![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
For almost 100 years, students have had the opportunity to publish their creative work for West Linn High School’s literary and arts magazine, the Kaleidoscope. The publication features writing pieces, such as short stories and poetry, as well as multiple forms of artwork, including paintings, ceramics, and photographs. The Kaleidoscope is printed annually during the school year for staff members and students to flip through.
Wind Lothamer, Digital Arts teacher, currently oversees the magazine and organizes the submissions. Before him, Glenn Krake, yearbook and journalism adviser, ran the publication but stopped when he did not have time to effectively run the Kaleidoscope, and also had to pass the creative writing class to another teacher who decided not to pick up the Kaleidoscope again. Krake had emphasized submitting literary pieces created in the creative writing classes to the Kaleidoscope when teaching the subject.
“Last year it went on hiatus, so that made me sad, and I wanted to bring it back,” Lothamer said. “I think some kids tried to start a club [to continue publishing the Kaleidoscope], but it didn’t really work out.”
The magazine is expected to have close to 100 pages this year, featuring around 50 students who submitted at least one art or literary piece. The majority of the written work came from current ninth graders.
“It has been great and really cool [to run the publication],” Lothamer said. “We put a call out to get student submissions, and we got really good written work and artwork from kids. I’m hopeful in the future to get some more older kids putting stuff in for the Kaleidoscope.”
Lothamer has been teaching at the high school for 18 years and has a background in web design and animation. Currently, his students are assigned to outline and organize the Kaleidoscope pages.
“I try to get my students to submit work [to the Kaleidoscope],” Lothamer said. “I got a lot of artwork from my kids, and they are also doing the layout for the magazine. Each of the kids in my Digital Arts 3-4 classes has to lay out at least one spread.”
Lauren McCreary, senior, is currently in the Digital Arts class and has recently been putting together the Kaleidoscope. Students in the class are specifically assigned to pair a piece of writing with a piece of artwork and print the covers.
“I enjoy [making the layout] and it’s kind of just a side thing, but it’s fun seeing a lot of other people’s imagination,” McCreary said.
For the Kaleidoscope, she submitted four pieces of artwork: a Polar Express acrylic painting, a digital painting, and, as a requirement for Art 3-4, two art pieces done with special paper and a precision knife.
“I didn’t really want to submit [the precision knife pieces] to the Kaleidoscope because, with this art style, if you make a mistake, there is no reversing it,” McCreary said. “As for my acrylic painting, it was a piece I made for my mom for Christmas and I was really proud of it so I submitted it.”
McCreary’s final submission was made for an assignment in Digital Arts, which won a regional award from Scholastic earlier in the year. She has been creating artwork since elementary school, but took her first official art class in high school. Briefly hearing about the Kaleidoscope in passing, this was the first year she submitted any artwork for the publication.
“I think it is a good opportunity because not many people are able to get that kind of network connection out there as easily,” McCreary said.
Not every piece submitted will be shown in the physical copy of the Kaleidoscope. Spacing plays a role, and every creation is reviewed by an editorial board. Three out of the four pieces McCreary submitted made the final draft. Similarly, Yara Al Medyadi, senior, submitted nine paintings, but only one received recognition. It was a painting she created for her AP 2-D Art and Design portfolio, depicting children during wartime.
“In class, we only have so many days we can work on a piece, and that one was one of my biggest ones, so I had to take time outside of class to complete it,” Al Medyadi said.
She has participated in art competitions since the pandemic, when she spent her free time painting as a hobby. This year was the first time Al Medyadi took an official art class since AP 2-D Art and Design does not require any courses to be taken before enrolling in some cases.
“I thought it would be fun to submit pieces and try it out. I hadn’t heard of the Kaleidoscope before this year when my art teacher brought it up,” Al Medyadi said. “It’s a fun experience, especially if you have friends who are also submitting as well. You guys can critique each other’s pieces or choose which ones you don’t want. I also think the process of your art piece being viewed by people and judged is very fun and anxiety-inducing, but in a good way.”
Outside of paintings, other students submitted different mediums of artwork. Ray Yoshimori, senior, submitted a fantasy-themed graphic arts piece. To create it, he took advantage of the time he had during Life Class to use the digital resources provided by the school.
“I took Digital Arts 1-2 and I used the skills I learned from there to make my piece,” Yoshimori said. “The message of it was to follow your passions and I mainly did it just for fun.”
Yoshimori heard about the Kaleidoscope through the National Art Honor Society (NAHS), which he has been a member of since he was a sophomore. This year, NAHS requires students to submit artwork to the publication for graduation certificates.
“I do think the Kaleidoscope is good because it allows people who might not like sports or pop culture to use it as a way to express their views and opinions,” Yoshimori said.
Currently, the 2024-2025 Kaleidoscope is available for purchase on myschoolbucks.com for $18 until June 6. Students can submit a literacy or art piece through a Google Form, and guidelines are available for those interested. Submissions are currently closed but will be available at the beginning of the next school year. Contact Lothamer ([email protected]) for any questions on the Kaleidoscope.
“People should definitely do it. I think it is a tradition that goes back as far as the school goes, so it’s really kind of ingrained in our history and what it means to be a student at West Linn High School,” Lothamer said. “It’s really nice to have that student voice aspect.”
