HB 2885 was introduced Feb. 29, 2024 by Republican representative Jamie Gregg from District 140. This bill would establish that if a teacher or school counselor used their official power within the school to help a student socially transition, they would then be charged with a Class E felony. Being charged with this felony would mean they would be required to be registered as a Tier I Sex Offender. 

​To be charged with a Class E felony and registered as a Tier 1 Sex Offender, a teacher or school counselor would have to help a student socially transition in some way. Social transitioning is when the person who is transitioning ‘comes out’ to the world and expresses their gender to other people around them. Minus18, a website that provides information about LGBTQ+ , along with resources, has an article titled Your Guide To Socially Transitioning. This article provides more information about how LGBTQ+ people can socially transition.

For example, a person can be open about what pronouns they use, like they/them and she/they. People can also change their names and go by something different than what they were given by their parents when they were born (i.e a chosen name while their given at birth name would be considered their deadname). They can also alter their appearance to either show themselves more masculine or more feminine depending on what they deem comfortable for themselves. 

A teacher or school counselor could be charged with consequences called penalties if they are charged with a Class E felony. These penalties that would come with being charged is that a teacher or school counselor could be sent to prison for four years or be sent to a one-year jail term depending on the severity of the case. There is also a possibility that they can be fined up to $10,000. Other crimes that fall under a Class E felony can include involuntary manslaughter, domestic assault, and child molestation. 

Being registered as a Tier 1 sex offender will change a teacher or school counselor’s life and career. Those who are registered as Tier 1 sex offenders usually committed a crime that is labeled as sexual misconduct instead of a sexual offense. These offenses are usually non-violent and are seen as having a low degree of threat or danger posed to the public. Crimes that fall under the Tier 1 list include public indecency, crimes against minors or indecent behavior with juveniles, and possession of child pornography. 

​The bill is proposed to go into effect come Aug. 28, 2024, which is right around when the fall school semester for most public schools would begin. The current actions that have been made with the bill is that on Feb. 29, it was introduced and read for the first time to the House of Representatives of Missouri.

On March 1, 2024, the bill was then read a second time in the House of Representatives, where four republican representatives had begun to co-sponsor the bill. These people include Jeff Farnan from District 1, Brian Seitz from District 156, Mazzie Christensen from District 2, and lastly Justin Sparks from District 110.

This action was the last one that has happened within the House of Representatives and there is currently no next hearing scheduled. The bill is also currently not on the House of Representatives’s schedule. 

​If this bill were to pass and go into effect, many have made it known that it would disrupt the teachers’ and students’ lives. Amongst social media, students have made comments about how they would potentially lose a support system if this bill were to go into effect. They feel this way due to Missouri already being a red state politics wise, which in turn already causes them to be afraid to be who they are.

With this bill, they’ve expressed that losing the support system that teachers and school counselors provide, it would cause them to lose their “safe space”. Another con of the bill also includes teachers and school counselors being afraid to do what they view as morally right out of fear they would lose their jobs, and potentially have their lives disrupted with the charges that would come with it.

They have also expressed that it could become detrimental to their mental health with knowing that they could provide help to students who are socially transitioning, but they legally couldn’t without having to deal with the consequences that would come with it.

The post HB 2885: How It Will Affect Schools in Missouri first appeared on Drury Mirror.

“I felt extremely excited,” he said. “It was a dream of mine since I was a kid.”

Wade was born in 2005, in the small town of Agency, Missouri, about thirty minutes north of Kansas City. However, the doctor’s realized quickly that not everything would be perfect. Just four days after his birth, Wade was diagnosed with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS), a genetic growth disorder. 

Because some of his organs were outside of his body at birth, extensive surgeries had to be performed to put everything back in place. 

“Most of the worst parts were before he could remember,” Wade’s mom, Paige Stanton, recalls. “It was probably harder on his dad and I at that point than for him. But the older he got, the harder the surgeries were for him.”

When Wade was three years old, he had the first of two tongue surgeries. Due to BWS, his tongue was larger than his mouth, so a surgery was performed to make his tongue the proper size. A main characteristic of BWS is a large tongue, and this can cause issues with speaking and breathing. At five years old, Wade began speech therapy.

He would go in for an hour every day to work on syllables that were specifically hard for him. He stopped attending speech therapy after sixth grade but went back his sophomore year of high school, after his second tongue surgery.  It wasn’t an easy thing for him to do, not necessarily because talking was difficult, but because to his own ears, Wade sounded normal. 

“Speech therapy was hard to overcome because I wasn’t motivated,” he said. “To me, I sounded fine.”

In addition to his speech complications, Wade was still dealing with the repercussions of the surgery he had at birth- the one that was performed to put his organs back inside his body. 

This early surgery left scar tissue in his abdomen, which had to be cleared out on four different occasions. Each was difficult and taxing on his body, resulting in a two week recovery period and mild to severe pain almost daily. However, he was strong for each and every one. 

“Honestly, he was a trooper through everything, really,” Paige said. “He very seldom complained about any of it and we never let him think he was different than any other kid.”

Wrestling had been the center of Wade’s life from the time he was four years old. His older cousin, Cage, started the sport and naturally, Wade wanted to do the same. His parents signed him up fairly quickly, and soon he was wresting for Buchanan County Wrestling Club. It was a struggle for Wade to acclimate to the sport at first. “I cried every match,” Wade said. “I was absolutely terrified.” 

His parents refused to let him quit. He didn’t win any matches his first year, but from then on he continued to improve and his love for the sport only grew. 

So at 11 years old, Wade already had seven years of wrestling under his belt and in 2018, he competed in Liberty Nationals. It was a tough tournament, especially due to the scar-tissue buildup in his abdomen. After beating a kid from Kentucky in the finals, he finally held the title of national champion that he had been working towards for so long. 

Photo courtesy of Wade Stanton

Working hard and keeping a strict diet, he practiced wrestling almost every day, and stayed in the weight room. In high school, he led his team with the same work ethic that he held himself to which resulted in them winning two state titles over his four years.

In 2022, Wade committed to William Jewell University to further his athletic legacy. It was something he had fought for, and finally seeing it to fruition was an unimaginable feeling. 

The university announced that they would be cutting their wrestling program in November of 2023. “I was heartbroken,” Wade said. “Wrestling was my dream, and having that taken away from me felt like a piece of me was taken away.”

The next day, Wade entered the transfer portal. Drury University was the first choice. 

He committed to Drury and by early December he was on the mat with his new teammates and coaches in his corner. The Drury opener was his first taste of college wrestling, but it didn’t have the smooth start that his previous matches had. 

“It was pretty nerve racking because it was my first ever college match,” Wade said. He lost his first match and knew he needed to fix something. “I was terrified because I just committed to this school and I wasn’t wrestling right.”

But Wade knew what he needed. After that loss, he immediately went to find his dad. 

“It’s still just wrestling,” Wade remembers his dad telling him. “You’re still just doing what you love.”

After that, things improved drastically. 

Photo courtesy of Wade Stanton

Four months later, Wade is working just as hard as he was when he began his wrestling career. He is trying his best to be a leader on and off the mat. And while Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome continues to be something he battles, Wade is grateful for all of the things he has learned because of it. 

“At this point I’ve really learned to wrestle with BWS,” Wade says. “It’s just something you learn to deal with.”

“Wade is one of those guys that makes the whole room better,” says his teammate and friend, BK Seago. “He brings a sense of urgency that helps uplift others into doing the same.”

Despite having to undergo 16 plus surgeries, CAT scans, ultrasounds, cancer screenings, speech therapy and more, he’s bounced back stronger every time. Wade Stanton continues to fight.

Article written by Kaelyn Southall

Featured photo courtesy of Wade Stanton

The post Wrestling with BWS  first appeared on Drury Mirror.

Drury’s history with music extends to its beginning years. In 1874, Drury’s first president, Nathan J. Morrison, announced the creation of a Conservatory of Music affiliated with Drury, which housed the Bachelor of Music degree. According to the Music Major Handbook, the department of music was established in 1917 when the conservatory became an integral part of the institution, then known as Drury College.  

As a core piece of Drury’s history, Troy Peterson, director of marching and athletic bands, wanted the music department to be involved in this year’s 150th anniversary celebrations. Also, the director of Drury’s Wind Symphony, Peterson found a way to contribute: “Over the summer, I thought it would be a cool idea if we recreated some of the concerts from the past.” 

Peterson found a box filled with hundreds of old concert programs in Drury’s music library. He narrowed his music search to the 1948-1949 and 1972-1973 ensembles to celebrate their significant anniversaries, but also partly for accessibility.  

The music library had most of the music from the previous ensembles, but some titles could not be recovered or replaced. “After it’s been on the market for about 20 years, unless it sells so many copies, they don’t do another run,” Peterson said, referencing titles he had wanted to play but could not find.  

The Wind Symphony will be playing works by Percy Grainger, Gustav Holst, Frank Erickson, and two marches by Robert E. Jager and John Philip Sousa. The concert will also feature a version of the Drury Alma Mater arranged by Peterson.  

“Back then, they alternated a march every three or four tunes with a contemporary piece or something lyrical, and I think we’re touching all those bases as well,” said Peterson.  

The concert will be held in Spangler Hall, a part of the recently remodeled Clara Thompson Hall, at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, April 16. The concert is free and open to the public. 

Peterson shared his excitement for the concert and for the growth of Drury’s music department. “Every year, I think the band gets better and better,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of kids coming in next year that we’ve offered scholarships to, and that excites me a lot.”  

“I love everybody that’s here right now, and I know that bringing more people in and just making us bigger is only going to make us that much more successful and able to achieve even more difficult literature,” Peterson said. “I’m looking forward to it.” 

Featured photo taken by Troy Peterson

The post Drury Wind Symphony celebrates 150th anniversary with concert  first appeared on Drury Mirror.

On March 13, 2024, it was announced that Dr. Jeff Frederick will be Drury University’s 19th president. Frederick is currently the provost at Wingate University, a small university in North Carolina. Working his way up in his academic career, Frederick served as an assistant professor, associate professor and professor before moving to department chair, then to the dean and finally to provost.

In an interview, he expressed his excitement about becoming a part of Drury as president and meeting Drury students, staff and faculty. Before he is officially inducted as president on June 1, 2024, he will be making a few trips to our campus to talk with us and familiarize himself in his new role. 

He will be here April 14-April 16 and April 24-April 27 where there will be opportunities to see him, talk to him, get to know him better through campus conversations and have lunch with him by RSVPing for events. On April 26, he will be in the FSC Commons from noon to 1 p.m. to exclusively talk to the student body. 

Can you explain your education background from going to undergraduate school for Business then switching to going to graduate school for History?

It’s crazy, isn’t it? I have three college degrees. I have a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Marketing was my major from University of Central Florida. I have a Master of Arts in History, also from the University of Central Florida, and I have a PhD in American History. My primary field is Southern History, the History of the American South, and I had that from Auburn University in Alabama. 

Why didn’t you go back to school for Business and what was the reason for choosing History? 

I think for me in the time between my undergrad in 1987 and when I came home one day from work and told my wife I wanted to go back to school, to study History, I had done a lot of thinking. I had done a lot of my own supplemental reading. I was pondering some of what I thought were the more interesting questions about the South and a variety of other things. I don’t think I was only thinking about History, but I wanted to study something and think about something to where I never felt like I could get ahead of it, not that I was getting ahead of it in Business, but in the line of work I was doing, I felt like I was saying a lot of the same things every day to a slightly different group of people. And in thinking about whatever it is, my purpose was, why I was on this planet, call that locational assessment or calling, I kind of felt like there was some stuff that I wasn’t doing that maybe I should have been doing. And that was more in the line of writing and teaching and thinking aloud about some of these interesting things, particularly about the South as I started a Master’s degree and then a PhD. I didn’t have, as your question indicates, I didn’t have the background in History, so I sort of came in as a bit of a probationary graduate student. 

How was that? 

It was interesting because that same semester we had our first child. When we had started preparing to have a family while we were both working pretty big jobs and then we were, it wasn’t working for whatever reason, and then of course as soon as I quit my job to go back to grad school immediately, my wife Melinda got pregnant. So, it was a really interesting semester. She gave birth to our first child, and I was in my first real semester in grad school, kind of on a probationary status, but I do think for students and for anyone who’s asking those kinds of questions: what’s my purpose, what’s my calling, what’s my vocation, what am I supposed to be doing, I was given a few things, am I really using them in the way I should of? 

I mean I think it’s a testament to say we should constantly be thinking and striving and figuring that out. I credit my undergraduate degree with those kinds of lifelong learning and thinking skills. I think all of us, after we walk across the stage, something happens or changes or you start thinking about something and you don’t stop and say, ‘that was that intro to Psychology course I took in my second semester.’ But really all of these ideas about how to use tools in our own mind, I think those are kinds of things in me continuing to think about what it is that I wanted to devote the second chunk of my career to; it really emanated from some of the skills and thinking and reading and work that I had done as an undergrad. It kept that conversation going in the back of my head. 

So when it was time to jump in to get a Masters degree from ‘96 to ‘98 and then to go work on a PhD from ‘98 to 2003, I felt like I wasn’t leaving Business, I wasn’t abandoning any of the things that it had taught me, both in the classroom as an undergrad and in practice in a career, but I was taking them and developing them and turning them into different ways.

In the end, I sort of feel like my combination of History and Business has really served me well as both as a professor and then as a leader, trying to wrestle with budgetary decisions and connecting with community members who don’t come out of a higher ed (education) experience, and so I would say it’s a really long winded answer to a question about constantly using the things a college experience teaches you, even if you don’t always know that you’re using them. 

What goals do you have for Drury and for yourself as a president? 

Here’s what I would say: my goals, I think, would start off with a kind of leadership perspective. First of all, I want to be a good listener and next time we meet, I hope you’ll let me ask more of the questions, so you can tell me a little bit more. I try to be honest, because I think that’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s the only thing you can do to keep everybody informed. 

I try to be practical, I think Drury strikes me as a very practical place, where we want students and professors to work together to do meaningful things together. We want to talk about theory and want to work on theory, but we want to do practical things. We want to have really interesting artifacts that come out of the learning experience. Those are sort of some of the things I’m intending to bring into my work at Drury. 

The last thing is that I intend to be positive, and I think you have to. I mean there’s an awful lot of things that have happened that caused someone maybe to look around society and see it changing too quickly or see people talking in certain ways, at each other as opposed to talking to each other, and I think it’s easy to be negative, but I teach every year, I get to know students, and I work with them. 

The world is in good hands with the next generation. They’re not exactly like the previous generation, and that’s cool. That’s fine. So as as long as we’re willing to give students a chance and meet them as often on their terms as we ask them to meet on ours, people are going to be blown away about how prepared your generation is. It’s our job to coach you up a little bit on some of the things that you need, and it’s our job to learn a little bit from you as well. That’s a pretty exciting thing. It’s too soon for me to walk in and say here’s some sort of plan that I’ve orchestrated. Let’s start by listening and being practical and being honest and being positive and then the rest of things will be clear to us. 

Featured image courtesy of Drury University

The post Dr. Jeff Frederick: student, professor, leader and Drury’s new president first appeared on Drury Mirror.

In his first attempt he tried to cancel at least $10,000 of student loan debt for people that make less than $125,000 a year. Students that received federal Pell grants would be eligible to receive an addition $10,000 in loan forgiveness. Associated Press said that it would cost $400 billion and cancel debt for over 40 million people. However, the Supreme Court rejected the plan in 2023.

President Biden attempted to keep his promise by going through a different approach through the Higher Education Act. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Higher Education Act (HEA) allows federal aid programs that aim to support individuals pursuing higher education. Specifically, he is most likely looking at Title IV under the HEA which has to do with student assistance like federal Pell grants, student loans, federal work-study programs, etc.

The HEA can allow the secretary of education to forgive student loan in some circumstances. It has made the Education Department (ED) to reevaluate what authority the secretary has exactly and if they have the power to do that. 

President Biden’s new plan involved categorizing those in student loan debt. It targets those who are in need the most. The widest scale this loan forgiveness reaches in forgiving interest that has grown larger than the originally borrowed amount. 

The new plan would also help those who are eligible for federal forgiveness programs but never applied because of confusion. They must understand that some of this financial assistance is not easy to navigate. 

Borrowers who have been repaying their undergraduate loans for 20 years or more, or 25 years for graduate school loans, then they will cancel all the debt the borrower have accumulated. 

Individuals who went to college and participated in programs that have since yielded little results and have not made a dent in their debt may be eligible for loan forgiveness. And lastly people who are experiencing circumstances that impact their ability to repay their student loan debt may receive some student loan forgiveness. 

The cancellation of debt will most likely happen automatically for most people. But if an individual wants to plead their case of why they cannot pay off their debt then they will most likely have to apply to explain their circumstance. 

The post Where is Biden’s Loan Forgiveness Plan at now? first appeared on Drury Mirror.

This case started when a lawsuit was filed against a hospital and fertility clinic when an embryo created through IVF was accidentally dropped and destroyed in 2020. The lawsuit was filed for wantonness and negligence and a lawsuit in accordance with the wrongful death of a minor act. Originally, the first judge did not find that a destroyed embryo to fit under the wrongful death of a minor act.  

The couple appealed this ruling, and the case made it all the way to the supreme court of Alabama, where it was ruled that the destruction of a frozen embryo does in fact fit under the wrongful death of a minor act. This led to the ruling where all embryos created through IVF are considered children.  

This already has had a huge effect on fertility clinics in Alabama, two of which have stopped their treatments until more information is available. One of these clinics being the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, one of the biggest clinics in the state.  

This means all their previously scheduled IVF appointments have been canceled too, including ones where patients were undergoing the last part of the process where the embryo is implanted into the uterus. 

Since then, several other clinics have followed suit, and several citizens of Alabama are left to question if IVF will remain a viable option for them to have children. The process of IVF is already a bit difficult; the average timeline of the treatment being four to six weeks and that is if an embryo implants the first time. The average cost of IVF treatment in Alabama is about $10,000 to $15,000, and it is typically not covered by insurance. 

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, more states have been passing laws restricting access to abortion and Plan B contraceptive pills. Alabama is among the states with the strictest bans on abortion, having an all-out ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. The only exceptions to these bans being if the person pregnant or fetus is in either serious jeopardy or will not survive. 

Arizona has recently joined the states with the strictest bans on abortion. They passed a near total ban on it on April 9, 2024. Many people are worried of the issues this ruling will bring for IVF, not only in Alabama but in other states with stricter laws on abortion.  

After the ruling was made, the house proposed and passed a bill that would grant immunity to people who are providing IVF services or receiving them if an embryo is destroyed or lost. Although this bill has not been signed into law now, most clinics have begun to resume their IVF treatments.  

The post Alabama and in vitro fertilization  first appeared on Drury Mirror.

Throughout human history, solar eclipses have captivated people and have frequently been linked to a wide range of myths, stories, and cultural beliefs. They have contributed significantly to the advancement of science, especially in verifying aspects of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon entirely obscures the sun’s disk; it causes the sky to become noticeably darker and makes the sun’s corona visible. A partial solar eclipse happens when the moon covers only a portion of the sun. It happens when there is imperfect alignment of the Earth, moon, and sun. An annular solar eclipse takes place when the moon is too far away from Earth to entirely cover the sun’s disk. As a result, the moon’s silhouette is surrounded by a ring of sunshine.

Although they happen periodically, solar eclipses are relatively rare occurrences for any specific area on Earth. Jamie Carter from Live Science found that on average, a total solar eclipse is visible from a specific location on Earth about once every 375 years while annular solar eclipses happen somewhere on Earth around every three to five years. Kate Howells, from The Planetary Society, found that annular eclipses occur more frequently in regions nearer the poles than in regions nearer the equator, such as the Arctic and Antarctic.

In the past 30 years, Missouri has seen three eclipses; two of which were or will be total solar eclipses. On May 10, 1994, an annular solar eclipse traversed from the southwest to the northeast across the middle of Missouri. The total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, moved from the northwest to the southeast, crossing the middle of Missouri. Between the 2017 eclipse and the 2024 eclipse, there are a few locations that will see both. One of these locations is Missouri. The other two are Illinois and Kentucky. 

The upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, is projected to travel from the southwest to the northeast, reaching the southeastern corner of Missouri. Considering the frequency of total solar eclipses in other regions, the occurrence of total solar eclipses in Missouri in 2017 and 2024 is significant and may be considered unusual. August 23, 2044, will mark the next viewable total solar eclipse to pass over the United States after April for more than 20 years according to NASA.

Though most of Missouri will have nearly 99% totality, NASA will also be livestreaming the total eclipse so if you are not able to travel to an area of totality you can enjoy this normally, once in a lifetime phenomenon.

Direct solar eclipse observation without appropriate eye protection might result in blindness or permanent eye damage. To watch the event safely, it’s essential to utilize special solar viewing glasses or other indirect viewing methods, including pinhole projectors.

Image from Pexels.com

The post The solar eclipse phenomenon 2024 first appeared on Drury Mirror.

April 1 marked the beginning of National Volunteer Month, established in 1991 by former President George H.W. Bush. The recognition expanded upon National Volunteer Week established in 1974 by former President Richard Nixon, but many national organizations continue to dedicate a week each April to volunteerism. 

Volunteer Ozarks is a free online platform that helps individuals interested in volunteering connect with nonprofits in Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas. The website, www.volunteerozarks.com, began in 2018 as a collaboration between KY3, United Way of the Ozarks, Community Foundation of the Ozarks, and the Drury Leadership Collaborative, formerly known as the Center for Nonprofit Leadership. Users can search through 29 categories, including opportunities related to animals, youth, hunger, and senior services. 

Jessica Hawkins, a KY3 employee who works on the website, says there’s something for everyone when it comes to volunteering. 

“A good way to start volunteering is to find something you’re passionate about,” Hawkins said. “What interests one person may not interest another, but just having a small interest in something can possibly grow once you volunteer.”

Volunteering gets college students involved in their community while also building their resume. Hawkins explained that some nonprofits on the website also offer group volunteering opportunities, which can provide student organizations ways to get involved as a team. 

Students who want to emphasize professional development with volunteering may benefit from The Network, a group affiliated with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce that connects students and young professionals ages 21-39 interested in furthering their leadership and career-related skills. Students can pay for a membership to access the group’s events, but the Network’s website, www.thenetworkspringfield.com, also provides a free list of additional organizations offering volunteer opportunities for anyone interested.

If you’d like to get involved in the Springfield community and don’t know where to start, explore these opportunities offered by organizations near Drury and downtown Springfield:

Gillioz Theatre 

• Opportunities to volunteer at events, such as ticket scanning, wristbanding, and ushering

• www.gillioztheatre.com/volunteer

Ozarks Literacy Council

• Volunteer reading tutors, classroom readers, office help, and special events

•  www.ozarksliteracy.org/volunteer

Salvation Army

• Opportunities to help with food and clothing donation sorting, office help, and kitchen assistance

• centralusa.salvationarmy.org/midland/springfieldMO/volunteer  

Springfield Community Gardens

• Help with general upkeep of gardens, including weedeating and harvesting

• www.springfieldcommunitygardens.org/get-involved  

Springfield-Greene County Libraries

• Looking primarily for gift shop volunteers, but also has opportunities for maintaining library materials, office help, and delivering books as a part of the Walking Books program

•  www.thelibrary.org/donate/volunteer.cfm   

Springfield Little Theatre

• Opportunities related to set construction, backstage roles, costume design, front of house roles, and office help

• www.springfieldlittletheatre.org/support/volunteer  

Springfield Symphony Orchestra 

• Looking primarily for concert/event volunteers, but also offers opportunities for office and stagehand help

•  www.springfieldmosymphony.org/volunteer  

The Kitchen 

• Opportunities in receiving and organizing food donations, office help, and cleaning
•  www.thekitcheninc.org/volunteer   

Veterans Coming Home Center 

• Opportunities in food service, community outreach, and other shelter roles

• www.vchcenter.org/serve  

The post April is National Volunteer Month: Here’s how to get involved first appeared on Drury Mirror.

My initial impression of the movie, I enjoyed it!

The simplicity was its main appeal to me. That might seem like a weird statement at first. Is a simple firm not boring? Perhaps. However, I find that so many movies try to mimic the Marvel complicated cinematic universe and how everything ties into another item. I feel like I must do so much preparation just to watch a movie! The idea that this is a fairytale retelling with a twist seemed like a breath of fresh air.

Fantasy, romance, and horror: all these genres of movies interest me. The movie has a splash of each, but I was not expecting how gruesome it would be. I was a little surprised by how intense and cruel the movie was at some points. But director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is not new to the horror thriller scene. He directed movies like “28 Weeks Later” and its sequel “28 Days Later”. I think Fresnadillo’s experience with intense suspenseful moments helped lead the movie towards that direction.

Fresnadillo wanted the main character, played by Millie Bobby Brown, Elodie’s emotional journey to be the focus of the movie. He told Digital Trends that “you cheat when there’s a lot of action and effects involved” when talking about how he challenged Brown. He intentionally gave her character a lot of close-up shots to express the character’s internal conflicts. He did not want to add her character to a long list of strong characters that get lost in the fantasy world created. While there is a loss of world-building in this movie, I love the character driven movie.

When going into Damsel, he wanted to make something new. His intention in every movie he directs is to make something inspirational. He doesn’t always think the first idea is the best idea.

When Digital Trends asked Frenadillo if he was willing to work on a sequal, he was very interested in the idea. “Oh, absolutely,” he tells Digital Trends “I’ve been involved in this movie for five years, and I put a piece of my heart, my soul, into this project, so I would be more than happy to helm a sequel”.

The ending of the movie was open-ended, leaving room for anything to happen. They could explore new lands and expand upon the lore of the world. I would be interested to see where they take Elodie’s story.

The post DU student’s opinion on the new Netflix original Damsel first appeared on Drury Mirror.

Before it was a holiday, it was a story about a man named Patrick, who was not even from Ireland. In the fifth century, Patrick was captured from Roman Britain, the territory of Britain that was conquered by the Romans under Emperor Claudius in AD 43.  

Patrick was brought to Ireland and enslaved at age 16 for six years before escaping. He returned home to his family and decided to devote his life to the Christian faith. After he became a priest, he returned to Ireland where he spent the rest of his life speaking the gospel and converting the Irish to Christianity.  

Since his death, Ireland has celebrated their patron saint every year even though he was never officially recognized as a saint.  

It was when the Irish immigrated to America that they brought their culture and traditions, including the religious holiday.  

The first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in America was in 1762 in New York City. With the increase of Irish immigrants during the 19th and 20th centuries, the holiday evolved and became what we know it as today.  

Since becoming a holiday celebrated by Americans, it has since become a less religious holiday and more of a celebration of dressing in green, wearing shamrocks, and drinking green beer.  

Cities with a high number of Irish Americans like Chicago or New York City have been known for going above and beyond. For the last almost 70 years, Chicago has dyed the Chicago River temporarily green. People could take boat tours on the freshly green river while drinking, eating Irish cuisine and live music.  

The city is also known for having the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade every year in the country.  

The celebration did not stop in the large cities, however. In Springfield, MO, locals have been able to participate in festivities all week.  

On Sat. March 16, downtown was packed with people of all ages commemorating the holiday. There was live music, souvenir carts for those not wearing enough green, a pet contest and it ended with a two-hour parade.  

The parade consisted of local businesses and organizations decorating their cars, trailers, and motorcycles driving through the heart of Springfield. The sidewalks were filled with people watching, yelling at people in the parade they recognized and kids catching candy being thrown at them.  

On Sunday March 17, there was the opportunity to go to different Irish pubs to drink at 11 a.m. and listen to live Irish music. Springfield Brewing Company also was open where people could enjoy live bagpipe music while enjoying their favorite local brews. 

The post 2024 St. Patrick’s Day Festivities   first appeared on Drury Mirror.