Q: How long have you been organizing prom for South?
A: Since the school has opened, it has really only been myself. [Shanna] Gardner took it over for a couple years, and then I took it back because she stepped down last year. Then [it was] Adele Hunt, who was the world language chair when the building opened. So, when I transferred here from Plainfield Central in 2008, I took over prom.

Q: Do you ever receive feedback on the theme from students?
A: Yes, I don’t know if we’ve really ever gotten negative feedback for the theme. There are always a handful of kids that say, “the music wasn’t good” or “the food wasn’t good.” but the past couple of years we’ve had over 700 kids, and so when you’re trying to make 700 kids happy all at once it’s a challenge. I think we do a pretty good job. I have had students that go to other proms [for] other schools and they always come back and [say] “you guys do an amazing job,” and I know that and I [also] know that I’m not going to make everyone happy and that’s okay. We just do our best.

Q: Some people say the cost of tickets is “too much,” have you heard that? What factors into the price of
the tickets?
A: I hear it all the time, and I completely understand. However, I think it’s just [that] a lot of students don’t realize that you’re paying to be in a wedding venue. If you look at the price of our prom compared to all the other schools in our conference, we are the cheapest. We try our best to keep the cost as manageable as possible. To put it into perspective, we just [raised] the price to $90 last year, but up until the pandemic the price had been $75 since the school opened, so from 2008 to 2020, the 12 years I did it before the pandemic, we kept it [at] $75. And then of course, after the pandemic prices of everything have gone up, so we can’t assume because then we would be running in the negatives. But we do our very best; we also do our best to make sure that you guys are getting the best that we can give you. Yes, it’s $90, but we make sure everything is decorated and you get your favor. We do everything we can.

Q: Are tickets on sale yet?
A: They’re going to start the Monday that we return from spring break, and we will run that through the following Thursday. We’re going to run it for almost two weeks. You have to have your school ID to get in. Your phone ID will not be accepted. You have to have a physical copy of your ID. We’re going to push that out.

Q: Do you have anything to add?
A: Buy your ticket early, don’t wait until the last minute. Get that date request form in- it’s going to be online like we have [been doing] for the last couple of years. We’re going to push that link [soon] so that you guys can start getting those out to whoever you want to bring that doesn’t go here, then they have time to get the form back to us.

Q: We don’t need any physical forms like there is for homecoming?
A: No. We used to only have a physical form, and then they changed it to online 2 years ago. We still do have the physical form, especially because we have some students that bring a guest that is either homeschooled or maybe graduated [and] they wouldn’t have anyone to fill it out. So if that’s the case, then they get a physical form and turn that in.