![Minutes before the Activities Fair in the gym, president Abhi Gowda ‘26 prepares the stall for his club Helping Hands, Sept. 4. A relatively new club, Helping Hands was co-started by Gowda and focuses on assisting the homeless, and just last year they succeeded in raising a couple hundred donations to send to shelters. This year, they have goals to expand, with hopes to increase volunteer opportunities and take in-person trips to shelters, as well as extend their help beyond just homeless people. “The Activities Fair gives a lot of underclassmen the opportunity to really get to know the Canyon culture, and it gives them many opportunities for service and volunteering,” Gowda said. “[Through the Activities Fair,] I hope to find a bunch of new and passionate members about our club and just get our name out there and spread awareness to the cause that we’re fighting for.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1-2-1200x885.jpg)
![The winter guard team makes fifth place at the state championship finals in the Denver Coliseum, March 30. The team performed to Barnes Country's “Glitter and Gold,” lead by coaches Margo Sanford, Blair Bickerton and Anna Orgren. In their class there were a total of nine groups participating, and the top five who made it to finals received a plaque. “[Walking onto the stage] is very nerve-wracking, but also very exciting as well. When you first start color guard there's a lot of anxiety and uncertainty when you first perform in front of an audience, but once you've done it for a while, it starts to become the best part of the season,” Ella West ‘25 said. “It's very fulfilling to see an audience react to something you've put your heart and soul into.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Both-socal-media-nd-website-main-1-1200x846.jpg)
![April marks the 25th anniversary of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, created by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). This month is to spread awareness of the harassment, assault and abuse that happens around the world. The symbol that represented the month was a teal ribbon; however, some survivors of assault create different symbols and movements like the TikTok trend in 2022, where survivors would tattoo Medusa on their body, in honor of her backstory in Greek Mythology. “I don't think [this month is known] at all. I rarely see anybody talk about it. I rarely see much of an emphasis on posting it online, or much discussion about it, and I feel like there needs to be way more discussion,” an anonymous source said. “I think just validating every experience that a person has gone through, regardless of the degree of it, the severity, is an essential step into making sure that people are aware that this is a very real problem in a society and that we need to do better in addressing it.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IMG_0011-1200x900.jpg)
![Lesbian Visibility Day is April 26, and it’s a holiday to celebrate the lesbian community of the world. Lesbian Visibility day was established in 2008 by many queer activists and organizations who sought to raise more awareness for lesbian history and culture. “So this is why during Lesbian Visibility [Day] we celebrate and center all lesbians, both cis and trans, while also showing solidarity with all LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people,” Linda Reily, in an article written by her, said.](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Lesbian-Visibility-day.jpeg)
Faux-vid 19
Take a look into the “Rock Canyon Crud” and how it has spread through our community.
media by Kira Zizzo
Main image for Faux-vid story, focusing on the “Rock Canyon Crud”.
September 10, 2021
Consistent sniffling from the back of the class, scratchy coughing in the hallways, and teachers with raspy voices are the sounds that echo through Rock Canyon the first month back at school.
With all of the changes that Covid-19 caused last year, mask-wearing and time spent at home. away from others seemed to be the reason for some of the best health records the state of Colorado had seen in a long time.
Johns Hopkins Medicine explains in an article that the decline of flu cases was caused primarily due to the closures of schools, restaurants, and other public places. In turn, there were significantly fewer opportunities to spread disease, Covid or otherwise. There was also an increase in hand-washing, frequent sanitization, and attainment of the influenza vaccine, all of which boosted the immune systems and lowered contraction cases.
The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRP) completed a study that showed that the common cold showed a drastic decrease from years prior in the year of 2020, when Covid was running rampant.
In August, students and staff were back in school with no initial mask mandates or strong social distancing enforcements. A head cold rapidly spread through the building.
Some student athletes felt that the effects of this sickness impacted their ability to play. Ganon Figueroa ‘22, a varsity volleyball player, contracted this head cold near the beginning of the season.
“It’s affected me pretty bad. It’s hard to play volleyball with it and I got behind in school and I couldn’t focus,” Figueroa said.
Kade Ericson ‘23 also caught this sickness and had a sore throat, runny nose, and dry cough.
“This cold has affected me a lot. I’m way less energetic and it has made recovering from extracurricular activities harder too,” Ericson said.
Now, with the new mask mandate being put in place on Sept. 1, it is to be expected that there will be a decrease in the general sickness of the school population.
“I think that the new mask mandate is a smart decision since all students are sick, not with Covid, but with other sicknesses that are less eye-catching,” Ericson said.