Within the school’s 57 years of existence, the building has accumulated an assortment of tales, traditions, and changes since its construction. In the present day, students and staff members look back on these past legends to see the complexities a single school can possess.
“One story that sticks out that is the most notable one is the pipe bomb,” said senior Corey Sayers, a student who has an interest in old WS stories. “Two kids set up a pipe bomb by the doors just outside of the cafeteria and in that little courtyard. They just got a fine. They didn’t go to jail or anything. How do you just get away with that?”
This difference in how dramatic the events in a story are compared to how things would happen today is a clear example of how much can change over time.
“I know they had streaking incidents back in the seventies,” said history teacher Brian Heintz. “I know they had a streaking incident at a football game and perhaps a pep rally.”
Heintz also noted the difference in reactions to these disruptions as opposed to how reactions would be in 2023.
“I do know there’s an old Oracle that has a student’s buttocks clearly displayed on the front page, so somebody caught that in action. That would be shocking to students today,” said Heintz.
In the greater community outside of school, a high level of students also formerly took part in cultural sensations.
“We’d all go to this place called Bunny Man Bridge, it was in Fairfax Station. That was a rite of passage, everybody went down near junior year or senior year,” said math teacher and former WS student Shannon Rapoza. “The legend was that there was this man, maybe dressed up like a bunny, that would come out with an ax and attack people. So that was something I don’t hear about so much anymore.”
While the actual stunts that students would commit were far different in the shadows of the past, teenagers acting like teenagers is a normalcy of any time period. Why it actually matters to examine school history is up to the interpretation of those who recount these records.
“I would say it’s important to examine old tales and stories wherever you are because in some cases there might be a little bit of truth to them,” said Heintz. “Histories may have been ways to convey ideas or important concepts through different cultural methods.”