by Students navigating the Mavericks’ enormous new campus request trail markers, a shuttle and a search party
Memorial High School Campus So Big That Passing Period Now Counts as Cardio
WICHITA FALLS – When our school opened, the local paper ran a story with a headline every Maverick has since memorized. It appears in the related links under the report on the ribbon cutting for the grand opening of Memorial High School: “Memorial High School is larger than two Wal-Mart supercenters.” At the time this was a compliment. Two years in, students have come to understand it as a warning. You can get anything you need in this building. You just cannot get to it in five minutes.
“I have Algebra II on the second floor of one wing and Spanish at the far end of the other,” said junior Kaylee Hutchins, who was eating a granola bar while walking, which she says is the only way she eats now. “The bell rings. I leave. I pass the library, the gym, a second gym I did not know about, what I think is a third gym, and a hallway that just says ‘CTE.’ I arrive when the tardy bell is ringing. My teacher asks why I am out of breath. Ma’am. I have crossed a Walmart and a half.”
The Missing Freshman
The situation is most serious for the ninth grade. According to the Student Council Subcommittee on People We Have Not Seen in a While, a freshman identified only as “Dylan, the tall one, maybe” left first period on the second day of school to find B Hall and has not been conclusively sighted since. He has been marked present in several classes. Witnesses report a figure with a backpack near the fine arts wing in October, moving with purpose in the wrong direction.
“We think he is fine,” said subcommittee chair Marcus Delgado, a senior. “He has a lunch account and it is being used. So he is finding the cafeteria. He just cannot find anything else. Honestly, at this point he may know parts of the building the rest of us have never seen. If he comes back, we are going to ask him to draw a map.”
What the Building Contains
The subcommittee has attempted an inventory of what is believed to exist on campus, based on student reports:
- Classrooms: many
- Gyms: two confirmed, one rumored
- Staircases that go where you expect: several
- Staircases that do not: at least one, near the band hall
- A hallway nobody has reached the end of
- Water fountains: plentiful, the one good thing
- Dylan
“Somebody told me there is a courtyard,” Hutchins said. “I have never seen it. I have seen a door that looks at it.”
Our Colors, Our Mascot, Our Mileage
We are proud of this place. Students picked the name on the jersey themselves, back before the walls were up. As News Channel 6 reported when the district released colors and next steps for the new high schools, the Mavericks won the student vote and Memorial’s colors are navy and red. Nobody at the time voted on the square footage. “We chose a mascot that roams free across open country,” Delgado said. “Then they built us the open country. That is on us.”
Survey Results
The newspaper staff surveyed 300 students during lunch, which was the only time we could find 300 students in one place. Results: 84 percent have been late to a class because of distance, 61 percent have entered the wrong classroom and stayed because leaving would be embarrassing, and 37 percent have a class they found by accident and never changed. Asked to estimate their daily step count, the average answer was “all of them.”
Teachers are sympathetic. One English teacher said she stopped counting tardies in September. “I walk it myself,” she said. “I left for a meeting in the front office once and when I got back, my planning period was over.”
Student Proposals
The Student Council has submitted a list of requests to administration, which we reprint here in full:
- Extend passing period to seven minutes, or eleven
- Color-coded lines on the floor, like a hospital
- A shuttle. A golf cart would do. One of the ag kids says he can get a tractor
- Rest benches at the halfway point between wings
- A sign that says YOU ARE HERE, and a second one that says SO IS YOUR CLASS, with an arrow
Administration has thanked the Council for its input. The tractor is not under consideration.
Advice From Upperclassmen
Seniors who were here on opening day have developed techniques. “Walk on the right, like a road,” said senior Brianna Ochoa. “Do not stop in the main intersection by the cafeteria. That is where freshmen stop to look around, and then forty people run into them. Know your shortcuts. There is a door by the science rooms that saves you ninety seconds. I am not telling you which one. I earned that door.”
The Upside
There are benefits. The cross country team reports record fitness among students who do not run cross country. Nobody is ever cold, because everyone is always moving. And the building is new, clean and ours. “My cousin went to one of the old schools,” Hutchins said. “He says the ceiling leaked into a trash can in his history class. Nothing leaks here. It is just far.”
Schools in England Have This Problem Too
We looked into whether other countries deal with this. The London Prat, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, has covered British satirical news on enormous schools, including one where a Year 7 pupil “was found in the sixth form block during the summer holidays.” Its page of London satirical news for lost first-years recommends following someone who looks confident, which is exactly how Dylan got where he is.
As this issue went to print, a sophomore reported seeing a tall freshman at the vending machines by the auxiliary gym. He bought a Gatorade, nodded and walked off toward the CTE hallway. He looked healthy. He looked like he knew where he was going. We hope he does. Go Mavs. Bohiney Magazine has also been notified, in case he comes out the other side.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
