By Brent Addleman

Editor

Rita Buhite, teacher at the Ridgway Area High School, is putting on Kids Night Out again this school year.
On Saturday night from 5 to 8 p.m. at the high school gymnasium and cafeteria, area youth will have their first opportunity to spend a night out of the house and away from computers and cell phones participating in a plethora of activities. Youth are asked to enter the school through the circle in front of the gymnasium.
“This year, we are going to hold it October through April, once per month,” Buhite said. “For the one on Saturday, we are planning an open half on one half of the gym for the older kids to play basketball. On the other half, we are going to do a moster relay for the younger kids. We are going to wrap them like mummies and have races.”
For those youth who don’t wish to participate in basketball or the monster races, the cafeteria will provide an area for crafts and other activities.
“We will have crafts going on in the cafeteria,” Buhite said. “They can paint pumpkins, guess what is in the pumpkin, such as brains,” Buhite said. “We have coloring pages out and we will do face painting.”
The idea stems from when Buhite was in college at Mansfield University in the 1980s and is a fundraiser for the Ridgway Yearbook.
“The Mansfield baseball team did it as a fundraiser to go to  Florida,” Buhite said. “We figured we could do this.”
Kids Night Out has been well received in the past.
“It’s overwhelming,” Buhite said. “The little kids love it. They will see me out at basketball games and ask when the next kids night will be. We usually have 40 kids show up, if not more.”
There is an nominal entrance fee.
Each Kids Night Out carries a theme.
“We try to make it a holiday theme for each one we have,” Buhite said. “The one on Saturday will run from 5 to 8 p.m. In November, that will be on a Friday night and it will go from 5 to 8 p.m. with a Thanksgiving theme. In December, it will be from noon until 6 p.m. on a Saturday so parents can get some Christmas shopping done.”
Kids won’t have to worry about eating while they are there as one local restaurant will provide food.
“Fox’s Pizza has been wonderful,” Buhite said. “They are donating Big Daddy’s each night we have one.”
While the event is slated for three hours, parents don’t have to stay with their kids at the event.
“They can drop their child off,” Buhite said. “We give them a label with their name on it. We put the kids in the cafeteria and the parents have to come down and sign them out.”