HI LINETigerThe

http://www.cedar-falls.k12.ia.us1015 Division St. Cedar Falls, IA 50613 Volume 47 Edition 14

A Little Bit of HomeCFHS Dance Team sends care packages to troops in Iraq, including CF graduate and former dance team member.

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*All Advanced Placement (AP) students at Cedar Falls High School will have the opportunity to register for AP exams to be given in May. Registration for the exams runs from Monday, Feb. 5, through Wednesday, March 7, with Teresa Martin in the English Department. The fee is $83 for each exam. All checks must be written to CFHS AP Exam.Check with your student’s college or university to be certain how they accept an AP score. Not every college or university treats them the same way. While taking an AP exam is optional, Cedar Falls High School encourages its Advanced Placement students to take the AP exams. English Department Head Judy Timmins said, “Students who get college credit through the AP program clearly have a head start on their college course work as well as reducing their college tuition costs. Cedar Falls students maintain an excellent record of success in the AP exams. We encourage you to register your son or daughter for the AP exams.”* The CFHS orchestra will be hosting their Pops Concert in the high school auditorium on Thursday, Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Allison Bernard Photo

News Briefs

Torie JochimsStaff Writer

On Saturday, Feb. 17, the Cedar Falls Schools Band Endowment will be hosting a dinner and dance at the Pipac Center entitled “For the Love of Music”.

“It’s organized to raise money and awareness,” Band Director Gerald Ramsey said.

The event will feature the (319) All Star Dance Band (16 piece big band).

The ticket sales will cover most of the cost, and $30 of the ticket price goes to the Band Endowment (that portion of the ticket cost is tax deduct-ible).

The evening will start at 6:30 pm at the Pipac Center with a social hour.

“There will be tasty, tasty hors d’oeuvres from the Pipac,” Ramsey said.

The dinner will consist of hearts of romaine salad, a filet mignon and salmon duet, garlic whipped potatoes, asparagus bundles with red pepper and baby carrots, gourmet rolls, coffee, hot and iced tea, water and silk cheesecake for dessert. Following the 7:30 pm din-ner will be a dance, with the evening ending at 11 pm.

This event has been in the making for a few years, and Bob Ives of the

Kellie PetersenStaff Writer

Many CFHS students gathered at the local restaurant Pablo’s Mexican Grill on Friday, Jan. 26 for the third “Pablo’s Night” to benefit CFHS’

Board was the main thinker behind it.Now that this has become a reality,

Ramsey said they do plan to make it an annual thing.

“That would be a goal, certainly we’d like to see it go well,” he said.

There is a limit of 256 seats, and Ramsey said with that being the case they hope to sell 256 seats.

Should sales not go as well as planned, though, Ramsey said there will not be much of a financial issue.

“A lot of the cost is the dinner,” he said, “so if less people show up, the cost won’t be as much. What we’re paying for this is less than what you would pay if you were to book a pri-vate party.”

The band is offering its services to the event for free.

“Everybody’s there for the same thing,” Ramsey said of the others in-volved in the planning of the dinner and dance.

Ramsey jokes that some of the members are so involved that the only problem would have been coordinating schedules.

Band members from the high school, junior high and elementary are not a part of the entertainment for the night.

Tickets for the event cost $75 total.

Amnesty International group. Once again, Pablo’s agreed to give 50 percent

of profits from purchases made during their busi-ness hours to Amnesty to use for their projects.

A total of $540 was raised, which is about three times the usual amount made at other “Pablo’s Nights” fundraisers

“I could tell when I went there Friday night that everything was going well, but none of us had anticipated such a successful turnout,” said Amnesty president Sheila Moussavi.

“It’s a surprisingly effective means of raising money and awareness, and we’re now realizing that it’s also a great way to draw attention to a new cause,” Moussavi added.

The money that was made from the fundraiser will go toward a new Amnesty project, raising funds to build a fully-equipped elementary school

in Cambodia. Monetary incentives are also pro-vided for the children that attend.

Moussavi learned of Cambodia Schools, an organization that has funded over 300 elementary schools in Cambodia, through an article by New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof. “The ar-ticle mentioned education as the leading deterrent to human trafficking world-wide,” Moussavi said. “So we thought funding an elementary school would be an important contribution that everyone at the school could help make.”

$15,000 is needed to build a school in Cambo-dia, which Amnesty hopes to raise through school and community involvement. They already have several events planned for the next few months.

For anyone interested in attending, Amnesty International meetings are every Tuesday at 3:05 p.m. in room 208.

•Saturday, Feb. 17—all day, all natural bake sale at Roots Market. All proceeds will go toward Amnesty International.

•Sunday, Feb. 18—International dinner and a movie at the Wesley Foundation in Cedar Falls. Various ethnic foods served from 5 p.m.- 7 p.m. and Invisible Children documen-tary will be played at 7 p.m.

•Saturday, Feb. 31—all day, donation-based art show at Pizza on Dubuque in Iowa City. A substantial portion of proceeds will be donated to the CFHS Amnesty International

•Saturday April 7—Garage sale from 11 p.m.- 5 p.m. in front of the high school. Amnesty will be collecting donated clothing, books, and toys at the school until March 9. Bring any items to room 208.

Amnesty kicks off aggressive campaign for Cambodia schoolAfter successful Pablo’s benefit, group seeks help from homerooms on next project

“For the Love of Music”CFHS band to hold an elegant night

Head Over HeelsNational Guard gives P.E. students something to flip about

Imitating the self-defense moves are senior Brandon Nelson and junior Spencer Johnson.

Displaying de-fense tactics for P.E. students last week are two members from the Na-tional Guard.

Adam Zinda Photos

Tigersin Action

SPORTS

Men’s Basketball (7-8, 4-7 MVC)beat #3 Waterloo East 56-52played at CR Prairie last night Next Up: Waterloo West 2/9(Home at 6:00 p.m.)Waverly Shell-Rock 2/10(Home at 5:00 p.m.)

Women’s Basketball (10-9, 7-9 in MVC) beat Waverly-Shell Rock 50-17lost to Waterloo East 53-45 hosted #13 CR Prairie last nightNext Up: Waterloo West 2/9(Home at 6 p.m.)

Wrestling placed 3rd at MVC Super Meet Next Up: Linn-Mar 2/1 (Away at 6:15 p.m.)

Women’s Bowling Next Up: CR Jefferson 2/9(Away at 3:45 p.m.)

Men’s SwimmingNext Up: Districts 2/10(Away at 12:30 p.m.)

HI-LINETigerThe

Katy SchultSports Editor

As the season nears its end with the District Swim meet Feb. 10 at Holmes Junior High in Cedar Falls along with the State meet Feb. 17 in Marshalltown, the Tigers are looking to perform as well as they have in previous seasons. Led by coach Dana Peiffer and six se-niors, this primarily young Tiger team has some big shoes to fill.

After losing seven senior members from the 2005-2006 team, the team re-turns 10 of its members from last year, and has added three new members. The seniors from last year include Patrick Davis, Florian Koenig, Alex Stone, Ty-ler Verink, Seth Wessels, Ryan Willett and Aaron Zander. The returning mem-bers include sophomores Josh Bower, Lucas Carlson, Nick Challgren, Lee Przbylski and Brian Verink, junior Jack Kosmicki and seniors Nick Cordes, Austin Creswell, Micah Robertson,

Kevin VanHeiden and Jordan Wessels. The new members to the CFHS men’s swimming team are freshman Garrett Moses, sophomore Eric Stefan and senior Lars Kehler.

Last year the Tiger men’s swimming team had a good season winning both Districts and State. At State last year, the Tigers finished in the top spot with a total number of points amounting to 257.5. The team had members placing in the top 10 of each individual race, and first in the three relay races. Also, the 2006 200-yard medley relay team set the state record time of 1:33.56.

With many of the Tigers taking first places in events previously in the season, the team will prepare to send some swimmers to the state meet. The CFHS 200 Medley Relay team con-sisting of Moses, Wessels, Verink and Challgren and their impressive time of 1:44.34 are performing well this season. Also the 400 Freestyle Relay team consisting of VanHeiden, Verink,

Moses and Wessels and their time of 3:26.42 are also performing well for the Tiger team.

Keep your eyes open for some individual swimmers as well. Moses has taken first place in the 200 Free-style and 100 Backstroke. Verink has finished in the top few spots of the 200 Freestyle and 500 Freestyle. Wessels has previously taken first in the 200 In-dividual Medley and 100 Breaststroke. Finally, Challgren has finished first in the 50 Freestyle earlier in the season.

Men’s swimming team prepares for district meet

Men’s basketball team downs metro rival #3 Waterloo East

Josh BettsSports Editor

Coming off of an upset victory over then #7 Iowa City High, the CFHS men’s basketball team would look to pull another huge upset Friday, but this time over a metro rival. The #3 Trojans from Waterloo East, and on 51 percent shooting from the field, the Tigers defeated the #3 Trojans by a score of 56-52.

Cedar Falls Coach Jerry Slykhuis talked about his team’s victory over the metro rival East.

“Our overall play was good in all aspects,” Slykhuis said. “Our matchup zone limited (East’s) inside play. Our kids made great adjustments at halftime. We got a big boost from (sophomore) Kyle Bernard.He did an outstanding job off the bench. This was a good team effort.”

The Tigers trailed 9-6 after one quarter of play, but would outscore the Trojans 14-8 in the second quarter to take a 20-17 halftime lead.

“A real key to the second half was that we made a couple of adjustments offensively,” Slykhuis said. “And we executed (well). Both teams were more aggressive in the second half offensively.”

The Tigers would outscore the Trojans 15-12 in the third quarter to take a 35-29 lead into the fourth quarter.

The first five minutes of the fourth quarter would see the two teams trade leads throughout the first five or six minutes of the period.

The real momentum swing for the Tigers came at the 2:49 mark of the fourth quarter, as they broke open what was a tied game. At the 2:09 mark, the Tigers lead was expanded to three on a John Landau free throw. At the 1:22 mark, the Tigers would get two free throws from UNI signee Austin Pehl to take a 48-45 lead. The Ti-gers were able to make their free throws down the stretch, and a Landau lay up with less than a minute remaining in the game off the steal of an East inbounds pass sealed the victory for the Tigers, who have now won three out of their last four games.

The Tigers shot a blistering 17-25 from the free throw line (15-20 in the second half), while the #4 Trojans shot only 5-17 from the line.

“It made a big difference,” Slykhuis said on shooting 17-25 from the line. If you don’t make your free throws, it’s just like a turnover.”

With a Tiger victory Friday, and losses by Ma-son City and Marshalltown, the Tigers are the #3 seed in their substate, which earns them a home game in the first round, possibly against Waterloo West.

Landau led the Tigers with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Pehl added 15.

Trice Scott led the Trojans (12-4, 6-4 MVC) with 18 points. BJ Berinobis added 10.

The Tigers played at Cedar Rapids Prairie last night, and travel to Siddens Gymnasium at Water-loo West High School Friday to battle their other metro rival, the Wahawks.

Caitlin Glade PhotoDriving to the basket is senior John Landau at the game last Friday night against number three ranked Waterloo East. Cedar Falls came out on top with an ending score of 56-52. Be sure to watch the game Friday night against Waterloo West.

Another member of the team to watch out for is Cordes. Cordes has signed on to swim with Maryland in college. He has competed in the 200 Yard Medley Relay team, placed first in the 50 Freestyle race, member of the 200 Freestyle Relay team and placed first in the 100 Backstroke race.

With such an impressive State showing last year and good showings at previous meets, the Tigers will be a team to watch at the District meet at Holmes Junior High.

Spencer Collins Photo

In action against Dubuque Hempstead is sophomore Josh Bower. The next meet for the Tigers is the District meet at Hol-mes Junior High.

FEATURE HI LINETiger

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Old Feelings:

CFHS groups send support to former student serving in Iraq

own lyrics because I want people to understand how I’m feeling. The only way I can really do that is if I write them,” Gotera said. “All of my songs are from experiences of what I go through or what my friends have

gone through.”As a child, Gotera listened to her

father play his Gibson 12-string acous-tic guitar. “I love music because it has always been a part of my life,” Gotera said. Following in her father’s foot-steps, she picked up the guitar herself two years ago.

This year for Christmas her father gave her a guitar of her own. “Now that I have my own guitar it’s more personal for me,” Gotera said. She has named the guitar Amber after it’s rich, brown

color. This new instrument has be-

come the pathway of self-expres-sion for Gotera as she started to

write songs almost every day, most of them inspired by everyday life.

“I’ve been writing a lot of songs lately about situations that I’ve been getting into or how I’m feeling about something,” Gotera said. “If I’m in a re-ally deep mood, I can write down what I’m feeling or my reaction to something big that’s happened, and it all comes out in words like someone writing in a journal.”

Although Gotera’s lyrics are based on her life, she does receive inspiration

from other artists. “I love John Mayer because his lyrics are really deep, and you really feel like you know what he’s talking about,” Gotera said. “I re-ally like to model my lyrics after that, really getting people to know what I’m thinking about or talking about in the song.”

Her fi rst step toward writing a song is to listen to others. Then Gotera uses a computer program called Garage-Band to record over 30 songs.

Gotera will sing onstage during the school’s musical Once Upon a Mat-tress on March 2-3. Gotera plays sup-porting character Lady Larken. Gotera said she is not afraid to sing out for an audience. “I always get in trouble for singing too loud, ever since sixth grade. When I’m singing onstage I can sing out,” Gotera said.

For Gotera, music is a way to help people understand her. “I want people to get to know me, and a way that they can do that is to listen to my music and really listen to it, not just hear what it sounds like, but listen to the lyrics and the way my voice sounds,” Gotera said. “It’s just a way to get to know me, and it’s myself in the music.”

Briana McGeough and Diamond LeeFeature Editor and Staff Writer

Sisterly bonds are very special re-lationships. Sisters Bethany and Alicia Palas share this important connection. For them, however, their relationship is long-distance because Alicia is a soph-omore at Cedar Falls High School and Bethany is serving with the Iowa Na-tional Guard in Iraq. But even though they live apart, they are very close. They communicate through email, telephone calls and letters, which are often attached to care packages of baked goods.

“I e-mailed my sister to tell her that I did well at my speech contest. She was really proud of me, and she told everyone in her group that she was re-ally proud of me for doing well,” Alicia Palas said.

The feeling of pride is mutual be-tween the Palas sisters.

Alicia Palas said about her sister,

“I am really proud of her. I miss her a lot.”

For the Palas family, the military is somewhat of a tradition. Bethany’s interest in the military began with her father who was in the Army for 26 years.

“Her dad has had a big infl uence on her. He has always talked of the bene-fi ts of being in the military,” Bethany’s mother, Alice Palas said.

Bethany, however, did not begin showing an interest in the military until high school, when she enlisted at the end of her junior year. Bethany has been serving in the Army for about four years.

In late August 2006, Bethany was sent to Iraq. She is scheduled to stay there for a year.

Bethany makes sure that the people serving in Iraq get the supplies that they need, including uniforms and water. To perform this task she is responsible for a fi ve-ton truck to transport things.

“She doesn’t mind it over there. She is in a safe place and loves the people that she works with,” Alicia Palas said.

In addition to the support that Beth-any has received from her family and fellow soldiers, she has also received community support.

Bethany is a 2004 graduate of Cedar Falls High School and a former dance team and speech team member. These two teams came together to rally be-hind Bethany and send care packages.

The idea for the project originated with the dance team in September.

“I thought it was a great idea and a great way to give back to the commu-nity,” dance team coach Gayle Bruene said.

The fi rst of the care packages was sent around Thanksgiving. The dance team plans on sending another package around Valentine’s Day and will con-tinue to send packages until Bethany returns this summer. The packages con-tain a wide variety of gifts.

“We sent a lot of things. We sent candy, popcorn, magazines, nail pol-ish, movie DVDs, cards and a letter,” senior dance team participant Rachel Hakes said.

Speech team also contributed to gathering supplies for Bethany.

“She has written us telling us about what she’s doing over there and telling us thank you,” Hakes said.

Bethany has really enjoyed and very much appreciated the packages. “She has loved all of the things that she has received,” Alice Palas. She has not, however, kept all of the contents for herself. Because her group is so tightly knit, they share all of the goodies that they are sent.

“Her desk is in a public area, so she lays cookies or other baked good on her desk, and people take what they want,” Alice Palas said.

Bethany’s family wants people keep all of the troops, not just Bethany, in their prayers.

“Pray for everyone. You don’t need to know them personally. All of the soldiers are making sacrifi ces,” Alice Palas said.

The Palases would like for people to focus more than just prayers on the troops. They recommend checking out the website www.iowasbravest.org for ideas about how to contact and support troops.

“Just write a letter of appreciation to a soldier. You don’t even have to know them. A letter would mean a lot,” Alice Palas said.

To contact Bethany, email her at Bethany.palas@us.army.mil. The Palases are also more than willing to send other people’s letters and pack-ages to Bethany.

“I won’t read the letters or any-thing,” Alicia said, laughing.

Alicia, who will be baking goods this weekend to send to her sister for Valentine’s Day said, “I can’t wait for her to come home. I love her.”

Sophomore expresses emotions through music

Kirstin Riggs and Ellen WredeKirstin Riggs and Ellen WredeEditor-in-chief and Staff Writer

Kirstin Riggs and Ellen WredeEditor-in-chief and Staff Writer

Kirstin Riggs and Ellen Wrede

Sitting on the fl oor cross-legged with her long, dark

hair falling into her face, sophomore Amelia Gotera

strums her acoustic gui-tar while her powerful voice echoes through the hallway.

Students crowding

around feel the emo-

tions behind Gotera’s origi-

nal lyrics.“I write my

own lyrics because I want people

gone through.”As a child, Gotera listened to her

father play his Gibson 12-string acous-tic guitar. “I love music because it has always been a part of my life,” Gotera said. Following in her father’s foot-steps, she picked up the guitar herself two years ago.

This year for Christmas her father gave her a guitar of her own. “Now that I have my own guitar it’s more personal for me,” Gotera said. She has named the guitar Amber after it’s rich, brown

color.

come the pathway of self-expres-sion for Gotera as she started to

write songs almost every day, most of them inspired by everyday life.

“I’ve been writing a lot of songs lately about situations that I’ve been getting into or how I’m feeling about something,” Gotera said. “If I’m in a re-ally deep mood, I can write down what I’m feeling or my reaction to something

“Old Feelings”by Amelia Gotera

Get lost old feelingsGo fl y a kide cuz I can’t have you

anymoreThey say I’ve gone and lost my

luck along with my mindeLet’s prove ‘em wrong, good old

feelings get gone

I miss you to piecesI don’t wanna be on this side of the

street againI heard that you were moving on

I thought, that’s awful fast, always thought we would last

“This song is important to me because it describes something we have all felt or will feel. It talks about being frustrated because you still have feelings for someone in a past relationship. When I wrote this I was upset with myself and my emotions for not being able to move on. This song is an excellent reminder of my past and why I am who I am.”

—Sophomore Amelia Gotera

Excerpt from

Singing and playing the guitar is sophomore Amelia Gotera, who writes her own music based on life experiences.

Briana McGeough Photo