What do Trojans eat for lunch? I braved the JHS cafeteria to see how students fuel themselves every day. You’ll find a great variety of food choices that I’ll let you form your own opinions around.

In recent months, I’ve seen the town I’ve spent eighteen years of my life in go through enormous amounts of change. Sure, who doesn’t want a massive outlet mall or a completely revamped downtown, complete with a conveniently placed Lululemon? Personally, I’m thrilled Jenks isn’t going to be the place sped through en route to Tulsa anymore, but at the same time, I can’t shake off the fear that my once small town isn’t going to be so small anymore.

By human nature, we adapt. We adapt and move on with new chapters of our lives. High school, college, adulthood, etc. The one sector of our lives that we tend to forget the most about is our childhood. We are fresh to the world and are experiencing many things for the first time, so of course we aren’t going to remember every little detail. But sometimes it’s those small details that truly create the biggest life lessons. Riding a bike for the first time, spending all afternoon playing in the grass, and creating masterpieces with little blocks of chalk. Each moment leads into bigger pictures in the grand scheme of things. I live next door to a family of four with two little girls, Vivian (5) and Chloe (7). They are always outside doing what they do best, being a kid. After a while, I started to notice objects scattered around the neighborhood. Possessions of theirs that they must have forgotten. It made me start to reminisce about my childhood and the memories I made with objects that I had forgotten. With parental consent, I captured images of what will eventually become Vivian and Chloe’s fondest memories.

Everyone knows that one person in their school: the know it all, the advancer, the mathlete, the overachiever. To paint a picture in your mind, you probably already know their inner circle: clean cut, maybe even straight A’s. But do you really? Is it really a fact that you are who you associate with, or is it more of an expectation? Can you be trapped in a bubble you didn’t even know was there to begin with, or were you just blind to the system?

There have been sudden recent talks about education and shortage of teachers, substitutes, and bus drivers. With a recent vote giving Jenks the budget for a 19-million-dollar bond, it had me wondering: Where does the school budget go?

When you stop and take a look around you, what is the main thing you notice? Technology. Whether this be computers, phones, televisions, etc. It’s surrounding our world. Changes like this can be scary, I’ll admit it. But the one timeless piece of machinery that always preserves the natural beauty we live in is the camera.

Dr. Ann Money, the driving force behind our local aquarium, has a story as deep and captivating as the oceans she explores. In our recent interview, we explored Dr. Money's illustrious career, world-renowned research published across multiple platforms, and fervent advocacy for environmental awareness. Beyond her role in the aquarium, she serves on the board of the Sustainability Alliance and actively engages with the local Jenks Chamber of Commerce. Her community involvement extends to hosting educational tours, introducing visitors to the captivating world of sharks while subtly intertwining the message of sustainability.

“I wanted to be a songwriter: I never imagined I would turn into a rock star.” - Billy Joel

Known by many as the “Piano Man,” Billy Joel is an American cultural icon. The Grammy-Award winning legend has released 13 studio albums, sold 160 million albums worldwide, and is the 3rd highest-selling solo artist of all time.

I was disappointed when I heard that Jenks High School would be putting on the production of Spongebob The Musical for my senior production. All I knew was that I wasn’t allowed to watch the Spongebob TV show as a kid. If I were creating a TV show theme song for children, my first idea wouldn’t be a squeaky flute with the scratchy voice of a pirate singing along. It’s just… annoying. Uniting parents from all over, the kids cartoon, Spongebob Squarepants, has been deemed stupid, brain rotting, and overall useless. It’s safe to assume that Spongebob Squarepants is among the most hated children's TV shows. I thought this musical was probably dumb and no one would want to come see it. Still, I signed up, because it’s the senior musical and I didn’t want to miss out. And as I practiced, I began to realize something surprising.

Everyone has their own set routines. You may wake up, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, then wash your face. Or you may wake up, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, then spend fifteen minutes doing your ten step skincare routine. Everyone does what they think is right for their skin. But are they really doing what’s best?

We’re approaching four years since the beginning of Covid-19, the global pandemic of 2020. For those of you who either don’t remember or blocked it out, it was the part of our lives where we collectively picked up hobbies and impulsively cut our hair. To the seniors reading this, we went through our first high school experiences virtually. We involuntarily traded walking the halls to rolling out of bed five minutes before class, and logging onto a Zoom call where your camera stayed off the entire time. It was a time when TikTok thrived, the news never got turned off, and we heard the phrase “unprecedented times” enough to make us roll with every punch. We’ve survived this long, but what are the impacts since then?

Around Jenks High School, there are vending machines with snacks and drinks, but on some of the vending machines, there are signs stuck above where the price is shown. These signs say “Calories Count, Check Then Choose.” These small, inconspicuous signs are commonly overlooked but take on a bigger significance when you’re considering their effect on students struggling with eating disorders.

Ballet dancers appear so effortless as they pirouette across the stage with their graceful yet sharp movements, but the reality is so far from that. Despite the way they appear to be dancing with ease as you sit and watch from the audience, those dancers are using just about every single muscle in their bodies to keep their legs straight, their toes pointed, making sure that every movement is controlled, sharp, pretty, and graceful. Dancing on your toes while they’re trapped in a little wooden box decorated in pretty pink fabric makes it even harder to get all of those intricate moves perfect.

Advisory, a designated time in high school for college guidance and academic help, often leaves students, especially those here at Jenks High School, with a variety of challenges and experiences. While the intention behind advisory is definitely pure, there is a lot of room for improvement that could transform the period into a more useful and beneficial use of our time at school.

Education looks different to everyone; even school itself looks different to everyone. Your experiences are based on what you choose to do, who do it with, and where. While the first day of school to many may look like walking into a stuffy beige building with hallways compressing hundreds or even thousands of students every passing period, or cramming into an obnoxiously loud cafeteria, to others it may look like waking up, getting ready, helping your parents with chores, and sitting at the kitchen table with your mom and siblings while the smell of breakfast and freshly printed papers wafts through the air.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Tweenager: “a young person between the ages of approximately eight and twelve.” A collective jumble of years, that for most were filled with awkward conversations, the end of elementary school, and balancing on a constant tightrope of still receiving a kids menu while switching from Disney Channel to the CW.

In every single sector of education, economics matters. They matter in the resources, opportunities, and classes that are offered at any school. Schools with a bigger budget are able to afford their students with more experiences that leave their classes better off. Going to a college prep-school can set you up with more college connections, standardized test preparation, and more one on one time with teachers. This is why it comes as no shock that when Think Impact did a report on scholarship statistics they found that 10% of private school students are awarded scholarships, while only 3% of public school students win scholarships. Scholarships can be earned through various different achievements, 25% of scholarships require testing scores, and each year the number is decreasing. This is good. Standardized testing requirements are an arbitrary way to measure student success because the preparation some receive is unfair to the majority of students left in the dark.

If you’re anything like me, you probably spent a considerable portion of your childhood fervently begging for one of those esteemed Justice notebooks. Nothing matched to the allure of the pink, fuzzy ones covered with squishy, glittery initials on the front. Mine was proudly embellished with the letter “E” and, like most of my treasures, spent most of its life beneath the veil of my twin bed. Its existence was marked by a handful of entries, random doodles, and fleeting thoughts before fate led it to a dusty box in the confines of the attic.

Every reader at one point in time has read something with romance in it. If it’s only been a small sub-plot or the main genre of the book. Romance is in everything; what you watch, what you read, and what you see around you. Romance in people's personal lives is there or not there at all.

For as long as I can remember, hunting has had a significant impact on my life, whether I’ve liked it or not. Growing up, my meals were filled with venison and my snacks were composed of deer summer sausage. My house was decorated with antlers, in fact, the first thing you see when you enter my house is a skeletal deer head, and if you dare to walk a little deeper you would find a giant stuffed buck nailed to our living room wall. Growing up my two older sisters were given Hunter Annie’s instead of Barbie dolls, and any visit to Bass Pro Shop was a family outing.