Gallery • 5 Photos

Sarah Bogush

A group of students dance in the middle of the commons during the dance. This is the first time in four years that a dance has been anywhere but the Old Gym.

There has been a change in venue for the SnowBall. Instead of the old gym, this year the Student Council decided that they are doing it in the commons. They seem very excited about the idea, and have said they wanted to change up SnowBall this year. The main reasoning behind the change in the first place came from the seniors. Sophie Kilroy (12), one of the seniors who really supported the idea, said, “We had a dance in the commons my freshman year that was put on by the cheerleaders, and it was super fun, so we thought it would be fun to again.”

Kilroy wasn’t the only one supporting the venue change though. Chairperson Brennan McLaren (11) said, “I’m sick of seeing bad dances at Manitou. I’ve been in StuCo since my freshman year, and I love Manitou in every way, but there’s something off about our dances. I’m willing to tweak and experiment until we can get the perfect mixture. Obviously the seniors want to see a comeback, but I want to do them a service by making it good. The seniors really want to see it, so if its a flop, that’s going to be hard for me.”

Obviously, the seniors and Student Council alike all supported the idea, but asked how the student body would like it. Mrs. Stoneback seemed very confident that everyone would love it. She said, “I think they [the student body] will really enjoy it. Part of the idea with having dances in the old gym was that the commons was an area that they can come to relax, hang out, and get concessions, and we actually have different places for that. So while the dance will be going on in the commons, the world language hallway will have a game room, a movie room, a photo booth, and concessions. So there will still be those escape spots, but the actual dance will be in the commons.”

McLaren added information on where the idea for the “escape spots” came from. “A lot of us went to this event, CHSAA, and what they did was this really interesting concept, where there were hang out rooms and it was a really condensed dance. So really when we brought it back to the council, everyone knew what that idea would look like, and everyone liked it already. Some thought we could use the media center, some people wanted to use the gym, but overall, we liked the world language hallway the best.”

The change in venue was not the only thing Student Council wanted to change this year. Stoneback said, “There’s a lot of tradition associated with Homecoming. With the winter dance, we’ve changed it a lot through the years. We’ve done everything from a casual MORP dance where people dressed in the theme, to Snowcoming the last few years where it was a little bit bigger, and now this SnowBall.”

McLaren also said, “We moved it to the commons, and just decided to go with a snowball theme. We’re not trying to change it indefinitely, but we’re trying to find our nitch a little bit more. We were thinking, do we want to do helmet week, and the big dress up days five days a week and ramp up, and then have the semi-formal Snowcoming dance? We’ve heard a lot of student feedback, that they don’t really know if they like that much involvement, and maybe if we take back the events we can increase the participation.”

Based on a survey that was sent out Monday after the dance, it seemed that people had fun at the dance in the commons. 57.4% of people said they enjoyed SnowBall in the commons. Despite the fact that lots of people liked the dance, we may not see it in the commons again soon. On a different survey, 68.5% of people said they would rather go back to having the dances in the old gym. Although it looks like people made lasting memories and had a great time, it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing it again for a while.