Two young journalists investigating the rivalry between Garfield and Roosevelt were crushed when they realized that no such rivalry exists.

Vicki Theffield* and Maryland Jurney*, both Garfield juniors, arrived at Roosevelt High School on a sunny morning in March, ready to infiltrate classes and interrogate unsuspecting RHS students. What their interrogations revealed was both shocking and heartbreaking.

“Roosevelt students don’t care about us,” Jurney said, wiping her eyes. “They think about Ballard, and Ballard only. There’s just no room for Garfield in their minds.”

Furthermore, there may never have been room for Garfield in the minds of Roosevelt students.

“I have no memory of any rivalry between Garfield and Roosevelt,” said Steven Strausz, who graduated from Roosevelt in 1973. “I also suspect that many school rivalries and other school traditions had been abandoned in the late 1960s.”

If Theffield and Jurney had consulted Strausz and other alumni first, they could have saved time and money. As it happened, they got their answers the hard way — by doing fieldwork.

The girls attended three classes as though they were considering enrolling at Roosevelt for the 2009 – 2010 school year. They asked the Roughriders questions about Roosevelt and other high schools in the district, especially Garfield.

Before entering the school, Theffield and Jurney donned intricate disguises. They assumed that if they were identified as Bulldogs, they would be bound and gagged with green and gold cloth upon entering RHS.

The reality was much less exciting.

“Nobody really noticed us,” Theffield said, openly sobbing.

The girls stumbled into their first class, biology, two minutes before the bell. The biology teacher, Tracy Landboe, had been a student teacher at Garfield last year. She recognized the girls immediately; they had to silence her before she blew their cover in front of 30 enemy students.

After a short lecture by Landboe, the class split into lab groups. Theffield and Jurney were able to converse with students as they examined some type of marine plant life.

“We said, ‘We want to get the dirt on Garfield before we visit it tomorrow,’” Jurney said. “‘We want to know what the Garfield kids won’t tell us on the tour.’”

Unfortunately, there was no dirt. The Roughriders openly trashed Ballard, but they didn’t seem to have opinions about Garfield. They weren’t really sure where it was or if it looked like a school. Their comments were, at worst, vague.

One student said that there are “probably parties” at Garfield.

“All the people there are kinda weird,” another offered.

“It’s in Pioneer Square surrounded by fried chicken places,” one girl informed Theffield and Jurney.

“First of all, Garfield is 1.95 miles from Pioneer Square. Secondly, surrounded by fried chicken fumes would be a much more apt phrase,” Jurney huffed in an interview later that evening.

Some Roughriders even recommended Garfield. They said that if Theffield and Jurney didn’t enroll at Roosevelt, they should definitely go to Garfield.

But although they avoided persecution, Theffield and Jurney did experience some culture shock.

“The omnipresence of green and gold was blinding,” Theffield said. “I was constantly searching for a glimpse of something purple, but to no avail.”

The girls were also surprised to learn that they didn’t need a pass to go to the water fountain.

“The teachers and students coexist as free equals,” Jurney said, pulling out a tissue. “It’s inspiring.”

The shock inflicted by this policy (or lack thereof) remained visible on the faces of the two girls through the remainder of class and passing period. And thus began Language Arts. As a daily ritual, the teacher started the class by encouraging students to interject announcements. These ranged from complaints about sore muscles to musings about Theffield’s beauty.

But when Theffield announced to the class she had received bladder control surgery on the previous day, she was not met with the support and respect her statement clearly demanded. In fact, students were gutsy enough to snicker at her, and worse yet, stare.

Jurney experienced a similar response after she opened up about her switch to bifocals and the stress accompanying the decision.

“We try to give them glimpses of our lives, let them see who we truly are, and they pull the carpet out from under us,” the girls wrote in a complaint to the superintendent.

This complaint spanned 69 pages and ended in what the girls called “a fair compromise.” But the superintendent replied that no, the Roughriders would not be shipped to Alaska, and no, the school district did not plan on imploding the building the following Tuesday.

But back to Ravenna.

Sick of the condescending attitudes, the young ladies took special care to pick out a lunch table with peers who would not push them to fits of rage. They spotted a group of boys who, alone, probably accounted for every minority group found at Roosevelt. Lunch quickly became a highlight of the day.

The girls gave the boys their spiel about deciding between Roosevelt and Garfield, and surprisingly, the boys urged them with exuberance to attend Garfield. Various reasons were provided, including, “better people,” “fun environment,” and “more diversity.” Indeed, it was exposure to said diversity that made the girls comfortable approaching this group in the first place.

Lunch came screeching to an end. Laughs had been shared. Friendships formed. Lives rejuvenated. But apparently, the Roosevelt bell schedule devalues such ideals. It marches to its own drum, and sadly the girls were forced to bid their companions farewell as they headed off to their last class of the day, math.

Math was more of the same. Their classmates maintained a friendly distance, partly due to the fumes wafting from Jurney’s feet. Yet the girls still found ways to interact with their peers.

One boy said, “[At Garfield] you’re either really nerdy and smart, or a thug. I would imagine thugs beat up the nerds, so…”

He trailed off, glancing at Jurney’s glasses. She gulped. Theffield gasped and shuddered with indignation at such a preposterous insinuation.

“I don’t think you guys would get beat up!” another boy chimed in.

The girls “politely” excused themselves and planned their exit from the premises, an event which surely would have the school buzzing for days.

As the bell rang, Theffield whipped on a Garfield sweatshirt while waving a purple shirt above her head. Jurney took off her shoes and rolled up her jeans to reveal purple socks.

And so the two friends marched off down the hall, shouting, “G-H-S! G-H-S!” and scattering purple and white Q-tips at the feet of passers-by.

“No one cared. No one joined our chants. NO ONE EVEN COMPLIMENTED MY SOCKS!!” Jurney shrieked, approximately eight seconds before she collapsed on the floor in a fit of hysteria.

After 26 hours of interviews, we have come to the conclusion that Theffield and Jurney are semi-melodramatic. But such is the way of life.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.