One big prom night catches leaders’ attention

PALMER — Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright came to Tuesday’s meeting of Mat-Su Borough and city officials with an unusual request — could the school district please spread prom night for its high schools over a couple of weeks?

“It’s like there’s one great big boom night,” Rupright said. “The kids can’t get a reservation, they end up partying in someone’s house.”

He said it’s a strain on restaurants, tuxedo shops and hairdressers in the Valley to have so many formal dances stacked up on one night.

Houston Mayor Roger Purcell said a hairdresser in his community told him that her shop probably lost $2,000 worth of business last year just from kids who couldn’t get appointments to have their hair done because her shop was booked solid.

“I was just like, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of money,’” Purcell said after the meeting

School Board Vice President Sarah Welton said she doesn’t really know if or why schools choose to have prom on the same night. One thing she is sure of is that the problem isn’t the result of any decision made at the district level. Schools schedule their own proms.

“You have certain groups that are putting it together and if they all pick the same nights it’s because there are other events around them,” she said.

On a personal level, though, she’s noticed there is something of a crunch at prom time.

“My son was so upset that his girlfriend didn’t have the color corsage she was supposed to get and part of that was that (the flower shop was) overbooked that night,” Welton said.

A quick perusal of school calendars shows that at least the districts largest three high schools — Colony, Palmer and Wasilla — all have their proms scheduled for April 17 this year.

Rupright said that apart from the business community, police resources are stretched thin that night responding to house parties and other rowdiness.

Borough Assemblyman Mark Ewing wondered if maybe there was some fear that having staggered prom nights would open an opportunity for rival schools to pull pranks on one another. If that’s the case, he said, the fear is probably unwarranted.

“I think a lot of that has gone to the wayside,” he said. “There was a time when I couldn’t wear my Wasilla letterman’s jacket in Palmer.”

Welton, for her part, said that if proms tend to stack up on the same night it probably has something to do with sporting events, school vacations and summer break. There’s really only a short window of time between spring break and graduation to hold a prom.

Palmer City Councilman Mike Chmielewski suggested asking the school board for input on the matter.

“I’m not aware that that was a really large problem,” he said.

In the end, that’s what the body decided to do — assembly members Ron Arvin and Lynne Woods both agreed to bring it up the next time the school board meets with the assembly.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.