Some people think that when school budget cuts need to be made the easiest thing to do is cut programs such as cheerleading or other non-revenue generating activities. I think theyíre wrong.

I attended the volleyball section 7AAA championship game last Thursday between Forest Lake and Hibbing. Both schools had an equal number of fans, but one thing about Hibbing stuck out to me ó their school spirit. Leading the Hibbing fans in cheers and chants was not only their cheerleading squad, but a large pep band.

Hibbing fans were led in cheers by the cheerleading squad when the volleyball games were tense, encouraging the Hibbing players to squeeze out a victory.

After each of the three victories the Hibbing pep band played the school fight song. What might be more amazing to some is that most of the students from Hibbing that attended the game actually knew the words to the fight song and were able to sing along.
As I looked around at the Forest Lake students, they were excited and supportive, but they had no direction for their energy. I thought about how spirited the Mora gym could have been had the Rangers had either a cheerleading squad or a pep band, although both would have been better.

Forest Lake High School had a cheerleading squad that was at virtually every sporting event until they were dropped after the 2003-04 school year because of budget cuts.

The cheerleaders didnít only lead the cheers at the sporting events, they encouraged the athletes with little things like homemade cookies when they went on a road trip to places like Duluth or Alexandria.

Iím not sure when the last time Forest Lake had a pep band, but they havenít had one in the 21?2 years that Iíve been covering sports here. The reason for not having a pep band certainly canít be because of a lack of talent though.

It doesnít take a classical music buff to notice that the Forest Lake High School has a talented student body when it comes to music. The high school has three different choirs, a jazz band, drumline, a concert band and a symphony orchestra.

Iíve see some members of, Iím assuming, the jazz band bring their instruments out to football games, but there is normally only about four of five of them. Itís hard to get a crowdís attention at a football game with only four or five jazz band members. Insert a pep band with 20 members or more and theyíll not only grab attention, but theyíll entertain.

Forest Lake doesnít have these programs and others for the simple fact of budget cuts though.

To me it seems a better practice to look at where money is being wasted in the schools and fixing that problem before programs are cut.

Iím not blaming anybody about wasteful spending. I myself am guilty of it with my own money. Heck, I try to justify to myself that itís alright to spend $10 on parking at a University of Minnesota football game because I have free passes to the game and it wouldnít be right to give them up.

I think when weíre spending other peoples money itís easier to spend money wastefully without thinking about it.

Top of Page

Forest Lake Times
P.O. Box 218
880 SW 15 St.
Forest Lake, MN 55025
651-464-4601
Fax 651-464-4605