By BOB NORBERG THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Cycling takes up a large part of Drew Gonzales’ life. He competes in races most weeks and hopes to qualify to race internationally, a dream of his. “I am looking forward to a race in Canada this summer,” said Gonzales, a Casa Grande High School junior. “I have two teammates this year who were in Europe racing with a national team. It exposed them to a higher level you can’t get here in… Read More »
By ADAM SILOW MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL When Alec Miller entered high school in 2008, he did not expect that by the time he graduated he would have a full-time job with the eventual possibility of a six-figure salary, while many of his peers would be going off to college and incurring a six-figure debt. Miller, 18, who graduated from Santa Rosa’s Mesa High School in December, has been working at In-N-Out Burger in Santa Rosa since 2010. In… Read More »
By CATHY BUSSEWITZ THE PRESS DEMOCRAT In the cacophony of a noisy classroom with teenagers wandering in several different directions, Mariah Ruth Archibald calmly strolls in and says hello to the students. The Analy High School senior, who is a teaching assistant for the school’s Severely Handicapped Special Day Class, is visiting during a break between classes, as she often does. She plunks down on a bright yellow yoga ball in front of a boy with a workbook open at… Read More »
The 2012 Youth Service Awards sponsored by The Press Democrat will be……… Read More »
By SHAWNA BROWN and T.J. GRAYSON CASA GRANDE HIGH SCHOOL Making a difference, having an impact and giving back: These were the goals that sent Casa Grande High School senior Nellie Graham 5,900 miles away to the grassy plains and woodland hills of Paraguay, sparking an interest in service to international and regional communities. Focusing on youth leadership, multicultural understanding and community development opportunities for teenagers, the program Amigos de las Americas originally gave Graham this community service opportunity last… Read More »
By BRIANA LEPPANEN VALLEY OAKS INDEPENDENT STUDY SCHOOL, SENIOR, 17 For me, school has been mostly enjoyable. I was the quiet student who took the hand that she was dealt without complaining. But this all changed when a new teacher in the school treated the entire class disrespectfully. This happened my junior year in algebra. After that class, my fondness for school began to disintegrate. This teacher would completely lose it over little things, such as when a student coughed… Read More »
By ROBERT DIGITALE THE PRESS DEMOCRAT When Jose Soto Jr. was 14, he got up at 4 a.m. two days a week to take a four-hour bus ride across dry ranching country from his hometown to Guadalajara, Mexico. Those long days in travel and classes at a music conservatory amounted to a quest for a better life. They were a foretaste of the longer journey that the 19-year-old Elsie Allen High student and his family would make to build… Read More »
28,390. That’s the number of the nearly 30,000 children from the corrupt, east African countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda, and South Sudan tha… Read More »
As the United States is only just beginning to pull away from its military exploits, many politicians, particularly Republicans running in the primaries, are calling for military action in Iran… Read More »
I hate bad endings. To anything. And by a bad ending I mean any ending that is sad, or heartbreaking, or depressing, or makes you cry tears, not of joy, but of despair and agony. … Read More »
