Pueblo High School Student Council teacher/advisor Mr. Gregory Obregon is confident that he can motivate his newly elected officers and lead them to successful and original student activities for the 2023-24 school year.
Obregon also wants his students to develop connections with one another and to focus more on the quality of Pueblo High School events.
“I want to make sure whatever student council does is done well and that their activities make a difference,” Obregon said.
He added that he is excited to bring into Student Council “new blood” this school year.
One of this year’s freshman representatives, Yamilett Lopez, said that she decided to be a part of Student Council this year because she wanted to get help Pueblo become even better and to boost school spirit.
Lopez plans to commit to being part of Pueblo’s Student Council all four years.
“One of the biggest challenges for the freshman class is being confident and sharing ideas,” Lopez said. “They [the Class of 2027] have already expressed a lot of great ideas, and they have open minds that want to be original and to be the best class ever. I love their spirit!”
Amy Aldana is the new sophomore president for her class this school year. She was vice-president as a freshman, and a two-year veteran in Student Council, Aldana plans to continue to be part of this organization during her junior and senior years.
“I decided to become a committed member of Student Council to get more involved with Pueblo and to leave with a legacy of lasting positive changes,” Aldana said.
She added that she will be challenged to inspire sophomores to communicate better with one another and to keep the dialogue open to all Class of 2026 students.
“One of my primary responsibilities is to have every sophomore’s opinion count and to be respected,” Aldana said.
This year’s junior class president is Paula Vega, who has been in Student Council since her freshman year; her plans are to commit to Student Council as a senior next year.
Vega said she felt like the right person for the job when she decided to run for the junior class president but added that she has her share of “challenges” ahead of her and the Class of 2025.
During this 2020-2021 school year, Pueblo’s Student Council has faced many challenges and jumped over many obstacles due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has prevented this club from performing normally.
Mr. Gregory Obregon, who teaches Algebra 1 and 2, is once again this year’s Student Council advisor/teacher. Like many at Pueblo, he has expressed his frustrations of online instruction and trying to ensure that Student Council continues to be functional.
“We [students and teachers/sponsors] may not be able to be with our students in person, but the work we still need to do really does matter,” Obregon said.
However, he does have hope that this situation will not last forever but wishes he had had more time to prepare for a remote learning environment.
“It [Covid-19] will pass,” he said.
Franchesca Fernandez
Franchesca Fernandez, a senior and this year’s Student Council president, has also encountered her share of challenges this school year. She said that insufficient student participation has affected her job, and she has had difficulty contacting people. She said that she conducts meetings by planning schedules and having business meetings on Thursdays, and afterwards allows members to be in their committees.
Fernandez said that this year Student Council is looking at online alternatives to raise money, including Percentage Night Fundraisers. She hopes to continue raising money for the club throughout the entire school year.
“Student Council is there for them [students],” Fernandez said. “We are trying our hardest amidst the pandemic to keep pushing, and we will eventually get through it.”
Obregon said that he misses an in-person Student Council a lot—as well as all the activities, group work and just hanging out with his club members.
“Showing school spirit is quite hard during the pandemic,” Obregon said, “because we are unable to decorate the hallways and put up posters.”
He expressed sadness on not being able to give students a real Student Council environment.
“Despite the hardships, we’re all together in this,” he said.
On October 31st, students brought the Halloween spirit to Pueblo as they dressed up as deadly clowns, fictional couple costumes and a saxophone-playing gorilla.
Despite the spirit many felt on Halloween, some students said that as they get older, they believe that Hal
Halloween does not have the same spunk when they were younger.
Students shared their beliefs regarding Halloween and their experiences.
Senior Thai Kromrei said, “I came to school dressed up as Stich because my girlfriend wanted to be Lilo. Afterwards, we went trick-or-treating with my nephews.”
“I came to Pueblo with my face painted as a skeleton and decided afterwards to go around scaring children around my grandma’s neighborhood,” senior Abigail Sotelo said. “I think that everyone should be allowed to trick-or-treat forever, or at least until you can’t walk.”
Senior Yamaika Romero said, “I was dressed up as a clown and went to go watch movies with my friends and little cousins.”
“I came to Pueblo as a zombie and later in the day went trick-or-treating with my nephews, sadly we didn’t get enough candy,” senior Kanani Salazar said. “It’s also upsetting that less kids dressed up this year. People think they are getting too old for it.”
Sam Quiroz, a senior, said, “Everyone should honestly live life to the fullest no matter how old you get. This year I did it dressed as a genie.”
Donald Trump
Freshman Ayonna Perez said, “We’re not too old to celebrate Halloween, and I actually saw a handful of costumes I liked—specifically the gorilla playing the saxophone.”
“I dressed up as a cat, and later I went trick-or-treating with my family and a friend,” freshman Joanis Del Valle said. “I’m excited for next Halloween—as I plan to dress up as Alice from Alice in Wonderland.”
Freshman Sabrina Suazo said, “I chose to dress up as a nerd. I went trick-or-treating with my family and my friend Ayonna. My plans for next Halloween are to throw a party and invite my friends to throw the best party of the year.”
Sophomore Samantha Polo said, “I noticed that more students were taking care of their younger siblings instead of enjoying Halloween.”
Truly, our Warriors know Halloween spirit, and many underclassmen anticipate next year’s ghoulish event.
Nearly 450 Pueblo students and faculty members packed the school’s auditorium on Friday, Feb. 13, to attend a presentation from Katie Spotz, a self-motivated young woman who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in a variety of stellar physical achievements—raising money to provide clean drinking water to an estimated one billion people on this planet that don’t have access to it.
Nearly 5,000 people (mostly children) each day die from drinking bad water, she said. Most of the countries that she has helped raised money for to provide safe water include Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Kenya.
“I couldn’t just stand around and let this happen anymore, so I started to challenge myself to help as much as one person can,” the Ohio-born Spotz said.
On March 14, 2013, the then 22-year-old Spotz became the younger person (and only the second woman) to row across the Atlantic Ocean, unattended and without aid—approximately 3,000 miles, from Africa to South America! During the 70-day challenge, Spotz said she had very little diversion except for a day interacting with dolphins and the several occasions of avoiding enormous freight ships.
“I would listen to a lot of music and comedians on my headphones,” Spotz said. “Once I hit the midway point, halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, I really had to focus on rowing just one mile at a time. One mile…one mile…instead of the 1,500 that I still had to row to reach the South American coast.”
In the end, her “Row for Water” event raised more than $150,000 to provide safe drinking water. But, she didn’t stop there. In a valiant effort to raise even more awareness of providing safe drinking water to one billion people, Spotz has a resumé of unbelievable, impressive, physical feats, including swimming the entire length of the Allegheny River as well as cycling across the United States in seven days—even with a broken pelvis! Spotz eventually traveled to Kenya, and there she helped 10,000 students, first-hand, in that African nation gain access to safe drinking water.
“It was an amazing opportunity to actually be in the middle of this crisis,” Spotz said, “and also to be a part of the solution.” She added that she was appalled at how many people in Kenya are without clean drinking water—maybe only one person in 1,000 have access to healthy water each day.
Spotz spends most of her time traveling around the United States helping and inspiring schools to raise money for a project called “Schools for Water”.
Students in attendance were definitely inspired by Spotz’ achievements. Senior Narda Garcia said, “I was totally captivated by the presentation—especially because a woman defied all of the odds and stayed tenacious, never giving up. We students can definitely learn from her determination and perseverance.”
Pueblo is now challenged to raise money for “Schools for Water”. According to Ms. Mary Wallace, government teacher and the organizer of this presentation, Pueblo has committed to raising $1,500 and challenging Cholla, whose goal is to raise $1,000.
Wallace said that she is communicating with our administrators about ways to raise money in support of “Schools for Water”, including a “hat day” in which students will be allowed to wear hats for a day in exchange for one dollar. More activities will be announced throughout the semester, she added.
“Students are needed to help with raising money [for “Schools for Water”] because I want this fund-raising event to be student-based,” Wallace said. “This is a great opportunity for students to show leadership and responsibility.”
Junior Michael Montijo, who attended the presentation, said, “Spotz really brought the global water crisis into the spotlight. In today’s world, there is no excuse for unsanitary water or food.”
Armando Corral, a sophomore, said, “I was really motivated by the presentation. I want to help this situation by not wasting water in the future. We can all do a little something to make a huge difference.”
Senior Ariel Garrison was inspired by the presentation. “I think she is admirable for raising awareness to a topic that I was not fully aware of until now. Ms. Spotz is a awesome role model for all of us, and we should all find our own individual ways to help those who are not as fortunate.”
Another senior Narda Garcia, “I can’t believe that she continued the race with a broken pelvis! Talk about tenacity! I think that she truly inspired a lot of us to persevere under difficult situations. After the presentation, my friends and I were talking about what we can do to make the world a place where we give more than we take.”
Pueblo will look to stretch their winning streak to four straight games Friday night when the Warriors host Nogales in a Week 5 high school football matchup.
Pueblo (3-1) opened the season with a late one-point loss at Amphi but has rolled off victories over Santa Rita, Rio Rico and Rincon.
The Warriors are led by 1st-year head coach Brandon Sanders, a former Arizona Wildcats defensive star who made it to the NFL with the New York Giants.
The Apaches enter at 2-2 having won two straight over Douglas and Cholla.
Nogales at Pueblo is our Overtime Game of the Week. David Kelly will be lives from the south side with a report in during the KOLD News 13 at 6 and you can see the game highlights Friday night on Overtime which kickoffs on KOLD News 13 at 10:20 p.m.
Jorge Romero (Class of 2016)
Pueblo’s Memo Berube and Jorge Romero both had doubts about their football team coming into this season. In fact, Berube, a senior, was toying with the idea of hanging up his cleats for good.
He’s glad he didn’t.
In just four games, Pueblo (3-1) has already matched its win total from each of the last three seasons. Furthermore, a win tonight would mark just the second time in the last 10 years the Warriors have registered four victories in a season.
“I’ve never felt this great during football,” said Berube, who missed most of last season with a left knee injury. “I wasn’t expecting as good of a season so far and came into the spring with some doubts.”
First-year coach Brandon Sanders and the Warriors host Nogales tonight at 7 with a chance to win their fourth straight game — a rarity in itself for Pueblo recently.
To make sure his players aren’t coming into the game overconfident, Sanders has reminded them that they haven’t been within 49 points of the Apaches in the last two years.
Nogales (2-2) has won seven straight meetings between the schools, most recently with a 56-0 win 2013, and holds a 14-6 advantage in the series. The last time Pueblo topped the Apaches was in 2000.
Coach Brandon Sanders
“That’s a major mountain for these kids,” said Sanders, a member of the UA’s “Desert Swarm” defense in the mid-1990s and a former NFL player. “We don’t shy away from anything; we recognize it, we own up to it and we step up to take on the challenge.
“That’s what I want to see: Can we step up to the challenge to play?”
The Warriors have already conquered one challenge this season, scoring two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to rally against Santa Rita in Week 2. Since then, Pueblo has outscored opponents 81-12 in two games.
“It transitioned from the field to the locker room,” said Romero, a junior who leads the team with 581 yards rushing and six touchdowns. “You should have seen the lock room; there was so much adrenaline, you could see that we wanted to play.”
Since taking over last spring, Sanders has reconnected with Pueblo’s storied past. Former coach Curly Santa Cruz is among those who Sanders has brought in to speak with the team. After all, Santa Cruz spent 15 years with the program and was the last one to lead the Warriors to the state playoffs, in 1990. The way Romero sees it, however, that’s about to change.
“A lot of people have high expectations for us but there’s also still a lot of low,” Romero said. “We had doubts from a lot of people coming into the season but we’re ready to prove them wrong.”
