Mount Si Ski and Board Club reaches 50 members

Published 7:30 am Friday, December 16, 2016

One of Mount Si High School’s longest running traditions, the Ski and Board Club, is returning this January with a new club advisor, math teacher Amy Hecox.

The Ski and Board Club transports students to Snoqualmie Pass every Thursday for six weeks beginning Jan. 5. Students get a chance to hit the slopes for up to three hours before being bused back to the school. Hecox, who was a chaperone last year, took the role of club advisor after the previous advisor moved out of the Valley.

“When the position opened up I was asked to take it,” she said. “I’m really excited, it sounds like we are going to have a really good season.”

The club itself has been running for at least 40 years, Hecox said.

“It’s been going on for 40-something years, we don’t know the exact date,” she said. “We had a teacher at Mount Si who was a student at Mount Si and said it has been going since 1972.”

These days, the club draws a huge group of students looking to get up to Snoqualmie Pass. In the last school year, the club had 37 students participate; this year Hecox already has 50 students signed up.

With such a large group, Hecox is trying to secure a big enough bus to take all the students, or else the maximum student number would be reduced to 44, the number of students that a normal school bus can take.

“I have 50 students right now, I’m still working with the district office, originally they didn’t have a big enough bus, I’m pushing for bigger bus to get all 50 on,” she said. “The biggest issue is we are having a school bus driver shortage in the district, we are actually getting charter buses.”

The limit for one bus is 44 students, Hecox said. So if she is unable to secure a bigger bus, the club will have to drop down to only 44 students who get transportation up to Snoqualmie Pass.

Hecox and two to three chaperones will accompany the students up to the Snoqualmie Pass.

She said the participants are mostly freshmen who join the group in order to get transportation. The older students often have their own vehicles to get up to the Pass whenever they want and thus don’t participate in as large numbers.

It isn’t just Mount Si that takes students up to Snoqualmie Pass, Valley middle schools began a similar program about eight years ago, Hecox said.

At the middle school level participation numbers are even higher, Hecox said that Chief Kanim alone as about 85 students in its club. That interest in the middle school level carries over once those students get to Mount Si, so even more growth is expected.

“It’s a big deal because those students can’t drive themselves,” she said.

The competition to get into the program is so fierce that Hecox had to give out the sign-up forms in advance of the day she would begin accepting the applications, to give everyone a fair shot of getting in.

“Kids got the info about the last week of November. Then I officially opened on Dec. 5,” she said.

In addition to the standard $25 club fee at Mount Si high School, there is also a $65 transportation fee as well to help pay for the bus used by the club.

“There is a $25 club fee for students to join any club on Mount Si’s campus, right now we are starting at $65, a total of $90,” she said.

For more information on Mount Si’s Ski and Board Club, visit mtsiskiclub.weebly.com.