Move may extinguish LHS tradition

When Lynnwood parent Steve Gordon was in high school, Homecoming was a bash. Literally.

Every year, Gordon and his classmates painted an old car with the rival team’s colors and took turns whacking at it with a hammer.

“We’d also go to the other school and try to steal a mascot or a sign and bring it to our school,” said Gordon. They also had a bonfire.

That Homecoming pep rally bonfire is also a tradition at Lynnwood High School. It dates back to 1973, the school’s second year. The night before the Homecoming game, the fire blazes about four feet high on a dirt field while students, parents and staff throw stuffed rival football uniforms or mascots onto the pyre.

The bonfire this year was canceled because of the windstorm the night of the pep rally on Thursday, Oct. 18. Instead, students gathered in the school commons, ate hot dogs and drank root beer floats and heard a concert from the band “Beer.” The crowd was big, despite the fact that power was out in many homes, said Gordon, the co-president of the Loyal Royal Lynnwood Boosters club that sponsored the event.

Still, Gordon is disappointed the bonfire was canceled this year — partly because it likely will not survive very far into the future.

The school will move to a new building down the road in fall 2009.

Lynnwood principal David Golden said he doesn’t foresee a place at the new school for a bonfire. The only reason Lynnwood High School still has a bonfire and other district high schools don’t is that Lynnwood has a dirt field, he said. The others have been replaced with grass or field turf.

For Gordon, the bonfire will be one more tradition in a long line of school traditions that have fallen by the wayside.

For decades, Lynnwood High School had a caravan at Homecoming. Students decorated their cars with streamers, honked horns and processed through town the day of the football game.

The event hasn’t happened the last few years because local police departments lack the manpower to oversee it, Gordon said.

Also, all four district high schools share one stadium, which waters down a sense of ownership, he said.

Jim Wieben, Lynnwood parent and secretary of the Boosters, also laments the loss of Homecoming traditions and the Lynnwood bonfire.

He grew up in Iowa, where not only would his classmates whack at an old car (for a dollar a pop), there was a Homecoming parade through town with floats that students worked on for weeks.

“It was a big thing —‑you spent maybe two or three weeks building it after school, and all the camaraderie that goes along with putting that together,” Wieben said.

That sense of camaraderie is something the Boosters are trying to revive, said Boosters member Elma Hampton. Her husband Dave Hampton graduated from Lynnwood in 1976.

These days, some students see obstacles to feeling affiliated with their school, including financial obstacles, she said.

“(It’s like) ‘OK, do I have the money to do this?’ and that’s a new thing,” she said. “The Boosters want to (have) high school experiences include the student body as a whole and not restricted to a certain few.”

The Boosters raise money for activities school-wide. For example, they help low-income students play sports at the school and give out equipment —‑like cameras to the camera club.

Even so, school traditions at schools like Lynnwood have continued to dwindle.

Gordon understands how safety concerns and a dense suburban setting have limited Homecoming traditions like hitting cars and having a caravan, he said. But he still feels something is being lost.

“I worry sometimes the rules get in the way,” he said. “I just want the kids to have every opportunity to enjoy their high school years. You make friendships that will last a lifetime.”