November 4, 2005

HIGH SCHOOL SCENE

EVHS Homecoming: Tour the World

By Anila Khan
Times Intern

Travel to four remarkable cities, all around the world, in just one hour. Seem impossible? Think again.

Evergreen Valley High School’s homecoming theme “Cities” had every class choose a city and put together a 7-minute skit, including a related storyline and a variety of dances and songs to perform at the rally before lunch.

Thu Le and Belinda Fong perform a dance from the freshmen skit. The freshmen played a variety of songs including “Wake Up” by Hilary Duff and a remake of the “Rugrats” theme song. Photo by Anila Khan.

The judges, including Jo Ann Savage, Frank Slaton and Susie Martin, tallied up points for each class based on their dances, costumes, decor and spirit.

Preparations
Students worked day and night several weeks before the Oct. 21 event to make it as flawless as possible. Class officers held meetings for choreographers, dancers, actors and decorators. Freshman Julian Gonzalez stated, “It took a lot of work and hours of practice—too many hours even—but we had a lot of good times and it was all definitely worth it.”

Freshmen travel to Tokyo
The Class of 2009 took fourth place with their story of a Japanese girl from Osaka, a small town near Tokyo, named Kimiko. Played by Helen Hong, Kimiko dreamed of having a more exciting, thrilling and overall fun life.

She wished to go to Tokyo and found herself with a mysterious boy named Bob, played by Julian Gonzalez. He granted her wish and showed her many of Tokyo’s well-known attractions, including the harajuku girls, towers and town people.

Sophomores Lance Spunet and Melanie Nguyen swiftly slide to the motions of a dance choreographed by their peers Katie Nguyen and Ray Licardo. The choreographers worked to make the dancers as flawless as possible for the performance. Photos by Anila Khan

In the end, Godzilla attacked, and the town broke out into chaos. Kimiko wished to go back home and woke up in her classroom to realize that she was only daydreaming.

2008 takes third
Yasmin Campbell starred as Isabella and Terrence Cruz as her father, Paolo in the sophomores’ action-packed skit set in Venice, Italy. Niko DelaRosa as Dante kidnapped Isabella and demanded a ransom from Paolo, diamonds for the daughter’s life.

Over time, Dante fell for Isabella and Paolo deemed his diamonds more valuable than his daughter, therefore disowning her.

Junior Jessica Gonzales mentioned, “They (sophomores) did really good, even though the audio died on them—they pulled through the technical errors. They were also really synchronized.”

Emily Nguyen, as Paris Hilton, is surrounded by her fans wearing her slogan, “That’s hot.” Being set in Hollywood, the juniors had numerous celebrities in their skit. Photo by Anila Khan.

Seniors dance to “Are You Going to be My Girl?” by Jet.

Juniors film in Hollywood
The class of 2007 won second place. Situated in glamorous Hollywood, the skit followed the story of Cloe and Kyle, played respectively by Lindsay Marsh and Andrew Do on their journey to make it big in Hollywood.

Cloe and Kyle appeared on “The Apprentice” hosted by Jasper Abellera as Donald Trump in an attempt to get into Hollywood with the guidance of well-known stars such as Paris Hilton and P. Diddy.

Kyle received Trump’s popular “You’re fired!” line while Cloe made it to Hollywood. In the end, however, the audience learned that the entire cast was just filming a show in Hollywood.

’06 steals the spotlight
On a flight to the fabulous Las Vegas, three young men met a showgirl by the name of Lola, played by Yareni Carasco.

As Lola exited the plane, Vincent Ta as Brad Pitt, was left dazzled by her appearance and wit. He and his two friends, Robert Di Nero and Toyota Mitsubishi, played respectively by Elrick Orfarel and Phi Do, went hotel hopping all across Vegas to find Lola.

They ventured through various hotels, including the Aladdin, Caesar’s Palace and Circus Circus, while meeting people such as Siegfried & Roy, Elvis Presley and The Genie of the Lamp, but Lola is nowhere to be found.

Finally, Brad found Lola and the two were “hitched,” Vegas style.

The award-winning EVHS marching band performs at halftime.

More on Homecoming
Homecoming weekend consisted of more than just a rally—EVHS defeated Gunderson High with a score of 42-6 at the homecoming football game later that night. The bleachers roared with Cougar spirit, and sections of the stands had spectators sitting on top of one another in the packed stadium.

At halftime, the award-winning EVHS marching band performed and nominations for homecoming court were announced. The following night featured the traditional semi-formal homecoming dance. Sophomore Talia Gragert said, “It was a lot more crowded than any of the dances I have been to.”

With all the votes tallied, the homecoming court revealed at the dance included Justin DeLeon and Charis Federe as Lord and Lady, Nelson Gines and Sarah Park as Duke and Duchess, and Ryan Cordero and Jennifer Phu-Le as prince and princess. Elrick Orfarel and Kat Suarez were crowned king and queen.

Silver Creek wins CBEE Gold Standard Award for Academic Achievement

Silver Creek High School was selected as one of the 10 winners of the Inaugural California Business for Education Excellence Gold Standard Award for Academic Achievement for 2005.

Through a highly competitive process, Silver Creek joined a select group of 10 California high schools rewarded solely upon academic achievement data. This included getting large numbers and/or percentages of students ready for college, performance comparisons with other ethnically similar schools, success over time in reducing achievement gaps and certain student demographics that make the school uniquely successful.

As a reward, CBEE, through the generous support of its corporate partners, will provide Silver Creek with two $5,000 scholarships, for two years at $2,500 per year, for students who show financial need and elect to pursue studies in math and science. 

For more information about CBEE, go to www.cbee.org.

SCVCO makes $1,000 matching donation to Silver Creek’s PTSA

During halftime at Silver Creek High School’s 2005 Homecoming game on Oct. 21, the Silver Creek Valley Community Organization presented a check for $1,000 to Silver Creek’s Parent Teacher Student Association.

Pictured from left: SCVCO President Lou Kvitek presents PTSA Treasurer Monique Corsini, PTSA VP and ASB President Justin Ta, SCHS Leadership Commissioner Fredric Pecson and PTSA President Kathy Nelson with a $1,000 check.

The SCHS PTSA has been running an ongoing membership and donation drive with all of its usual stakeholders—parents, teachers, and students—as well as with future parents of SCHS.

SCVCO generously offered to match the first $1,000 of donations made to PTSA by current parents and students. During the check presentation, Lou Kvitek, SCVCO President, reiterated SCVCO’s support for Silver Creek High School, PTSA, its teachers, staff and students.

The SCHS PTSA hopes to raise money this year to help fund several programs and events that are at risk due to lack of budgeted dollars. Some of these programs include:

- Updating of the outdated books (nonfiction, fiction, and reference) in the library

- Upgrading computers in the library and in the classrooms

- Establishing the SCHS Raiders Literary Quill Maga-zine

- Printing the new Raiders’ campus newspaper

- Creating/expanding the music and band programs

- Modernizing the labora-tory equipment in the award- winning science labs

- Funding the upkeep of electronic communications at Silver Creek – the school Web site (SCWeb) and the student-
teacher-parent communication and homework tool (School Loop).

“The SCHS PTSA would like to express its utmost gratitude to SCVCO for the generous donation and would also like to say thank you to all who support the Parent Teacher Student Association at SCHS,” said Ed Wong, PTSA parent member.

If you would like to support PTSA, come to the next meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the school library.
For more information, contact SCHS PTSA at SilverCreekPTSA@yahoogroups.com or at Silver Creek High School PTSA, 3434 Silver Creek Road, San Jose, Calif., 95121.

EVHS Walkathon for Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort raises $1,000

The community service clubs of Evergreen Valley High School—including Red Cross, Interact, National Honor Society, Outside My Window, Key Club and California Scholarship Federation—hosted a Walkathon on Oct. 29 that raised more than $1,000.

EVHS juniors Shirley Luo, Lillian Luu and Christine Huynh, pictured above, were among the students who donated $10 to walk laps around the track that Saturday morning to raise funds for Hurricane Katrina.