Lc Enjoys Spring Fling Students Parade Through Downtown For ‘May Week’ Activities

Sat., May 27, 2000

By Wendy Harris wendyh@spokesman.com

There’s nothing like your own downtown parade to celebrate spring and the end of the school year.

Toting backpacks, lunch bags and orange and black balloons, more than 1,500 students from Lewis and Clark High School temporarily closed five blocks of Howard Street on Friday morning, with their marching band and a police escort leading the way.

In addition to celebrating another successful school year, the parade served another purpose. It was the most efficient way to get the students to Riverfront Park for their annual “May Week” activities.

“In order to move so many students from downtown to here, we had to have a parade permit,” said LC counselor Marty Frazier.

The students have spent their first year in the newly renovated Holley-Mason Building downtown. It will serve as a temporary high school again next year while Spokane School District 81 completes its $40 million renovation project of the original Lewis and Clark High School at Fourth and Stevens.

Since the Holley-Mason Building is tight on space and doesn’t have a commons area, school officials decided to move the annual May Week festivities to the park.

Last fall, students also paraded down Howard to the park for their back-to-school activities.

“I think this is our reward,” said sophomore Ajulu Taka, as she and her friends enjoyed thumping music in the park provided by a DJ service hired by the school.

She said the cramped quarters at Holley-Mason have taken some getting used to.

“It’s jammed,” she said.

After a day in the park and a long weekend, Taka said it may be tough finding the discipline to study over the next two weeks. The last day of school for District 81 is June 16.

“I don’t think anyone is going to concentrate,” she said. “I have finals in English and that is so not there. What’s up with that? I want to go outside and play.”

But on Friday at least, studying was the last thing on students’ minds. They played Frisbee and football, rode the park’s rides and competed in a relay race, which involved eggs, chocolate pudding, soccer balls and baseball bats.

“I had the worst part of the job,” said Anna Lazareno, a junior, clutching her upset stomach after inhaling a pie tin filled with pudding face first. “It’s still in my hair.”

Students also relished the opportunity to soak their teachers in a dunk tank.

“I made about 200 promises to sit up there,” said LC English teacher Andy Lang, who was soaking wet after members of LC’s baseball team showed off their pitching.

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