BOTC Recap
By Lily Bourne and Madeline Crowley
Each year, Westmont ASB puts on our annual Battle of the Classes Week in the spring, which includes a week filled with spirit days, lunchtime activities, and of course a rally. This year’s homecoming week took place from March 11 through the 14 and the theme was “musical movies.” Within the overall theme, each class had its own movie in which they were represented through lip sync and rally corner. This year’s Seniors theme was Pitch Perfect, Juniors took on the John Travolta classic, Grease, and the Sophomores showcased the magical La La Land. Finally, the Freshmen took us through the land of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious with their Marry Poppins theme! Throughout the week, the four classes competed for the most spirit points for their chance to win the Wally Cup! Read on to find out which class took the coveted trophy home!
This Day In History
April 23
1789 President-elect George Washington moves into Franklin House, New York, first official resident of a US President
1849 Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and members of the Petrashevsky Circle are arrested in St. Petersburg
1861 Robert E. Lee named commander of Virginia Confederate forces (US Civil War)
1920 Turkish Grand National Assembly 1st meets in Ankara, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk denounces the government of Sultan Mehmed VI and announces a temporary constitution
1995 President Clinton declares a national day of mourning for Oklahoma City
2013 A 1% flash crash hits the US stock market after a news agency was hacked and claimed injury to President Obama
2015 Loretta Lynch is confirmed as the first African-American woman as US Attorney-General, succeeding Eric Holder
2020 German Chancellor Angela Merkel warns this is “not the end phase but still just the beginning” of the COVID-19 pandemic
2020 US President Donald Trump suggests COVID-19 might be treated by injecting disinfectant or UV lights into a human body at a White House press briefing. Government officials and disinfectant companies quickly state doing so is not only extremely dangerous but potentially deadly.
Revisit This Issue’s Promo
Fun Facts
By Diego Mantelli
– Mudskippers are a type of fish that can travel on land.
– According to international maritime custom, a captain can not evacuate a sinking ship until all of the passengers have evacuated.
– The first salmon sashimi was made in Norway, since pacific salmon has parasites, and Atlantic salmon doesn’t.
– The first tomatoes arrived in Italy through the columbian exchange, so if you showed an Italian person from 700 years ago tomato sauce, they wouldn’t know what it is.
– The U.S. navy had an ice cream barge in WW2, which went from island to island in the pacific theater, producing 10 gallons of ice cream every seven minutes.
– Taylor Swift grew up on a christmas tree farm, and used to be in FFA
The Daily Explorer: The San Jose Museum of Art
By Emi Gruender
Welcome Explorers, to the very first installment of The Daily Explorer. In this soon-to-be series, I, Emi Gruender, will traverse the unknown in search of never-seen-before places. Interesting, cheap, and preferably entertaining, to be exact.
Who’s Our CASSY Counselor, Anyway?
By Emi Gruender
Have you ever heard of our CASSY counselor on campus? According to a wildly inaccurate, made-up statistic of mine, we can assume that 3 out of 4 students have no idea what our resident CASSY counselor does, or even how to learn more about how she helps the student body on WHS’s campus.
They’ve Been Working So Hard
“Been working so hard,” Sohum Baluja energetically sings in the opening lines of “Footloose.” While the phrase is a part of the script, Sohum’s lines hold true in real life. Truly, the cast and crew of the Westmont Theatre Department worked tirelessly for months to put on their spring musical, Footloose. And their hard work showed.
Following a rebellious teenage boy, Ren, Footloose depicts a mother and son’s move from Chicago, Illinois to Bomont, Texas. The epitome of a small town, Bomont houses numerous classic characters, including the family of a preacher: Reverend Shaw, Vi, and Ariel Moore. As Ariel meets Ren, the vastly different worlds of Chicago and Bomont collide—mostly due to Bomont’s illegalization of dancing, and Ren’s love of it. The plot progresses as Ren finds out the history of dancing in Bomont, and fights to change the stubborn law against it.
The Shield is an independent publication of the Journalism class at Westmont High School. Editorials reflect the opinion of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Westmont High School, its Board of Trustees, faculty, administration, or students. The Shield welcomes all opinions, editorials, poems, artwork, complaints, pictures, advertisements, and letters to the editor. Submit all material to Room 58. We appreciate articles from students, faculty, parents and subscribers. The Shield, Westmont High School, and CUHSD do not endorse any advertisements that run in the newspaper.
