“The game itself is really just a fun way to hang out with your friends,” according to Freshmen Talia Marquez. Fugitive is a game that many students feel is harmless and fun.  The objective of Fugitive is to get from point A to point B without getting caught by the “cops”, who are your friends. They drive a car around and look for and if they spot you then, they will flash there lights at you or tag you and you are busted.  You need to stay hidden so you won’t get caught.

    It is an exlirating outdoor activity that gets you up and moving around. But not everyone sees it as a simple fun game and views it as a reckless and dangerous game. But how could a game that you’re just running around and having fun with friends be dangerous?  

    According to school resource officer Blane Engdahl “It’s a fun and harmless game so to those who know what is going on but could be scary to people who are at home and see people running around in their yard. This is startling to anyone who doses not know what is going on. And that’s when cops will be called because people get scared.” So, can you get in trouble for trespassing? Probably not. Most officers will let you off with a warning, but it all depends on the situation.

     However, you can still get a trespassing ticket. When asked what he thinks about the game, freshmen Lorenzo Politano said, “I really like the rush of running around and getting away.”  There have been times when people are playing and there walking through a yard and someone has come out with lemonade and offered it to them. And this one time according to senior Drew Spellman, “We had to scale across this pole to get away from are friends driving down Indiana. The pole was above a river and we got away.”   Here are a few tips on how NOT to get caught by your friends while playing:

1: Wear dark clothes so you don’t get caught in unlit areas.

2: Travel with only 3-5 people in a group. The less people you have the less chance you have of getting caught.

3: Don’t stay in the same place for long. The longer you linger there the better chance you have of getting caught.

4:Don’t make a lot of noise so you won’t wake the dead. That is away you won’t be heard and won’t start a zombie apocalypse.

5:Don’t travel through everyone’s yard the entire time. You will get caught and possibly yelled at.

6: Beware of animals. They might bite you and get you noticed.

7: Finally, just have fun and be smart how you play.

    According to the closest species of dinosaur he could be was an “Elasmosaurus”. An Elasmosaurus is extremely tall and long and swims in the ocean. Now, Mr. Silleck loves to swim and is tall. Is that a strange coinsendce or is it something else? It wouldn’t be fair just to make assumptions so he was interviewed and his responses will shock you.

    When asked if he was a dinosaur he said, “Wishes but it’s not true.” When asked if he has any dino habits he said, “I don’t lay eggs. I just scavenge for food.” He said unfortunately his wife is not a dinosaur.

   Now who would say this unless they themselves were a dinosaur and married a non dinosaur? In Silleck’s office room he has a herd of dinosaurs everywhere almost as if he was raising them which he gives out on student’s birthdays. Science teacher Pennell believes Silleck is a “Manosour hybrid dino.”  But who will ever really know if Silleck is a man or dinosaur? It will always be a mystery to mankind.

Here at RV, the vocal music department consists of, “Fiore, Concert Choir, Men’s Choir, Heaven Sent, occasionally Men’s Ensemble, (we’re not sure this year) women’s choir, and, of course, Shades of Blue.” Shades of Blue will chime in with new members next year, including Emma Heckman (11) and Jordan McKinley (11).

Shades of Blue is the goal for most choir students eager to continue to perfect their voices, and getting there is no easy feat. With the seniors graduating spots opened up on this highly selective choir and new members were admitted.

It was no walk in the park to make the list for next year’s Shades, and once it kicks in full swing it won’t be any easier to
keep Shades’ expected caliber.

“There are a lot of extra festivals, we perform on the radio annually and we have some sort of extracurricular out of school thing every month,” says McKinley, about the kind of extra activities Shades gets to participate in. Those are only the activities for the school year; over the summer, Shades will meet to get their music and then are expected to memorize all of it by the time school is back in session. Their musical genre varies but includes: Broadways, classical, jazz, folk songs, “not like ‘folk’ but like amazing grace and like things like that” McKinley clarifies.

For advice next year, Emily Walsh (11) weighs in “Last year we didn’t memorize some of our music and when we came back he made us sing it for him and it was not good at all.”

But all work and no play doesn’t make a happy choir. There are most definitely some perks besides being able to sing along to the radio really well, and that is the dresses. “Mackenzie Talley and Emily Walsh are going to pick out the dresses, but I trust them completely. They dress well so we’re good to go,” jokes McKinley.

For any aspiring future Shades members, the one of easiest way to increase your chances of getting in is to simply participate in one of the other choirs taught by Mr. Talley and Mrs. Hunt. Mr. Talley may come off as well…intense to some, but he is, “probably the best teacher I’ve ever had and he drives me crazy sometimes but his class is just thoroughly fun to go to,” McKinley . While it is fun, it is not a blow-off class and to keep Mr. Talley in a good mood his students must have, “A willingness to work, and realize you can’t take him seriously the whole time, even if he’s in a terrible mood. He says he wants to be with people who want to be there and enjoy being there. If they don’t want to be there then he doesn’t do well with them” advises Heckman.

When Connor was only three months old, he was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy. Simply put, Connor’s heart muscle was underdeveloped and had not grown at the same rate as the rest of his body. So, he was put on the list for a heart transplant.

Three months later, Connor received a successful heart transplant at Children’s Hospital in Denver.

For 11 years, Connor lived life like every other child. He was on medications and had occasional doctor visits to ensure that his ticker was ticking correctly, but the transplant had relatively little effect on Connor’s life.

But on July 4, 2003, Connor woke up and fainted. He was rushed to the hospital, but was sent home with instructions to have him drink more water; he was probably dehydrated. Four days later, Connor fainted again.

Once more, Connor was rushed to the hospital, where they took an emergency cardio catheterization and found that his body was rejecting the heart through Coronary Artery Disease.

“Basically what happens is the brain recognizes the heart as a foreign object and sends the immune system to attack it,” Connor said. “It’s like attacking yourself and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

The only response in situations like these is immune suppression medications, which Connor had already been taking. So, the hospital started treatments and Connor was in and out of the hospital practically nonstop for one-and-a-half years.

Almost one year later, Connor was put on the re-transplant list as a sort of last resort. The doctors had tried everything else.

“Basically, it was at the point where I probably had a week left to live in the summer of 2005,” Connor said. “I was so sick I couldn’t walk up stairs without getting out of breath, I was freezing cold all the time…I lost a lot of weight and I had pick lines in my arm permanently feeding medicine directly into my heart.”

On July 18, 2005, at three o’clock in the morning, Connor’ family received a call about the transplant. Connor went in for surgery.

Though he doesn’t remember the surgery (he was knocked out), Connor does remember some parts of that morning. “I remember walking in. They wanted to wheelchair me, but I wouldn’t let them do that, so I walked in with the nurses, turned around and gave them [my family] the thumbs up. Then I laid myself down,” Connor said.

The surgery was a success. Nine days later, Connor was released. He continued to have treatments to ensure that the transplant remained successful and to avoid rejection from the body.

In December 2007, Connor had another cardio catheterization, which revealed a small amount of rejection. He underwent treatment for four months, during which he missed most of the second semester of his sophomore year. But, in June 2008, after another catheterization, the doctors discovered that the rejection was under control, though not completely gone.

Despite the incredible medical challenges Connor has had to face, he has made a profound impact on the community. For the 11 years between his first transplant and the rejection of that heart, he was a sort of poster child for Children’s Hospital. As one of the nation’s leaders in heart transplants, Children’s relied on Connor, telling other children like him (and their parents) that everything would turn out okay. They could point to Connor and say, “see, his was a success.”

More recently, Connor has worked with State Rep. Sara Gagliardi of Arvada on a bill to lower the blood donation age to 16, with parental consent.

“I was basically the young expert,” Connor said. “It’s estimated that it [lowering the donation age] will increase their donations by 35 percent, just by lowering it down to the sophomore class.”

Connor met with Gagliardi and Bonfils Blood Center and testified before the Health and Human Services committee in the state capital in an effort to get this bill passed.

“It’s important for other students to know how courageous he was to do this and to see what a great difference he was making” Gagliardi said. “He has such an understanding of health and what a difference that can make.”

In addition, Connor is an advocate for organ donation and has been involved in promoting that cause, including appearances on the radio with Slacker and Steve. Since his second transplant in 2005, Connor has made countless speeches at fundraisers of all kinds to promote organ donation.

As if his involvement outside of school, which actually spreads farther than these few causes, isn’t enough, Connor is also active within the Ralston Valley community. He is a member of student government and, until it did not reform this year, the mock trial team. Connor is also a member of the Xpress staff (it is important to note that this had no influence on the judging committee’s decision).

Connor has faced trials. He has had a total of three hearts in seventeen years of existence. He, at one point in his life, became so sick that he had perhaps just one week left. Yet, Connor has taken every opportunity to make a difference. He exhibits excellence within the RVHS community, yes, but his impact has rippled outward like a stone thrown into a pond. He promotes blood and organ donation, which directly save lives, and which directly saved his life, and he doesn’t back down, even when the task before him is daunting, because, in Connor’s eyes, a life is worth so much more than a few free moments.

Kayanne has a passion for people that stretches far beyond most people’s.

“She’s got great energy,” said Amanda Kingry, Kayanne’s youth pastor at Christ Community Covenant Church. “She’s
excited about life and is a really positive person, even when things are going kind of rough.”

This is certainly evident in the things Kayanne strives to achieve.

Last year, at a youth group event, Kayanne watched a video about human sex trafficking in Southeast Asia and knew she needed to get involved. She found an organization called Love 146, which works to free young girls from brothels and, most importantly, to create awareness of the problem so that something can be done.

So she set out to do her part within the Ralston Valley community. She spoke out against sex trafficking and also slave
labor, taking every opportunity she could to make sure people knew what was happening to little girls in Asia or how much human sacrifice really went into the clothes the wore or the food they ate.

“It’s something people don’t want to believe and I think it makes a lot of people uncomfortable to know that a lot of the
stuff we own is made unfairly,” Kayanne said.

A business’s job is, understandably, to turn a profit, which requires spending the least money possible, while still creating a competitive, desirable product. Therefore, many companies turn to purchasing supplies and products made using slave labor. Rather than searching for plantations that are completely fair and have adequately paid workers, a company like Hershey’s will purchase chocolate from whoever will charge them the least. And that is usually whoever uses slave labor.

By promoting activism and purchasing “fair trade” items (that is, items that have been produced only by paid employees every step of the way), Kayanne has made a very real global impact, yet she also works locally as a small group leader at Christ Community Covenant Church.

Essentially, this entails Kayanne meeting once per week with a group of freshmen and sophomore girls to discuss things about their lives and act as a mentor to them.

But no matter what Kayanne is doing, whether it’s saying something no one else would say or it’s in an attempt to bring awareness to a grave problem facing the world, she is a unique person who is always looking for a way to help.

She summed it up best herself:

“I just like connecting with people.”

Says Katie Duggan (11) “Ashlynn is a quiet leader, but she has a positive attitude and always helps you feel better when you are feeling down.”

Ashlynn is receiving this award because of her dedication to not only her school work, but her family and music as well. She is an excellent student who does her work without question and does it well. While her studies are an achievement in and of themselves, her music is another story.
Ashlynn is a cello player here at RV, and a darn good one.

“She is a dedicated cello player and nice to everyone; she always demonstrates excellence.” Says Amanda Trinh (11).

Not only does she excel in her studies and musical talent, but she is able to make time for her family as well. She has
never missed a single one of her brother’s games on the weekends, and is constantly there to support him in his sports endeavors. With so much going on already, it seems like she has zero time. And while that may be true, there is still magically time for her social life as well. Everyone who knows her has nothing but good things to say and happy memories to relay.

Michelle is not only one of the nicest people you can run into at RV, but she has a fierce enthusiasm for music. She
is a violinist in the Chamber Orchestra, and landed the seat as first chair Concert Mistress in the All-County Orchestra. (Which, in normal language, means that she’s the best.) She says that music is her passion, and also acts as her “stress
reliever,” and with a quick glance at her rigorous schedule, one can see that any normal person would need a relief. But Michelle handles it with confidence and ease. She has already conquered some of the most difficult courses offered here at RV; and has come out with, what else, but straight A’s. To top it all off, Michelle is a proud member of NHS, Care Team, Winter Guard, and was also captain of the Color Guard throughout the Marching Band season. Though she’s never had an off block, she somehow finds the time to be a phenomenal student, musician, and friend. Michelle Sequin is a true example of excellence here at RV.

As most everyone with access to the celebrity gossip community knows, Chris Brown has been charged with 2 felonies for his actions against Rihanna February 8. It seems obvious from pictures released of Rihanna right after the attack, that he should have an easy conviction; and show hundreds of teens that their abusive partners will not get away with what they are doing. Right? Wrong; not only has Brown pleaded “not guilty”, but a poll taken by the Boston Public Health Commission showed that nearly half of 200 teens interviewed, believe the beatings were Rihanna’s fault; that she “deserved” them.

More startling statistics show that 52 percent of the teens thought the media was portraying Brown unfairly, while 44 percent believe the fighting is only a “normal part of the relationship”. How very depressing.

Have we really come to a place in our history in which domestic violence is accepted? It is simply overlooked? Do people in this day and age actually believe that this kind of primitive behavior is OK? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

Domestic violence is still very prevalent in our modern day society. It is estimated by the National Institute of Justice Study, that approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men annually are physically assaulted by an intimate partner in the United States. Worldwide, one in three women will be a victim of domestic violence.

And with all of these startling statistics, half of the youth of America believe it is simply a normal part of life. One teen interviewed by the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Coalition (DVSAC) jokingly said it was “to keep them in their place”. His cavalier attitude towards the subject shows how this is not taken as a serious problem to many people. It is something to joke about and laugh about and even participate in.

Why has this become such an accepted part of relationships now-a-days? It is certainly not due to lack of organizations or lack of people who know about it, because in both categories there are plenty of people. One contributing factor is most definitely the celebrity world. Even after the pictures of the beaten Rihanna were released, hundreds of teens still support him. All claiming that he did nothing wrong, and in the case of 9th graders in the Bronx, saying: “she probably made him mad for him to react like that … You know, like, bring it on?”

No one, ever, deserves this kind of treatment, for any reason. It doesn’t matter if they’re “bringing it on” or doing nothing to encourage it at all. People need to realize now that domestic violence is not a joke, should not be accepted and should not be so lightly discussed. This is a serious problem that for some reason is becoming a normal part of people’s lives, with any luck, the attention to the issue brought by the celebrity world will help to decrease and eliminate the problem.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence in any form, contact the National Teen Dating Abuse Help hotline at 1-866-331-9474.

The set was wonderfully built, coming alive in bright colors and a fairy-tale appearance, and bringing an exciting and romantic atmosphere. One particularly admirable piece of set was Cinderella’s house. It harbored a staircase, functional windows, and a working fireplace.

The songs were also very memorable. With the exception of a couple microphone mess-ups, the songs were well heard and together. The hints of humor in many of the songs made the performance that much more enjoyable, and the audience left humming the tunes. Of course, that means there is little chance the songs will leave your head for a very long time.

As for the acting, the talented Adam Celentano nailed his part as Prince Charming, acting as the perfect counterpart for the lovely Cinderella, played by Mackenzie Talley. Their scenes were flawless and so believable; even their kisses (particularly in the end scene) brought cheers from the audience. The rest of the cast also did a wonderful job bringing a fairy tale land to life, and the costumes were magnificent and so colorful, well fit for the image of Cinderella. And each night of performance was certainly “A Lovely Night.”