Features

The Berkeley High School Green Team is a club organized by a California nonprofit called the Green Schools Initiative and is composed of students hoping to make Berkeley High more eco–friendly place. Though many of the teachers involved teach in Green Academy, the team is not restricted to Green Academy students — in fact, most of its members are Berkeley International High School (BIHS) students looking to fulfill their community service requirements.

Sixty–one years ago, on May 3, 1952, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict piloted the first aircraft (a ski–modified U.S. Air Force C–47) to land in the North Pole. Fletcher then stepped out of the aircraft and walked to the exact geographic North Pole, possibly becoming the first person to do so. Along on the trip with them was Dr. Albert P. Crary, who, nine years later in 1961, traveled to the South Pole, thus becoming the first person to stand on both poles.

John Villavicencio, known to most of Berkeley High School as Mr. V, holds the position of Director of Student Activities. This job has many functions, ranging from organizing student body elections to fielding calls to coordinating prom. Although this is his first year as Director of Student Activities, Villavicencio has been at Berkeley High for the past nine years, working as a math teacher and in physical education.

Villavicencio grew up in Millbrae with education as a large part of his life since his parents were both teachers.

238 years ago, on April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began in Lexington with the “shot heard ‘round the world.” Seven hundred British soldiers entered Lexington on a mission to seize a Patriot arsenal and capture Patriot leaders. 77 armed minutemen lead by Captain John Parker were waiting for them on the town’s common green. The first shot was fired from an undetermined gun, and thus began the war. When the Battle of Lexington was over, eighteen Patriots were dead, dying, or wounded with only one British soldier injured.