October 21, 2009
Ashland, Oregon
Vol. IV Issue II
There’s no place like homecoming by Lucas Opegenorth
For high school and college students in the United States, there are few things with such traditional significance and recognition as Homecoming. The event dates back to the year 1891 when the University of Missouri invited their alumni to “come home” for a special football game against the school’s rivals from the University of Kansas. The school’s alumni were celebrated with parades and pep rallies much like the Homecomings of today. While the event is no longer centered around the return of former students, Ashland High School’s Homecoming has long been a single week dedicated to student activities, a football game and, of course, a dance. That is, until this year. As everyone is sure to have noticed, this year’s Homecoming has been less than traditional and, of course, the rumor mill has been going at full speed in order to fill the void of a full and complete story. So, the question is, what exactly happened to homecoming? Well, it is best we begin at the beginning. At the end of last school year the planning procedures for 2009’s Homecoming began as they normally do. The date was selected and Ashland Leadership started working on reserving SOU’s Britt Ballroom, the usual location for the dance. However, a communication breakdown between the high
school and the university caused the space to be reserved for a date other than the planned weekend of October 3. Now, at the end of the summer, Leadership was faced with the task of finding a solution. Junior Class President Dante Toppo hatched the inventive idea of holding the dance in a 60 foot dome provided by a locally owned company. Scrambling against the clock in order to have preparations ready by the earliest
homecoming date in history, Leadership announced that the dance, now affectionately referred to as “Domecoming,” was to be held on the practice football field. Under the assumption that things would run smoothly from here on out, Leadership waited until a week before the scheduled date to clear the specific logistics of the dance with AHS administration. Much to
their dismay, Ashland School District Maintenance Board vetoed the plan on the grounds that the weight of the crane required for the construction of the dome could cause several thousand dollars in damage to the track that lines the perimeter of the field. Now faced with a week to com-
pletely reconfigure their plans, Leadership managed to move the dance to the baseball field across Mountain Street from the school but was unable to do it in time. They were then left with no choice but to postpone the dance to two weeks from the original date. Meanwhile, homecoming festivities carried on as usual until the eve of the annual Powder-puff competition. An unlucky rain storm forced the athletic department to postpone the event into the next week lest the muddy football field be decimated by the volleyball and football players. Yet another homecoming event was forced out of the actual homecoming week itself. As the new October 17th date of the dance approached Leadership was faced with yet another obstacle: a 40 percent chance of rain showers on the upcoming Saturday. That week Student Body Co-President, Ben Small, via intercom, then delivered a morose address to the school, declaring that homecoming would not in fact occur in a dome, but in Britt Ballroom as usual. And finally, as if this perfect storm couldn’t become any more perfect, Principal Schlect confirmed rumors first thing Friday morning that due to a rapid spike in H1N1 cases at AHS, homecoming is to be postponed indefinitely.
See Homecoming Pg. 6
Ashland seniors win national award by Paul Schwarzer
It’s no secret that our students are amongst the top in the nation, but it has now been officially confirmed. Last school year, two of our Ashland High School students were nominated by the teachers of our English Department to participate in a national writing contest. Out of 1800 high school juniors in the country, Jack Dempsey and Marie Keil, were selected in the top 540 of those students as outstanding writers, and only eight were from the state of Oregon. “It feels pretty good to win,” Marie Keil said. “It’s a real testament to the teaching at AHS that two out of the eight total winners in Oregon are from Ashland.” The route to victory began when the English teachers nominated Jack and Marie. According to the contest rules, the number of nominees from each school is based on the school’s total enrollment in grades 10 through 12: one nominee for five-hundred students. Each high school selects it’s own nominee or nominees: the English
department agreed two juniors. “The English teachers got together to go through student’s writing portfolios,” English Department Chairperson Leeanne Wallace said. “Those were the two who we felt could best represent our school.” In order to enter the contest, both Jack and Marie had to submit a copy of their choice of a paper that they had already written for school. Once submitted, they then had to attend a proctored seventy-five minute session and write a paper on either an expository or narrative prompt. Ashland High School was the only school involved in the contest to have more than one winner from their school. The deadline for the 2010 contest is in February, so if you are a junior this year, you still have a chance to qualify for the NCTE contest.
Jack Dempsey and Marie Keil, NCTE essay winners
Photo by Grace Riley-Adams
To read their essays go to roguenews.net