Boys Declared Superior Gender of PHS Gender Wars

On January 17, the boys and the girls of Payson High faced off in a heated battle for the undisputed title of the best gender in the school. Though the battle was close the whole time, the boys pulled off a win in the last competition, earning 50 points for winning the relay race.

                The games were kicked off with Shalee Nelson and Chris Montoya going head-to-head, trying to find Polly Pockets and little army men in a kiddie pool full of shredded paper. Shalee Nelson pulled off the win by finding two of the Polly Pockets, while Chris found none.

                Perhaps the most disgusting competition of the games was the Peanut Butter-Licking War. Two sides of a plexi-glass square were covered in peanut butter, and a boy and girl were placed on both sides, both trying to lick as much peanut butter from their side as possible. Three boys and three girls faced off, with the boys winning two matches and the girls winning one. Noah Quist, one of the boys involved in the Peanut Butter-Licking War, related how sick he felt after licking all the peanut butter from his side.

                “I have heartburn. I think it’s from the peanut butter.”

                Later in the games, the boys and girls faced off in a dance-off with Shay Krebs, Becca Brown and Maris Mortenson among those representing the girls, and Damon Bean, Daniel Simmons and Olaea Puefua among those representing the boys. In the end the competition came down to Olaea and Maris, who both popped and locked like there was no tomorrow. Olaea pulled out a win in the final seconds, leaving the girls in the stands screaming in protest. Though Maris was disappointed with her loss, she accepted defeat gracefully.

                “Olaea is a way better dancer than me! He actually knows what he is doing. I just make up dances in my bedroom to Oingo Boingo,” Maris said.

While the Student Council set up certain games, the announcers of the competition, Mckay Savage and Calli Jensen, kept the crowd involved by asking students from the stands to pick a number from 1 to 101. They then looked at a list they had on hand, where those numbers corresponded with a random object, and said that the first person who brought that object to one of the referees was awarded 5 points for their teams. The girls, generally having everything in the known universe in their purses, handily won almost all the extra points, which made a difference in the end of the competition.

Because of the extra points that the girls earned, the beginning of the last competition found the score tied at 100’s. The relay race was close for most of the time, but the boys blew the girls away in the final portion of the race: the cup-stacking. As the boys placed the final cup, the boys in the stands erupted in cheers, jeers, and chants of “Back to the Kitchen.” The girls hung their heads in defeat, but still harbor the hope of becoming next year’s Gender War Champions.