We hear about Winter Formals all the time in our favorite books and movies. It’s the Valentine’s Day dance, except without the pressure of finding a valentine. With the lack of success involving Turnabout, we no longer have any type of winter dance at Niles West. The simple solution is this: just change the failure of Turnabout into a Winter Formal!

The problem with Valentine’s Day themed dances is the pressure of finding a date. Boys are scared to ask the girls to dance, and they don’t necessarily want the commitment of taking a  girl to a dance dedicated to love and hearts. The problem with Turnabout is that generally speaking girls are the shyer gender, and won’t overcome their nerves to ask a boy to any type of dance at all and continue to wait for the boy to ask them to the dance.

I propose that Niles West takes the money from the preparations of Turnabout, and hop to making snowflakes and white,silver, and blue confetti for a dance that would occur at the end of January.

If the dance would take place in January instead of February, the Valentine’s Day stigma would be non-existent, and it would be on the scale of a Homecoming dance, instead of being hosted in the Contest Gym. It could even be a winter “Homecoming” in the sense of our boys and girls basketball teams having a Homecoming game the night before the dance, or something of that nature.

Stevenson High School has a Winterfest, so why shouldn’t the Wolves as well? We only have two big dances during the year, Homecoming and Prom. The bad thing about Homecoming, especially for freshmen, is that as the year progresses, we meet more people to go out and have fun with. Also, Prom is notoriously for the upperclassmen. A Winter Formal is a great way to start second semester and to relieve the stress caused by finals, and everyone would feel invited to attend.

“One dance a year isn’t enough and I think the reason only a few people went to Turnabout was because it was girls’ choice and the girls never really asked anyone unless they were already going out. While girls are okay with going stag, a lot of guys think it’s a waste of time. I think we should have a dance after finals to celebrate the end of the semester,” junior Marina Letica says.

Junior Max Greene agrees with Letica.

“Dances are always fun, and for the underclassmen their only school dance is Homecoming. We should give them the opportunity to come to at least one more school dance,”Greene says.