A LETTER FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

The Snowboard Team visiting Westminster College

Winter has fully arrived with record breaking snow dumping all around the United States. Our ski & snowboard teams hit the road to chase the snow in Utah, Idaho & California while our Mountain Bikers made the most of red rock country in Southern Utah. The skate crew escaped to Southern California & all of the students had the chance to visit universities & action sports brands while keeping up with their sports & academics. Much like the snow, the word is out about the amazing accomplishments of all of the students so new applications have been coming into our admissions department faster than Dan can keep up with. At this point there is more interest than there are beds available so if you are planning to attend the Academy this summer or fall please make sure to get your paperwork in prior to April 1 in order to lock in last year's rate.

Mike Hanley
Head of School

ACADEMICS

February Students of the Month Mike Nilan and Ryan Buttars

Greetings Wy'East Families,

February was a transitional month on the academic front. After two weeks of training, Hannah and Loren took over the classrooms. Midterms were sent out in February, followed by Parent Teacher Conferences. The transition has been so smooth, and we are so grateful for all of the support!

We continue to get more and more college acceptance letters from all over the country and some internationally as well. We are so proud of our seniors and look forward to celebrating them this April.

Yearbooks are available to order now. The yearbooks are hardcover with 68 colored pages. The yearbooks are $36.50 and will be shipped to campus during the last week of school. The deadline to order yearbooks is March 30th. The link to purchase the yearbook is below:
https://www.treering.com/purchase?PassCode=1016450563251701

Lastly, congratulations to our February Students of the Month: Mike Nilan and Ryan Buttars!

Kayla Hokanson
Academic Director

Mike Nilan is an amazing student! He sets the example for his peers with his work ethic, maturity, and great grades. Every day, Mike comes into class with a great attitude and works hard at his studies and is constantly improving his GPA. Additionally, he has been staying ahead in his classes. Mike is able to manage multiple tasks including his leadership role in student government and having exceptional skiing skills. No matter what path he takes after his time at Wy'East Academy, I know he will be successful. Mike has set the bar high for his peers!
-Loren Terry

Ryan Buttars is an excellent nominee for February’s Student of the Month! Buttars is an incredibly diligent and self-directed young man. Buttars arrives early to class each day with a focused plan of action. He is personable and kind, but doesn’t let distractions deter him in the classroom. Occasionally, Buttars makes the choice to work through a break in order to make time for other activities. Despite his relatively young age, Buttars is a leader on campus. He maintains positive composure in stressful situations, and responds to feedback with enthusiasm. Buttars, thank you so much for your example of determination.
-Hannah Eagle

STUDENT LIFE

The students posting up in front of a monster truck

Greetings,

This past month went by even faster than January. The month was filled with competitions, rail jams, weekend activities, snow on campus and working hard in school. On the residential side of things, we started the month of with going to the Oregon Zoo and then grabbing dinner at one of Portland’s oldest family-friendly diners that opened in 1935. The following weekend due to a busy schedule of competitions students had the option to go get manicures and pedicures and I would say the best part was the foot massages. For Super Bowl Sunday the Student Government helped plan a party in the cafe with the new big screen TV that we just got installed. Students helped staff move couches into the cafe and assisted the culinary department in creating a delicious menu for the Super Bowl party. Of most importance the Student Government led by Joseph Medley completed their first fundraising project for getting a cable machine for the gym. I am incredibly proud of the dedication and hard work the Student Government put into this project and we can’t wait for the new cable machine to arrive on campus! Furthermore, the Student Government helped plan a weekend activity where we rented out Common Ground Wellness which is a cooperative healing center with a soaking pool, sauna and cold shower. Looking into this upcoming month we are excited for more trips, night skiing at Skibowl and memorable weekend activities.

Netanya Beard
Dean of Students

CULINARY

Greeting from the Culinary Department,

The month of February has been a good one for the Culinary Department. We have seen all the students to a few students come in and eat in the café this past month. It is good to see everyone come in and enjoy the food that is provided for them. A few things that happened this month are, we hosted a Super Bowl Party for the students to come in and watch the big game on the big screen TV. We have finally got our industrial toaster up and running. Thanks to the hard work of Archer and Jim for taking the time to get the toaster up and running.

On the food side of things, Kellen has done a good job of switching up the dinner menu each night to provide the students with a wide range of entrees. He has made Teriyaki Chicken to Shepard’s Pie for the students, which they have all enjoyed! While Jacob has started to branch out on his own over the weekends. Where he has started to make Chicken Alfredo, to Burritos and other student favorites. While breakfast and lunch have been the usual causal fair of items. One morning, we did Eggs Benedicts for the students, which they all liked.

For the upcoming month, most of the teams will be traveling around the US. So, we will see an influx of students coming to the café for food.

Travis Gibson
Culinary Director

FREESKI

Charlie, Charles, and Will getting ready to compete

Greetings Freeski Fam!
Wow what a epic last month for our ski team!

Starting it off with Futures at Woodward Park City where we got to ride a amazing park and compete on a amazing course with blue bird weather all week!

The big mountain competitors went on a week long trip up to Washington to compete in the IFSA Big Mountain Series. First at Steven’s Pass tackling a great venue then off to The Summit at Snowqualmi. We got blessed with fresh snow for both venues which is a rare occasion and the kids had a blast and put down some solid runs on some very intense terrain.

Meanwhile back on Mt Hood the rest of the team enjoyed 24 inches of fresh snow with a temp of 5 degrees which was the coldest driest snow Mt. Hood has seen in a decade. We smashed runs at Meadows for two days and skied till our legs were jello.

Following the endless snow storm the whole team ventured to Tahoe, arriving with epic timing to get a storm that started Sunday and ended Tuesday night with a total of 86 inches of powder! Wednesday was a blue bird day with so much snow it was literally crazy. Half the squad competed in the Futures Tour event at North Star while the other half trained/skied at Squaw Valley. Our second day there it literally snow so much all roads and resorts were closed and we wasted no time building some jumps at our lakeside condo. As the storm cleared and the event had been postponed the entire team enjoyed an 86” deep day at Squaw Valley where we truly skied the deepest snow they had seen there in 10 years. Finishing up that trip we scored a couple podium spots, countless face shots and all left with glowing memories and foggy goggles.

We will back at campus this week training focusing on training harder than we compete as we prepare to depart for Mammoth next week. The team collectively has unmatched comradery making for the ultimate positive learning experience.

-Brian, Topher, & Cameron

SNOWBOARD

Hello Snowboard Team Families!

We’re back for another Newsletter recap of what the team has been up to and I’m happy to say that February was full of awesome progression on-hill, lots of different terrain parks, and plenty of pow! When the team returned from the Midwest trip, we were greeted with a big storm cycle filling in the areas of the resorts that needed it the most and offered up some deep days at both Timberline and Meadows. Between the storms, the team was busy. We had two slopestyle contests at Meadows, and a quick trip down to Mt. Bachelor, followed by two more slopestyle contests before taking off for Idaho and Utah.

On the contest side, all USASA competitors basically swept the podiums putting on a great show of the tricks that they’ve been working on, and dialing in their competitive mindset for when the stakes become higher at bigger events. It’s looking like everyone has qualified for Nationals in slopestyle, though we are waiting to get confirmation once invitations start to go out. We are super proud of the group that pushed themselves into these competitions, and are looking forward to seeing how they do on the big stage at Copper. I’ll be keeping you all in the loop about Nationals once the invites start to be sent out.

Mt. Bachelor was an epic two day trip for everyone to experience a new resort with different features not too far from home. We caught some incredible weather day 1 with blue skies & sunshine met with both fresh pow and a groomed park. Day 2 was a bit more “Oregon like” with the weather but the parks were riding so good.

To wrap up the month, the team loaded up the vans to drive East on HWY 84 to Idaho and then onto Salt Lake City. The main objectives of this trip was to create social content at new places, learn new tricks and get the reps in on larger features, and learn about the colleges of that area for the future. Our first stop was at Bogus Basin to ride some of their park features that became notable in the High Cascade parks in the past. Then we continued onto Salt Lake where we showed up to a massive storm cycle giving the team some of the deepest days with the best snow quality at Brighton Resort. Then the weather switched to sunny, warm and calm for our park days at Woodward Park City where the team crushed it by filming clips and getting in the reps on bigger features. Utah was kind enough to bless us with one final deep pow day at Brighton before loading back up and driving West to campus.

All and all, February was a big success for the team, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone is pushing themselves to ride harder, faster, and with more confidence. We’re gearing up for our next team trip down to Lake Tahoe and Mammoth--so there’s a big academic push for all the kids to get ahead and be prepared for another 8 days on the road. California has been having a record snow year, so things should be good! As always, thank you for your support this season, and we wish you all the best.

-Brandon & Stew

MOUNTAIN BIKE

Superman, AKA, Aiden Parish in Virgin, UT

We had an amazing February! Our time on campus for the first two weeks gave us warmer weather with little to no rain allowing us to make the most of our training time prior to our trip to Utah. There were a lot of airbag sessions and a lot of time spent in the backyard, building on skills and dialing in tricks. We continued with our workouts in the gym, adding the strength needed to remain healthy and stronger riders. The clear skies allowed us to get back to our scheduled shuttle days which was nice to get back on that program.

The second half of February took us to the Freeride wonderland that is Virgin, Utah. It feels like every time we go to Utah, the current trip out shines the previous one and the same goes for this one. Despite the weather that we had to deal with, the crew made the most out of their trip, getting in plenty of riding and pushing their limits. This trip allowed the students, the future talent of the sport, to spend time with professional riders, the current talent in the sport. It was awesome to see the students be able to mix it up with the pros and learn from them while they were on the trip.

We are looking forward to seeing what the rest of the semester holds for the team!

-Kevin & Asa

SKATEBOARD

Hi Families,

February has been an eventful month for the skate program. We have had a mix of nice sunny weather and blankets of snow. On the nice days we took full advantage of skating the jungle and features scattered all over campus. We hosted the second event of the Seek Contest series on the 12th. This event was a game of S.K.A.T.E. on new curbs in Bob. Tag took 2nd place in the event and is in 1st place in points for the series. The next event will be a Jam in Bob on March 12th.

Our trip to Southern California was a success despite getting hit with some heavy rain and snow warnings. It was very cool to be in downtown LA and see the San Gabriel Mountains in the background covered in snow. We took advantage of the dry days skating and checking out spots from Glendale to San Diego. The students put in a lot of work every time we got out of the car to get the most out of the time we had. On rainy days we visited UCSD and SDSU campus. We also got a tour of Seager clothing, talking to them about what it takes to start a clothing company and grow it from garage to multilevel office/warehouse in San Clemente. We spent about 3 hours at the Palace store in West Hollywood seeing what life is like working in a high end boutique skate shop. Palace started in London in 2009 and is considered the top of the top in high end fashion that originated in skateboarding. Needless to say, it was a very cool experience.

Looking forward to March being another eventful month!

-Brian Johnson

CABLE MACHINE ADDITION

I would like to commend the student government, especially Joseph Medley with fundraising to get the academy a new Cable Machine for our gym. These guys requested something, I got back to them with 8 bullet points of what would need to happen for this to be considered and they delivered it in our next meeting together. From there they lined everything up and made it easy for us to continue to say yes. They set a vision around something they believed in and then did what is necessary to get it done. Thank you guys for this, it’s going to be such a great addition to making this facility even more world class!

Elijah Teter
Athletic Director