The Official Student News Site of Parkway West High

Pathfinder
The Official Student News Site of Parkway West High

Pathfinder
The Official Student News Site of Parkway West High

Pathfinder
“The most influential person in my life is my sister, Jillian. She's my biggest role model, and I strive to be like her one day. Jill graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA and then went to the University of Kansas with a scholarship to major in business and still has a 4.0 GPA throughout her college career. She has taught me how to become a successful person like herself and continue to be the best person I can be. We have our ups and downs, like sometimes we get into arguments, but we always find a way to rekindle our differences. When I was in middle school, I would go through many problems with my friends, but Jillian usually always helped me get to reality figure out what I could do in the situation, and help try to fix it. I don't know what I would do without her guidance helping me to my successes.” - Sophie Crutcher, 9

Sophie Crutcher

Zoey Ware, CJ1 Writer • May 23, 2022

“My biggest struggle in life is school, mainly because I don’t care enough to apply myself. My parents obviously want better for me, and I want to do better for them, but with a lot of the activities I have going on, I can never find the time. My family is super important because my parents work super hard, and they always show how much they care for me. My friends are also super important because they help me throughout life, and I wouldn’t be the same person I am without them. A lot of my friends play soccer with me, and because of that, we travel a lot. Like one time, we went to Arizona and got to explore a lot and see a lot of sights. I remember when my friends and I were messing around, they wrapped me up in a plastic wrap and pushed me over. I got a concussion, but I wouldn’t go back and change that because it was funny. My friends and I do a lot of dumb stuff, and we get in trouble a lot, but you know, you just got to live life.” - Jake Boland, 9

Jake Boland

Olivia Picaud, CJ1 Writer • May 20, 2022

“My greatest accomplishment this year was learning new things. I’m taking an ASL class because I am deaf, and I’m also trying to be fluent in a language that I’m a part of. It has been something that has helped me, and I definitely want to be an influence on [others]. [Some difficulties I had along the way were] my grades. In high school, things are very different from middle school, so it’s tough to keep up with my grades. Because of the masks, I couldn’t understand my teacher and what they were saying. At the beginning of the school year, I had doubts that I’d graduate because I’m deaf, but I feel pretty good looking back on how far I’ve come. If you’re struggling, don’t give up. Just take one step at a time and see where it takes you.” — Elle Keely, 9

Elle Keely

Nola Becquette, CJ1 Writer • May 20, 2022

“My sister has a genetic disability called Cri Du Chat Syndrome. She doesn't have a full chromosome like most people do. [This] can affect physical appearance. It took her up to seven years to learn how to walk, and she doesn't talk. She communicates a bit with sign language, but most of her signs are just made up. She's my oldest sister, so since I was born I've always grown up with a sister who had a disability and needed extra support. Having her as my sister made me mature faster and made me realize at a really young age, “oh, she's not like other people.” [Having her as a sister has also] helped me realize there are a lot of different people in the world and that not everyone's the same. Everyone is at different spots in life.” —Jenna Eickmeier, 9

Jenna Eickmeier

Ava Silva, CJ1 Writer • May 19, 2022

“My biggest achievement in sports was when my teammates and I placed second at a track and field invitational. I am on the JV team, and we ran the 4x400, which is a relay with four people, and we each ran 400 meters or one lap. I ran it with a group that our coach, Kristen Witt, put us in – Taylor Phillips, Celia Freed and Megan Cauley. I was proud of us when we placed second place with a time of 5:03.05. This was also a big moment for me because last year, I didn’t get a season with COVID. During my freshman year, I was hesitant about trying out for the team at first, and we didn’t get much of a season because of the pandemic. [That’s why] when someone asks for advice about starting track, I just tell them not worry about it because once they start going to the practices, they will see that it's not as scary as people make it out to be.” – Betina Ivanova, 11

Betina Ivanova

Serpil Kucukkaya, CJ1 Writer • May 19, 2022

“I’ve been doing journalism for three years now. It all started in the eighth grade, [when] I got mail from [the] high school-a little pamphlet and a letter telling me that my English teacher had recommended me for the program. At that point, I didn’t have many electives I wanted to do, so I thought it would be good to try it out and see what I thought. I wound up involved in CJ1, and I loved it. I did like my first couple of stories, as bad as they were. It was fun writing about people that I knew and things that they're doing. I will say one tough thing that happened at the end of [last] year: I had to juggle two stories at once because COVID had messed with the whole schedule. I struggled a lot to learn how to draft and do everything online. I work a lot better in person. I like having [face-to-face] conversations. When we were online, Brinda, my section editor, took time out of her day to talk with me after school, work with me on stories, and help me with my sentence structure. She’s been one of the writers at the forefront of my mind when I talk about people who have inspired me. Her advice has pushed me to become an even better writer; I’ve even won two Best of SNO awards with some of her advice, which I'm happy about. [Earlier] this year, I wrote a story about gifted kid burnout. It affected a lot of my friends since they were a part of the gifted program. I could tell they’ve been struggling recently because of all the pressure put on them. I thought, ‘Okay, I want to write about this issue.’ It’s something that’s not raised all that often. So what I did was I got on [the computer] and started drafting, and I ended up loving it. When I posted it, I doubted I would win anything with the story, but I was happy because it was something I enjoyed writing. It ended up being my first Best of SNO, which I was really, really proud of. Winning [the award] was a goal for this year, to be able to get to this point. And I did it. It’s one of my favorite memories.” - Madi Michajliczenko, 11

Madi Michajliczenko

Anshu Chappidi, CJ1 Writer • May 18, 2022

“The greatest advice that I’ve received was, ‘Every step that's a failure is closer to success.’ This [advice] has helped [me] push past tough times such as depression and mental illness. I thought about it myself. When I started my investing company, I had many failures. My inspiration is Elon Musk. He spent millions, soon billions of dollars, trying to develop Space X, and when he did, he was almost bankrupt. So the quote comes from not giving up even when failure is on your way. It [has] allowed me to see things in a better shape.” — Steven Cheng, 9

Steven Cheng

Nola Becquette, CJ1 Writer • May 18, 2022

“The saddest moment of my life was when my great grandmother died. She lived in Texas, about 30 minutes away from my grandparents. We'd see her twice a year when we went to see my grandparents. She was in a nursing home a lot, but my great grandpa was not until recently. [While they were in the nursing home,] it was sad to see that they [couldn’t] do things that they used to be able to do by themselves. They needed all this help. We would go see them a lot, [and we would] spend time with [and] play board games with them. I [also] liked working on [my great grandpa’s] farm because he worked really hard and [is] kind of like a model [to me]. He was nice to everybody that he met, and I wanted to be like that.” —Jacob Burch, 9

Jacob Burch

Ava Silva, CJ1 Writer • May 17, 2022

“My favorite things to do outside of school are going on walks outside and watching Pokemon. I especially like going on walks with my twin sister Bridget. Me and my sister are two out of five kids. I also like to go to camp with my sister. We spend a lot of time outside there. I also like Pokemon. My favorite Pokemon is Jolteon. When I’m in school, my favorite class is science. I like learning about animals. My favorite animals are polar bears. I like going to see them at the zoo.” — Erin Berry, 12

Erin Berry

Serpil Kucukkaya, CJ1 Writer • May 17, 2022

“[The saddest moment of my life was] when I was 7. I had a friend [who] was like an older sister to me. She was 18 and in her second week of college when she got into a car accident and died. So it was different because it was a younger person and not someone older. In my experience, when I was little it was always [people I barely knew] that we went to funerals for, and then it was someone who was 18. [My biggest regret is] not spending enough time with the people [I care for] because I feel like there are a lot of people in my life that I don't see enough. When something happens [to them], I get stressed about not seeing them and what I would have done differently if I could see them more.” - Lily West, 9

Lily West

Ava Silva, CJ1 Writer • May 16, 2022

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