From Fresno to Anaheim!
By Bella Garcia
Fresno High congratulated their Competition Cheer Team as they competed in Nationals on Friday, February 24, 2023.
Competition Cheer and Sideline Cheer differ. Sideline and Comp Cheerleader, Abigail Matias, described Sideline Cheer as more motivating for the crowd and sports teams. Comp includes dance, cheer, pyramids, and more routines. The team is only open to people who were on the JV and varsity Sideline teams.
This year, most of the group was Sideline varsity. There was one girl from JV. The team consisted of mainly girls and one boy. Because of the low number of male cheerleaders, Fresno High’s team qualified as an “All Girls Division”.
To compete in Nationals, the Comp Cheer Team competed in a series of local competitions. According to cheerleader, Abigail Matias, the team traveled to the Bay Area for one of these qualifying competitions.
Nationals were held in the Anaheim Convention Center, neighboring Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The team was provided with transportation, two vans, and their coach’s car. The trip lasted three days, Friday to Sunday. The group stayed in a Holiday Inn. Every member paid a fee of around $600 that included the hotel stay, food, and their Nationals’ ticket, $100. The cheerleaders’ trip was sponsored through approved fundraisers, donations from the Fresno Unified School District, and a former Fresno High cheer coach donated some funds to help with some of the costs.
The FHS cheerleaders competed Friday morning and were the first to compete in their division. Fresno High placed 5th by two points. Because of this, they did not qualify for the 2nd day of the National competition. After the awards were presented, the team left the event and went to Red Robin for dinner.
To award the cheerleaders for their huge accomplishments, Saturday, February 25 was spent at Disneyland. Abigail recalled that the team rode a few attractions together but spent the majority of the day in their own little groups.
On Sunday, the team met back up to watch the Fresno State cheer team compete on the second day of Nationals because their coaches are the coaches for FSU as well. At 4 in the afternoon, they made their way back home.
Parks and Rec/Trash/ Art
By: Joshua butz
The Design Competition is about allowing students of Fresno High School to leave an artistic impact on the City of Fresno, by designing trash receptacles for the Van Ness & Weldon Park. The park is going to be at the corners of Van Ness & Weldon. There is a similar receptacle directly across the street in front of Ampersand Ice Cream. The event is being hosted by the City of Fresno Parks and Recreation Division.
The City of Fresno is hosting this competition for Fresno High School students to give them the chance to leave a visually pleasing impact on the community. Parks and Rec reached out to FHS Art instructor Mrs. Claudia Nieto, asking if her ceramics students would like the chance to design and build the trash receptacles, however Mrs. Nieto wanted to give all Warrior students the chance to be involved.
So, they decided the process should be a competition, and allowed Mud Club and others to become involved in ceramics to create the artwork using tiles. The competition flyers are placed around the campus. To submit or design and/or get more information, scan the QR code or see Mrs. Nieto in N83. The deadline for art submissions is March 10. “The Mud Club are the core students doing the building part of the mosaic tiles that will be on the trash bins.
The Eco Brick Project
by Chia Na Vang
Did you know some items deemed “recyclable” are, not in fact, able to be recycled and instead, dumped into landfills to be burned? To fix that issue the Gardening Club, advised by Ms. Tanya Salzer, and Environmental Science teacher Ms. Adela Juarez, or Miss J, are collaborating on a project known as the Eco Brick project here at Fresno High. As Miss J said, “The goal of the eco brick project is to simultaneously reduce overall plastic waste going to landfills and to create something, beautiful, meaningful, and long-lasting for the gardening club through the creation of a garden bed.” Students from Miss J’s environmental science classes have been collecting plastic and shredding or cutting them into small pieces to fit into an empty plastic bottle.
The project started around mid-February and will most likely end around late May. Ms. Salzer mentioned that extra eco bricks will be donated to elementary and middle schools that are interested in starting their own gardens. “One of the things that I want participants to take away from this project is that they produce/waste a lot of plastic in their day to day lives,” and that “eco bricks can be used to create a myriad of items that can be of great use to the community,” stated Miss J. Ms. Salzer. She also mentioned that gardening was a great way to get fresh air and how it’s “proven to help with mental health.”
Warrior Winter Guard Moves Up the Middle Schoolers
By Mariah Andersen-Price
On February 16 and 17, Fresno High hosted the annual Middle School Move Up! Fort Miller, Cooper Academy, and Hamilton were all invited to come onto campus and tour and sign up for classes, clubs, and other extracurricular activities. Several performances, including BSU’s dance team, and JROTC’s drill and rifle team performances. Fresno High’s Warrior Winter Guard performed as well.
Fresno High’s Warrior Winter Guard competed in SVWAA winter performance circuit competitions. On February 24, the winter guard team competed against ten other schools in the regional silver division and placed first with a score of 58.7. The Winter Guard performed for each rotation of middle schoolers, there were four rotations in total with performances by BSU’s dance team and JROTC’s drill and rifle teams. The guard believes they did exceptionally with comments from Xiomara Amezola Rodriguez said, “We did awesome!” Genevive Cano agreed, “We did amazing!”
The Winter Guard hopes they impacted and entertained the middle schoolers enough to entice them to join the next school year.
Coach Papi’s 200th Win
By Kailey Espinoza
Fresno High celebrated baseball coach, Mr. Jason Papi’s 200th win on the baseball field on February 15, 2023. Coach Papi has been coaching the team for ten years, starting in 2013, as well as teaching PE. In total he’s been at Fresno High for 21 years.
“Over my years of being a head coach,” Coach Jason explained, “I have had great players come through this program and have had great assistant coaches as well. Without these players and my assistant coaches, 200 wins doesn’t add up.”
Coaching baseball at Fresno High has become a legacy for his family. His father, Mr. Ken Papi, coached and worked at Fresno High for 53 years, the FHS baseball field is named after him, and you can still catch the senior Papi in the dugout, offering advice.
