By Christina Wadsworth ’14 and Brooke Bullington ’13
Varsity girls’ basketball team faces injury
In the first weeks of their season, six of the nine returning varsity girls basketball players are injured. As of right now, the team is using the beginning of the season as “a learning experience for everyone to learn how to work together and execute plays” while relying on the “younger players to bring a lot of energy and help the team out,” said junior Maddy Price. The team is also looking ahead to take advantage of the required winter break practices. “We’re looking to winter break to become more cohesive once many of our players are back through bonding experiences, practices, and travel tournaments,” said head coach John Paye.
Student council adds spirit to the student center
In order to spark holiday spirit among the student body, student council brought in an evergreen tree and encouraged students to bring other items in that represent their favorite holiday traditions.
Senior project process begins
On Monday, Nov. 26, the senior class met for the first of many senior project meetings. In this meeting, senior class dean Cathy Chen and senior project coordinator Katherine Hanson encouraged seniors to begin thinking of ideas, as they will need to begin their proposals in early January.
Former drug addict addresses Menlo community
On Wednesday, Nov. 28, David Pratt spoke to the upper student body regarding his experience overcoming a drug addiction. Pratt’s father, Michael Pratt, a former Academic Dean at Menlo, joined him to offer a father’s perspective on the difficulties of having a son with a drug addiction.
AP Government elections
AP Gov students have spent the last two weeks gearing up for mock presidential elections under the direction of teacher Dan Devitt. The two classes were split up into four roles: candidates, campaign managers, lobbyists, and the media team. The election process consisted of a kick-off day with speeches from the candidates and lobbysists, followed by an update on the race from the media team. On Friday November 30th, the D block class held their election and turned out over 80 voters, with liberal candidate narrowly Kyra Gray beating out conservative Will Boyd and independent Perry Ha. The A Block election was held on Tuesday December 4th between liberal candidate Samantha Hoag, conservative Brennon Williams, and independent Ryan Karle.