Warriors Ready To Finish It [Updated]

By América Cárdenas and Xamantha Williams

Pueblo High School’s football team will open the 2015-16 season at Catalina Foothills this evening, August 28. The Warriors are set to kick off against the Catalina Foothills Falcons at 7 p.m.

Football Coach Brandon Sanders

Pueblo’s Head Coach and the school’s Athletic Director Brandon Sanders constructed the schedule to have Catalina Foothills be their first challenge. The Falcons are a Division 3 school, and Pueblo is in Division 4. Sanders was the Falcons’ assistant coach two years ago where he learned how to build a program from coach Jeff Scurran.

“We’re trying hard to work to be that kind of program [like Catalina Foothills],” Sanders said. “Mr. Scurran built multiple programs, built them up to state champs. All you can do is learn from a guy like that.”

Junior and lineman Michael Beltran said, “I feel it’s going to be a great fight [tonight], but in the end, we are going to be the team that wants it more.”

The Warriors believe that last season’s record has set a precedence for the future. The team plans to make it to playoffs this year.

“The best view comes from the hardest climb,” said senior Gustavo Zubiri. “Pueblo has not been to playoffs since 1990, but we are working hard to change that this season.”

“Our pride for our team and our school has grown so much in the past few years,” said senior Frankie Gomez. He added, “We are a family, and we want our students and our staff here at Pueblo to share that pride with us.”

Score Update: Pueblo 24, Catalina Foothills 30 F

Warriors Welcome New Counselor Rachel Bopp

By Avae Velasquez

Rachel Bopp

Among several new faces at Pueblo, the Warriors welcome our new counselor, Ms. Rachel Bopp, who comes all the way from northern Virginia to join the Pueblo community.

Bopp worked as a counselor for five years at Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia prior to her big move to the Southwest. She said that the arid desert weather in Southern Arizona was a huge factor in her decision to move three thousand miles to Tucson.

Bopp said, “I love helping our youth population and helping them achieve their goals. I really want to help them remove any barriers that are in their way of achieving these goals.”

She added that so far she loves it here at Pueblo. However, she did express concerns about “juggling all her tasks while being available to 500 students.”

“The staff and students are very respectful, helpful and welcoming,” Bopp said. “I plan on staying here for a long, long time.”

Welcome, Dr. Gonzalez!

By Lauren Ahern

Dr. Raul Gonzalez

As the 2015-16 school year began, Pueblo gained many new teachers including Dr. Raul Gonzalez, who teaches CRC Mexican-American Point of View.

Born in Dallas, Gonzalez left for college at 18 to pursue his career in teaching which took him to many places around the United States and Mexico. After all of his travels, he became a student-teacher at Desert View High School for one year.

Upon completing his student teaching, he decided to apply at Pueblo.

Gonzalez said, “I wanted to work somewhere with a lot of quality teachers, and I heard that Pueblo is that place to be.”

He said that he loves Pueblo’s school spirit, and he looks forward to teaching here for many more years to come. Gonzalez also hopes that he can get the opportunity to learn more from his students.

“My goal is to ask students ‘Why?’ as often as possible,” Gonzalez said. “They may not be able to answer the question every time, but at least I’m going to keep asking the questions.”

Warriors Build ‘Castles’, Learn Team Work

By America Cardenas

Card Building Activity

More than one thousand Pueblo students participated in this year’s Card Castle Building Leadership activity on Friday, Aug. 14, during all seven periods, in an effort to increase team work, bring about self-awareness and learn campus responsibility.

Ms. Marie Little, auto teacher, brought this activity to Pueblo from previous trainings at various other schools. A year ago, she asked her CTE (Career and Technical Education) colleagues to take it on as a group lesson in order to reach more students.

“Mr. Mario Reyes [an intervention specialist at Pueblo] and I did this same project at Howenstine High Magnet School with the entire campus as part of a community-building activity, and it was wildly successful,” Little said. “It made a lot of sense to bring it to Pueblo.”

Mr. Pete Pederson, who teaches graphic arts and yearbook, delivered the debriefing at the end of each period, which provided our students a deeply meaning of the day’s activities.

Junior Alejandro Carrazco said, “After Mr. Pederson debriefed us, I fully understand the learning objective of the activity. We were here to learn and understand that we can overcome our obstacles. We weren’t able to talk, but we learned through other means to communicate.” He paused and said, “We learned that there are alternative ways to talk to one another.”

All students of CTE teachers and Ms. Kari Warner [student council advisor/science teacher] participated in this event.

Students Learn Valuable Lessons At DECA Conference

By Iram Arce and Daniel Cantu

On Sunday, March 1, six Pueblo Students attended the DECA [Distributive Education Careers of America] Conference at the Phoenix Convention Center, competing in events among 2,000 other students from all around the state.

Also known as CTSO [Career Technical Student Organization], DECA is part of marketing—giving students an opportunity to learn business skills and compete with others in various activities.

Mr. Pete Pederson, Pueblo’s digital printing (and yearbook) instructor, was a judge for one of the DECA contests that involved students having to apply for an entrepreneurial business proposal. Pederson said that Pueblo students did not compete in this event.

“All contests were scenario-based,” Pederson said. “Students had to play their part and exemplify business etiquette and business savviness.”

Mina Van Gorder, President of the DECA chapter at Pueblo, attended the competition for the second time—this year with more experience and preparation.

“Last year, I had no idea what I was doing,” Van Gorder said. “Now I had more experience on what to expect from the competitions.”

Junior Daniella Contreras admitted that she was really nervous in front of people during the competition, but was able to confront her fears and succeed.

“I was about to have a breakdown, but luckily Mina [Van Gorder] was there to help me out,” Contreras said.

After the competitions students enjoyed the award ceremony—and this is when our Warriors found out that they would not advance to the next round.

“Although we didn’t win, we met lots of new people and gained much more experience on how to talk professionally, making us effective leaders,” Contreras said. “Learning how to be an effective leader is important—not just at school but in ‘real’ life.”

The advisor/sponsor for DECA, Dr. Maria Bicknell, explained that students were very successful raising money for this trip through numerous events and student participation.

Bicknell said, “I’ve been to many of these conferences, and I never get tired of them. I have a never-ending passion to help our students grow and to learn to be leaders as well as critical thinkers. I really want them to succeed in life.”

Pueblo Welcomes SRO Berube

By Noreli Marquez

SRO Ana Berube glad to be at Pueblo

You have probably seen her—Ms. Ana Berube, Pueblo’s new resource officer. Pueblo is one of nine schools that received a grant from the Arizona Department of Education to have a school resource officer, and if Officer Berube has her way, she will be staying for a while—at least three years, she said.

Berube, a graduate of the U of A, has a bachelor in fine arts. She worked two years in the crime scene unit and as a D.U.I. patrol officer at night for seven years.

“I witnessed a bad [car] accident which made me switch gears to become a patrol officer in D.U.I enforcement,” said Berube.
Berube no longer patrols because her sole assignment is to be a school resource officer at Pueblo High School, from Tuesday to Friday, and she is enjoying interacting with students and staff.

“I was told that Pueblo would be a horrible school and that I shouldn’t be here,” said Berube. “That negative perspective about Pueblo is way off.”

Berube does admit that her job can be a bit stressful, so she makes time to relax—and she finds that in baking. Earlier this school year, she committed to enrolling in a culinary school in Canada for two months.

Berube said, “When I returned from [culinary] school, I found my office door decorated with flowers to welcome me back—all of those negative stereotypes about Pueblo are definitely false.”