An Ode to Our Ode

Shawnee Mission hail to thee…

The first time I heard those lyrics, and the song that followed them, I was not impressed. I didn’t like my new school’s song. I thought it sounded ugly and lacked a pleasant, melodious sound.

Today, I think it’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard.

Lancers we will ever be…

Yet there was a time when I almost wasn’t a Lancer. I was very close to choosing to attend Pembroke Hill instead of Shawnee Mission East. I was almost a (gag me) Raider. But I took a chance on East. I don’t know why, but I did. And for a long time, I regretted it.

We stand behind our colors bright…

But I didn’t stand behind them. I shed my Lancer colors out of embarrassment. As was the case with the song, I wasn’t always a big fan of East. As late as junior year, I regarded this school fairly negatively. I bought into the stereotype. I saw Lancers as arrogant, rich and callous. I saw negativity instead of positivity. I saw halls filled with TotalSMEastMoves instead of SMEPositweets.

When I met students from other schools, I tried to distance myself from my peers, assuring them I was nothing like my fellow Lancers. I didn’t want to be an East kid.

Columbia blue, black and white…

But while there were times when I was ashamed of this school, there were also times when I saw what this community could be at its best. During my junior year, I began to see more of that positive side. More and more, I saw the potential East had for a close-knit, positive student body. And as I started liking this school more, I began to like its song as well.

High school days too soon are gone…

I had once hated it, I grew to love my school’s song because of what it symbolized about the school. It was a glimpse of the positive side of East, a promise that this school could be better than its stereotype.

When we sing our song at games, what do we always do? We lock arms. I saw that motion as symbolic of a message that resonated in the lyrics of our anthem. That we were together. That every Lancer was part of our Shawnee Mission East family. For me, I began to love our song because it represented that promise of eternal solidarity as Lancers.

But fond memories linger on…

The school song summons many memories of singing it. But my favorite ones aren’t times after a big victory. My favorite memories of our song are times when we sang it after a bad loss. Times when our song brought me and all the other Lancer fans comfort, told us that things were alright because we were lucky enough to be at East, whether our teams won or lost. That’s when that sense of unity and positivity that I yearned for was at its strongest.

And then there was Nov. 26. That Monday which made all other Mondays seem like Fridays. The day after Tyler Rathbun died. The day that solidified my love for our anthem, and for the school itself.

May our spirits be increased…

As 167 Choraliers faded away from the final note of the beautiful Old Irish Blessing, I was beside myself. I leaned over the columbia blue railing of the stairwell, scars of sadness dripping down my cheeks. The only sounds to be heard were the sobs and whimpering of my fellow Choraliers. Then, out of the teary silence, we began to sing again: Shawnee Mission hail to thee…

In my rare moment of true mourning for a fallen hero I had never known, those words had a bigger effect on me than ever before. Our anthem told me things would get better moving forward. It said this tragedy would change everything for my peers.

But most importantly, it said that East had become the place I had hoped it could be. That we are a community. That we will always be Lancers, forever united behind our colors bright. In that moment, that song became more than a glimpse of the good side of East; it became proof that that was the true East. That at the end of the day, East was a school of SMEPositweets, not TotalSMEastMoves. In that moment, the song which had once struck me as ugly established my love for this school once and for all. In that moment, our song became the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard.

I wept throughout the song, both at the tragedy of the moment and the beauty of it. I only composed myself enough to sing one line, the one I meant the most:

And God watch over SM East.

Rest in peace, Tyler Rathbun. Thank you for showing me and everyone else what our school and our song can be.