The Mariner Compass

By Jacob Mayforth

The short answer is no.

The long answer is no, but here’s why. The sweetener used in diet soda is a chemical called Aspartame, which was accidentally discovered in 1965 when a chemist by the name of John Schlatter was researching an anti-ulcer drug. Now it is the most popular artificial sweetener on the market today, but the use and distribution of Aspartame is surrounded in controversy. Different sources from all across the internet, from people who claim to be doctors to “dietary councilors” make wild claims about the health risks and or benefits of the artificial sweetener in diet soda.

Both the FCC and the CDC agree that aspartame is an acceptable chemical to sell to the general public, but so far there are no “confirmed” health risks. According to researchers, the unconfirmed heath risks can include headaches, dizziness, mood changes, skin reactions, nausea, seizures, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision complications, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain.

It is important to keep in mind that this long list of possible side effects has not been confirmed by recognized reliable sources such as the Center for the Disease Control, and is simply a list that has been compiled of hearsay evidence. However, while it does not come from a reliable source, it does come from multiple sources. 87% of sites on the internet agree that Aspartame is a dangerous and harmful chemical.

In the end it is probably more harmful to drink diet instead of regular, but if health is really in question then the best thing to do would be to not drink either. Soda is full of empty sugars and calories that your body has a hard time processing if consumed over an extended period. One would be better off drinking fruit juice or just plain water, but every now and again, a regular sugar filled soda would be the best choice for a bubbly treat.

In June 1988 Ken Castner, a local fisherman and prominent community member, saw the dead Sperm Whale on the beach of East Chugiak Island. Over the entire month of July, various community members made multiple trips to butcher the whale and recover the bones. For two years they lay in a local yard, before they were cleaned and taken to the museum, where they rested for four years. In the fall of 1994, the bones were transported to Homer High School, where the completed skeleton currently hangs from the ceiling in the Commons. There is much more detail to this amazing story, but even more amazing, is that no one has heard this story before.

The entire story, complete with photographs, hangs in the most used hallway in the school, but out of 50 students asked, not one had ever read the story behind our whale. It is impossible to miss the skeleton; the massive structure is visible after anyone’s first steps in the school, and with hundreds of students walking under it each day, it is incredible that no students have ever been curious enough to read the history of the whale.

When asked why he never read the story, Dylan Faulkner said, “Well it just never seemed important enough. Our passing times are getting shorter and shorter, and I always have more important things to worry about. It’s the teacher’s fault that none of us read it!”

It is also possible that the posters are in the wrong location. Not very many people stop in the middle of the hallway for a history lesson, and Dr. Gee believes that this may be the case. He plans to move the posters to the hallway outside the theater, so that people waiting in line can read them, and that student artwork can be hung in their place. This helps more people to read the whale story, and also allows students to connect with a more modern and relatable presentation; a win-win for everybody.

-Kikilia Kojin

“Eww. I don‘t like it. I don’t think any of it it‘s healthy. It‘s greasy, saturated in fats,” expressed Debra Altman, a sophomore. It is commonly believed that the school cafeteria food is unhealthy and distasteful.

“It’s not that bad. Some are healthy options,” admits Heidi Ebeling, a senior.

What they might not realize is the amount of effort put into making it healthy by Cindy Smith, the cafeteria manager. Twenty years before, canned meat and other unhealthy options were served, but now there is a variety of better, healthier choices. “I go to great lengths. I put a lot of effort into making it better,” shares Smith.

Cindy Smith has been a dedicated worker for twenty years in the cafeteria and she serves about 140 kids at Homer High School every day.

The cafeteria offers healthy options like salads, parfaits, whole wheat hamburger buns, low-fat chicken, fresh fruits and vegetables, and orange juice. The food is USDA approved commodities. Smith also visits a food show once a year, where venders and Foster Farm members come. There they figure out a nutrition analysis system to produce a meal that’s acceptable, since too much fat, sugar, and salt isn’t allowed.

“The food is healthy. There’s no deep fryer. No trans fat. The fries are oven baked. It’s a good meal for our budget,” explains Smith.

Students and teachers have mixed feelings about the cafeteria food, but it’s a healthy, tasty, and affordable choice for kids who are hungry.

 By Akane Fujimura

   Why does the pool damage students’ hair when swim every day? This question arose among swimmers on the HHS swim team. Some of them thought that the chemicals in the pool, chlorine, affected their hair after spending hours in the pool every day, while others felt they could prevent the negative effects.

  “Definitely my hair got damaged when I started to swim,” Tian-Eu-Liu, sophomore swimmer team, said. “Before I joined the swim team, there were no problems with my hair, but when I started to swim every day my hair started to fall out, it comes out by the handful when I wash it. It freaks me out.”

  Anna Borland-Ivy and Rebecca Hardy, coaches of the swim team, think wearing caps are important for swimmers to avoid hair damage. “Caps help prevent damage. Not wearing a cap makes dry, bushy hair. Blond hair can turn green and dark hair gets reddish, like rust.”

Many of the swimmers wear caps while they're swimming.

  There are other strategies people can use to protect against hair damage. “It is important to wash hair right after swimming. There are also special shampoos and conditioners that take chlorine out of hair,” said Coach Rebecca.

  Regardless of how swimmers approach the pool, their chlorine nemesis persists.

   By: Tabitha Drover
    Last year hallways were assigned to each grade. Freshmen had wing A-100, Sophomores had wing B-100, the juniors had upper wing B-200, and seniors had B-200. But this year has brought about new changes for the freshmen,sophomores, and juniors. Freshman now have the old junior hallway, sophomores have A-100, and juniors have B-100. But is everyone happy?
    Logan Edwards, a junior, said “I think it’s making kids mad. They want to move upstairs. It’s a rite of passage. It’s kind of a tradition. Kids as they grow older want to move up higher because of the upperclassmen.”

Some kids such as Maggie Graham, another Homer High School student, said “I don’t think it’s really affecting us that much as much.”

So what was the real reason for this move? Most of the students were unaware of the answer but Dr.Gee, Principal, said “Fortunately we were able to add more lockers to the two lower hallways. I met with the borough  maintenance directer and we were supposed to add new lockers upstairs for the other two hallways. He’s going to see if there’s enough funding to get that completed but he’s not certain. Last May when they were doing their locker clean up I stopped everyone in the hallway and asked them, I said you have two choices ,you can either stay here in the larger locker and enjoy this hallway, or as juniors you can go upstairs. Overwhelmingly they wanted to stay where they are at. Several said no we want to go upstairs but we want new lockers. But that’s not an option at this point. Hopefully, I can get those done next summer. It’s my goal to get those completed.”

So hopefully from now on kids will learn to adjust to this new style without much problems.

“We got Spirit, Yes we do! We got spirit how ‘bout you!” Cheerleaders are the ones that get a crowd pumped, and help make football and basketball games stay upbeat and fun. At Homer High School, cheerleaders may seem like a permanent fixture at football and basketball games when times are tense and during half-time shows. But will they continue to be a part of Homer High history, or will they fade out of the picture?

Homer High cheerleaders do a lot more than you may think. First of all cheerleaders put in hours of practice, so they can learn cheers that will help lift up a crowd. But what you may not know is how much goes on behind-the-scenes so that this program can keep running smoothly.

“The high school provides the cheerleaders around $600 for both the football and basketball seasons, causing the cheerleaders to do more than necessary to get money to cheer. The cheerleaders themselves have to do many fundraisers like; bakes sales, scentsy orders, stoplight dances, but they also have to pay alot of the costs on their own. Ex. Cheerleading uniforms themselves cost $150 and you don’t get to keep them,” Fallin Leigh, senior cheeerleader. Why do cheerleaders have less funding than other sports like football?

Rama Flymn, currently coaching the cheerleaders this football season, will not be able to coach them through the basketball season. Rama will be coaching next year’s cheerleading football season, because she wants all the current cheerleaders to have a coach. She also wants to give them the opportunity to get better, because each one of them have the potential to be excellent cheerleaders.

With football season coming to an end and basketball season right around the corner, the cheerleaders continue to work hard to raise money so that they can go to state with the football team. In order for this to happen they put on a dance this past weekend, raising enough money to get them to state along with the money they earned from a bake sale.

So now the question is, Will the cheerleaders continue on to be a part of Homer High’s history and future, or will they fade out of the picture due to funding issues?

Cheerleading!

By: Kenley Kingrey

By Dylan Zharoff

The wood shop teacher, Cam Wyatt, designed a project to create wooden salmon by putting together scrap wood too big to just throw away but also too small to create decent projects. The students pieced together their wood of choice on a fish template, where they then got rid of the rough edges and added a marble eye. The differences with the wood placement, smoothness, and staining changed each project into unique pieces only similar because of the similar fish templates each person worked off of. The twenty-five finished pieces were originally hung outside the classroom in a net that was used two years ago as a prop, were individually held and are currently on the net again. Two more projects, the wood Name Plate and Birdhouse, are also intended to be hung for passersby’s in the near future.

by Matthew Meyer

When most people think of culinary arts class they think of people learning how to cook a soufflé or making some kind of exquisite dinner, and then they are able to feast on it.

That is not the case with Homer High’s culinary class. On Mondays and Tuesdays students read books and do paper work on how not to spread germs.

In response to this Mrs. Casseri, the teacher of the class, stated, ”It’s important for students to learn how to do this, because it is the first thing you learn if you decide to go into this profession. Besides we can’t cook on those days because we wouldn’t have enough time.”

Students are also dissatisfied with the type of food Mrs. Casseri is having them cook: eggs.

Yes, eggs seem to be the only thing that students are learning to cook, and it’s causing dissatisfaction.

When Megan Garoutte, a student in the class, was asked about the subject she stated, “I would rather learn how to make actual meals, or at least something that isn’t just an egg.”

When Ben Lowe, a senior who has taken this class before, was asked if he found that only cooking eggs was interesting he replied, “ It was ok for a starting course, but it started to become boring, except for the time we had to Eggs-periment with different ways of cooking eggs, and our egg sort of egg-sploded.”

Bad egg puns aside, Mrs. Casseri hopes to start using cake recipes.

By Isabelle De Armoun

Homer High Students may have noticing the big white busses in front of the school last week and this Thursday. They are anything but big yellow broken down school busses, they are charter busses. They are complete with TVs that hang down from the ceiling and footrests under the reclining seats with a light and fan above. Accommodated with a  toilet.

”They’re a lot more comfortable to be on for hours at a time. The TV makes the time pass a lot faster,” said Fallen Caruthers and Juli Hargrove.

Dr . Gee said that he would like to make it so every extra curricular activities could use these busses when traveling out of the district.

The severe expense of fixing the school busses is causing this change. last year Dr.Gee mentioned the cost of fixing a transmission was around$ 5,000.The company that owns the charter busses is a tour buss company that offers tours of Alaska in the summer to tourists. The company has no use for the busses in the winter, except for managing Fairbanks school districts busses. The company provides an all inclusive package of keeping up maintenance, a buss driver and insurance that pays for all the damages. Dr Gee hopes to see this happen very soon and by the looks of it so do the students and coaches that traveled to Huston game last weekend.

By Mallory Drover

“The Senior Service Project is a requirement for graduation. Seniors need thirty hours of volunteer work, and not for profit, in the southern peninsula area,” explained Mr. Gutzler, on his second year of coordinating the project.

Each year, senior students at Homer High School are given a list of requirements and forms by adults, and thus begin the first semester of their last year as high school students. The Senior Service Project is one of the requirements among these, and has been a graduation requirement for at “least ten years” according to Mr. Gutzler.

“I’d say the biggest benefit is self knowledge,” Mr. Gutzler continued. “I think students learn a lot about themselves, because I think students, by the time they’re seniors, get pretty good at high school. They have to step outside the four walls of school [for the project].”

The project is also a benefit to the Homer community, and a benefit to exceptional students in ways outside of graduation eligibility. In 2011, the Senior Project provided nearly 3000 hours of service to local non-profit groups. 2010 Graduate Cody Gaines received a $500 scholarship as a result of working with an individual who was blind, and 2011 Graduate Elizabeth Needham earned a $1000 scholarship for her essay describing her volunteer hours at Paul Banks.

“I helped out at the Lutheran church with Vacation Bible School,” senior Casey Parrett informed me. “If you get forced to do a project you really don’t want to do, it would be obviously miserable and you probably couldn’t get very much out of it. But I really enjoyed my senior service project, and I know other people can do projects that they enjoy as well, like going to the pound, etcetera.”

"I really enjoyed my senior service project." -Casey Parrett

Although benefits of the project abound, there are negative opinions of the project as well. When Grace Steiner was asked how she felt about the Senior Service Project, “a hindrance,” was her emphatic response without hesitation.

“The problem is that students do projects that they think are gonna count, and they don’t get them approved ahead of time, and so they don’t get credit for the hours. One student built houses in Mexico, which was a great project, but the whole idea of the senior project is to do it locally.” Mr. Gutzler clarified. “The due date for project approval is November 30th. The deadlines are somewhat flexible, but when we get up to graduation I would just have to tell the principal that the student can’t graduate.”