meals, WiFi, clothing, and other goods and services to families throughout the district. Although many daily tasks such as going to school and work have been paused, Westside’s support for its community has not. The Westside community has proven to be stronger together, whether physically together or not.