In the crazy world of high school, it’s really easy to let certain sports and clubs steal all the attention. Lots of clubs, sports and other programs don’t get the recognition they deserve simply because bigger groups like football and basketball are so popular. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they work more or less hard, but for some reason they get more recognition than other things like swim and FCCLA.

Sports like wrestling or winterguard are good examples of this; not very many students go to their competitions, and so some students aren’t even aware that they had a competition in the first place. Why is it that so many more students go to, say, football games than a swim meet? Even the women’s basketball games are sparely attended compared to the guys.

Attending sporting events is one of the best parts of high school life, and we don’t take advantage of it nearly as much as we should. It’s not like they cost a lot. We should come together as a student body and support our Raiders, regardless of what they’re competing in.

Similarly, clubs have the same attendance and recognition problems. We hear the name of the club on the announcements and when their meetings are, but we don’t actually actively seek out information on it. The idea of attending something that you don’t already belong to is so foreign, although it really makes no sense why. Sure, some clubs like Art club or guitar club require specific skills, but other ones like Key Club don’t need any special requirements. Anyone can join. Just because you don’t know that much about something doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Another problem with our system is that one of the only ways of getting information about events is through the announcements. It’s sometimes hard to hear them and it’s a lot of information all at once. The RNN broadcast is a great way to let students know about upcoming events and we encourage more clubs and sports to submit announcements in a timely manner.

In addition, it would be very beneficial to have a place to post upcoming meetings and events. A kiosk or bulletin board would be a good way to do this; groups could post things, and keep students up to date. Flyers would need to be run approved by an administrator, and any club or sport could post information. We could build it in the Commons, library or near the front office. That way, sports could have more fans, clubs could advertise their events, and people looking for things to get involved in will have all the information they need right at their fingertips.