Thirteen Kayhi students this year were selected for Southeast honor band. Kayhi senior Sarah Short said she is excited for honor band this year and is happy she was chosen.
“I am very excited that I got accepted to an honor band. It is a select group of students from across the region, it’s basically ythe best of each school,” said Short.
The other students selected this year are Jasmine Cole, Lauren Foster, Faith Hehr, Mathew Nutt, Samantha Rothery, Julia Spigai, Sophie Cron, Madisen Lundamo, Anne Paxton, Ella Stockhausen, Sarah Short, Phillip Smith and Anna Hout.
Typically Kayhi honor band would travel to different towns in the southeast to play with the other schools, this year it will be done virtually.
Baigi elected freshman class president
Written by Henry Clark
The freshmen have elected their SBA representatives this week, Julia Biagi was elected President, Lily Gosnell was elected Vice President, and Tristin Dalin was elected Secretary.
Bradley Crowe walks into the band room and commands the space with a gentle authority as he sets up the band while the students chatter with excitement. He laughs warmly with a student as they talk about their summer events. With the band set up he eloquently raises his arms into the air and with a flip of his wrists the band begins to play.
Crowe moved to Ketchikan this summer to fill the role as the new Band Director at Kayhi.
Originally from Oklahoma, Crowe moved to Ketchikan from Atsugi, Japan, and worked on a military base there as a K-6 music teacher. When it comes to differences in Japanese and Alaskan culture, Crowe said he loved Ketchikan’s scenery. “The nature here is different and really cool,” said Crowe. “The first day we (Him and his wife) woke up we went out to rotary beach at 7 a.m. and just enjoyed looking out on the water, it was something new and different.”
Crowe said he looks forward to playing beautiful music with the Kayhi bands this year. “What I like most about teaching at the highschool level is the depth and quality of music that we can make together,” said Crowe. “Teaching at this level allows me to relate to you guys and we can all have a meaningful musical experience as we connect with music together.”
When it comes to playing music, Crowe said he has the band using PPE while playing and that he has spread out his classes for social distancing.
“Band with Covid is not easy, so we are wearing masks while we play instruments as a preventative measure and we’ve ordered more PPE for the safety of band students,” said Crowe. “The biggest adjustment that we’ve made is to our schedule as a band, so we broke the classes up into instrument families, Brass, Woodwinds and Percussion, rather than being all together.” Some of the new band PPE includes brass bell covers that prevent direct spray from coming out of the bells and nylon bags for the woodwinds that will consolidate the spit that comes out of the keys.
Crowe said that the Bands will still have performances.
“We will perform concerts, like normal, in the auditorium and the main difference is that we will be socially disianced,” said Crowe. “We may have to live stream our concerts rather than have a live audience in house.”
The concerts will feature the families playing individually (Brass, Woodwind and Percussion families all playing separately) as well as full band pieces with all three of the classes combined.
With the concerts happening, Crowe said that the Pep Band will also be playing as much as possible on the court with basketball this upcoming season.
“We will do Pep Band to the fullest extent we possibly can, that being said, we have to make sure that our band members, the audience members, the fans and the basketball players are all as safe as possible,” said Crowe. “We are still waiting word on what basketball games are going to look like and more information will be available when I can provide it.”
I hated cross country last year but I hate it even more this year.
I hate running because I feel so dead while racing. You know when you sleep on your arm and wake up and you feel like its gone. That’s how I feel when I’m running. My whole body is numb, it’s the weirdest feeling ever. I also feel like I can’t breathe. I’m breathing so hard when I’m running it’s like I can’t catch up with my own breath. My legs feel so heavy like weights are strapped to my legs. I have cinder blocks for shoes.
I hate it because I feel like my ribs are going to snap. I don’t always get cramps or side aches but when I do it legit feels like I just broke my rib. I’ve never broken a rib, but I looked it up.
I hate it because towards the end of the season our trails start to smell like rotting fish. I want to hold my breath because the air is putrid, but I have to breathe when I’m running. When you’re running it’s already hard for me to breathe so when I get a whiff of rotting fish I want to puke.
I hate it so much during the race that I want to fall and hurt myself on purpose. I wish I didn’t have to be running during the race so I’m thinking that if I hurt myself I won’t have to finish. But if I really did get hurt then I wouldn’t be able to do anything other than sitting around. So hurting myself just so I don’t have to finish the race might not be worth it.
This year I hate that we can’t travel because even though I hate running, I did like to see my friends, get out of Ketchikan and earn Alaska Airline miles. Traveling is usually the best part of the season so the fact that we couldn’t do that really sucks. We got to go to Sitka over the weekend. It was nice to finally travel and run with people. It was boring because we couldn’t do anything and no one came.
I hate running because it gets boring really fast, but in practice, I talk with Morgan which makes my side hurt which makes me think about my ribs.
But, I hate the thought of not challenging myself and I especially hate the thought of quitting. I could never quit something that has taught me so much. Like my strength, my endurance, my boundaries, and my mind. I don’t want to be seen as the quitter. I want to be the kind of person who pushes people to be and do their best. I don’t want to be the person that quits everything. I cannot become this person by quitting things. Even if I hate them.
Kayhi Dance team has tryouts tomorrow (wednesday) from 6:30-8:30p.m. at the rec center.
The past seven years the K-highlites have earned superior during the annual Region Championships and aim to go for an eighth. Kayhi junior Avery Thomas said she is looking forward to trying out for the team.
“I am excited to watch us grow as dancers together and individually.” said Thomas.
Written by Terik Brown
National Honor Society applications are due Sept. 30th at 3:15. The National Honor Society is more than just an honor roll, it gives students a chance to be honored those who have demonstrated excellence in areas of scholarship, leadership, service, and character. They will be selected will be by a majority vote of the 5 faculty members selected by Principal Mr. House.
The Kayhi Swim and Dive team had their first meet over the weekend. Swimming Coach Gary Crowe said they don’t have the overall scores because they are waiting for the other teams to enter their scores.
“We don’t know right now they have to wait for the results that come from the other teams then they put it in the computer and score it out” said Crowe. The boys team did well and had personal bests in multiple events.
John Bullock had a lifetime best time in the 50 freestyle 23.94 and the 100 freestyle in 53.0, said Crowe. Owen cambell had the best time in the 50 freestyle and 100 breast.
Kayhi dive coach Eryn Brooks said there were some nerves with the divers but it’s only the first meet and there is room for improvement.
“They did much better today overall, but there were some nerves,” said Brooks. “ It’s the first meet of the season and I always say this is your bar setting, every meet from here on out we’re going to improve and increase our scores.”
Kayhi cross country sweeps first in person meet
By Lauren Olson
The Kayhi cross country team ran its first in-person meet on Saturday against Sitka and Mt. Edgecumbe.
Kayhi girls won overall as a team with a score of 25. Junior Paige Boehlert said that the team did well running against competitors in person.
“Running against people in person benefitted us as a team,” Boehlert said. “We won, and the girls haven’t won in a while.”
Kayhi’s top finishers were juniors Mickey Lapinski, with a time of 17:21 and Jenna Walker, with a time of 22:07.
Sitka and Mt. Edgecumbe will travel here for Regions this weekend.
New mental health counselors, Samantha Funk and Tami Hert are available to all students here at Kayhi and are free in the counseling center starting Wednesday Sept. 16. A grant funded program started for the high schools and possibly Schoenbar. Another grant was just approved to supply the same services for the elementary schools. Funk said this program was made to provide easier access to counseling for all students.
“I think what primarily piqued the interest for the grant is the lack of services in town and the lack of accessible services,” said Funk. “There are so many barriers to services at Gateway and even at KIC.”
From a medical model, in take packets and scheduling all of which are not easily accessible. Funk said for underserved populations, homeless youth it’s not a realistic system.
“The services are free regardless of insurance, they’re 100% accessible in the sense that any kid can come walk-in for any reason,” said Funk. “I think what really started it all and what made KIC and WISH so interested in the grant is the accessibility of it all.”
Mrs. O’Brien said that the program was made because it was decided that it was as needed in the community that teens have a hard time accessing.
“This was actually planned for last fall but with the pandemic and working to get people in here we are just now able to get this all started,” said O’Brien. “It’s targeted at the high school that’s why they’re actually here in the counselors’ office.”
The Kayhi cross country will have its first in-person meet in Sitka on Saturday. Junior Paige Boehlert said she is looking forward to racing other competitors and to beat her personal record of 21:48.
“I’m excited to be running against people because it will push me and the team harder so we’ll get better times and maybe PR,” Boehlert said. “It’s also more fun to run with other people and teams.”
Typically meets include all the teams from Southeast, but this weekend it will likely just be Sitka and Kayhi.
“It’s going to be different , it’s just going to be us swimming by ourselves so that’s going to be harder because there is no one to compete against” said Mersonie. “You’re competing against yourself always in swimming but when your neck and neck you have to push that last little bit, the mental game will be a challenge.”
Kayhi’s swim and dive host’s virtual meet
Kayhi Swim and dive is preparing for their first meet today. The meet will be “hosted” here in Ketchikan. Senior Judy Mersonie said it will be difficult because of the lack of real competitors in the water.
Kayhi swim coach Gary Crowe said that after the swimmers race the results will be entered into the computers and the swimmers will have to wait until the next day to find out results.
“We swim our meet and it goes into the computer and then the other teams send in their results to us” said Crowe. Crowe also said he is trying to push more swimmers to train for events they don’t normally like because less swimmers will be at the meet.
“The events that are harder and people don’t like to do will have less numbers” said Crowe. The meet will be open to the public to watch as long as safety protocols are followed.
Kayhi’s Rotary Interact and SBA received the Peace Proclamation today from the School Board. They also received two other peace proclamation copies from the City and Borough. A proclamation is a public or official announcement of great importance in this case the peace proclamation announces the peace kayhi students give to Ketchiakn. SBA President Henry Clark said he feels excited to receive the peace proclamation.
“It’s A big deal because we have never received anything from the city or borough while I’ve been in SBA,” said Clark.
The temperature Kiosks are used to screen body temperatures with infrared technology to confirm students are not over the standard body temp of 98.6. The school has 4 of these kiosks, they were provided by government funding we received due to covid. Kayhi senior Savannah Yeisley said it is a good idea to save time in lines, but has its problems. “I feel like they are useful as we don’t need as many staff, but it does have flaws while scanning temperatures it occasionally stops taking temperatures.”Said Yeisley.
Students made posters for Peace week today in advisory. The posters prompted them to express how they shape Peace. Kayhi junior Jashlyn Abigania said she is thrilled to be apart of our school Peace week. “I shape Peace by being respectful to all and staying positive.” said Abigania. -Photo By Kelleigh Nickich
