HENRY W. GRADY HIGH SCHOOL, ATLANTA
VOLUME LXVI, NUMBER 1
SEPT. 6, 2012
By Isabelle Taft uring her first week at Grady as a freshman more than three years ago, Alexis* walked into the courtyard after school and was literally swept off her feet by an older boy. The senior put her backpack in a tree and set her down on top of the hill, where two girls grabbed Alexis by her feet and dragged her down the hill toward the lower courtyard, leaving bloody scratches on her back. At the beginning of her senior year, Alexis was finally ready to get even—by doing to freshmen what had been done to her. “[Getting dragged] was one of the reasons I wanted to drag, because ever since then, I’ve been like ‘revenge!’” Alexis said. On the first and second days of school, Aug. 6 and 7, Alexis and her friends rounded up freshmen after school and herded them to Piedmont Park. There, the seniors kept alive the Grady tradition of “dragging” by pulling the freshmen down a hill in the park’s meadow. Seniors took the unprecedented step of using zip-ties to bind freshmen’s hands. “Once we got over to Piedmont, the girls were like zip-tying [hands] and spraying silly string and then one person got dragged, and it just kind of got crazy, like three people getting dragged connected to each other,” senior Austen Denenny said.
Photo by Kate Marani, illustration by Lauren Ogg
DRAGGING: IT’S A GRADY RITE, BUT IS IT RIGHT? D
AND THEY ALL FALL DOWN: Despite administrative opposition, seniors carry out various hazing traditions to initiate freshmen each year. The event prompted two parents and a woman who was jogging in the park and is not affiliated with Grady to contact administrators. In response, assistant principals Rodney Howard and David Propst called a senior meeting on the third day of
school. Howard said anyone caught dragging freshmen could be expelled and even face charges for assault, harassment or false imprisonment due to the use of zip-ties as a restraint. “Yes, you will be sent to jail because you are of age,” Howard said
at the meeting. “If you get caught, seniors, I promise you, we will do whatever we can to remove you from Grady High School.” After the meeting, seniors eschewed the dragging planned for the rest of the week, although freshmen
seemed to expect further hazing. “[Freshmen] were all sitting over there across the street on the hill waiting for us [on Friday afternoon],” Denneny said. “But there were like two prisoner transport vans, cops, Coach Howard. I’m not going to go over there. But the fact that all the kids were just lined up there shows that the parents make way too big a deal [out of dragging], and the whole administration.” The administration’s crackdown has sparked debate and discussion about Grady’s most visible hazing tradition, a ritual that almost always takes place with the consent of the intended victims. To some, being dragged is a mark of acceptance. To others, it is a fate to be avoided. And to many at Grady, it’s largely irrelevant. “Only white kids get dragged,” said Jessica*, a freshman who was not dragged. English teacher Lisa Willoughby, who first came to Grady in the fall of 1983, said this was not always the case. During her first years as a teacher, dragging was more ubiquitous and visible, usually occurring during lunch on the hill extending from Charles Allen Drive down toward the practice field. At that time, Grady had about 500 students, most of whom had attended school together since the first grade. see HAZED, page 8
Birds of a feather flock together: city dwellers hatch urban farms become useful by bringing experienced and By Grace Power inexperienced chicken owners together. large group of people gather in a Piccadilly PE After finding two farms through Craigmeeting room. Art teacher Dawn LO UTO slist with chickens for sale, Wadsworth Wadsworth, Grady art teacher, is among them. visited both of them to purchase her first Most all of them are familiar with each other; chickens. She chose four chickens between they meet every month in the same Southern the two farms to begin her journey of urban buffet. They are not there specifically for the chicken keeping. classic cafeteria cuisine but rather for the company The Dusenbury family, with two children at of their fellow chicken owners in the urban Atlanta Grady—Max, a junior, and Grace, a freshman— area. The group members convene regularly to decided to buy chickens discuss their flocks of poultry and to listen to FEATHERED FRIENDS: Atlantans in the spring of 2010, lectures by guest speakers. On one occasion the group even traveled to a farm. Wadsworth said as turn poultry into pets with when father Eric Dusenthe popularity of chickens has grown, these groups have backyard chicken coops. see POULTRY, page 16
7 a&e
Inman began constructing trailers over the summer in an effort to alleviate issues caused by overcrowding. A task force will work to determine a long-term solution.
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Piedmont Park hosted the Summer Arts & Crafts Festival on Aug. 18 and 19. Jeanie Maddox was awarded second place out of the 200 participating vendors.
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LACK OF BUS STOPS SPURS STUDENT, PARENT PROTEST Parents and students rallied at APS headquarters on Aug. 13 to protest the enforcement of the policy that students who live within a certain radius of their school should not receive bus service (see related story, page 12).
15 thesoutherneronline.com
Scottie Bookman shares her struggles and accomplishments as a film student at UCLA after graduating from Grady in 2008.
Student editors of UGA’s The Red & Black returned to the newspaper on Aug. 21 after walking out as a result of controversial changes in policy.