Feb 2, 2017 by The Battalion

12-year-old Jake Johnson runs business to become Aggie

MAKING SALSA, W CHASING DREAMS

By Meredith McCown @meredithrhoads

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ith a dream to attend Texas A&M University to become a geologist when he grows up, Cy-Fair 12-year-old Jake Johnson decided tuition expenses would not hinder his aspirations. What started out as selling salsa in mason jars to friends at the lunch table in seventh grade turned into something more than Johnson ever expected. “Jake’s Atomic Salsa” is now sold in 12 stores across Texas between the Houston and College Station area. Eight of those stores are Ace Hardware stores, three are Aggieland Outfitters and the other is Market 1023 in Downtown Bryan. His story has been featured in the news on television, and also in publications such as Texas Living Magazine and the Houston Chronicle. Since the beginning of September when the business opened, Johnson has sold more than 8,000 jars of salsa, saving the profits for his four years at A&M studying geology. Additionally in a few weeks, Johnson will be featured as a keynote speaker at his middle school for the eighth grade career day. Johnson said his desire to become a geologist one day stemmed from his fascination with rocks. “I always had a connection to rocks,” Johnson said. “I like it because it just seems really cool to me how one, how expensive they are, and the beauty of them, they’re really pretty. So that’s why I wanted to do it. And I also wanted to find them.” Johnson said a few special ingredients helped him to achieve the perfect salsa recipe — roasted peppers and spices, to name a few. “I never liked the salsas in the store. So I always thought, well, if I make my own, I would have the perfect flavor and I would always eat it because it was mine,” Johnson said. “So I made it and it was really, really good.” Johnson wanted the brand name of the salsa to reflect his passion for ATOMIC SALSA ON PG. 2

12-year-old Jake Johnson started a business making salsa and selling it to raise money to go to A&M in the future.

Kevin Sumlin welcomes another top-15 class Aggies cement 27-man class on 2017 National Signing Day By Angel Franco @angelmadison_

PROVIDED

Emory University associate professor Andra Gillespie will give a lecture on religion and race at the Veritas Forum.

Hundreds expected to attend forum on Christianity, race Emory professor to lecture on social justice Thursday By Megan Rodriguez @MeganLRodriguez For the first time, Texas A&M’s annual Veritas Forum will focus on social justice issues with a lecture from Emory University associate professor Andra Gillespie as she delves into the place where religion and race collide. The Veritas Forum is an international network of universities which began at Harvard University in 1992. The forum promotes intellectual thinking by creating a conversation between historic Christian doctrine and other religious belief systems. Texas A&M began participating in the forum with lectures primarily focused on scientific evidence for Christianity, but will shift its focus to societal challenges during this year’s lecture titled, “Christianity & Racial

Justice: Does God Care? Do We Care.” Gillespie’s research on racial and ethnic politics in the United States along with her past experience of working with the Veritas Forum will be displayed at Thursday’s lecture, which will focus primarily on what Christians’ positions are on topics regarding race and faith. “We are talking about this idea of racial reconciliation and whether or not Christians have anything to say about that,” Gillespie said. “Historically Christians have been on both sides of issues related to race. If you look at the civil rights movement there were people who would have called themselves Christians who were segregationists and then there were Christians who were on the other side actively working to dismantle Jim Crow.” Micah Green, associate professor of Chemical Engineering and president of the Texas A&M Christian Faculty Network, said the network FORUM ON PG. 3

With National Signing Day coming to an end, Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin addressed the media to answer questions pertaining to the incoming class Wednesday. With several media outlets like Scout.com, Rivals.com, ESPN. com and 247sports.com giving the football team different rankings on their respective sites, the Aggies have a composite ranking that falls in the top-10 of classes in the nation. Things in Aggieland were relatively calm on National Signing Day, since there weren’t any unexpected flips or commitments. Nine of the 27 recruits are already enrolled in classes and going through spring drills with the team. Sumlin said the camaraderie of the 2017 recruiting class is one of the reasons it is one of the most complete classes across the board. “This is a close group and you can see it from the outside on social media but you can get a better feel from it on the inside, just talking to them,” Sumlin said. “The things that are important to this class — it says a lot about these guys and their families.” Sumlin said the most important goal for the coaching staff this recruiting season was to strengthen

the offensive and defensive line, which, according to Sumlin, is crucial to compete in a tough SEC West division. “We set out in the beginning to increase not only our front but the profile of the front. We wanted to be bigger on the offensive line; I think we achieved that the

to the season opener in Pasadena against UCLA Sept. 2. However, he said there is no doubt in his mind that Mond has the ability to compete with returning players like Jake Hubenak and Nick Starkel. “We had Kellen at camp a few years ago and he was extremely impressive,” Sumlin said. “The op-

“This is a close group and you can see it from the outside on social media but you can get a better feel from it on the inside, just talking to them.” with the full set of lineman,” Sumlin said. “So from our standpoint, looking at the whole class, I think what we set out to do in the front, with the offensive and defensive lines and a complete set of linebackers, with two of them already on campus — that was the first priority.” With the exit of Trevor Knight, the starting quarterback position is up for grabs. The most notable quarterback in the 2017 recruiting class is 4-star dual threat Kellen Mond. Sumlin said with a strong quarterback group each player will have to bring their best throughout spring ball and fall camp leading up

Kevin Sumlin, head football coach portunity is there for him as an early graduate. Nick Starkel has done a great job in the offseason and has really worked hard physically. With Jake being here, we have the four guys here right now and we’ll start practicing, start weeding things out. He’s here to compete — he said that.” This class features one of the most dynamic players in Roshauud Paul, who also enrolled early. Paul was named Mr. Texas Football and listed SIGNING DAY ON PG. 4

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ATHLETES ASSEMBLE PROSTHETIC HANDS

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SERVICE: FIFTY STUDENT ATHLETES WORK TO TRANSFORM LIVES BY ASSEMBLING PROSTHETICS