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Written by Jordan Rudner
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Monday, 05 April 2010 14:13 |
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In a victory over incumbent opponent State Representative Terri Hodge, Eric Johnson ’94 swept the Democratic Primary held on March 2. Mr. Johnson, who won with 70.25 percent of the vote, is now running unopposed for the District 100 seat.
A contributing factor to Mr. Johnson’s victory was his opponent’s recent involvement in a corruption scandal at City Hall. Representative Hodge pled guilty to tax evasion on Feb. 2; however, election laws mandated that her name still be included on the ballot. This meant that a Johnson victory, though expected, was not guaranteed.
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Written by Eryn Levine
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Monday, 05 April 2010 14:05 |
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For some students, ‘Silence is golden’ will be the motto on April 16. On that day, the school’s halls will be filled with students standing out in a chattering crowd, mouths shut tight with a determined silence. The Day of Silence is a national event that will give students the opportunity to take a stand against bullying and harassment of people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ).
"Participants spend the day under an oath of silence, but they carry around a note card explaining why they will not talk," said senior Kelly Drumm. "The note card explains the significance of our protest: staying silent for one day at school is a metaphor for the silence that many LGBTQ teens maintain for years, not feeling safe enough to express who they are."
Kelly and sophomore Dawson Ray, the directors of this year’s muted event, started a Facebook group to get students interested. According to Kelly, 61 students have signed up for the event and 33 have given a maybe out of the 438 students who attend Upper School, meaning that around 21 percent of the Upper School student body is now aware of the stand against LGBTQ harassment.
"I hope the Day of Silence will really make us think about what kind of environment Greenhill provides for LGBTQ youth and adults," Kelly said. "If a large portion of the student body turns out for support and participation, it could have an enormous impact. This is the kind of thing that makes a statement about who we are as a school."
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Written by Grace Park
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Wednesday, 10 February 2010 00:00 |
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It was a Tuesday when the earth shook in Haiti. The piles of shapeless buildings that lay haphazard in the streets served as an inescapable reminder of a nightmarish reality: the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere suffered its worst earthquake in 200 years.
On Jan. 12, 2010, an 7.0-magnidue earthquake and 12 aftershocks each of over 5.0 magnitude damaged structures of all kinds, from the shanty homes scattered throughout the country to the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.
Several weeks after the incident, the death toll has climbed to well over 100,000, and rescue teams and medical crews from all over the world continue to reach out to the devastated Haitian people.
Among the many medical crews that descended upon Haiti immediately after the disaster was a group of 24 doctors and nurses from Forest Park Medical Center in Dallas. Among them was Dr. Nirmal Jayaseelan, a general surgeon at Medical City Dallas and father of seventh grader Zubin, fourth grader Meera, and second grader Kirin Jayaseelan.
Dr. Jayaseelan landed in Haiti just five days after the initial earthquake occurred.
“When I arrived at the airport, it seemed like a war zone,” Dr. Jayaseelan said. “Military personnel with large guns, numerous helicopters, and fires in the distant - it was like a movie.”
Because of this chaos in Haiti, it was also difficult to find transportation.
“It took us a while to just get transportation to the hospital,” Dr. Jayaseelan said. “The city was very populated, crowded, and full of crumbled buildings. The buildings in Haiti are mostly made out of concrete, so when they fell, it crushed cars and people.”
The medical crew went right to work, aiding the Centre Hospitalier in Port-au-Prince, which had already been filled to many times over capacity.
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Written by Jordan Rudner
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Wednesday, 10 February 2010 00:00 |
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Eric Johnson ’94, a Democrat married to Nakita Garraway ‘02, is currently running for the Texas House of Representatives, District 100. Although the Democratic primary election is March 2, Mr. Johnson is already making headlines as the the only candidate left in the running.
On Feb. 3, Mr. Johnson’s opponent, former State Representative Terri Hodge, pleaded guilty to tax fraud as the result of an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into corruption at Dallas City Hall. Even though she dropped out of the race, her name will still be on the official primary ballot. This means that Mr. Johnson must continue to run a strong campaign if he wants to win. Because there is no Republican candidate, if former State Representative Hodge wins a majority of the votes, the responsibility of picking a candidate will go to the Distcrict 100’s Democratic precinct chairs.
According to Mr. Johnson’s website, johnsonfortexas.com, one of the main issues of the campaign is education. Today, the dropout rate for District 100 residents aged 16 to 19 is just under 30 percent, and in a Jan. 11 Op/Ed for Dallas South News, Mr. Johnson wrote, “fewer high school graduates translates directly into higher crime, more drug abuse, [and] a less educated workforce.” When explaining his reasons for participating in the election, Mr. Johnson also wrote, “I am running for State Representative precisely because we need an advocate focused on the dropout problem in the State Legislature.”
Other tenets of Mr. Johnson’s campaign include the promotion of economic development and the addressing of the crime and drug issues that plague District 100, where per-capita annual income lags behind the state average by almost $7,000.
When Betty Aday, former Upper School math teacher, heard that Mr. Johnson was running, she said she wasn’t surprised.
“I had talked [with Eric] last year, and I knew he was interested in taking off in the political arena,” she said. “I’m so pleased that he has found a way to use his voice.”
Dan Kasten, Upper School English teacher, agreed.
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