18 DECEMBER 2022 By Jennifer Marshall This November, from the gym and field at Arcadia High School, neighbors could hear cheers from near and far as the AHS community hosted its annual Future Titan Night. This event gives kids from Arcadia’s feeder schools the opportunity to come out, visit and participate in a spiritline routine, which they perform during a varsity football game later that evening. While the event’s exact origins are unknown, according to Arcadia mom Liz Ord Future Titan Night has been a long- standing tradition. “Many of the Arcadia cheerleaders who taught the little cheerleaders attended this event when they were younger,” Ord said. “It was a fun, full-circle moment for them. The kindness these high school girls showed the younger cheerleaders was the same love that was once shown to them when they were participants at Future Titan Night.” The event is separated into two parts. They begin the evening with a cheer skills clinic where members of the Arcadia Cheer and Pom Spiritline teach the future cheerleaders a dance and cheer routine. Then, performing alongside their big “cheer sisters,” the littles show off their newly learned moves in their own show held during the game. This year, the Titans played the Apache Junction Prospectors. While Arcadia lost the game 21 to 42, plenty of fun and excitement was still palpable from the sidelines. “I loved getting to know so many amazing little girls around Arcadia. Watching them learn and perform made me so happy and proud to be cheering with them,” varsity Cheer Captain Maddie McGrath said. “It was really fun being with the big girls,” Hopi Elementary first grader Dylan Davis said. “I got to cheer right next to them, and my whole family was there to see me. I even got to fly in the air two times!” This year’s Future Titan Night brought in over 140 participants. According to Ord, it was the highest attendance they have ever had. “How fun it was to look down during the game at a red and blue sea of enthusiastic girls cheering on the Titans,” Ord said, mentioning that Future Titan Night is one thing that makes the Arcadia community strong. Varsity Pom Captain Allie Logan echoed that sentiment: “I love Future Titan Night. I remember going when I was in elementary school and looking up to all the Spiritline girls and thinking how fun it looked and how sweet they all were. Now that I have the opportunity to teach the girls, it is even more fun.” “We loved seeing the older cheerleaders connect and serve the younger girls. I think there were a lot of special friendships made between the big and the little cheerleaders!” Ord said. Arcadia students inspire school spirit in future Titans By Jennifer Marshall It’s become a rite of passage for students at Veritas Prep: The Blazer Ceremony, an important moment where the 11 th -grade class receives a blazer with the Veritas logo and pin during a school-wide assembly held in their honor. “The blazers honor their maturity and encourage them as leaders within the academy,” Assistant Headmaster David Nydegger said. “Our hope for each of our students, and the reason our academy exists, is for them to become good men and women both intellectually and morally.” Nydegger said that the belief is that students have the capacity and desire to be trained in all the arts and sciences, can read the very best texts and participate in seminars at a high level. For juniors and seniors, the blazer is an outward sign of their capacity and desire to participate in this effort. According to the headmaster, these ceremonies are a tradition at schools around the globe. At Veritas, the junior class is comprised of 87 girls and boys. “The Blazer Ceremony is monumental because, as a junior, you are welcomed into the ranks of upper-level students by both the teachers and the senior class. Your blazer is a mark of accomplishment, signifying that you have made it this far,” junior Jude Tawney said. “As a recent arrival to Veritas in the last three years, the ceremony stands as a sort of ‘coming of age’ event while also becoming an ambassador of the school mission: to seek the true, good and beautiful. It was an honor to share this moment with my friends,” student Peyton Jones said. The mood of the assembly was jubilant from the beginning, according to Nydegger. “We started with a rousing recitation of our school poem, ‘The Windhover’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins and ended with a full-throated singing of our school song, ‘ Gaudeamus Igitur,’ which means ‘therefore, let us rejoice,” Nydegger said. Within the framework of the Great Hearts Schools, “the reception of a blazer, which signifies a special position as leaders within the academy, comes with additional privilege and responsibility,” Nydegger said. “After the Blazer Ceremony, I looked at the man in the mirror and made a change. I became more formal and felt intellectually smart,” Sebastian Riano said. In the coming months, juniors will work on perfecting their craft in drama or the studio. They will study the beauty and harmony of the laws of nature. They will discuss literature in French or Spanish or continue studying Greek as a third language, according to Headmaster Theresa Weiland. “Most uniquely, they will look around their Humane Letters classroom and marvel at how they and their peers, some of whom have known each other since kindergarten, are discussing the Nicomachean Ethics and Plato’s Republic . These are two of the most influential works of philosophy. Knowledge of them is our birthright,” she said. Juniors become ‘student ambassadors’ at this Veritas event Future Titan cheerleaders learning how to do a toe touch from varsity Spiritline members Lily Ord and Ryan Michaelree. Over 140 Future Titans participated in a clinic to learn dance and cheer skills from Arcadia High School’s Spiritline. PHOTOS: LIZ ORD Jaz Cobb, Cruz Hastriter, Peyton Jones, Sydney Mishkin, Gio Guido and Noah Zook. PHOTO: VIRGINIA CARDENAS