Sopris Stars May 2026

theSopris Stars

The abyss has ears

The Sopris Stars sees the sunset of the 2025/26 school year

Our world often threatens to swallow us whole. Even in our small town, with just enough people to fill a single section in a stadium, the bustling around us is constant and consuming. Our phones demand our attention with relentless notifications and rumors littering our “for-you” pages.

But tucked away in unit 26 at the Third Street Center is a space where the noise ceases for a while. Our news room here at the Sopris Stars is littered with the clicking of keyboards, the scratching of pens and the murmurs of the voices of writers, photographers, artists and editors. Here, we speak slowly, but with no lack of excitement.

OPINION

By Vivienne Shapiro

We pause for a moment and look at not just what we see when we open Instagram, but the story behind that photo. Here we speak freely about anything and everything, from political hierarchy to the dating life of Sopris Stars alum Gus Richardson. And then, when we’ve run out of things to say, we take a step back and write it all down. We apply the ethics of journalism and trust in the power of information.

The news room is, for me, like a bubble — overflowing with kindness, knowledge and intention. A place where it feels like what we have to say is important.

My colleagues never cease to amaze.

Anna Sophia Brown, Boettcher scholar and soon to be freshman at Colorado College, drives us to chase the hard-news stories. The controversial ones. Anna Sophia is not afraid of a punchy letter to the editor, but hasn’t received one yet due to the factual nature of her writing and insights from both sides of every argument.

Giselle (Gigi) Rascon brings consistency with her effortless statement pieces, making us think a little longer before we get dressed in the morning. Her critiques are honest and her words bring light and dynamism to our paper.

“At school, it’s like, okay, you have to write this and about this … here, it's just, like, speak,” she said, adding that our Wednesday meetings at The Sopris Sun office are “the best part of my week.”

Hana Creyts, who’ll attend the University of Oklahoma in the fall and minor in journalism, has chased a variety of stories, and might be the only intern who turns stories in on time.

“It was a little strange at first because I didn’t know how I would fit in here, but it's a very accepting environment and I love it here,” she said. “It’s a positive place where you get to learn a lot and write a lot about things you care about.”

Kate Ott observes the world through a camera lens, but her perspective is nowhere near tunnel vision. Aside from giving us a glimpse into the culture at Colorado Rocky Mountain School, she arrives with snacks to share every week. Kate brings levity, which we’ve learned is important in this line of work, and delivers exceptional visuals time and time again.

“I also got to expand into more writing, which I was definitely nervous about because I'm not the most eloquent writer out there. But I’m really glad I did,” she said. Kate wrote four pieces this past year and took countless photos, including partnering with professional reporters, such as The Sopris Sun’s John Stroud on sports coverage.

Aurora Egan is compassionate and determined, her power of observation is essential. Aurora has a talent for maintaining artistic integrity while writing hard news. Her words flow from the page like she’s having a conversation with the reader.

The innocent assassination

Swim goggles — the new fashion fab or a senior’s desperate grasp on a $500 prize?

Maybe you’ve seen seniors across the valley adorned with colorful goggles soaking in the last weeks of high school. Personally, you wouldn’t catch me getting lunch at Dos Gringos or sweating through the end of a workout without them. They’ve transformed into a necessary but agitating accessory. Why? They are the only protection in the face of looming assassinations.

Senior Assassins has swept the nation, becoming a core cultural experience for countless graduating seniors. To recap, seniors use apps like Splashin to assign targets and post videos; the motive: to shoot your targets with water guns. To advance to the next round, at least one person on each team must survive seven days, and each team must eliminate at least one other person. Goggles or other floaties act as “safety items,” except during the purge. Purge is a free for all, when anyone can get anyone — safety items don’t count — and where mayhem erupts.

OPINION

By Anna Sophia Brown

Don’t worry, we take precautions. Places of worship, school grounds, private property (except with an owner's permission), and moving vehicles are off-limits. On-theclock employees are safe, and the Roaring Fork High School resource officer gave us a strict talking to about ensuring our water guns are both neon and purely water-containing.

A particularly competitive spirit, and a minor longing for the prize money (each senior contributed $10 dollars to play) has made it to where I have far more experience getting people out in a brave warrior-esque style than becoming another casualty. So far, I have a 6-0 record. Not to say the opps haven’t

Fashion Alert

tried. From getting parked in my driveway for an hour, to a harrowing moment when three teenage boys tried to strike on my way into the house — which quickly turned worse for them upon discovering I had immunity (since I was on my own property) — I certainly have had no shortage of adrenaline-�illed close-calls.

Some of the assassins aren’t meant for battle. A dear friend showed up at my house while I was in the bath and desperately attempted to cajole my sister into letting her inside. Then she proceeded to take out her frustrations on my perfectly innocent sister, soaking her with her electric, hot-pink, spray-painted gun. (She’s out now, by the way.)

Despite their failures and feeble attempts at shooting me, I haven’t let my guard down. I find myself constantly on edge, with my head on a swivel.

Senior events — like senior skip day, senior prank and a million and one grad parties — are steadily approaching. In the beginning of the game, the stakes didn’t feel quite so high, and I was just fine with sacrificing all dignity and wearing goggles. (My goggles are blue with a great white shark and a shark-bitten surfboard.)

But now, as I write this, the deadline (Sunday, May 24) is looming, and there are only two teams left.

My incredible partner and I are the only team who have not had a single member get hit. Our opponents — “The Super Soakers” — are full of threats, none of which have come to fruition. (All bark, no bite.) Tensions are sky high, and we eagerly await the unavoidable face off. To make the last rounds more exciting, safety items, like goggles, no longer protect us.

Wearing white to graduation: an unofficial tradition forged through history

GISELLE “GIGI”

RASCON

Sopris Stars Columnist

As high school seniors come closer to that long-awaited taste of freedom, one of our remaining concerns lingering beneath our agitation includes the decision of what attire should lay beneath our gowns. Considering the outfit may go unnoticed from a lower perspective of the audience, it's difficult and almost feels irrational to drop a pretty penny on a nice piece of clothing to lay beneath our robes. However, regardless of the outfit possibly going unnoticed, what is traditionally worn beneath is often a given at almost every graduation ceremony: white.

I was in the midst of researching the roots of this ceremonial tradition, and I came across a column online that also raised the question: “Why is white the unofficial color of graduation?”

“... Many graduations take place in the spring or ear-

ly summer, and as white is already a popular color for those seasons, that could be another contributing factor,” the Medium column reads, expanding on one of multiple reasons it lists. Another reason could be to prevent overheating in the sun's heat by reflecting the sun's rays rather than absorbing them — A.K.A. the albedo effect.

At first glance, we often associate the color white with purity and innocence, which is typically why the bride is dressed in white. However, in this case, many may interpret the color as a canvas for our future, awaiting its next brushstrokes as we begin to paint our lives and step into the threshold of new life.

Moving forward, I came across a few key points that kept me digging for further input. They circle back to politics, as fashion always does. In this case, wearing white dates back to the women's suffrage movement. As defined by the

Merriam-Webster dictionary page, a suffragist is “one who advocates for women's voting rights.” The color was associated with this movement throughout the late-19th and early-20th centuries, when it was carried through marches, public appearances and gatherings as a figure of unity.

Inherently, white subtly echoes through various ceremonies nowadays, if you haven't already noticed. Within this academic rite of passage, the color carries its history and, unintentionally, mirrors the significance of each approach in the role through its symbolic association as we live on one of the final pages of adolescence.

We may be wearing the same thing and carrying out the same diploma, at the end of the day. Yet, as we light the candles for the next chapters of our lives, this unofficial graduation color carries the resilience, possibilities and the uncertainty of what next adventures await us.

the Sopris Stars

Youth Editor Lou Gall lou@soprissun.com

Anna Sophia Brown anna@soprissun.com

Arthur Cherith arthur@soprissun.com

Hana Creyts hana@soprissun.com

Aurora Egan aurora@soprissun.com

Kate Ott katelynn@soprissun.com

Giselle “Gigi” Rascon giselle@soprissun.com

Vivienne Shapiro vivienne@soprissun.com

Youth Journalism Director

James Steindler james@soprissun.com

Youth Journalism Instructor

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale

Graphic Designer

Terri Ritchie

The Sopris Sun, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation with a mission to inform, inspire and build community by fostering diverse and independent journalism. Donations are fully tax deductible. The Sopris Stars is made possible thanks to The Sopris Sun. Support The Sopris Stars Youth News Bureau by making a donation at www.soprissun.com/donate

Previously on ‘2�26’

So, we all know that the world is a little crazy right now. “A little” might be an understatement. Globally, the U.S. is at war with Iran, gas prices are still rising, there was a hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship and the Epstein Files are a thing that exist.

In school news that isn’t really news to anyone, graduation is coming up for all of us seniors in high school, including yours truly, which, as exhilarating and exciting as it is, can be sad and stressful as we all end our high school careers. And that’s not to say that no other high school student is stressed out. Finals are coming up and AP tests just passed. As stressful and fast-paced as all this is — and it is — that makes us forget things that make life more bearable. I will be honest: I’d forgotten about most of this stuff because of how stressful life is right now. And I’m probably not the only one. So, here is a recap of the less stressful things that have happened so far in 2026.

OPINION

By Hana Creyts

The New England Patriots played the Denver Broncos in January at the AFC Championship, where QB Bo Nix injured his ankle. The Patriots advanced to the Super Bowl to play against the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks won the Super Bowl with a final score of 29-13. But, let’s be real, if Bo Nix hadn’t injured his ankle during that AFC Championship game, it might have been the Broncos playing against the Seahawks in that game.

Bad Bunny also performed at the Super Bowl halftime show this year, with 128.2 million viewers in the U.S., the fourth-most-watched halftime show in history. At the Grammy Awards, Bad Bunny also won Album of the Year and Best Musica Urbana Album for his album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS and Best Global Musical Performance for his song EoO.

Speaking of global events, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics were held in February, with Colorado holding the record for the most athletes sent to compete — 36. The athletes from our home state won nine total medals. Five of those medals were gold. Thirty-three total medals were won by Team USA, and almost half of the gold medals won by Team USA were won by athletes from Colorado. In the Paralympics, three Team USA athletes from Colorado won gold medals; Noah Elliott in para snowboard, Brett Bolton was on the gold-medal-winning Team USA men’s hockey and Sydney Peterson in skiing.

More on the topic of sports: basketball season. It’s my favorite season because this season brings madness. And by madness, I mean March Madness. Most people, if not watching the games live, were at least following along with this tournament, and, like almost every basketball fan at the beginning of

ABYSS from the cover

March, created a bracket in hopes that maybe, just maybe, they would have the perfect bracket.

That didn’t happen. Every single bracket got absolutely destroyed almost immediately. It’s called March Madness for a reason, after all. And this year especially, the tournament lived up to its name. There were so many upsets right off the bat leading up to some major three point shots later on, including that impressive quasi-half-court shot made by UCONN freshman Braylon Mullins in the Final Four game against Illinois. However, Michigan ended up winning the national championship with a final score of 69-63, stripping two-time defending champion UCONN of their title. This was only the second time Michigan has won the championship (their first national title was from 1989). I’m a UCONN fan. But even I was less sad about UCONN losing the championship when I found out they lost to a school that had just earned their second national basketball title.

The University of Denver Men’s Hockey Team also won the Division 1 hockey tournament, earning them their 11th national championship title.

Lastly on the topic of sports, the FIFA World Cup is scheduled for this June, and every soccer fan from every country competing is anticipating this.

Well, that was a lot of sports talk, but that’s definitely not all that has happened in 2026.

I mentioned the Grammys earlier in this column. That was an eventful night. Some Grammy winners other than Bad Bunny included Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar. Justin Bieber was nominated in a few categories, but he didn’t win any. Probably a good thing, because his current and past controversies have accumulated and are floating around him like the Ghost of Bieber Past. Bieber’s performance at Coachella this year is some of the latest controversy. He got paid $10 million to be on YouTube for that performance. It was immediately met with backlash from everyone, because the performance was “lazy.” And, for the record, that performance was like the equivalent of showing up to class just because you have to on the last day of senior year.

The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah also hosted the Grammys for the last time this year. He made a lot of jokes over the night, all of them funny, but some landed him in hot water with the Trump administration. Released shortly after the Grammys, his most recent Netflix special, “Joy in the Trenches,” talks about this controversy.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope that this column took your mind off of the political and global chaos that is surrounding us right now.

Donning the cap and gown

HANA CREYTS

I’ve been having dreams for the past few months about graduation. Each is always a little different from the last, but it always includes finally walking across the Basalt High School stage, getting handed my diploma and throwing my cap up in the air to celebrate.

I can’t be the only one, right? Every high school senior across the country is probably having those same dreams. And that dream is almost a reality. For the Roaring Fork School District, graduation is only in two short days from the time this semester’s final issue of The Sopris Stars prints. Forty-eight hours remain before we can call ourselves high school graduates and start the next chapters of our lives. It’s very exciting, but also a bit overwhelming for a lot of high school seniors, like myself.

Everyone has their own experiences outside of high school that have shaped their perceptions of

these past four years and have been a part of their life and now their story. For me, it is kind of surreal that I’m graduating in a few days, and I’m probably not the only one that feels that way. After four years — four grueling years for most of us — we’re finally here. As tough as it was to get to this point, with all of the assignments, tests, AP exams, finals, friendship, social drama and senioritis, we’re here. It’s finally a reality that we all are taking the next step in our lives, whatever that may be. All of us come from different backgrounds, different experiences, different highs and lows in our lives. However, all of us, regardless of our stories, have one thing in common: We’re all about to walk across that stage on Saturday and become high school graduates. And (hopefully) we are all excited to take this next step in our lives, whether that is going to college, working or joining the military or whatever path you’re going to take in the future. Congratulations Class of 2026, we made it!

“By doing this program, I've definitely found a larger passion for journalism,” she said. “Its definitely a little scary at first, like, especially if you don’t have a background in journalism, but if you feel a passion for spreading news and writing about important stuff, I think it's definitely really important and fun.”

Arthur Cherith does it all, from reporting to creating art to cohosting Everything Under the Sun, The Sopris Sun’s radio program airing every Thursday on KDNK. It is a privilege to work with Arthur at The Stars.

“The Sopris Sun has always been a really great place for me to build a sense of autonomy and have a place where I feel genuinely supported and pushed to accomplish things I didn't think I could,” he said. Finishing his second year at The Stars, Arthur believes what we do here is becoming more and more important. “Especially right now, I think a lot of the youth feel very hopeless and [don’t] realize that there are these communities out there to support them and their growth,” he said. “I have a place to go and I’m valued.”

Penelope (PJ) Mathis, one of my fellow freshmen at Roaring Fork High School, is a passionate artist, musician and writer. She jumped on board midway through the semester, but left her mark. PJ allows for a glimpse into more rugged lifestyles, pulling her readers into the room she is describing — often a garage. As Sopris Sun editor James Steindler likes to say, “PJ is very punk rock.”

Lou Gall, our youth editor, is the heartbeat of our paper. Writing impactful pieces while keeping the paper fun and engaging for our team and readers, Lou ties all of our strengths together and ensures cohesion and accountability. The way she crafts sentences is truly an art, filled with intention, originality and wisdom. We could not be luckier to have Lou as our guiding star.

We are thrilled for our seniors (Anna Sophia, Gigi and Hana) to pursue their dreams, and count ourselves lucky to have been part of their stories, but find ourselves tearing up at the thought of spending the next couple of, to a few, years without them. Their futures may be unknown, but lives full of discovery are inevitable. This past year I’ve had the opportunity to delve into everything that goes into creating our paper each week. I’ve pitched stories to a room full of people, chased those stories, taken photos and conducted interviews with everyone from my 8-year-old neighbor to Roaring Fork School District Superintendent Dr. Anna Cole. I found myself cold-calling people who would previously make me shake in my boots, and formed connections with individuals who I would never have met without The Stars. I have had the opportunity to do something I hadn’t known was possible: see the world through eyes that weren't my own, and vicariously live new lives outside of the ones stacked on my nightstand. I have spoken up, I have spoken out and I have found that voices can be heard without sound at all.

I intend on continuing to write into the abyss, except, for the first time in my life, the abyss has ears.

This summer, I get to attend The School of the New York Times Summer Academy. And one day, if I'm lucky, I might create a program like the Sopris Stars, and change a student’s life as much as this has changed mine.

To our editors and teachers, Skyler Stark-Ragsdale and James Steindler, you have created a space that is loved and loves back, where knowledge is a gift and words hold weight. And for that, I am forever grateful. As always, feel welcome to reach us youthnews@soprissun.com, and we’ll get back to you next semester. Have a great summer!