Life drawing

                                                          By Zane Spencer, Junior class
Life drawing on Thursday December 4th used head of school Jason Heisserer as their model. This is one of the beautiful pieces done by one member of the highly the skilled class.

History is Made!

It was halftime and Crossroads was down 0-1, with Saxony in the lead. The boys knew this was their shot at making Crossroads History; this was their shot to take us to State. The boys knew they needed to really pull together in order to get what they wanted. The second half started, and they stuck true to their word. Crossroads Senior Andrew Kowalkowski scored the first goal for Crossroads. The stands packed with blue and white erupted into tumultuous excitement. The teams were neck and neck until the 75th minute, when Caleb Hill (Senior) scored the goal that would make Crossroads History. The score board now favored Crossroads 2-1. All the team had to do was hold on for another few minutes, and they did. The boys' held their own and will be attending the state quarter-finals this Friday and Saturday in Blue Springs, Mo. No matter what, Crossroadians everywhere are immensely proud of our boys! 

The Crossroads boys soccer team 

minutes after their legendary win.

Stars, by Maggie Fox

                    Stars
Blades of grass tickle my ears
thoughts of him please my mind.
The growing darkness triggers my fears
wether opened or closed, my eyes
are closed.

A single star comes into view
I grab it with my fingers.
it floats away to my dismay
But some of it's brightness lingers.

I take the light and drink it in.
It fills me with a comforting
calm.
My brain travels back to his warm hands
when we would walk palm in palm.

Another star appears before me
but it flies again from my grasp.
Before I have time to reach it
once more
I feel a hand
on my shoulder and gasp.

"Come along dear,
you shouldn't be out.
Everyone else it inside, it's not polite
to run away
it's not polite to
hide."

"I'm not hiding, I'm
capturing stars
to go to a my friend who's a
boy.
I know he loves me,
it's really true.
He fills me with
endless joy."

A Midsummers Night's Dream

The theatre season at Crossroads College Prep is a greatly anticipated and hectic time. To start off the 2014-2015 season, the Crossroads Players will be putting on William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The eccentric comedy features forbidden lovers, fairies, a play within a play, a pompous court, and everything in between. We talked to Charlotte Sechrist who is playing Hermia, one of the lovers. Hermia is “really spunky” but also very adamant, she “isn’t willing to give up on her dreams, even if it means death.” If you are looking for a laugh, Midsummer is sure to please. Charlotte mentioned that the character that never fails to make her double over  is Bottom (played by Rebecca Jaffe, 9th grade). Bottom is the overly confident, but amateur actor, whose head is transformed into one of an ass, yet has no idea.

The show runs from November 6th-9th, with a special showing for the Crossroads students on November 12th at 1pm, and a free showing on November 5th. Admission is 5 dollars for students, and 7 dollars for adults. The show is directed by Shakespeare genius, Christopher Limber. The show will not disappoint, so “Come, sit down,  every mother's son, and rehearse your parts,” see A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Student Of The Week; Sammy Longsreth

   “Everyone says in their lifetime I want to travel the world, I am going to be part of that tiny minority that actually does it”

We interviewed Sammy longstreth on Thursday September 18th. Yes, the bagpipe playing Sammy Longstreth. Sammy is the GoPro obsessed, eccentric Stuco president who has entertained all of us at one point, and is pretty sure that captain jack sparrow is his spirit animal. Over the summer, Sammy traveled to Europe. He went to England to visit his ancestral homeland, and also to Scotland “to be with Scottish people.” He particularly notes consuming large amounts of haggis. For college, he wants to go to the University of Stirling in Stirling, Scotland. He believes that it is “an absolute waste of life to spend your time in one place. You should explore every corner of it, and the way to start that exploration is going to college in a foreign country.” He is thinking about majoring in international journalism. Sammy is a large part of the theatre here at Crossroads. It really wouldn’t be the same without him. When asked what his favorite production was he instantly answered Monty Python. We’re sure most of you have seen at least one of the Monty Python skits that Sammy directed, and if you reacted at all like we did, then you were laughing the entire time. To create the skit, all Sammy needed to do was “command people with one of [his] best friends.” The mastermind, Sammy, told us that his favorite part of the rehearsal process was “going from a bunch of actors in a room who have no idea what the play is” to a “well put together play with developed characters and actors who know what they’re doing.” To accomplish that goal the actors watched the Monty Python skits endlessly, while observing British people talk so they could perfect their accents. In the end, they “got to make a play that was about complete idiots and people loved it!” If you somehow you have yet to talk to Sammy Longstreth, you are truly missing out. Go and go quickly, because he is a senior and our school will soon be deprived of this hilarious mastermind. Who knows, he may even let you wear his GoPro or play his bagpipes

Teacher of the Week; Jason Heisserer

                                                            "Be safe. Be kind. Be true."
Lily and I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Jason Heisserer on Friday, September 19th. Before we began the interview we were already aware Jason was a perfect fit for our school, but in the twenty five minutes we sat and talked, we became certain that Jason is Crossroads personified. His warm, positive and welcoming demeanor is something we should all strive to achieve.
 Growing up in Springfield, Illinois, Jason always knew he had a passion for education. He wanted to help “people feel good about themselves and to feel like they could influence their part of the world.” Jason wanted to make sure people could go through life and experience it being totally true to who they are, and he felt the best way to do so was to teach. He began his educational journey as an English teacher, feeling that he could get to know his students while helping them begin to understand themselves. There is no doubt that Jason is an extraordinary person with a passion for writing, reading, teaching, and helping other people realize their own potential. By encouraging self discovery he hopes to make his students feel comfortable and “joyous” with who they are.
 Jason came to Crossroads after leaving Hixson Middle School where he was the principle of 725 students. Coming to Crossroads, where he has a student body of 195, was quite a change. “It’s big and its challenging and its wonderful” was the response Jason gave when asked how he was liking his Crossroads lifestyle so far. While Hixson also was a close community Jason stressed that “the pace of the day is what really strikes [him], there is a rhythm at Crossroads that allows time for things and it doesn’t feel rushed."
 Along with his passion for education, Jason has many unique and interesting hobbies outside of work. We could have talked to Jason for hours discussing his various hobbies and his reasoning behind them. Every hobby has a deeper meaning and some sort of symbol tying it into his life, “ I love symbolism and I love metaphors.” One of the hobbies that really stuck out to us was Jason's operatic history. He began explaining this hobby telling us the story of his kindergarten teacher Mrs. Russell. “I did not know I was interested in music. Somehow she knew, I don’t know how she knew, but she said I was to be Hansel in Hansel and Gretel....and I just started singing from there.” He still takes voice lessons today, exemplifying his persistence and passion for opera. When Lily and I brought up his rumored “napping couch” he immediately asked us how we knew about his sleep philosophy. Really, Jason said, “the couch is part of my office for people to sit on and for us to have conversations on.” A secondary use of the couch is to take quick  nap to “clear [his] head” and allow him to focus more on the task of making Crossroads the best place it can be.
 Despite all these amazing things about Jason, our favorite characteristic is how easy it is to talk to him. Jason brings a sense of relativity, making students feel safe and compelled to have conversations with him. His approachable nature made the twenty five minutes we spent with him feel like five, and we were still eager to know more when we left. Jason is the fresh, new, and vital face of Crossroads, and we are more than eager to see where the school can go from here.

The Same Sky, by Lily Fitzsimmons

The Same Sky

Like ships on the cold, black sea,

feathery clouds drift over the twinkling sky.

We are alone,

but the same sky blinks one thousand miles away.

Feathery clouds drift over the twinkling sky.

The trickle of the outgoing tide sounds like a melody.

The same sky blinks one thousand miles away,

raising more questions than answers.

The trickle of the outgoing tide sounds like a melody,

and the salt of the sea settles on my skin.

Raising more questions than answers,

I can cover the universe with my thumb.

The salt of the sea settles on my skin

while feathery clouds drift over the twinkling sky.

I can cover the universe with my thumb,

but the same sky blinks one thousand miles away.