It is a tradition to throw baby powder up in the air at the De Soto High School whiteout football games. The student section yells out the “I believe” chant and the cannons let loose, baby powder goes everywhere. But not for long, because baby powder is officially banned from DHS.

      The banning of baby powder was caused by multiple complaints from the football team, the student section and even the band.

“We love being by the student section, but the baby powder is not good for the uniforms, and they are really expensive. It’s really bad as well for brass instruments,”  band teacher Matthew Bradford said.

     Although baby powder has been removed on a negative note, many students and teachers seemed to enjoy the whiteout games.

   “I mean let’s be honest, it was pretty neat, I don’t see how you cannot think it’s cool,”  Principal Dustin Mortenson said.

      Not only did the baby powder provoke

problems, but it also made the football games unenjoyable for some students.

    “It was fun, but the bleachers were dusty and it was hard to breathe,” said sophomore class pep representative Chase Culver.

    Besides affecting the student body, it also affected the families and visiting teams.

    “It was also impacting parents who paid money to go to the games and also grandparents who wanted to watch it and didn’t want to get destroyed by a bomb of baby powder,” said sophomore class President Colin Campbell.

    Students are now expected to not bring baby powder to the football games.

    “We would treat it [baby powder] the same way with other things you’re not supposed to bring to football games, we’ll handle it on a case by case basis and follow up with the appropriate consequences,” Mortenson said.

    Because the baby powder at the whiteout games is so popular, Student Council is trying to come up with ideas to replace the baby powder.  

   When talking to StuCo about possible substitutes, many students suggested using toilet paper during the whiteout games.

   Whether StuCo decides to use toilet paper or not, there will still be whiteout games with the same fun and loud student section.