When students think of snow week, they picture a week full of fun. Whether they are enjoying skits for the top five, lunch activities or dress up days, there is always something spectacular going on during snow week. Big events have always been a part of snow week, but they have changed and evolved throughout the years.

Snow week has always been a week with the purpose of bringing students and the community of Owatonna together. This could be found in the form of a hilarious skit or the array of other activities happening during the week. In decades past, snow week used to involve the community more, but it has sadly been lost as the school has changed and as new students and staff are brought into the school.

The spirit of this week is comparable to finding a needle in a haystack. The tradition behind this week falls deep into the school’s history, but has started to dwindled more with each coming year. At one point in time, there were snow sculpting  challenges between classes, and the community would vote on the best display. Following the contest, there was a parade with the royalty of the week.

As seniors are graduating in a few months these are the memories they will remember for the rest of their lives. It is difficult to create these memories to the full effect when students are extremely limited on what they can and cannot do. When students walk out the doors for the last time, they will not remember all of the ACT Prep classes they had. They will remember the fun activities and the laughs they had with their classmates. With this said the school has created few opportunities for these memories to be created.

The purpose of snow week is to celebrate both the students and everyone who has helped them along their journey to high school. The connection has been lost by lowering the amount of events the school does and how much time is distributed to both the community and the students. For instance, students were given a larger amount of time to produce a skit for the week as well as time to perform the skit. Skits used to be around five minutes per skit, but now has been reduced to a whopping minute and a half.

There have always been expectations with the skits, but each year more and more are rules are being put on the candidates.There are certain rules and regulations that need to be met by the administration and school, but this time, going above and beyond has hurt school tradition. The students would like to have more traditions within the week – for instance getting more freedom and time for skits. This year’s candidates are all great students and were chosen to represent the class of 2018, and they would have brought more joy to the school with more to work with in a pep fest.

As snow week progresses, let’s make it fun for everyone! Whether that is participating in a skit, a lunch activity or the dress up days. In order to create a change, it starts with the students taking charge to create more school spirit.