Volume 5 Issue 3 School - Page 2November 2014

Flashy mums, a loud crowd, and a strong willing varsity football team took over Memorial stadium Saturday Nov. 8.

The Clear Falls knight’s football team played long and hard against Brazoswood who sadly beat us by seven points. The Clear Falls section did though, have a fantastic spirit, staying there even through the rainy

Spirited Knights LoseBrazoswood Catches UpBY VIVIAN QUINTERO

weather. The evening started off with each grade presenting

their homecoming court representatives, which the seniors won. Then came the Clear Falls Knights choir, and ROTC providing a patriotic and full of spirit beginning to the game.

The first quarter started off with Clear Falls win-ning by seven to zero with a touchdown made by player number 19, but then Brazoswood caught up with a touchdown adding up for both teams to be even.

Later on during the first quarter we quickly recov-ered our points winning by fourteen to seven. The second quarter started, but we sadly didn’t with Bra-zoswood scoring another touchdown winning seven more points making the score twenty-one to seven.

Even though we did not win, our spirit was still there and it was safe to say that we tried this season.

Photo Credit by Reese Chen.

Hoco Dance GreatBY REBECCA CRUMMost People Satisfied

Clear Falls does it again with Night of All Knights homecoming dance. The dance was on November 8th,, 2014. Many people showed up all dolled up with makeup, dresses, heels, tuxes and flowers. The dance was from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. With a few awkward glances at their friends, no one really danced until about an hour into the dance and most people waited until others started to dance, so they didn’t feel awk-ward or alone dancing.

Girls were dressed in dresses from long to short to pink to green, there were many different styles of clothes and of course the boys ties had to match their ties to their dates dress. Who would have it any other way?

Most people had an early dinner at Chili’s. Con-sidering it’s one of the closer restaurants to Falls, that wasn’t Chick-Fil-La or another fast food restaurant.

When asking students what they thought of the dance, this is what they told me.

“I thought the dance was actually really fun,” soph-

omore, Amber Feliciano stated. “This is my second year going to the homecoming dance and my expec-tations were met.,” Feliciano continued. “The music was really upbeat, except for one slow song, which I sadly didn’t dance to. Although I didn’t dance with anyone for All Of Me, the one slow song they played, there was a lot of couples there that did dance to it. I thought that it was really sweet how the guys weren’t embarrassed to slow dance. Right after though, they played Black Widow Baby by Iggy Azalea which I thought was pretty funny,’ Amber laughed.

“I thought the dance was better than last years, for the fact that it had better music and everyone seemed like they were having a better time, than they were last year, which I think is better for everyone,” sopho-more Holli West said.

Although many students went, there were a few who didn’t.

“I didn’t go to homecoming for the simple fact that I didn’t have the time, nor the money,” sophomore, Kay Benz told me.

“I didn’t want to go, because I didn’t have the money and I really don’t see the big deal about school dances anyway,” sophomore, Amie Greer admitted.

The cafeteria was filled with students and lucky for the girls, there was a table for purses and shoes when they got tired of wearing the shoes and carrying the purses.

School - Page 3

Teacher Previous Professional RacerBY SAMANTHA SALAZAR

Kenneth Clingon, English III and AP Language and Composition teacher, soccer coach, and former professional motocross racer. For a combined total of 22 years, 15 competitively, motocross was his life. He raced recreationally and even competed at the high-est level of the sport, but most importantly took away some unforgettable life lessons.

Clingon’s father introduced him and his brother to motocross at a young age, and by the mere age of five he had started riding. “It was, I think, my father’s way of keeping us out of mischief.” Clingon said.

By the age of 12, he had competed in his first of-ficial race, and was hooked to the sport. “Racing was my life,” he said. Spending most of his free time training, practicing, and working on his motorcycles.

That hard work paid off because in 1987, Clingon took home first in the 250 Intermediate class at the GNC Texas State Championship. Soon after the ac-complishment, he would turn from recreational into professional, earning his AMA professional license. As a professional motocross racer, Clingon would go on to compete in many AMA supercross and AMA National events.

Through motocross, Clingon had the opportunity to meet new people, including a particular rapper. Robert Van Winkle, AKA Vanilla Ice, was in the same Intermediate class as Clingon in the 80’s. “He was pretty fast.” Clingon said.

After having to stop racing, twice, due to injury, Clingon’s motocross career would teach him much more than how to ride. “I gained the confidence that can only come through dedication, hard work, and perseverance.” Clingon said.

Clingon Motocross Racer

The Clear Falls Post Volume 5 Issue 3 November 2014

With a missing English teacher in Clear Falls High School, Catherine Roth is hired to replace English II regular, pre-advanced placement and gifted and tal-ented leadership teacher Lindsay Cardella. Roth was hired nearly in the middle of the first nine weeks of school and it completely overwhelmed her.

Roth wanted to work at Clear Falls because of the high standards and support that was a part of it. Now that she’s a part of it, she believes Clear Falls is welcome to change, rewarding, supportive, has many goals, high expectations, different and unique.

According to Roth, the other teachers have been very helpful and understanding towards her.

She is excited for not becoming lost in the school, completely decorating her room and knowing exactly what she’s teaching.

Her new students exceeded expectations when she came and feels they’re intelligent. Students from the Education Village compared and contrasted incred-ibly with Roth’s previous students.

“I’m excited for the school year!” Roth exclaimed, “I don’t know many people, so you can stop on by if you want,” She teaches in room 5524 in House 2 and ap-preciates anyone stopping by to say hello.

Roth was born in Thibodaux, Louisiana and lived there almost all of her life. She was on dance team in high school.

“It was fun in Lousiana and really humid. It’s the #1 happiest state and has a lot of culture,” Roth joked.

She moved to Texas in the middle of August due to marrying her husband.

Originally, Roth wanted to become a lawyer or a journalist, but was glad she became an English teach-er due to her love she has for English.

Falls Accepts NewEnglish TeacherNew English II TeacherBY AMBER FELICIANO

On the left, Catherine Roth smiles at the camera and on the right Kenneth Clingon poses for the camera. Photo Credit by Holli West.

Volume 5 Issue 3 Pop Culture - Page 4November 2014

Book of Life ThrillsBY AMBER FELICIANOMexican Folklore in Media

The Book of Life is a story about La Muerte, the ruler of the Land of the Remembered, and her hus-band, Xibalba, the ruler of Land of the Forgotten, betting for who will marry María Posada, the daughter of General Posada. Manolo Sánchez and Joaquín, two boys who have been best friends since they were young, are fighting for María’s hand in marriage. It came out on October 17 and was directed and written by Jorge Gutierrez.

The movie takes place in the small Mexi-can town San Angel on Day of the Dead. The main char-acter cast con-sists of Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman, and Kate del Castillo.

Many of the cast of The Book of Life are of Latino descent, which personally made me very happy to see actual Latinos representing themselves rather than exaggerated caricatures.

I saw a couple pictures of La Muerte surface on the

internet and was very excited for positive representa-tion of Mexican heritage in popular culture. The hype was real until I watched a trailer. When I found out La Muerte wasn’t the main character, I was disap-pointed but was still going to see it.

The movie starts off with a bus of children being dropped off at a museum. An elderly man is unwill-ing to tour them, so a young woman named Mary Beth tours them instead. As she tells the children

an incredibly important story in the book of life, the movie is expressed in a very storybook look. The char-acters appear as if they are wooden, like Mary Beth is moving the characters her-self.

The anima-tion of the movie was ab-solutely beauti-ful and smooth. The characters themselves are very distinctive and pleasant looking in their own ways. The designs of the characters have a very Mexican style to them, it

shows immensely in General Posada and La Muerte.The ending of the story is very touching and excit-

ing. While it’s targeted audience is towards young people, The Book of Life is definitely a movie worth watching. It came out near Halloween and Day of the Dead, making its release the perfect timing.

On top,the ruler of the Land of the Remembered, La Muerte, voiced by Kate del Castillo. Depicted on the bottom, Manolo Sánchez and his mother Carmen Sán-chez are shown holding hands. Photo Credits by Youtube and VeryAware.

Interstellar ShocksConfusing but Blows MindsBY SAMANTHA SALAZAR

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much of this movie. It looked like your typical journey into the unknown, space movie. To my surprise, it was much more than that. This movie follows a father desperately trying to save his kids and the rest of humanity. To put it simply, Interstellar will take you on a journey from a dying Earth, through space and wormholes and into the unknown, all to save the human race. This review has spoilers.

The movie starts by explaining the predicament Earth was in, wheat was no longer growing and corn was the only crop that Earth had left. That’s where Matthew McConaughey’s character, Cooper, comes in. Cooper, a former pilot, is pres-ently an all-impor-tant farmer. His two kids, Murph and Tom, live with him and their grandfather at their farm.

The key to understanding this movie is paying at-tention to every slightest detail, because everything that happens has a purpose and will come back in the end.

Murph starts noticing books falling from her book-case by themselves and she is convinced it’s a “ghost”. Her father and her brother aren’t convinced, but the stubborn Murph still believes and begins to study it.

One result of the change in Earth’s growing pat-terns is an abundance of dust and an abundance of dust storms. While they were out, Cooper and his family are caught in a terrible dust storm. They race

home to find that Murph had accidentally left her window open and dust was covering her floor. This seems like and insignificant event, but to my surprise this event contributes greatly to how the rest of the movie plays out. The intelligent Cooper figures out that the dust didn’t fall randomly, it fell in Morse code and after translating it he figured out that it was coordinates to a place. Fueled by curiosity, Cooper and Murph decide to visit the place that the dust told them.

After an all day trip they arrive to a gate and are forced inside. Cooper wakes up, Murph not in sight,

and is informed the place that they were at was NASA. In their future setting, NASA was forced to work in secret due to the unpopular-ity of spending money on any other planet besides Earth.

NASA will explain to Coo-per that they think aliens, who they refer to as

“they”, have placed a wormhole that leads to three possibly hospitable planets. They explain they have already sent a mission of explorers to each planet and they have no way of getting home. They want Cooper, a former pilot, to lead an expedition through the wormhole to figure out if any of the planets are hospitable and to bring the explorers back home. In a very short span of time, Cooper agrees to do it, goes home, says goodbye to his kids, and leaves.

This I felt was very rushed. Granted Cooper was about to embark on a journey that he might not re-turn from and due to relativity, one hour on the plan-ets Cooper would be visiting would equal seven Earth years, Cooper might come back to be the same age as

From left, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), Brand (Anne Hathaway) and Romilly (David Gyasi) preparing for a “long nap”. Photo Courtesy by MCT-Campus.

Volume 5 Issue 3 Pop Culture - Page 5November 2014his kids, or younger.Next, Cooper and his crew takes off for space and

go down for the “long nap”, a way they explorers sleep through their two year journey to the wormhole.

They make it to the wormhole and that scene is probably the most intense of the entire movie. The theater seats shook as their shuttle passed through into another di-mension.

Their shuttle makes it to one of the three planters and the crew real-izes it is couldn’t sustain life due to a constant tidal wave. Due to com-plication with the wave, they spend more time than they wanted on the planet, about an equivalent of 20 Earth years.

My favorite part of the movie has to be when Coo-per sits down to look at the videos his family has sent him over the 20 years.

Through these videos we see Tom, Cooper’s son, find a girlfriend, get married, have kids, and have that child die. The emotional response from Cooper who feels he had missed all of his child’s life is hard to watch. Cooper sobs intensely as he watches his children grow up. It isn’t until the last video that Murph makes an appearance.

We see Murph all grown up and working for NASA. From this point on Murph will be very im-portant in the development of finding a new planet for humanity to live on.

They leave the wave planet and travel to the sec-ond one. They make it there to find the explorer still

alive. The explorer tells the crew the planet is hospi-table, but after some exploration they figure out its definitely not.

They leave hur-riedly and start towards the last planet. In a dra-matic turn of events, Cooper detaches himself from his crew and into oblivion. Cooper surren-dered himself due to lack of supplies.

Next we find Cooper in a place that is hard to put in words. This is the part that blew my mind. He is in this alternate dimension, and Cooper is behind Murph’s bookcase and he sees the past Murph. She can’t hear him so he starts knocking

books over in attempt to get her attention. That ex-plains Murph’s “ghost” at the beginning of the movie. He gets her attention but she doesn’t realize that it’s her father. He then goes to the moment of the dust storm and starts moving it into the coordinates of

NASA. Explaining how such a phenomena could occur. His final attempt to get her to realize that it is her father trying to communicate with her, is Cooper moving the hands of her watch. Murph finally under-stands that it is her father and that he is still alive.

In the conclusion of this movie, Cooper is rescued from the alternate dimension and wakes up in a hos-pital bed, in another world. Meaning Cooper and his crew were successful in finding another life sustaining world.

In the end, this movie surprised me, as I didn’t expect it to be so thought provoking. After the movie ended I was still thinking about the realm of space and what is out there. It’s an intelligent movie with an original plot that is definitely worth seeing.

On top, Cooper and Brand, played by Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hatheway respectively, stare into the distance. On bottom, Brand explores a new planet’s ocean. Photo Courtesy by MCTCampus.

On the upper left, a group of people explore a new planet. On lower left, Brand, played by Matthew McCo-naughey, is seen walking on a new terrain. On the upper right, Brand and a group of people are exploring a new planet with their ship showing. On the lower right, a pro-motional poster for Interstellar is shown. Photo Courtesy by MCTCampus, Wired and Hollywood Reporter.

Volume 5 Issue 3 Section Title - Page 6November 2014

We all have our favorite movies, but with movies usually come sequels. There are sequels that we love and sequels that we hate. Some of sequels that have been huge successes are Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Captain America; The Winter Soldier, Bat-man; The Dark Knight, The Lion King and Toy Story 2. Along with great sequels comes awful sequels such as, Mean Girls 2, Jaws 2, Grown Ups 2, Son of the Mask and Grease 2.

Some movies leaving you hanging wanting more and some sequels have successfully done that with-out ruining the first movie. Harry Potter is a perfect example for a perfectly done sequel. The directors followed the book, almost exactly, although some ad-justments could’ve been made. Series movies that are planned ahead are the movies that tend to have more success.

With great sequels come awful and disappointing sequels. Grease 2 is the key example for a disappoint-ing sequel. The second movie ruined the original for everyone. The original is such a classic film that everyone loves. Grease’s cast was perfect. When you look at John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, you see Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson. That’s what makes a movie good, seeing the actor in real life, out of character, but still seeing them as a famous charac-ter they’ve acted as.

Movies come and go, along with their sequels, but making a good sequel will stay in peoples minds for-ever, so next time you go see a movie, think about if that movie will make a good sequel.

With Money-Mak-ing Sequels, Come Worthless OnesBY REBECCA CRUM

Rick Grimes: Rick Grimes, played by Andrew Lincoln in AMC’s The Walking Dead, has changed a lot. He has gone from the sensitive, caring, helpful, and unknowing person, to the heart-less, ruthless, uncar-ing, family-first man. He has completely changed. Rick used to pull everyone in and he would keep anyone who would treat him and the group right. But, now, he is completely against letting anyone in. If you aren’t with the original group, or the current members haven’t approved you, you aren’t getting in. He is only worried about keeping his son, Carl, his daughter, Judith and the rest of his new bound family alive.

Carl Grimes: Carl Grimes, played by Chandler Riggs, starts out as the annoying child that no one likes. He starts out at the point where no one wants him to live and they all expect him to get eaten by a walker. Five seasons later, Carl Grimes is the super walker-killing machine. He isn’t afraid of anything. When his dad, Rick, tells him “You are never safe.” Carl doesn’t budge. He sticks to his normal state. He is unafraid and not worried about anything, but pro-tecting his little sister. He wishes for nothing more but keeping her alive. He, like his father, is good with a gun, and is so dedicated to the newly bound fam-

ily. Since his mom is gone, and he has no real mother figure, he had to instantly mature. Carl also had to become kind of like a father figure to Judith, his sister, because of the fact that his dad is always out looking

for weapons, protec-tion, and food.

Glenn Rhee: Glenn Rhee, played by Steven Yuen, was very selfless; he risked his life to get the people what they wanted, to an extent. He originally saved Rick’s life, and brought Rick to Carl, and Lori, his now deceased wife. He would do anything to make everyone else happy. Now, he isn’t like that. He wants to protect himself, his family, and his fiancé, Maggie. His whole life revolves around Maggie, and he has no

major fears. Glenn, like Carl, has become a walker-killing machine.

Daryl: Daryl Dixon, played by Norman Reedus, hasn’t changed too much. Although, he’s kind of be-come the opposite of Rick. He started out in season one not caring about anything but his own survival, now though, he is leaning more towards showing compassion. In season four when Beth goes missing he drops to his knees and is extremely hurt. We actu-ally see a lot more tears coming from him in season four. But, in season five, we see him show compas-sion, without tears of sadness. When he and Carol are reunited, he hugs her and picks her up, spinning her around and crying tears of joy after seeing his friend again.

A Glance Behind “The Walking Dead”Who Are Rick, Carl, Glenn, and Daryl?

BY KAY BENZ

Rick and Carl played by Andrew Lincoln and Chandler Riggs. Photo courtesy of Google Images.

Volume 5 Issue 3 Features - Page 7November 2014

Working With RascalsBY HEATHER MENEFEE

While growing up I’ve realized that in order to do anything, you need money. It wasn’t very long when I realized “hey, I need a job.” Never did I think my first job was going to be doing magic tricks and making balloon animals as a birthday party entertainer.

Most people go to Putt-Putt Funhouse to play games with their friends and family, but I go there to clock in and get to work. The work we do at my job is quite different than your average jobs.

Becoming best friends with the birthday kid is key of being a birthday entertainer. As soon as I meet my birthday kid, I get really excited and start mak-ing a bunch of balloon swords so we can have a bal-loon war! You’d be surprised on how intense kids can be with balloons, some will ask for some remarkable things, but I can’t make them and I have to shut the kid down.

We all have to eat some pizza at a party of coarse,

so I’ll serve everyone at the party pizza. Who could have pizza without magic tricks!? While I do my magic tricks, kids will scream “Magic isn’t real,” “I know how you did that,” “You’re the worst magician ever” and you know what, that really gets the self-esteem boosting! Some kids actually love my magic tricks and some adults are even amazed, but whether they like the tricks or not, their reactions are always priceless.

Random kids that just run into you while they’re lost is probably the best part of my job. Anything that little kids say is just always funny or adorable. I had one little boy come up to me and say, “I lost my mom, but I don’t mind because I just want to play games and she was holding me back.” Long story short, I had to hold his hand and find his mom anyway.

Although my job can get a little hectic with work-ing with so many little munchkins, I always leave with a smile knowing I made a kid’s birthday the coolest birthday ever.

Feeling Like Winter WonderlandBY HOLLI WEST

It is cold and rainy all over the Texas area. It’s supposed to be like this for the next two weeks. You may be asking Mother Nature why. Well, according to NBC News it’s all over the United States. New york, Minnesota, Colorado and Montana have gotten off of school and work for snow days.

How would you like if it snowed down here? I strongly believe we should get snow days off. Just be-cause we live in the southern states does not mean we can’t have snow.

Its getting to be that time of the year where all senior athletes are starting to realize their days here in the Education village are numbered. Most student athletes will choose either school or sports very few decide to do sports in col-lege and even fewer make their college sports team. Here at Clear Falls we have two very talented senior girls who have made their college sports team and have signed their letters of intent. These two girls are Misty Muniz and Alyssa En-neking. Alyssa is going to play volleyball for Oklahoma State and Misty will play softball for Midwestern St. Both of these girls will now being entering the big leagues and leaving the Education Village behind.

Left: Alyssa En-neking is headed to Oklahoma.Right: Misty Muniz is headed to Midwestern State.

The facts are not right there are some kids who have never seen snow in their lives! I actively think that if other states get days off for snow we should too, even if we don’t get snow.

Others say “We don’t like this weather its to cold to function, we think we should get “chilly” days off. Staff on the other hand has very strong opinions

about getting snow days off. Braden Shotwell, a family friend says “no, because we don’t get snow we should get weather days because we live on the coast.”

If we do get days off for weather it will go into other student holidays or even our summer. Last year places up north had an extra two weeks of school because of weather days off.

Southeast Texas is not likely to get this much snow, but other parts of the coun-try aren’t so lucky. Photo courtesy of Google Images

Knights Sign Letters of IntentBY ELLA PARR

Photos by: Quinton Mason,Gaby Casas, and Kirk Sides .

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Volume 5 Issue 3 Homecoming Game - Page 9November 2014

Photos by: Kay Benz, Kathy Hummer, and Reese Chen

After a very long season and very hard games, Clear Falls varsity football team is finally celebrating their last game of the season. Full of hard work and dedication, the Clear Falls Knights do their best at their own Homecoming game, but are sadly defeat-ed by Brazoswood High School, with a not very off loss. Brazoswood-41 Clear Falls Knights-34