Vincent Martinez
Senior Staff Writer

On April 17 Student Council made an attempt to rally A-TECH students to go to the Spring Fling dance after school. The theme of the Spring Fling assembly was Battle of the Sexes. Each gender had their own representative pop group from the 90’s, the representative group for the girls was the Spice Girls and the representative for the guys was the Backstreet Boys.

When the challenges were completed the winners were announced.

”The competition was rigged in favor of the girls because you can see them cheating in the marshmallow challenge,” said Alejandro Flores.

“The challenge doesn’t prove anything because its not even testing skills, the challenge is pointless,” observed Mathew Wisneiski

Math teachers,Mrs. Price, Mr. Hudec, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Deitrick, and business teacher, Mr. DeMaio dressed as the Spice Girls, dancing and singing in costume.  The performance provided laughter and got the students on their feet.  Many were excited to see their male teachers dressed as women performing “Wannabe.”

“I like how the guys were such good sports about dressing up because it was fun and I was just there to make sure they knew what they were doing,” said Mrs. Price.

Emily Browning
Junior Staff writer

President Barrack Obama promised his daughters Sasha and Malia a dog to make up for the time he spent traveling during his presidential campaign. Though President Obama said he wanted to get a mutt, his daughter Malia’s allergies ruled out most mutts.

Members of the First Family are now the proud owners of Bo, a purebred Portuguese water dog.

The fact that the president got a dog does not seem like a big deal, but the media has gone crazy, showing videos of the new dog and explaining his history.

The biggest concern of the media seems to be whether or not Bo is a “rescued dog” as President Obama said he wanted. According to blog.nola.com, there are a few fishy details about Bo’s adoption. “Bo’s breeders happen to have bred Senator Edward Kennedy’s Portuguese water dogs. Bo’s first owner lives in Washington. Bo was returned to the breeder in early March, fitting the Spring timeline the Obamas had given for their dog adoption,” the blog points out. It seems that Bo is not a rescued dog at all, and was in fact planned to be given to the Obama family all along.

“He should have gotten it from a shelter,” said junior Natasha Sushanko, “because there are so many dogs in shelters who are going to be put down.”

Another issue is whether or not a Portuguese water dog is a good fit for the white house. According to Dogbreedinfo.com though, a Portuguese water dog is more than perfect. It says that Portuguese water dogs are obedient, loyal, smart, and eager to please. They love the spot light and are spirited, yet calm. Plus, they make excellent watchdogs.

So, regardless of whether or not Bo is a shelter dog, Malia and Sasha love him and he seems to be a good fit for his new family. Bo will definitely be happy and welcome in the White House with the First Family.

“I don’t really care,” Tiffany Wong, a sophomore said, “because it’s their life. It’s his dog.”

Brianna Vargas
Assistant Editor

A-TECH’s Forensics class has won awards in all of its competitions. Overall, Forensics has improved a lot since last year. Despite the numerous awards the team has received, according to Vice Principal Mr. Burt, A-TECH cannot afford to keep Forensics on as a class due to low enrollment.

“Reduction for all schools has been issued by CCSD due to the economy,” said Burt. “Every school in the district has had to receive 97% of the staffing from the previous year. And this means we’ll have to do more with less people. If we were able to provide Forensics, we would. But we can only afford it as a club.”

The Varsity members of forensics class this year are greatly disappointed about this cut. Meagan Profit and Nicholas Rosa even approached the administration to see if anything could be done to save the class.

“Nick and I tried to approach Mr. Burt, but he was never able to get back to us,” said Forensics varsity member Meagan Profit. “My main goal for next year though, is to convince the administration to make Forensics a class again. We do so well, the team deserves it.”

Some minor changes will be made in the transfer to a club. The competitions will no longer be mandatory because they are not required for a class grade. The practices, however, will still be the same and the team will continue to work its hardest.

“Next year because forensics isn’t a class it will be more stressful,” said Profit. “As president, next year I will have to completely run the club along with participating in meets. But if we can prove to the administration forensics is worth keeping, it will be worth it.”

Alexis Hanselman
Senior Staff Writer

On Monday, April 14, students on bus route CO154 were in the bus after school when it crashed.

The bus ride home for students is usually a time where students sleep, listen to music, gossip with friends, and even do homework.  This wasn’t the case on this Monday afternoon.

As the bus passed the intersection of Carey and Revere Street, the car behind the bus hit the bus’s back left tire. Students near the back of the bus felt the impact and noticed that there had been a collision right away, but others towards the front of the bus didn’t even realize something happened.

Four students, sophomores Ashley Seda and Hayley Jukanovich, and juniors Ian Lewis and Anthony Borgen, were mildly injured during this accident. These students complained of a couple of headaches, sore backs, and sore necks.

“I was sore afterwards,” said sophomore Hayley Jukanovich. “ I was just mad that the bus driver really didn’t care if anyone was injured or anything.”

“My head hurt for the longest time,” said sophomore Ashley Seda. “I had to miss P.E. for the rest of the week because I might have had a concussion.”

Fire truck paramedics came to the scene to examine the injured students. Transportation officials came to take pictures of the bus and students on board. All students on the bus had to sit and wait for two hours until another bus came to take them home.

The bus itself was not harmed. The car had a dent in its front right corner. Fortunately, no one was seriously harmed.

By Allison Neighbors
Editor-in-Chief

“17 Again,” starring Zac Efron and Matthew Perry premiered Friday, April 17. The movie, although predictable, was actually quite good.

The movie theater was packed full of all different types of people–fathers bringing their sons to see the show, husbands and wives bringing their children, and even teenage couples cuddling up. Everyone in the theater seemed to enjoy the movie.

Efron plays Mike O’Donnel, the high school basketball star in his senior year of high school, and at the big game—the game that will determine his entire future—his girlfriend tells him that she is pregnant. As his girlfriend, Scarlett, walks out, Mike walks away from the game and chases after her. About 20 years later we see Mike, now played by Matthew Perry, getting divorced and his children hating him. After losing his job, Mike meets a janitor from his old high school, and the janitor turns him 17-years-old.

The 37-year-old version of Mike is now in the seventeen-year-old body of Mike, and decides that he wants to go back to high school to change his future. However, after seeing his children in school, he decides that he was transformed to help his children.

The adult Mike believed that his son was popular and about to make it big on the basketball team, however, he soon finds out that he is anything but popular. Mike also believed that his daughter was smart and on her way to a great college, and he finds out that she is dating a loser basketball player and is about to throw away her life future her boyfriend.

Mike is determined to make sure his kids make the right choices and along the way realizes just why he fell in love with Scarlett, his soon to be ex-wife (played by Leslie Mann), and how amazing his children are. The movie was full of funny and awkward moments, especially when Mike’s own daughter begins to hit on him.

“17 Again” was the number one hit in the box office it’s first weekend, bringing in a total of $24 million dollars. “17 Again” definitely was a great movie and is worth the money to go see. Throughout the entire movie, there are moments of laughter and happiness and the movie overall is cute. For the guys with girlfriends, it’s a great movie to take your girlfriend to.

Iun Chen
Junior Staff Writer

Heritage Night is hosted at A-TECH every year.

“Heritage Night is the one time of year A-TECH comes together as one unified family,” says Ms. Norby, advisor of R.E.S.P.E.C.T., which hosts Heritage Night.   “Students that are in clubs or not in clubs equally participate in this school wide event. We like to call it a giant ethnic potluck celebration.”

Heritage Night has been held at A-TECH consistently for eight years. Mrs. Lee, history teacher,  was in charge of the event for the first five years. Three years ago, Ms. Norby took over and now she is in charge of Heritage Night. Heritage Night started because the former principal of A-TECH, Ms. Oler, wanted to promote multiculturalism.

Ms. Norby says that Heritage Night is one of the only times that students can show off their talents. Students of many different cultures attend A-TECH, so Heritage Night allows students to showcase their ethnicity.

“It’s kind of an interesting event where we take a trip around the world, so to speak, and celebrate our differences as well as our similarities,” says Ms. Norby.

During Heritage Night, there are performances, cultural food, and fun activities to do in the SAC. Heritage Night is set up as a street-fair; the performances are up front on the stage, and the food is at the back of the SAC. Along the sides, there were different cultural activities to learn about.

This year, there were around 15 performances. Each performance will last about 5-10 minutes. Some of the performances last year included karaoke singing, Abbott and Costello, who were a duo comedy team that was famous during the 1940s and 1950s, dragon dancing, and Indian dances.

The entire school can participate in Heritage Night. Not only are there student performers, there are teachers performing as well. Major clubs, such as RESPECT, National Honor Society, Key Club, Publications, and  FBLA also helped with Heritage Night.

Heritage Night is completely free. Ms. Norby says that students have to pay a lot of money for many of the school activities already, so it would be great if there was one time where students did not have to pay to have fun.

“As a parent and as a teacher, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if there was just one night where as a community, we came together and it was free,’ ” said Ms. Norby.

MySpace is far superior to Facebook

Alexis Hanselman
Senior Staff Writer

When it comes to the decision of whether students should spend their free time on Facebook or Myspace, the obvious choice is Myspace.

Myspace is sweet, simple, and right to the point. It’s organized and easy to use. The user can easily navigate through the whole Web site using just his or her homepage. Everything that the user would need can easily be accessed at the top of the page.

The user’s homepage also tells the user his or her notifications. These could vary from new messages to picture comments to new friend requests.

Another good thing about MySpace is that it is more secure then Facebook. The user can change his or her settings to make sure that no strangers can look at their page or contact them unless they add the person as a friend. This can also be done using Facebook. For MySpace, though, the user can change his or her friend request settings so that the stranger has to know the persons last name in order to add them. Even after a stranger sends a friend request, the user must approve of this friend request.

Users can make their profile as unique as they want on MySpace. There are hundreds of Web sites that create MySpace layouts. Users can choose to say as much or as little about themselves as they want on their profile.

Facebook has far too many applications. Users have friends send them random stuff all time. Things from taking a certain quiz to sending them a flower to asking them to join a discussion. If users do not keep track of all the applications they are sent, then they could have well over a hundred applications.

Another bad thing about Facebook is that there is no privacy. Users have to hear about one of their friends posting a picture comment on some random person the user doesn’t even know. Facebook is too confusing and complicated.

MySpace is plain, simple and easy to use. It should be the obvious choice for any user who wants to communicate with his or her friends.

Facebook is way better than MySpace

By Kristiana Trinidad
Junior Staff Writer
When the word social network is said, most A-TECH students think of either Facebook or MySpace. Whether or not they have one, every student knows of both. Much like the stereotypical Macs vs. PCs argument that occurs in this school, Facebook vs. MySpace is a classic debate.

Facebook far outclasses MySpace in many ways. One of its best features is its ability to look for current and past classmates without having to search through a long list of people with the same name. Facebook has a special feature that allows users to search for people that only come from a certain school. In fact, when first getting an account, a list of suggested friends is shown, all from the same school and class. A list of friend suggestions is given based on how many friends users have in common.

Another plus is Facebook’s clutter-free appearance, as opposed to MySpace. While MySpace may seem better because of its customizable features, these cause many problems not only for the users but the server itself. Unless they are planned in advance, many MySpace pages end up looking messy and unorganized. Some users don’t know how to use scroll boxes, so their pages are full of one picture after the other. The same goes for videos as well. This makes users have to wait for a long period of time just to comment on one page. MySpace is also full of advertisements when a user logs in. Facebook’s professional looking pages are great for businesses as well.

Facebook has an entire staff of people to fix any errors that happen on a profile page. MySpace, on the other hand, has a generic FAQ with one hundred thirty-one questions. Some of these are extremely pathetic like “How do I upload pictures?” or “How do I add friends?”

Even the public is starting to realize that Facebook is obviously MySpace’s superior. According to a report in Obsessable on January 13, 2009, Facebook’s popularity is rising while MySpace’s is more or less stagnant. Facebook’s estimated amount of visitors is 55 million compared to MySpace’s 76 million. MySpace may be more popular than Facebook now by millions of visitors, but Facebook’s popularity is rising at a far greater rate than MySpace’s. The monthly growth rate for Facebook is about 4 percent. MySpace’s growth rate is about 1 percent

With all its amazing features, it’s clear that Facebook dominates MySpace in social networking. It’s much safer to use, and has a more pleasing appearance. More people everyday are discovering it as an alternative to MySpace.

Iun Chen
Junior Staff Writer

On Thursday, April 2, A-TECH’s Student Council held its second annual audition for A-TECH’s Next Top Model.

“A-TECH’s Next Top Model is a fashion runway for Prom to get people hyped up for Prom so that they can see different dresses and get inspiration about what they can wear to Prom,” says senior Makenzie Vance, who was a judge for the audition and is also Student Council’s Webmaster.

A-TECH’s Next Top Model began last school year because Student Council wanted to give people ideas about what to wear to Prom. Because last year was A-TECH’s first year hosting the event, only Student Council members participated in it as models. This year, anyone was allowed to audition.

“I decided that it was kind of boring, so I wanted everyone to have a chance in it, and so I made it so we could have tryouts this year,” Vance says.

Vance also said that people usually buy their Prom dresses and tuxedos a month early. The fashion show takes place just about a month before Prom, which is scheduled to be on May 16, so people can get an idea for what they want their outfit to look like.

For the auditions, people who auditioned were judged on four things – creativity, confidence, poise, and originality.

When the person’s name was called to audition, they had to pick a clothing item off the table to model. From a line about ten feet away from the judges, the person would have to model down towards them. While the person walked, the judges would fill out the evaluation sheet.

“This is A-TECH’s Next Top Model, not America’s Next Top Model where you have to look the model part,” says Vance. “It’s about being confident and the attitude behind it. It’s not about what you look like and that’s what we want to do at A-TECH.”

The judges were leadership teacher Ms. Vallari and seniors Makenzie Vance and Avelyn Wolbach.

Anyone was allowed to audition, and about forty people showed up this year.

The actual fashion show will take place on Thursday, April 23 during both lunches.

Tyler Livingston
Copy Editor

The Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA)’s expo, the world’s largest mobile phone expo, was held in Las Vegas between the first and third weeks of April after rumors about what large mobile phone companies including LG, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola would introduce to the market spread through the digital community the way celebrity break-ups spread through the tabloids.

Among the first new phone to be announced was the Motorola Evoke QA4, a small, touch screen phone that slides up to reveal a physical keyboard for people who can’t stand pecking away at virtual keys.  The slide-out keyboard is not a full QWERTY keyboard like you’d find on a BlackBerry, but a basic nine-key that comes on almost every flip-phone.

Samsung’s Impression, which will soon be available for AT&T, was also announced at the show.  It’s very similar in style to the Evoke—it features a touch screen and a slide-out keyboard—but this one is a full QWERTY as opposed to the nine-key available on Motorola’s new touch screen phone.

The Samsung Impression also features Samsung’s touch screen user interface called TouchWiz, which has been showing up on most of its touch screen phones lately.

Sticking with Samsung, they also announced the latest installment of their popular Instinct touch screen phone, which is still available exclusively to Sprint customers.  This one is called the Instinct S30 and will be coming to Sprint stores later this month.  It looks similar to the older model, but with rounder edges and a thinner design.  It also supports synchronization with Microsoft Outlook calendar, so it’s obvious that Sprint is aiming for the business crowd with this one.

LG introduced a phone called the Xenon that is almost identical to Samsung’s Impression: touch screen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and the AT&T network.

Announced by HTC, another popular smartphone maker, was a very businessman-looking phone called the Snap.  It has tactile buttons rather than all the other phones’ touch screens and it runs the newest edition of Windows Mobile.  Instead of a typical four-way button in the center of the phone for navigation, the Snap uses a multidirectional trackball, which looks almost identical to those featured on BlackBerrys for years.

Many of the phones introduced at CTIA were painfully similar, almost every one featuring a touch screen and a slide-out keyboard.  This year’s CTIA showed the way the cell phone market is going, and it’s obvious that the consumers are demanding touch screen phones.

CTIA brought to consumers a list of new phones to be available on almost every major American mobile phone network.  There will be a wide range of new phones available in the next few months from most of the major cell phone and smartphone brands.

By Alexis Hanselman
Senior Staff Writer

During third quarter, sophomores in Ms. O’Day’s and Mr. Henderson’s world history classes created projects based off important historical figures for National History Day. Students could choose to write a paper, act out a performance, or create a website, exhibit or documentary. They could work with a group if they did a performance, website, exhibit or documentary, but papers were to be a solo project.

Several students from Ms. O’Day’s and Mr. Henderson’s classes were given the opportunity to submit their project for the National History Day Competition. On Saturday, March 28, all students that had submitted a project were required to attend the actual event.

The competition was held at Northwest Career and Technical Academy. All schools in Clark County School District were invited but the only other high schools that came were Northwest Career and Technical Academy, Las Vegas Academy, and Rancho High School.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Ms. O’Day. “Most high schools don’t want to be bothered.”

A-TECH students blew all other competitors out of the water. There were a total of 24 A-TECH sophomores entered and attended the event.

A-TECH placed in every category that it entered and placed first in each, except for group documentary. The only two categories that A-TECH did not submit an entry for were a group website and a group performance.

“I came, I saw, I conquered,” said sophomore Evan Shobert who won first place for doing a performance on Louis XIV. “I was happy and excited that I won.”

Sophomores Kenia Martinez and Thalia Soriano did their project on Benito Juarez. “It took us a week to finish,” said Soriano, “but it was worth all the hard work.”

“We were so surprised,” said Martinez. “We didn’t think that we were going to win first place.”

“I was unsure on whether I would win or not,” said sophomore Hannah Stover who did her documentary project on Joseph Stalin. “ I was very happy that I won.”