“If I'm honest, Gerardi is my favorite teacher,'' Lexi Love Bird, a junior in high school, said after being asked why she wanted to join Newspaper. “My favorite classes with Gerardi are Creative Writing and Journalism which helped me decide to join her Newspaper class”. When asked what Lexi does for hobbies she stated, “I don’t have hobbies”. She was then asked if she wanted to graduate, and if she did what college she wanted to go to, her response was “Obviously I want to graduate college and high school, but I have no idea what college I want to go to yet”. Lexi, when asked her favorite book, took a moment to think, before saying “I have instead of a top one, a top two books because I can't decide on just one, the first is The Outsiders and the second is To Kill a Mockingbird.
Lexi was then asked if she could travel anywhere in the world where she would go. She responded, “Greece, I feel like there’s a lot of cool stuff in there, like their art and scenery”. Upon the discussion of getting asked what her favorite subject is Lexi had this to say, “I think it depends on the teacher because freshman year I preferred math and sophomore year English. Honestly depends on the teacher and how they teach. Probably now it's English”. Her next question at that moment was what do you do in your free time, to this question Lexi then stated,
“I like to read a lot, I do spend all of my money on books, so I end up having millions of books”. After the question asker joked about having too many questions, the next question was asked, What is the most dangerous risk that you have taken? Lexi responded, “I have trespassed a few times. I won't lie. We were riding bikes and there was a ‘Do Not Enter' sign, but we liked that path so we went anyway and an older lady yelled at us and we biked off”.
Upon the discussion of favorite quotes, Lexi commented her favorite quote was, “Don’t fear failure, be afraid of not having the chance, you have the chance!” Lexi then said that she got this from the car movies. Lexi was then asked what her favorite movie was and as result, she had this to say “Cars 1 and Cars 3, Cars 2 sucks. I despise that movie, they could have just gone with the first and third; it doesn't match the theme of the Cars and it makes me so mad”. Her next question was then what she liked to do at the fair, to which she cheerfully responded, “I like to go eat the food, I bought a wrist band and we only went on turbo”. The next question ended up ironically relating to not only fair week but fall itself. The next question was what do you think is the most interesting time of year here in Blackfoot? To which she smiled kindly and responded, “ I honestly think like early fall, beginning of September, we have the fair, we have the homecoming season. I think school-wise and town-wise everything is right now. Like early September to mid-October. All the football games, and fair.”
After a few more moments of talking about the fair, the next question was then asked: What do you think of the school dances? Do you think there's any drama? In an almost instant answer, Lexi replied “I don't think there's ever really a drama, and I don't like the themes and it seems rushed. Like this homecoming tropical paradise, like can't we come up with a theme that's not weird?” Another school-related question then arose so the question that ended up being asked was what do you think of our school spirit, is it high or low if so what season has it the most? Her answer was “My thought is our school spirit is super duper high at the top from September to October and then it declines because everyone goes to the football games and student sections and we all dress up. But as soon as football ends we lose our spirit. Nobody goes to our basketball games. Overall, it goes down during the winter and spring season“.
Upon a discussion of how the school worked, other questions were then asked “What would you do if you could change some things about the school for a whole day?” She took a minute to respond and honestly thought good and hard about what her answer would be, then confidently said, “I would definitely either change the school schedule back to separate lunches, or I would make the lunches longer because there's not enough time to eat and enjoy lunch. Teaching-wise, teachers work so hard to show passion and engagement, so classes revolve around what the students like as well as assignments. I would also change the way people walk around the halls”. Upon this, we discussed the school a little further which was very interesting. Soon our middle names were brought up, Lexi was then asked if she liked her middle name or not. This is what she had to say “I like my first name, but I don't like my middle name, which is Love. It doesn't sound normal, especially when I would get a different last name by getting married. The one good thing about my middle name is that when I get in trouble they can't use my middle name because it sounds friendly”. The reason why she is special according to her is overcoming everything that she has been through, and actually making it through school, through all of it, which helps her be prepared for what is to come in her future.