For as long as Student Council advisor Sara Kleinsasser can remember, Mr. WHS has been a tradition at Westside. With slight variations in the competition each year, the male student beauty pageant has been a fundraiser for the student government for many years. This year, however, a dodgeball tournament will replace the annual event.
“I think we were kind of brainstorming new ideas of things to do in the winter,” Kleinsasser said. “In winter, Mr. WHS is something we’ve always done. We were kind of just looking at something new we could do as something random that got brought up once and I was like, ‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea to think about changing,’.”
Due to issues in past years with the pageant, a new way of raising money was needed. This year, proceeds from the event on December 10 will be donated to Westside’s Dance Marathon.
“It was difficult to find participants because it’s hard to find people who want to perform,” Kleinsasser said. “People aren’t always comfortable with that. But also, just organizing people’s schedules was always hard for rehearsals. And I would say, finding people to do it was always hard.”
While Mr. WHS might be on hiatus for this winter, a similar competition could make a reappearance in the years to come.
“I think we just kind of have to see how this dodgeball tournament goes,” Kleinsasser said. “I mean, I could see something, maybe not exactly that, but something very similar in the future like maybe a talent show or other type of tun activity to get people to perform.”
At the group’s weekly morning meeting this past week, Student Council President and senior Greta Mann discussed how best to publicize the new event.
“Hopefully we can start kind of getting the word out before Thanksgiving break since it’s pretty soon after,” Mann said. “So we can start getting teams signed up or just everybody aware that it’s going on, hopefully drawing in enough students.”
As posters begin to appear around the school advertising the tournament, students can scan QR codes to create their dream team for dodgeball.
