CHS students toe the line at Winter Formal

Cody High School Equus

Putting on the most flattering dress, applying make-up and eating dinner with a date are as much a part of a school dance as walking arm-in-arm onto the dance floor.

Then Usher’s “DJ’s Got Us Fallin’ in Love” starts to blare and in many cases the grinding begins.

But not at Dec. 4’s Winter Formal dance.

The overriding opinion of students was that the pre-dance focus on grinding that resulted from complaints from the public following Homecoming set a tone before Winter Formal began.

“Kids were not given the chance to not grind and follow the rules,” senior and Student Body President Shelby Soule said. “But Student Council was not given what we expected as far as the DJ was concerned.”

She added that the music choice was not one that could be controlled by CHS.

“We do not give the DJ the music list, they are just given a list of rules,” Soule said. “And this DJ wasn’t the one we were expecting, he made himself out to be a lot different than he was.”

As a result, many of the 300-plus students who attended Winter Formal left before royalty was announced just after 10:30 p.m. But did they leave because they didn’t like the music or because they wanted to grind?

“I think people felt like they couldn’t have fun if they didn’t grind so they didn’t even try,” senior and Class President Kelsey Heins said.

Is grinding just a CHS student’s way of dancing? Or is it a provocative action with a person of the opposite sex?

“I guess I don’t think [grinding] is appropriate,” sad senior Matt Fales, who did not attend Winter Formal due to the basketball team’s travel to a tournament. “It’s not having sex, but you’re up on each other like you would be.”

Foreign Language teacher and Student Council Adviser Mrs. Karen Carney does not think there is an actual grinding problem at CHS dances. However, when Sunday morning phone calls were made to her house after the Homecoming dance she felt as if action needed to be taken. The result was a Nov. 17 meeting.

“Parents, Student Council members, administrators and a number of parents [and at-large students] attended the meeting,” Carney said. “Same procedure as at our 2007 meeting about choosing the music. It was democratic and simple.”

The Cody High School student handbook includes the dance policy, which prohibits grinding, crowd surfing, or moshing.

“It’s just the way kids these days dance,” Activities Director Mr. Tony Hult said. “Our administration has good rules in place that make it safe and a good, fun time for everybody.”

Carney said if community members complain, then the Student Council must act accordingly.

“Right now we’re just keeping the rules as is,” Soule said before Winter Formal. “We are hoping the kids will police themselves and not dance inappropriately.”

Chaperones at Winter Formal were to be given handbooks and better informed of the rules than they have been at previous dances, Soule said. They were to be given a procedure to follow.

“If students are grinding they’ll be given a warning,” Soule added. “If this dance is as bad as Homecoming, then we’ll have another meeting.”

Some fear if the rules are ignored the grinding issue will worsen.

“Cody is just outside the danger zone,” Carney said. “But we’re heading for that area and this is put in place to stop that. I’ve seen that kind of dancing first hand, and we’re not going to let it get that far.”

The reactions of students have been mixed towards the enforcements on grinding.

“I think parents see it as a sexual thing,” Soule said. “And kids see it as simply a dance.”

Others think it’s a moral thing to choose to grind or not.

“I think it just depends on what you’re taught,” Fales said. “I just think those activities should be reserved for when you’re married.”

Hult added that “Cody has, by far, the best dances I’ve ever been to. I don’t find anything wrong with the dancing, but if I have to enforce it, I will because I’m an administrator.”

Some are concerned that because of the lack of modern music at Winter Formal, Snowcoming will suffer from it.

“I think it’s going to have a big effect of Snowcoming attendance,” Soule said. “People will think that that is how the music will always be and that was not Student Council’s intention.”