december 2023 edition

Boden Whittick training on campus trails

A LETTER FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

Academy postcard abroad the Portland Spirit

The holiday season is upon us again so now that the snow is flying on the mountain everyone is working hard to wrap up another big semester. College acceptance letters have been flooding in for our seniors as the scholarship applications have been close behind. With the winter semester capacity being so limited we are now taking applications for the summer & fall of 2024 so make sure to contact Dan Tattersfield to reserve your spot. All of our teams are looking forward to heavy seasons of travel & competition from Chile to Switzerland & lots of stops in between. None of this would be possible without the support of all of the families of Wy'East Academy. It has been an amazing process creating a true parent partnership with the staff to help raise these amazing young adults. The levels of accountability resonate across the board as we watch these amazing students develop into the future leaders of the action sports industry and beyond.

Mike Hanley
Head of School

ACADEMICS

Our seniors have dedicated an immense amount of time this term applying to four year universities, tech schools, and community colleges. At Wy’East, our hope is to equip our students with the tools necessary to plan for life after highschool.

We are happy to report that ALL of the seventeen seniors on campus this term have submitted applications! They have applied to 34 different institutions and while most eagerly await responses, the following students have received one or more acceptance letters!

Brooke Anderson - OSU Cascades & Western Washington University

Joey Killeen - Montana State University & University of Arizona

Ethan Vuong - Montana State University

Joseph Cromwell - Oregon Institute of Technology

Joe Medley - Metropolitan State University of Denver

Charles Ryder – Montana State University & University of Arizona

Lucas Richer - Montana State University

In the coming weeks our seniors will continue to receive news and begin to make more firm plans for the future. It is a wonderful time and the academic team is thrilled to help in this process.

Hannah and Adam

student of the month

Student of the Month: LJ Parra

LJ is always doing what he is supposed to be doing in class and his GPA reflects how hard he works. He has also done a great job helping other students if they have something they need help with. He always brings a great attitude to class.
-Adam, Teacher

LJ is very motivated and sure of himself as a rider. He is a team leader and always follows through on his actions. He is very respectful, clean and does everything with intent.
-Asa, Coach

Even though he is one of the youngest students on campus, LJ Parra is a driving force in student life as well as academically & athletically. He carries himself like a 30 year old & represents the Academy to the highest possible standards on a daily basis
-Mike Hanley, Head of School

STUDENT LIFE

Ryan Buttars stands atop the podium at K1 Speed; life coach, Will Stephens shows the kids how it’s done; and 8th grade student, Quinn Murray, rounds out the top three.

Mountain bike traveled to Virgin, UT once again, while most the other teams were stationed on campus for most of November. Students have been working diligently and dedicating extra time during our study hall sessions to get ahead for their final big trips of the semester! The weekends were filled with so many of the students’ favorite activities. We began the month with a trip to the annual Snowvana expo where students perused gear and had the chance to watch some newly released ski movies to spark inspiration for the season. Other popular activities included more racing at K1 speed and bowling at Big Al’s during a Seattle Seahawks game. Prior to students departing for their Thanksgiving celebration, upperclassmen cheered on the athletes at the Oregon Special Olympics Fall Games.

One of the best highlights of the month was our academy vacation to Seattle, where eight students had a holiday brunch on the Portland Spirit and had the chance to enjoy downtown Portland while cruising the Willamette River. Afterwards, they made their way to Seattle for a relaxing weekend in the city. To complete their trip, the students hopped aboard the Puget Sound Express and spent a long afternoon chasing pods of Orcas. We are so thankful we could give this opportunity to students who stayed with us over Thanksgiving!

Barb Edwards
Dean of Students

CULINARY

The month of November has come and gone. The Culinary Team once again has produced some great food for the students. This month most of the student-athletes stayed on campus except the Mountain Bike students, so they missed out on some great food that we produced. Kellen has done a tremendous job at dinner time producing some real good meals. One meal the students asked for was Baby Back Ribs and let me tell you Kellen knocked it out of the park. I was hoping there would be a couple ribs left for me to try but when I got in the next day there was none left. All the students loved them! For breakfast, we have been producing the regular items like hash browns, eggs, bacon and once or twice a week I have been making Pancakes just to give the kids a different option. For lunch, we made teriyaki chicken and rice, McRib sandwiches, grilled cheese and tomato soup and of course the kids' favorites like chicken tenders and fish sticks. While most of the students went home for Thanksgiving, the Culinary Team was able to take some well needed extra days off. We look forward to this next month as we will continue doing what we love and also get ready for some time off with our families.

Travis Gibson
Culinary Director

FREESKI

Greetings Freeski Families,

November has been a productive month for us on the Freeski side of things! Coming back from Austria we had some much needed time to reflect and debrief the trip, as well as come together to re-evaluate goals, take a first dive into our IQP (Individualized Quad Plans), and reset some more short term goals for the rest of the semester. Our training has mainly been on campus utilizing the facilities here. Focused trampoline sessions, taking advantage of the super tramp to work on rotations past the level that are planned for on snow. The idea here is that if you move the needle on what is hard, it makes the tricks our athletes are planning to do on snow seem “easier”. Coming off the heels of our time at Banger Park, our athletes have gained some new perspective of our airbag, with many of them maxing out its potential, working on both left and right forward tricks, as well as both left and right switch tricks! As always the Jib line has stayed hot all month long with continued progress across the board. We have been pushing everyone out of their comfort zone and are encouraging them to utilize the entire jib line, exploring all of the feature and line options!

Although we were not blessed with enough snow to have lifts spin, we have been getting a few inches here and there. Enough where we have been able to drag some of our PVC features up onto the mountain to make creative and productive set ups that we can both train and film on. Mother nature is the one thing we can never plan on, but we have been making the most with what we've been given so far.

Everyone has been spending lots of time and energy getting physically, mentally, and academically for our on-snow camps in the beginning of December, so we are excited to get back on the road, back on snow, and see what comes of it!

Brian, Topher, and Shannon

mountain bike

Hello Mountain Bike Families!

We had quite an epic trip down to Southern Utah! We've never experienced such a perfect weather window during our Utah academy trips with everyday being sunny, no wind, and 70 degrees. We as a team were able to ride about 6-8 hours a day. The kids behaved great with no big disciplinary issues and represented Wy'East academy professionally. We saw huge progression with our heavy hitting seniors, and our younger freshmen with tech ridgelines, big mountain lines, jumps, drops, and tricks. With the amount of good ride days on this trip, we were able to really spend time gaining confidence with exposed lines, drops, and other technical features most kids mentally struggle with. We had 6 kids clear the infamous King Kong trail, known for being a shuttleable rampage line that the best in the world come to test their mental and physical skills on. Wy'East MTB team alumni Aiden Parish, Harper Simon, Josh Hagen, and Curran Lawrence played a huge role with our students' successes with coaching tips, mental strategies, and leading by example how to ride and hit these high risk features and trails. All and all it was a great trip and please be on the lookout for the kids' Instagram posts for all the media they will be dropping!

Asa and Bolio

SNOWBOARD

Alessia Vergani and Brando twinning at practice

Hello snowboard team families!

Even though the semester is coming to a close, there is still plenty going on here for the snowboarders of Wy’East Academy. Everyone has been working hard to finish up their classwork in preparation for our team trips to Mammoth and Mt. Sima. Stew and Alec are super excited about bringing their crew down to California where Mammoth has built an awesome early season park. Meanwhile, Brandon will be taking a smaller group of athletes to Mt.Sima in Canada for some big air focused training.

I have to say that we have had an absolute blast this semester working with all of the snowboarders to set the foundation for the competitive season that lays ahead. Hopefully everyone has adjusted to balancing both athletics and academics so that next semester they can really thrive. Thank you all for your continued support and help in making these kids dreams come true.

Wishing you all the best,

Brandon, Stew, & Alec

SKATEBOARD

Skate team practicing hard at an off campus park

Hello Families,

The semester is moving along quickly. November has had some surprisingly nice weather for us so we have been able to take advantage of that and skate outside a lot. Our luck with the dry weather is taking a turn but with colder/wet weather on the way it's nice to have B.O.B. and a trip to Southern CA at the end of the month.

A big focus in November was the digital contest runs each student made. They had one week to plan and film a 1 minute line in B.O.B. I stayed completely out of the process. It was up to them to plan out what the run would look like and get someone to film it. Each run was judged on Filming, Speed, Flow/Use of park, Trick Selection, and Execution of Tricks. I then sent each students run out to be judged by Wy’East staff and friends of mine in the skate industry (Team Managers, Riders, Contest Judges, Ect). I compiled all the feedback for each student's run and we went through it. It is not easy to skate like that and not easy to get a classmate to spend a lot of time filming the same run over and over until you get it. The students did an amazing job overall on it and have them posted their instagrams.

This last month we jumped back into our skate shop project where over the school year each student will have gone through the steps of starting a skate shop. In November we looked at retail spaces. The students' task was to find the space for their shop. We used the cafe as a guide for how to measure and visualize square feet for their shops. Then looking at the city's/neighborhoods they had previously chosen they hit real estate websites looking for retails spots to lease. The end goal for this month was a location and cost per month for the spot. The next part of the project will focus on getting products and how to open an account with the distribution companies.

With the end of the semester coming up quickly, expect an email from me outlining the spring semester plans for travel and contests soon. December is going to be a quick month on campus as we are traveling for the first part of it and return to campus with only a few days left in the semester. Please reach out with any questions!

Brian J.

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

I’m Michael Mawn and I’m a professional big mountain snowboarder representing the United States on the Freeride World Tour. I attended Wy’East Academy while pursuing competitive halfpipe riding in high school. Since then, I’ve made the switch to Freeride snowboarding and I am entering my fourth consecutive season on the World Tour.

Outside of snowboarding, I'm the Founder and CEO of a software company that I started in high school (Posted Software). My team and I manage a gig work platform with several thousand users across four states. I manage the business remotely while traveling the world to compete!

“My time at Wy’East Academy led to a strong foundation and instilled in me a strong work ethic. At Wy’East, I learned how to balance academic and athletic pursuits to achieve my goals. My experiences at Wy’East are invaluable and I’m so thankful for the opportunities I had there!"