STENDSLANDSophomore Drew

“We’re working with a faculty committee recom-mendation, which is a group of people from the district who recommend-ed that it’s time to build a new high school. ”

JENSEN By Staff Writer Alyssa

Four students serve on school board

The

HI-LINETiger

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 Volume 53 Edition 14

Bowl PicksCheck out staff and student pre-dictions/page 7

Follow us on Twitter @ tigerhiline,Facebook at TigerHilineOnline and on our websiteat www.hiline.cfschools.org

(From left to right): Junior Alyssa Vuong, and sophomores Agatha Fenech, Elizabeth Sesker and Drew Stendsland are attending school board meetings this year to help provide a student pro-spective. They are also excited to learn about the decision-making process and influence the future district decisions. If students have questions or concerns, they should seek out one of these four students who will all help the students’ voices be heard.

This fall, four CFHS students are at-tending all board meetings to discuss school related issues and provide a student perspective. The four students are junior Alys-sa Vuong and s o p h o m o re s Agatha Fenech, Elizabeth Ses-ker and Drew Stensland.

Sophomore Drew Sten-sland, one of the school rep-resentat ives, explained what a school repre-sentative does. “It’s someone who will go to the Board of Education meetings to of-fer the board members experiences on what it’s like to be in the high school. Also, we take notes and offer our own input of things that matter, but we’re non-voting members,” Stensland said.

Often times, students only hear one side of the story on changes in school plans. The school representatives, on the other hand, not only receive the

students’ side of any story, but the school board’s side as well. “It kind of gives us the adults’ point of view. We understand what the students think, but

now, we get a different view,” Ses-ker said.

A l o n g with getting other sides to the story, the school representa-tives obtain a deeper look into how the school sys-tem works. Sophomore A g a t h a F e n e c h thinks that

it shows how complex the school sys-tem really is. “It’s a good opportunity to see how the school system functions, and it’s nice to be involved in something deeper. It makes me feel like I’m apart of something bigger too,” Fenech said.

So far, the school representatives have done quite a lot for only attend-ing the meetings once or twice. “We’re

working with a faculty committee rec-ommendation, which is a group of peo-ple from the district who recommended that it’s time to build a new high school. Ultimately, though, the board can do whatever it wants with (our recommen-dations). It’s a pretty huge thing,” Sten-sland said.

School board president Deon Senchina agrees. “Here are just two ex-amples. The board set a goal two years ago to offer foreign language in the elementary schools and we committed to reaching that goal within five years. Monday, Victor Ochoa and Sara Blanco (Spanish teachers from Peet & Holmes) presented information about what vari-ous foreign language programs in the elementary schools might look like and the key considerations needed for plan-ning this curriculum change. Your reps offered their experiences with foreign language classes and their opinions on the benefits they have received from those classes. In November, we heard a recommendation from the Fa-cilities Committee to build a new high school. Hearing the thoughts and feed-back from students currently using the building were very insightful,” Senchina said.

There are different ways that stu-dents can be chosen to be involved as

one of the school representatives. One way is to be nominated, like Vuong was. “My guidance counselor nominated me because I’ve been involved in many dif-ferent activities,” Vuong said.

There are also many different rea-sons why someone would want to be a part of the school representatives. “It’s cool to sit in and see how everything works. Also the title of it and how well it will look on college applications ap-pealed to me, but mostly I wanted to see what it was like being involved with this,” Vuong said.

Another reason someone may be interested in joining is for future career plans. “I want to go into politics, so it’d kind of be a good gateway by going to meetings and understanding certain things,” Fenech said.

Becoming a school representative could impact career choices in the fu-ture. “Life experiences do impact career choices as well as lifestyle choices. My hope would be for our reps to learn more about how a district functions, see the broad range of opportunities offered in education as a profession, and someday consider giving back to the community by volunteering for the school board,” Senchina said.

Robotics team wins regional championshipThe CFHS First Tech Challenge Ro-

botics team brought home two trophies from Ankeny on Saturday, Dec. 8. The team won the Rockwell Collins Innova-tion Award and, thanks to an alliance partner from Oskaloosa, the regional championship as well. They competed with some other 20 teams.

This is the first time that a CFHS ro-botics team went to a regional qualifier in Iowa. The robotics team has been

growing, and this year, due to the en-volvement of a new adviser, math teach-er Ron Hoofnagle, there is a new group on the team.

According to coach Joe Gitta, “They [the kids] finally got a robot that could move around quite well, and they cre-ated a lifting mechanism and a mecha-nism that would grab rings.”

The robot needs to start by being no larger than an 18-inch cube, but then it

has to be able to lift a ring as high as 42 inches. Gitta said it was quite challeng-ing to get to a satisfactory result.

They also had to bring all of the engineering information about their project to explain its development, the process of creation and how they got to the final result.

The team has been working on this project since September, meeting once a week, so they didn’t have a lot of time

to prepare. During the competition they had

some mechanical failures, that kept them from getting a high score, but Gitta said that the team will have time to fix what didn’t work well and improve the robot to the finals now that they are meeting twice a week.

CUNHA By Staff Writer Ana

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 HI-LINETiger

The

OPINION2Our View

The Tiger Hi-Line is a weekly publication of the journalism classes at Cedar Falls High School, 1015 Division Street, Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613. Our website is www.hiline.cfschools.org. The Hi-Line is distributed to CFHS students on Tuesdays to read during their RCTs fourth period.

Columns and letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hi-Line staff or Cedar Falls Schools. The Hi-Line editorial is presented weekly in the editorial labeled Our View, and it is the view of the major-ity of the editors listed below.

Reader opinions on any topic are welcome and should be sent to The Tiger Hi-Line staff or delivered to room 208. All letters must be signed. Letters must be submitted by 3 p.m. on Thursday for publi-cation in the following Tuesday edition. Letters may not exceed 300 words and may be edited to meet space limitations. Writers should include their contact information for verification.

Editor-in-Chief: Maya AmjadiNews Editor: Katherine MayhewOpinion Editor: Maya AmjadiSports Editor: Jared HyltonFeature Editor: Sandra Omari-BoatengEntertainment Editor: Lindsey DavisHi-Line Online Editor: Martha HallStaff Writers: Ana Cunha, Amanda Harwood, Linne Hoofnagle, Karley Izer, Alyssa Jensen, Maddie Kemp, Lauren Nickerson, Quinn Stabenow, Liam Tate

Contact Us

We are truly sorry for the innocent victims, their families

You are being watched. Al-though it is unlikely that a serial killer lurks in the bushes, and it is debateable whether or not the U.S. government monitors its people’s actions through se-curity and traffic cameras, but a modern-day Big Brother exists where few people thought to suspect. Now, Facebook owns everyone’s souls.

Face(the site that will haunt us all)book started out as the relatively benign project of col-lege student Mark Zuckerberg. I remember how people sung its praises when it was first released to the public. Early Facebook users spread the good news of its superiority to MySpace due to its secure privacy policy, lack of suicidal cyberbullying cases and abil-ity to help users communicate and stay in touch with their friends. All it took was time for all but one of these to change. Facebook is still the best way to spam all 900 of your closest “friends” with meaningless sta-tus updates about how bored you are.

But things have really start-ed to go sour. Because it was “free” to create a Facebook account, Facebook still need-ed to pay its employees; they needed a new way to create financial capital. At first, they struggled to produce income by including games with cer-tain paid items on their site. Then Facebook realized that they already possessed the world’s most valuable com-modity: information.

By this time, users already

complained of the frequent privacy policy changes which constantly reset their settings to public, l e a v i n g p r i v a t e i n f o r -m a t i o n on their p ro f i l e s until they would re-alize and c h a n g e e v e r y -thing to “private” again. Some wishing to leave Face-book had already noticed the conspicuous lack of an option to delete their accounts. They could only “deactivate.” Fa-cebook knew that for them to make the most money, every-one in the world would need to have an account in which they disclosed as much information about themselves as possible to everyone else in the world.

The revelation was that with as much specialized informa-tion as Facebook collected from its users, it could sell very specific advertisements. It could also even use informa-tion users had already deleted or from deactivated accounts. Facebook, like the rest of the Internet, stores information forever. Information is power. Privacy is publicity. Deletion is death.

This power-hungry storage-center of information possesses repercussions from its lack of interest in securing its users’ in-

formation other than just those that affect it. Facebook has made it unbelievably easy for

people to post things online without think-ing of their consequences. With the illu-sion that only your friends will see it, a person can easily up-load pictures from last Fri-day’s party for grandma or

one’s pastor, and possible col-leges and future employers will see it too. Even if users only post one questionable picture once, it can still come back to bite them. But that’s the cost of selling their souls for 900 friends.

There is hope, or at least the illusion of hope. A group of Austrian students is work-ing to take down the corpora-tion superpower in court. The group calls itself Europe v. Fa-cebook and created a website for donations to challenge Fa-cebook’s policies in Ireland, the head of Facebook in Europe. Let us hope those college kids have what it takes to reign in a billion-dollar corporation that can afford much better lawyers than them.

Until then, I advise every Facebook user to grow accus-tomed to being watched. It isn’t that bad until you step out of line. And remember, Face-book loves you.

Mayhew By News Editor Katherine

Opinions from students

“I think it’s weird that for a picture that I ‘like’ of a friend, people who aren’t friends with that person but are friends with me can suddenly see that pic-ture. That’s what I don’t like.”

“I think the privacy is worse because now I get tagged in a photo, and my mom and her friends can comment on it too, and that’s kind of creepy. And I’m not going to go and block every single picture.”

“If you go on special Face-book settings, what I did was set it so that they don’t allow people to see certain pictures other people tagged of you.”

We at the Hi-Line, along with most of America and many across the world, commend the bravery of the staff and students of Sandy Hook Elementary School and mourn the loss of the 28 dead by the hand of a mentally ill shoot-er, who somehow possessed the inhumanity to murder six and seven-year-olds and those protecting them.

The tight-knit community of Newtown, Conn., has a long road ahead of them in their healing process, and we wish them the best of luck in what will surely will be an emotional battle. No community should have to bury its children, and no children should have to watch their friends and teachers die.

This shooting which has touched every corner of Amer-ica like a punch in the gut is one of many mass shootings recently. These include the Portland mall shooting that killed two last Tuesday and the Southern California scare last Saturday when a gunman fired over 50 bullets in the air outside Newport Beach Mall but thankfully did not hit anyone.

Unfortunately, despite the overall support the Newtown community has received from the nation, some radicals who feel the need to burden the victims of almost every tragedy with undeserved hatred, also known as the West-boro Baptist Church, feel the need to harass the grieving during the time they need the most support. Saying it will picket the vigil for the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victims, this church is threatening to hurt the community further. They claim that God used the shooting to punish them because small children and their innocent teachers and loving community are “horrible sinners.” No. If any-thing can damage the mental health of the survivors and their friends and family even more than the shooting, it is this hatred. They must be protected from this group at all costs.

Ever since Columbine, something has changed in America’s cultural environment or Americans’ psychologi-cal states that has steadily increased the amount of mass shootings attempted and committed. And something must change this trend before it becomes too late. Whether the answer is stricter gun control laws or something else entire-ly, the government and the people must look for a solution to stop the killing. Lives depend on it.

Facebook is watching you

Senior Rachel Nurse Senior Hanno Fenech Senior Bennett Ford

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012HI-LINETiger

The

NEWS 3Senior Shirley Speckerman has big

plans after graduating early in a few weeks. She traveled to Kenya in the summer of 2012 and is heading on a longer trip there in May.

“[My last time trip I was in Kenya for one and a half weeks. We stayed in these little lodges, and every day we went to the community of Kwambakenya, Ke-nya. I sang in a church c h o i r , helped with Bible distri-bution and helped in a p reschoo l [ c l a s s . ] Our group b r o u g h t s u p p l i e s to give to the school, as well. The men helped with building a sustainable learning en-vironment.”

S p e c k -erman went on this trip with an organization that worked through Prairie Lakes Church called 410 Bridge. It was through 410 Bridge that Speckerman heard about Choose to Invest, another organization working in Kenya, and she was pushed to make her life-changing decision.

“When I went the first time, I really didn’t know about this internship. I had never thought about returning to Ke-nya, but I was talking to the founder of Choose to Invest while I was there, and she told me I would be really good for something like this, and if I think about it I should definitely apply for this. For a while, it really wasn’t on my mind, but then my church went through a series where we were fasting and praying as a congregation, and that really gave a lot of clarity to me,”

Regarding what inspired her to re-turn to Kenya, Speckerman said, “It was something I felt I was meant to do, and when I thought about it, I thought it would be something that would tie in with my degree in social work. I love Kenya.”

After Speckerman decided that this internship, called the Journey intern-ship, was something that she wanted to participate in, she organized her sched-ule to graduate early and began prepar-ing for this major step.

“I filled out [the application,] and later [I was] interviewed over the phone for about a half hour, and then I was se-lected. I went through about six train-ing lessons that were about every other week in the summer,” Speckerman said. “I am training for my internship in Atlan-

ta, Ga., and that starts May 13. I spend two weeks training there and then leave for Kenya.”

Though this trip is through a similar organization as her last trip, the idea of this mission is very different. Speckerman said the goal of “Choose to Invest focus-es more on community development. In Kwambakenya and other small commu-

n i t i e s in rural Kenya , a lot of f a m i -lies get broken a p a r t b e -c a u s e m e n a n d women feel that t h e y c a n ’ t f u l f i l l any kind of du-ties that w o u l d m a k e t h e m m o n e y in their c o m -m u n i t y, so they leave. It’s pretty much helping with micro-enterprise. This time, I’ll be work-ing more closely with the young adults of the community. I’ll be working a lot more with kids my age in Kenya, and that’s the big difference.”

Speckerman said she is excited re-garding this opportunity to communi-cate with people who could speak more English and get to know people in the community on a deeper level. She will be in Kenya for 10 weeks this time.

Speckerman, graduating after first semester

SPECKERMANSenior Shirley

“In Kwambakenya and other small communities in rural Kenya, a lot of families get broken apart because men and women feel that they can’t fulfill any kind of duties that would make them money in their community, so they leave. It’s pretty much helping with micro-enterprise. This time, I’ll be work-ing more closely with the young adults of the community. ”

Another positive aspect of this trip that Speckerman mentioned was the ties she found to her perspective col-lege major. “One nice thing about my internship is that I get to earn a college credit because I’m going into social work, and this is related to that. At the end, I’ll write an essay or something like that for my college credit. I hope to just

get a closer look at life in Kenya for people my age, like being 18 and having a family of five already.”

She is excited for the paths that this trip will pave for her career. “In the future, I see myself in a perma-nent position at Choose to Invest or at 410 Bridge. This will give me some insight into what that life would be like. It will help me decide if mission work is something I could do for the rest of my life.”

Beyond her career, Speckerman addressed what Kenya did for her on a personal and spiritual level. “I don’t like industrial America. I don’t really like technology, and it’s so freeing to go to a country where there are no pressures to be constantly con-nected. It’s a good way to cleanse. It’s very peaceful, and you never know what time it is,” Speckerman

said. “That may stress people out, but it gave me a sense of relief.”

Though S p e c k e r -man has been ac-cepted into the pro-gram and is on track to gradu-ate early as planned, the struggle to Kenya is not over. “I have to raise my own sup-port and do my own f u n d r a i s -ing, which is $5,800 all together. That’s go-

ing to be an intimidating number, but I know from fundraising last time that it’s something that people are willing to give to.”

Speckerman said that she was will-ing to face any expense to return and do more work in the place she thinks of as her second home.

HOOFNAGLE By Staff Writer Linne

Students planning for early graduation

Alexis Anderson

Logan Beauregard

Jenna Bundy

Kale Clay

Cassandra Diggins

Krista Fretheim

Kaylee Frost

Chandal Geerdes

Kayla Ginther

Haley Harkless

Jacob Humemuller

Noah Koch

Haley McDermott

Jacob McDowell

Deantis Montgomery

Kiki Mure

Kaitlyn Nielsen

Shianne Rasmussen

Christian Saltzman

Amanda Schwab

Anna Smith

Elli Snodgraww

Shirley Speckerman

Dakota Stickfort

Talia Sturm

Brianna Sylcord

Volunteering in Kenya, next

Senior Shirley Speckerman spent time last year in Kenya with Praire Lakes Church. In May, she will return to Kenya to pursue her interests in establishing community development.

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 HI-LINETiger

The

FEATURE4The fashion students at the high school are work-

ing hard to design and create dresses of their own to add to their wardrobes. In a world where there are thousands of clothing stores to chose from, some people prefer to design what they wear instead. DIY (do it yourself) fashion is very popular with students who love to make things according to their own styles and tastes.

The students in fashion class all show a real pas-sion and interest in fashion. “I have always been inter-ested in fashion. I used to draw shoes and matching dresses when I was a little girl, but this is the first class I have taken in fashion. My inspiration came from my mom; she used to be big into fashion,” senior Kendra Barnes said. Barnes does see a fashion career in her future. Another fashion student, junior Jordan Caruso, has been designing for about a year and also plans on going into a fashion career. “I’m planning on moving to New York City after I graduate to go to school for fashion,” Caruso said.

Making and designing a dress in this class is a pro-cess. The students have to first make their garments based off of pattern pieces. They can then alter the pieces by adding or subtracting things. They have picked out their fabrics and gotten to work sewing.

Caruso knew exactly how she wanted her dress to look. “We started with a pattern that was just one solid layer with a lining. I like dresses that have more flow to them, so I wanted one with two separate layers of fabric,” Caruso said.

The fashion students improved their skills and learned about fashion from teacher Linda Schutte. Sewing and creating clothing can be very difficult. “Pleats will be the death of me, but the class has helped a lot,” Caruso said.

Barnes had other challenges, as well, while making her dress. “Putting the bodice of the dress together was the most difficult part for me. After that, putting the skirt together and attaching it to the bodice was pretty easy,” Barnes said.

Schutte’s designers love to make their own clothing and accesories for many reasons. It’s all about original-ity and creating a piece that is unique to their own style. Senior Madison Bradford took Fashion 1 and is now in an independent study for Fashion 2. She has a real passion for creating her own pieces. “To me, fashion is a form of art. I love how you can express yourself with clothes. So far, I’ve only made six pieces, but the thing I like about sewing my own garments is, first of all, no one will have anything similar because

it’s an original. I also enjoy sewing and the idea of how you can transform a single sheet of fabric into anything you’d like,” Bradford said.

Senior Beth Keesy also loves to create things to add to her wardrobe. “I started making things some-where around 5th or 6th grade. I've made a couple of dresses, scarves, headbands and bags. I also like to alter a bunch of things like jeans or painting on shoes. My favorite thing I've made so far is probably a yel-low sundress I made a few years ago,” Keesy said. She finds her inspiration all around her. “When I see some-thing I like, it sparks an idea. I think of how I can make something similar or what I would do differently to try and recreate it,” Keesy said.

Fashion students have been creating pieces all se-mester to add to their closets. Do it yourself fashion is something most everyone can do. Websites like Pinterest help provide people with patterns to make dresses, hats, scarves and much more.

Lauren Nickerson Photos

At far left going clockwise, junior Jordan Caruso models the dress she made while Han-nah Glockner shows off Ken-dra Barnes’ creation. Fashion teacher Linda Schutte stands with senior Kendra Barnes and her garment. Jordan Caruso shares her unfinished dress. At left, articles Madison Bradford has made.

Staff Writer Lauren

Nickerson

Nimble Fingers, Sharp Creativity=D.I.Y Fashion

Out of the e l e c t r o - p o p woodwork comes this cute but ma-cabre number. The vocalist has a childlike voice

akin to that of Grimes, and can make you nearly dismiss the dark, chilling lyrics. A wonderful example is the second track, “Fineshrine,” where she speaks of cutting open her chest and pulling her ribs around someone, presumably in some kind of unpleasant embrace. Other fun must-listens include “Saltkin” and “Lofticries.” Definitely a spon-taneous and unique act that you shouldn’t miss.

Sleigh Bells became huge this year as the smash-ing, crashing, screaming noise-pop duo to end all noise-pop duos. When I was first introduced to them, my friend described them as

“the only band that makes me want to just punch a wall for no good reason.” I can agree with that statement. Though the vocals are often soft and pop-like, nothing similar could be said about the rest of the act. Distorted guitar and elec-tronic beats drive energetic songs like “Crush,” “Demons” and “Comeback Kid.” With a band so off the beaten path yet so infectiously catchy, you only want to turn it up.

Tuesday, Dec.18, 2012HI-LINETiger

The

FEATURE5There are thousands of children

from different countries that previously have never had a family, who now live in the United States with families who’ve gladly accepted them into their homes. Along with these thousands of children, many reside in the Cedar Valley. This was done through the process of inter-national adoption.

Liz Patterson from Cedar Falls, is one of the many moms who have ad-opted internationally. “We chose (to adopt from) Poland because we could go through a Christian organization to adopt there. We also loved the fact that if you adopted more than one child at a time, Poland keeps sibling groups to-gether. We liked that we had options in choosing gender and age, along with having a shorter waiting period than other countries,” Patterson said.

Lisa Eicher from Texas is another mom that has adopted internationally, though instead of Poland, she adopted from Bulgaria. “I knew of an organiza-tion called Reece’s Rainbow, which is a Down syndrome adoption ministry. I started looking at their website and following other family’s journeys, and that’s when my heart was completely stolen. I tried to block it out of my mind because I knew it wasn’t what we had talked about, but there was no escaping it. I talked to my husband about it, and he was on board. I emailed the direc-tor of Reece’s Rainbow to ask her what country would best fit us as far as length of time we could travel, cost, etc. She emailed me back and told me to look into Bulgaria,” Eicher said.

Not only can one choose to adopt internationally, but also through the foster care system. Marianne Abel-Lipschultz from the Cedar Valley is one of the moms who decided to do foster care adoption rather than international. “My husband and I wanted to give back

to the community through fostering and adopting because many people had helped us heal from difficult childhoods. We also felt grateful for the opportuni-ties we experienced after moving to Iowa in 1986 from West Virginia. We had watched ‘Iowa’s Child’ on KWWL for several years. In 1993, we each saw a feature on a teen girl separately and came to the other to share our interest. We started the pro-cess then and had our first placement of a 10-year-old girl from D u b u q u e County, not the one who’d been on the show. Although we didn’t intend to foster, we fostered for six years before meeting our daughter-to-be who was 13 and in foster care in Linn County. She turned 14 a month before the adoption final-ization in 2000. And though we never imagined we’d adopt again, we agreed to foster an 8-year-old boy from Black Hawk County whom we adopted after he turned 10 in 2008. Ultimately we fostered for 17 years overall and served 19 children and their families,” Abel-Lipschultz said.

Another mom who decided to do foster care/adoption rather than inter-national adoption is Linda Hosch from Independence, Iowa. “In our case I

just looked at it as such a great place to help those children in need in our own country, in this case, our own sur-rounding towns. All of the children we have helped are from surrounding ar-

eas, within 50 miles. Both international and foster care adoption are very special because they are all God’s children. I just feel like it is our way to give back. Foster care/adoption is also a lot less costly,” Hosch said.

Both adoptions, as Ho-

sch said, are very special and can im-pact the adopted child quite a lot. “We help them believe they are lovable, ca-pable, worthwhile people of faith who have a special place in the world. We let them practice healthy living and so-cial skills, and we make sure they have several caring people involved in their lives,” Abel-Lipschultz said.

Eicher’s adopted child has also been impacted by adoption. “When he first came home, he could not sit still for more than a couple of minutes. Now he

can sit down and work for lengthy pe-riods of time, and he even participates in a choir with typical kids and behaves so well and can sit through the entire class,” Eicher said.

Not only does adoption impact the child, but it changes the family that has adopted as well. “I can’t say that it is easy, but I wouldn’t change a thing. We love the way the kids have just given our lives vibrancy and how life in general is much more fun and exciting because we have our children to share it with,” Patterson said.

Hosch agrees. “Positive impacts on our family are that we now do foster care and have fostered 12 children. The normal stay for the children averages around six months. We once even fos-tered a sibling group of three,” Hosch said.

All the families that have adopted, whether it be international or foster care adoption, recommend it for other families as well. “Many kinds of people are successful because there are many kinds of children and families who need assistance. Iowa provides good train-ing, great support networks of licensed and capable families, and subsidies to share the higher costs of raising some of our most vulnerable children. It’s not for everyone, but if you feel a tug on your heart in this direction, it’s worth pursu-ing,” Abel-Lipschultz said.

Patterson agrees that it has been im-portant and other families would ben-efit from adopting. “Any adoption is recommended since both international and domestic have pros and cons. Any time we can talk about the process with families in the hope that children in this country or others can one day find a forever home is always our goal,” Pat-terson said.

Left: Archie Eicher was adopted from Bulgaria to Lisa Eicher. Right: Archie and his sister Ace doing some sibling bonding

New Life, New Family:

Recap Four Top Albums of 2012

Many families in the Cedar Valley have adoptedchildren from all around the world

This intensely driven, happy-themed indie dance pop act has hit the stage this year with this long-awaited album. Though everyone was both excited and frightened

to see what would happen after their pre-vious album, “Manners,” the reaction was overall positive, and with good reason. The single released, “Take A Walk,” was upbeat and surprisingly political for a band of Pas-sion Pit’s regular stature and voice. Though still bouncy and incredibly giddy, this album goes deeper with lyrics than albums previ-ous. The entire album was well worth the listen, other definitively excellent tracks in-clude “Carried Away,” “Cry Like A Ghost” and “Where We Belong.”

After 13 years of absolutely nothing out of this artist, she comes back with her most multi-faceted album yet. Her silky

voice paired with punchy percus-sion makes this album both folky and sassy. Beneath her great folk-pop sound lies dynamic lyrics. “Hot Knife” is certainly my favorite track, as she sings one line, then another, then another, and finally piles them all on top of another for a tribal sound. Two other tracks akin to this one include “Werewolf” and “Pe-riphery.”

Jesen By Staff Writer Alyssa

Hoofnagle By Staff Writer Linne

Alyssa Jensen Photos

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012

HYLTONCompiled by Sports Editor Jared

BCS National ChampionshipNotre Dame vs. Alabama

College football bowl predictionsAT&T Cotton Bowl

Texas A&M vs. OklahomaTostitos Fiesta Bowl

Oregon vs. Kansas StateAllstate Sugar BowlLouisville vs. Florida

Discover Orange BowlNorthern Illinois vs. Florida State

Rose BowlWisconsin vs. Stanford

Ike Boettger

Randy Bryan

Nick deBuhr

Ross Piersbacher

Jake Buck

Hayden Shea

Cedar Falls Co-Head Coach Brad Remmert and football players predict this year’s bowl games

Jared Farley

Brad Remmert

SPORTS6HI-LINETiger

The

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 HI-LINETiger

The

SPORTS7Athlete

Weekofthe

Senior Emily Neff leads the 4-2 women’s basketball team in points this season with 74. She’s also shooting 65 percent from the line.

What are your goals for this season?

To have a winning season and grow and improve as a team.

What did you do to pre-pare in the off-season?

I didn’t go out for a fall sport. I shot and lifted in preparation for the season.

How is the team bond-ing, especially with a really young team?

As far as chemistry goes, this is the best team I’ve been on at Cedar Falls.

Do you plan on playing in college?

Yes, I have decided to take my talents to Central in Pella, Iowa.

TigersActionin

Men’s Basketball (3-2)Next up: Waterloo East on

Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at EastWomen’s Basketball

(4-2)Next up: Dubuque Wahlert

on Dec. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at WahlertWrestling

Next up: IC High and Linn-Mar on Dec. 20 at 5:30 p.m. at

Linn-MarBowling (2-6)

Next up: Linn-Mar on Jan. 4 at 3:45 p.m. at Linn-Mar

Men’s SwimmingNext up: Cedar Rapids

Washington on Jan. 3 at 6 p.m. at Washington

Women’s BasketballEmily Neff

IZERStaff Writer Karly

Many people think that bowling is easy and not even a sport at all, but this year’s team is planning on proving those people wrong.

“Bowling is definitely not as easy as ev-erybody thinks, and there are a lot of tech-niques to learn. I thought it was going to be easy, but it turned out to be hard, and I really want to get better and keep up with my team-mates,” senior Ana Cunha, who is playing on the girl’s team for the first time this year, said. “It is the first time I’ve played for real, and it’s still really fun for me. I don’t view it as too much of a com-petition because I just want to have fun with it and do my best for the team.”

Out of the four meets played so far this season, the girls have defeated Waterloo East and Dubuque Senior.

“I’m happy with the results because we’ve started out re-ally well this season, and we hope to continue winning a few more meets,” junior Jes-sica Hinz, who has been on the team for three years, said.

Valley Park Lanes, where the team have held practice in the last years, unfortunately closed recently, so the teams have had to make different ar-

rangements, and it has proven to be a pain.

“Having Valley Park closed has changed a lot of things for us. Now varsity only gets two days of practice, whereas last year they had three, and junior varsity only gets one and had two last year. We also have to share Maple Lanes with [Wa-terloo] West and Denver. It’s a big change for us, but we’ve managed to work with it,” Hinz

said.The team has managed

to make it work and pull it together. Having these small challenges has helped make

players stronger and come to-gether as a team.

“As a team, we have im-proved a lot. Our Baker games are becoming a lot better. We are all getting better at picking up spares and keeping each other in a good mood and not getting upset when we have a bad shot,” Hinz said. “Baker games are where you have five bowlers that come together to play one game. Player one

Bowling teams set sights high, look to keep improving

bowls frames 1 and 6; player two bowls frames 2 and 7, and it keeps going on like that.”

Aside from winning and los-ing, Cunha said it is important

to have fun and enjoy the sport and improve as you go.

“I do enjoy bowling. Mr. Baker, our coach, is really nice and I think a lot of peo-ple there are new at bowling, and he does a good job encouraging us to get better. He is really com-mitted, and that makes us have a good time too,” Cunha said. “My main goal is con-tinuing to have fun and get bet-ter at the sport.”

Hinz also said having goals is important to improving her performance on a team such as bowling.

“My perfor-mance is going

really well. I have increased my average by about 30 from last year. I started practicing a month before actual practice started so that I could become a better bowler,” Hinz said.

The team is next in action on Friday, Jan. 4 at Linn-Mar.

Junior Jessica Hinz takes a shot at Maple Lanes, where the teams now practice.

(Left to right) Senior Devon Mettlin, sophomore Elizabeth Gerstenkorn and junior Eric Simmons prepare for Linn-Mar.

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 HI-LINETiger

The

CAPTURED8

At top, sophomore Adrian Amjadi and the rest of the orchestra performed holiday se-lections in the auditorium on Thursday, Dec. 13. The band performed on Monday, Dec. 17 and the choir’s holiday show is Thursday, Dec. 20.

At top, sophomore Addison Long wrestles with Iowa City West’s Mikaela Morgan in a loss on Tuesday, Dec. 11 at home. At right, senior Brendan Alexander takes control of a Cedar Rapids Jefferson opponent on Thursday, Dec. 6. The Tigers took both dual titles that night from Cedar Rapids teams.

Grecia Diaz Photo

Cassie DigginsPhoto

Kayla Gardner Photo

Allie Harris Photo

Autumn Timm Photo

At top, senior Jacob Sund strokes to his 1st place finish at Waterloo West on Tuesday, Dec. 11, where the Tigers tied the Wahawks, 85-85. Below that, juniors Collin McIntyre and Srinivas Dhanwada put their puzzle solving skills to the test in the new Rubic’s Cube club that met on Monday, Dec. 10 in math teacher Rich Strikes’s room. At right, senior Talia Sturm and the rest of Gayle Bruene’s food nutrition students hosted guests to sample their skills.

Alex Weidenbacher Photo

Peeking in on the Week