OU slips into local lives

by S. Veronica Siek
Staff Writer

It's lunchtime at Alexander High School, and the air smells of turkey and gravy. The scent of an institutionally-prepared meal mingles with the clamor of cracking male voices and girlish giggles.

Posters for the annual Sweetheart Dance hang in the halls. A fully-stocked trophy case filled with athletic and extracurricular laurels greets visitors entering the front door.

Aside from a few "Ohio University"T-shirts, nowhere is there a hint that a university of nearly 20,000 students lies only 10 minutes away. And that is what interaction with OU is like for many Alexander High students: something on the periphery of their lives. But every once in a while, students say, a reminder of how the university affects them slips in.

"It's pretty nice here, but I live pretty close to the OU airport, and it can be pretty loud sometimes because of all the planes," said Brianna Hess, a sophomore at Alexander High.

The planned airport expansion may also cause the road she lives on to be rerouted. But she said that OU has been helpful about the changes.

"If we have any questions, they'll answer and give us information on it," she said.

Other students' opinions of OU are less positive.

"You know what, I think OU is bad because they might have to move my house," said Ryan Pinney, an Alexander High sophomore who lives in the path of the airport expansion. "I'm sorry, man, but I've lived there all my life, all 16 years of it. There's a lot of memories."

But the airport expansion is only one example of OU's shadow over Alexander students’ lives. Few Ohio University students may realize how much their presence affects those living outside the campus lines, but AHS and the university are interconnected and interdependent. Some Alexander High students take post-secondary option classes at OU, and others plan to attend after they graduate. Some Alexander High students' parents are the people who file OU students' applications, keep their lights on, cook their meals and clean their classrooms. They grow some of the food students eat and do the other important – if under-appreciated – work that keeps the university functioning every day.

Students also said that with the proximity of OU come the divisions felt between themselves and the students at nearby Athens High School.

Senior Christine Kringle said her classmates at Alexander and their counterparts in Athens are "complete opposites."

"We're a group of our own selves, and they act more like – how do I put this – they act more like one group. And, they're in the city, while we're country," Kringle said.

Alexander sophomore B.J. Allman said these differences might be caused by an economic divide between the two schools.

"Usually, their parents work at the university, have good-paying jobs," Allman said. "And they and their school could get anything they want. New cars and all that."

His friends, Nathan Lambert and Pinney, both sophomores, agreed.

"Athens has all these different sports teams, like, they have a swimming team, a hockey team and everything," Lambert said. "But here at Alexander, we don't get the funding to have any sports teams beyond the basic sports."

"Well, half the time in here the heat doesn't work," Allman said. "We have to wear jackets inside."

""They say it's too expensive," Lambert said. "It's probably true because Alexander doesn't get the same funding that Athens does."

On another side of the lunch room, football players Jason Brandeberry and Chad Bean expressed similar feelings.

"(Athens High school students') moms and dads are all doctors and stuff, and we're farmers," said Brandeberry, a sophomore.

"They think they got money, and that they're better than us. They're spoiled," Bean said.

Financial inequalities were a major concern for the students, especially as the university funds what they see as expensive and unnecessary building projects.

"They need to put money into schools, like this one," says Pinney. "This school is run-down. And look at the middle school, that's been up since, like, 1902."

Lambert said he had some advice he would give the university.

"Stop building new stuff, making taxes go up for my parents," he said. "One day they're going to own this whole town, I just know it. They're going to keep building and keep on kicking everybody out."

Alexander High students said they bristle at some OU and Athens High students' perceptions that Alexander is a school full of "hicks."

Mandy Combs, a junior who will graduate early next January, said people should "get their facts" before they judge Alexander and the surrounding community.

"Alexander sometimes has a stereotype of being a low-income school compared to Athens City Schools," Combs said. "But I think our educational levels are just as high if not higher. We get a quality education even if the schools aren't as nice."

Allman said the small, close atmosphere has benefits.

"The good thing about the school being small is that there's not very many people and everybody knows each other," said B.J. Allman, an Alexander sophomore. "You don't have as broad an area to choose your friends from because everybody knows each other, and you can't be in just in this group or that group. I run cross country and I play baseball, but I sit with my friends instead of sitting with the other people that play sports."