Why do our dances have such huge gaps of time between them? It seems like there are a handful of activities trying to distract many students from what they want to do. Homecoming is a blast because everyone who attends is in the mood to dance.

However, students are not able to shake their groove thang again until the middle of January. This just does not seem fair. The school should have more dances during the school year to keep this high energy and school spirit flowing.

The school has four dances: the Back-to-School Dance, Homecoming, Winter Dance and Sadies (plus Prom for seniors). According to Principal Wynne Satterwhite, the school tries to have one every quarter, even though currently there aren’t any dances during second quarter.

Unfortunately, when most students think of school, they think of the boring things like homework, tests quizzes and lectures. For some, having dances is the light at the end of the tunnel.

“I think they’re just really fun,” junior Skylar Bence said. “I personally don’t get a chance to go very often.”

Other students go to dances to relieve stress.

“It’s fun to relax and unwind,” sophomore Scott Greathouse said. “[It’s nice] to have a break in the routine.”

There have been discussions about adding more dances during the school year.

“It’s hard because you need a balance,” ASB President senior Jenny Uphoff said. “You don’t want to add another dance and then have a shortage of people. If people have too many dances, [then] they’re not going to want to go.”

The addition of another dance also brings up the question of how the neighbors will take it. While many students feel that there’s an issue with disturbing the neighbors, Satterwhite clears up the misunderstanding.

“Dances have never been an issue,” Satterwhite said. “They have more of an issue where students drive poorly.”

Because dances include the idea of organizing things such as having a large enough space to hold a major chunk of the student body, putting up decorations, making sure teachers can help out and hiring a DJ, it seems that there is no way a club sponsoring would make any money.

However, this is not true. The Choral Music Department, sponsor of the Homecoming dance, was still able to make a profit of over $12,000 after spending $2,000 on decorations and $700 for the DJ.

While Homecoming was a huge hit this year as well as previous years, the school should add a stag dance. Stag dances are fun and casual.

“It’s good to not have to worry about asking someone,” Scott said.

Even though dances, whether formal or stag, act as a way to prevent stress for students and to provide money for the sponsor,s it all comes down to the most important fact of why there should be more dances: to spend more time with friends.

“It’s fun to have fun with your friends and be out there with people you like,” freshman Jennie Leonard said.

Although students are around their friends every day during classes, there’s just something different about being with them at dances. It could be because of the fact that everyone gets ready together or that students can just let loose and dance to their favorite songs.

Being able to just hang out with the people you like in a place you want to be in just makes the stressful, three-tests-in-a-single-day periods worth it.