At the end of every school year, seniors at Utica put together a competition called water wars. Water wars allows graduating seniors to let loose and make some final memories with their friends. Teams of five come together and compete against another team until they eliminate their opponents for the week.

Water wars is one of the very few student-organized events and is strictly for seniors only to participate in.

Most seniors look forward to this at the end of the year, but those not competing seem to harbor strong negative feelings toward the competition. Many students see water wars as being unsafe, due to the amount of irresponsible decisions made in past years.

To prevent an abundance of bad decisions from occurring, a strict set of rules has been developed for all competitors to follow. That does not mean that students follow these rules, even with the threat of disqualification behind them.

The rules have stayed relatively the same for a while, but one new particular one has been added. Students can now only target people when they are leaving their place of work.

So, if said person was walking into their shift for work, they cannot be shot at. Students requested this rule change to make sure that their jobs would not be affected by the competition.

Although it is not school-sponsored, many staff members agree that water wars is great fun to end out the senior year, and it is accessible to everyone that wants to participate.

Some may say that following people around is not much fun, but part of the fun is in trying to get them out.

Teammates have a chance to grow as friends and create memories together. New friendships could be created and built through water wars.

Many parents and residents have noticed this going on and many of them have called into the school and complained about what students were doing in their subdivisions.

Students have been caught driving very fast in subdivisions, and having no care for anything or anyone else. Water wars is all just a game, and some students are taking it a little too seriously. They need to realize the difference between being competitive and breaking the rules/laws. Nobody wants to get arrested because they are trying to eliminate someone. Being careful is a key to succeeding in water wars. If police are necessary, then the whole competition will come to an end.

So, students should be smart and just try to have fun with water wars, but also be safe. Students just hope to make this a fun event for the seniors and it is up to them to keep it that way. Overall, water wars is fun and lives up to the hype, but students need to be more safe.