As I sat at my table late one night, I was scrolling through Facebook, about to call it a night when I saw a post that troubled me. It started with someone who had shared a link to the article The Durango Herald had written about the “DHS Gossip” Twitter page. The Facebooker said that police should be arresting people who made posts on DHS Gossip. As I kept reading, the first comment read “That school is ... stupid. And almost everyone there.” I instantly knew that I had to speak out about the issue.
Now, I don’t want to sound insensitive. As someone who has bullied, and been bullied, I understand how awful and degrading it is. I also have a major issue with how the media and the general public have been reacting to the issue of DHS Gossip.
Ever since the story came out, I’ve had to scroll through my feed on Facebook seeing friends from Animas saying, “Thank God I don’t go to DHS!” or “Of course this would happen at DHS,” hear people in the community bad mouth my school and read continuous negative coverage.
It bothered me so much. The fact that people think cyberbullying happens only at Durango High School is laughable. Cyberbullying happens all over – thousands of schools have pages like this. It feels wrong that DHS is getting singled out for something that happens so often. It’s truly awful that DHS had a page like this, but all the amazing things DHS students do and participate in are getting lost in all the negative coverage of one Twitter page that does not even come close to representing the student body. In fact, DHS students have started two separate pages on Facebook called “DHS Compliments” that are just used to give out compliments to each other.
DHS is a great school with so many great kids. It hurts to see everyone acting as if bullying is foreign and DHS is the alien. Everyone has been involved with bullying somehow. Now, in no way am I saying it’s OK, because it’s not, but what I am asking is to stop taking shots at DHS because of this. One Twitter page run by a few students does not make it a school full of violent adolescents.
In the meantime, let me tell you about the people at my school who you don’t hear about. Student Body Co-President Logan Graham, despite being a devoted member of the Student Council and editor-in-chief of our school newspaper, El Diablo, travels up to Denver on weekends to participate in Colorado Youth Advisory Council. He helps advise our Legislature on bills and what is right for youths in our state. Not only has Christopher Blevins won multiple national BMX titles, he has also won national road and mountain bike races, earning the right to race internationally in Europe. Durango High School Student Council won the award for highest cumulative GPA across all Colorado Student Councils, and DHS’s own Dale Garland won Colorado Student Council Advisor of the Year. Durango Aerospace and Design Team has won multiple national and international awards, including topping all other Aerospace teams in the World last summer. Last year, DECA (An acronym that now stands alone, but which used to stand for Distributive Education Clubs of America) was new to the high school and sent two students to nationals; this year, it is sending six. Our own Theatre Troupe 1096 had the top musical in the state this fall and was asked to perform it in front of more than 5,000 people in Denver.
And all this is just the smallest snapshot of the amazing things students are currently exceeding in at DHS. I’m honored to attend a school with over 1,000 motivated students who achieve amazing things daily.
DHS often gets bad press and a bad reputation. The truth of the matter is that DHS is a great school with so much to offer and countless amazing people. Be aware of what happens in high school and help us fix it, but don’t forget about all the amazing things we do.
Seth Marvin-Vanderryn is a news editor at El Diablo, the Durango High School student newspaper. His parents are David Marvin and Judith Vanderryn of Durango.
