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On Wednesday, October 3, there were no seniors at Red Cloud High School. No lockers clanged open and shut in the senior hallway. Senior classes were attended by rows of unoccupied desks. At lunch, the abundance of vacant tables gave the cafeteria an empty feeling. This might sound like a case of mass truancy, but it wasn't; it was the first day of the Red Cloud senior retreat. That morning, seniors and a handful of teachers piled onto two school busses and headed for the Storm Mountain Retreat Center, a small group of cottages nestled in a secluded portion of the Black Hills. According to the head of Campus Ministry, Jesuit scholastic Joe Hoover, the purpose of the two-day retreat was "to build class unity and keep the kids focussed on finishing their last year strong, achieving the goals that they've set for themselves and not falling into a senior slump." Hoover, who teaches Catholic Rites at Red Cloud, led the trip and, after the group smudged and prayed, started it off with a short talk laying out the goals of the retreat. Later in the day, seniors engaged in a number of team-building activities. In addition to traversing an obstacle course together, the students each took a trust fall, in which one person lets herself or himself fall backwards off a table, into the arms of fellow students, and a trust walk. For the trust walk, the students were lined up, blind-folded, and led down a hiking path by Lakota Studies teacher Roger White Eyes. White Eyes guided the student at the head of the line, who in turn guided the next student, who in turn guided the third student, and so on. Students had to trust their classmates to keep them on the path. Before dinner, the students played games, attended a prayer service, led by seniors Sierra Two Bulls and Stevie Tobacco, and wrote letters to themselves discussing goals for the year. The letters will be returned to them at the second senior retreat, this spring. Seniors spent the evening around a bonfire, listening to the school drum group play and, in the true spirit of bonfires, swapping ghost stories.
Those present at the retreat--both seniors and faculty--considered it a success. "There was a balance of a lot of fun...class bonding, and some reflection. It was a good balance," Hoover said. As the senior presence returned to Red Cloud the following Tuesday, when classes resumed, Hoover said he felt that the retreat "had the potential to help heal divisions....from what I've heard. It reminds kids that they're all in the same place."
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Seniors take a two day retreat at Storm Mountain 
Thursday saw a couple morning activities. Lakota Spirituality teacher Alvin Slow Bear led a prayer tie ceremony, and English teacher Mike Sunderland took students on a nature hike. Around lunchtime, busses departed for Red Cloud, and the beginning of fall break.