Evolution of CFHS Prom: Alumni faculty reminisce about the bright lights, balloons, and backdrops of yesterprom as current students reflect on last Saturday night

Sun, 15 May 2005 21:30:00 GMT

By Rebecca Peine-2006

Mr. Weber, a strapping gentleman of 1987, strolls down the walkway at the ‘On the Edge of a Dream’ Grand March.

Prom at Cannon Falls High School has varied greatly from year to year. Themes, locations, and dress styles may have changed, but one thing has remained constant: the huge amount of preparation that goes into one evening. Today’s faculty members take a stroll down memory lane as they recall their own CFHS prom experiences. The year was 1987, the prom theme was On the Edge of a D ream, a nd CF HS student and future teacher Tom Weber danced the night away doing the “croppie.” “We had a real band... pretty good,” Weber recalls. Prom tickets only cost fi fteen dollars, and his tuxedo sixty. Before Grand March began, Weber “went with eight people- safety in numbers I always thought,” to the Hubble House in Kasson Mantorville. What he remembers most about prom is “cleaning my car. I even vacuumed it.” In 1988 prom was done in a completely different fashion. The Night of Our Lives was heldon a boat in Lake Pepin following Grand March in the high school gym. That year, tickets were sold by the couple at a cost of seventy-fi ve dollars. The highlight that night for then CFHS Junior Holly Lindahl was, “The new sunglasses I got at a Holiday station that night!” The popularity of the riverboat experience continued into 1989’s prom, If Only for Tonight. Prom that year was held on former CFHS student and current teacher Amy Dombeck’s 18th birthday. Following the events at the school, students boarded a coach bus to St. Paul. There they boarded the Jonathon Padleford. “We had a river ride up and down the Mississippi... good time, very fun,” Dombeck recalls. The cost of the “good time” was sixty dollars per couple. Dombeck remembers her prom as being “such a nice night, sitting on the boat on my birthday with the man I would eventually marry. [It’s] what you hope prom would be like.” In 1991, prom was moved to the Northfi eld Ballroom, where tickets cost thirty dollars percouple. Josh Davison, current CFHS business manager, attended. He fondly remembers, “The guys would line up in a train and slide with [their] slippery shoes. I don’t remember [then principal] Mr. Baisley being too fond of that.” In 1992 Grand March was again followed by the dance at the Northfield Ballroom, but tickets cost twenty-fi ve dollars per person. “Dinner was on your own. We took a limo up to the cities and had dinner. That was a highlight,” Jake Davison, current member of the District Offi ce staff, remembers of his fi rst CFHS prom. Davison also attended the following year’s Under the Sea. “The Little Mermaid was really big then,” he explains. “All the girls were in love with the movie.” Flash forward to 2005, New York New York. Though some aspects have changed, many remain the same. “Things are no different. Guys hang around and watch girls dance,” states Weber. No matter the theme, location or cost, some things never change.

The Lantern

Evolution of CFHS Prom: Alumni faculty reminisce about the bright lights, balloons, and backdrops of yesterprom as current students reflect on last Saturday night