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Stevenson High aiming for second Guinness record with salsa dance

In what’s become an annual tradition, Stevenson High School students and staffers will again try to get into the Guinness Book of World Records this month.

This time, participants will gather Sept. 15 to attempt to set a record for the largest number of people salsa dancing with glow sticks. The current record is 418 people.

“If we get enough people out on the football field, it might look like fireflies driving bumper cars, but it’s worth it for a good cause,” Stevenson spokesman Jim Conrey said.

If they’re successful, it’ll be the second world record Stevenson has set as part of its Spirit Fest charity fundraiser.

Spirit Fest is organized each year by the National Honor Society. A committee of members chooses which world record the volunteers will pursue.

This year’s Spirt Fest will benefit the Lauri S. Bauer Foundation for Sudden Loss, an organization honoring a Stevenson parent who died unexpectedly last year.

One of Bauer’s sons, Alex, graduated from Stevenson this spring. Another son, Jake, is a sophomore.

The event will run from 5 to 9:30 p.m. at the Lincolnshire school’s stadium.

In addition to the record attempt, Spirit Fest will include games, music, a 5-kilometer walk and a fireworks show.

The school set a world record during the 2010 Spirit Fest. The community united that fall to perform the world’s largest robot dance, with 525 people taking part.

The record still stands, according to guinnessworldrecords.com.

Students raised money that year for the Saving Tiny Hearts Society, a group that helps fund research into congenital heart defects.

Last year, 826 people took to the Stevenson High football field with luminescent tubes to form the world’s largest glow stick design, Conrey said. But the effort didn’t actually set a record, Conrey said.

After organizers submitted the necessary application to Guinness, they learned a different group had broken the previous record with more participants, he said.

“Therefore, we never officially had a world record last year,” Conrey said.

The Spirit Fest beneficiary in 2011 was CASA Lake County, a nonprofit group that helps abused and neglected children within the juvenile court system.

The efforts raised an estimated $20,000 for each group, officials said.

Stevenson tries to crack record in robot dance

Stevenson Spirit Fest to benefit CASA Lake County

Stevenson High hopes Spirt Fest will raise money for charity

Stevenson High hopes charity event nets second Guinness record

More than 800 people formed the letters “CASA” on the Stevenson High School football field last year in an attempt to set the world record for largest glow stick design. Courtesy of Keigo Tanaka, 2011
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