Recently formed Gay-Straight Alliance began meeting at the beginning of November in hopes of raising awareness and to serve as a safe forum where students of all sexual orientations can offer each other support.

Sophomore Misty Adkins, vice president, says she decided to start the club alongside senior Kayla Vognsen, president, when they realized how people of different sexual orientations were treated.

“We heard kids calling friends of ours names that we knew were inappropriate and rude,” Adkins said. “We just felt like everyone needed a place to come together and talk about issues surrounding sexuality and stuff like that.”

Vognsen hopes the club can positively unite students of all sexual orientations.

“I just hope we can educate people about the stereotyping and spread tolerance and awareness so people don’t have biased opinions anymore,” Vognsen said.

The club has had a maximum of 30 members attend meetings. According to Adkins this number was higher than expected, but GSA still has hopes of expanding their members.

“We hope to really grow and include a lot more people in the school and we would really love for it to be a school-wide thing,” Adkins said.

Despite a positive turnout and positive goals, negative setbacks have gotten in the way. Within two school days, 30 posters advertising the club had been slashed with keys and pencils, ripped off the walls, and thrown in trashcans.

Sophomore Alex Maupin, secretary, was mad about what might be a display of homophobia.

“It most likely might be fear. Homophobia, it’s a big thing,” Maupin said. “But most likely it’s just students being stupid.”

Both Adkins and Maupin agree that not a lot of effort was put into the posters. Therefore, Maupin feels the club did not do their part in preventing them from being destructed.

But before working to spread word of the club through posters and word-of-mouth, GSA had trouble with something else: getting the club approved. Vognsen claims that the administration was a bit hesitant to approve the club because it could be considered a “social taboo.”

“It took a long time to get approved by the administration. They were a little bit not very nice about it. We got the application and it took about a month [for the club to be approved],” Vognsen said.

Principal Tobie Waldeck clarified that he has no problem with this club in particular.

“People are people. It doesn’t matter race, gender, whatever. I want people to be able to work together in a calm, decent atmosphere and improve the community,” Waldeck said. “And as long as a club or organization, or even just an individual person, [is] working toward that goal, that’s a good thing.”

Complications occurred when Waldeck found out that no application process was in place for the school, despite a board policy stating one was needed along with a constitution. Most of that time, Waldeck was working on creating and developing an application form and process and a constitution.

After realizing no other clubs have had to go through this new application process, Waldeck decided to go ahead and approve the club. This new process will be put into place next year, where each club will go through board approval.

The club is now concerned with different things. Each meeting, GSA focuses on a specific topic and occasionally will devote time to answering anonymous questions entered into a basket by its members. Such topics GSA has touched on or plans to include opposition, Gay History Month, and dealing with coming out. The club plans on participating in events such as Day of Silence in April and possibly Trunk or Treat.

“What I hope to accomplish is to turn everybody’s mind on in the GSA to be safe and comfortable in their own skin,” Maupin said. “And not be afraid to be out of the closet, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, whatever.”

So far, the club has been successful at working together towards a common goal. Club sponsor Jeff Wieland agrees.

“The kids are all very supportive of one another,” Wieland said. “I’m actually amazed at how well everybody gets along and what a positive atmosphere it is when we have our club meetings.”

Meetings are Fridays at 3:05 p.m. in Wieland’s room. All students, regardless of sexual orientation, are encouraged to join.