By RICHARD LIANG MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL, JUNIOR Students in most nearby school districts are supposed to go to school 180 days a year and sometimes more than seven hours daily. That’s a whopping 1,260 hours a year, and that gargantuan amount of time does not even include the many, [...]
By NATHAN HALVERSON THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Some teenagers, gifted with intellect and focus, can make adults look downright immature. Nalani Genser, at 17, is one of those youthful iconoclasts. The aspiring model pauses before answering a question. She backtracks out of an opinion, reassesses, and then proceeds to [...]
By SARAH STINSON MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR Her smile unfurls across dimpled olive cheeks as playful competition sparks in her eyes. The memory still glimmers in my mind. I was playing basketball with my new Mexican friend Jaqui in the humid heat, while the waves roared like faraway cars. [...]
By KIARA COVARRUBIAS CASA GRANDE HIGH SCHOOL My dad is serious, strict and intelligent. He has a great capacity to love but doesn’t show it. At age 9, he came to the U.S. along with his nine siblings: four other boys and five girls. They were raised in an environment [...]
By BOB NORBERG THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Lisa Gilardoni grew up on her grandfather’s Santa Rosa ranch and doesn’t remember the first time she mounted a horse. “I’ve been riding since I’ve been able to,” she said. She started competing in barrel racing when she was 7 years old, [...]
By KYLIE BUCK CASA GRANDE HIGH SCHOOL Bruin pride pulses through my veins: My iPod plays the UCLA fight song, my wardrobe is accessorized with Bruin gear, my laptop displays a picture of Royce Hall as the wallpaper. I first visited the UCLA campus when I was a freshman on [...]
By ROBERT DIGITALE THE PRESS DEMOCRAT High school was the time when Maximilian Friedauer took up photography and went public with his lifelong love of music. The recent Cardinal Newman High grad, bound next month for Duke University, said his life changed for the better as a sophomore when he [...]
By ELVIS WONG CASA GRANDE HIGH SCHOOL I bowed my head, closed my eyes and listened to the hymns that were sung as the music resonated off the arched walls of the church sanctuary. I listened to the obituaries of those close friends and family as they spoke with brittle [...]
By MARTIN ESPINOSA THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Sharon Wasik usually knows where her son Daniel has been. The budding fashion designer often leaves pieces of thread everywhere he goes in their well-kept, spacious Fountaingrove home. They are evidence that Daniel has been hard at work in his studio, a burgundy-colored bedroom [...]
By LINDA CHEN MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL True friendship is immeasurable. It develops, disintegrates, metamorphoses and lasts a lifetime. However, along the ride of ascertaining genuine companions, there are obstacles. Distance is a factor that can jumble one’s discernment of real friends but cannot deny the existence of [...]