Alex Carr's The Jaguars' Spot column for Wed., Jan. 20, 2010

“Grease” was the word!

          Last week’s musical, “Grease,” is over! Hats off to all of you musical theater people. It was a great show, guys!

          But we’re not stopping there, Jags. Coming up January 26 (Tuesday) we have the annual nationwide Poetry Out-Loud competition.

          The kids who have been preparing their poems for the past few weeks will recite them in the Maxine that day. Whoever the judges deem to be the winner of the competition (based on things like understanding of the poem, emotion, preparation ... things like that) will then go on to Sacramento to become the state champ.

          And if a Jag wins in Sacramento, that person will go to our nation’s capital where he or she will compete with kids from all over the country for a chance to win a huge scholarship (around $20,000)! So let’s get out there and support our fellow classmates!

          And we’re still not done yet, Jags! Only two days later, VCHS Dance classes will show us what they’ve been working on up to this point in the year. Entitled “Works in Progress,” we’ll see many dances ranging from intermediate to the highest level -- the choreography skill level. It takes place at the Maxine January 28-30 (Thurs.-Sat.). Ask any dance kid or Tammy Merrick about tickets and any other information.

I need a Saffi!:

          VCHS junior Nick Vanderpoel came up and told me that English teacher Linda Saffiote (we call her Saffi) had been reading the column I wrote last week to her classes. It was titled “I Need a Girl!” but wasn’t really about THAT KIND of needing a girl. It was about needing a female lead for the short movie I’m going to start shooting soon, “Boy on the Moon” (I’m still looking!).

          So what was pretty weird about that was that I had just been thinking that Saffi would be an excellent person to play the part of the boy’s mother in the movie.

          Anyway, I haven’t been able to get ahold of Saffi to ask her so, if anyone sees her, would you mind asking her for me if she would like to be in it? It’s a GREAT part, you’ll love it Saffi!

Tell me about it!:

          A lot of kids have recently been telling me they wish they could write a newspaper column like this one, which I take as a very nice compliment, thank you! I have a few tips and tricks about how I got this job which I can share with you guys.

          I got started by sending in articles and columns to the Roadrunner way back when I was in sixth grade hoping they’d publish them. I sent in nearly a dozen (free of charge), which they ran in the kids’ section. I also wrote a story about a high school theatrical event that ran on the front page. Anyway, that helped to get my foot in the door and on their radar -- or foot on their radar, I’m not sure which. But, anyway, that was the first step.

          The next cool thing that happened was that one of the pieces I wrote for the RR won a Press Club award in an ADULT category, making me the youngest person to ever win one in the history of the world, perhaps the universe, depending on what the SETI project finds out.

          Also, try to think of ways to make yourself useful to your hometown newspaper. For example, this past summer I attended the town hall meeting of our local congressman, Darrell Issa, and took a broadcast quality videocamera and shot the event for the Roadrunner. They ran a cool article about it and it’s now up on my web page (www.carrfamily.com/alex/).

          Finally, take your school essays and other writing assignments seriously. Writing is writing and you only get better with each piece.

          Got a great item for this column? Tell me about it! Catch me on campus or go to my web page and shoot me an e-mail (www.carrfamily.com/alex).