20 Signs You Went To Portage Northern High School

Anyone who lives in Portage, Kalamazoo, or Mattawan knows the stereotypes that surround Portage Northern High School. They know how cliquey and exclusive friend groups are, how difficult the classes are, or how rowdy our student section can get. However, they might not know the little secrets only true Huskies will understand.

1. Every day you contemplate why an institution of education misspells the name of their own mascot.

Seriously, the administration spells it “Huskie” instead of the correct spelling, “Husky.” I think every single day I was in school, I heard someone make a facetious remark about the spelling of our beloved polar puppy.

2. You despise the Portage Central v.s. Portage Northern football match up.

The game always starts out fine, everyone talking and chanting, until you look up and realize it is the middle of the fourth quarter and your Huskies are losing 52-4. Sorry to any football players reading this, its just the truth.

3. You hear “have an awesome day Huskies and make super great choices  out there” every single day of every year.

You would be surprised at how many kids will just whisper that line after the run on announcements about who won the soccer game is blaring over the intercom.

4. You got lost on the first day of freshmen year trying to find the science wing.

Every student at Northern can relate to this, because why would there be an entire separate wing for science? The endless abyss of turns and doors to get there is just too daunting for a 14 year old to handle alone.

5. Super Fanning is a right of passage for graduation.

Most juniors spend their entire year fantasizing about all the amazing things about being a senior. One of those visions encompasses them all painted up standing on the fence starting chants in front of the entire stadium. Everyone waits for their chance to rise to the top of the social hierarchy and scream so loud that they lose their voice.

6. You don’t own a single orange or white shirt

Sure, our “official colors” are brown and white, but everyone sees orange and white. This is all awesome until one of two spirit days rolls around and you realize that you still don’t own any orange of white Northern shirts and its already halfway through senior year.

7. You are willing to verbally assault someone for going through the wrong door coming-out of the stairwell.

For real freshmen, exit the way that all the people are exiting. Do not be the kid who causes a traffic jam in a the stairwell that smells like rotten cheese and teenage angst 5 days a week.

8. You avoid the math department at all costs.

Everyone has that one class every day that they hate, and 99% of them are math classes. Its hot, humid, and smells like wet socks down on the west end of the third floor, and the clocks sure do seem to move much slower.

9. Unless you are in band, the band wing in an adventure of the unknown and you would get lost if you even set one step in.

Band is a great activity for the group of people that are involved in it, but for the rest of us, the story is different. I went into the band wing for the first time during my junior year and I had to ask the band director how to get out.

10. You are accustomed to seeing textbooks in the toilet and puddles of urine on the floor.

The bathrooms at Northern are wild regions where anything, literally anything, goes. We just try to avoid them at all costs.

11. Getting your lunch pass has more weight on your conscience than your exam scores.

Our exams only count for 20% of our final grades, and Chick-Fil-A opened just a stone throw away. Tell me what you would do.

12. You spring faster than Usain Bolt in the London Olympics to get to your car at the end of the day.

The line to leave school can take 20 minutes to fully clear out, so its a full on race to be first in line. There is always that one kid who is first every day and you don’t even know if he goes to Northern you just respect his pursuit of speed.

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13. You would rather drink pond water than the slushies they sell in the Huskie Den.

Shout out to the advanced marketing kids for making them all hour, but since Michelle made us get rid of sugar and all good things that make school lunch bearable, I would just rather guzzle water from the stream in the woods behind school

14. You had that one teacher who never gave tardies even though you were late every day.

Personally, I had that teacher for first hour. I’m looking at you Ms. Nott #goat.

15. Bad teachers became Harvard grade professors when they were being observed.

Boring and monotone lecture style teachers become dynamic and stimulating educators when there is an administrator in the back of their room

16. You never hear the I.B. Diploma kids stop talking about how much harder they work than you.

Yes, I’m sure you worked super hard, congratulations guys!!

17. Junior year is a cut throat death match to climb to the top of the class rankings.

“What will Michigan think if I’m not top 5%” is a thought many of us thought as some point. We all were willing to go to any length to become a top tier student. Friendships were shattered, relationships ended, all for a silly little number.

18. At one point, you contemplated breaking into Portage Central and spray painting their giant bronze mustang orange.

Where is our bronze husky? Some people seriously want to go to then school, at 2 a.m., and paint their mascot orange. Senior prank? I’m looking at your class of 2018.

19. The day after a test, you find yourself checking Skyward at least 3 times per hour.

Most of the times I was asked to put my phone away I was actually checking my slowly falling biology grade. This probably rings through for most kids who cared in the slightest about their grades in school.

20. Even though it has a fair amount of drawbacks, we will always be thankful for the opportunities PorNo gave to us.

Yes our nickname is PorNo and yes, I will miss high school.

Know of any other signs you went to Portage Northern High School?! Let us know below!

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