Iun Chen/Maverick Messenger(From left to right) Ashley Huggins, James Morgensen, and Casey Goodwin smile about their achievements.

Iun Chen
Junior Staff Writer

At A-TECH, three students, Casey Goodwin, Ashley Huggins, and James Morgensen, who each have a chance to become one of the 121 Presidential Scholars in America.

The Presidential Scholar Program was established in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The program allowed America to recognize some of its top academic achievers. In 1979, the program was extended to also recognize students in visual, creative, and performing arts. One hundred forty-one high school seniors are recognized each year as Presidential Scholars: 121 in academics and 20 in the arts.

High school seniors who have done exceptionally well on their SAT and ACT assessments are automatically considered for the award. The program starts off with about 2600 students from the United States, the top 20 scoring females and top 20 scoring males from each state. Huggins, Morgensen, and Goodwin are in this group.

Around mid-April, more students are cut off the list, leaving only about 500 people, six to twenty from each state.

“Essays are evil,” said candidate Casey Goodwin. “There are too many of them.” A total of six essays are required for students to advance in the competition. An example of an essay question given is: Describe your most significant contribution to the community.

During the whole process of the competition, nominated students must still prove their qualifications for the award. Students must present themselves to the judges by submitting material, such as essays, self-assessments, school reports, and transcripts. Judgment is also based on academic achievement, personal characteristics, leadership, and service activities.

“The program is only for recognition,” commented James Morgensen. “About the best thing you can get out of it is a paid vacation to Washington D.C., and people might offer us money.”

In May, the 121 students are chosen. The Presidential Scholars are given a free trip to Washington D.C., where they get to visit historical landmarks, meet with government officials, and receive their Presidential Scholar medallion sponsored by the White House.

Ashley Huggins says, “When I first got my letter for this, I thought, ‘What is this thing?’ I didn’t really think anything of it until Ms. Marshall called me down. I kind of disregarded it at first.”

“This is an awesome opportunity for the students,” said Ms. Marshall, who is filling out the paperwork for the A-TECH nominees. “It’s very prestigious and I think it’s a great honor. It’s also a lot of work for the students. We should be proud of these students.”

By Kristiana Trinidad
Junior Staff Writer

Couples going to the Sadie Hawkins Dances are supposed to match. A-TECH’s theme for the dance is Once Upon a Sadies, meaning the motif for the evening is fairytales. Forget about matching t-shirts and socks! This year’s dance should be special. Instead of simply matching with one’s date, why not go with a fairytale theme?

Wearing clothes from a classic fairytale would be fun, especially for the girls. Now’s the time to recycle last year’s Halloween costume hidden in the back of your closet. The stereotypical thing to do for a dance like this is to wear a random prince and princess costume. For those girls who still have a little bit of their childhood dreams inside them, a costume from fairy tales will be a huge hit.

One can never go wrong with Cinderella, but there are so many other great princesses from a variety of stories. Besides, who would want to look like every other girl at the dance? Other popular fairytales include Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel.

A more interesting costume choice is to go as the characters from Aladdin. Despite common belief, Aladdin is actually a Persian/Arabic fairytale, far older than most of the popular ones, so there’s a better chance of being more unique.

The best part of going as the couples from these fairytales is that people rarely pay attention to the prince, so the guys can usually get away with a plain, generic prince costume.

Though they are limited, there are choices that don’t have anything to do with royalty for those girls who can’t convince their dates to wear a prince costume. Some options are to go as Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. Some couples, if they both agree, can go as Peter Pan and Wendy.

Not everyone has a date, meaning many that attend come with friends as a group. Luckily, there are plenty of fairytales with more than two characters that can easily be identified. For example, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the Three Little Pigs would be an appropriate choice.

If the costumes are too much for your budget, there’s no harm in simply wearing the same fairytale themed clothing, such as t-shirts with a fairytale character on it, in replacement to the costumes, but it would be best to actually dress up in a costume like the theme.

A-TECH’s Sadie Hawkins Dance is to take place on February 28. Tickets are fifteen dollars.

By Henry Nikogosyan
Junior Staff Writer

A-TECH’s very own Mr. Patterson was chosen to speak at the National Conference of Mathematics in Washington D.C., on the twenty-fourth of April. Mr. Patterson submitted a teaching proposal on his style of teaching and was selected from hundreds of other math teachers.

According to Mr. Patterson it was difficult to achieve this award. Only a few teachers get selected every year, and he had applied several times before without being selected.

It was Mr. Patterson’s unique style of teaching that helped him get selected for the conference. “I realized that I like mathematics because it feels like a puzzle or game,” said Mr. Paterson. “It has rules like games. It has logic like games. It has a winning solution like games.” Mr. Patterson uses games to teach geometry problem solving logic and to excite students about learning. The games replace worksheets or textbook questions because they teach the same concepts. “The use of games makes my classroom fun, different, and more interesting for some students,” said Mr. Patterson. “I used it for students that didn’t like math at all and it gets students excited.”

He said that the best part of achieving this award is feeling like his teaching method is one other teachers want to learn more about. It shows that his technique is good enough to be promoted in a conference. The whole idea is that he will be presenting a new style of education for others to learn about.

“I don’t really seek out awards,” said Mr. Patterson. “It’s an honor to be selected.”

On April 24 Mr. Patterson will be presenting on the use of games to teach logic. He will show how the games can be used to teach geometry methods.

Mr. Patterson said, “This is a great opportunity to represent A-TECH and to display some of the things I do in the classroom.” His presentation will consist of a demonstration of his technique; however there is still a lot of time until the conference takes place so the demonstration could change.

“That’s cool that he got the award. He was the coolest teacher,” said sophomore student Ryan Schuler. “His class was fun.”

Iun Chen
Junior Staff Writer

During the month of November, students were able to compete in a large district contest called the Microsoft Web Contest. This was a contest that CCSD students competed in by designing a Web page using Microsoft’s new program called Microsoft Expressions Suite. This program is similar to Adobe’s DreamWeaver Suite. Students were given a theme upon which they based their Web pages.

Microsoft Expressions Suite is a program specially made for computer designers. It is basically a Web design program for Windows and Macintosh computers. Included in the Expression Studio 2 – which is what A-TECH teacher, Dr. Gunn’s, multimedia classes used to make the Web pages, are Expression Web 2, Expression Blend 2, Expression Design 2, Expression Media 2, and Expression Encoder 2, and Visual Studio Standard 2008.

Before the teachers had to report to school in August, many of them had already known about the contest. Teachers who wanted to have their students participate were to go to training classes, provided by Microsoft, so the teachers knew how the program worked. Out of all the teachers at A-TECH, only Dr. Gunn attended the training.

Teachers who attended the training received a license for the software. Microsoft also provided licensing for the students at the school to be able to take home a copy of Expressions Suite and install it in their computers to work on the contest.

In November, students who wanted to compete in the contest had to apply in groups of two to four people. Dr. Gunn let all of her students know about it in advance so they had preparation time. About five percent of her students entered the contest. Students had to register by the end of November. Contest material had to be submitted by December 19, 2008, which gave the students only one month to work on the their Web pages.

Eric Lo and Christian Hood worked as a team. Lo in is Dr. Gunn’s fifth period class, while Hood is in her eighth period class.

Dr. Gunn states that five percent of her students entered the contest, but only three groups completed the contest, meaning they submitted material to be judged.

Juniors Neil Daniels and Melynn Thompson worked as a group, and junior Carlo Valentin and senior James Stutzman worked as a team. Both teams finished the competition, but were not selected as winners.

“I thought designing a Web site would be a pretty easy job. Designing the Web site is another part where it requires a lot of creativity, which is based off of the theme. I really liked the theme, actually,” says first place winner Eric Lo, a sophomore.

By winning first place in the Microsoft Web Contest, Lo and Hood received a 120 GB Zune each, along with a two hundred dollar Visa gift card.

“I thought the Microsoft Expressions Contest was a really creative idea for students to participate in a Web design contest where the theme was I Imagine My Future, which students created ideas for what the future might look like,” Lo adds on.

Sophomore Christian Hood explains the benefits of the competition. “The money was a great prize. It’s a good practice for designing Web sites. I was really excited about winning the contest.”

There was only one set of first place winners, both from A-TECH. There was a team of students from Southeast Career Technical Academy (SECTA) who received second place. All participants for the Web Contest will receive a certificate of participation and a t-shirt on February 24.

Alyssa Hahn
Junior Staff Writer

Of the many of the clubs and organizations at A-TECH, the Graphics Club is among the most hard working. Every Thursday, students meet in room 401 to learn various ways to design things varying from people to things surrounding them.

“Some of the students stay as late as four or four-thirty,” says Mr. Blount, the Graphic Club’s advisor, “sometimes they even stay until five,”

At each meeting, the students learn different techniques and ways to design certain objects.

“Right now we’re learning to design realistic human faces,” says George Ambartsoumian, an A-TECH junior and member of the Graphics Club, “but we just basically learn to design and model objects surrounding us like cars and people.”

“We learn things like how to use Photoshop, do 3D renderance, and make layouts,” says A-TECH Junior Anthony Borgen. “We’re starting to learn how to make realistic flesh and human faces. It’s a lot of fun, but it can be a bit tedious sometimes.”

Though it may seem like Graphics Club has been listed among the rest of the clubs for a long time, it’s one of the younger organizations in A-TECH

“Actually, Graphics Club was just founded this year,” says Mr. Blount. “Another student and I were brainstorming and we came up with the idea. There are only around 15 students in Graphics Club right now, and we just learn different techniques.”

“Come to Graphics Club,” adds Ambartsoumian. “It’s really a lot of fun, designing objects in the world around us and the surroundings we live in. It’s just really awesome and, if you’re one who really likes Graphic Design, you can never get bored of it.”

Emily Browning
Junior Staff Writer

For years, A-TECH students experienced something Student Council calls the “Fun Assembly.” It is a chance for students to show off their talents in front of the entire school. Both performers and audience members enjoy the assembly, even if for some it is only because it is a chance to get out of class for an hour on a Friday afternoon.

On February 27, the Fun Assembly is returning. Auditions for students who wanted to show off their talents were held on February 3 and 5. Eleven students and a band auditioned, including singers, guitarists, break dancers, and even a ninja.

Several students were happy to hear that last year’s break-dancers are back. They performed beautifully last year and were one of the best acts.

“Everybody should be stoked to be there.” aid Sadu Rhabi, Junior President of Student Council, who is in charge of the Fun Assembly. “They should bring all their energy and school spirit.”

The Fun Assembly will last between 30 and 45 minutes. The performers include Meghan Fossum, Ashley Young, Christian Paskevicius, Brianna Lamanna, Kim Vannie, Giselle Amancio, Lawrence Arrascal, Jared Bananes, Makenzie Vance, Emylia Terry, and Jen To. Ms. Vallari, the advisor of Student Council is doing her best to make it as long as possible.

Student Council members say that this year’s assembly should rock. While they couldn’t reveal the theme, they promise everyone will be royally amazed.

Vincent Martinez
Senior Staff Writer

On February 13 A-TECH took part in its second of three consecutive years of recording sophomore students’ Body Mass Indices (BMIs). The BMI test was taken after the seeing and hearing test in the library February 13.

The BMI test is mandatory and is taken because Nevada Legislature passed a bill following Washoe County Health District’s data analysis of Washoe County, showing that their obesity rate is higher than the national average.

A-TECH was one of only several schools chosen by the state of Nevada to conduct this test. The test is taken in Nevada to see if Nevada should set up an obesity-prevention funding program.

“This test may not be the best option to test for child obesity since BMI is not always precise,” said Ms. Rodriguez, A-TECH’s heath aide.

Funding for the obesity-prevention program will enable most high schools to get better food and more activities. Funding has not yet been granted to Nevada because the three consecutive tests are not over. The tests are only administered once a year to that year’s sophomore class.

Tyler Livingston
Copy Editor

The original Kindle introduced last year was an enormous success in the world of reading, combining technology and books seamlessly. Kindle 1 stored up to 200 books on its built-in hard drive, providing readers with a small device to travel with and read all of their books on the go without having to lug around full-sized novels.

Kindle 1 had a few faults that users begged Amazon to fix.

The first of these faults was design. The original Kindle was considered by its adopters to be ugly. It had an awkward looking and feeling keyboard, and a sloped shape, making reading slightly uncomfortable after long periods of time.

Button placement was a problem for users because the “next page” and “previous page” buttons were located along the entire edge of the device, making it easy for readers to slip and accidentally turn the virtual page.

Kindle 2, shipping in late February and costing $359, fixes all of these issues and gives users a few valuable extras, including the ability to store up the 1500 books.

Now at just one third of an inch thick, the width of a pencil, the new Kindle is packed with features that current Kindle 1 owners envy.

The new Kindle shows sixteen shades of grey to the old one’s four, making virtual pages look more like real paper than the previous model to prevent headaches due to eye strain caused by bright smartphone or computer screens.

Buying books from Amazon’s online bookstore is more accessible than ever: on the old Kindle, users had to be connected to a Wi-Fi network to download books. Kindle 2 still has this ability, but in addition it can use Sprint’s wireless cell phone network for free to install books on the device’s internal memory while on the go.

Students were given a Kindle to hold and read from for a few minutes. They were amazed at its paper-like screen.

“I’d buy it,” says sophomore Ameera Essaqi. “It saves paper and space when you’re traveling. And the screen looks just like real paper.”

“I like to have the feeling of real pages. It’s nice to read from an actual book. I love how it looks just like a book,” comments sophomore China Amie. “It’s much easier to read than a computer screen. It’s easier on the eyes.”

Alex Miller, a sophomore, says, “It’s cool but I wouldn’t buy it. It’s nice to read from but I don’t read enough to spend $360 on it. I’d have to read a lot to make it worth the price.”

Alyssa Hahn
Junior Staff Writer

From February 13 to February 17, the A-TECH Forensics team traveled to Berkeley, California to compete in the California Invitational. The tournament took place at the University of California and the team competed for four days. The first night they arrived in Berkeley, they had to register. For the next three days, they competed.

Approximately two hundred schools across the nation competed in the California Invitational, making it a very large tournament. Though there were a lot of schools competing, not EVERY school is able to attend. Invitations are sent out to schools that compete at a local level.

“We’ll be competing in many different categories,” explained the Forensic Team’s advisor, Mrs. Brooks-Curtis before the competition. “The categories we’ll be competing in are Individual, Interpretive, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and Student Congress.”

This is the first out-of-state tournament that the Forensics Team attended this year, but it will not be the last. Later in the year, they’ll be attending Nationals. Last year, the National Tournament took place in here in Las Vegas, but it is expected to be out of state this season. Not only was this tournament a big deal because of the large number of schools that competed, but there is another reason as well. Other than Nationals, this is the first out-of-state tournament the A-TECH Forensics will attend with Mrs. Brooks-Curtis as its advisor.

“We had to fundraise a lot to prepare for this trip,” says Mrs. Brooks-Curtis. “The money raised from the smoothies we sell during both lunches went toward this trip.”

“I feel a mix between excitement and nervousness,” said A-TECH senior, Henry Castillo before the tournament. “I’m nervous because I have to compete against lots of people who I’ve never competed against, but at the same time, I’m excited because there’ll be such a diverse number of people there. It’ll be a good opportunity to make friends and meet people.”

The top twenty-four students out of the initial one hundred and fifty competitors were selected to go to quarterfinals. A-TECH students Nicolas Rosa and Meagan Proffit were among the top twenty-four, but unfortunately neither of them went on to place in the top twelve.

“Just having two people place says a lot because competition was rough,” says A-TECH junior Carmen Puentes. “Mainly California schools placed and I think it’s because their main focuses are on speech and debate.”

By Henry Nikogosyan
Junior Staff Writer

A-TECH held a bench press competition during the first week of February. This took place in the weight room during lunch on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. It was simply a benching competition and anyone at A-TECH was allowed to compete.

The Big Bench competition was divided into 6 different weight classes.

Mr. Stridde organized the competition and examined the attempts or lifts to tell who lifted how much. There was no prize for the competition, except for the prize of being in shape.

Each student was allowed a total of four lifts within a two-day period and each weight was allowed to be attempted a maximum of two times.

Senior student Alex Shipman from the 180-weight class says, “I take whey protein to get bigger and I’m eager to hit 245.”

Sophomore student Oscar Baptista from the 160 weight-class says, “It’s a good way for a person to prove himself”

The winners of the competition were as follows:

In the under 110 pounds weight class, Melani Hsing lifted 45 pounds.
In the 110-135 pound weight class, Deep Patel hit 115 pounds.
In the 136-150 pound weight class, Demetrius Doss hit 185 pounds.
In the 151-165 pound weight class, Robin Coneption hit 170 pounds.
In the 160-180 pound weight class, Jonathan Deboy hit 130 pounds.
In the 181-300 pound weight class, Sean Childers hit 300 pounds.