High Life / A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : System Cites Complaints, Drops MTV

A cable television company in South Dakota recently deleted the MTV music video channel because of complaints about offensive videos, the company manager said.

“I don’t know if it was an organized effort or people just decided to call at the same time, but we got a large number of requests all of a sudden from these areas to remove the service,” said Doug Bierschbach, manager of Satellite Cable TV Systems.

Last month, the company stopped offering MTV in Parkston and Freeman, towns of about 1,300 each. MTV was replaced by the Discovery Channel. Bierschbach said his office has since received about a dozen complaints from young viewers.

Thirty Southern California students, including John Carlos Akira White of Brea-Olinda High School, Marla Marie Stripling of Marina High in Huntington Beach, and Marqueda Young of Esperanza High in Anaheim, have been named semifinalists in a “Black History Makers of Tomorrow” program sponsored by McDonald’s Operators’ Assn. of Southern California.

The students will be honored by McDonald’s franchises Feb. 27 at a Black History Month awards luncheon at the Hyatt Wilshire hotel in Los Angeles.

Tom Campbell and Chris Rink, both Buena Park High School students, will represent the Orange County chapter of Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge during a freedom and youth leadership conference from Feb. 22 to March 1 in Valley Forge, Pa.

Both students, who will also tour Washington, qualified for the trip by submitting an essay on the foundation. Hal Dixon, Buena Park High teacher, will attend the conference as a chaperon.

San Clemente High’s 1988-89 yearbook Thalassa was awarded first place in the overall excellence category in both the American Scholastic Press Assn. and Columbia Scholastic Press Assn. annual yearbook competition.

Editors of the yearbook were Sean Kunkle and Jinny Song. Sheila Kasprzyk is the yearbook adviser.

“It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.”

--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)