By DEREK MOORE THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Swing Set, the jazz combo Connor Rutten founded when he was a student at Santa Rosa’s Maria Carrillo High School, has earned raves in performances at festivals and special events. That includes the group’s first-place performance at the 2012 Reno Jazz Festival [...]
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 [...]
By RYAN LE MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL, SENIOR, 18 “Procrastination is part of my life,” Maria Carrillo High senior Richard Liang admitted. Enrolled in five AP classes, swimming three hours a day after school and involved in a myriad extra-curricular activities, Liang’s plate is full. Yet, on a night when [...]
By AMANDA KRALEY MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL, JUNIOR, 16 Three Maria Carrillo High School students wake up in the morning, grab all their things, and head out the door to school. But they are not going to the east Santa Rosa school. Senior Angie Howard, junior Dante Mazzanti [...]
By MARY CALLAHAN THE PRESS DEMOCRAT One thing that stands out about Cardinal Newman High School sophomore Jake Brown is the degree of consideration he’s given his vocal chords. A subject not even close to most teens’ Top 10 List of Trending Topics, they are key to Brown’s [...]
By LAUREN HEMMINGSEN MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL, JUNIOR, 16 Getting a license, a new car, the latest fashions and having unforgettable nights with friends typically represents the “teenage dream.” With the recession leaving deep impressions on not only adults, but teens as well, this “teenage dream” may become [...]
By GRISELDA RIVERA MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL, SENIOR, 17 We’ve all heard the phrase “use protection” at least 100 times. It’s an accurate phrase that some choose to ignore because they hear it so often. But when a Santa Rosa teen health center, Southwest Community Health Center, said last fall [...]
By GUY KOVNER THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Hector Iturbe has two A’s and two B’s in his classes at Sonoma State University, including environmental science, philosophy and biological anthropology. He wants to become a neurosurgeon and to keep playing soccer while he studies human biology at Stanford University, [...]
By AMANDA KRALEY MARIA CARRILLO HIGH SCHOOL, JUNIOR, 16 Junior Ariana Lease chats animatedly to the camera in her YouTube video, smiling and gesturing while she talks. As she casually pushes her bangs away from her face, an ad for TOMS shoes pops up at the bottom of the video [...]