It had taken Brittany Blue, 18, of Streamwood about 45 minutes to dress in her long, black prom gown, pull her short blond hair half up and put on her makeup - the light-colored foundation, the dark eye shadow, the fake blood splashed across her neck.

Brittany was one of nine South Elgin High School seniors who took part in a reenactment of an alcohol-related car accident late last month in the school's outdoor stadium, part of an assembly about the dangers of drinking and driving on prom night.

The assembly had been a "blur," said Brittany, who had played dead during the reenactment, stretched across the hood of one of two smashed cars.

"I couldn't open my eyes. I could just hear things. I was moving, I was moving and then I was in a body bag," she said.

Afterward, the seniors peeled off fake flesh and prom attire in the high school dressing room as they dressed for the rest of the school day. They talked about the upcoming South Elgin prom, held this Saturday at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, about graduation, about their last days spent together as a class - no less of a blur than the morning assembly had been.

"(Prom) is a lot of fun, but you have to be willing to spend money on it," said Mike Favia, 18, Bartlett.

He said he'd pay at least $300 for prom, including $150 for a pair of tickets and about $100 for a tuxedo rental, with a blue tie to match his date's dress - "a big thing here." If he wants to go in on a "party bus" with friends, he said, that will be another $100. And that's not to mention what he'll pay for a trip with classmates to the Wisconsin Dells the day after prom.

South Elgin Principal Melanie Meidel put that number closer to $500.

That's still pretty conservative compared to the average price nationwide a couple will pay for prom this year: $1,078, according to a survey of about 700 readers of Seventeen Prom and TeenPROM magazines last year and additional research by USA TODAY. Most of that will go toward the prom dress ($231) and rented tux ($127, plus another $100 for a tie, cummerbund and shoes).

Micalena Mikhail, 18, of South Elgin said she spent about $500 on her dress -- "I didn't have to get alterations, though."

"You just want to feel special," Micalena said.

And Brittany said, "When you look back at your high school photos, you want to look good."

That cost is one of many things Meidel said has "changed a lot" about prom since she was a senior attending the event in her high school gym. And that's something that's the same across all of the Fox Valley, echoed by residents who attended prom 34, 47 years ago.

For their memories of proms past, read this past weekend's Storyteller, No matter the year or circumstances, prom brings night to remember.

For more ways prom has changed, and become more dangerous, over the years, read Judges tell teens: Bad decisions can make prom a time of regret.

I am now a MoJo.

As many of you know from previous posts, on Monday, Dec. 13, the longtime Courier-News building at 300 Lake Street closed with many of its operations relocated to Aurora.

Although my former office now stands vacant, your trusty Courier reporter Katie Anderson (and my co-workers) still are working right here in the community. Parked in local coffee shops, libraries and other common spaces with wifi access, we still are taking calls, investigating tips, covering government and writing articles on the Elgin area.

This move has come with challenges, but we intend to take them all in stride, and each reporter with the Courier is creating his and her own space to do mobile journalism.

Since I live in Elgin (on the northeast side), I have made my new base inside my home. I also plan to work on articles using my laptop inside the coffee shop at the Gail Borden Library several days a week.

More about where you can find us MoJos out in the community, daily, after the jump

We unearthed a lot of gems while packing up 300 Lake Street last week. But perhaps the gemmiest of all is this stunning piece of video journalism, by Courier alum Matt Baron.

It's an interview with current Courier reporter Dave Gathman, a 30-odd-year journalism veteran and inveterate note-taker. And it REALLY gets good around 1:40 when we learn about all those pens meticulously arranged in Gathman's pocket? There is a method to that pen madness!

Oh, please, let this go viral.

Everybody who works here is SO GREAT.

-- Emily McFarlan, Readers' Reporter

You learn something new every day. This, I learned from Elgin School District U46's weekly e-mail blast.

Last week, students at Sunnydale and Lords Park elementary schools read "America's White Table" by Margot Theis Raven. The picture book explores a little-known tradition called the "MIA/POW Remembrance Table" that started on Veterans Day to remember those serving in the Armed Forces.

According to U46, each item on the table symbolizes something to honor our veterans...

• The white tablecloth: A soldier's pure heart


• A lemon slice and salt: A soldier's bitter fate and tears


• An empty chair: A missing soldier


• A black napkin: The sorrow of captivity


• A turned over glass: A meal that will not be eaten


• A white candle: Peace


• A red rose in a vase tied with a red ribbon: The hope that our missing will return someday

Something to think about as you remember the men and women who protect our country and its freedoms this Veterans Day.

-- Emily McFarlan, Readers' Reporter

Five things I noticed at the Chicago Cyclocross Cup bike races Sunday in Carpenter Park...

1. No one really looks that sexy in stretch material bike outfits. In fact, after a long race, some guys looked like they pooped their pants.

2. Wipeouts are cool.

3. Bike people can be rowdy. There was a part of the course set up in a field where riders had to go through soft, black dirt before navigating a series of moguls. Anyone who decided to lift a bike and run instead of attempting the bumpy ride was booed. One spectator dude held out dollar bills to tempt pedaling passers-by to snatch. Another had one of those annoying plastic horns, and another pounded on a plastic block with a drumstick.

More of Danahey's observations, after the jump.

Sure, at last night's school board meetings, Elgin School District U46 passed a "tight" budget. And Carpentersville-based Community Unit School District 300 passed a budget with a $6.5 million deficit.

But the biggest news on the education beat here at The Courier-News?

Your education reporter Emily McFarlan (i.e. me) got engaged to her boyfriend of two years, Joel Miller, last weeked.

OK, in no way, shape or form do I have any delusions that is the biggest news on any beat at the Courier (especially not with the impact the state financial crisis has had on our schools), but several people have asked in the past week if I planned to blog about our engagement. And we did promise to give you a peek at our lives "between the bylines" on this blog, such as when, oh, our homes are broken into. After all, you are so gracious as to share your stories with us in the newspaper when these things happen.

Plus, my fiance game me the OK to announce our engagement here on the blog, with the caveat to be "sparse."

Perhaps your one chance to offer wedding advice, gush about wedding-y stuff, after the jump.

I was in trigonometry my senior year of high school when the first plane hit the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. At a Lutheran high school in Springfield, Ill. About as far removed from downtown Manhattan as you can get.

I know, because I spent the next five Sept. 11's in New York City; two, living in a dorm building blocks from the World Trade Center. I woke up in those mornings to the sound of the names of those lost in the terrorist attacks being read aloud, echoing across a quiet and somber Financial District. I spent disquieting nights watching police place barricades and flares in the street in front of my dorm after plans for a terrorist car bombing in the area were uncovered. I made friends who had lived in that dorm when debris from the burning, falling towers rained on the area, who had spent their first-period high school classes watching the smoke rise in the distance and desperately trying to get ahold of family members, who had been first responders to the scene and still struggle emotionally and physically. I always felt like New Yorkers were a little nicer on the anniversary of that day; You never knew what someone else was going through.

I was supposed to fly to New York the day or two after the attacks for a college open house at New York University. Flights were grounded, and well-meaning friends were sure this meant I shouldn't make the cross-country move to a city of ruins. But I caught a later open house. I graduated cum laude from NYU.

But this day isn't about me.

Some of the best Sept. 11 remembrances I've read today have come from some of our own at The Courier-News.

Community News Editor Julia Doyle tweeted: "This day isn't about me & where I was. It isn't about Qurans. It's about the 2,977 people killed in NYC, Va. & Pa. for being Americans."

And Reporter Mike Danahey posted on Facebook: "Enjoy a day, and be nice to people who are different from you."

So let's do that. Let's remember the families who have been separated, both by the attacks and by the wars that followed. Let's remember those we lost in New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania, and those who still are affected in the aftermath. That's who this day is about. Let's also remember the day when headlines on different newspapers, from different countries, from people who are different from "us," read, "We are all Americans." And let's be nice to people who are different. Because we are all Americans.

Take a moment to share your memories of Sept. 11, 2001, here. And then let's enjoy a day.

-- Emily McFarlan, Staff Writer

I've picked up police reports in Elgin, Carpentersville, the Dundees and all over our area for 10 years now. I've written plenty of reports about home burglaries and have kept an eye out for patterns -- if houses in a certain area seemed to be getting hit, I'd make sure to note in the police report if those robberies seemed to be in a cluster and, hopefully, give homeowners a heads up that something is going on in their neighborhoods.

But the importance of those reports has a whole new meaning for me, now that it has happened to me.

I was out of town for several days for an aunt's funeral (breast cancer) in North Dakota. I spent an extra day there, too, because my sister and her husband sold their house and moved to Fargo, and they had to get everything out of the old house by end of Sunday. She was breaking down and needed her sister.

But on Sunday night, while I was driving in Fargo, my sister on the phone with my folks, trying to give them directions to her new house, my phone rang. It was my wonderful, dear neighbors telling me that when they went to check on my cat, they found my house had been burglarized.

They found the chain on the door, which was the first tipoff that something was wrong. They got the chain off and found my TV sitting on the living room floor. They immediately called 911.

I was 10 hours away by car. And really mad.

What was stolen, after the jump.

(PHOTO: The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps of Rosemont perform "Mad World" July 1 in Oswego. Courtesy of cavaliers.org.)

Last Thursday, I headed over to the AMC in South Barrington, plopped down my $18 and attended the live simulcast of the quarterfinals of the Drum Corps International World Championships taking place at Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis, the same place where Payton Manning makes a living.

I don't know what I found more disturbing -- the middle-aged woman in the row in front of me sitting with her legs up on a railing as if she were going to give birth OR that a good many of the bands played scary shows.

Times are tough, and it's reflected in the performances, which, for the uninitiated, can seem strange anyway.

Take, for instance, the Cavaliers of Rosemont. The theme of the group's 12-minute show was "Mad World," that Tears for Fears song remade a few years ago as a haunting ballad.

The drill team in the all-male Cavaliers was dressed in trench coats, which was way too much of a reminder of Columbine for my tastes. Actually, after looking at Cavalier pictures online, the coats also recall Billy Idol videos from the 1980s. The team bellowed military chants about their rifles as they twirled and contorted. They formed a "Mad Circle" with some props, too. And, when the corps performed the Charlie Chaplin chestnut "Smile," the members donned white masks.

I half expected Heath Ledger to return from the dead as the Joker during the performance, which also seemed like an outtake from the director's cut of the last Batman flick.

As of Thursday night, the Cavaliers were in second place, behind the Blue Devils from California.

More scarily fabulous, or fabulously scary, drum corps performances (including the corps from nearby Rockford), after the jump.

Community Unit School District 300 students head back to class today, earlier than ever.

And the Carpentersville-based school district knows its teachers, its administrators, its custodians -- and its communities -- will be doing more with less this school year. That's the message behind the district's first "Superintendent's 'Welcome Back'" video, posted on D300.org late last week...

As The Courier-News' education reporter, I'll be out at the schools all day today with reporter Katie Anderson -- and all year. I want to hear your stories about doing more with less, about your concerns over the state budget's impact on the district, about your students' accomplishments. Send me your back to school photos, tell me your stories, here on Between the Bylines, at emcfarlan@stmedianetwork.com or at 847-888-7773.

-- Emily McFarlan, Readers' Reporter