Valentine’s Day at SHS

February transforms Superior High School. The Spartan Shack turns into the Love Shack, lockers are decorated with hearts, and matchmaker forms flowing through the hallways. Senior Kyle Homich and his girlfriend, senior Amanda Peterson, visit each other hourly at every passing, like many couples with Valentine’s Day fever.

But Valentine’s Day was not always a holiday bound with cards and chocolates. Its roots began in 270 A.D. Emperor Claudius created a new law that forbade marriage altogether fearing for his soldier's loyalty with family ties. But a lone Christian bishop, Bishop Valentine, defied the law, marrying lovers in secret. Valentine's crime was eventually unveiled, and Claudius gave him a chance to renounce his Christianity and marriage philosophy. Valentine refused, and it ultimately cost him his life as he was pelted with stones, beaten by clubs, and beheaded. Years after Valentine's martyrdom, in 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius changed the non-Christian Roman festival of Lupercian, into Valentine's Day. Lupercian was a lottery of women, where Roman soldiers were given complete control over a woman sexually for one day.

Nowadays marriage is encouraged, and cupid-struck women and men are free to express their ties, without fatal consequences. While most couples are not drawn by a lottery ticket or secretly married on Valentine's Day, each couple still tries to express their love, or fascination with one another. Senior Kyle Homich did just this on Valentine’s Day.

“I took my girlfriend, Amanda Peterson, to the Texas Roadhouse with my family,” Homich said.

Valentine's Day, once a pagan holiday for Romans, has molded itself into a carefree holiday for lovers.

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