By Carlee Lammers
Round Table editor

High school dances can be the some of the best nights of a student’s life.  Dressing up, hair and nail appointments, dinner, and pictures with friends all create a recipe for a great night.

For Middletown High School sophomore Lisa Conley, what was meant to be a night to remember suddenly came to a halt when it was announced two days prior to the end of ticket sales that the MHS 2010 Winter Formal Dance would be canceled.

“I was honestly kind of annoyed,” Conley said. “I mean, there are a lot of preparations that go into getting ready for a dance, and between the dress, the shoes, the hair and the nails, that’s a lot of money that nobody can afford to just throw away.”

The Winter Formal has become quite a tradition at MHS. It serves as a fund-raiser each year for the junior and senior class Prom. However, this year, with few students signed up to attend and a high chance of a winter storm heading toward Middletown, MHS administrators called off the dance.

MHS guidance counselor Rena Egan was the adult in charge coordinating the dance. Egan said that after three days of ticket sales, only 91 students had purchased tickets. In comparison, the 2009 Homecoming dance had 250 tickets purchased after just days of ticket sales.

“I needed 400 kids to attend the dance just to clear the expenses,” Egan said.

Many students at MHS were upset and confused as to why the dance would be canceled before the sales were supposed to end.

“I was looking forward to going, and then when they said it was (canceled) because not a lot of people bought tickets, I said, ‘Well, duh! We’re teenagers, which means, of course, we will wait to buy tickets the last day,” said MHS freshman Tisa Mullins.

With at least 300 more students necessary to clear the expenses of the dance and the possibility of school being closed due to weather on the last day for ticket sales, the odds of 300 or more tickets being purchased seemed slim.

“I could understand where the administration was coming from, but I thought it was too soon to call the event off after all the planning that had gone into it,” said MHS sophomore Casey Zanowicz, who was part of the committee in charge of planning the dance.

Egan said that another huge factor that went into the cancelation of the dance was a lack of parent volunteers. After many months of trying to arrange parents to chaperone the dance, only two parents had stepped up.

Egan said that after chaperoning for the Homecoming dance, many parents were disturbed by the way MHS students had been dancing or “grinding” with each other. Egan said she had tried very hard to assure parents that it would not be as large of an issue as it was for the Homecoming dance.

“I worked with the DJ to plan a light show, so that the room wouldn’t be as dark, and, as a joke, anytime the dancing raised any concerns, we would play country western music,” Egan said.

However, parents still wouldn’t volunteer their time to be chaperones for the dance.

Conley was able to cancel her nail and hair appointments “because without a dance, I didn’t need an up-do or a manicure,” she said.

Students were also refunded their money from their tickets.

Egan was able to cancel $1,200 worth of balloons, only putting the MHS student activity fund at a $103 deficit as opposed to the approximately $1,500 loss it would have faced had the dance been canceled on the last day of ticket sales.

However, not everything was able to be returned. Dress and suit alterations for students could not be undone, and some supplies purchased by the students planning the dance could not be returned.

Zanowicz had purchased 700 Mardi Gras beads to match the theme of the dance. Her parents ended up paying for the $155 worth of beads out of their pockets.

After many students’ weekend plans had been quickly ended, many had to get creative. Conley and her friends who originally planned to go to the dance had a sleepover instead. Others, such as MHS sophomore Courtney St. John and her friends still got dressed up and went out for a night of pizza and bowling.

MHS seniors Rachel Johnson and Simon Kinderknecht were both shocked when the dance was canceled. The day the announcement was made about canceling the dance, the two began forming a plan.

Originally they planned to hold the dance in Kinderknecht’s basement. However, “this limited the amount of people who could come; I wanted everyone who had plans to go to the dance to be able to attend,” said Johnson.

After much debate, Johnson decided to check into the availability of a local space at the AMVETS post in Middletown. The AMVETS had a space available the day the original dance has been scheduled, something Johnson was assured was rare.

With limited time and resources, Johnson undertook the planning of a dance that took MHS almost four months to plan – in just one day.

Johnson created an event on the social networking site Facebook to spread the word about her dance. With a quick trip to Party City, Johnson “bought anything we thought would give (the space) some pizzaz.”

After much hard work, all at the last minute, the dance was overall a huge success. All 150 students who attended had a great time, and the dance raised more than $1,100 to benefit the MHS 2010 prom.

“I’m all for school spirit, so bringing everyone together like that was a dream come true,” said Johnson.