With prom quickly approaching, it is interesting to look back at how the event has changed throughout Roosevelt’s history.

Prom came to the then Eleanor Roosevelt Senior High in the late ’70s. The decade of flower children, bell bottoms, and questionable hair decisions paved the way for Roosevelt’s modern night-long party.

The 1979 prom was chronicled by then-student Nancy Gockowski in her article “Senior Prom a Success” in The Raider Review. Held on Thursday, May 10th from 8 pm to 2 am, the prom hosted “four hundred twenty students…with administration and some faculty to partake in food and dance.”

Modern-day senior Katie Yeagley attended the prom last year. Although she did not remember if any administration was there, she reported a similar number of attendants at the 2018 prom. “Uh, a pretty big number [was there] like the room was full and then they, it was hard to tell, cause people would go in and out of the main room. There was a pretty big amount…like 500.”

Gockowski praised the dinner at the 1979 prom which “consisted of roast sirloin of beef, potato martin souffle, garden beans, and French pastries.”

Yeagley had a different experience. “They had pasta. There might have been meat, but I can’t remember. I think they had fish or something.” She later recanted, stating that they probably served chicken.

The 1979 prom was filled with “hundreds of tireless dancers who crowded on the floor and who discoed, freaked, and swayed the night away.”

Current student Katie Yeagley said that she does not dance much, but that “some people were just jumping.” Blushing, she continued, “other people were, you know high school dancing.”

According to Time Magazine, “the prom can be traced back to the simple co-ed banquets that 19th century American universities held for each year’s graduating class.” With literally centuries of history, Roosevelt students are bound to keep freaking and swaying for years to come.