By Dave Stafford, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
ANDERSON — Anderson High School basketball at the Wigwam isn’t what it used to be, according to AHS alumni Kim Guthrie and Suzanne Kucharczyk.
Kucharczyk remembers feeling chills when the lights went out before the game, signaling the start of the traditional Indian maiden and mascot dance.
She remembers the roar from the bleachers as students stomped their feet in time with the drum beats.
“You could feel the gym rock,” she said. “I remember holding my breath when the Indian mascot ran across the gym and jumped over the Indian maiden. We would scream at the top of our lungs.”
The basketball games at the Wigwam were one of Kucharczyk’s first memories of attending large events, and they made her feel as if she belonged to something larger.
“We just knew at that point we were Anderson High School and we had the largest gym in the state and we had kick-butt basketball players,” she said. “We were at the top of the world at that moment.”
Since Kucharczyk graduated in 1976, basketball games at the Wigwam have become somewhat less of a spectacle, she said, and crowds have thinned from the packed house that used to watch the games.
That’s why Kucharczyk and Guthrie have spent the past months gathering alumni support and encouraging their friends and former classmates to attend Anderson’s first boys home basketball game of the season at 7 p.m. Nov. 28. As of last week, 165 alumni planned to pack the Wigwam.
Guthrie said the event started out with her and some friends going to the game to support her daughter, Sophie Guthrie, who will be this year’s Indian maiden. Eventually, word spread and the event developed three purposes.
“In the beginning, it just came about as a handful of friends that just wanted to go with me and see Sophie and be proud,” Kim Guthrie said. “Secondly, a chance that everyone could reconnect and all these alumni, we realized, really just wanted to experience the Wigwam again. Thirdly, to support the school system, to support Anderson High School, the namesake of the city with all the traditions.”
In the midst of Guthrie and Kucharczyk’s planning of the alumni event at the Wigwam, Anderson Community Schools Superintendent Lennon Brown recommended to the school board that the school system consolidate schools to save money. One option included going to one high school from the two current high schools, Anderson and Highland High School.
“If we can show up en masse and show the town of Anderson that we care and show this high school that we care and show the school board that we care, I hope it has some impact on the students and making them proud of their school and the tradition we grew up in,” Kucharczyk said. “Sometimes it’s not about numbers, sometimes you have to take into account what makes a school live, which is its spirit, its heart, and then the numbers will come.”
Kucharczyk said it only made sense for Anderson High School to be the one high school in town if the school board takes that option.
“We understand the town has changed a lot since we left,” she said. “It’s still about the Indians that founded the town. It’s the school that carries the town name and the town history, what’s left of what Anderson’s famous for.
“Now Anderson has to be famous for taking care of the people that are there and making sure that its history lives on.”
Stacey Ireland-Toal comes from a long line of AHS graduates and was an Indianette during her time at the school. She will travel with her children from Bloomington to see the game Nov. 28.
“I want the kids to see what I had when I was that age and how much it meant to me,” she said. “(Games were) complete and utter chaos. It was full every game, and if you got there late, you would be standing. The gym was stuffed top to bottom. It was a phenomenal atmosphere that I think the kids are kind of missing out on now.”
Guthrie said 300 tickets have been set aside for alumni attending the Nov. 28 game. The event is open to all alumni from any class, and the alumni will meet after the game at Moran’s restaurant on the Grandview Golf Course. Moran’s will offer an Anderson High School banner for alumni to sign, which will be raffled off with proceeds going toward a needy local family, Guthrie said.
Kucharczyk said she was afraid many alumni would be shocked at the difference between Indians games now and in the past.
“There were lotteries to get tickets,” she said. “Now you can sit anywhere; you used to never get tickets on the floor. I think a lot of these folks are going to be surprised and a little bit sad.
“We’ll all maybe be able to rekindle that spirit because it’s not gone, it’s just changed.”
Contact Aleasha Sandley: 640-4805, aleasha.sandley @heraldbulletin.com.
