West High School - Shaheen Yearbook (Davenport, IA)

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America's believe it or not Due to 1976 being an election year, our lives were bombarded by extensive cam- paigning by both parties on the national and local level. When the smoke finally cleared and the last vote was tabulated on November 2nd, the victors basked in the joy of victory while the losers silently accepted defeat. The race for the oval office between Republican President Gerald Ford and Georgia's Demo- cratic Governor jimmy Carter went down to the wire before Carter was announced vic- tor. On a closer level, in the First Congres- sional District, Republican lim Leach defeat- ed incumbent Edward Mezvinsky. For some, this election meant more than just standing by to see who would win the respective offices. A number of West's stu- dents became actively involved as party vol- unteers. Two such students were senior Ka- tie Maguire and sophomore jon Haack. Ka- tie, who has always held in interest in poli- tics, was a field person for First District Can- didate Congressman Ed Mezvinsky. In the latter stages of the election, Katie spent up to seventy hours a week working at the can- didate's headquarters. By getting in- volved, Katie feels, you could possibly help change the outcome of the election. jon Haack, who worked for Republican lim Leach, invested many hours making phone calls and putting up political yard signs in order to inform the public about his party's candidates. Like Katie, lon feels high school students should become actively in- volved in the political scene. Politics, jon explains, is the only way for a change to occur, and so there's no point in not getting involved if a change is what you want for the country. Besides the local and national elections, many other situations affected us. A severe winter of record low temperatures caused schools and businesses to shut down, snow drifts made highways impassable, and the polar freeze ruined the crops of farmers in Florida and other states. Almost overnight, the prices of oranges, tomatoes, and grape- fruit doubled. Meanwhile, many coffee drinkers became tee-totalers as the price of coffee per pound sky-rocketed as well. Here in Davenport, with the overcrowd- ing situation at West, and the deteriorization of Central High, school and community in- terests focused on the proposal of building two new high schools. With 1977 barely getting a start at the time of this writing, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the new high-schools proposal, Carter's policies, and the total effect of the big freeze. In any case, it was a year of many changes, a year that not many will forget. One of her jobs at the Democrat headquarters this fall was to answer the telephone. During her second semester, senior Katie Maguire worked as a page in the Iowa House, a job which required her to temporarily move to Des Moines.

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In - depth: music in our ives There are a nearly infinite number of ways n which we may choose to live our lives, all 1ighly individual and all highly important to :he person who is developing his or her part Jf the world. In this search for our niche as t is commonly called, a common need for 'etreat and relaxation confronts all of us. For many of us, the need for relaxation is Jest answered through the medium of mu- lic. The unending variety of music available Jffers us, no matter what our tastes, the as- .urance of individuality. Certainly, no two .ed Zeppelin fans find the same meaning in he lyrics of Robert Plant. In a sense, our nusical preferences become the personal ouches with which we decorate our 'places of retreat. I can find music that makes me feel good in any type of mood I'm in. Because music reveals so much about our character and values, we become very opin- ionated about our music tastes and selection. A typical scene from a typical record store frequented by typical high school students clearly proves this point. A blue-jean clad young man strides quickly back to the sec- tion labeled Rock. On his way, he passes an older man thumbing through copies of Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey tunes. It takes only a fraction of a second for the young man to consider the merits of the Big Band Sound, and he quickens his stride, while the older man mentally shakes a fist at the blaring speaker system and mutters something about noise, Across the counter, a spectacled musician carefully contemplates two interpretations of Bach preludes, oblivious to his surround- ings. The above characters represent stereo- types. An informal survey of the music tastes of West High students revealed that there is no typical music lover. Tastes among young people run the gamut, with a majority expressing appreciation for some kind of rock. With so-called acid-rock on one end If I'm in a bad mood, it gets me out of it, relaxes me. of the scale and opera on the other, virtually every type of music was represented. The top two vote-getters were hard rock and soft rock, followed by a tie between coun- try western and classical. Also, a large num- ber of people seem to enjoy all kinds of music, though they often have some prefer- ence. Within the category of rock music, it seems that almost any artist can find a follow- ing. Popular choices among West High stu- dents appear to be the Eagles, Elton john, Barry Manilow, and Peter Frampton. Dozens of other favorites were stated, from Barbra Streisand to Black Oak Arkansas. Also includ- ed in the responses were older bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, as well as newer artists such as Boston and Eric Kar- men. indeed, if variety is the spice of life, one can easily understand the feelings of one student who said that music, . . . fills my life with meaning. One obvious indication of the importance of music in our lives is the amount of money that students, who often have limited re- sources, are willing to spend for music and continued on page 23