Who Is Sandy Olive?

The Prom

An Inside Look at the Most Memorable Night

Elaine Ottens Junior Editor

It has been said for years that prom is a senior’s most memorable high school experience. Thanks to precautions for COVID-19, however, the night was much different, for better or for worse. Now a movie at the Skyview Drive-in, Prom 2021 changed the game.

A photo of the Skyview drive-in from local NPR affiliate KBIA. Students at Lindbergh’s drive-in event watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, pictured on the sign.

On March 10, prom director Joshua Piontek (English Department) sent out a survey to all seniors asking for their opinion on what kind of prom they wished to have out of the options given to them. While the students had to keep in mind there would be no food and masks were required, they were given the option to go to a drive-in movie theater or have a field prom. Seniors were not to be discouraged by these limits, however. “Kids are allowed to bring their own food, they’re allowed to get food from the concession stand and have their own kind of dinner at the event, but just instead of there being a dance, there’s going to be a movie and that’s going to be the event; but there is still going to be a prom court and all that fun stuff,” Piontek said. This wasn’t an easy decision for Piontek, either. Not only were his options limited, he had to take it up to the administration for the safest choice, and also had to make sure the seniors were not to be disappointed. “It was really, really hard, like it was a really, really hard decision. I’ve been doing prom for probably like seven years, eight years maybe, even, and I’ve organized it, I’ve run it and everything. Cancelling it last year was really, really hard; I was really sad and upset, and cancelling it and pushing it back and pushing back, and this year, I just knew that I wanted- that we wanted to do something for the senior class, since so much has been taken away from them, you know?” Piontek said. People reminisce on last year’s prom, and how the upperclassmen were disappointed at the loss of their senior prom. Lindbergh alumna Sarah Moehlmann (Class of 2020) puts in how she remembers feeling at that time. “I was really upset because I spent so much money on a dress and wanted to have this memory of my senior year that everyone has, but I got over it very quickly,” she said.

This year, many feared the same thing would happen to them, or that the prom wouldn’t be as special as they were hoping it would be. “I have a feeling that this prom is going to be fine but not nearly the same effect as a normal prom and there’s going to be a lot of restrictions,” Joe Hayes (12) said. Their disappointment was not ignored by Piontek as he planned the event. “I know that there are students out there who are disappointed, that it is not at the Union Station, that it is not a big thing, that it is not the whole kind of major event that they had kind of been imagining or picturing or thinking about. I think the biggest obstacle is really just kind of getting the message out there that this can still be a great time and can be a great thing, and make memories… I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, it’s just going to look different than it has in the past, but I’m really optimistic about the whole thing. I think it’s going to be great,” Piontek said. Some students were optimistic about the change of plans, despite initial negative feelings. “Yes. I am very upset. I didn’t get to go last year because of COVID, and since it’s a drive in, I feel awkward wearing a big prom dress. So, it won’t feel normal whatsoever. I think it’ll be a fun night for seniors though. I feel like Lindbergh is doing all they can to make it a perfect night!” Autumn Smith (12) said. Senior students stated that they were unsure of going to the prom because it didn’t seem too intriguing. Knowing this, Piontek stated where he stood before the event. “I’m a firm believer that anything can be fun as long as you have the right attitude. If you go into something thinking it’s going to be awful, it’s going to be awful. If you go into something thinking it’s going to be great, it’s going to be great,” Piontek said.

News May 3

WHO IS SANDY OLIVE?

LHS teacher to appear on Jeopardy

Abigail Wagner Editor-in-Chief

Sandy Olive (English Department) and Jeopardy go way back. “When I was in high school, I would go home from school and call a friend of mine, Meg, and we would play against each other over the phone,” Olive said. Today she’s back at a high school, working out of a closet-size library tech room doubling as a classroom- she’s an ARC-only English teacher who just recently returned to campus. At some point, the phone games ended, and Olive began trying to become a real competitor. When she first became an avid watcher, Jeopardy only auditioned during one three-day window each year. The preliminary test was offered at a different time each day to accommodate different schedules. In more recent years, the show has moved to making the test available online at all times, offering trivia aficionados unlimited opportunities to try out. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken that test,” Olive said. She’s qualified for the next step of the process, in-person regional auditions, two times. For the first, she traveled to Kansas City for two rounds of trials, starting with a written test taken in a hotel ballroom. “If you pass, they keep you there, and if you fail, they send you home. So you traveled all this way just to take a test and then leave,” she said. This year, COVID drastically changed the process. Olive took the written test over Zoom, and was invited to stay for the second round of auditions, a mock game of Jeopardy. Contestants were expected to hold up pens throughout the game, and click them if they wanted to “ring in” and offer an answer. After 4 Feature May that round of auditions, casting decisions are made.

“I got a text from one of the producers saying he wanted to discuss my application with me. And when we spoke on the phone, he told me I was going to be on the show. I actually told him ‘No I’m not,’” Olive recalls. In most cases, Olive would have had a chance of not appearing on the show. Before the pandemic, Jeopardy invited both contestants and alternates to Los Angeles for the taping, but COVID has forced them to take all of their alternates from Southern California to prevent unnecessary airline travel. Olive was informed in late February that she would finally be appearing on Jeopardy, with her taping date coincidentally falling over Lindbergh’s spring break. She studied with a tool familiar to most LHS students- quizlet.com flashcards. “I used some world capital flashcards, because I knew that was my big weakness. And then, of course, there were no world capital questions while I was on the show, but I studied a lot for that part because I knew that it was something if I got any question at all, I would be likely to get it wrong,” she remembers. Soon enough, Olive was traveling to L.A. for the taping. That, too, was changed by the pandemic. She had to be tested for the virus using a rapid PCR test on the day she left, and again with the same type of test once arriving at in California after a long flight. “The cheapest flight was through American, and on the way there I flew from St. Louis to Charlotte and then all the way across the country to L.A. because that was just the cheapest flight,” Olive said. Jeopardy does not cover any of contestants’ travel or housing expenses, except for airfare if they are the champion and need to return for the next week’s taping. Olive paid for an AirBnB close to the studio, and for her tickets to and from Los Angeles. Filming for a week of Jeopardy episodes occurs all in one tightly-scheduled day. Olive and her fellow contestants arrived at the studio at 7 a.m., and waited in the parking garage for some time. “It’s hard to know what the difference is between COVID times and normal times. That may just be the way they do it to save money all the time, or this may have just been like, ‘COVID time, we want to keep you outside,’” she said. Once all the contestants arrived, Jeopardy officials took them inside for a lecture about the process and what to expect during gameplay. They also revealed the name of the host for that week- Jeopardy is using interim hosts after Alex Trebek, the show’s host for 37 years, died of pancreatic cancer in November 2020. After the lecture, the contestants rehearsed a game of Jeopardy in order to practice using the buzzer. “They basically played through one entire episode, switching people out periodically. So some of us only did the very beginning of the show, most people did the middle, and then one group did the end,” Olive said. As soon as the rehearsal was over, filming began. Olive describes the process as “very rigorous and above-board”, with a lawyer present to ensure the game is fair. That lawyer picks two numbers which correspond to contestants out of a hat, and those contestants compete against the previous week’s champion. Olive was chosen for the second game of the day, so her episode will air on a Tuesday. Olive went in to her competition without a strategy, but quickly developed one as the questions began.

“I decided I wasn’t going to ring in unless I knew the answer for real. A lot of times, people ring in and guess, and then they lose money, and they lose confidence. It’s easy to just backslide into freaking out, because you’re in the negative, and you’re losing Jeopardy, and oh my gosh,” she said. Olive can’t reveal the outcome of her episode, which will air June 22nd, but she can say that her experience on the show was a positive one. “It was just so surreal and bizarre that I actually got to be there. I got to be on the stage. I got to be in the studio, and watching how it all happens, and just being able to experience this thing that I’ve worked toward. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do forever, and just being able to live that out, I think that was the best part,” she said. Looking back on her years of work, her drastically changed audition process, and the opportunity she had to finally achieve a lifelong goal, Olive credits her Jeopardy appearance to a combination of hard work and chance. “I think that if you really want something, you have to keeping working toward it at every opportunity. A lot of life is luck. And you have to be ready for luck to happen,” she said.

Feature May 5