Homecoming evolves throughout the years
According to alumni and long term teachers of Black River Falls, Homecoming hasn’t evolved too much over the years.
With a new “no hit list” this year, kids that had a hard time staying in those boundaries last year were up for a challenge. A more enforced curfew was set in place for the 2018 homecoming, getting 17 students tickets ranging anywhere from $25- $250 in value. Past students and current teachers Eli Youngthunder and Alex Koch took a stroll down memory lane where toilet papering was a large part of homecoming back in their days of high school glory.
2000 graduate and current social studies teacher Eli Youngthunder remembered the occasional egging, but the main activity other than the football game and the dance was toilet papering.
“I think it was more people who were like cheerleading or football players and other fall sports athletes that were getting hit more often than the common Joe’s. Today it seems like anybody is a target,” said Youngthunder.
Youngthunder says that a ‘no hit list’ would not have been necessary when he was in high school. He thinks the vandalism last year was about 10 steps too far. No one did that back then, so although the list was necessary this year, it was all in good fun in his day and not necessary at all.
A 2004 graduate and new English teacher this year, Koch said he only remembered going toilet papering once, but was caught by the police and was asked to clean up what they had done but no other punishments were mandated. He could think of one event where a student had gone too far, but it was purely accidental.
“Some kids went to their friend’s house and painted a phallic object onto their friend’s garage with shaving cream. They thought it would wash off, but it ended up staining the paint, so there was an unfortunate shape that remained on their parents’ garage. I definitely think it was more damage than they intended, but that was a mistake. Most kids just went toilet papering,” Koch said.
Koch said that some teachers do not want to participate and should be able to. So a no hit list wasn’t completely necessary but should have been put in place so they had a choice.