Humor me for a moment as I put on my gossip columnist hat and entertain a little rumor. It’s not often that I get a phone call where someone dishes out dirt — that’s the kind of stuff I generally have to dig up myself.
Most commonly, phone calls and emails come flooding in about games won, galas well danced, and other joyous occasions. But yesterday, I got a call about the Junior Symphony Ball that included such memorable and visceral descriptions as “walking through vomit in cowboy boots,” “drunk fest,” and “complete orgy.” The caller, whose daughter attended the Jan. 28 ball, said chaperones turn a blind eye to alcohol and drug use, and that the event has been declining in decorum for years.
This all falls in stark contrast to the JSB that Michelle Duncan, co-chair of the event, attended.
“The things she’s attesting to are really not correct,” Duncan said.
Duncan (and plenty of people whose glowing emails she forwarded to me) considers the ball a grand success. Sure, there was a bloody nose here and there, at least one kid bent over a trashcan, and another mouthy one cuffed by police, but Duncan isn’t losing any sleep over it.
“It’s like going to a concert,” she said. “Unfortunate things happen. You can only control it so much.”
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The ball drew more than 2,000 students and had around 200 parent chaperones. With all those hormones packed into the Palladium, something is bound to go down. But Duncan maintains it was far from “a complete orgy.”
“I did see one little couple kissing in the ballroom,” she said. “But it wasn’t a deep, heavy, intense thing. It was kind of like, ‘Oh, that’s sweet.’ ”
Duncan, who said this was the first official complaint in the JSB’s 53-year history, diplomatically offered to refund the caller’s ticket price.
“Nobody turned a blind eye,” she said. “Now with that many kids, could we have missed some stuff? Of course, but we tried our best.”
Did your kids go to the JSB? Do you agree with anonymous caller No. 1 or Duncan?
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