The school once again beats own personal record in money raised for wish week

By Lauren Penington

Wish Week is a long-awaited tradition each year at Legend. Each Wish Week, the current classes take it upon themselves to beat the previous classes record. This is competition raises more and more money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. 2019 was the first year that Legend broke the amount of $100,000. But 2020 rose even above that, raising a total of $115,628.80. 

This week holds a special place in the hearts of many students and teachers, but freshman will always remember their first. 

“I really enjoyed Wish Week. Even though I was busy with the play and couldn’t attend some of the events it was still really fun and I’m glad I got to participate,” freshman Thomas Mclaren said. “I really want to keep that tradition of raising more money because it’s really cool to see all these kids going on their wish trips.” 

Just as freshman are commemorating their first, seniors are basking in their final Wish Week they will be involved in at Legend. 

“I’ve really enjoyed watching the school come together for a good cause,” senior Ashlyn Smith said. “It’s always lots of fun, but of all the Wish Weeks I’ve been a part of at Legend I’m glad this was the last. It seems like a good high to end on, this Wish Week was definitely my favorite. I went to more events than in past years and participating more made me really enjoy the week.”

The seniors also enjoy raising more money than in previous years, happy to see their hard work paying off in meaningful ways. 

“There’s definitely a competitive aspect to Wish Week, more than the boys versus girls,” senior Madison Travis said. “As seniors, we want to raise more than the previous year. I didn’t think we’d be able to do that this year, but I was happy to see everyone come through.” 

Ultimately, this week is more than the rewards. While students enjoy class stalls for raising money, the real importance is in the meaning behind the donation. It’s about the kids Legend is able to help grant wishes for. It’s about the message behind Make-A-Wish as a whole, and, in the words of Jesse Van Diver, it’s about giving rather than donating.

Why it may not be as soon as you think

By Madison Schick

Betelgeuse is a star that sits on the shoulder of the Orion constellation. Since it is 1,000 times the size of our sun, we can see it shine from 640 light years away. Classified as a Red Supergiant, it’s one of the brightest stars in the sky, but concerns of it dimming are leading some to conclude it’s about to supernova.

High mass stars do tend to have shorter life-spans than small/medium sized stars like our sun, therefore stars like Betelgeuse only live for millions of years whilst our sun can live for billions. Scientists have started to talk about how Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life, but in reality the end is still about a million years away. 

Betelgeuse is a variable star, meaning it dims and brightens in periods over the years.

With the weather cooling down, many people may see themselves holed up in their houses. While this might bring the satisfaction of staying in a warm, cozy house, it also means having to cook food at home. While some may be chefs in the kitchen, many high schoolers still struggle to cook for themselves. Not to fear, cooking club is here!

Starting back up on January 17th, Legend’s cooking club will help students learn how to cook different dishes. This year, the club founder and president, senior Veronica Knott, is looking to make cooking club more inviting and educational than ever.

From holiday classics to baking essentials, the club has covered some of the most common dishes. However, this year the club is looking to expand their efforts to brand new foods. 

“We are looking to create and cook new types of foods from different types of culture,” said senior Veronica Knott. “It is going to be very exciting.” 

She also wants to expand cooking club’s reach to include more people, returners and newbies alike.

“It’s a great time because you get to eat a lot of food,” said senior Veronica Knott. “You get to actually make some really interesting and delicious dishes with your friends.”

As brushes swept and colors swirled across the canvas, one man’s calm voice guided the students in their painting journey.

Wednesday night marked the National Art Honor Society’s annual Bob Ross painting night. This marked the second year for the event and had a record turnout of over thirty students.

“It was a fun and relaxing experience,” senior Jordan Dockery said. “It was a fun way to get people more interested in art.”

The night consisted of an episode of Bob Ross’s show The Joy of Painting and following his tutorial. All of the art supplies were provided by National Art Honor Society through Ms. Hunter.

National Art Honor Society consists of art students from a wide range of mediums, not solely drawing and painting. While this event may have been more painting-focused, it did not shun away those with different artistic abilities.

“Even though I am bad at painting and do photography instead,” senior Kate Brunetti said. “I still had a lot of fun.”

Brunetti is an officer for National Art Honor Society, helping with planning and running this event. Apart from the art education it provides, she wants to highlight the bonus benefits.

“I think it is a great stress reliever to have before finals,” said senior Kate Brunetti. “You can just hang out with your good friends and bond with them over your love for Bob Ross and painting, in general.”

She hopes that this event will continue to as successful even after she graduates.

It is finally that time of year! It is DECA Districts! This past Tuesday was the district competition for DECA and was arguably one for the books.

The Legend DECA program saw a great deal of state qualifiers, adding to the great year for the program. There were around sixty state qualifiers from Legend. This also lead to Legend winning the most awards in the competition.

The Legend DECA program’s success could also be attributed to the new changes implemented. 

“I think this year was a lot better for DECA because we actually did roleplay practice in our business classes,” said senior Adit Desai. There was also a larger officer team allowing for more management and planning for the 100+ students in DECA. 

“They did a good job of having a lot of practice sessions to practice our roleplay,” said senior Ashley Lawson. Lawson qualified for state along with her partner, senior Allison Kramer, in her event: Travel and Tourism.

Now the program looks at ahead towards the state competition.

“I joked with my partner that we were going to state,” said senior Ashley Lawson, “and now I am actually going! It has definitely made me very excited about DECA and going to the Broadmoor.”

The DECA state competition will occur from the 22nd to the 25th of February.

It’s been eight long months for senior Emma Dobrec. After tearing her peroneal tendon in her ankle, she finally made her long-awaited return on Tuesday night.

“It’s been intense. It’s been a lot of running and jumping and trying to regain my balance. Cause I lost a lot of muscle and control of my ankle after they went through and did everything they had to.” Dobrec said on her rehab.

Her return came somewhat unexpectedly. She was permitted to rejoin in basketball activity just a few weeks ago, and would slowly start ramping up activity. She got the call that she was going to play in the game on Tuesday against Heritage High School about an hour before she was supposed to get to the gym for warm-ups.

“It was amazing honestly, cause I’ve worked so hard to like come back finally. Like it’s been probably four months of rehab like after the surgery, so once I finally got into a game, it just felt right. I was really excited… oh yeah, always nervous,” Dobrec said.

It was an outstanding game for the Legend girls team overall. They finished the night with a 42-10 blowout against Heritage. The game was headlined by a first-half that ended with a 24-0 shutout.

“I’m just glad I could not like screw up a win,” she said.

There wasn’t much to screw up. Everybody had it going on both ends of the floor.

As for Emma, that was the last step of a very long and very strenuous eight months. Now, her eyes are set on helping her team finish the season strong and towards achieving her goal of playing basketball at the college level.

Senior Athletes Committing To Colleges

By Ronak Dsouza

Last Wednesday, many Legend seniors took part in National Signing Day. The ceremony had one of the largest groups of seniors committing in Legend history with fifteen committing. 

“It was really cool because I didn’t expect that many students to sign,” said senior Josh Smith. 

These group of seniors had already gone through the signing process earlier. The ceremony was more for recognizing the students’ athletic endeavors.

“You have to do the actual signing at home at 7 o’clock,” said senior James Lemons. “The ceremony is more for show and recognition, so for my signing I drew a picture of a dog.

Student athletes committed in a variety of sports, ranging from football to soccer to wrestling. 

For many of these students, it has been a lifelong goal to commit and participate in athletics in college.

“UNC has been my dream school for a while for athletics,” said senior Lucy Roberts. “It was really exciting to commit because I had been waiting for it, for a while.”

Lucy, along with many of the other signing students, has been competing in her respective sport, soccer, for a large part of their life.

“I’ve been playing golf since I was pretty young, so it’s always been a dream of mine to continue playing in college,” said senior Clara Hosman. 

Although this has been a dream come true for many of the athletes, the actual Signing Day event was full of mixed emotions.

“At first I was really nervous but when it was my turn to go up and sign, I was really excited for my next chapter in life,” said senior Sydney Dreiling.

The event signals the start of the oncoming end for the senior class and the close graduation date.

Unified’s Recognition by Special Olympics

By Ronak Dsouza

The first assembly of the second semester was a historic first as Legend was honored as a nationally recognized Special Olympics school. This recent achievement is thanks to the Unified program, consisting of both teachers and students, and partners. Partners are students who choose to help out with the Unified program acting as peers.

“It feels great to be a partner because we get to help the kids pursue their dreams of playing sports,” junior Haile Hock said.

Students involved as partners enjoy the experience.

“It’s definitely one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in high school,” senior Sara Fox said. “You get to play sports with some of the best kids in the school and really learn what it means to be happy.”

The partnership aspect of the Unified program played a large part in the Special Olympics school recognition, however two leaders of the Unified program applied for the honor.

“The leaders of our Unified program, Jeremy Dorr and Karen Forbes, went through a really arduous application process,” senior Sara Fox said. “They had to talk and write to a lot of different people and organizations in order for the program to be nationally recognized.”

This makes the assembly the icing on the cake for the Unified program after all of the hard work put in to be recognized for their success.

“The assembly was really great because it felt good for the kids to be recognized for going above and beyond with their lives and extracurricular activities,” junior Haile Hock said.

The recognition assembly included a visit by former Bronco Steve Atwater and the Broncos mascot Miles as well as Special Olympics.