Back in the Saddle!

Winter Madness

(In a good way) 

First off, to our followers, we apologize for the lapse in coverage- YVHS has been doing some outstanding things this winter, but one of them has not been the Internet. So we are hoping to catch up and stay up after this week! 

Now, in Warrior Territory, we celebrated the holidays in a ton of different ways. The halls were adorned with cheer and the skies were clear, scarves are out, boots strapped on, and winter is upon us. Here are some of the things happening in the winter months at YVHS. 

Winter Spirit Week

Our ASB Spirit Commisioners Michael Mendoza and Josiah Cisler put together a fun week for winter spirit week- with students encouraged to bust out their craziest socks, winter hats, holiday colors and of course, the sweaters you only wear once a year. 

Eren Tugcu and ASB Teacher Corissa Stobing sporting the holiday sweaters

Warrior Jam
ASB put on our annual Warrior Jam event, where students come out to meet this year's basketball teams, our own version of Midnight Madness. Prizes are given, a three point and free throw contest, and of course the ever-popular Staff/Student basketball game. This year's game was light on the ladies of the Warrior Staff, and for this reason we believe, the staff lost to the students for the first time in this blogger's recollection. Next year, Warrior fans. The comeback will be huge. 

Kimmel Sadat (12th) and Mark Tran, our AD go head to head in a free throw contest.
Tran dominated. Of course. Unbiased opinion obviously. 

Carols by Candlelight

Our 27th Annual Carols by Candlelight was a huge hit thanks to the hard work of the wonderful performing artists! Concert Choir, Madrigals, Guitar, and Dance 3 all performed holiday hits and standards, and the audience was treated to homemade cookies as well! This is a tradition and a favorite, and many arts alums came out to show their support and love for the staff involved - Mr. Carter our vocal music director, at the helm of this wonderful tradition for the last two decades and counting, and his counterpart Ms. Kelly Cooper, running the dance program side of things. What a great event, and thank you to all for attending! 

MadMen give it to us Country Style

Winter One Act Plays

The Drama Club (and class!) once again produced some outstanding one act plays for our English classes to enjoy, and our evening audience on Wednesday the 17th as well! Directed by Ms.Cooper and Ms. Hopper were two short comedies - Office Rumors and Detective Story. The third play was longer, called the Fourth Wall, and directed by Rachel Gephart, our resident stage manager! The Spiegatorium was packed to the brim, reminding us thespians that our next YVHS project REALLY needs to be a theater. What do you think Warriors? Can we get that going? 

Wall to wall audiences for Winter One Acts. Time to expand.

Audiences were delighted and the actors did a wonderful job of pulling these together! 

The One Act Cast. Plus Special Emcee Guest Leah Cooper (5) 

Hall Decorating 

Our Annual Club Hall Decorating contest brought out some great new themes this year, and clubs worked hard to deck the halls of YV and put us all in the holiday spirit! The winning hall received a pizza party, and this year's winning hall was Nightmare Before Christmas, by our brand new Breaking Down the Walls club and the Art Club! (obviously artists--- the decorations were amazing!) 

Senior Breakfast

Our incredibly busy (and state recognized) ASB put together yet another event this week, our annual Senior Breakfast. Seniors were treated to a fresh cooked meal by the senior teachers, playing board games while waiting, in pajamas, and sipping orange juice. They were then serenaded by the same teachers with some interesting carols. Some surprises all around, including Principal Stephen Brady's impressive baritone! What a great time for the class and a great send off tp Winter Break! 

Just Dance Battles

Senior Breakfast highlights

Mid-Month Madness is Back

Staff went back to some sweet traditions from the Principal Sheila Walker days, and that included MidMonth madness staff bonding! Nice for the Warriors to see each other outside of the copy room and be reminded of our human-ness. Yay for staff bonding! 

Raising for Relief Club

Run by Co-Presidents (Seniors) Ariana Whitmarsh and Kayla Samuels, the Raising for Relief Club put in their charity efforts this Winter with a successful canned food drive, and by getting together and cooking for the Winter Nights shelter! What a way for our Warriors to spend their holiday break! #WarriorProud

Spotlight On- ART- with our own amazing NATHAN VASARHELY

If you ever have a chance to walk down the 600 wing, you may be treated to some of the outstanding projects that Mr. Vasarhely has his class focusing on. We wanted to take a moment to talk to Mr. V about what the classes were working on with these outstanding tile renderings of John Wayne.

"In my Art Design, Art II, and Advanced Art classes, we were focusing on high contrast imagery. As a source of inspiration we first looked at a street art documentary, "Exit Through The Gift Shop." This doc focused on the stencil art of Sherpard Fairey (OBEY) and Banksy. As an introductory project we collaborated on these John Wayne posters as a class. Collaboration is an important aspect we were working on this first quarter. First, I made screenshots of several images that I then copied and pasted into Photoshop. I then changed the image size and adjusted the threshold to transform the images into high contrast black and white. After I made a grid of the image with one inch squares. Each student was then responsible for three little squares, that they transcribed onto larger 8 in. squares using a quadrant system. After creating a contour drawing, they started collaging down the black and white areas using magazines. I call each grid a mini abstract piece of artwork. What we do at the end is piece each square together as a puzzle. (This is done with a number/letter combination set forth at the beginning of the process.) ---- The grid system is taken from the portraits created by artist Chuck Close. Since much of the imagery from many modern street artists is taken directly from popular culture, we mimicked that with each classic John Wayne character.

Rooster Cogburn - "Tue Grit"
Captain Nathan Brittles - "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" ----- "Actually where I got my first name; My dad is a big JW fan"
Ethan Edwards - "The Searchers"
Tom Doniphon - "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

Clearly not John Wayne, but a similar process was used in creating Frankenstein with a different medium