Goin’ Gatsby

NHS gets green light to host Roaring ’20s winter dance

Abbey Marshall | Staff Writer

Photo by Abbey Marshall

National Honor Society is partying with Jay Gatsby on January 25, and they don’t intend to make it the small affair it was last year.

There were many lessons to be learned from last year’s neon dance, according to senior co-chair Jess Hart. Hart said there are improvements being made to lure in more students, starting with the glitzy Great Gatsby theme.

“Last year the leaders did a really good job but it was sort of last minute and I think this year it’s a little more thought-out and it will feel more like a dance, whereas last year it just felt like an NHS event,” Hart said.

In addition to more planning time, another goal of the winter dance is to increase underclassmen attendance using greater publicity than last year, according to Mathur.

“Last year, we didn’t do as good of a job of advertising as we could have,” Mathur said. “A lot of juniors and seniors were there, but not a lot of freshmen or sophomores attended the dance. Our goal this year is to market it to everybody. Last year, our turnout was around 200 to 300 but I expect at least 700 people to go this year. We’re going to put up a lot of posters and have a lot of announcements to tell everyone about it.”

According to Mathur, better organization will help get the tasks at hand accomplished and create a more exciting experience.

“Another thing we’re doing this year [to improve] is to organize,” Mathur said. “We’re trying to find a better DJ to play better music. We’re trying to make the dance just run more smoothly than it did last year.”

In contrast to the neon theme last year, this winter dance is taking on a classier approach, according to Hart.

“Last year we did neon and we got a lot of complaints that [students] wanted to be dressy,” Hart said. “I think

Gatsby has that informal, dressy touch.”

Mathur said the decorations are going to be top-of-the-line, displaying the glamour of the Roaring  ‘20s, including a cardboard cutout of the famous Gatsby car for guests to take photos with.

“We’re going to dress up the large commons really elaborately with decorations and a lot of ornaments to try to make it as Gatsby as possible,” Mathur said.

The most important achievement the dance is hoping to accomplish is to havefun while raising money for a noble cause, according to NHS Advisor Barb Shuba.

“It’s not meant to be another homecoming or prom; it’s meant to be a fun event that people can come low key, dance,” Shuba said. “It was another way to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma [Foundation] without donating what’s in your pocket,” Shuba said. “That’s kind of where it stemmed the challenge of, ‘Let’s find different ways to raise money aside from just giving money’… sadly, so many students at Mason are impacted by this disease.”

Competition cheer team places second in state competition

Abbey Marshall | Staff Writer

Photo contributed by Morgan Orlando

Two, four, six, eight, Mason Competition Cheer triumphed at state!

This weekend, Mason’s Competition Cheer team won second at the Ohio Athletic Conference championship in Columbus. The competition started out with a first-round performance and the top three in Mason’s division moved on to perform for a second time, according to junior Liz Baenziger.

“The first time the scores came out, we saw we were in third and we saw that the team we wanted to beat was just a couple of points ahead of us,” Baenziger said. “In between the first and second [performance], we really put our minds to it and we were really determined to increase our score so we could beat them. We came together as a team.”

The teamwork was successful, according to senior Morgan Orlando, but not enough to get the team to first place.

“The second time we competed we came back and beat every team competing in the second round, but it wasn’t enough to make up for our first score, so we ended up getting second in the overall competition,” Orlando said. “In the second round, we did outscore everybody else, we just came up too short to win first place.”

The rigorous competition at the OAC championship prepared the cheerleaders for future performances, according to Orlando.

“We definitely needed to see all these Columbus teams because it’s not just [a competition between] Centerville and Mason anymore; it’s every team in Ohio,” Orlando said. “You never know who’s going to become a big name because we started off as a no-name too. [During this competition], we went from a no-name to a big name.”

The competition from this past weekend is what will be getting the cheerleaders ready for an upcoming competition this weekend, according to Baenziger.

“At practice this week, we’ll have more motivation to get first this weekend,” Baenziger said. “We want to beat other teams like Centerville and Miamisburg again and keep doing well.”

According to Orlando, ultimately, the lesson taken away from the OAC championship was how to pull together and work as a team to achieve a goal.

“A waterfall looks powerful, but it’s made up of a bunch of little drops,” Orlando said. “You have to pay attention to that or you can’t win big competitions unless you have everyone’s mind, body, and spirit put into it.”