Senator Square

Senator Pride is a group that was formed by staff at the beginning of this school year to promote spirit within the halls of Carson High School. Our mission has been to infuse Senator pride in our own school and to reach out to the elementary and middle schools to do the same.

Another part of our mission is to encourage more participation in the community. We realized that there is so much positive news coming from our halls, but that the community rarely knows about all of the happenings.

This new weekly column will keep you informed of the activities going on at Carson High.

The 2006-07 school year has been an exciting one so far, with ticket sales for all of our events exceeding gates sales for the past 20 years. Not only have athletics been successful and had great attendance at events, but so have our drama and choir performances at the Brewery Arts and community centers. (By the way, choir concerts have changed since my day in school when we all dressed in black robes and stood on risers and sang the old traditional "We Wish You a Merry Christmas.")

The winter choir concert was amazing with dancing, lights, microphones, beautiful dresses and fabulous singing. I was thoroughly entertained for almost two hours. We'll let you know when the next one is so you can go.

The holiday season was felt around CHS as students felt moved to give back to their community. At Thanksgiving time, leadership students held a scavenger hunt in which more than 20 teams of four went out to gather food for Friends in Service Helping.

The winners of the contest walked away with a cash prize, and more than 5,000 pounds of food was collected for FISH.

The choir students collected canned food at their concert to give to needy families in the area. National Honor Society (NHS) raised money for Child & Family Services, giving them a check for $372.50 on Dec. 20. They also did a toy drive, and ended up giving nearly 500 toys to Toys for Tots. Key Club, Link Crew and Drama and Choir clubs all donated money to help the honor society give six families in our community a brighter Christmas. Key Club students traveled to Pasadena and volunteered for more than 150 hours building Rose Parade floats.

We lost one of our students, Robert Delao, in an accident in December. Students from no particular club or group raised money to give to the family. The donations totaled more than $2,000 to help his family.

All of these thoughtful acts remind us that kids are people, too, and if you give them a chance, they will do extraordinary things. Our halls are filled with generous and caring students. We see random acts of kindness every day from them.

Events this week at CHS:

• Today: No school. Math tutoring every day after school.

• Wednesday: Pro-Start competition. Wrestling against Churchill County.

• Thursday: NHS Blood Drive. Tree of Life Ceremony at 7 p.m.

• Friday: Varsity boys and girls basketball versus North Valleys.

Check out the school Web site for more information about all of our events, clubs and activities, www.carsonhigh.com. GO SENATORS!

• Angila Golik is a teacher at Carson High School and member of Senator Pride.