![MORE THAN A GAME. With two diving catches in the outfield, the Lions showed up defensively, aiding in their victory over the Pacers. One catch was made by Atwood, and the other by McGraw. Throughout the game, the Lions knew that it wasn’t just about their victory today. “I think [playing for cancer] makes it bigger than just a game,” McGraw said. “Knowing that you have a bigger impact in this world than just who you are as one person.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/I70A1454-1-1200x800.jpg)
![Students in the National Art Honor Society work on the Mount Hood mural on the window of SouthLake Church. The students brought a variety of paints and mixed their own custom colors. “Instead of brushstrokes, we’re doing more dabbing, because it gives [a] better impression of tree foliage, rather than looking like actual brush strokes, because if we’re painting trees, we need it to look like trees,” Crawford said.](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_2397-1200x900.jpg)
On Jan. 14, Students Demand Action (SDA), a club that advocates for gun control to prevent gun violence, hosted a walkout protesting the recent actions of ICE. The protest was organized by Rakhee Braunstein, sophomore, and Elise Row and Gabe Garrett, both seniors.
“Me and Elise and Rakhee are part of [SDA], and I originally was just going to start this with some friends, because that seemed simple, and I just wanted to get the word out,” Garrett said. “But then I was like, ‘I should get the gun violence club involved: [SDA].’ So then we just made a graphic really quick [and] threw it on the Instagram. It got reposted and now it’s everywhere. That’s kind of it from there on out. Honestly, we just made some signs with some friends, Elise got a megaphone, and we shouted.”
Due to conflicts surrounding a counter-protest that arose at a previous ICE walkout in November, protestors were encouraged by school administration as well as SDA leaders to be as peaceful as possible. Similar to the walkout in November, counter-protestors also made an appearance at this walkout, increasing the importance of the administrators’ requests.
“People were great,” Garrett said. “I had full confidence that everyone was going to be really kind and respectful and do their job of just being peaceful protesters, and they killed it. We hung out at the start along the [school’s] sidewalk, and then we walked down to Market of Choice, because admin didn’t want us on campus unless we were on the baseball field, so this was just an easy gathering point. We got a lot of eyes, which was great. That’s exactly what we wanted. We want people to see. It may not make the biggest difference in the world, but we’re doing something, and that’s what matters.”
John Rimington, the Student Resource Officer at West Linn, was in charge of helping ensure all students remained safe.
“I was there to solely allow kids to express their First Amendment rights and then just to keep everyone safe,” Rimington said. “So we had multiple officers standing by in various areas to just keep everyone safe, make sure they weren’t walking into traffic and things like that, then watching traffic for anything that would be considered dangerous towards the protesters. There was an incident of what we consider careless driving that concerned us that we dealt with for a traffic stop. We spoke to people and cited them accordingly.”
Students lining the sidewalks in front of the school and along Highway 43 were there to specifically protest against the brutality of ICE with the recent violence in Minneapolis and Portland, less than a half hour away from West Linn.
“For most people, I feel like it just comes down to ‘I have empathy for another human being, and I don’t want to watch someone’s family get torn apart or someone get killed for no reason at all,’” Garrett said.
Sam Cline, junior, was an attendee of the protest and also led parts of the chants.
“If we don’t speak now, there’s going to be a point where they don’t let us speak,” Cline said. “Trump has tried to hold on to power with violence once, and he’s going to do it again, and we just need to tell him to eff off, and who knows if that’ll work, but it’s better than nothing.”
Ultimately, a high school walkout doesn’t have the reach that a citywide protest would, but for SDA and the students of West Linn, it’s a step in the right direction.
“I think stuff like this is great,” Garrett said. “It gets people together. It’s simple and you get some eyes on it. It’s not always a guarantee that this will do a whole lot realistically, and in the grand scheme of things one high school walk out [isn’t] gonna do a whole lot, but if all the high schools across the nation walk out at some point, we get some eyes and that matter. The youth is always the voice of pushing back against the government, and I think we need to foster that, because then maybe it inspires someone to get into a political career, speak, or change a mind or two. That’s what matters. People repost stuff on their Instagram and that’s great. Whatever feels like helps to you is helping, because saying something or making a sign is better than doing nothing.”
