According to a small survey here at Ridge in which we asked what school event the students look forward to most, the homecoming dance came in first place. This year’s homecoming dance was a big success, the majority of the student body came to have fun with their friends or significant others. Mountain Ridge has only one dance, aside from prom, and this upsets a number of students since most of them enjoy homecoming. The school should indeed have more dances according to many students. School dances comes with many benefits. For one, it promotes school spirit. During homecoming week, almost everyone participates, which fills the air with uniformity. Students get excited to dress up and even this year when permission slips were required countless, students showed up and paid to have fun. Another benefit is that the dance helps the school in funding, Ridge has over 2,000 students, and a majority of them attend the homecoming dance which brings in more profit to pay for the dance venue gives the school extra money.

In Stugo’s point of view, the idea of having more dances has failed because the attendance was drastically dropping. Doug Evans, the Stugo advisor, has been running student government for 12 years, and they have tried having more dances such as a Sadie Hawkins dance and a winter formal. However, barely any students showed up. Last year they held an underclassmen dance and only one ticket was sold. The problem with continuing to do dances that no one shows up for is that it loses money rather than gaining it.

“We want to give the students a dance but we also can’t risk losing [money] if they don’t attend,” Evans states.

Having a dance goes both ways and if Mountain Ridge students want to attend they should begin showing interest by buying tickets and if Stugo wants us to attend there might need to be more of a big deal made of it and advertisement. In that way both sides win.