The last time the Ludington Torch had a story featuring Ludington schools and trophies, it was an instant classic (The Return of the Trophy Girlfriend) with a little bit of everything including tragedy.  This time it's mostly tragedy as the Ludington Area School District (LASD) has decided to throw away its links to past glory.

The Oriole Sports Network on Facebook reports:  "ORIOLE NATION!!! Due to outstanding success in recent years, we've run out of room to display and or store athletic and academic trophies and plaques from past Oriole "Glory Days".

While it's a nice gesture for the school to offer up some of these old trophies to those who may have had a part in earning them (albeit they gave the coaches first dibs before all others), one has to wonder why their current school renovations and improvements did not allow enough room to display their school's past athletic and scholastic successes as embodied in trophies, plaques and team pictures.  Their old setup offered a lot of spaces for trophy cases to remind students of what they may someday earn individually or with their team and allow alumni to come by and point out their old accomplishments.  

In the planning of the improvements to the Ludington Middle and High School facilities, they apparently did not allow for enough space for the schools to display their hardware gotten from the hard work and time they put in.  The students that stay in our area and raise families will not be able to get the simple joy and pride of showing their children that they went to that same school and had some success, whether it was as part of the quiz bowl team or the basketball team.  

It continues a recurring theme that seems to have been prevalent with the 'improvements' made after the $101 million bond passed in 2019.  Our district as a net loss, lost three indoor gymnasiums and about ten outdoor basketball courts.  The landscaping, security, and traffic infrastructure near the new elementary were all poorly thought out and saw changes only after the elementary students were moved out there.  

We have lost a lot of ground in our schools of late and now we will throw away and effectively erase from our conscious our schools' academic and athletic history of success in the most concrete form as used to be seen in the expansive array of trophy cases that used to greet you at the high school.  This is a sad time for our school and its alumni.