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OT- NJ High School Kills Homecoming King and Queen Over Bullying Concerns

Knight Shift

Knight Shift

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May 19, 2011
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http://www.redbankgreen.com/2016/10/rfh-homecoming-king-queen/#more-106352
The king is dead. The queen, too. In fact, so is their entire court.

Officials at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High have killed the longstanding tradition of a homecoming king and queen because it had turned into what district Superintendent Pete Righi called a form of “mass bullying.”

So there will be no fanfare for student royalty when the 3-1 Bulldogs host undefeated Saint John Vianney Friday night.

Righi told redbankgreen Thursday that the annual election of king, queen and runners-up has in recent years devolved into “a very bad situation” in which, rather than honoring schoolmates, large numbers of students used the process to tease and embarrass individuals.

A school official who asked not to be identified said students used the voting to force winners into unlikely pairings and to create opportunities to publicly mock them when they’re introduced at midfield at halftime of the big game.

“It’s mass bullying,” Righi said Thursday. “They’ve rigged the voting. I’m frankly embarrassed that it happens.”
 
carrie-cover.jpg
 
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Unfortunate, but at least they didn't literally kill the Homecoming King and Queen.
 
I was a socially awkward weirdo in middle and junior high school, but I saw my sophomore year nomination for homecoming court as a sign that a few people somewhat cared about me after all! I had a major ego boost that school year for several reasons.
 
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Me and a couple of friends rigged our Homecoming Queen election. There was a girl we knew who was super smart, really pretty and really friendly. She was a little shy and wasn't part of the cheerleader crowd. We put together enough signatures to get her nominated, then rigged the ballot box.
 
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LadyRU09 said:
I was a socially awkward weirdo in middle and junior high school, but I saw my sophomore year nomination for homecoming court as a sign that a few people somewhat cared about me after all! I had a major ego boost that school year for several reasons.
Click to expand...
Mark Zuckerberg was socially awkward nerd all the way up through college and look where he ended up. When you look around at what is considered "normal" these days, ya gotta realize that there's nothing particularly wrong with being a socially awkward weirdo at any point in life.

You may have seen this before, although it's a bit dated so the numbers are no longer accurate, but still representative. In answer to the question: is it better to be a jock or a nerd:

Michael Jordan having "retired," with $40 million in endorsements, makes $178,100 a day, working or not.

If he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head. If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there. If he decides to have a 5-minute egg, he'll make $618 while boiling it.


He makes $7,415/hr more than minimum wage. He'll make $3,710 while watching each episode of Friends. If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000) it would take him a whole 12 hours. If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second.


He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33,390 for that round. Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his income into a tax deferred account (401k), his contributions will hit the federal cap of $9500 at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st.


If you were given a penny for every 10 dollars he made, you'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a year. He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100 meter dash in the Olympics, and about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon.

While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in about $5600. This year, he'll make more than twice as much as all U.S. past presidents for all of their terms combined.

Amazing isn't it?


However...

If Jordan saves 100% of his income for the next 450 years, he'll still have less than Bill Gates has today.
 
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RU4Real said:
Me and a couple of friends rigged our Homecoming Queen election. There was a girl we knew who was super smart, really pretty and really friendly. She was a little shy and wasn't part of the cheerleader crowd. We put together enough signatures to get her nominated, then rigged the ballot box.
Click to expand...

You should work in politics. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Did any dead people vote?

TBF, good one for you & your friends. I wonder how much the 'candidates' campaign in these things. Maybe the nominees should have the option of not accepting, to avoid the mass bullying issues.
 
dvb91 said:
You should work in politics. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Did any dead people vote?

TBF, good one for you & your friends. I wonder how much the 'candidates' campaign in these things. Maybe the nominees should have the option of not accepting, to avoid the mass bullying issues.
Click to expand...

Full disclosure, it was more than 35 years ago. There was no "campaigning" then. The universal expectation was that the captain of the cheerleading team won and all the other cheerleaders came in second. It only seemed right to break the cycle of entitlement.
 
LOL...Rumson...maybe they can a massive "run for your safe space" party instead...complete with "understanding gazebos", "tolerance punch" and "inclusive sandwiches"[roll][roll]
 
"Homecoming" itself always seemed kind of pointless to me - a legacy artifact of the football olden days when Yale or Harvard won NC.

Then I saw the video below (presently going viral) of a homecoming in Arizona and now I'm thinking my HS must have just sucked at homecomings. Last half is the best...

"Pixar" Homecoming Assembly
 
Does Rutgers have a homecoming King & Queen? I was a little surprised when I was out at tOSU 2 weeks ago when they introduced the whole homecoming court & crowned the King & Queen. Earlier in the day at the Skull session they introduced over a dozen Homecoming Kings & Queens from local high schools.
 
RU4Real said:
Not really. Most of the rich kids are in private school. RFH tends to be "townies".
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Right. Most of the folks in town are not "rich" by any stretch of the imagination. It's a myth. Lots of large estates owned by old people, or as you noted, rich kids who go to private schools. You can still get a home in the 400's to 500's in Rumson, and that's where most of the kids who go to school in town live.
 
When I was teaching, I would tell some of my assh#t students who thought they were really something to treat the ones they thought were inferior with respect. Why? Because you will most likely be working for them someday.
Most of us probably have done and said things when we were younger that we truly regret to this day. Kids can really be brutally cruel.
 
Knight Shift said:
http://www.redbankgreen.com/2016/10/rfh-homecoming-king-queen/#more-106352
The king is dead. The queen, too. In fact, so is their entire court.

Officials at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High have killed the longstanding tradition of a homecoming king and queen because it had turned into what district Superintendent Pete Righi called a form of “mass bullying.”

So there will be no fanfare for student royalty when the 3-1 Bulldogs host undefeated Saint John Vianney Friday night.

Righi told redbankgreen Thursday that the annual election of king, queen and runners-up has in recent years devolved into “a very bad situation” in which, rather than honoring schoolmates, large numbers of students used the process to tease and embarrass individuals.

A school official who asked not to be identified said students used the voting to force winners into unlikely pairings and to create opportunities to publicly mock them when they’re introduced at midfield at halftime of the big game.

“It’s mass bullying,” Righi said Thursday. “They’ve rigged the voting. I’m frankly embarrassed that it happens.”
Click to expand...

My school pretty much solved this 40 years ago, by having all nominations be members of the "Monogram Club" (the club for lettered athletes). The choices were usually just football players & cheerleaders, and the club just matched up boyfriends & girlfriends.
 
When I was in high school we used to play Rumson and all I remember were guys named Bell and Dooley and uniforms that were so purple they caused me to go blind every time I looked at them in a way too bright gym.
 
Knight Shift said:
http://www.redbankgreen.com/2016/10/rfh-homecoming-king-queen/#more-106352
The king is dead. The queen, too. In fact, so is their entire court.

Officials at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High have killed the longstanding tradition of a homecoming king and queen because it had turned into what district Superintendent Pete Righi called a form of “mass bullying.”

So there will be no fanfare for student royalty when the 3-1 Bulldogs host undefeated Saint John Vianney Friday night.

Righi told redbankgreen Thursday that the annual election of king, queen and runners-up has in recent years devolved into “a very bad situation” in which, rather than honoring schoolmates, large numbers of students used the process to tease and embarrass individuals.

A school official who asked not to be identified said students used the voting to force winners into unlikely pairings and to create opportunities to publicly mock them when they’re introduced at midfield at halftime of the big game.

“It’s mass bullying,” Righi said Thursday. “They’ve rigged the voting. I’m frankly embarrassed that it happens.”
Click to expand...
Rigged voting. Sounds familiar.
 
I went to high school with the superintendent, Pete Righi, tremendous football player. Scholarship to Temple as a wide receiver back when they were a top twenty team, played in the 2nd Garden State Bowl against Cal, the year after RU played in it.
 
When I was a junior, the senior class had enough people get together to nominate a girl who was, shall we say, unpleasant looking. I mean, I don't know how to say this in a PC way, so I won't try. Very ugly girl. And she didn't win over people with her personality, either. But enough of them voted to get her nominated. Luckily, she went to somebody without freaking out and got her name taken off the ballot, and many of the seniors I knew were openly appalled that it happened -- but SOMEBODY voted for her.

Popular people really don't need more affirmation that they are popular people, do they?
 
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Knight Shift said:
http://www.redbankgreen.com/2016/10/rfh-homecoming-king-queen/#more-106352
The king is dead. The queen, too. In fact, so is their entire court.

Officials at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High have killed the longstanding tradition of a homecoming king and queen because it had turned into what district Superintendent Pete Righi called a form of “mass bullying.”

So there will be no fanfare for student royalty when the 3-1 Bulldogs host undefeated Saint John Vianney Friday night.

Righi told redbankgreen Thursday that the annual election of king, queen and runners-up has in recent years devolved into “a very bad situation” in which, rather than honoring schoolmates, large numbers of students used the process to tease and embarrass individuals.

A school official who asked not to be identified said students used the voting to force winners into unlikely pairings and to create opportunities to publicly mock them when they’re introduced at midfield at halftime of the big game.

“It’s mass bullying,” Righi said Thursday. “They’ve rigged the voting. I’m frankly embarrassed that it happens.”
Click to expand...
 
Deviously brilliant.

On a personal note as a high school SENIOR there were maybe 2 D-bags who just acted like *sswipes around me. One a former friend. Actually I may have had a bit of respect as the year before my next door neighbor and his d-bag friend (who was such a geek he got physically sick watching "scared straight"-my neighbor took flack because his brother attacked me as a junior and frosh me supposedly broke his eye socket) bowled my bag down the alley durng intermural bowling and I grazed a warning punch at him (but Mom had connections and got me in-school for a day).

Anyways back then we had the New Jersey's "boy's state". I heard there was a contingent voting for me as a joke-and that it may have been stopped by teachers (can't believe it went that far-I was nether widely liked or hated). I'm not so sure if that it were true it may have backfired as most knew me (i.e. playground or intramural sports) and I may have received positive votes. Wondering whether teachers just wanted a more popular rep but I might be a little narcisstic thinking such.

One irony of our homecoming court was that it was a popularity contest for jocks, good looking guys, popular/class council (esp girls) and perhaps partiers. ***Those unpopular basically had no chance-not that anyone cared. Wasn't even on my radar and the prom barely was. I had a bad crush on the head cheerleader the year before me-but she wouldn't give me the time of day-and was promptly turned down by 4-5 others (including a guy she liked who took a B*tchy smart girl from our class) and didn't go. Then she got pink eye and couldn't make her Great Adventure senior trip. Coincidentally attended RU Pharma and married the 1st guy who drank beers with her. She wasn't even nominated to the court.

***Years later ironically I'm pretty sure one guy from each year of 1980 and my class of 1981 turned out to be gay (not that theres anything wrong with that!). The guy my year was a sports acquaintance-good looking and friendly-but never suspected. There he was in facebook a few years ago with a gay pride shirt on LOL. The guy in the class the year before me was our star running back who signed with RU-followed him to Cook. Too soft for football he got injured (was also in a bad motorcycle accident at some point I believe) and I don't think made his sophomore year. He became the cover for the 1st RU "Men of Rutgers" calender. Nice guy-was in my Latin class (with a great mix of Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors) and always had 2-3 hotties talking to him (including our QBs cute younger sister). Still have a difficult time believing that one.

I wonder if the girls knew...
 
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On the other hand I saw a recent news story on how one high school nicely adopted a developmentally disabled/"slow" student and honored him. Now that I'm writing this I may have seen before-maybe I saw on TV recently that a school chose a girl who had serious cancer for homecoming queen and each player, as they came onto the field put a flower on the ground for her.
 
BoroKnight said:
Popular people really don't need more affirmation that they are popular people, do they?
Click to expand...

If you really think about homecoming BoroKnight really hits the nail on the head....and on the flip side if people do decide to play a joke on the 'ugly/unpopular crowd' to get them nominated - the last thing they really need is more crap.
 
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I thought all this high school drama stuff pretty much came about with "90210" and generations exposed to that and subsequent shows emulating what they saw on TV.

But here we have guys from the 70s and 80s recounting the dramas of their high school years.
 
RU4Real said:
Not really. Most of the rich kids are in private school. RFH tends to be "townies".
Click to expand...

Knight Shift said:
Right. Most of the folks in town are not "rich" by any stretch of the imagination. It's a myth. Lots of large estates owned by old people, or as you noted, rich kids who go to private schools. You can still get a home in the 400's to 500's in Rumson, and that's where most of the kids who go to school in town live.
Click to expand...
And don't forget, the full name of the school is Rumson FAIR HAVEN. ;)
 
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Knight Shift said:
http://www.redbankgreen.com/2016/10/rfh-homecoming-king-queen/#more-106352
The king is dead. The queen, too. In fact, so is their entire court.

Officials at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High have killed the longstanding tradition of a homecoming king and queen because it had turned into what district Superintendent Pete Righi called a form of “mass bullying.”

So there will be no fanfare for student royalty when the 3-1 Bulldogs host undefeated Saint John Vianney Friday night.

Righi told redbankgreen Thursday that the annual election of king, queen and runners-up has in recent years devolved into “a very bad situation” in which, rather than honoring schoolmates, large numbers of students used the process to tease and embarrass individuals.

A school official who asked not to be identified said students used the voting to force winners into unlikely pairings and to create opportunities to publicly mock them when they’re introduced at midfield at halftime of the big game.

“It’s mass bullying,” Righi said Thursday. “They’ve rigged the voting. I’m frankly embarrassed that it happens.”
Click to expand...
They should have left it alone and let Carrie do her thing.
 
ScarletNut said:
I went to high school with the superintendent, Pete Righi, tremendous football player. Scholarship to Temple as a wide receiver back when they were a top twenty team, played in the 2nd Garden State Bowl against Cal, the year after RU played in it.
Click to expand...
I was at that Bowl game. Temple played exceptionally well. The blocking was awesome.I thought that they could have beaten a lot of very good teams that day. BTW it was windy and cold as hell in the upper level seating sections.
 
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