By JIM MEYER
Staff writer
Oil City High School students are planning a team building day Thursday in which they hope to break down social barriers and possibly set a world record.
Senior Joshua Kellogg wants to involve as many students as possible in his attempt to set a record for most high-fives in one minute.
“I got the idea last year in Mr. (John) Black’s class,” Kellogg said. “I wasn’t really doing my work. I was looking up random stuff on the Internet and found that there was a world record for most high-fives.”
Black, who also serves as faculty advisor for the student Leadership Council, said he believes Oil City High School had been in a record book before for the old building having a ground floor entrance on all five levels due to its hillside location. Principal Scott Stahl insisted that was an urban legend.
The Guinness Book of World Records says the current record for high-fives in one minute is 290 and was achieved last year by the Kaiser Permanente health care organization in San Diego.
Kellogg said he hopes that finding a record to try to break becomes an annual event for future team building days. His attempt at securing the high five record title will take place at the school around 8 a.m., prior to the first group of students departing for Two Mile Run County Park at 8:30 a.m.
Stahl had introduced the idea of team building day from a similar event during his time at Juniata College.
“Classes were canceled for the day and the students would go to a park,” Stahl said. “You’d get to meet students from different areas, and it was an opportunity for everyone to socialize.”
Stahl said the most positive accomplishment of the team building day is seeing students come together regardless of social cliques.
“Traditional cliques that we may have experienced in high school are breaking down, and that’s a good thing,” Stahl said. “Our theme for the day is Oilers Together. We want to bring students together and not just with who they eat lunch with.”
Though Stahl introduced the seed of the team building idea, he credits students, and the Leadership Council specifically, for developing the idea.
Annie Lenze and Haley Bechtel, both seniors on Leadership Council, echoed Stahl’s statements about cliques.
“Since my freshman year, this has been a good event to break up the cliques because you’re assigned to a random group and you have to work together,” Lenze said.
Half the day is reserved for team building challenges based on communication and teamwork, and the other half is more casual with games, including wiffle ball and life-size Clue, a live action version of the classic board game.
Black mentioned that this year marks the first time students will leave the school grounds for the event.
“Unfortunately, school can be kind of miserable for a lot of kids, so we’re trying to provide some moments where it’s not that way,” Stahl said. “Students pick up most of the slack. I couldn’t do this on my own.”
