Bomber Pride runs deep within the veins of our football players, track runners, and speechies, but among other activities, it’s a rare find. This lack of drive can be seen in several sectors of our school: among the SADD advocates, BPA, and musicians. It’s not limited to these groups and it’s not a big secret either.

The big.elephant in the room is that these students just don’t care, plain and simple.They participate for whatever reasons- personal gain, a perk on their
transcripts, a day out of classes, or parental pride- but don’t thoroughly
commit to their causes. This leads to unreached goals for the organizations amid other team-work related issues.There are numerous complaints regarding these “club leeches.” It’s generally viewed that these individuals give the group a bad reputation and frustrate club advisors.

Interact Advisor Amy Dombeck compared this inactivity to a more real-life situation, giving the example that “our churches are being propped up by a small number of parishioners. People attend, but there’s a small number of people who actually are ACTIVELY keeping all of that functioning.” She argues that what we see in our small-town school is a reflection of the real world and its practices.

While their actions not condoned or really appreciated, maybe there’s an explanation that pushes these club leeches forward. Maybe it’s a central desire to belong, to be bigger than themselves. This would give a noble clarification of why these students attend, but still gives little reason or justification to their flakiness.

This phenomenon is bigger than just skipping practice, bombing a speech or flaking out on a meeting; there’s a certain quality that we all possess that we must, in turn, deny, in order to meet a new level of expectations and fulfill the goals of our communities. It’s in our nature to desire a sense of belonging, but in order to truly belong, we must give back as well. We must be true to our commitments, even if that means dropping a few social ties that we never fully grasped anyway. This simple act of actual devotion to one pursuit or many will prove that we can reach our potential and maybe even exceed expectations.

Let’s “take that next step, where connection turns into action,” as Mrs. Dombeck says, and contribute to something bigger than ourselves.