Author Archives: pattersonpress405

The “300”: Small track team leaves opponents in the dust

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(Photo: Ty’Shawn Key, Patterson Press)

By Ty’Shawn Key,

Our Patterson boys track team of only ten Patterson Clippers recently went up against some of the biggest track and field teams in the city: Digital Harbor High School, Forest Park, and Dunbar. All of these schools hold records for some of the best times placed in relays, and have teams almost twice the size of ours or larger. However, even though we were amongst the smallest in size, we were amongst the biggest in heart! Our team of only ten people came in fourth against nine teams with a total of at least sixty people! We faced some of these “big dogs” head on and came out on top!

In addition to doing well overall, we Clippers also did well individually. Jacob Forest-Jones came in 1st in the Long Jump, 1st in the Triple Jump, and 2nd in Discus. Jonah Edwards came in 2nd in the 400 meters with a personal best of 55.44 seconds. Abhishek Younghang-Subba and I both placed in the top 5 places in the 3200 meter run. Darwin Lopez ran a personal best of 5:51 in the mile run. Our small team of only ten people took top spots over teams of almost twenty. We let them know that we are Patterson!
Since the meet, we have now titled ourselves the “300”. Just as when King Leonidas led his small group of 300 brave Spartan soldiers into war with armies many times their size, Coach Smith lead us into battle against schools more than twice our size. Just like the Spartans, we came out on top. Every time we train, we train like Spartans. Every time we run, we run like Spartans. Every time we win, we win like Spartans!
Our story is important is because I know that we are not the only Spartans in Patterson. In fact, I believe that most of our teams here in Patterson are forced to be Spartans. Being deemed the underdogs because of our size seems to be the story of most of our teams. Yet we know that you all have it in you to be better than those other schools in whatever sport you play. Be it golf, lacrosse, wrestling, track, volleyball, or whatever, we know that you can be the best. So as a challenge, we–the 300–challenge you to find your Spartan spirit. Then, once you do, we challenge you to instill your Spartan spirit in a teammate, classmate, teacher or community neighbor. We have to show the world that WE ARE PATTERSON!

Freshmen share their personal stories at emotional intervention

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(Photo: psychotherapist.org)

By Makenzie Reyes-Schettini,

The ninth grade girls spent a day in the gymnasium in February, where we participated in an emotional intervention called Point Break. (Ninth grade boys participated in the same program on a different day.) Almost all of us were in tears by the end of the day.

When we came in there were chairs that formed a circle. We each took a seat. As we munched on donuts and sipped our water, the facilitators began to introduce themselves. This session was to be an opportunity for us to get things off our chests that we had been holding inside for too long. In the beginning, there was an awkward tension in the air, but it was soon replaced with a more calm and friendly feeling. We played games and listened to stories that were beneficial to both our lives and the lives of the people who told them.

As we got deeper into the day, we also got deeper into our emotions.We opened up to tell our personal stories that we hadn’t told anyone in years.We really conected to the people around us: those who we have known our whole life and those who we had just met. Point Break was not just an excuse to get out of class all day. Rather, it was an opportunity for us to express what we were really feeling inside.

Student mentors help freshmen avoid making the same mistakes

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Illustration by Shane Braden, Patterson Press

By Ty’Shawn Key,

Individual Advancement Mentoring (I.AM) is a peer mentoring program started last year by my brother Alonzo Key. I.AM was created because too many students throw away their freshmen year. Whether it is due to chasing popularity, getting involved with the wrong crowd, focusing on other things, having too much fun, or just pure goofing off, every year a large percentage of students squander their Freshmen year. I.AM was designed so we can get that year back. Our goal is to reach the minds of our incoming freshmen classes, and influence them to get on the path of having a more proactive high school career through the acts of peer mentoring. Our mentoring uses the simple tools of motivation and enlightenment through student voices. Older students are acting as the big brother or sister figures that some of our younger peers may lack. These mentors are a select few members of this year’s senior and junior classes.

The program is supervised by Mrs. McIntosh, myself and several other upperclassmen, including Kwynten Brooks, a star player on the Patterson Clippers Boys Basketball team, Johnny Alvarez, an amateur skater and photographer sponsored by Fly Geenius, Jamahl Loney, a DECA Regional competition placer, and several other decorated individuals. Together we are actively trying to change the lives of our Patterson 500 Family’s young men and women, the future faces of our school. Our mentors sacrifice every other Tuesday and Thursday Futures period to shed some light on these young individuals, so that they can have the advice and help that we all wish we had as freshmen.

Olagoke Sanusi, one of junior leaders, described working with the freshmen as an experience that he would never forget. “Never would I imagine that me and my few life experiences could ever really help someone else with their life and situations just by talking to them about it”, he said. “It put me in a position where I was that external factor for someone else. I was the one who decided to either give them the assist, or let them get fouled…”

This has been one of the best years of my entire high school career, and it’s not because I’ve been accepted into the school of my dreams or because I have achieved some of my personal goals. It has been one of my best years because I can now leave my school saying I helped change someone’s life. As the saying goes, “a diamond in the rough shines its brightest only after someone picks it up to polish it.”

If you know of any intelligent, caring, respectable, productive and well-spoken individuals who will be juniors or seniors in the fall, please direct them to Mrs. McIntosh’s office for mentor enrollment for next school year.

 

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Rosa Parks: A Woman of Courage

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Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. (Photo: Wikipedia)

By Hannah Cangco

Rosa Parks was born on February 4th, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was a civil rights activist. She died on October 24th, 2005, in Detroit, Michigan.

I believe Rosa Parks is an important role model for women, even today. She was a courageous woman who stood up for herself and for other African Americans. For example, on December 1st, 1955, she was brave enough to say “no” to the white man that asked her to give up her seat in the white people’s section of the bus. Many people consider that single act of defiance to be the beginning of the civil rights movement. This happened during the time of segregation, when whites and blacks were separated from one another throughout the southern United States. Rosa Parks was one of the first African American women to stand up for herself, knowing the consequences that would and could happen. To be specific, she got arrested while spurring the Montgomery bus boycott and other efforts to end segregation. Rosa Parks became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement”. In my opinion she is one of the most important women that have ever lived. She is an example for other women–not just for African Americans but for all women–to stand up for themselves and for what they believe in, no matter what others say or do.

Rosa Parks once said, “All the time I was arrested, I had no idea it would turn into this. It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in”.  Heroic women like Rosa Parks can inspire the rest of us to take action. If women join together we can change the world.

Wild animals belong in the wild (OPINION)

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By Destiny Diggs

Have you ever thought about how we humans function? We feel strongly about protecting the right of animals, we are against animal cruelty, and we believe that animals should be allowed to be with their families and be happy and live as animals should. We say that, but then we as humans support some of the actions done by other humans; take for example, zoos. We say all animals should be  treated fairly and with dignity but we go to Africa, Brazil, China, Antarctica, and the Middle East and capture  animals to bring them back to the States to put them in cages for the rest of their lives. We take animals out of their natural habitat and make them live in cages were they aren’t allowed to roam free as they please and feed them dead animals from a bucket. Many humans come up to them to take picture and even get a show by watching some animal specialist do tricks. The same goes with aquariums. We take different fish and sea animals, put them in giant tanks, and feed them food out of a bucket.
 
It’s something to think about because we contradict ourselves. We do not allow normal citizens to own certain animals and keep them as pets becuase we say “It’s a wild animal” but we allow places like zoos and aquariums to exist? We call them wild animals, but some people who are wealthy are allowed to keep some of the most dangerous animals in their homes, like lions, tigers, and bears. But when an animal acts like in the wild and feels like they are being threatened or are irritated they may attack the owner and cause serious injuries. You would think this means that they should not be kept as pets, but instead we take that as they are a threat to society and we kill the animal instead of setting it free back into its home. These are natural instincts for some of these animals so they should not be punished for acting like what they are meant to be.

I won’t say that capturing animals or taking them out their home is always a bad thing. I think research is a good reason but I believe that they should be returned to the wild or scientists should study them in their natural habitat. I also think that taking them out and helping them get better if they are injured and returning them.  I noticed that we humans try to respond as quickly as possible when an animal goes endangered; we try to find the reason why it’s endangered, make a law against it, and hope the population numbers go up. If they don’t, we take matters into our own hands and try to save them. But humans are the reasons why some animals are endangered because we kill them off so much they aren’t able to reproduce their numbers. For example, we would kill elephants for their tusk, which contain ivory. We also hunt rhinos, tigers for their fur, pandas, and many more. We talk about how Mother Nature is a beautiful thing and we should take care of it and respect it. Animals are a part of Mother Nature and deserve to be in nature not in cages. They should be able to roam free with others and we should learn to respect them and not claim them as ours. We should be honored to have these creatures in our presence because some of these animal species have been around for thousands of years; some are walking history. We should try to take care of them.

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