LHS A Hub Of Summer Activity

Although the school year is over, Lakewood High School remains a beehive of activity all summer long. On any given weekday, starting as early as 6 a.m. and running past dark, you will find dedicated young citizens, students, athletes, performers and musicians looking to improve themselves, their group, their community or their team and willing to give up their summer leisure time to do so.

Many of the fall sports teams begin conditioning sessions shortly after school lets out. You can find the soccer teams up at the crack of dawn four days a week to work at improving their team, or the cross country teams running through town in the early morning hours in hopes of getting a leg up on conditioning for the fall season. And, of course, football begins its twice-a-day workouts in early August and have been lifting weights since school let out. Despite these team conditioning sessions being voluntary during the summer, the turnout is always strong. The golf and tennis teams' seasons begin while many families are still squeezing in their summer vacations in mid-August.

For eight weeks beginning in June, 200 middle schoolers take part in Help To Others’ Summer Service Camp at the high school. The camp runs four, two-week sessions and campers fan out across the city to lend a helping hand to other groups in need. If they are not out in the community, they are at the high school sorting mounds of clothing donated for H2O’s annual Clothes 4 Kids sale, which will be held on July 31 at the high school’s East Cafeteria.

And for four weeks out of the summer, you can find the LHS Ranger Marching Band in the evenings at LHS stadium practicing its routines in order to be in field-ready shape by the time the first football game rolls around on Aug. 27. Leading up to that season opener, the band will have already performed at the July 4 parade and Cedar Point to keep them on their toes during the summer. The Lakewood Project rock orchestra also stays busy during the first part of the summer with four-hour practices leading up to their highly anticipated July 4 concert.

Finally, learning doesn’t stop over the summer as hundreds of students take on summer classes in order to get ahead of the curve for next year or work on getting back on track in preparation for the coming school year.