by Brendan Phimsoutham, Staff Writer
During the major storms of January 4, 2023 the set location for the Mills High School Winter Formal was made a victim of heavy rain water and flooding. The unknown damage at Devil’s Canyon Brewery in San Mateo has left many students who plan to attend the dance in question as to whether or not the Formal will happen or not. However, after an official interview with Ms. Dove, the Head planner of Mills’ School events, there seems to be more relief than discomfort.
As of January 18, the storm has calmed down and an interview with Ms. Dove had been arranged to see if the floods really did affect the plans for the Winter Formal. According to Dove, there has been no permanent or major damage to the location, and the restaurant is already back in business after maintenance. She mentioned that they were a brewery and that they needed to run business as usual so a logical answer to the situation would be that floods can’t really put them out of business so long as the damage didn’t disable the functions of the building.
Moving on to the bigger question of the matter: Is the Winter Formal still happening? Yes, there have been no changes to the schedule and the dance is still happening, says Dove. It was surprising to hear, but as she had stated before, the building had not sustained any unfixable damage. However, as soon as she had caught wind of the location being flooded she already had backup plans in mind. Had the brewery actually been put out of business by the flood or the building permanently damaged and made unsafe for personnel, the Mills Winter Formal would’ve just been moved to another site such as CSM or the Hiller Aviation Museum. Other than the slight possibility of location change the dance is to happen on February 11th, with tickets available for purchase on Wednesday January 25, 2023.
A lot of planning and preparation has happened to make the Winter Formal a possibility, making the work of Ms. Dove nothing short of remarkable. But a final detail in the interview from her explained as to why the dance was so important despite the obstacles which had popped up so suddenly. Dove said that it had been such a long time (to be exact, a total of 3 years) since an actual dance had happened outside of the Mills High School Campus, and that she was excited to finally have one. She also stated that if there was an event for Mills it was always run by her in a rather enthusiastic tone of voice. It is safe to say that students can be reassured thanks to Ms. Dove that the dance is still on schedule to happen.
In hindsight, the answer to all the impending questions wasn’t really that complicated; there are no further details other than what has been previously mentioned. Mills will have a Winter Formal on February 11, 2023 and despite the raging storm of early January the location is still set to have crowds of Mills students enjoying themselves in a dance.
