Presbyterian Pan American School

April 24, 2016 •VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 6• KINGSVILLE, TX 78363

Eagle X-Press

Eagles baseball takes win against La Villaby Natalia MartinezStaff Writer

by Ariel RiveraStaff Writer

Seniors sponsor soccer tournament

by Martha GalvanStaff Writer

Science Fair held at PPAS NHS raises money for Presbyterian giving

Seniors honored at First Presbyterian Churchby Elizabeth BlannoStaff Writer

From left, Juniors Rodrigo Garza and Alan Flores with their science fair project.

On April 13, Science Fair was held at Presbyterian Pan American School (PPAS). Stu-dents from Chemistry, Aquatic Science, Physics, and Anatomy class had the opportunity to show their skills and abili-ties to create or modify things.

“Science fair has the purpose of giving students a great expe-rience and gives them the op-portunity of making an experi-ment and present it in a verbal and written form,’’ said Chem-istry Teacher Walter Mebane.

Science fair also gives stu-dents the opportunity to enjoy a good time working on their project and on their board.

‘’Although science fair was a stressful experience, it came out as a really interesting ex-perience. The knowledge we acquired from the critics will be used in our future projects,’’ said Freshmen Carole Ikaze.

Ikaze’s project falls in the category of neuroscience and

was about color confusion and the stroop effect, in which they asked a group of students to say the color that they saw and not the color that was writ-ten, with this they wanted to verify how people get confused in many ways by the colors.

‘’Since this was my first Sci-ence fair, I felt nervous. My project implied a simple ex-periment explaining a hard sci-

ence. It consisted in performing a long jump while carrying ex-tra weight (dumbbells). At the moment of the jump, it was im-portant to swing the dumbbells forward and then release the ex-tra weight. This is an example of the law of the momentum,’’ said Junior Andres Gonzalez.

The projects were graded by several judges and they de-cided which teams deserved

On Wednesday, March 23 Presbyte-rian Pan American School’s (PPAS) Na-tional Honor Society (NHS) and Student Council had a fund-raiser activity to raise money for the Presbyterian Giving Catalog, which is a program where you can donate money to purchase and for the distribution of ani-mals, and the build-ing of wells to pro-vide clean water to entire communities. The students raised the planned goal of $70 by selling food at the girl’s and boy’s dorm. The money will be sent through the website to make a rainwater catchment system in Africa.

to be in the top eleven, which were Frida Treviño and Diego Cantu (Seniors), Ariel Lima and Margarita Otero (Seniors), Zahira Mendez (Senior) and Abi-gail Varela (Junior), Ismael Bartolome (Senior) and Abiel Cardenas (Junior), Luis Martinez and Jaime Chrinos (Juniors), Adeline Irabaruta and Camila Her-rera (Juniors), Andres Gon-zalez and Bryan Martinez (Juniors), Jaime Sarmiento and David Angulo (Juniors), Joshua Karangwa and Gidel Peña (Juniors), Oliver Irach-eta and Elian Garza (Sopho-mores), Camila Arjona and Carole Ikaze (Freshmen).

“I think that Science Fair will benefit students in col-lege because when they get to their junior or senior year they have to do an experiment and this will allow them to have an idea of how it would be. This helps them in their college career,” Mebane said.

The Class of 2016 Seniors were honored at First Presby-terian Church in Kingsville on April 10.

Photo provided by: PPAS FB

On Sunday, April 10, a senior recognition was held in honor of Presbyterian Pan American School’s (PPAS) Class of 2016 at First Presbyterian Church in Kings-ville. This service is an annual tradi-tion that takes about two or three hours. It was a church

service and a meal with the church staff, honoring the seniors while enjoy-ing a meal prepared especially for them.“It is important be-

cause the church

gives thanks to God for our lives,” said Senior Ismael Bar-tolome. “What I en-joyed the most was the food. They had

really good desserts. I felt really special,” Bartolome said. Also, the church

was decorated with the school colors,

blue and white, and the names of all the seniors. It concluded with a power point presentation with pic-tures from this year, and some information of the students, such as their home country and their future plans.“It was a great ex-

perience for me and for all my friends who had a really good time,” said Se-nior Giovanni Vita. “I felt that all my ef-fort after all this time has been recognized at the church. I feel I did my best and I’m prepared for what’s next,” Vita said.

by Sofia LaraStaff Writer

“This is important to help people in need,” Said NHS presi-dent Frida Trevino.According to pres-

byteriangifts.org, rainwater can be a precious resource when collected, stored, and filtered properly and with this catchment sys-tem, rainwater will help communities to collect usable water for irriga-tion and washing with a rainwater catchment system.“I found this project

engaging since it pro-motes the welfare of countries that show need in the area of water deficit,” said Junior NHS mem-ber Fabiola Saldana.

On April 2nd, Pres-byterian Pan Ameri-can School (PPAS), hosted the first soc-cer tournament. The sponsors of the tour-nament were the se-nior class with the purpose of raising money for their senior trip. There were two tournaments, one was called Pan Am Friends Cup and the other tour-nament was named Ulti-mate Team Tournament.On the Pan Am Friends

Cup Tournament, all of the teams were made randomly by the orga-nizer of the tournament, Juan Placencia, soccer coach. In the Ultimate

team tournament, the teams were made by the students of the school.“Friends cup allowed

students that have never played soccer before to enjoy the beauty of the game. The most impor-tant part was the inter-action between them. In addition, the learning ex-

Photo provided by: PPAS FB

Photo by:Martha Galvan

Photo by: Sofia Lara

by Sarai LaraStaff Writer

On April 7, Presby-terian Pan Ameri-can School’s (PPAS) track and field team had a meet in Ban-quete. PPAS team competed in the cat-egories of long jump, triple jump, shot put, 100m, 300m hurdles, and relays of 4x100, 100m, 200m, dash and long distance. Junior Moises Araujo got second place in 4m dash. “I was really grateful because, now I know that I have been im-proving a lot in my

perience to be part of a team in a different as-pect,” Placencia said.The winners of the

Pan Am Friends Cup were Hector Gar-cia, Deokyun Kim, Wooseok Choi, Mariela Lopez and Carlo Lopez. “This tournament

showed us that all people can play soccer if we have a team that supports us,” Choi said.The winners of the Ulti-

mate Team were Missael Lara, Moises Araujo, Es-teban Gonzalez, Edgar Chaidez and Ariel Rivera. “In the Pan Am soccer

tournament we learned that soccer is a sport that is more fun if we play with friends,” Gonzalez said.

From left, Freshman Camila Arjona buying food from NHS member Fabiola Saldana to help support their

fundraising efforts.

speed, thanks to coach Cantu because she helps me a lot,” Araujo said. Max Galindo got two medals for 100m hur-dles and 300m hurdles, “I always work really hard in every single practice so I can im-prove and make the

best out of it in the com-petitions,” Galindo said. Sophomore Miri-am Jimenez got fifth place in one mile. “I feel really proud of myself because even though I’m hurt from my hip, I’m thankful to God because he gives me strength,” Jimenez said. It’s been a hard time for track and field but we are doing better all the time, said Cap-tain Vania Jiménez. “This track & field sea-son had a lot of injures also but we will get better,” Jimenez said.

Photo by: Sarai Lara

Senior Ariel Rivera and Sophomore Jose Sanchez.Winners of the Friends

Cup.

The Presbyterian Pan American School (PPAS) Eagles baseball team played at home against San Isidro on Friday, April 1. The weather was nice, sun-ny, and a little windy. The game started

around 4:45 with San Isidro batting and scor-ing five runs in the first inning. Later, during the second inning, PPAS followed up with three runs when Edgar Chai-dez hit. In the third in-ning, San Isidro scored three more. Nothing was scored in the fourth

or fifth inning but in the sixth, when Hector Gar-cia hit and advanced a base, then ran the bas-es completing the run when Chaidez hit a sec-ond time. Then another run was scored when Chaidez ran the bases. The ending score was

San Isidro 17, Eagles 15. Even though Eagles didn’t win, it was a good game that both, players and students enjoyed. After the game, Junior Jose Calderon said the loss did not matter to him so much, even though it was a pretty tight game. The next game at home was April

11th here at the PPAS campus against La Villa with an ending score of Eagles 10, La Villa 8. “At the field, we re-

flect what we learn in practice. Working hard together is what we can do, throwing and catching the ball is what we like to do and play baseball is what we do,” Calderon said.“Playing with this team

has been a really great opportunity. I have seen this team improve a lot and it is like my fam-ily,” said Diego Cantu.“Baseball was, is

and will be always

the best sport ever,” said Rodrigo Garza. Hardy Robertson,

baseball coach, said that the team was progress-ing and the students are starting to work more as a team, also the pitching is getting better as well as the hitting. Robertson has high expectations for the upcoming games as well as all the team.“I expect that the team

will compete well with the other teams we are playing against, and have the chance to win as they have been winning most previous games.

Track & Field competes in Banquete

Photo provided by: Dr. Doug Dalglish

Junior Jose Calderon pitching in the game against La Vil-la at home on April 11. The Eagles baseball team took the

victory, 10-8.

FEATURES & OPINION

“Fire & Ice” prom set for April 30

by Salma LucioStaff Writer

Eagles X-Press Staff: Adviser, Desiree Alegria. Nerina Cruiz, Hector Garcia, Vania Jimenez, Juan Hernandez, Valeria Galindo, Martha Galvan, Sofia Lara, Natalia Martinez, Reyna Martinez, Henriette Mbawmbaw, Sara Mendoza, Mariana Reyna, Jorge Castillo, Xuemeng Chen, Sarai Lara, Salma Lucio, Ariel Rivera, Elizabeth Blanno.

by Jorge CastilloStaff Writer

Students attend workshop in Austinby Henriette MbawmbawStaff Writer

by Sara MendozaStaff Writer

by Valeria GalindoStaff Writer

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Ambassador recognized asStudent of the Month

Students attend 2016 Wings Over South Texas Air Show

Senior Alicia Ibarra

The Hispanic and Evan-gelism Mission Minis-try is the Sponsor of the Mission and Evangelism Workshop in Austin. The Austin Presbyterian Semi-nary (APTS) invited some students from Presbyte-rian Pan American School (PPAS) as guest of the His-panic mission ministries.This workshop was held

April 8 and 9 at the Aus-tin Seminary and the stu-dents stayed in a guest house for those days.“I’m so excited about this

seminar. I want to share all my thinking and meet new people,” said Senior Ismael Bartolome before going to this experience.APTS wants PPAS’ stu-

dents to participate in some themes like recognizing gifts that God gave us, hear how others are doing evangelism depending on their culture and surroundings, also to learn how barriers keep from being effective evangelism.This seminary also wants to

involve more young people and hear their youth voices and what they have to teach.“I could express myself

Photo by: Sara Mendoza

Presbyterian Pan American School Senior (PPAS) Roger Niyon-gira, from Kiga-li, Rwanda, has been named the Student of the Month for May. “I am very hap-

py and proud to get this award,” Niyongira said. He is 19 years

old. One of his fa-vorite subject is algebra because he likes to work on math problems.

Presbyterian Pan American School (PPAS) started the ar-rangements for the 2016 Prom that will be held on Satur-day, April 30 at the Harte Student Center.Each year, the junior

class is responsible for making prom possible by setting up all the decorations for this big night. They organize it as a gift of gradu-ating to the seniors. “Luckily, this year,

freshmen and sopho-mores have been help-ing our class and we are very thankful,” said Sponsor Yvonne Garza.

Sylvia Garza and Yvonne Garza are in charge of helping and supervising all the work. “The theme for this

Prom is ‘Fire and Ice’,” Yvonne said. There was also a com-

mittee designed to do the prom poster. Juniors Marianne Canales, As-

trid Saldaña, Camila Herrera, Fernanda Vargas and Adeline Irabaruta were in charge of this committee.“We started planning

the prom last year, but of course there are always changes that occur. But once we finalized our theme the first week of

school, we started right away,” Yvonne said. The Prom is progress-

ing slowly. Perfec-tion takes time, Junior Fabiola Saldaña said. The Prom is a time

for the students to cel-ebrate moving on. To come out of their shell, forget worries, look and feel beautiful and dance your worries away. It´s like one big party before they leave PPAS, Yvonne said. “I expect this prom

to be an unforgettable and unique experi-ence for all the stu-dents but especially for the seniors,” Junior Rodrigo Garza said.

Senior Alicia Ibarra has been named “Student of the Month” for April. Ibarra is from Monclova, Coa-huila, México. She is 18 years old. Ibarra came to Presbyterian Pan American School (PPAS) because her parents gave her the op-portunity to study in a dif-ferent country so she could learn another language and learn from another culture.“I feel very glad to be

named student of the month, I really wasn’t expecting this news during my Easter Break, but I really appreci-ate this mention. It is an in-centive to continue to put effort in my classes and out-side the classroom as well. Thank you,” Ibarra said.During her years at PPAS,

Ibarra has been involved in Student Council, Cam-

pus Ministry Council, Social Committee vice-president, Ambassadors, Volleyball and dual credit.“I have really grown as a

person, whom I think is re-ally important,” Ibarra said.Senior Ibarra said that PPAS

has become a very important part of her life since she has made really close friends who have become a family to her. She also said that she had opportunities that she never thought she would have.

“I enjoy the fact that I live with my friends and because of that, I have created some really important bonding with them. I also like the fact that those people are always willing to help me, like my roommate, who is always there for me,” Ibarra said.Ibarra’s life goal is to have

the opportunity to help other people since she believes that she has the skills and abilities to make her life use-ful to improve other’s lives.“I’m planning to study at

the University of Texas at San Antonio,” Ibarra said.Ibarra is planning to study

biomedical engineering be-cause it is a major that com-bines medicine and math, her two favorite subjects including math and science.“Those subjects

are really passion-ate for me,” Ibarra said.

and share many of my ideas to help people because of the fact that this seminary was mostly in Spanish,” said Junior Abigail Varela. This year, five students

were selected. Of those five, three are seniors, Ismael Bartolome, Juan Hernandez and Natalia Martinez. From Juniors, David Angulo and Abigail Varela were chosen.APTS also is looking for

an opportunity to have a South Texas youth Cel-ebration that involves par-ticipants, which majority speaks English and Spanish.Varela describes her expe-

rience as something unique.“The students surprised

me a lot. They lead wor-ship by themselves, show-ing a lot of confidence,” said Pastor Mary Ellsworth.

Basketball captain named Student of the Month

Photo provided by: Valeria Galindo

Students attended work-shop in Austin.

On April 9, Presby-terian Pan Ameri-can School (PPAS) students were given the opportunity to attend the bian-nual Wings Over South Texas Air Show located at the Naval Air Station (NAS) in Kings-ville. The show started at 11 a.m. and ended at 5 pm.“I was very excited to go to the air show since I have never been before,” said Senior Jessica Tsai.

by Reyna MartinezStaff Writer

Easter program held

The air show in-cluded food booths, games for children, many airplanes and helicopters that you could look at and even go inside of , not to forget the amaz-ing stunts performed

Freshmen create ‘Romeo & Juliet’ shirtsby Mariana ReynaStaff Writer

Students are se-lected by PPAS Principal El-lie Perez based on the academic achievement, ex-tracurricular activ-ity and character.“I came here to

have a new expe-rience, learn about new cultures,”

Niyongira said.Niyongira is in-

volved in differ-ent organizations such as National Honor Society (NHS), Basket-ball (captain) and track and field. His favorite

teacher is Mrs. Garcia from Eng-lish IV because he said he feels comfortable with her and she ex-cites him to study. He plans to study

chemical engineer-ing at West Vir-ginia University.

The freshmen class of Presbyterian Pan Ameri-can School (PPAS) con-ducted a project for their English 1 class, directed by Rebecca Perkins.The project included a self-designed shirt that had a quote from the play, “Romeo and Juliet.” The students were asked to describe the quote they had chosen in one paint-ing. The shirt had to be completely white when brought. After the paint-ing and the quote were designed on the shirt, it was required to not be able to see a single white part on the shirt.

The students had about two weeks to work on their projects. The t-shirts were due on March 23. All students who are involved in English 1 were required to do the project. The proj-ect was inspired because the section that the stu-dents were covering in that class was about the play of “Romeo and Juliet.”Michelle Day said that she had a really good time getting the shirt ready.“I tried my best to draw and paint in detail for my quote to be described more clearly,” Day said. Day also said that it was a fun activity and that she was very pleased with her work.“It was fun to be able to

show Mrs. Perkins our creativity on a shirt,” said Tania Acevedo. Acevedo said that even though at first she had a hard time trying to demonstrate or describe her quote, she fi-nally was able to come up with how to describe it.“Somehow every de-tail put into the shirt matched my quote. I feel proud of my work and the effort I put into it,” Acevedo added.Carole Ikaze said that she also had fun work-ing on this project.“I am thankful to my friends who helped me complete my project,” Ikaze said.

Photo by: Jorge Castillo

Photo provided by: PPAS FB

Senior Roger Niyongira

Presbyterian Pan American School’s (PPAS) con-cert choir, directed by Joe Garcia, attended Bent-wood Trail Presbyterian Church in Dallas to per-form April 16 and 17. The choir traveled about nine hours to Dallas.The church welcomed PPAS choir and had dinner in the church and went to Amazing Jakes Food & Fun in Plano on the first evening of arrival.“It was a very long drive but it was worth it. We all enjoyed the time we spent with the host families and the food was very good. I had the chance to eat orejitas,” said Concert Choir President Ismael Bartolome. The Sunday service was directed by President Dr. Doug Dalglish and PPAS students. The school choir presented two songs called, “Amazing Grace” and “Christ is the Rock” to show faith to God. “Basically the point of doing trips to different churches to present is because we want to give thanks to those kind people from the church who support PPAS’ scholarship system and those peo-ple are helping students financially,” Garcia said. It was awesome and we had a lot of fun. I will remember this trip,” said Choir member Carisa Sa-linas.

by airplanes and by the flight demon-stration squad called the Blue Angels.“I enjoyed seeing the Blue Angels do tricks. I would re-ally like to see them perform again,” said

Senior Frida Trevino.According to bluean-gels.navy.mil, the Blue Angels are a group of 16 officers that have more than 3,000 hours of flight experience that perform formal flying acrobatics. According to Wing-soversouthtexas.com, “Our goal for “Wings Over South Texas” 2016 is to provide something for every member of the family.”“I had a lot of fun at the air show I can-not wait to go back again,” said Fresh-man Yebin Oh.Choir performs in Dallas

by Xuemeng ChenStaff Writer

Freshman Naisel Montalvo and Junior Class Sponsor working on prom decorations.

Students attended the Wings Over South Texas Air Show on Saturday, April 9 at the Naval Air Station.

On March 24, Presbyterian Pan American School (PPAS) celebrated Easter with a choir and dra-ma performance. The program started at 9 a.m. after students were released from first period.Reverend Dr. Doug Dalglish, School President, was in

charge of giving the sermon during the program at Mor-ris Chapel, based on a gospel reading of Luke 24:1-12.The Choir performed two pieces, “Hang-

ing on the Cross” and “He Arose.” “I really liked this service because it was very or-

ganized, and as a choir member, I can say that we had the opportunity to worship God and give a good performance,” said Senior Ana Lopez.The drama team performed a play named “Glorious

Day,” directed by Theater Arts Teacher Rick Saenz. “I was very nervous to perform our drama, but

everything was perfect and we did it as we prac-ticed,” said drama team member Abdy Garcia. At the end of the service, all the students placed flowers on

a cross outside the chapel and participated in the egg hunt. Director of Admissions Joe Garcia said he re-

ally enjoyed watching the egg hunt be-cause it is part of the United States culture.