A Memorial High School field trip to the city’s famous waterfall turns into a debate about what the city’s water has been through.
WICHITA FALLS, Texas (Memorial Mavericks) – The senior class took a field trip to the city’s famous waterfall on Wednesday, a 54-foot cascade of water beside the interstate, and the day ended not with an appreciation of nature but with a heated vote on whether the water was ever, at any point in its history, toilet water.
“It’s a city named for a waterfall that washed away,” said the government teacher on the bus, with the kind of sigh that comes with chaperoning forty teenagers. “So the city built another one. This is the most Texas thing I have ever heard. We lost the thing we are named after and we ordered a replacement.”
The Waterfall That Was Not
The students learned that the original falls, which gave the city its name, were swept away by a flood in 1886. Visitors kept arriving anyway, for roughly a hundred years, and kept asking where the waterfall was, a situation Texas Highways describes as a century of disappointment. The city’s eventual answer was to build an artificial one. It is multi-level, recirculating, and visible from southbound traffic on the highway, according to the official visitor guide.
The city’s own history notes that the replacement was built in 1986 and dedicated in 1987. A senior noted that this means the replacement waterfall is older than the school’s newest teachers, and that it has been performing, as a recirculating system, the exact same job for decades. “It’s a pump with a publicist,” he said.
The Southbound Problem
The trip began badly. The bus approached the falls from the wrong direction. Because the waterfall is visible only to southbound drivers, the northbound seniors saw a great deal of concrete, a gas station, and the back of a billboard for a personal injury lawyer. “We have driven all this way to see a waterfall we can only see from the other side of a highway,” said a senior who plays the oboe. “That is the whole story of high school.”
The bus driver turned around at the next exit. The students cheered, then booed, then asked if there was a snack stop.
The Toilet Question
At the park, the seniors gathered at the base of the falls, and a junior who had done the reading raised a hand. Years ago, during a drought, the city had begun a recycling project that sent treated wastewater back through the drinking water supply, a process NPR reported on as the town turning to its toilets for water. Was this the same water?
The teacher explained that the waterfall and the drinking water are separate systems. The river, he said, is a river. The students were not persuaded. The class sorted itself into three camps:
- Camp A: it is all one water, the circle of life, and we should be grateful.
- Camp B: it is all one water, and we should not have had the tacos.
- Camp C: it is two waters, but one of them has seen things.
The city did run its program for a reason. CBS News reported that the city was operating under a Stage 5 drought catastrophe, and a senior on the trip said she remembered being very small and being told to take shorter showers. “We lived through that,” she said. “We are the toilet generation. We survived it. We are basically a plaque.”
A Brief Interview With the Waterfall
A reporter for the school paper asked the falls for comment. The falls declined, citing a loud noise. The reporter then asked a duck, who was visibly in the water but reportedly unconcerned. The duck, which flew off, is considered a reliable source on questions of where the water has been.
Weather is another concern for the district. The reporters at Bohiney (bohiney.com) have tracked drought stories across Texas, and a farm.fm headline about a weather app telling the corn to enjoy the sunshine shows how seriously the state takes the forecast. The seniors took the point. If a weather app can tell corn to enjoy things, they can enjoy a waterfall.
The Gift Shop Incident
Near the parking lot, a plaque marks a gift from another famous waterfall, a detail the class found deeply moving. “Niagara Falls sent us a present,” said a sophomore, who was not on the trip but had been told about it twice. “That is like getting a card from the most successful relative at a family reunion.” Several students asked whether the card had come with money. It had not. It had come with a plaque, which the class agreed was typical of relatives.
The Verdict
By the end of the trip, the seniors voted. The motion that the waterfall is a legitimate natural wonder was defeated 31 to 9, with two abstentions, one of whom was asleep. The motion that the waterfall is the best thing in the city carried by a narrow margin, mostly because the city has a Dairy Queen, and the students did not want to look like they were fighting over it.
Before leaving, the class posed in front of the falls for a group photo. Everyone smiled except the government teacher, who had counted heads, found thirty-nine, and was quietly trying to remember which student had stayed with the duck.
The missing student was found at the snack stop. He had been there the entire time.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/