Years pass without a single winter formal. The thought passes through students’ heads, teachers fathom what good could come from it, and the school is left utterly untouched by the clutches of a poorly done dance. Yet, with the constant tardies, it was given as a reward to the students. A reward? Or a punishment?

See, the dance began at 7 pm. Students went out with friends to get dinner, in fancy dresses and suits, their makeup done and their hair brushed back. Excited to see what the fuss was all about. It was evident stepping within the gym that it was nothing of what they expected, with lights looking reused from homecoming and strung up on the walls in haste. Few bodies filled the room, with blaring music and little to no movement. An hour passed before more and more people began to come in, and by the time the next hour came along, the gym was vacant once more.  Principal Mitch Gross had stated, “It’s gonna slay.” Students beg to differ.

There are many reasons that the winter formal was not all that it claimed to be, some that were not necessarily the school’s fault. Some students had no love for dances and decided not to come. Others had already accepted the stigma that the formal was to be boring, and once one student did, the thought spread like wildfire. Eno Sule ’25 said “I would change the area where they took the pictures so if it was just like different. It would have probably looked better.” Many students claimed that the decorations looked as though they’d been reused from homecoming, and that little effort was put into it.

Above shows the attendance records from the 1968 dance in comparison to this year’s dance. It is evident that in 1968 students had a completely different perception and outcome of the dance.