The Shawnee Mission School District has banned throwing powder at all football games after Shawnee Mission Northwest students threw orange powder at the varsity football game on Thurs., Sept. 11.
Northwest students have been asking for years to throw powder at football games and had been turned down, even though Shawnee Mission North students had a tradition of throwing powder in the stands for the last couple of years.
“We originally said no,” Athletic Director Heath Wilson said. “Mainly because our concerns of clean up being a problem, and then also it getting onto the football field and the cheerleaders cheer.”
However, Wilson and principal Dr. Lisa Gruman approved the use of it for the first home game. There were around seven pounds of orange chalk powder distributed by the Spirit Club throughout the section during the first quarter. Students threw powder during the C-C-C-O-U-G-A-A-A-R-S chant in the second quarter. Powder floated toward the cheerleaders, band, dance team and rained orange onto students dressed in black in the stands.
“I think where we misstepped was that we used too much powder,” Wilson said. “The bleachers were extremely dirty. It looked like cheeto dust.”
This caused a lot of cleanup for the North custodians, one of the biggest factors going into the ban.
“General clean up of the powder is plenty of water from a water hose washing it down,” said North building manager Paul Staudinger. “The time to clean after each game is about 2 hours to wash off the powder in the section and adjacent sections.”
This led to the district ban on the powder.
“ was nothing anybody was going against because we don’t want to make extra work for people,” Wilson said.
When asked about information on the ban, district athletic director Kent Glaser responded to questions with an AI overview about throwing powder. The AI overview states that the primary reasons for the ban could include “respiratory issues, slippery surfaces, eye infections, potential carcinogens, unfair conditions and property damage.”
