Della Lokk

      Hi! My name is Della. I’m a senior and a first year student in journalism. I’m 17 and like to listen to music and watch movies in my spare time, as well as hang out with my friends.

Tyler Scrudato

Hello readers of the DHS Catalyst.  I am Tyler Scrudato. Now you might be reading this for one of three reasons. You might be stalking me. You might be lost on the internet and have stumbled on this site.  The most likely reason that you are on this site is because you have heard about my masterful, exquisite stories.  You have come so that the words I have written on my paper can be read through your eyes and sink down into your heart. I’m just kidding about that. Just read my stories. 

                Here’s some information about me in case you are stalking me. I am a senior this year. I’m applying to Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Kennesaw State, and the University of South Carolina.  If I could describe myself in one word: breathtaking. I not only write breathtaking articles for our newspaper, but my presence is also rather breathtaking. I’m not going to lie; I’m kind of a big deal.

Jessica Sherry

Hi, my name is Jessica Sherry and I am a senior, and also the editor of the Catalyst this year. I joined newspaper my sophomore year because writing is a major passion of mine. I loved the class, and worked hard to achieve my current position. One day I hope to be a journalist for a major newspaper, and then become a novelist once I have a family.

I look forward to helping the new staff improve their writing skills and bring our readers interesting and significant news throughout the year. Enjoy the Catalyst, and please leave comments!

Yelmy Nimbley

 

Hi, my name is Yelmy Nimbley and I am a sophomore at DHS. I am a staff member of the DHS Catalyst and I have a passion for writing. My longing to write started off when I was very young and it has continued up to this year. Making it on the newspaper staff was such a great accomplishment for me.  I am proud to say that I am a part of our school’s newspaper and Key Club. I will be sure to bring a little flare to everything I will be writing. Fun is my middle name, well not technically. I am also very outgoing, bubbly and I am not as mean as I look. I hope you enjoy the stories that I will be writing and I look forward to readers’ comments. 

 

Sam Rubenstein

Hello, Hello! I am Sam Rubenstein and I am a writer for the Duluth High School Newspaper. If you love to watch or play sports, you have come to the right place. I am your guy when the biggest news in sports comes up and I will be on it ASAP. Well, it will sort of be like that. I have been a big football, baseball, and basketball fan for the past few years and I plan to keep it that way. Also, I am an entertainment person who will keep up on the biggest news stories in entertainment. My plan is to not stop writing because my job is to give you the facts that you, the reader, will be looking for. I am straight forward and to the point in my stories so don’t expect more than just the basics.

Natalie McQueary

Hey! My name is Natalie McQueary and I’m a senior this year. I’m a varsity cheerleader for football and basketball and I’ve been a spirit cheerleader since kindergarten. I moved to Duluth after my 8^th grade year and started high school here. I was born in Chicago, IL and I grew up about an hour and a half away in St. Joseph, MI. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I love sports. I’m a die-hard fan for my teams and I will defend them until the death of me. Being from Chicago, my teams are the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. I’m girly, but I can most definitely talk you down in sports. For college, I would love to attend University of Illinois. I joined journalism this year because a sports journalist is one of my possible career choices. I hope all of you enjoy my articles, Go Wildcats!

Rick DeVries

My name is Rick DeVries. I am the coolest kid you will ever meet. I enjoy long walks along the beach and love watching beautiful sunsets. I am interested in smooth jazz music, the kind that Louis Armstrong performs. My hobbies are jazz flute and ping pong.

Mandy Frandsen

Being in a class full of juniors and seniors as a freshman, scary thoughts right?  Well, that’s me.  I’m Mandy Frandsen and, if you have not figured out, a freshman. Writing is a big passion of mine; I’ve always been interested in poems and such.  Ever since I was a little kid in elementary school, I’ve always wanted to write as a journalist or even publish my own book when I’m older.  So newspaper is a perfect place for me.  Besides writing articles for the newspaper, my other major interests are marching band, band, band… Very descriptive, hmm?  Yes, I am a band geek and I’m proud of it.  I’ve been in band since sixth grade and played in the marching band since 8^th grade.  Tenor saxophone is my instrument, best one there is.  Plus carrying that instrument during practices and games gives me muscles, so watch out.  If you don’t believe me, go march outside holding a 10 pound instrument for three hours straight every day after school, and that’s not even including football games!  I love marching band, truly.  I’m actually quite a simplistic person; band and writing, that’s me!  So this year I’ll keep you updated on all the new info with the best stories on here, make sure to keep an eye out!

Kate Croxton

I was born March 16^th, 1995, in Georgia and have lived here ever since. I have blue eyes that change color constantly, brown hair which used to be fiery red, and I have a tiny body of 5”2. I live in a three story house with my parents, Michael and Kelli. I have always been around the presence of animals and probably always will be. Currently, I have six cats, a kitten, a dog, and a rabbit. I played softball for 11 years but decided to take a break from it for need of a better education (softball took a LOT of time during my day). I am a junior at DHS and want to someday be a journalist for the UGA newspaper, Red and Black. I have traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. My next trip is with the DHS Orchestra when they go to Germany. I am a part of the DHS Orchestra and I play the cello; I have played for about six years now.

My favorite color is purple; my favorite movie is Silence of the Lambs (I know the script by heart); my favorite author is Stephen King; my favorite actor is Tom Hanks (no, I don’t have a favorite actress); and my favorite song is Your Guardian Angel by RJA. I listen to all sorts of music, except country, and I read just about anything you throw my way. I am dating a guy named Zach L. from Parkview and our two and a half year anniversary is Thursday, August 25th, 2011. I enjoy watching horror movies (they are so funny), playing on my mini laptop, reading books, listening to music, or simply being in the company of people I love.

A few of my ambitions in life is to save all the hurt animals in Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran and to one day meet Brian McCann in person (he’s my favorite baseball player). My inspirational people are FDR, Bob Marley, and my parents. I hope to one day have at most four kids and about 30 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all who I can spoil rotten and then leave them on the doorsteps of their parents’ house so they can deal with them. I don’t believe in TV, medicine, racial slang/jokes/people, cliques, or trying so hard to make other people like you that you forget who you are inside. I would rather have three real friends instead of 30 saying they are your friends when they are not. One of my all-time favorite quotes is “No boy is worth crying over and the one who is won’t make you cry.” My friends consider me hilarious, complicated (in a good way), and intelligent. There is a lot more to me, but this is all I can think of presently. I hope you enjoy the DHS Catalyst. This is Kate Croxton, signing out.

Cristina Rodriguez

Hi, my name is Cristina Rodriguez. I am currently attending Duluth High School as a junior. My birthday is October 13, 1994. I am sixteen years of age, and I am a writer for the DHS Newspaper. I have always been interested in writing and do it for fun.

 I am also a member of the varsity girls’ soccer team at Duluth. Soccer has been my sport since I was seven years old. I am very dedicated to soccer and absolutely love to play the game.

 I am a very social person, I love to stay out ‘till all hours and have fun with my friends. I am a very outgoing person, but I’m also very laid back.

I was born and raised in Duluth, but my family loves to travel. I’ve been to many different countries and states throughout my life.

I plan to graduate in 2013 and attend Georgia State University after high school.

I hope you read my stories throughout the year, and please leave comments!

 

Connor Cleary

My name is Connor Cleary, and I hate first person writing. It always seems far too personal and the constant uses of ‘I’ and ‘me’ feel very weird when typing. But due to the request of the editor to write this in first person, I feel I should at least try. Even if it kills me. (Disclaimer: If you hate poor humor then you will most likely hate this article. Do not sue.)

I am both a writer, and an artist. In order to best explain how my interest in these two things started it is best to start way back. And by way back, I am referring to my 7^th grade year. It was my second year of middle school, though some would refer to it as junior high. I had recently managed to force aside some of my own personal conflicts near the end of the last year and as such planned for a much more interesting year. The previous year had mostly involved by conflict with two people who would eventually become dear friends. That was the year the three of us made a choice. We would be great writers and post fan fiction. We were dumb and young, so looking back it seems like a terrible choice.

Our first work was terrible, and was based after the fictional mascot of the video game corporation known as SEGA. Yes… That mascot. That mascot that goes by the name of Sonic the Hedgehog. I’ll leave out the details, but I can easily say that the three of us where terrible writers. The fact that we had no previously planned script and kept passing the story around made it a mess. Still it doesn’t help that we had zero sense of perspective and totally mangled each and every piece of Sega’s fictional world. Eventually we ditched that idea and instead began to work on something new. It was then that I discovered Sprite Comics.

For those of you who have never heard of a Sprite Comic, let me explain. Have you ever played any of those old 2D Mario games where you sit on the heads of mushrooms and watch them become pancakes? I’ll take your silence as a yes. In that game, the character of Mario is composed of sprites, which are easily described as pixels. Each pose had to be individually created and shading had to be done by hand. It was mostly premade poses on a flat 2D surface. By reusing backgrounds from video games it was possible to create a sprite comic. But even then it was very, very dull. Again, it had no structured plot and it eventually grew into a mess. But that dull feeling would not set in until well into high school. It was 10^th grade when I finally grew tired of Sprite Comics and instead decided to rely on hand drawn comics.

I will not call myself a masterful artist, but I have for the longest time worked to improve my artistic skills. Throughout my attempts at both fan fiction and sprite comics I often attempted to draw in my spare moments. These moments were often short, but they constantly improved as time went on. In 11^th grade, I finally tried making a hand drawn comic. But with my junior year being remarkably hectic, I was forced to shut down my comic due to erratic update schedules. I eventually decided to merely rely on writing with occasional drawings to help me gain perspective of my own work and flesh out several ideas.

                This line of events eventually led to today’s events. Now let us move onto the more relaxing topic of my interest. I enjoy reading, writing, and drawing. If those where already obvious from my previous wall of text then I will explain several other interests. Besides simply reading and writing, I enjoy playing games on my Xbox 360 along with my younger brother. I am not ashamed to say that he is much better than me at shooters, but anything else is in my court. When not playing games, I can usually be found on my computer attempting to write a story or simply watching YouTube videos or humorous reviews on old movies.

                Those are the simplified facts. Please do not sue.

Kelsey Carniglia

Hey I’m Kelsey Carniglia and I’m a senior. This is my first year in journalism and I joined to further enhance my writing skills and to also have a more creative spectrum while writing something I don’t often receive the opportunity to in language arts. I’m really involved in school with clubs, cheerleading, and the swim/dive team. I want to attend the University of Georgia and major in sports medicine.

Austin Lloyd

My name is Austin Lloyd. I am a senior at Duluth High School and this is my first year with the newspaper. I was in drama for two years and have been on the tennis team since freshman year. I am looking forward to next year when I go to college. I would like to go Georgia State or Kennesaw State and get a degree in business management.

Andressa Mota

Hello!  My name is Andressa Mota. I was born on January 7, 1995, making me 16 years old and a sophomore at Duluth High School. This is my first year being a part of the DHS Catalyst. Other than writing, I enjoy running. This is my third year on the Cross Country team, tracing back since the 8^th grade.  I have many goals I’d like to accomplish, and many options of careers for the future. I’m looking into becoming a vet as my first option.

                I was born on the sunny beaches of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I moved here to the U.S. with no knowledge of this place. Maybe I knew how to say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and ‘I don’t speak English’. Other than that, I was a pretty clueless child, so I guess you can say I’ve learned a lot since then.

Let’s keep it short and simple. Naturally, I’m just a typical teenager learning more and more everyday about the ways of this world.