HORNET’S BUZZT H

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OFFICIAL STUDENT-RUN PUBLICATION OF NORTH KANSAS CITY HIGH SCHOOL, NORTH KANSAS CITY, MO.

VOLUME 80 > ISSUE 7> MAY 7, 2014 > WWW.NKCBUZZ.COM

9 A & E:Poetry slam and spring fashion6-7FEATURES:

Pua Hall gets scholarship to UCLA 10 Sports:

Boys’ tennis

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

COVER PHOTO BY MOLLY GREENOn April 26, Northtown was part of a training simulation for emregency services

responding to a mass casualty incident. Junior Brittiny Hopkins’s “got scared and ran into a pole” suffering a concussion as part of her act as a volunteer.

5 NEWS:NKCHS serves as emergency training

2|contents The Hornet’s Buzz May 7, 2014 editorial|3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

III. Editorial The Buzz goes in depth on everything that the library does in our school, and how the school actually reacts to all the effort they put forth.

IV.IB Stugglin’Everyone at Northtown hears about all the time and effort that goes into the IB program. The Buzz goes in depth- talking to teachers, students, and past graduates about IB.

V.School Shooting Drill Northtown was a part of a training experience for a mass casualty incident. The Buzz has pic-tures and explains what happened.

VI.UCLA & Sam Brown’s Trip On features, The Buzz went out and talked to Pua Hall and Sam Brown. Pua Hall got a schol-arship to Univerity of Califonia, Las Angeles. And Sam Brown is going to Europe through People to People.

VII.Spirit Week The week before Prom, Northtown had Spirit Week. Your pictures from Social Media are there, showing your spirit for the school.

VIII.Body Modificatons & Poetry Slam The Buzz covered the Poetry Slam, talking with the winners and judges. Also, the do’s and dont’s when it comes to body modifications.

IX.Spring Fashion Warm weather is coming, and the Buzz has a few helpful hints to keep students, comfortable and cute going into the changing season.

X. & XI. Baseball & Tennis This issue, the Buzz covered Sports in school and out of school, with an update on how the Royals’ season is going, along with a wrap up of boy’s tennis season.

XII.World News The Buzz explans on a story from a past issue, and gives an updated story on the Crisis in Ukraine.

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May 7, 2014 editorial|3

Editorial Cartoon

At North Kansas City High School there is a very unique library experience. We share part of the public library, so we have nearly full-time access to books, magazines, movies, ebooks, food and more. Few people have taken full advantage of the library.

Over in the basement of the library, far more is offered than just books.

The librarians, “do any-thing and everything, even if it has nothing to do with the library; they do not say no,” said junior Maddie Shu-mate.

The librarians will order any books that any student wants and are not available. They help with eCampus classes, motivation, schol-arships, they will write letters of recommendation, they can help with tutoring, organization, study skills, virtually anything you need from them.

Parker Harmon, junior, thinks Northtown’s library

is unique because, “we actu-ally have cool librarians!”

The librarians do what they can to get kids in-volved and excited about reading. They offer a Book Club that reads 6 books each school year, which each student receives for free.

During Thursday’s early release there is gaming, trivia, and crafts. There is a ping-pong table, a hamster named Marc, a popcorn maker, candy, and plenty of prizes to go around.

Most students realize that during one week in Oc-tober there are food trucks on campus, but not many people know why. They are a part of Teen Read Week which hosts free giveaways as well as the food trucks; this week stands to get stu-dents to acknowledge the library and reading.

A typical library, espe-cially a school library would never have this many excit-ing things happening year

round, so many students don’t even realize all of the things offered to them. Be-yond that, a lot of students are simply too busy to come over during or after school hours.

Also, since the library is not in any of the school’s main buildings, our librar-ians fear it is forgotten about. A lot of students live with the connotation of a library being a place for nerds, so they don’t ever get to experience all the great things our library holds because they simply don’t want to.

If the students at North-town break that mold, the library would grow even greater with all the new people taking part in what it offers.

So, what if you are one of the students that is now interested by the library, but don’t know how to take advantage of it now that school is nearly out? It’s simple. Our library is mak-

ing sure that students can stay involved throughout the summer. Do you plan on reading anything this sum-mer? If you do, snap a selfie and send it to the library’s social media and you are automatically entered in a giveaway drawing.

The library stays open all summer since it is also a public library. You can stop by and still get far more than books this summer. There are magazines, ebooks, movies, research databases, and Internet all offered. Get connected with our library.

If you still find you do not have a reason to visit the li-brary, go for social reasons. There are always people, most likely, even some of your friends hanging out in the library after school. A lot of people use the free, non-school Wi-Fi, that does not block all the websites the school does, to pass the time after school. Many students will choose to

Editorial: Get Involved with Librarynever visit the library, but that just leaves more prizes and food for the people who choose to go.

Or, you could always talk to the librarians around. Librarian Jessica Thomas said, “we love students and we love to talk about books and anything else with the students.”

Next year all of these events and possibly even more will be around, so if you did not get involved this year, next year you can become the library’s biggest fan.

Don’t know how to con-tact the library this sum-mer for your chance to win prizes at the beginning of next year for your reading selfie? Here is a list of all of the ways you can find them:

facebook.com/nkclmctwitter.com/nkclmcnkclmc.weebly.com

4|news The Hornet’s Buzz North Kansas City High School is no longer a mere candidate school for the IBCC, the Interna-tional Baccalaureate Career-relat-ed Certificate. North Kansas City, along with 63 other schools around the world, officially has been autho-rized to offer the IBCC diploma to its students. Different from IB, this option requires less diploma cours-es, being two-to-four course sub-jects from the traditional amount, and also includes an area from a ca-reer-related study, such as Project Lead The Way (pre-engineering), or a Prostart class (foods). Aside from the new distin-guished diploma option of IBCC, the inner workings and payoffs of IBDP (International Baccalaureate Diplo-ma Program) remain in place. Extra curricular activities such as band, orchestra, scholarbowl, sports, an unlimited amount of oth-er options, even including a job, all coupled with the load of IB, is often thought to be a good deal of stress. Northtown’s IB coordinator and teacher, Dr. Jane Reed, addressed the responsibilities of extra cur-ricular activities; “I think it’s a workable schedule for students who really want to do it. [It takes] some pretty sophisticated time management… but motivation is the secret.” Although known for the aca-demic workload, that doesn’t drive everyone away from the IB program. Junior IB candi-date Monique Maxwell was drawn in by the extensive work that it entails. “I didn’t want to waste not learning as much information as I could. I figure that if you’re going to be in school, you might as well do your best.” Maxwell also participates in theatre after school hours, and deals with the issue of time management. “I have learned to plan out when I need to get through most of homework when I have something to do for theater,” she said. Like all things, the program has its ups and downs, and “is pretty restrictive in what you can and can’t take [in regards to subject choices]. You don’t have a lot of freedom on your schedule,” says Reed. However, it is the “best preparation for anything you want to do after high school. You have a really good foundational set of skills that are academic in nature.” Although the distinguished diploma options are challenging in their own ways, the IB program has a certain reputation because of its rigorous courses. This rigor helps students prepare for college in a variety of ways.

“I’ve gained 30 credit hours, which makes me a sophomore, so I can register for classes sooner. I enjoy being able to get in the good classes, everyone else always com-plains about having to rearrange their schedules,” explains 2013 IB graduate Ashley Henry. Aside from helping Henry with scheduling, IB prepared her for how to handle the college workload. “As you get to college, the stress level increases, it never decreases. IB really helped me get to the right level of stress acceptance,” she continued. The IB program also distin-guishes itself from the other diplo-ma options because of its unique worldly aspect that it introduces to students. “Every class we had dealt with other cultures and how each aspect is seen in those cultures. And also, since IB is international, I believe the program is more worldly,” said Henry. “[IB] gives you a lot more of a global perspective. I think that the global perspective is the internet and ever increasing engagement. That means we have a lot more re-sponsibil-ities

as people; [IB] helps you get along with more people because of seeing contrast-ing points of view,” says Reed. “A global perspective makes interna-tional relationships better. I hope that maybe even one day we may have world peace, [because of] the awareness of other points of view.” Through the IB program, “stu-dents really get a chance to shine in a lot of different ways,” says Reed. The students’ skills are assessed in a variety of ways throughout the course of the program, either through traditional methods of test taking, essays in the given subject

areas, or even an oral commentary, all contribute to the evaluation of a student. In comparison to the other distinguished courses that assess students based on testing, being Advanced Placement classes, Reed explains her view that she sees “AP as a snapshot of what students can do, while IB is a photo album.” One thing that is quickly asso-ciated with IB is stress, copious amounts of stress. Many students feel that they are constantly under stress, commonly attributed to the amount of homework. “I think that students who really struggle and feel stress often bring

it upon themselves with pro-crastination and things piling

up. It’s a heavy academic load,” says Reed.

However, the stress still isn’t much of a deterrent, students still view the pro-gram with high regards and, as Reed suggested, some students may even hold this high amount of stress as a “badge of honor.” “It’s so much

fun. I hate it and I love it. It’s a love hate

relationship,” Maxwell says in regards to her

involvement with the IB program. “It’s time con-

suming, that’s why I hate it. I don’t know why I love it, maybe

because I’m crazy.” The IB program has a variety of things to offer, from the opportu-nity to earn college credit hours, the influence of worldly aspects, coaching of stress management, and a rigorous academic educa-tion. Although Northtown will now have three distinguished diploma options for the nearing 2014-2015 school year, the traditional IB program will remain an option for students, as they should take ad-vantage of this opportunity.

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Strugglin’

By: Rylie Lyonco-editor

The yearbook is completed. Don’t miss your chance to relive all of your 2013-2014 memo-ries! The Purgold staff will be dis-tributing year-books on May 12th in the field house. Check by room 219 in main and ask for Mrs. Prich-ard if you have any questions. If there are ex-tra books left over on distribution day, they will be $80. Come pre-pared with cash or check. Make your checks out to NKCHS. The theme of this year’s book is “This is Your Mo-ment.” The year-book staff hopes you enjoy it!

May 7, 2014 news|5

Students contribute to training exercise

The Northtown cafeteria covered in blood, bodies of students lay motionless all around. Kids yelled for help. It was a rightfully dark and rainy day. On April 26, there was a re-sponse to an active shooter drill. There were 15 students that volunteered their time on that Saturday to help the fire station be prepared to respond to a school shooting. It was an amaz-ingly detailed reenactment all the way down to having a pretend shooter whom had taken his own life while hiding from the police. Sophomore Jordan Hurst played this shooter. “It was a fun experi-ence,” said Hurst. He had make up below his chin and on his forehead that made it look like he shot himself. “I wore it home and scared my brother,” he con-tinues. Many students had make up that made them

appear to have injuries. Some students appeared to be shot and the ‘bullet’ went through both sides and then others had just been grazed. Brittiny Hopkins, junior, had a large bruise on her forehead and face. She walked around as if she had a concussion. “The make up was very detailed, it only took a cou-ple minutes to put on and it looked real,” added Jeffery Groce, senior. Officer Mark McNamee was the officer in charge of the whole drill and he instructed the volunteers to be loud and act injured. There were even a few people who just had blood splattered on their faces and yelled at the firemen to help their friends. “The firemen did very well,” said Hopkins “They carried me on the [stretcher], and carried me out,” said Grouse.

Emergency personnel found all of the students and tagged them black, red, yellow, or green. Green meant the victim was not injured, or had the ability to walk on their own. Yellow meant the student was injured and could not walk. Red meant that the victim needed immediate atten-tion. And black meant they were to be transported to the morgue. Then the Firemen took everyone outside where an ambulance waited, they looked at each victim’s inju-ries, and pretended to treat it as they would as if it were real. For example, they put a fake IV in one woman’s arm. The school has helped with this drill in the past, and will continue to in the future.

Sierra Cawthonphoto editor 2.

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1)Cynthia Clinkenbeard volunteered to help out and play a teacher who was harmed in the incident. She had fake shards of glass protuding from her face.2)Teagan McNamee, also volunteered to be a victim in the drill. She was one of the students who were taged ‘black’. Which meant she was ‘dead’.3)Jordan Hurst, sophomore, in position to play the part of school shooter whom took his own life.4)Brittiny Hopkins, junior, being walked outside to be placed with the yellow tags, but after pretending she couldn’t remember her own name, she was moved up to red.

6|features The Hornet’s Buzz

PEOPLE TO PEOPLE: SAM BROWN GOES TO EUROPE

Pua Hall Gets Scholarship

It’s the time of year that can’t come soon enough for most people. It’s May. The school year is almost over. And for the seniors, a chapter of their lives is closing and most have picked where their next step is going to be. Pua Hall has made her decision. She will be attending University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA, with a gymnastics scholarship. Yet, her journey to the school hasn’t been easy. “UCLA was like a dream school. But at the time I was being recruit-ed, they didn’t have an open spot on the team,” Hall explained. Due to this fact, Hall and her family went to visit a number of other schools, one of them being the

University of Arkansas, where she then accepted an offer. It wasn’t until two days later that she heard that a spot on the UCLA team had opened up and they wanted her. She then called Arkansas, telling them she was having sec-ond thoughts before she officially changed her decision and agreed to attend UCLA. Hall stated that the decision between the two schools was ex-tremely hard, and she fought with loyalty to her community and the school that she originally signed on to. But in the end, she’s happy with the choice she made. “I’m glad I did it,” she stated. “The second I set foot on the cam-pus, I knew. It felt like home with-out it even being home yet.” Once she had finally made her decision, Hall said it “felt like what

should have happened a long time ago.” UCLA has an NCAA Division One gymnastics team. They have won six NCAA national championships, and have won 18 regional titles, 9 in the past 10 years alone. Pua is most excited for “being a part of their legacy.” With that she has a few goals set for herself and for her team in the up-coming years that lay ahead of her. “I want to help the team win at nationals,” Pua said. She contin-ued on to say that she would like to take home a few All American awards herself. Pua will start school in August for the last part of summer school. But the fall semes-ter doesn’t start until October. “I’ll be leaving late July or ear-ly August,” Hall stated. As of right now, her major is still undecided. All she knows is that she wants to work

with people, yet she is confident that once she starts taking classes, she will know what she wants to do.

Shannon Hortonco-editor

Summer is about going out and experiencing new things. Most peo-ple dream of going out and having an unforgettable adventure. For junior Sam Brown, that dream is becoming a reality. This summer, Brown will spend 20 days traveling across Europe. Within those 20 days, she will go to England, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Brown is going on this trip through People to People, which is a program that gets students out of the class room and out into the world to learn about historical events throughout history. The trip that Sam is attending is focused primarily on World War II, which for a history buff like her made it the perfect choice. “We’re going to the Anne Frank

Shannon Hortonco-editor

house and we’re going to meet with a World War II survivor,” Brown said. The process of actu-ally being able to attend this trip was not an easy one. It is long and in depth. “It was annoy-ing,” Brown said. “There is a lot they don’t tell you at the initial meeting. In the meetings they tell you about all the fun stuff.” Brown had to first register online, which consisted of filling

out applications, getting teacher recommendations, etc. After that,

they accept you and you have to commit to a down pay-

ment. A trip like at

frist glance is on the more

expen-sive side. Brown’s final payment is $7,400. But the price doesn’t re-

ally bother her.

“I’m going to seven coun-

tries. That’s real-ly cheap for going to

Europe,” she stated. From there students are sup-posed to take quizzes to make sure

they have a base knowledge of the information that will be covered on the trip. Also, they are supposed to meet with the group that they will be traveling with, and bond. Brown has a few things that she is looking forward to concerning the trip, one being overcoming a fear. “I’m looking forward to con-quering my fear of flying over the ocean,” she stated. “Concerning the trip specifically, I’m excited about seeing the Netherlands. I hope it is as beautiful as it should be due to how chill they are.” Also Brown is looking forward to what she can take back from the trip. “I’m looking forward to the experience, actually being a global citizen and not just staying in the United States.”

Taking a Big Leap A picture of Pua Hall at one of her gymnastics competitions. Soon, Hall will be competeing with the gymnastics team at UCLA

PHOTO CURTESY OF PUA HALL

May 7, 2014 features|7

Blast From The Past Tuesday after school, students who participated in spirit week got together in the back park-ing lot, for a group picture. The group from left to right consists of juniors Stacey Clarke, Natalie Platel, Cassie Clark, Lauren Davis, Viviana Lopez, senior Celeb McQuerry, juniors Bree Hernandez, John Paul Ameryun, sophomore Maddie Warman, juniors Sam Brown, and Shannon Horton, and sophomore Brooke DeWitt.

PHOTO CURTESY OF SHANNON HORTON

Northtown’s got spirit!Tuesday: 80’s Workout

Let’s Get Physical! Seniors, Cat Allen, Pua Hall, and Kaitlynn Berry show their school spirit and throwing back a couple decades, as they wear their 80’s workout gear.

PHOTO CURTESY OF KAITLYNN BERRY

Wednesday: Underclassmen- Whiteout!Upperclassmen- Blackout!

Back in Black A group of junior girls decided to get together and take a picture of all of them dressed in black for Wednes-day’s spirit day. The front row consists of Sam Brown and Sabrina Anderson. Back row from right to left is Natalie Platel, Jamee Weaver, Viviana Lopez, Gaije Handsen, Lauren Davis, Stacey Clarke, Sydney Debrick, and Cassie Clark.

PHOTO CURTESY OF SAM BROWN

Thursday: Twin Day

Seperated at Birth Senior Josh Fulken and junior Sydney Debrick posed together in the back parking lot, dressed alike from head to toe.

PHOTO CURTESY OF SYDNEY DEBRICK

In the past, Northtown hasn’t had a Spirit week before Prom, but since the spirit week before Sweetheart got cut short, they made an exception. So, in the week leading up for Prom, students got dressed up, used their creativity, and showed their spirit for the school. For the seniors at North-town is was their last real chance to show their Hornet pride. The week consisted of, Monday as Support Your Sports Team, Tuesday as 80’s Workout Day, Wednesday as Blackout for upperclassmen, Whiteout for underclassmen, Thursday as Twin Day, and Friday was everyone’s favorite, Purple and Gold Day! NKC Buzz went to social media to see what all the students did this week.

8|arts & entertainment The Hornet’s Buzz

Body Modifications:&

PoetrySlam+ Elissa Christensen,

Staff Writer

+ Emma Meddil, Staff Writer

Sea salt and warm water is best for healing

piercings.

Safe lubricant (water based

works well) and push it though slowly.

Rubbing alcohol will dry out the piercing and will

make it try to heal over, Neosporin will cause the

piercing to reject.

A piercing should be

done with a hollowed out

needle.

Make sure it’s some-thing that you won’t

regret later on.

Make sure the needles used are

clean!

If problems arise, romove the gauge and

contact a doctor.

Make sure it is at a reputable tattoo parlor,

it is not recommend-ed to go to a place like

Claire’s.

n Thursday, April 10th, Northtown held the 7th annu-al Poetry Slam, hosted by juniors; Jake Shaw and Danielle Bates. This year, the Poetry Slam was themed

like “The Hunger Games,” where each “tribute” had their name drawn from a bowl to decide the order in which the students would go. As the first round ended there was an intermis-sion in which The Durrill Five, a 5 piece jazz band composed of junior, Ryan Ganaban, senior, Josh Harp, senior, Phillip Potter, band teacher, Carrie Ep-person and sophomore, Lincoln Williams performed. As the second round began with six students left; senior, Bryce Graskemper, senior, Maha Mohammed, juniors Ogo Agali and Samira Zantout, juniors, Ryan

Ganaban and Gregory Roberts, and freshman, Ericka Metcalf. After much deliberation Metcalf was crowned this year’s “champion”. “This was my first time performing and I loved how everyone was support

ing each other, it was very excit ing,” said Metcalf. Andrea Taylor, a Social Studies teacher here at Northtown was one of the judges this year and she was very pleased about this year’s competition. “It was very good; there were a lot of interesting topics. There were some kids who got up there and performed some pretty good stuff,” said Taylor. “I thought it was wonderful; it’s a platform to allow kids to express their inner voice. I wish we had more opportunities like that,” added French teacher, Tuan Nguyen, who also helped judge this year’s competi-tion. Keep supporting Northtown’s talent and be ready to support next year’s annual Poetry Slam!

OPHOTOS BY: ELISSA CHRISTENSEN

Picture provided by: Piercing Time.com

Picture by: Emma Meddil

In most teen’s lives at some point or another they will decide to get a body modification, be it pierced ears or dyed hair, stretched

lobes or some other type of body piercing, or even tattoos. To successfully get these they have to be done safely and be

healed with caution. Even things like pierced ears have to be done right. For many of these body modifications if

not done right they can be downright dangerous. Many times they can get infected, reject,

and scar, making something that was once pretty into something deformed

and most likely not what was ini-tially wanted.

After you give your ears time to adjust and

heal, make sure to clean

daily.

Scar tissue is not good for a piercing, this means that the body is not accept-

ing the piercing and is trying to heal it

over.

Do NOT go up more than one size when

sizing up

May 7, 2014 arts & entertainment|9

“Pastel colors, jeans and capris and short frilly

dresses,” + Senior, Alyssa

Sanchez

ere at Northtown, fashion gives everyone the free-dom to wear whatever, whenever. Fashion gives

us the power to show our unique-ness, and also make an impression. Spring is here and hopefully here to stay for a little while at least. So here are some tips to keep in mind while choosing out an outfit:

SpringFashion+ Ariel Paul, A&E Editor

H • Be ready for the unexpected since we have to walk outside from Norclay to main, and vise versa. It’s always a good idea to keep an umbrella at hand. Es-pecially in spring months like April. Like they always say, “April showers bring May flowers.”• Light airy clothes are great, but

in the case of getting cold, a cardi-gan is a great companion for your cute spring clothing

• Spring colors are generical-ly light pastels, but you can mix it up with little dashes of vibrant colors transitioning to summer.

• Capris are an option if you are a little modest and don’t like to show a lot of skin; com-fortable yet simple.

• Watch the weather! In Kansas City the weather is very bipolar and by watching the weather segment on the morning news before you step out of the house, you could save yourself from po-tentially getting even snowed on during spring. (Ha!)

• It’s alright you can take your sandals out of hiber-nation, the weather should start to feel nice!• Another alternative for footwear is flats. Instead of wearing tennis shoes or san-dals, these are perfect to look dressy, while still being com-fortable.

“Floral skirts, flats, and cardi-

gans.” + Senior, Mary Do

10|sports The Hornet’s Buzz

TENNIS

Northtowns boys’ tennis team is making quite the racquet this season. This year, the tennis boys have 36 players making this team rather large. Because of this year’s high number of players, coach Dan-iel Berkland and the team captains have been trying their best to help the players bring it all together. The team captains are senior, Caleb McQuer-ry, senior, Chris Stil-well, senior, Morgan Thompson, and junior, Cody Dang. Swinging into shape, the boys work very hard to ace their

matches. “We practice every-day from 2:55pm to 5:15pm,” said Berk-land. “We typically also have two to three matches a week as well.” So far, the team has played three dual matches. Varsity anni-hilated St. Pius (8-1) and defeated Kearney (7-2). JV triumphed over both St. Pius and Kearney with both matches ending with (9-0). Both Varsity and JV met their match when they lost to Liberty, but JV came slamming back, taking first place in the Blue Springs South JV doubles tour-nament. Novice squad defeat-

ed Kearney (2-0) lost to Liberty (1-2), and lost to Park Hill (8-23). The Novice squad was downright smashing in the Novice doubles tournament when they took fourth place. The team has one simple goal for this season. Their motto is “Diminish our weak-nesses, and increase our strengths.” “If we do this effec-tively, then the wins and losses will take care of themselves,” exclaimed Berkland. “So far, we have posi-tioned ourselves for a good run at the Con-ference Title, and are looking forward to get-ting some more match-es under our belts.” Varsity will have

10 more dual matches, 3 tournaments, and post-season play. JV and Novice have a sim-ilar schedule remain-ing as well so come support Northtown tennis boys while they serve up a great season.

Boys end seasonAlyssa Stonerstaff writer

Alyssa StonerIn full swing Remy Sananikone, sophomore, a Northtown junior varsity boys’ tennis player warms up on Thursday, May 1. He and his team prepare for their away match against Fort Osage.

May 7, 2014 sports|11

BASEBALLThe Royals’ Spring Season

As the weather gets warmer, the days get longer, stu-

dents are let out for vacation, it officially becomes summer. And with summer comes the all American pastime: Base-ball. Kansas City’s very own baseball team, the Royals, have gotten off to a fairly clean start. As of April 27, they are sitting at a 14-13 record as of deadline. They are typically doing better at home than they are on the road. Critics of the Royals say that this is one of the strongest teams that Kansas City has had in a while. Between 1995 and 2012, the Royals only had one winning season. But, they broke that curse last year, ending their season with a .531 record, making it the first winning season since 2003. The winning season seemed to boost the confidence of not only the team, but also the fans. Most fans are very excited for what this season will bring. The changes seen between this year and last year haven’t been extreme; there have just been a few trades. Some of the most valuable new players so far in the season consist of Norichika Aoki, an outfielder, and Omar Infante who is an infielder. Infante had a slight set back at the beginning of the season when he was hit in the jaw by a wild pitch against the White Socks, but didn’t suffer any major damage and is back on the field hitting a .283 average, and had a 6 RBI game on April 27. Although a few changes have been made to the team, most fan favorites have stayed, such as Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez, Billy Butler, and Mike Moustakas. Even though the Royals have started their season on a pretty good foot, there is still a large amount of room for improvement. The team’s fielding is great, with a high-lev-el defense and pitcher support. The Royal’s pitchers have been setting up the defense on the mound for a large amount of their games. Leading the pitching team is James Shields, who has won three out of the five games he’s played and has 41 strikeouts so far this season. Another important piece of the pitching team is Greg Holland, who has had 6 pitching saves, only giving up one loss. Lastly, there is the rookie pitcher Yornando Ventura, who is the only pitcher on the Royal’s roster who can throw an 100-mile per hour fast ball. But where the team seems to fall short is their offence. Their highest batting average at the moment is .333, with only two other players with averages in the 300’s. Regardless of how their season is going, the Royals have a good fan base here within the walls of Northtown. The past two years in a row, Senior Skip day has fallen on the Royal’s home opener, with a large amount of students attending to support the home team. The baseball games are also just a fun summer hangout to meet up with friends or to take a special someone on an exciting date. No matter what the season looks like, Kansas City stands by their team and is rooting for them through out their journey.

Shannon HortonCo-editor

Photo courtesy of of kckingdom.com

12|world The Hornet’s Buzz

World NewsA series of unfortunate events:

the crisis in Ukraine continues Violence in Ukraine has led officials to face new challenges and realities; the possibility of not regaining Ukraine’s land from the pro-Russian militias and continuing to lose hold of the economical stability. In late February, Ukraine’s then president, Viktor Yanukovych agreed to form a new government. At the conclusion of agree-ment upon a new govern-ment, Ukraine’s previous president, Viktor Yanu-kovych, was voted to be removed by the Ukrainian political leaders, and in his place is Ukraine’s act-ing president, Oleksandr Turchynov. A new election for a president of Ukraine will take place on May 25. Recently, United States Vice President, Joe Biden, has gone overseas to discuss matters of aid with Turchynov, and also Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Aid that the United States is offering essentially pertains to a political reform, as Ukraine is working toward changes in their constitu-tion. The United States has offered a $50 million sup-

port package to Ukrainian government. This pack-age will contribute to the political and economic reform that Ukraine strives to undergo, helping the development of democracy for their government. In addition, help from the U.S. Treasury Department will ensure that the financial aid contributed to Ukraine will, as planned, stabilize the economy. The overall goal of this reform is to give more power to Ukraine’s regional governments. In addition, Joe Biden will also discuss with Ukraine their wants of military assistance and further U.S. involvement. However, the violence continues. Allegedly, Rus-sians did not assist to ease the violence in east-ern Ukraine, which they agreed to. Consequently, Pro-Russia Ukrainians seized government build-ings, ultimately leading to Russia annexing Crimea, territory of Ukraine. To annex a territory of land means to have another form of government take control of that area with consent of the people who inhabit it. Ukraine and the United States both do not recognize this annexation

of Crimea. The new election date is nearing, and Ukraine is being assisted by the United States to emphasize democ-racy in their government.

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The U.S. is also helping with their political and econom-ical reform, and additional involvement to help the Ukrainian people.

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