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Nathan Abdelnour saves the beloved No-Shave November with his persistence

By DAVID McDONALD ‘18

On Tuesday November 8, Mr. Franzinger announced over the PA that NoShave November would be happening after all. The announcement came as a surprise to students who figured that the tradition would not be continuing this year, as the school was already a week into November. The announcement detailed that this No-Shave November would be abbreviated, starting on November 16, if and only if no students came to school unshaved and were asked to shave. The fact that students get to participate in the event at all can be attributed to the hard work and devotion of the Student Senate President, Nathan Abdelnour ‘18.

No-Shave November has taken place at St. Ignatius every year for longer than any current student has been enrolled. The event allows students to grow out their facial hair by requiring a five-dollar donation from anyone who wishes to participate. It is inspired by the larger “Movember” campaign which encourages men to stay unshaven for the month of November to raise awareness for common men’s health issues, like prostate and testicular cancer. Last year, No-Shave November, organized by the Student Senate, was also cut short, not beginning until November 9. This year the school cancelled it completely. In a senior class meeting on October 19, Franzinger dismissed the importance of the tradition and said it would not be happening because too many students were leaving trash on their lunch tables, especially in the senior lounge.

But Abdelnour, who had been asking for permission since October, was determined to get No-Shave November for his fellow students. He attributes the school administration’s change of heart to his persistence, telling the Eye, “I think that since I asked him many times it made him want to reach an agreement with me.” Now students get five days to grow their beards until Lumberjack Day, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, which has typically been the day on which beards are judged and a winner is declared.

So the annual tradition, offering students a chance to legally break dress code, will continue another year. The past two years have shown that putting on the event takes dedication on the part of Student Senate. Hopefully in the future student behavior will improve.

LeFloyd

By KYLE KATIGBACK ‘18

“Who would win in a streetfight, LeBron or Mayweather?”

The posed question ringed throughout the campus of Saint Ignatius a fews months back, causing argument after argument, with some getting quite first period physical. The question’s origin began in Mr. Dybicz’s etymology class. From there, the question spread to not just students, but even teachers taking part in the debate.

It seemed among the majority of people that LeBron would prove victorious. This was solidified by Senior Bain Kurtz’s Twitter Poll, which received 416 votes, 74% of which chose Lebron. Many supporters of LeBron argued that his combination of strength, size, and speed would just be too much for Mayweather to handle in a street fight. Their theory was that Lebron could simply charge at Mayweather, and then proceed to pick him up and have his way with him.

Bain Kurtz ‘18 takes the argument to a twitter poll. Screenshot taken from Kurtz’s twitter.

On the other hand, supporters of Mayweather argued that Mayweather’s ability take and give punches would give him the upper hand. Supporters claimed that LeBron would not be able to get ahold of Mayweather as easy as LeBron supporters thought it would be.

Among the students, Ian Flynn was the most vocal supporter for Lebron. When asked about the issue Mr. Flynn simply yelled back at me “Lebron is King!” while remnants of his gluten free sandwich flew throughout the air.

As for Mayweather supporters, the most vocal was Senior Garrett Agronin. There’s no denying the impact this simple question had on the Saint Ignatius student body. Regardless of what people say, we will never know who would win unless it actually happens.

Letter from the Editor: Alumnus Scott Fedor inspires others

By TIMOTHY ZVONCHECK ‘18

Mr. Scott Fedor ‘94, photo taken from the Adversity 2 Advocacy

I am Tim Zvoncheck, a current junior and co-editor-in-chief of The EYE. I have always liked writing and English, which led to me becoming a writer for The EYE at the beginning of my sophomore year. Later, I learned how to edit and layout, which brought me to this point.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of hearing Saint Ignatius alum Scott Fedor speak. Scott was on the football team and won a state and national title. He then became a young, successful businessman as he traveled the world and went on wild adventures. One day, while at his parents’ lake house, he was sitting outside alone. After deciding to dive into the water, he hit his head on a rock at the bottom of the lake. He shattered his spine and became paralyzed from the neck down.

After sharing what happened to him, he explained that even to this day his injury does not stop him. His talk’s theme was “Keep the Faith,” which perfectly summarized his scenario. Despite his injury, he still serves God and makes the most of what he has.

“Rather than feeling bad for himself and doing nothing, [Fedor] made the most of his circumstances. He serves others so that their lives might be better.”

I learned many things from his talk, but most importantly and, relating to this school’s main idea, was that he was still able to commit himself to God, despite his disability. Rather than feeling bad for himself and doing nothing, he made the most of his circumstances. He serves others so that their lives might be better. He uses the position that he is in to teach and help others, rather than using his position to get help and pity from others. Scott provides a living example of what it means to put others first. No matter what you go through, offer it up to God. Scott did this, and he lives a truly happy, loving life.

PodCats #4 Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice with Sam Hoag

Sam Hoag ’19 sits down with Ian Thompson to discuss the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice. Ignatians for Peace and Justice traveled to Washington, DC for the event in early November.

PodCats #3 Mr. Fujimoto

Luke Van de Walle interviews Mr. Rich Fujimoto ’66 on what it was like to be one of the first students of color at the school in the 60’s.

 

Freshman Student Senate candidate statements

After the November 14 primary, the remaining candidates for Freshman senate were invited to make statements to their classmates about what kind of leader they will be. Here are their statements in order of their response to the request. We will continue to add new statements as they come in. Freshmen can vote in the final election on November 16. 

William Moore

I am honored to have made it past the primary elections. I am running for Student Senate because I have always been interested in government and I believe I am the right fit to lead our class. As a student representative, I plan on acting as a role model for my class and further classes to come.

Noah Zebrak

As a freshman Student Senate representative I plan to do what’s best for the students and to make this year full of fun. I ran for the Student Senate because I wanted to be involved in something other than sports. I also think I am a good person to represent the freshman class.

Nick Velotta

The motivation to my running for student senate is based mainly off of a leadership opportunity that presents itself like no other. I feel like one of the gifts I have received from God is leadership, and Student Senate seems like the perfect setting to develop these skills. I will bring hard work and effort to the Senate. The opportunity to help the students of Saint Ignatius along with students elsewhere is special because I get to do the behind the scenes work of making people happy and that ultimately makes me happy. The doors opened up by Student Senate are greatly beneficial and I plan on using what I learn to help others and myself in the future.

Kenneth Klubnik

Hello, my name is Kenneth Klubnik, I am running as your freshmen class representative to bring a greater good to our fellow freshmen. I want the best for them and I feel like I can make that happen through Student Senate. Vote Klubnik!

Zach Toothman

Hello Class of 2021! My name is Zach Toothman and I’m running for Freshman Class Representative. I promise I will work hard to tackle the issues most important to you, so you don’t have to! I will make sure your voices are heard in our student senate. I would like to create an online form for those interested in voicing their opinions on top of always being accessible by e-mail. Some of my qualifications included 5 years of government experience (Student Council President, Student Council Representative), captain of my club swim team, great listener, and motivator. You’re probably asking what does this mean for you? It means that while I do have experience in leadership positions, I also know that being part of a team means taking the “I” away to make room for words like “us” and “we”. I will gladly listen to any concerns and will do all in my power to make things better with the help of the rest of the Student Senate. I won’t make empty promises but I can assure you that I will dedicate my energy to making this year great!

Peter Turk

I am running for Student Senate because I will be a great leader and unify the entire freshmen class. I promise that I’ll be a friend and a true representative of the entire freshmen class. I will listen and address any concerns a student may have. I will encourage other classmates to get involved and participate in various clubs, activities, and service projects for the benefit of others. I am joining not only to develop my character, but the character of every student at Saint Ignatius. Your voice will be heard!

John DiFilippo

I am running because I have always loved being in a leadership position and I think student senate is a great opportunity for me. I plan to do more service in the surrounding communty of St. Ignatius.

John Panstares

My name is John Panstares, and I am excited to run for freshman student senate. Saint Ignatius has a long tradition of service and I hope to live up to that by serving my classmates and school as a part of student senate. If elected, I would work to achieve the student senate mission, “To labor and not to ask for reward”. In other words, aid others whether they are affiliated with Saint Ignatius High School or not. I will work effectively with our leadership team on organized events and service projects. I will do my best to help the Saint Ignatius community, as well as the community surrounding our school, live up to its fullest potential.

Henry Raynor

I am running for freshman Student Senate Representative because I want to ensure the best interests of the Class of 2021 are represented. I plan to be the advocate for the men of my class and all aspects of student life and our community.

John Tuma

My fellow Wildcats, my name is John Tuma and I am one of the ten students left in the running to become one of your freshman senators. I appreciate each of you who voted to get me here and I encourage you to vote again in the final election. For those of you who might have supported someone else, I hope to earn your support this time around. The reason I want to be a part of Student Senate this year is to attempt to make our school experience the best that it can possibly be, while also becoming more involved in our community. I have the experience needed for this important position as I was elected into a leadership position on student council at my grade school last year. Based on this experience, I know how to lead, solve problems, and introduce new ideas. I intend to give the freshman class a voice to ensure that your needs are met and I intend to listen to your input. Some potential fun items to come might include a freshman talkshow on SIBN and a Freshman Comedy Night, which would let our class comedians shine while we all have some laughs. Remember, to make this a great year, the choice is clear! Vote Tuma for Student Senate! Go Cats!

 

The Tribe 2017: There’s always next year

By Daniel Drellishak ’20

It is hard to soak in that the 102-60 Indians lost in the first round of the American Division League Series. If I were to sum up their season in one sentence, it would have to be, “The season only matters if you win a ring.” This has been a problem for the Cleveland Indians franchise since 1948, the last and only time they won their last championship. After failing to win the World Series with a 3-1 lead against the Chicago Cubs last year, many Indian’s fans were sure that they would make it back to the World Series and win the coveted title. Well, being a Cleveland Sports fan we knew something had to go wrong.

The highlight of the Tribe’s season was for sure the 22 game straight win streak. Everything was going right during that period of time, even without Andrew Miller for most of it. The starting pitcher was spot on and the offense matched it just as well. To prove it, the Indians only trailed seven out of the 181 innings during the winning streak, which meant that the offense always started off the games with a big start. We all new that Corey Kluber would be stellar as usual, but the picture that really stood out was a shaggy-haired right hander, Mike Clevinger. Mike threw 18 scoreless innings in this span, with an allowed 0.159 batting average. During the first twelve games, infielder, and arguably the most versatile player in the MLB, Jose Ramirez, hit eight home runs! He batted .423 and didn’t even play in four of the games!

To cap off the season, the Indians finished first in the American league and in their division by 17 games. This memorable season was rewarded with a home field advantage in the American League Division Series, against the New York Yankees that won the Wildcard game against the Minnesota Twins. Sadly, the Indians lost the five game series 3-2. Watching this series, the Indians played fairly well the first two games and then all went downhill. We could not get past the Yankees starting pitching. The pitching was the worst it’s been all year. When you perform like they did, it can be really difficult to win. Nothing is worse than losing to your long time rivals and having to watch them continue into the playoffs.

If the Tribe can keep their team together, I believe we could definitely repeat what we did this year in the regular season. Our biggest contender next year is the New York Yankees. With Aaron Judge, Brett Gardner, and Didi Gregorius most likely sticking with the franchise, the Yankees still have room for even more All-Star like players. If the Indians can resign Jay Bruce and many other players contracts that expire this year, we could be in good shape.

Until next season, go Browns and Cavs.

Delecats bring home awards from MHSMUNII

From right: Kyle McNamara, Brendan Oliss, John Zix, Patrick Condon, Gabe Oliss, Sanat Subhash, Mike Chopra, And Me Ray Yeh

By Raymond Yeh ’21

On Saturday Oct. 14th seven Ignatius DeleCats celebrated the official closing of Mentor High School’s Model United Nations Crisis Conference (MHSMUNII). For Mentor, this was their second time hosting this event. Starting on Friday Oct. 13 at 9 am this conference lasted until 3 pm Saturday. The two days were filled with action packed, non-stop chaos featuring just about everything from martyrdom, to Rex Tillerson being arrested, to Taiwan declaring autonomy from the People’s Republic of China. Beside the fact that some countries may or may not have launched their entire nuclear arsenal (to clarify, they definitely did), the world remained largely at peace.

My personal experience is accounted below:
The day in the Taiwan cabinet began somewhat slowly. We discussed how Taiwan would break free from the grip of chinese oppression. As minister of national defence I stated, “The minister of national defence believes that it is in the best interest of the Taiwanese people to begin a large scale recruitment campaign to add to the might of Taiwan’s growing military force as well as increasing trade of artillery and armoured divisions between Taiwan and the U.S.” This statement became the first directive of the day.

Shortly after we signed off on the directive the first “crisis” dropped, the DPRK (N. Korea) had arrested a U.S. officer with “espionage gear”. I used my power to apply surveillance to “spy” on the DPRK and fellow DeleCat Sanat Subash. They spoke about how this officer had a blatant disregard for DPRK’s national sovereignty, the DPRK would consider capital punishment, and they would disclose as little information as possible. We (the Taiwan cabinet) put this information out in a press release.

We moved on to discuss what action needs to be taken to prevent chinese encroachment on Taiwan land claims. I also headed this directive that increased our military presence in the outlier islands of our territory. Mere moments after we put the directive up, another crisis dropped. There was a Chinese aircraft carrier found in Taiwanese waters. The minister of national defence stated quickly that as this aircraft carrier poses an imminent threat to the Taiwanese home front we must take immediate action.

Before we could draft a directive, a chinese cabinet member storms into our room and forcefully slams a note on our chair’s desk demanding a summit meeting between taiwan and china. We then replied that we would be happy to send me and our minister of foreign affairs, Emily Fuerst from Chardon, an offer to which they declined.

Later during lunch I asked John Zix, a fellow delecat, why to which he answered that since China did not recognize us they would not meet with our ministers as that would mean that they recognized us as a nation. After our lunch break, the next news story was dropped. “Due to a new Chinese Embargo, a Taiwanese tanker headed for Japan was stopped, searched and Chinese officials found a note stating that the Premier of Taiwan wants to declare independence (not true). We had to assert that this was “fake news” and that the Chinese planted this note. This took up most of the second session.

At the end of the first day another story dropped that the Taiwanese Premier’s father died in a mysterious incident. The crisis committees picked back up on saturday when we learned that someone *cough cough DPRK cough cough* launched an EMP at Taiwan at the end of friday. So the first hour of saturday was in darkness without the ability to get press releases or crisis drops. Thanks to our foreign affairs minister and good old pen and paper passed some directives and passed some notes and got some information. It turned out that DPRK tried and executed the officer captured on the previous day. A DPRK jet was unresponsive and flying toward the philippines, China was building an island around Taiwan, and in a mess up at the China Taiwan summit a Chinese minister called Taiwan an independent nation… this minister was “assassinated.”

The philippines launched a rocket at DPRK which landed in the ocean and it was presumed to be provided by the Russian Federation. Also China sunk a Taiwanese merchant vessel with all hands. We made a directive to put destroyers on patrol of our waters. After this directive happened, another crisis dropped. U.S. ships supporting Taiwan defence forces shot down a chinese jet. The pilot was currently missing. We passed directives to send some spare assets to find the pilot. Another news drop the pilot confirmed dead. The chinese published a video stating that they had the pilot (propaganda).

More news, A South Korean soldier broke rank on the DMZ and opened fire on his DPRK counterparts. Multiple counties put out press releases condemning the actions of this soldier. A few moments later a press release from south korea states that they are ending the ceasefire and mobilizing troops toward DPRK. Our cabinet was flipping out about this and we decided we needed to meet with the U.S. but we breaked for lunch.

Once again after lunch there was much talk and we decided to issue in a press release the Writs of Taipei our little pet project. In it we stated that we are and always have been an independent nation, and Xi Jinping must cede all of his land claims in our area to us. I met with the U.S. in a summit and they backed us with unconditional support because of the loss of our merchant vessel however when I offered to initiate a tactical strike on DPRK artillery guns on the DMZ, Rex Tillerson said no and Gen. Mattis said that “we [the U.S.] do not want to be the aggressors and will not support the aggressors,” and then China launched a JH-7 bomber headed toward Taiwan. We ended up shooting it down and then we coordinated a tactical strike with south korea and using my power to order a tactical strike we successfully eliminated the artillery guns and south korea carpet bombed Pyongyang. Japan launched an EMP on China and the World became pretty hectic. Our minister of justice in the end executed me.

In the end Patrick Condon won Delegates choice and Best Delegate. Gabe Oliss won Honorable Mention. Brendan Oliss won the “lion award” for a resolution that was unanimously passed that acknowledged that lions are people too and that countries must use lions and only lions in combat. And I (unannounced) won the Best Martyr award for my “martyrdom.”

PodCats #1 Sean McSween ’20 and Beck Saine ’18 from The Odd Couple

In the prenier episode of the Eye’s newest PodCast, PodCats, Ian Thompson interviews The Odd Couple leads Sean McSween and Beck Saine about the production, their interest in theater, and the Harlequin’s future.

Tickets are available now online for October 20, October 21, or October 22. K-12 Catholic School students can get tickets free at the box office.

President Nathan Abdelnour and Vice President Christian Seybert take the reins for the Student Senate

BY AIDAN McCAFFREY ‘18

The Montessori movement is sweeping Student Senate. Nathan Abdelnour and Christian Seybert, Ruffing Montessori alumni, are the new face of our student government. The duo plans to spice up the school with some fresh, exciting ideas.

The first sports rally that the school had this year was regarded as the best by a multitude of the students due to the new student section ideas and humorous interviews conducted by Chris Bishop ‘18. These were part of their plans to cater more to the student body and to make the student section “great again.” Another part of their plan is to streamline tailgates, entrusting this operation to Senior Class President Chris Larsen and the newly dubbed student section leaders.

Spirit is good to have, but it is not of the utmost importance. Nathan and Christian are both actively involved in service around the school. They are revolutionizing the annual Patel Toy Drive. When there is a surplus of toys, the school holds onto them until next year’s drive. Due to this, all the donations are not getting used for their intended purpose and the pair plans on changing that. They plan to distribute the extra toys to local hospitals near Christmas to brighten a child in need’s day. They desire for this heartfelt gesture to become tradition for the slate that succeeds them.

One major change the pair plans to implement is a loyalty system in the cafeteria. This is a challenge, because they need to devise a plan that benefits the students as well as the cafeteria, but President Abdelnour emphatically states, “We are up for the challenge.”

This determination that the duo boasts about was on full display last weekend for Homecoming. The dance was, by far, the most attended homecoming in school history with over 2,000 people in attendance. This recent success along with their adventurous ideas marks the beginning of what could be an extremely successful year as President and Vice President.

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About The Eye

The Eye is the student-led publication of Saint Ignatius High School.

Editors-in-Chief: Kelly Coleman '23, Young Kim '23 & Aidan Oliss '23