When they wrote the letter, the group had names of 13 current and former students at the school of 1,100 students who had developed cancer since 1997, including Patros' son, Tom, who had been found to have testicular cancer. Patros, his wife, Julie, and Tom have been interviewed by national television, magazine and newspaper reporters more than a half-dozen times during the past year, he said. Life in the limelight The national media attention has taken its toll on students, said Lori Davies, a senior at Southside who served on the community advisory committee. Davies, who traveled with her cheerleading squad to Florida to perform in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, said cheerleaders from across the country knew of Elmira because of the cancer cluster investigation. Many of the students crack jokes about the cancer cluster issue because they're upset and don't know how else to handle it, she said.
Nobody really talks about it anymore, though.
Last fall, student athletes expressed disappointment at not being able to play their homes games on their own fields. Student Council President Greg Savino told the school board during a Feb. 20 meeting that the students not only wanted, but needed, their fields back to help boost morale. Just one week before Savino's statements, Southside was again thrown into the national spotlight when a senior, Jeremy Getman, was accused of bringing two guns and 18 bombs into the school. On Feb. 27, the school board unanimously voted to reopen the fields. A new pride Palmer, whose son, Josh, is a Southside graduate and a Hodgkins' disease survivor, said that students turned out for spring sports this year in record numbers.