As L.A. Gear and JNCO Jeans have shown, everything, at some point, goes out of style.
But as the second month of 2006 rolls around, have ordinary wooden pencils faded out of popular culture just as much as light-up shoes and big-pocketed jeans?
Or, at least, have wooden pencils lost their home at Ohio State?
Students might be wondering just that, as their busted graphite lies on the table, and no machine to file the blunt edge back into a usable pointed writing device seems to be available.
A growing problem has emerged here. Students are becoming increasingly alarmed at the dwindling number of sharpeners hanging on classroom walls.
Some students are unaware that pencil sharpeners even exist.
“We have pencil sharpeners?” said Chad Royse, a freshman in communication.
Building coordinator of the Central Classroom building, Jack Bargaheiser, is unaware there is a problem.
“I have never been made aware that there were not enough pencil sharpeners here,” he said.
A building coordinator’s job is to oversee the well-being of an assigned building and it is a volunteer position, Bargaheiser said.
He thinks that he does not have enough time to check every room to make sure there is a working sharpener.
Richard Jones, assistant director of building services, has heard that there is a lack of sharpeners.
“I do know there are some classrooms that don’t have pencil sharpeners like they did 10 to 15 years ago,” he said. “Sometimes that does cause a problem.”
He said he thinks pencil sharpeners might have gone by the wayside as students have turned to alternate writing utensils such as pens and mechanical pencils, but also thinks that the dearth of sharpeners is becoming a problem for many students.
Jones said, however, that building services is not making a concious effort to replace the sharpeners.
“We check the pencil sharpeners twice a week,” Jones said, “but most classrooms don’t even have them.”
