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Show Give and Take - Not Just Take The action of the Utah High School Activities Association Asso-ciation this week in refusing to permit the Cedar City high school band to participate in the Las Vegas Helldorado band parade is so inconsistent that it makes the association associa-tion members look ridiculous. The inconsistency has been so evident over the past several years that it is difficult to understand their reasoning and to maintain faith in their sincerity of ability. The Cedar City high school and Milford high school bands were invited to participate but were denied permission permis-sion by act of the board of the activities association last week end, in spite of the fact that the trip, was to be made on Sunday and would not take the students out of school at all, and was being sponsored by the community with only minor participation in the undertaking by the school district. Also the refusal to grant permission for the trip came only a few weeks after music groups from two other high schools had passed through Cedar City enroute on much more extended trips than was proposed by the local bands. The B. Y. high school band from Provo only recently made a trip to Tucson, Ariz., and a chorus from the Bear River high school on a trip to Las Vegas. Upon our request for the reason these organizations were allowed to make the trip, we were given the very weak excuse that the B. Y. high is a church school and the activities association had no jurisdiction. Of course, that is just an excuse to hide behind, but if the association has no jurisdiction over the school activities than there is no justification for the schools participation in the contests con-tests conducted by the association within the state. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why the Bear River high trip was permitted. The board gave as the reason for denying the local schools the privilege of making the trip, the fact that the bands were to participate in a contest that is not to be i conducted by a high school association, but rather by the Elks club of Las Vegas. Denial for trips on other occasions occa-sions has been based on a supposed limit of distance that a school may travel, and on still others on a supposed restriction re-striction against traveling outside the state. And yet other schools have constantly broken all of the mentioned rules, and without any objection whatsoever from the association associa-tion board. All this also serves to emphasize the inconsistency incon-sistency of the association. There are plenty of instances to prove the inconsistency inconsis-tency of the board's action. Last year the local band was invited to participate in a contest at Long Beach, Calif, but was refused permission because it was too far to travel, tra-vel, while at the same. time the Juab high school band had. participated in the same event just the year before. An Ogden high school chorus group, and at least one other Utah high school has participated In the San Diego, Calif, music festival. The Park City high school band was permitted per-mitted to travel to San Francisco to participate in the annual Shrine football festivities there. Plenty of other cases could be cited. In none of them was any penalty assessed. as-sessed. There is some question of jurisdiction in the present situation, since the students are not to be taken out of school, and were to be sent as a representative of the city In an inter-community relations project, and at very little, expense to the district. We question the authority of a few school officials from over the state to say that Cedar City and Milford cannot send a group of young musicians on a good will trip to a neighboring city if the trip does not interfere in-terfere with the school activities of the musicians. Of course, we must not lose sight of the fact that they would be wearing high ; school uniforms, playing school instruments, instru-ments, and would be under the direction of an instructor paid by, the school district In the case of the uniforms, however, they were for the most part paid for by townspeople towns-people and the students themselves. The Cedar City group will obey the ruling of the association, asso-ciation, but we understand that the Milford group will make the trip as a Milford City band. There Is at least an implied threat that the school may be punished if the students make the trip by. the school being barred from participation in state high school contests. This need not be taken too seriously, however, because the association would not have the nerve to penalize Milford without also similarly penalizing the BY, high and Bear River high schools, and it is a foregone conclusion that nothing is going to be done to penalize those schools or. any of the the others that have made trips in the past. The association members put forth the argument 'that i thev must keeD control of school activities. We aeree on that, and if the control was consistent we would feel that the association was entitled to wholehearted support. If the members are sincere in wanting to keep consistent control of the activities, we suggest that they demonstrate that sincerity by starting in their own state and doing something about the situation at the annual state basketball basket-ball tournament. Anyone who has visited one of these tournaments knows that hundreds of students who are not participating are allowed to leave school and spend three or four days in the tournament city with very little to do and absolutely no supervision. Such action as that taken in the Cedar and Milford case this week is a severe blow to school and community relations, rela-tions, and if there is any one thing that the schools are weak on, from the local level on up through the state organization, or-ganization, it is community cooperation. People charged with the responsibility of making such decisions should give a little more thought to both sides of the question, and remember that "cooperation" is a two-sided affair -give and take - not just take. |
