Johnson: Members of a special class are going to their first prom

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 25, 2007 at midnight

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She was so excited, she could barely contain herself, or wait for her classmate to finish speaking.

Katie Guthrie, a sweetheart of a 19-year-old, who is sometimes difficult to understand in her less-excited moments, finally stepped forward.

"Red dress!" she squealed, answering the question of what she would be wearing, concluding with a genuinely heartfelt, "I'm SO excited!"

She is one of seven seniors and one junior in Susan Spangler's special-needs class at Englewood High School who on Friday will attend their first prom. They'll be going with the the rest of their senior and junior classmates.

They range in age from 16 to 20 years old and have never attended before largely because, well, no one ever really thought to ask if they wanted to go.

This changed at the start of the school year when Spangler and her assistants, Annette Montoya, Jerri Benoit and Rhoda Horrom, broached the class with the question of whether they wanted to go. All of the students raised their hands.

Yet how would they pay for it?

Debbie Abrams, the speech therapist who visits the class once a week, volunteered to apply to the Englewood Foundation for a grant. It quickly was granted. But the amount was not enough.

The class members then decided they would raise the money. They bought pencils and made key rings and assorted other trinkets and staged a sale at the school just before Christmas.

A month earlier, the home economics teacher gathered several turkeys that she and the students roasted to sell to teachers and administration staff.

"They delivered fliers door to door, did a whole variety of things," Spangler recounted.

Others, hearing word of the class's prom dream, donated afghans and needlepoint artwork. The class held raffles and raised more money.

"They raised about $400 to $500, plus the little that was left over from the grant," Spangler said.

With the money, the young women bought dresses, the young men suits or tuxedos. The Englewood High student council, having gotten wind of it all, donated prom tickets.

"We were going to pay for it, no big deal," Spangler said, "but that was just so awesome."

It has been that way with her class all four years, the Englewood High student body being as accepting of them as any other students.

At pep rallies earlier in the year it was learned that some in the class wanted to be cheerleaders, and arrangements were made for a cheerleading specialist to work with them.

"One of the girls who is in a wheelchair had always wanted to go out for the cheerleading squad," Susan Spangler recalled. "Obviously she couldn't. Yet at those pep rallies, she got to be a member of the cheering squad."

Two in the class are afflicted with Down syndrome. Two are wheelchair-bound and, like most of the others in the class, have severe speech and learning disabilities.

Susan Spangler, a teacher at the high school since 1977, has taught each of them for four years.

"They are just great kids, really fun kids, who in some areas are more adept emotionally and socially than others in the school," she says. "They are able to appreciate more than kids in their age group, largely because they have learned to accept other people and are grateful for what they have and accomplished.

"They still, though, have the same want for acceptance like every other teenager. That's the same."

The class will meet at the school just before 5 p.m., where the district will provide a wheelchair-accessible school bus to take them to White Fence Farm for a pre-prom dinner, discount courtesy of the restaurant.

At a little before 8 p.m., they will arrive at the University of Denver for the prom.

"This will be my first prom, and I cannot tell you how excited I am," says Erik Macias, a 17-year-old senior, adding that he bought a suit, "just to look nice."

"Yeah, I'm planning to dance and stuff. I'm just going to be out there. If there is a girl sitting, who has no one to dance with, if she says OK, we'll go."

No one will bring a date, except for Brianna Carey, an 18-year-old senior. She'll be accompanied by Brandon, a close friend of her family's. He will wear a tuxedo, she says. She has purchased a red pantsuit for the occasion.

"I am so excited, I cannot tell you," she says.

They will stay for about two hours. "We'll see if we can make it that long," Susan Spangler said.

"I'm just praying that this will be really fun. These are really great kids. We want it to be a happy time, one in which they will build memories that will last forever."

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com

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