![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)
The Case of the Sticky-Noted Classroom: Bennett vs. Koy
Details about the rivalry between math teachers Tony Koy and Austin Bennett.
media by Nakshatra Remya Biju
Math teacher Tony Koy’s classroom is decorated with sticky notes by math teacher Austin Bennett’s class. The act of sticky-noting the classroom was part of a friendly feud between Koy and Bennett. “Mr. Bennett is a bully,” Koy said. “I don’t understand why he insists on picking on me but for some reason he does. I feel like I’ve done nothing wrong in this situation and Mr. Bennett has targeted me.”
February 22, 2023
Tuesday, Jan. 17, math teacher Austin Bennett gathered up 20 dollars worth of sticky notes and marched into fellow math teacher Tony Koy’s room with a few students trailing behind him. The students began littering the desks with aligned sticky notes, covering every inch of the surface.
What’s the story behind their friendly feud?
“Mr. Bennett is a bully,” Koy said. “I don’t understand why he insists on picking on me but for some reason he does. I feel like I’ve done nothing wrong in this situation and Mr. Bennett has targeted me.”
Before the act of the sticky-noting, Bennett claims that Koy previously came in with his students armed with balled-up paper “snowballs” and threw them at him on his birthday while his students were taking a test.
“Well, honestly, for a long time now Mr. Koy has been bullying me here at school, and I have video footage of it. And on my birthday, he had his entire classroom come in and throw a bunch of wadded-up paper balls at me – I’d say about 200, maybe 300 paper balls,” Bennett said.
However, Koy argues that he did not partake in the plan.
“I did nothing. I actually went in to apologize to his class, and a random group of students came by and threw paper balls. I was a victim just as much as he was. I was almost hit by one of the snowballs. Luckily, I got out just in time,” Koy said.
According to Bennett, bombarding him with snowballs isn’t the only thing Koy did.
“[Mr. Koy] walked into my classroom and knocked my entire cart over, with all the papers and calculators and everything else, all over the floor,” Bennett said.
After Koy’s multiple attempts of “bullying” Bennett, he decided to hatch a plan to get back at him. This plan involved sticky notes.
A lot of sticky notes.
“One day, Mr. Bennett was talking about pranking Mr. Koy, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it or not. If I didn’t, then I would let Mr. Bennett down, but if I did, then I was technically going against my Seminar teacher,” Saanvi Kirdak ‘26 said. “It was kind of a hard decision. But, I chose to go with Mr. Bennett just for the heck of it. It was actually pretty fun.”
The students started out by placing sticky notes on every single one of the desks in Koy’s room, while Bennett covered Koy’s cabinets in perfectly arranged rows of dull yellow squares.
“Eventually things got a little crazy and sticky notes ended up on the walls, the whiteboard, the door and even the plants. Everywhere you look, you’d see a sticky note,” Kirdak said.
Students even went the extra mile and spelled out “Bennett” on the whiteboard in the front of the room, along with a written out “haha” at the classroom entrance.
“I hired my class to take [the sticky notes] off for me, and I still have a bunch that are still up there,” Koy said. “And we got to recycle them. So it wasn’t a complete waste on Mr. Bennett’s part, right?”