On November 13, at 9:45 AM, Wheeling’s Very Own Long List of Questions to Eventually Be Placed On Page 5 of the Second Edition of the Spokesman Newspaper was released to the almost 2,000 students of Wheeling. Of the almost 2,000 students that attend, only 96 responded as of December 9. Those 96, however, made up interesting data composed of real responses from real people. This is what Wheeling High School had to say.

For the first question, respondents were asked about what holiday they liked the most. Given how there were options for Diwali, Halloween, Día de los muertos, Thanksgiving Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year, it was a given that Christmas would be popular. And it was, as out of 96 responses, 65.6% said Christmas was their favorite holiday. Second place was Halloween, at 16.7%. There was the other option, in which people submitted responses like Eid, Easter, and “My Birthday”. Someone submitted “Linconmas”. What is Linconmas?

The second question dealt with people liking snow or not. This turned out to be a little shocking, as no one expected this many people to say yes. How many people did? Out of 96, 74 said yes, or just over ¾.

With finals week being very close by, it wouldn’t hurt to ask about the amount of final exams that students have. This resulted in 35 of students out of 96 to answer that they are taking three final exams. Other than that, 24 said four, 13 said 2, and 13 said that they have more than four final exams. Nevertheless, go study.

Question #4 wasn’t required, so only 87 people responded. This question asked people what they were thankful for. This was a text based question, but even so, about 27 people answered with friends in their answer. About 26 had family or parental figures included in answers. There are some beautiful answers though.

“My passing grade in APLAC… like actually tho”

“Nicki Minaj”

“I am thankful for my friends and family for being there and supporting me whenever they can.”

“I’m thankful for school. I think we take it for granted, especially with being able to see friends while taking advantage of the opportunities we have.”

“I’m thankful that even though i was sick and out of school for 2 days that just one of my teachers gave me late credit. Thank you Mr. Padron🤝.”

“What is the best part of December?” just so happened to be the fifth question that 95 answered. Of those 95 that responded, 57 said holiday festivities, which was expected to be common. Others have said about the winter season arriving (in which 12 responded), it being the end of the year (which 12 responded to that), and that it was their birthday (in that case, happy birthday to those four that said so). Interestingly enough, four people said winter break was the best part. Why didn’t I think of that? 

Alright, bonus question time. Halloween was still fresh in peoples’ minds when this poll was released. There was a wide variety of answers given. Unfortunately, 47.9% of 94 people had responded that they did not dress up for halloween, showing the clear lack of the halloween spirit. Thankfully, the other half did dress for halloween. Four people had dressed up as a witch, two people dressed up as a cow, two people dressed up as a dinosaur, and two people dressed up as vampires. Other than that, there were many answers. There were people dressed up as Velma, Medusa, Mr. Clean, Freddie Mercury, and Homestuck for example. Strangely, that last answer was submitted as “homestuck heheheheehehhe”. I could imagine who said that.

For many years, the question “Who do you think will win, 1 billion lions or all the Pokemon?” has been debated in many places. From internet forums, to summer school, the question has found itself in casual conversations big and small. So, to settle the debate, I asked 96 people the dreaded question. Unsurprisingly, an overwhelming 75% answered that all the Pokemon would win. Well, that answers the question.

The last question asked was about where the best bathroom is in the school. After going through about 88 responses, these are the current rankings of the bathrooms (given that 16 people said none/I don’t care, nine were being too general, and four votes somehow got lost while counting). Eighth place goes to the nurses office bathrooms with one vote. Seventh place goes to the english wing and pool area bathrooms with two votes. Sixth place goes to the special education wing with three votes. Fifth place goes to the CTE wing (fieldhouse area) with four votes. Fourth place goes to the business wing and foyer bathrooms with six votes. Third place goes to the social studies wing with seven votes. Second place goes to the math wing with 10 votes. The area with the best bathrooms are the science wing bathrooms with 18 votes. If you have a science class, be thankful that the bathrooms there are above average.

With the data in and responses sorted, all there is left to do is to thank the people who voted. Thank you to all who have voted in this fun poll, and have a very happy holiday Wildcats.

Image: The WHS front parking lot on Jan. 28, 2022 – Joshua Malvas