Between volleyball matches in San Marcos, football games in Midland and more, Coppell High School’s many sports teams really do seem to cover a lot of Texas ground every year. But as much as the Cowboys and Cowgirls traverse the state, very rarely do Coppell’s student athletes ever have the opportunity to compete outside Texas borders.

On Dec. 11, Coppell Wrestling had a chance to do just that. The varsity boys travelled to Rogers, Arkansas this weekend to take on 18 other wrestling teams from Texas, Arkansas and Missouri in the annual NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) duels. The Cowboys competed on Saturday and Sunday and finished in 3rd place, proving that Coppell has what it takes to compete with top talent in other regions of the country.

The dominant CHS senior, Sam Rice, led the Cowboys to victory by conquering every single opponent he faced, remaining one of the few wrestlers still undefeated this season.

The varsity girls also found success last weekend, albeit here in the Metroplex. Team captains Avery Souders and Sam Tudor took 2nd and 4th places, respectively, at the Texas Ladies Classic in Frisco.

Over the first weekend of the break, Dec. 16-17, Coppell Wrestling will look to continue its success this season while hosting the Santa Slam Invitational, a unique Christmas-themed tournament.

A dedicated group of students uses welding tools, wires and wheels work in a place where the sky is the limit. The Coppell Solar Car team is unlike any high school organization and is planning success in their future by driving full speed ahead.

Under the guidance of Mike Yakubovsky, the 43-member Solar Car team is one of the best in the nation. This group of high school students aspires to compete with the top engineering colleges and corporations in the world, and their hard work and dedication is putting them on track to do so. The solar car team has a past of success and high-performance. Each year, the team enters the Solar Car challenge, a race previously held at Texas Motor Speedway.

This year, however, the Solar Car challenge has a bigger test in store. Instead of racing in an enclosed track, the race will be cross-country from Dallas to Pasadena, Calif. This style of race is unlike anything the Solar Car team has done before. The total mileage of this journey will be anywhere from 800 to 1,000 miles, and the team has some serious gearing up to do in order to prepare.

“If this race pulls through, [the Solar Car team] is going to face some serious challenges; for starters, we will be racing on the open the open road,” junior business manager Spencer Coberly said. “We would have to engineer a new car and make sure we meet the regulations for a higher level of competition.”

Seeing an enrollment increase of 30 people, the formerly 10-member has developed greatly from their small numbers last year. Even though the team has won numerous awards and placed sixth in last year’s high school race at Texas Motor Speedway, the team plans to grow bigger and get better than ever before.

“With more people on the teams comes good things and challenges, we can definitely get more done, but sometimes having newer members can lead to problems,” senior captain Kaelan Cowan said.

Cowan, a third year member on the solar car team, has watched the project grow and is eager for it to take off.

The Engineering team has been working extremely hard on this solar car each week in hopes of winning contests they have entered. Photo by Ivy Hess.

“I don’t consider myself an expert, but I want to help the members grow and improve their skills so that we can perform to the best of our ability,” Cowan said.

Much of the enrollment increase can be accredited to the Coppell Academy program. One of the branches of the Academy, known as STEM, caters specifically to the learning styles and preferences of engineering students. By integrating engineering information and skills into the core classes and electives that STEM students take, the academies are providing an unparalleled educational experience for new freshmen.

By starting the engineering curriculum early, Yakubovsky hopes to gear up for the World Solar competition, to be held in Australia.

“This kind of race is the opportunity of a lifetime, the students would be competing with some of the universities and corporations in the world,” Yakuvbovsky said. “The only way we could consider something like this would be with a highly-experienced team and that’s exactly what we hope the academies will create.”

World Solar is only once each year, and the race consists of driving from the North tip of the continent to the South tip, a distance totaling 3,000 kilometers. From Darwin to Adelaide, the cars must be completely self-sufficient and are only allowed a certain number of running hours per day.

With such challenging plans on the road ahead, the Solar Car team must make sure they are mechanically ready for these upcoming races. One of the first steps is to make sure they have a vehicle that is up to par.

“The car we have right now gets the job done, but we are looking to repair and make improvements at such great levels that it is actually less expensive and demanding to make a new car, altogether,” Yakubovsky said. “Not only is making an entirely new vehicle a large project, raising the money will be just as difficult.”

Because different Solar Car competitions require different vehicle specifications, the new solar car will be built using different solar cell types and other examples of recent technology. Cars of these specifications usually total about $100,000 in tools and equipment.

While it may seem like the first step in the Solar Car team’s journey is building a new car, the real first step is to raise the money to create a new car, which is far from a simple task.

That is where Coberly comes in. A junior and second year member on the Solar Car team, Coberly manages the business branch of the team, which plays an important role in the team’s inner workings.

“One of the first things the business branch does is contact corporate sponsors. Without them, the thought of us raising hundreds of thousands isn’t even realistic,” Coberly said. “We go to their offices and prepare presentations and newsletters and tell them the reasons why they should support us. We are learning real life skills outside of the classroom, and you can’t do that with every activity.”

Sponsors have played a vital role in the Solar Car’s success, with big names like Nissan offering money to the team. Not only does the financial assistance have lasting importance, the publicity and awareness helps get the news out to the public.

“One of the newsletters we sent to a partner at Nissan sent the letter out to all the company’s employees,” Coberly said. “Thousands of more people were able to find out about us, and that is helping us get on our way”.

Coberly encourages new members to keep working hard, as he himself started with little prior knowledge.

“When I joined the team, I didn’t really know much about mechanical engineering, but I was constantly trying to figure out how things around the house worked,” Coberly said. “Now, I am much more confident in my engineering skills and I have a competitive edge compared to other kids who want to be engineers and haven’t had these opportunities.”

With the knowledge, support and tools to guide them, this year’s solar car team is eager to change the world of high school engineering, one solar panel at a time.

With a deadline approaching, sophomore Sydney Williams knows she must get her interviews done and her story posted online. Williams is not a member of The Sidekick or KCBY but a student in EMAC’s Advanced Reporting elective course.

The Advanced Reporting class provides EMAC sophomores with hands-on experience as they serve as true reporters of Academy news.

Sydney Williams, EMAC sophomore, interviews PSA sophomore Vivit Chetry for a halloween story to be posted on the Weebly website. Photo by Regan Sullivan.

“There’s always something to write about,” Williams said. “After I have an idea of what to write I do my interviews and I make a draft. Then the other writers and [teacher Chase Wofford] edit the story and once the story has been edited it gets posted on the website.”

Students in the EMAC academy are able to choose electives every semester. This year reporting teacher Chase Wofford took his class in a different direction and created the website where the writers can publish their work.

“The website was my idea,” Wofford said. “It isn’t as much about the site as it is about developing the writers. I want them to be actual reporters, working on the job.

 The content on the website is news that happens in the Academy, but the writers are able to be creative with their stories.

While PSA, EMAC and STEM have all combined into one academy on the website, each academy still has its own individual events, such as PSA’s Hometown Hero project and STEM’s MATE team. Throughout the year each academy hosts events to promote the academy. The website is a good way of letting people know when these events are.

“We put on the website the big projects for each [individual] academy,” sophomore Shannon Wilkinson said. “It’s a good way of reaching out to people and letting them know what events are coming up.”

This website is similar to the Coppell Student Media website. Both are student-managed publications and report on Coppell related news. However, the Academy website is specialized towards news happening in the Academy and does not include the radio network that the CSM website does. The CSM website also has different categories for different types of stories, such as sports, features, reviews, opinions as well as blogs that are updated every day. The Academy website has one tab where all news is published and a separate tab for pictures.

The website went through various stages of development before it was published.

“I went on [English teacher Clara] Caussey’s website, and she had a list of free website creators,” sophomore Sydney Williams said. “I saw Weebly as one of the options. It was something new I had never tried before, so I decided to work with it.”

The writers of the website have put in a lot of time and effort to fill the site up with stories.

“It takes about three days to write a story,” Williams said. “I first brainstorm and I write everything down on a piece of paper. If I don’t have any ideas, I’ll just ask around.”

The writers for the site are also photographers, and are responsible for the slideshows on the website as well.

“Each story has to have a picture, so we’re responsible for taking the picture,” sophomore Regan Sullivan said. “We also just take pictures throughout the day and post them on the website.”

The new website not only serves as a good place to learn about the Academy and what its students are doing, but it is also a good outlet for the writers.

“I really like writing for the website,” Williams said. “It’s requires creativity to come up with good stories and thinking in a bigger way.”

Through working on the website together, the writers have also gotten to know each other better.

“It’s fun to work on,” Wilkinson said. “You meet a lot of new people through writing the stories.”

The EMAC website can be found at www.coppellacademynews.weebly.com.

Graphic by Scott Bennett

Still, as one closely examines the circumstances surrounding the raid, the clear simplicity of the issue — American triumph over an enemy — grows complex and murky and gives pause to any unbridled enthusiasm of a victory.

One of the most contentious issues surrounding the raid is the reason why Osama bin Laden, the most wanted man in the world, was able to evade capture for so long while living in a conspicuously secure and fortified, military compound in a rural region of Pakistan, dominated and controlled by an authoritarian Pakistani police force.

No matter how Obama looks to the American public, he has put himself in a sticky situation with Pakistan, which connects Iran and Afghanistan and has always been a lukewarm ally of the U.S., due mainly to America’s support of India and rigorous pursuit of global terrorism.
It seems very likely that the clandestine Inter Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s shadowy secret police force, had something to do with bin Laden’s continual evasion of the CIA and Special Forces, especially as Pakistan’s main military academy was situated a mere 1000 yards away from the world’s most wanted fugitive; a fugitive that Pakistan had, at least according to its government official line, every reason to catch. Now, bin Laden’s death could very well be a tipping point, replacing a tepid ally we have nursed along for decades into an enemy that could very likely last longer.

Even now, hundreds of Pakistani citizens are already mourning the death of bin Laden, turning him into a martyr for their cause, just as many commentators and pundits feared. Additionally, the president will have to maneuver his way through the essential feeling of empathy a large amount of Pakistanis feel for bin Laden and those like him.

As of now, the Pakistani military, which was not officially informed of the raid, has expressed its displeasure at the raid via a strongly worded announcement in which it warned the Pentagon that any other surreptitious excursion on their territory would be met with disastrous consequences.

As of now, the U.S. gives Pakistan over $10 billion dollars in aid every year and that bond, though occasionally aggravated and strained, seems solid enough to weather this latest round of scratching.

The raid was a great success, by any measure, and if Obama can skillfully wield the embarrassment of having the world’s most infamous terrorist found living in relative luxury a few hundred yards from one of the nation’s premier military establishments, it seems likely, though not certain, that the issue will likely be overshadowed by the collective blush spreading among Pakistan’s elite. If the President handles this well, his second term seems to be within his grasp.

Every weekend, hundreds of people flock to the Galveston area to enjoy the surf and sun and last weekend, the Coppell High School Tennis Team joined them. But the Cowboys were not there for a vacation- they competed in the Kemah Boardwalk Invitational on Friday, March 25 and Saturday, March 26.

The Kemah Boardwalk Invitational is a tournament which features some of the best 4A and 5A tennis schools in the state, in preparation for district play in the coming weeks.

The fourth edition of the tournament was hosted by League City’s Clear Creek High School, a Galveston area school. On both days of competition, matches began at 8 a.m. and held boys and girls singles, boys and girls doubles, as well as mixed doubles events, with each athlete being guaranteed at least 5 matches.

32 teams competed in the event and 19 of them came away with a medal, and Coppell was one of them. Sophomore Abby White was awarded 2nd place in Champion Division girls singles, losing to Stratford’s Monica Pieratt in the finals after a great run.

In addition to rigorous competition, the Coppell athletes enjoyed spending a night at the landmark Kemah Boardwalk, hence the name of the tournament. All in all, it was an enjoyable and productive tournament for Abby White and the rest of the Tennis Team as they make their final adjustments before district tournaments begin.

Staff Writer

The Coppell Cowboys soccer team looked promising in the pre-district tournaments last month, and thus far, their success has carried over into the District games. With 6 District games under their belt, the Cowboys boast a 4-2 record. Their wins were displays of dominance while their only losses were very close and could’ve gone either way.

The Cowboys began District win three consecutive shutout wins, with a cumulative score of 9-0 against Saginaw, Guyer, and Fossil Ridge. On February 11, the Cowboys fell 2-1 to undefeated Southlake Carrol in a nail-biter. Instead of letting this tough loss get them down, the team showed their drive and quickly responded, laying a whopping 10-0 defeat on Northwest in their next game. This was by far their largest margin of victory of the season and was an impressive road win for the Cowboys.

In their most recent game, last Friday, Coppell was edged out by Keller in a unbearably close 1-0 defeat. Keller is defending District Champions, and are known for their soccer prowess. Beating Keller in Keller would’ve been a huge accomplishment. The Cowboys came up short, but still have a respectable 4-2 record thus far, which places them in third place behind only Carrol and Keller.

The Cowboys’ quest for a District Championship and a playoff berth continues Tuesday night here at CHS’s Echols Stadium against Central High School. Central currently has a solid 3-3 record, so it is expected to be a good game. A win could promote Coppell to 2nd place in the District standings, but a loss could see them fall to 5th. Either way, there’s still eight more games left, and anything could happen.

Staff Writer

In recent years, the Coppell High School Varsity Tennis Team has enjoyed tremendous success in post season play. Last season, the Cowboys and Cowgirls of the tennis team earned the title of 6-5A District Champions.

The tennis team is coached by Jane Jackson and Rich Foster, who have been working with the team for months to ensure that this season would be as prosperous as past seasons. With excellent players such as Tyler Stayer, it would be hard to imagine anything but a deep playoff run.

Indeed, on October 19 the Cowboys ventured to the district playoffs in hope of qualifying for Regionals. The tennis teamed fared very well at district, placing in 2nd after a tough loss to Southlake Carrol. Being in the top 2, Coppell advanced to Regionals.

Regionals is a single elimination tournament in which the champion is sent to the State Tournament to represent the region. Coppell is in region 1, and on October 29 traveled to Abilene with hopes of qualifying for the State Tournament on their mind. The Cowboys immediately had a stroke of bad luck and drew the #1 seed San Angelo Central in the first round. Despite the tough opponent, Coppell played well but could not pull out the victory.

“We played them very close, we were down 3-4 after doubles, but they pulled away and won after the doubles were done. The regional tournament is single elimination so once we lost we were out” Coach Rich Foster said.

It was a frustrating ending to the season for the tennis team, but it was a superb effort. Making it to regionals is no easy task, and is a feat to be celebrated. There is no shortage of talent here at CHS, and the Cowboys are sure to excel in the spring season, and return for another Regionals appearance next year.

Plano West High School ended up winning Regionals and represented Region 1 at the State Tournament on November 5-6. New Braunfels High School would go on to win the State Tournament. For complete results, go here.

If you look out your window and see flamingos littering your yard, the swim team has been there.

Starting tonight, members of the swim team will be visiting friends’ and neighbors’ houses and covering their lawn with pink flamingos as the swim team’s first fundraiser. Once your yard has been covered in them, you have the option to remove them and relocate them to a different house, with help of the swim team, starting from around $20.

Help support the swim team by passing the “flock” on if it comes to you before the fundraiser ends.

El 15 de octubre, momentos antes de que los aficionados se dirigió hacia el campo para ver el partido de fútbol americano contra el equipo de Southlake Carroll, el equipo de golf de Coppell fue el anfitrión de su octava cena anual de enchiladas en el común con la esperanza de colectar dinero suficiente para el año entero.

Puntos de venta vino de la venta de tiquetes, boletos de la rifa y una subasta silenciosa, que consistió de una serie de premios. Postores podrían regresar a casa con rondas de golf en los campos de golf, joyas, paquetes de spa, autógrafos de todos los tipos de estrellas y mucho más.

“Esta noche mi trabajo fue la creación de la subasta y la preparación de las hojas de licitación,” madre Janna Horner dijo. “Un montón de trabajo duro, esfuerzo y donaciones van para hacer este evento tan exitoso como los últimos años. En general, es una gran organización. Veo a mis hijos jugar todos los días y se merecen todos los fondos que pueden ganar. ”

Aunque la mayoría de las organizaciones de la escuela tienen la oportunidad de hacer dos eventos para colectar fondos cada año, el equipo de golf típicamente consigue $ 12,000 a $ 14,000 en esta única tarde.

“Continuamos esta cena por la razón que nuestras experiencias pasadas han demostrado ser muy buena,” director atlético de niños Terry Galbraith dijo. “El evento entero es un esfuerzo conjunto con la venta de boletos de la rifa y la subasta. Estamos agradecidos por todo el apoyo de nuestro club de afición, y lo más importante, estamos contentos que una noche para colectar fondos puede conseguir tanto como un año entero del departamento atlético gastando.”
La cena de enchiladas no es su típica venta de pasteles o camisetas, es una noche donde los asistentes están servidos una cena y unas bebidas mientras dando la oportunidad de llevar premios a casa que no se puede encontrar en cualquier lugar. De acuerdo al director atlético de niñas Richardson Kirk, es una situación donde todos ganan algo, incluyendo el equipo de golf.

“Tenemos que trabajar la noche entera, sirviendo bebidas o vendiendo comida, pero no me importa porque lo que colectamos paga por todos los viajes y el equipo necesario para el resto del año,” estudiante mayor Robinson Hunter dijo. “El único viaje que tuve que pagar fue de Lubbock, pero prefiero pagar por uno en vez de todos.”

Aunque hay una gran cantidad de reconocimiento con los voluntarios del club de afición, la comunidad es el elemento más importante de la noche.

“Esta cena gana dinero suficiente para salvar un poco para el año siguiente también porque la comunidad sale y nos apoya,” Richardson dijo. “Con el juego más grande de voleibol y fútbol americano que se celebra esta noche, esperamos conseguir una participación más grande que hemos visto en el pasado.

I drove up to my house last night to see that my front lawn had been inhabited by a hoard of pink, plastic flamingos. Unless my parents decided to decorate using some weird retro-theme, something was definitely up.

Turns out, my family is now a part of the CHS Swim and Dive team‘s third annual “Flamingo Flocking FUNdraiser”. In order to have the flock removed from our yard, we are asked to donate money to the team. We can also pay extra money to send the flock to someone else’s house and/or find out who sent the flock to us.

Of course, all of this could have been adverted if we had only paid the $20 flocking insurance, which would have granted us immunity to the whole frenzy. But, alas, we did not, so for now we’re just stuck with these blasted — but, nevertheless, hilarious — birds.

The fundraiser began on Nov. 5 and will run until Nov. 15 and all donations benefit the CHS Swim and Dive Team. So if you find a group of unexpected plastic friends outside your door…well, you’ll just have to Annie-up to see if it was me.