“We want The Who! We want The Who!” The chant, led by Dr. Gilhaus, rang through a cafeteria full of students during second lunch Tuesday. KSMS was filming the cheer to raise awareness for their petition to bring The Who back to South for the first time in nearly 50 years.

The Who came to South for one of their first shows in North America Nov. 17, 1967 as an opening act for Chicago pop group The Buckinghams. Now, nine studio albums, hundreds of concerts, and 48 years later, KSMS has organized an online petition to bring The Who back to South to celebrate our upcoming 50th anniversary.

The petition reached its goal of 1,000 signatures April 15 after being posted on ipetitions.com for just over one week.

“I would die if The Who came to South,” freshman Tara Phillips said.

The petition has been sparking excitement from students and faculty alike. Business teacher Todd Nafus donated a pair of free Rockfest tickets to the 1,000th signer of the petition. KSMS has also said via Twitter that social studies teacher Tony Budetti will get his first tattoo if The Who return to South.

The two remaining founding members of the band will already be in Kansas City May 5 for their show at the Sprint Center. This show and 54 others are part of their final stage tour, “The Who Hits 50” tour. The tour will continue through November in cities across North America and Europe.

News outlets such as FOX 4 News and local NPR station KCUR have also taken notice of the petition. English teacher and KSMS sponsor Travis Gatewood was featured on FOX 4 News this past week and KCUR educational reporter Sam Zeff has shown his support for the petition on Twitter.

It has not yet been determined whether or not The Who will actually be coming to South, but the petition currently has 1,046 signatures and the number is on the rise.

KSMS has continued to encourage people to keep signing the petition and spreading the word. You can add your name to the long list of supporters here:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/get-the-who-to-come-back-to-shawnee-mission-south