Junior David Reed went into Assistant Principal Staci Peterson’s office, and was met by Peterson, Technical Advisor Robert Michon, and his friend Trey Wanicke.
“When I walked in, Trey and I looked at each other and we both knew something was wrong and that maybe we were in trouble,” Reed said.
Peterson and Michon informed them of why they had been called down to the office. Their charge: making a website allowing Seaholm students to play games during class.
“They gave us a lecture on why creating Treywanicke. com was morally and ethically wrong, even though it was not against school rules since we created it at home,” Wanicke said.
Without revealing or confirming any names, Michon does recall a situation involving a pair of Seaholm students creating game-based websites.
“A couple of students started some websites, one of them being Bpsfun. com,” Michon said. “Based on the wording on the website, it’s pretty clear that the sites are targeted at school-aged kids.”
It all started when Wanicke bought the domain name Treywanicke.com, with Reed helping him turn the domain into a website designed to showcase his football career.
However, Wanicke and Reed had a sudden change of heart when they noticed everyone in their composition class was doing the same thing in the computer lab.
“Everyone was playing games on the computers,” Reed said.
Sophomore David Bender has used these sites to play games during class when he isn’t too busy with schoolwork.
“I play Slime Soccer sometimes,” Bender said. “It’s a great way to pass the time in class when you’re done with your work and you’re looking for something to do.”
Michon points out that valuable usage of time is not the only reason some of the games kids play are not a good idea.
“Some of these games might involve viruses, adware, spyware-you name it,” said Michon. “Also, some of these applications add more toolbars so you might have six toolbars on there and they end up fighting with each other, they all want to be the top dog! So yeah, it can clutter things up on the computers.”
Despite being a crusader against the Seaholm gaming community, Michon points out that there are rare instances in which playing a game on school computer would be acceptable.”
“If there is a student that is done with their homework, has an A in every class, and there’s virtually nothing else they could be doing, and there is not another student that needs the computer for legitimate purposes, then I suppose it might be fine for that student to go ahead and play a game,” Michon said. “However, that’s pretty unlikely.”
Reed wanted to make one thing clear, for the record.
“I just want everyone to know that I made TreyWanicke.com, Trey just bought the domain name,” Reed said. “I feel like there are a lot of people that think Trey makes the sites because of Treywanicke.com.”
The duo did not let the block on Treywanicke. com stop them.
“After they put a block on Treywanicke. com, I created Bpsfun.com,” Reed said. “But at the beginning of the school year, I had to go to another meeting and listen to another lecture because of it.”
After Treywanicke.com and Bpsfun. com were taken off the Seaholm gaming menu, Reed simply created another site that he wished not to have named for this article.
All along, the pair’s motivation was simple.
“We thought there should be one site that has all the games they like, all under one domain.”
