Communications Arts Newsletter Blog

If you run across a Twitter site that claims to be the “official” one for CommArts, don’t be fooled. It’s a fake, and is not supported or approved by the administrators of Communications Arts High School.

Although we do plan to start tweeting soon, the link will be available through the real CommArts newsletter and website.

The Hundred by Comm. Arts students Fidel Ruiz-Healy, Ben Baxley, Johnny Coppins, and Anthony Peterson  was chosen by a panel of local film experts to receive the “Director’s Cut” award in the annual “Fresh Cut” program on KLRN-TV. The show, which was broadcast on May 28, is a showcase of films made by high school students in the San Antonio area.

Their film will also be featured at the first ever Comm. Arts Film Festival, to be held on Friday, May 29, in the Lecture Hall from 6-8 pm.

It’s not every day an NFL star visits CommArts, but on Thursday, May 7, we received a visit from Priest Holmes when he came to award Senior Amanda Espinoza a scholarship for $1,000. She will be attending Texas A&M University this fall,  joining her brother Albert Espinoza, who also attended CAHS (Class of 2007). Amanda won this scholarship by maintaining a rigorous routine throughout high school: swimming practice each morning, then a full day of academics at Communications Arts, followed by more pool time in the evening, not to mention Amanda’s nightly dedication to her homework– which has earned her a slot in the “Top Ten” of her graduating class.

The Priest Holmes Foundation is an organization committed to encouraging education and enhancing the lives of children in his community.

Videos created by two groups of CommArts students won top prizes in the Teens in the Driver Seat PSA contest. “Another Saturday Night” (directed by Rolando Rodriguez Ruiz-Healy, featuring Ben Baxley, Johnny Coppins, Danielle Garcia, Anthony Peterson, Emily Tam and Anastasia Holl) won the First Place award of $1000 for our school. Second place winner ($500 prize) was “Reasons Not to Wear a Seatbelt,” an animated film created by Matt Hallstein, JM Berlet, Kelsey Peña and Crystal Clark.

You can find out more about the Teens in the Driver Seat campaign at their website, http://www.t-driver.com. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage and watch “TDS TV” to see the winners from our school.

by Caitlin Stives and Liseth Vazquez

An opportunity available to just a lucky few: getting assigned a mentor. This new project based in Mrs. Driggers’ Leadership class helps freshman learn the ropes of high school by being paired with an older student. “Overall [my mentor] is trying to get me through my first year of high school,” Mentee Michael Frazier says about his mentor/mentee experience.

First time mentee Fernanda Reyes and her mentor, Elizabeth Stewart, “got to know each other.” The first few meetings mentors and their mentees learn each other’s likes, dislikes, hobbies and favorites. As they get better acquainted, they talk about school in general, their goals, and how they plan to reach those goals.

For some, having a mentor means having someone who is willing to listen; to others it means getting guidance on how to survive freshman year. Whatever the case may be, every Wednesday during lunch, two people, with only a three-year age difference, get together and share good and bad experiences with hope of success all four years of high school.

The end of the school year is approaching and deadlines for many scholarships are upon us! Mrs. Crowson has the scholarship applications, but students need to come by her office, pick up those applications and complete them.

Spring is here and that means it’s the best time for juniors to sign up to take the SAT. It may seem that your senior year and college applications are still far away, but taking the test now will ensure that your scores will be available in time to decide if you need to retake the test. (If you wait until fall to take the SAT, then you might not have enough time to retake the test if you need to!)

Juniors and Seniors should also visit the Go Center website not only for scholarship information, but to check out summer programs that may be of interest to you.

Important Dates to keep in mind:

SAT: May 2 test—deadline to sign up is March 31

SAT: June 16 test—deadline to sign up is May 5

Sophomore Erica Hylemon recently won third place in the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum Essay Contest, sponsored by Allegiance Credit Union.

The prompt for this essay contest was to write about a time you made an important decision. Erika wrote about when she was in middle school (living in Germany) and she turned down a cigarette that someone offered her. She found out about the contest through fastweb.com, a website where you create an account, then input your likes and dislikes. It finds essay contests that are specifically suited to your talents and characteristics.

Erika discovered that she won when the Dean of the Museum called her mom to tell her a diploma was being mailed to her English teacher, Mr. Scott.

By Brittany Leitner

“When trouble troubles you, the only thing to do is dance!” sang the cast of The Boyfriend, and dance we did! This year, the theatre department put on The Boyfriend, a musical spoof of the 1920s composed and written by Sandy Wilson. The Boyfriend is about girls at Madame Dubonnet’s finishing school for “perfect young ladies” who just have “got to have…that perfect thing called the boyfriend!”

We put together the show in about a month. Being newcomers to the theatre program this year, Molly James (who played Polly Browne) and I (Maisie) weren’t sure how the musical would come together in such a short amount of time, but Communications Arts theater veterans Cole Little, Mandy Belscamper, Collin Miller, Sarah Garza, Alma Harline, and Chris Rothbauer made us feel at home on the stage. About 15 members of the cast and crew were Comm Arts students. It was fun to be able to participate in an extracurricular activity at Taft and still have your “commie” friends around you.

Because the theatre department only puts on a musical once a year, we invite talent from all the fine arts departments to participate in the show. Choir student Taylor Vollmer, who played Madame Dubbonet, adapted to the stage after years of choral training, Carlos Landa played percussion in the pit orchestra, and the Highstepper dance team came in for a “synchronized swimming” number in “Sur La Plage.”

In the end, the show was a success and all of the “perfect young ladies” got their boyfriends! Audiences and cast members alike swooned for The Boyfriend!