The Bengal Beat | Volume 7 Issue 4 | Senior Edition

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Page 3 - A Letter from Mr. Hailey to the Senior Class

Page 7 - Students express concerns after admin cancels kickball tournament

Page 11 - Voters approve Propositions A & B of the 2023 Bond package

In this issue: We say goodbye to the senior class, Class of 2023, Diego Gonzalez and Myrical Roberts write their goodbye letters, and Denton County voters approve portions of the 2023 Bond package.

3 LETTER FROM PRINCIPAL HAILEY

10 SEVEN STUDENTS ADVANCE IN VASE

THE BENGAL BEAT

The Bengal Beat staff speaks with a few of the students advancing

12 SENIOR PORTRAITS

4 LETTERS FROM THE SPONSOR & EIC

Meet the Class of 2023 graduates

Ray Braswell High School 26750 E. University Dr Aubrey, TX 76227 972-347-7746

braswellmedia@gmail.com

STAFF

Co-Editors-in-Chief: Myrical Roberts & Diego Gonzalez

Staff Writers: Rowan Handy, Seven Henry, Markayla Howard, Kennedi Inman, and Asia Jackson.

6 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR & KICKBALL

Dr. Anna Seibert, senior class sponsor, and Myrical Roberts writes her letter from the editors Diego Gonzalez writes his letter from the editor and the Braswell administration cancels kickball tournament

14 SENIOR PORTRAITS

Meet the Class of 2023 graduates

Adviser: Mr. Daniel Ryan Carr

Associate Principal: Mrs. Dawn McCullough

Principal: Mr. DeCorian Hailey

8 A MAP OF ACCEPTED COLLEGES

A map and list of every college Braswell seniors have been accepted to and Meet the Class of 2023 Valedictorians and Salutatorians

Mr. DeCorian Hailey writes his annual letter to the senior class and find more informaiton about graduation. FOLLOW US @BRASWELLMEDIA

Meet the Class of 2023 graduates

GOT A LETTER FOR THE EDITORS?

16 SENIOR PORTRAITS JOIN US ONLINE AT BRASWELLMEDIA.ORG

Want your letter featured in the next issue of The Bengal Beat? Email us at braswellmedia@gmail.com.

The Bengal Beat is the student news of Ray Braswell High School. The ideas expressed in this publication and on the Opinion page are soley those of the individuals providing them, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the entire staff, adviser, faculty, administration, or the Denton Independent School District Board of Trustees.

Braswell Media publications, staff, and adviser are members of the Journalism Education Association, National Scholastic Press Association, Texas Association of Journalism Educators, and competes in the UIL Journalism academic contests and at the ILPC and JEA/NSPA journalism conferences. Find us online at braswellmedia.org, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok @braswellmedia. A version of this issue formatted for the web can be accessed online at issuu.com/braswellmedia.

A Letter from Principal Hailey

Class of 2023, Congratulations on reaching this significant milestone in your academic career! The hard work and dedication you have shown has paid off and you should be proud of your accomplishments. I want you to know that I am so proud of you!

As you enter this new phase of your life, remember that the world is full of opportunities and possibilities. Take advantage of this time to explore your interests, follow your passions, and realize your dreams. Stay focused, enthusiastic, and persistent, and you will achieve great things.

Of course, the road ahead will also have its challenges. You will face setbacks and obstacles, but don’t let them discourage you. Instead, use them as opportunities to learn and grow. Always remember that failure is not the end, but merely a stepping stone on your journey to success.

As you prepare to embark on the next chapter of your life, take time to reflect on your experiences and all that you have accomplished so far. Appreciate the people who have helped you along the way and pay it forward by helping others.

Wherever your path may lead you, know that you have the knowledge, skills, and inner strength to achieve anything you set your mind to. Congratulations once again, and best of luck in all your future endeavors. Always remember to “LIVE AN IDENTITY OF EXCELLENCE”. Don’t play small in life PLAY BIG!!

Your Proud Principal,

Graduation Information

The Graduation ceremony for Braswell High School’s seventh graduating class, the Class of 2023, will be held at the University of North Texas Coliseum Friday, May 26, 2023 at 7 p.m. General parking is available in lots 19 and 20 and special needs parking is available in lots 26 and 27.

For more information on Denton ISD Graduations, please visit dentonisd.org/graduation Information on UNT’s Clear Bag policy can be found online at braswellmedia.org/clearbag. A livestream will be available online at braswellmedia.org/graduation2023livestream

Map courtesy of the University of North Texas

A Letter from Dr. Seibert, Senior Class sponsor

Dear Class of 2023, What a ride these four years have been! I was able to get to know some of you back in biology your freshman year. Your energy and excitement for learning and discovery was contagious and every day of school brought some new anecdote or laugh. I was excited to begin working with your class as your sponsor and we couldn’t wait to have some great experiences together doing novel activities. You were all discovering what high school is all about and were becoming adjusted to the Braswell culture when suddenly we were sidelined to our homes thanks to COVID-19. The year ended rather abruptly, yet you retained optimism for the future.

The next year was probably everyone’s most unique year of learning when “hybrid learning” was implemented to keep everyone and all our loved ones safe. I was fortunate to move up with you, by switching from biology to chemistry. In doing so, I got to know some of you for the first time, others I got to know even better. Whether you were in person or at home in front of a screen, everyone experienced that year differently. We learned how we learn best. We learned how easy it is to not do work. We learned all about the “virtual” learning style. Many of you learned how to drive. Everyone waited in anticipation of a return to normalcy.

Your junior year brought everyone back together. After over a year of being in small classes or remote learning from a computer, everyone was back together in person. Many of you didn’t know each other or had to rediscover old friendships. Junior year was somewhat of a “reboot” and we began starting new Braswell traditions together.

Then suddenly you were all seniors. Last fall feels so long ago yet like the school year just began. Many of you are now adults and are looking down a path of less familiarity. You will not be returning to this same building next fall. You will be moving on to careers, military, training, and/or education at a higher level of learning. Some of you will dive into a field you have been working towards for years; some of you will step into something new full of curiosity and excitement. No matter where you head, I hope you leave these doors of the Braswell Bengals with your head full of knowledge and wisdom that you gained over your four years with us. I hope that you feel prepared for your next steps from all the experiences and learning that you have had over these last four years. I hope you move on with anticipation of new successes. I hope that you will go on to become future leaders, health care workers, educators, businessmen and more. I hope that as you leave us as eager young adults, you take time to reflect on all that you have accomplished and walk towards your future with your heads held high.

Best of luck to you all. We miss you already. Move forward and be AMAZING!

Letters from the Editors-in-Chief

Myrical Roberts

Is this thing on?

As I look back at my four years at Braswell High School, I am pleased with the woman I have become. When I first moved to the 380 area, I was so scared I wouldn’t meet new people and I would crash and burn in high school. I did the exact opposite.

I found the hobbies and activities that I love to do, some of my bestest friends, all while having amazing teachers help me along the way.

When I moved to the 380 area, I hated everything about it at first. We were in the middle of nowhere and I was around all these people I didn’t know. But I tried to make friends and make the best

of my situation. It wasn’t like we were going to move anywhere anytime soon.

The woman I am is solely based on all the time I have put in at Braswell High School, after all we spend 90% of our time here. I learned how to have uncomfortable conversations, have healthy relationships, and so much here.

It feels so surreal and feels me with deep sadness thinking I have to leave my childhood behind. But I am also so excited to see who I will become in the next 4 years, just as I am for everyone in our class.

I wonder sometimes if we have the next Oprah Winfery in our class or do we have one of the greatest doctors in our class. I love seeing everyone’s college decisions and next choices for their lives. I hope everyone becomes the best version of themselves these next 4 years.

To Braswell High School and Navo Middle School, thank you for everything and shaping me into the person I am today.

To Mr. Carr, Mrs. Greene, Mr. Parker, Mr. Rodgers, Mrs. Piekutowski, Mrs. Lane, and every other teacher that has taught me - thank you. Thank you for teaching me to put my best foot forward and to never give up.

Is this thing on?

-Myrical Roberts

Diego Gonzalez

Letters from the Editors-in-Chief Bengals,

Working for The Bengal Beat has been quite an experience. I’ve been assured by my adviser that I’m reasonably qualified to co-lead a news room, but to be completely honest, there were times where I was straight up calling it by ear. Like, I had next to no idea what I was doing.

I do intend to do this for a living. I’ve been accepted into the school of journalism at the University of Missouri, where I’ll be studying to write in a printed newspaper, just like this one. Hoping to write for some of my most respected publications, like Polygon or the New Yorker. But at the beginning of it all is The Bengal Beat. I conducted

my first interviews on this campus. I wrote, edited, and published my first stories on this campus, and, a couple days later, my friends sent me photos of all the first typos I’d made, on this campus.

I joined the news staff during my sophomore year. Initially I wasn’t fond of the format of news writing, since it was formulaic compared to my usual stylistic way of writing essays or stories. However, meeting people I wouldn’t have met otherwise and talking to them about what they love to do, and what they’re proud of? It grew on me. I got the hang of it pretty soon, and now it’s pretty much the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life. Funny how that worked out.

I’m not sure how many people actually pick up and read the newspaper, but if you haven’t, I highly encourage you to sift through some of our previous issues. I promise a lot of care went into making it compelling, and most importantly, making sure people’s stories were told with care.

Senior year wasn’t like, the easiest thing I’ve ever done. As much as I joked about how I was going to drop out as a senior, there really was a lot of stress associated with wrapping up high school that I wasn’t really a fan of. But now I’m here! And I have a lot of people to thank for it. I had many teachers who did such a stellar job getting me interested in their subjects, namely Ms. Shoto (who’s since transferred to another school), my AP English 3 teacher Mrs. Graham, Mr. Milne at the ATC who teaches photography, my adviser Mr. Carr, and all the other teachers I don’t have the word count limit to enumerate. Shoutout to my crew: Soph, Maria, Mya, Wafa, Caris, Malaysia, and all the rest of you guys. Ideally, we’re playing Roblox together in our 30s. And finally, my mom and family, for ya know, raising me and stuff. Nice work guys! You did it as a team.

I’ll see you guys at graduation.

I hope I don’t trip and fall while I’m on stage, that would be really embarrassing.

This article is available to view online at https://braswellmedia.org/4454/ news/braswell-administration-cancels-senior-kickball-tournament/

Braswell Administration cancels senior kickball tournament

Late Tuesday afternoon last week, the Braswell administration canceled the highly anticipated 2023 Senior Kickball Tournament due to concerns that the playing fields would be too muddy or wet to safely carry out gameplay.

“I know many are disappointed, as am I,” Dr. Anna Seibert, faculty, said in a post on the Class of 2023 Braswell High School

Parent group on Facebook. “The decision is in the best interest of all involved.”

Seibert’s post has been host to several comments from parents of seniors who are concerned that the administration’s actions were premature.

“Kickball should have been simply moved to the same location as the football game, aka the turf field, to guarantee a successful event” , Shannan Macias, parent, said in a comment under the original post announcing the cancellation. “These kids were

passionate about their activity of choice. The school admins should appreciate that and simply relocate it.”

Other parents in the Facebook group voiced concerns about their students’ disappointment, as well as the time and money previously invested in preparation for the event.

“I took a lot of time trying to network and find people to join my team,” Enya Thompson, 12, said. “It was a lot of coordinating and planning and we were looking forward to it, and I feel like all of that went to waste when the tournament was canceled.”

“We were mainly looking forward to just having one last time to have fun playing sports with one another because we’ll never get that chance again,”

“Kickball during school hours is something the seniors were looking forward to… because it was during the school day,” Jennifer Anderson Bigley, parent, said in the 2023 parents’ Facebook group. “Whoever canceled this needs to know our kids are disappointed and now feel like they have wasted precious time coordinating practices and making team t-shirts.”

Braswell students expressed similar thoughts immediately after the cancellation announcement.

Students like Napoleon Herrera, 12, had participated in the 2022 Kickball Tournament a semester prior, and had high expectations leading up to the tournament.

“For me, as well as I’m sure the other participants, it was just sad and disappointing considering how hyped up it was and how much everyone wanted to play,” Herrera said. “I think it could’ve been planned better, or possibly have been rescheduled to the weekend so that the people that wanted to play, still could.”

Echoing similar sentiments, Jada Inanga, 12, expressed her disappointment over the cancellation.

“It’s disappointing because as a senior that’s been dedicated to school throughout this year, I feel like we should be rewarded,” Inanga said. “That was one of the many things I was looking forward to and I’m very sad about it being canceled. I feel like we deserved that day to have fun and celebrate with our peers.”

The day was not a total bust, however, as seniors were still treated to Kona Ice shaved ice during second period and allowed to have off campus lunch during third period.

-Nick Farley, 12

A map of states that Bengal seniors recieved college offers from. For a list of universities and colleges, visit braswellmedia.org/2023collegeacceptances

The following students are on track to graduate as the Valedictorians and

Seven Bengals advance to VASE state

VASE (Visual Arts

Scholastic Event) competitions provide high school artists the chance to put their work on shining display. This year, we saw Samantha Melendez, 9, Allison McLeod, 11, Ashlynn Smith, 11, Alazjah

Tates, 9, Jayden Ojeda, 12, Savannah Miller, 10, and Sanaa Hampton, 9, all advance to the VASE State competition. That’s a lot of very talented people.

It’s common that an artist doesn’t have a concrete plan for their piece at the very start.

Jayden Ojeda talks about what it was like to develop her piece, Risk in Play, from playing around with the idea to fully realizing it.

“[Ms. Freund] gave me the idea to pose with the board game, and we played around with perspective with my phone camera, “Ojeda said. “None of it really had a meaning at the time, so I focused more on challenging myself to push realism in my style rather than trying to convey any sort of message. But somewhere during the process a theme started

to form, and the piece became a reflection of how far I’ve come with my skills. That’s how I came up with the title, tying in my subject and highlighting the active risk I took while painting.”

Since the piece is painted, crafted it required a level of skill, precision, and patience. Generally speaking, paintings aren’t done overnight, and artists are bound to experience challenges that they hadn’t anticipated before starting. Ojeda speaks about making her vision come to life: from getting the right reference to brushing the paint onto the canvas.

“I went through a bunch of photos and edited a couple together to get the composition I wanted and then planned out a color palette on my Ipad,” Ojeda said. “I printed out my photo and gridded the page and the canvas to make sure my proportions were correct. Painting it went pretty smoothly, but I really struggled with the color of the hand up above me. I must have repainted it nearly 4 times.” Mcleod, another stu-

dent, advanced to state with two separate pieces. She was in absolute shock.

“I was actually testing when I got a call from Mrs. Jacobson when she said my ceramic piece made it,” Mcleod said. “Whenever Mrs. Ford called and said my painting made it, I was in utter shock. Two pieces! That’s so crazy. I still can’t believe it. And they also both got 4/4 ratings at State. Literally still in shock.”

Mcleod’s pieces are called Multiplicity and Mood Swing. Multiplicity shows duplicates of Mcleod doing different things in the same room: rushing around, chilling on her phone, peeking in through the door. And Mood swing is a ceramic piece showing different emotions of the same face.

“Both of my pieces use heavily saturated colors,” Mcleod said, “and I only used red, blue, yellow, and white acrylic paint to create them.”

Like with Ojeda’s, Multiplicity and Mood swing took meticulous planning and work. Mcleod describes the challenges of her piece and what she aimed to

do with it.

“Multiplicity took a solid three months to do, and I worked on it 2-3 times a week for an hour and a half each,” Mcleod said. “Mood Swing took 2 months to create. They both took a lot of perfecting to make me decide that it was perfect, in my eyes at least.”

It’s often said that art does not exist in a vacuum. Every artist has many sources where they draw their inspiration, and neither Ojeda or Mcleod are any exception. Ojeda opens up about her inspirations, both classic and modern.

“Van Gogh is of course one of my favorites. I think the fact that he only practiced art in the last years of his life is insanely cool, I’m really jealous of his dedication,” Ojeda said. “Recently I started following a girl online, her name is Camila Salinas and she does a lot of self-portraits in acrylic. I found out she also participated in VASE this year and I got to see her Gold Seal winning painting in person.”

Mcelod also mentions her own inspirations,

other modern artists who’ve made their following on Instagram.

“Some of my favorite artists are @alaiganuza, @nogobed, and @not_ sorry_art, all who can be found on Instagram,” Mcleod said. “Their use of color really inspires me and their compositions, too.”

When one spends their time artistically creating as a hobby, one develops both a strong relationship with their own abstract intuition, as well as an awareness of definable technique. It takes patience, time, and many, many rough drafts and scrapped projects to create something that an artist can sit back and be very proud of. Sharpening these skills can take years, and many artists start from childhood.

“I’ve been drawing since I was a kid,” Mcleod said. “I started painting when I was in 7th grade, focusing on using acrylic paint. I only started using clay my sophomore year.”

“I mean it feels like I’ve been doing art forever, though I’d say it was around 8th or 9th grade when I actually started to take it seriously,” Ojeda said. “I’ve always been drawing and creating, and honestly I probably will for the rest of my life.

Voters approve bond package

Co-Editor-in-Chief package will help improve the learning environment.

Denton County voters passed propositions A and B of the 2023 Denton ISD Bond package that was put up for a vote in the most recent May election. The bond package was presented to the public with three propositions designed to improve the Denton school district. A multitude of things were included in the bond package. Items that directly impact the Braswell zone that passed are items such as high school #5 (set to be constructed in the Crossroads area), a career and technolgy center (similar to LaGrone Academy), a new indoor multi-purpose facility for each of the five high schools, and updates to the technology district wide.

The Braswell zone is ever changing and evolving; the district is aware of this which is why they’ve addressed future growing pains by constructing two more elementary schools in the Braswell zone and high school #5.

For students growing up in the zone, the changes in the bond

“I think that this is a good idea,” Darren Fields said. “Sometimes, I feel like the school district only focuses on sports and not every other thing the school has to offer. I do feel like there’s things that they could focus on within our school like new bathrooms and better lunch options.”

However, even though the bond passed, not everyone believed it was needed.

“I think that it is important to express our opinions about the quality of our school district but I also know that not everyone is going to agree on how we should improve it,” Jada Inaga said. “I think we need to focus on building within our own school and building the education system within our own school before

adding another. As well as cosmetic things like banners and words on wall.”, Inanga said. “I honestly don’t care about the (upgrades to C.H. Collins) because we have our own home stadium here at Braswell.”

A lot of students were not aware of the changes proposed for the Braswell zone. Even though most seniors can vote, no one presented any information on how to vote to the senior class.

“To be honest, I didn’t even know that this was a thing,” Collin Benson, 12, said. “It’s nice and all but I wish they would have done this for our class. I mean, my siblings will be able to enjoy these things but what about me? And I didn’t even know that this was happening until you said something to me.”

12 / Class of 2023

Special Thanks to The Ambush Yearbook staff for providing The Bengal Beat with cap and gown photos.

While we would’ve liked to have included a photo of every student in the graduating class, some were unable to take a picture.

Class of 2023 \ 13

14 / Class of 2023

Special Thanks to The Ambush Yearbook staff for providing The Bengal Beat with cap and gown photos.

While we would’ve liked to have included a photo of every student in the graduating class, some were unable to take a picture.

Class of 2023 \ 15

16 / Class of 2023

Special Thanks to The Ambush Yearbook staff for providing The Bengal Beat with cap and gown photos.

CLASS

OF 2024 / JUNIOR CLASS:

SCHEDULE YOUR SENIOR PORTRAITS OVER THE SUMMER! SEE BELOW