Her grandmother died from it. Her grandfather, too. But when her mother received a breast cancer diagnosis in 1995, junior Catherine Rogers was too young to realize what it meant. "My mom just told me that she had a 'boo-boo' and the doctors were trying to fix it," Rogers remembers. "I guess I was too young to think that she could die from it."
Where only first names appear, names have been changed to protect the identities of the sources. She came over to bring him his Christmas present, but he wanted her. What started out as a friendly visit to an old boyfriend turned into a nightmare for Sophie, a senior, when her ex began to pressure her to sleep with him. He told her he hadn't been with anyone in a while, trying to guilt her into letting him have sex with her, but she refused, and his advances turned physical. He pressed her face against his, forcing her to kiss him. She tried to push him away, but he didn't relent. "Eventually, I kind of caved," she says. "I kind of gave up and let him do whatever he wanted."
This year, the SGA simplified the procedure for evaluating grant proposals for clubs. In previous school years, clubs could make fund requests to the SGA year-round. To streamline this process, the new procedure required all clubs seeking funds to file grant proposals by Dec. 6, according to senior David Hu, SGA director of club services.
If she wanted her diploma, she knew she had to get out of Blair. For former student Ashley Valoris, every school year was the same: She began each quarter with As in her classes, but as the weeks passed and the work piled up, her grades dropped to Cs and Ds. She was bright and creative, but her severe Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) meant she was unable to organize her schoolwork.
As junior Jaynice Harden struts down a makeshift runway in the front of the SAC, she knows that each step brings her closer to the modeling career she's always wanted. She's three weeks into her first year with Blair's fashion club, but what she lacks in experience, she makes up for in confidence and curves.
Sophomore Michael Funes sits slumped over a desk in his second-period Developmental Reading class. He doesn't know how he got put in the course, and he doesn't really care. All he knows is that he doesn't want to be here.
When freshman Misael Cruz heard the thumping roar of a helicopter overhead, he felt his heart sink. After paying $3,000 to be escorted illegally across the border between Mexico and the U.S., Cruz was finally on American soil - only to be spotted by the U.S. Border Patrol as soon as he set foot in New Mexico.
When her boyfriend of three years went to Jamaica for the summer, Lily, a freshman, did what seemed natural to her: She cheated on him. Not because he neglected her or mistreated her, but simply because she could.
"Zoloft, Effexor, Lorazepam, Wellbutrin, Neurontin..." Tyler, a junior, rattles off the labels of the 15 day-glow orange pill bottles that line the top of his bedroom dresser. "Buspirone, Paxil, Trazodone, Celexa, Zyprexa," he continues. "Those are the main ones."
The Committee on Recruitment Issues at Blair (CRIB) submitted a petition intended to limit military recruiters' access to Blair students to Principal Phillip Gainous on Jan. 13. As of Jan. 23, the petition had 94 signatures from Blair parents and students and remains open for endorsement.
Every weekday morning at 6:30 a.m., senior Darren Brown leaves his home in Kemp Mill Estates and walks 30 minutes to the nearest bus stop. From there, he catches a Ride On and takes it across three school districts: first Kennedy's, then Northwood's, then Blake's, arriving at Blair just as the late bell rings.
Nothing gets between sophomore Whitney Skippings and Harry Potter, not even the Atlantic Ocean. Skippings, a hardcore Harry Potter fan, was vacationing in the Bahamas when the sixth book of the popular children's series was released this past summer. Noting the islands' lack of book stores, she had a copy of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" shipped to her from the U.S. on the day of its release rather than let 700 miles of deep blue sea separate her from Harry.
It was Blair graduate Danielle Prados's broken alarm clock that saved her life. Had it rung as planned on the morning of July 7, she might have become a statistic, another casualty of the summer's London subway attacks.