Hospitalized principal returns to PHS

By Demnlus Johnson

Staff writer

Principal Tim Galli recently made his return to Pittsburg High School after several weeks of recuperation.

Galli, age 57, was checked into John Muir Medical Center in Concord on May 5. While taking a series of tests, he was diagnosed with heart failure and fluid around the heart and lungs. It is reported that Galli’s blood pressure went low, requiring a blood transfusion which demanded two pints of blood.

Galli was supposed to be back home Tuesday, May 15, but now his return was postponed. As far as returning to school, Galli was determined to come back before the end of the school year.

While Galli was out, Assistant Principal Ron Polk held the position of acting principal. “He [Polk] has a lot of experience and years under his belt,” stated secretary Sara Jean Wood, Galli’s personal assistant.

When asked how he thinks he performed as acting principal, Polk answered, “I think it went OK, and there were things to learn.” Polk went on to say, “We were able to continue our day-to-day activities.”

Galli is a Pittsburg High alumnus (Class of 1967) and one of his goals is for the school to return to its historic greatness. Galli, known for his concern for the students and their future and being an extremely friendly and considerate person, is also involved in the remodeling of the Pittsburg High campus.

Teacher of the Year

By Jane Park and Brandon Thompson

Staff Writers

Although several deserving teachers were nominated as Pittsburg High’s Teacher of the Year, nobody was surprised when the ballots were counted and it just happened to be Drama teacher Makaela Huntsinger.

Before coming to Pittsburg High nine years ago, Martinez native Huntsinger went to Concordia University in Irvine, where she earned her degree in theater and English, then taught at El Toro High School in Lake Forest. She has been married for eight years and has a four year old son.

When asked if she thought she was going to win the honor, Huntsinger responded with a blunt “No.”

“With such an incredible faculty, it’s kind of hard to believe that they think so highly of me.” Huntsinger added that she was very flattered to be voted Teacher of the Year, and said that she couldn’t be more honored. Running against her was a list of many great teachers, including Damien Adams, Shelly Bascomb, Pat Diokno, Mike Ford, Diana Howard, Peggy Nam and Michael Tumbaga. She said that her knack at working hard and her goal of high academic standards were some qualities that may have aided in her victory.

Even though she’s been named a victor at the ballot box, Huntsinger still has a few steps of the process left to complete to continue her campaign at the district level, including filling out a large application packet and collecting letters of recommendation. The Galleon staff wishes her luck and congratulations on being named Pittsburg High School’s Teacher of the Year.

Grade scandal exposed at local college

By Jacob Hilderbrand and Jake Sebaugh

Staff writers

Over seventy current and former Diablo Valley College students allegedly paid bribes of as much as $600 to raise their course grades on official transcripts over a 3 year period.

According to DVC officials, somewhere between 100 and 110 people had access to student transcripts in the community college’s registrar’s office, while most colleges and universities only give three to five staff members such access. As many as 400 grades were changed from below average to A’s over the years 2003 to 2006.

When the scam was discovered, administrators worked very hard to find out which students had their grades changed. They compared grades kept in DVC instructors’ files to the transcripts for every student. So far, about 74 students are believed to have paid students to change grades.

In January of 2006, an anonymous woman left a phone message concerning the changing of the grades. Since then, administrators have removed access to transcripts from all but eleven district employees.

Letters have been sent from DVC to all colleges the 74 students transferred to. “It could result in the harshest of scenarios: expulsion from the university,” said a UC Berkeley undergraduate admissions director. Other colleges say they will not judge any DVC applicants until they see their transcripts.

The administrators of DVC are now working to find out if any more students are involved in the scam and clear up the damage that has been done, while many current DVC students are left wondering if their transcripts will receive more intense scrutiny from prospective four year colleges simply because they’ve attended the school.

Band rocks Temple of the Mouse

By Jennifer Ramsey and Edner Monter

Staff writers

On April 19^th, the Pittsburg High Concert Band and Wind Ensemble took an eight hour bus ride to Disneyland. Most of the bus ride there everyone slept or finished any homework. Upon arrival in Anaheim, the bands walked to Downtown Disney and went shopping.

After shopping, everyone went back to the hotel and got on the bus. The Band attended the very exciting Pirate Dinner, a lively show full of action and a romantic plot. The Show kept the audience entertained, and the food was also delicious. After the Pirate dinner and show was over, band members went back to the hotel and it was lights out.

The following day, both the Concert Band and Wind Ensemble took part in the Heritage Festival musical competition. Despite the many great bands in attendance, both placed second, earning silver medals, thus making the trip an overall success and impressing band directors Karen Bascomb and Jennifer Martinez. That night, the students went to Disneyland.

“It was a fun opportunity to perform outside of Northern California and see what others had to say. Plus, everyone was excited to go park-hopping for two days,” claimed sophomore Kacey Peters, a member of the Wind Ensemble.

The rest of the trip was full of excitement when riding all the different rides. One of the many wonderful attractions was the suspenseful Indiana Jones ride, which was full of ancient pitfalls, poisonous darts, and screaming snakes and mummies.

Juniors outlast seniors in high scoring affair

By Demnlus Johnson and Anna Lynne Tiglao

Staff writers

On April 27, Pittsburg High School held its annual Powder Puff football game, when the junior and senior girls face off in a flag football game and junior and senior boys dress in drag to cheer on their class.

Last year, the game was cancelled due to rainy weather, but this year the weather was wonderful. It was so wonderful that it aided the juniors to victory over the seniors, 31-21.

“Everyone did their best,” senior player Tasha Thompson said, “even the cheerleaders.” Though she doesn’t have any regrets, Thompson bemoaned their lack of players. The senior team didn’t have as many players as the junior team, probably one of the reasons for their downfall. Thompson worked very hard on both offense and defense, and proved to be her team’s main offensive weapon.

Before the game, junior Kim Moffett was very nervous and excited because she wanted to prove that the juniors were better than the seniors. Moffet scored two touchdowns and pulled a lot of flags. She felt that their team did well because they were driven to win.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of this team,” said Coach Josh Florido of the juniors, who was glad he coached Powder Puff because he wanted to see if he was able to teach people football. Fortunately, his teaching skills led them into victory.

Although things were rough in the beginning, the competition was fun. According to Florido, the junior girls were able to learn the plays very quickly and used them to their advantage.

As for next year’s Powder Puff game, Thompson says not only to try not to lose, but also to have fun.

Pirate baseball: high hopes to the bitter end

By Shanice Jones and Cecilia Nguyen

Staff Writers

Even though this year’s varsity baseball team was trying to make it to the North Coast Section playoffs riding the surge of an early non-league record of 5-2, the NCS Selection Committee decided to choose Liberty as its final entry into the 2007 playoffs. Despite a win over Arroyo High and a shutout of BVAL Champion-to-be De La Salle, both of which made the cut, the Pirates and Freedom Falcons were left on the outside looking in.

Even though the team was solid last year, they tried their hardest to improve their game “by playing together and by playing the game the way [they] know how to play it,” according to varsity baseball player David Sangiamino.

One hurdle for the Pirates is simply the quality of teams they play against in the BVAL. Clayton Valley has built a solid reputation around its pitching over the years, and Deer Valley High School has a very good hitting team. Both teams swept the Pirates this season. Hopefully next season, they’ll take the experience of these losses and use it to their advantage against the Wolverines and Eagles of the world.

Another reason was probably due to overconfidence, as Pittsburg was very fortunate in an early season manhandling of the De La Salle Spartans. De La Salle is a nationally ranked team composed of a busload of talented players, so the word “competitive” should have been obvious when thinking about the Spartans.

A lot of Pirate players feel that the team is like a family: they work and play together. They try not to make anyone the key player. To them, everyone is a key player. Maybe with this attitude and concept of teamwork, they’ll reach their goal of making it to the playoffs.

Softball girls try to glean positives from sad campaign

By Ulises Caratachea & Alvaro Arias

Staff writers

The Lady Pirates’ softball season did not go well. The team practiced very hard, but constantly seemed to come up short in games. It’s one thing to have a horrible team that can’t pitch or play defense, but that wasn’t the case with the 2007 varsity softball team from Pittsburg. They were a talented squad that simply could not find ways to win.

Far too often, the Lady Pirates would go three and out. In other games, it seemed as if Pittsburg stranded runners in every inning. “Quite often, we lacked the ability to come out strong in the beginning, and stay strong throughout the game.” Coach Shalan Dundee stated after a recent loss to Carondelet.

The Lady Pirates are now looking forward to next season and preparing their hardest. “I feel that we could’ve done better by cheering each other on and making sure all of us kept our head up in the game and not letting our mistakes get to us,” said freshman Arcelia Artega.

With the last games of the season now mere memories, the Lady Pirates really can’t do anything more. For now, they will just practice and wait until next year.

Random Acts of Theatre

By Chelsea Hebert and Carla Deleon

Staff Writers

The PHS Acting II Workshop class performed their annual play Random Acts of Theatre on May 24 and 25 in Pittsburg High’s Little Theatre. It was a night of enjoyment and laughter.

The evening’s first act featured a lot of horror scenes, such as the vampires who tried to control people. Besides that, there were moments in the play where the actors needed to act romantically...while trying to avoid vampires! Sophomore Lisa Arcidiacono stated that her favorite act was “Act 2, because we have a lot of funny scenes and everyone had so much fun doing curtain calls.”

Before the premier performance of the play, there were many things that needed to be done: actors rehearsing with the other actors to practice their lines and act out their scenes to make it great. “It was Excellent!” claimed Drama teacher Makaela Huntsinger, giving her feedback “I couldn’t have been more proud.”

All of the people in attendance at this year’s play gave positive feedback to the cast members for their performance, which was a huge success.

Track season to continue at state meet

By Ebonee Johnson

Staff writer

With many hours spent after school training during the spring season, the PHS track team put in a hard working effort to have a successful season. Among those who qualified for the State Meet include Andre Gaston, Avery Patterson, the 400 Relay and 1600 Relay team.

The many hours of training the team received to prepare them for competitions made them want to train even harder to succeed against other schools. “Our biggest rival? Probably De La Salle,” claims senior Gene Mollique, “We always want to compete against them. When we see them at meets, we want to record better times than they do.” But even with all the hard work training for the meets, there is always room for making new friends.

This year’s track team put their efforts into winning against many of the schools they have faced. They have tried their best at the meets they have participated in, and as a result, even when they had their ups and downs about how they did at a practice or at a competition, they had a successful season with their teammates.

Some advice given to those who want to tryout for the track team in the future: “Stay dedicated to it and don’t miss any practices,” Sophomore Princess Rivera announces, “because that’s when you learn all of the techniques.”

Students rewarded for outstanding skills

By Brandon Thompson

Staff writer

Pittsburg High seniors Josue Lemus and Denise Arcidiacono were among thirty Contra Costa County students honored at the ROP Students of Excellence Awards Ceremony at the Pleasant Hill Community Center on May 8.

Lemus, who plans to pursue a career in architecture, was recognized for his outstanding work in Construction Technology and Computer Assisted Design classes. Arcidiacono won for her accomplishments in accounting. Both students received a certificate as well as a cash award.

Accounting instructor Martin Santiago claims he is not surprised that Arcidiacono won the award. “She is one of the most articulate, determined and hard-working students I have ever encountered,” he stated. “I see nothing but good things in her future.”

The Contra Costa County ROP (Regional Occupational Program) serves 12,000 students with classes in thirty high schools and ten adult sites in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. ROP focuses on career preparation, hands-on experience, and academic excellence to prepare students for college and future careers.