GreatNews.Life Student Voices: Lake Central High School takes unique opportunities and explores interesting clubs

What’s Recently Happened?

Lake Central High School’s choir program had an African song written for their Classics Concert on March 5. The Senior Treble choir performed the one of a kind piece. 

“The arranger of the song is Dr. Ezeakacha, who is the choral director at the University of Langston in Oklahoma. I connected with him a few years back when we were working on another African piece. We just had a professional relationship working back and forth and sharing resources. I reached out to him, looking for a song in the language, and he helped me look. When he couldn’t find anything, he was like, ‘Well, I’ll just write one,’” Musician Nathaniel Jones said. 

The song was in Yorùbá, which was inspired by one of the choir students’ cultures, Precious Fasanya, who is from Nigeria. 

“The song represents my culture because it talks a lot about how God’s work can never be destroyed, and that’s very common in Yorùbá culture. We really are centered around God in songs in Yorùbá,” Fasanya said.

The song has a rich history and had to be modified for the choir to be able to perform the piece.  

 “This song is an old religious song that has been around in Yorùbá culture for a long time. The way Dr. Ezeakacha talked about the song, it was originally written when Nigeria and the Yorùbá tribe were under British control. The melody that was written wasn’t sensitive to the tonal language, which is a little complex, meaning like tonal languages have pitch inflection when speaking them,” Mr. Jones said. “Whether the inflection goes up or down, it changes the meaning of the word. The original melody didn’t take that into consideration with the words that were in the song, so he used that original melody, but modified it slightly to better represent the original language, and put it into a more modern setting.”

The choir program rarely has had any African songs performed at this concert in the past, which makes the experience so special. 

“To share my culture through music, I feel very empowered. I feel very happy that I get to show other people what my culture is. We normally don’t do many African songs because we don’t really find much African music that is easily accessible. Everyone, including me, was excited and surprised that Mr. Jones actually found someone to write a song just for our choir,” Fasanya said.

What’s Coming Up?

The Student Council recently had a meeting on March 12, which covered the upcoming Color Run in April. Lots of preparations go into the event, including filling the bottles of colored powder, getting sponsorships, filling goodie bags for runners, and hanging up flyers at different businesses for advertisement of the event. 

“I joined Student Council my freshman year because I wanted to start being more involved in clubs at school. Ever since then, I’ve continued each year because I love what we do. I plan on helping with the color run because it’s actually one of my favorite events we do in Student Council. I will probably throw the color on the runners because I think it’s the most exciting job to do, and it puts a smile on people’s faces,” Junior Madlyn Ross said. 

The Color Run is going to take place on April 26, and registration ends April 15. This will be the fourth annual run, and all proceeds will go to the Indiana Dunes National Park in honor of Earth Day.

Staff Spotlight:

Joshua Clark, along with Claire Kuhlenschmidt, are two educators in the social studies department who recently started planning a trip for students attending Lake Central in 2026 to go to Europe. Clark himself has gone on several student trips in the past, including one very similar to the one he is planning now, and they took 25 students.

“We’re going to go in June of 2027. We’re going to London. We’ll go to Stonehenge and travel to England. Then we’ll take a ship across, similar to a cruise ship. It’s pretty far across the English Channel. It’s about an eight hour trip across the English Channel to France. We’ll spend some time in Normandy, and then go to the American Cemetery and the D-Day invasion location. We’re going to go to Paris and Loire Valley, where we’ll see these amazing chateaus. That’s the south of France with these amazing castles,” Clark said.

Clark has felt a connection to these trips and continues to participate in them because of his interest in teaching history. 

“I teach government mostly, and I always loved history – especially world history. There’s a lot of American history in Europe, with the different wars. We’re so connected. I love to be able to share that with the students and be exposed to these beautiful places. People are so much more connected to history when they see it in person,” Clark said. 

Student Spotlight:

Senior Sophia Rodriguez is incredibly involved in her local chapter of Scouting America. She has held many important leadership positions throughout the years in the organization and has gotten to travel to places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico, Colorado, and West Virginia. 

“I started Boy Scouts in June of 2021, and it’s now called Scouting America. During my five years of involvement with the program, I have served as the senior patrol leader, assistant senior patrol leader, patrol leader, bugler, and Order of the Arrow representative. Each position was a six-month term for Troop 561, located in Dyer. Once I joined the Order of the Arrow scouting national honor society in 2022, I served as the chapter chief, unit elections chair, and trading post chair, and currently serve as the vice chief of finance. Each position in the Order of the Arrow is a year long,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez also worked with Scouting America during her summers. 

“During my summers, I also got involved with the National Youth Leadership Training program; I participated in 2022 and was asked to staff for the next two summers. The first summer, I served as a troop guide and photographer, and the second summer, I served as the assistant senior patrol leader of service,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez is also very involved at her school by being the captain of the Science Olympiad team and co-president of the Women’s Empowerment Club. She has tied the lessons she learned from Scouting America into her everyday life at school. 

“I applied the skills Scouting America taught me to help these clubs succeed. With each position being different, I am always adapting to what works best for my community. In these positions, I keep in mind the lessons I learned along the way: to empower youth, to not be afraid of the unknown, to be a team player, and to strengthen communities. Scouts didn’t just shape me into the leader I am today; it also shaped my future,” Rodriguez said.