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Students have until Oct. 10 to register and vote in the elections for state representative Nov. 6, according to Abby Peterson, college counselor.

Running are Deb Lavender and Rick Stream. If elected they would represent Warson Woods, Glendale, Oakland, parts of Sunset Hills and Web-ster Groves and roughly two-thirds of Kirkwood.

Stream, who has held the office of state repre-sentative for the past six years, had his first experi-ence in politics when he was only 7. His mother took him up and down Dougherty Ferry to campaign for Dwight Eisenhower, and ever since he has been fas-cinated with politics. If Lavender is elected, this will be her first time in office, though she has tried for the position twice before.

Both Lavender and Stream have been cam-paigning for months now. To help students better understand who may be representing them at the state level, The Kirkwood Call has compiled a list of each candidate’s goals if they are elected.

• Cut spending, not raise taxes, to save Missouri money• Ensure each public school in Missouri receives an equal amount of state funding, no matter the amount of money each school receives from the community. This means Kirk-wood would receive an increase in state funding.• Create more jobs in the private sector

• Provide more funding for preschool education• Reduce the size of the Missouri House of Representatives, which will save millions of tax dollars according to Lavender• Create more jobs• Hold two meetings a year for people to come discuss their opinions and ideas to “make Missouri the best it can be”

Deb Lavender’s Platform (democratic) Rick Stream’s Platform (republican)

Lavender or Stream will soon represent Kirkwood

KHS tries putting off TryPOD

Emily Stobbe news editor

Will Humphrey news writer

For five years, freshmen have given up roughly three homerooms each year for TryPOD leaders to teach them about the dangers of excessive drink-ing. They learned facts about safe alcohol consumption and practiced ‘carefrontations.’ But this year, things will be different.

Freshmen will no longer see TryPOD (Try Putting off Drinking) in their home-rooms. The duties of alcohol awareness education are being taken over by Link Crew beginning this school year.

“I liked TryPOD’s message,” Connor Rogan, senior and former member of TryPOD, said. “It’s a good [message] to spread to freshmen, but they did not learn a lot.”

According to KHS administrators, one of the contributing factors to the switch from TryPOD to Link Crew was the decision to give freshmen more homeroom work time. This switch will allow Link Crew leaders who have already established connec-tions with freshmen to begin educat-ing them on the dangerous effects of

binge drinking.“It is better now because [freshmen]

will be with people they already know,” Rogan said. “They have more of a ‘role model’ figure to get information from.”

In the transition of sponsorship, Dr. Michael Havener, principal, said TryPOD also had some conflicts with budgeting.

“Annual sponsorship from the PTO is about $2,000, and some of that was for TryPOD,” Havener said. “They funded it for about three or four years and they’re just not able to fund it anymore.”

During these discussions, Andrea Sullivan and Julie Rice, Link Crew co-sponsors, said they could possibly take over TryPOD’s duty, the teaching of al-cohol awareness.

“Link Crew is all about positive at-titudes, building character and build-ing a community,” Sullivan, business teacher, said. “And [alcohol awareness] encompasses the core of a healthy life-style as well.”

Ben Mohler, sophomore, liked the idea of TryPOD, but did not like how he lost time in homeroom when the TryPOD leaders came to teach their lessons.

Link Crew leaders and freshmen do activities together before split-ting into smaller groups (above). Link Crew leaders cheer as fresh-men enter David Holley Assembly Hall on Freshman Orientation Day (below). Link Crew will soon take over the duties of TryPOD.

“I thought it was a good program, but it really cut into homeroom,” Mohler said. “And with the Link Crew stuff and random assemblies, a lot of freshmen didn’t really have time to do work and visit teachers.”

Rice, Family and Consumer Science teacher, also understands the amount of time TryPOD took from students.

“The first year TryPOD was here I had freshmen, and I know the kids did not like it taking up their whole homeroom,” Rice said. “It was very hard for [student volunteers] to go and teach random freshmen they didn’t know, which is where we are trying to make alcohol education work, because our juniors and seniors know these freshmen.”

Abby Viers, sophomore, said it was hard for students to connect with Try-POD. Viers also thinks Link Crew will be better for the job of alcohol awareness education because of the personal con-nections freshmen will have with their Link leaders.

“I think this will be a lot better,” Vi-ers said. “They will be in an environment where they know people already and where [learning] isn’t forced.”

Rick Stream discusses crime issues with a local police officer (right).Deb Lavender holds one of her campaign signs (left).

Photos courtesy of Deb Lavender Photos courtesy of Rick Stream

Photo courtesy of Sophie Lanzendorf

Photo courtesy of Sophie Lanzendorf