Prom has been an American high school tradition since the 1930s. When asked about Prom, every teenager can tell you what they hope will happen when they go. Many girls dream of being voted Prom Queen their senior year.
However, Lawrence High School has a Winter Court instead of Prom Court.
Nobody really knows why we don’t have a Prom Court. Equally, nobody knows why Free State has a Prom Court and not a Winter Court, the complete opposite of what we have.
Gwyneth Wedd, a cheer coach who graduated from LHS in 1970, remembers having Homecoming Court in the fall and Spring Court close to Prom.
“In the 70’s, though, there were six Homecoming female candidates, no male candidates, and Spring Court was the same,” she said.
How we got to this point is a little unclear. The only person who could provide any information about Winter Court was psychology teacher David Platt.
“Winter Court started while Dick Patterson was here to generate interest in going to a basketball game and to be a part of spirit week during the doldrums of Winter,” he said. “When I worked with StuCo, we kept Winter Court and did not go to a king and queen of Prom as a way to keep the event open to the whole student body and not just the seniors at the Prom event.”
While I understand that we want to keep all students involved, why not have both? In a poll of 102 students, 65 percent said they would like to have both Winter Court and Prom Court. When students chose, 22 percent said they preferred a Prom Court, while only 11 percent said they’d rather have a Winter Court.
Obviously, we want to keep the entire student body involved, but there’s no harm in holding a Prom Court for seniors. In my opinion, that could be one more thing to look forward to your senior year.
Sophomore Maggie Wiseman was one of the students who voted in favor of a Prom Court.
“I think it would be a better end of the year celebration,” she said. “There isn’t much to look forward to at the end of the year besides graduation and Prom, but there isn’t a Prom Court.”
On the other hand, junior Austin Magdaleno prefers a Winter Court for the same reasons, Platt said it was put into place.
“I think more people are more into it,” Magdaleno said. “There are a lot more things going on, and people get more excited, and more people are involved than Prom because everyone can go to Winter Court.”
But why not get hyped about the end of the school year? Isn’t that what everyone looks forward to anyway? Sure, we have Mud Volleyball and Showtime, but those are two very optional events. If you’re not in choir, you can’t really get involved in Showtime without attending, and that’s just one night.
Mud Volleyball has the same problem, students may not want to get covered in mud, and it’s only one day to look forward to. During the winter there are many sports events people can attend, and there is always an assembly to recognize athletes and build school spirit.
Towards the end of the year, however, everything seems to dwindle down. People are tired and sluggish and just count the days until school will be out. Adding something else to look forward to, such as a Prom Court, could help keep students excited.
Obviously, this is a senior exclusive event, but students can start more activities for the last few months of school in order to get people more involved.
StuCo coordinator Jason Lichte says there are ways to get started.
“Students can work with student leaders whom they’ve elected to enact change,” he said.
Graduating can be very nostalgic, but fun student driven events can keep moods high give students fond memories of their years at LHS.
“I think [winning] Prom Court would be so much more meaningful,” said Wiseman. “Prom is such a bigger event, to seniors especially, than Winter Court is because everyone gets to go to Winter Formal, so I think it would be a lot more meaningful.”