Meghan Vogt
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

Little Shop of Horrors was a great success for Start’s drama department, and now the spring theater season is about to begin. Auditions for Little Women are being held this week, and Start’s thespians could not be more excited.

Although the cast for this straight play is a bit small with seven female roles and four male roles, the number of students auditioning has increased since Little Shop. Unlike Little Shop, however, those auditioning that don’t make the main cast won’t have an ensemble to be a part of. This leaves the casting team in a relatively rare and unpleasant situation of not being able to cast everyone who wants to be in the show. This will probably lead to our technical crew being quite large, which has its own pros and cons.

Student Director, Christopher Dauer, is adamant on including as many seniors in the cast as possible, so they can perform in their last high school production. This will probably work quite well because we have very talented seniors this year. My fear, though, is that first-comers, especially freshmen, will be uninterested in drama club if they are not casted. I hope this is not the case because there are a lot of seniors in drama this year, and we need younger thespians to continue making great productions when we are gone.

An interesting alternative to cutting students with good potential is to double cast the show. This would mean that there would be two full casts, A and B, and each cast would perform in two out of four shows. The main pro to this option is that it includes more people. However, the cons, in my opinion, outweigh the pros. With double casting, each cast would have to be taught the blocking and rehearse the blocking. Therefore, the rehearsal schedule would need to be longer. It’s already very time-consuming as is. Also with double casting, rather than relying on five principles to learn their parts, ten principles will have to take on the large responsibility.

The casting team will have a lot to think about this Thursday, and I am confident that they will keep the best interests of the students and the production in mind as they make tough decisions. I’m glad I will not bear the burden of this difficult casting, and I will update you with the results when they are posted on Friday.

BY Rayne Wilcox
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

Dear Grandpa, my best friend, my number one supporter, and most importantly, my life saver.

First off, I learned that you weren’t happy when you found out that my mom was pregnant with me. Which is understandable, because my dad was not ready to have a kid yet. You out of anyone in the family knew that. But, after I was born I was the apple of your eye. Mom told me so.

Thanks to you, I know how to drive a tractor and you gave me one of my own when I turned four years old. I remember being too short to stop it when I was finished riding it, so you would always have to run out into the backyard to stop my speeding tractor.

When I was 9 years old, I lost my brother. You and grandma both showed up to the funeral, even though he wasn’t your blood grandson. I never told you this, but that small gesture meant so much to me.

At 13 years old, I knew something was wrong with you. Not in your heart, but your mind and your physical abilities. You could no longer walk good without falling, and your speech slurred. Grandma and dad didn’t tell me anything, but I always listened into the conversation, because I wanted to know what was wrong with you. I needed to know the full story.

Soon, you were placed in a nursing home. You became too much for grandma to handle on her own. It was the only thing to do, and I know that it made you angry. Trust me, it made me upset too. You went from being this active man with his own business, to a man in a bed 24/7.

I tried to visit you as much as I could. I live in Toledo and you were all the way in Findlay, but I also had school and my mom and step dad had work. I remember you telling my step dad during one of our weekend visits “Thank you, and no matter what she is going through. She always has a smile on her face.” Which wasn’t fully true. I smiled in front of you, because I didn’t want you to see your problems affect me. They affected me everyday.

December 25th 2015, was the last day I saw you smile and awake. You were talking and I thought things were getting better, but on January 2nd, my mom told me that my dad had texted her that you were slipping away quickly and you only had about two days to a week left. I saw you one last time on Sunday, January 3rd. I never said goodbye to you when I left visiting you, but I did this time. I had a feeling that it would be my last.

I went to school that Monday. January 4th. I was having a pretty decent day. I didn’t hear anything from mom or dad about you, so I was high spirits that everything was good. I left school and I finished up my last drive time for driving school, went home, and mom had some pictures that she had ordered online laying out. She handed me some pictures of you in a king hat that you won at bingo and another  one with us when I was a baby on a tractor.

My mom said my name and I looked up at her. She told me that you had passed away that morning. People have been telling me that it must be easier to take, because I knew you didn’t have much time left on earth, but it still hurt.

You were my best friend and I visited you every other weekend when I was younger. We had and still have a bond that will never be broken. Yes, I knew you didn’t have long, but it still hurt as if you died and I didn’t know about how much time you had left.

I’m going to miss everything about you and I promise that I will make you proud.

~Your granddaughter

BY Kaylah Kislan
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

For most seniors, that time of the year has finally come. We’re in the home stretch of our high school careers. We’re making plans and setting goals for our future. What will we major in? What do we have to offer to colleges we apply to? What colleges will we apply to? What colleges will we avoid altogether simply because of the judgment from our peers of going to that particular college? Recently, I’ve been plagued with these questions, and recently, I’ve reached a conclusion. But of course, we can’t have a conclusion without one more question. Bear with me. What’s in a name?

Whether you’re a freshman or a senior, you’re most likely aware of our nation’s Ivy League universities. Even if you’re not sure what an Ivy League is exactly, you’ve probably heard of Harvard or Yale. Two of the eight most prestigious, elitist, and selective universities. With that being said, you could imagine how people might react if they got admitted into one of these universities compared to if they got into, say, The University of Toledo. Imagine you apply to each of these universities and get accepted into both. With no limitations due to money or any other circumstances, where would you go?

Most would automatically choose Harvard University. Maybe because of their well known crest or maybe because maroon is just a great color. But maybe people would choose it just because of the name and all of the positive connotations associated with the term “Ivy League.” After all, it is an Ivy League school. Yet one perplexing fact remains- by the end of your undergraduate study at either school, you would obtain the same undergraduate degree. So does it matter? Is it just in a name?

In my opinion, it does matter, in some cases. In the real world, degrees from prestigious schools are looked at as a stamp of honor and merit, which could help the newly graduated student find jobs in their field choice. Nonetheless, whether you go to the nation’s top colleges or not so top colleges, you can still succeed in life. Whether you graduate from Harvard or our city’s university, you’ve still acquired something you worked hard for. So choose your college wisely, and remember, the only difference is in the name.

Austin Hill
LifeAtStart.com Reporter

I think it is safe to say that all of us have had the urge to tell a college admissions director that we sexually identify as an attack helicopter. It is essentially basic human nature, and it seems that I may be more in touch with my primal self because that is exactly what I did in an email to Bluffton University.

However, the folks over at Bluffton must have had a group of hackers for covert ops as they were able to track me down for my controversial message. Bluffton officials contacted Start principal Ed Perozek, and subsequently I faced harsh discipline in a three-day suspension for what I thought was a harmless joke.

In hindsight, I obviously have realized to keep such confessions to myself, but I also think that as a student our freedoms of speech should be upheld. Sure, the message was slightly vulgar in the way it was presented, but according to Bethel School District v. Fraser, a — U.S. Supreme Court decision, a school can only limit such language if it is a disruption to classroom activities, for example if the language is made in public discourse.

My email to Bluffton was a private one that was seen by no one but me and its recipient.

It is also worth noting that language has to more than just unpleasing or distasteful to a school official for it to be punishable; It must establish a true threat, or again, must reasonably be the catalyst of substantial disruption to school activities as established by Tinker v. Des Moines. I think it would be hard to argue that a crude email about a half-human, half aircraft could be described as either.

But I think that the real problem it this situation lies at the fact that a majority of people get offended way too easily. Any idea or values that someone disagrees with their initial reaction is to become offended. I could understand if that idea is a personal attack, but even then, what good can possibly come from getting offended by anything? It seems like common sense that the most beneficial action would be to ignore it and move on, but instead society has instilled in us a sense of entitlement. The next time you are find yourself in a dilemma because someone simply does not like what you said, know that your rights are protected and ride your bald eagle into the sunset.