George Mason High School - Mustang Yearbook (Falls Church, VA)

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WHAT BEHOOVES HER In an SCA Emergency Policy Session held hear today, it was decided that the Key Club of George Mason Junior-Senior High School was indeed violating school policy in barring the entrance of Kathy Hoover (female) into a previously all male institution. According to Student Council President Steve Kaplow (male), the school can neither support discriminatory clubs nor allow their existance on school grounds. Defending Attorney for the Key Club, Part- time President and full-time male, Richard Roth, answered this accusation defensively, saying the Kiwanis International (the Mother, sorry . . . father club of the GM Key Club) since its concept ion had barred female mem- bership and that only a policy change by Kiwanis would legally allow Kathy Hoover (aforementioned female) to be a true member. He continued, defensively of course, to reply that the GM Key Club had already voted to allow Kathey Hoover membership, and also with this privilege she has been allowed to watch the Key Club Basketball Games form the sideline floor (a privalege not previously extended to females.) However the sagacious Steve Kaplow (also aforementioned, male) had realized the actual value of such a membership (Kathey Hoover, Student Council Vice-President, reportedly has much to do with the President’s crystal clear vision) and has demanded that Kathy Hoover be presented an official membership card, (like all males) to erase all distinctions and discriminations. (According to an unof- ficial spokesman there are also males in the club with out membership cards; these being held by the president and Part-time dictator for a $3.50 ransom.) Richard Roth (as described above) retorts to tell of his efforts to appeal (a sex appeal) to Kiwanis International (very male) for a policy change to allow the admission of Kathy Hoover. He, also, unofficially mentioned a subversive plot by other area Key Clubs to in- vade the Kiwanis International Wednesday Night Stag Supper with their combined force of female candidates. Apparently other Key Clubs have been confronted with the problem of females wanting to destroy the last bastion of a school’s exclusively male institution. It is being said however, that these Key Clubs including GM’s would not be adverse to allowing females to help in holding the fort. Meanwhile the adult reaction to these preceedings has been limited. Dr. Fox, Prin- cipally Male, maintains his record by not smiling, Mr. Henry (Teacher, Sponser, thinker and full-time person) smiled, and Colonel Campb ell (full-fledged male Kiwanis member and veteran of all foreign wars) has uttered only his name, rank and serial number . . . In a secret interview with the female causing the uproar, Kathy Hoover, she was reported to have said that she will stop at no- thing but what she is entitled to: an official membership card and a position as starting center on the Key Club Basketball Team. (Although the ultimatum was indeed deliv- ered, the situation was dramatized.) - by Chris Miller Reprinted from the LASSO 14

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IN REFLECTION As the Viet Nam war hopefully draws to an end the morbid task of assesing the cost remains to be done. The casualties of Viet Nam will be measured in terms of lives lost, limbs severed and persons missing. The finan- cial costs will be measured in dollars and cents. But in terms of America, the people and America, the idea, this country has lost much more. For the American people, this has been a very personal yet very distant war. It has been brought to them every evening on the televi- sion news in their living room. Americans have seen their cities burn, their dollar shrink and their taxes rise because of the drain of government funds and attention to Viet Nam. The American people have borne the sacri- fices necessary to support the war, without fully understanding it. This war, which has been fought in far-off places with strange names, for a purpose or goal which the gov- ernment has never made clear, and has dragged on and on. In 1965, at a time when what was needed was a government which could lead the country out of the confusion of Viet Nam, all that was offered was a govern- ment which could only watch in dismay as this country was led further into the war. But dismay is a political weakness, so to cloak this weakness from the people, tactics bordering on deception and deceit were employed to guide the people into the war. Frustration after frustration has occured in this tragedy and gradually the American people have grown to doubt the words of their politicians, the word of their government, the values of their youth. The American people have become defensive about their own values and accomplishments. Americans have embarked on a new wave of reactionary patriotism in an attempt to submerge deep-felt insecurity. In short, Americans have lost a sense of self- respect. To much of the world, America is more than a nation, it is a whole concept or idea. The America envisioned by Jefferson, Madison and Mason has been this nation’s greatest export. Without tanks, or bombs, or bullets, this nation has sold the “product” through advertisements like the “Declaration of Independence” to peoples after peoples. Now, rightly or wrongly, The American idea will also bear the connotation of Viet Nam. The image of America represented by a flight of B-52’s or a burning child has, to say the least, tarnished the world’s concept of America and American values. For just about every student in this school has grown up along with the war. The war was the concern during the sixties. Now, hopefully, with the war ending Americans will turn inward and rediscover those ideals which have made America, and have been temporarily detoured by the tragedy of Viet Nam. - by Steve Kaplow Reprinted from the LASSO 16