Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 4, 1993 TAG: 9305040210
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Floyd County High School After Prom party on Saturday night seemed to have all the prime ingredients for a really great time.
Only one thing was missing.
Where were the seniors?
The school's junior class-sponsored senior prom was well-attended by some 220. But only 120 showed for the post-prom activities, which were open to all students 8th through 12th grades.
And most of those were underclassmen. Sophomores Heather Moon and Heather Cox were the very Lucy-and-Ethel image of me and my high school best buddy, also named Kathy.
"And she's a year and two days older than me," said Heather M. "Isn't that cool?!"
"Well, we think it is," Heather C. echoed.
The girls filled me in on who was who: On the Heather barometer, senior Ethan Bussey was particularly cool.
Wearing his shorts Marky Mark-style (slung down on his hips so that the bottoms were just a few inches from the top of his socks), Ethan hadn't bothered with the prom.
But this guy had it made. Every cute girl within hugging distance gave him a squeeze. He's a member of a crew nicknamed "the posse," that's just a bunch of guys who like to hang around together.
To music like "Rump Shaker" by Wreckx-N-Effect and Dr. Dre's "Nothing But a G Thing" the kids hip-hopped and tush-pushed their way around the school's cafeteria.
At times, they looked like a scene from "Grease," where high school students just seem to spontaneously burst into dance.
Heather and Heather giggled as they sang something called "Help! I'm White and I Can't Get Down!"
Shawn Dunaway made quite a fashion statment in plaid pants with a purple waistcoat, but then what else could he do when the shop where he'd ordered a tux rental burned down just a couple days before the big event?
Sophomore Melissa Sowers was just too cute as she stood her white Keds on tip-toe trying to slow dance with her considerably taller boyfriend Ben Kaiser.
But while this year's After Prom was sparsely attended by seniors, I'll bet the class of '94 makes a better showing next year.
That's because the memories of Joel Dalton and Timmy Radford, two juniors who died this year in car accidents, were heavy on the minds of the underclassmen who attended the After Prom.
"It still really hurts," said Heather Moon. "Everybody really loved Timmy . . . and he just died a couple of weeks ago." She said the deaths have had a big effect on how all the students relate to one another. They hug a lot more and are more demonstrative about their feelings.
Winky Nichols, a junior, put his thoughts into a poem that was in the prom program:
This is for the Class of '94,
And the two friends who have gone before.
I hope their deaths are not in vain,
As I think of the heartache and the pain.
We must take it to heart and especially heed:
Don't drink and drive, and please don't speed,
I don't want to lose any more friends to the road.
As I said in the poem before,
Please follow the traffic code.
And if you will, listen
To my greatest fear:
That there will be
Fewer of my friends to graduate next year."
THE PARTY LINE: If you'd like to invite free-lance Mingling columnist Kathleen Wilson to a party or social gathering, call her at 981-3434; when asked for the mailbox, dial MING (6464) and press the key. Then leave a message as directed.
by CNB