For the first time, both SGA and Splanning are preparing for this year’s homecoming week together, which will conclude a busy schedule for both the planners and the student body alike.
Homecoming week, which is Oct. 14 through 19, has multiple events that students of all grade levels can look forward to: senior breakfast, tie-dying class shirts, the homecoming pep rally and this year’s GloCo with a new twist. “[The theme] has glow-in-the-dark aspects, but it’s surrounded by something else. Last year, our theme was ‘Glo-Co: Through the Cities,’ but this year, we’re having glow-in-the-dark, but something different,” senior SGA member Maddy Mathew said.
This year’s homecoming will have the same schedule as last year with students being able to go directly from the bleachers to the auxiliary gym right after the home football game on Friday, Oct. 18. Inside of the gym, students can anticipate a DJ, face painting, a bouncy house and a digital photobooth, as well as blackjack, cornhole, spikeball and other games in the dance studio. Additionally, food will be available for students thanks to the donations made to the SGA. “This way, you can enjoy this fun thing after having a great football game, come here, stay for a little bit and then leave, and then on Saturday, you can go out with friends and take pictures and go to D.C.,” Matthew said.
SGA has carefully planned homecoming this year to encourage student participation. SGA sponsor Amy Buckingham said that over the past few years, student attendance for homecoming has been severely lacking, which has led to ticket prices dropping from the $25 to $30 range to a mere $10. “By doing it this way, we’re hoping that more kids will come because it’s inexpensive, it’s low pressure and it’s fun, although that means we won’t make a lot of money,” Buckingham said.
In addition to planning homecoming, SGA will also be hosting games and other activities in the Commons during lunch all throughout the week and hosting a spirit week. “People [can] look out for our ads and our posters because we’re really hoping to get more people involved doing these new and creative days,” Matthew said.
While SGA is in charge of orchestrating GloCo and spirit events throughout the week, Splanning has the responsibility of planning senior breakfast and the tie-dye event, as well as creating a float for the homecoming pep rally. “We have a base that we’re going to construct our float on, and our theme for this year is, like, galaxy or outer space. So basically we’re just building our senior float that we’re going to have ready for the pep rally on [Thursday, Oct. 17], and then all grade levels will show their floats and then vote on whose is best,” Splanning sponsor Victoria McCarthy said.
In addition to their pep rally floats, Splanning organizes senior breakfast and the tie-dye event, which take place before and after the PSAT on Wednesday, Oct. 16. “Right now, we’re trying to promote and advertise the shirt sales, and then for senior breakfast, it’s a pretty big event because we’re really reliant on volunteers and parents donating all the breakfast food and helping us serve and organize. We’re in the process now of getting parents to sign up to bring stuff and organizing the morning for who’s going to be working and all that, so hopefully seniors will be able to show up at the cafeteria and have a fun time,” McCarthy said.
With all of these events occurring in the span of a week, it is busy for both students who have spent weeks organizing the events, and students who want to attend all of the events. However, SGA and Splanning have limited control over the dates for the week. “The only thing in [SGA’s] control is what we do during lunches and our spirit days. We don’t even have any control over selecting the homecoming date. That’s done by both our athletic director and the county together because they want to spread homecomings out so all the schools don’t have homecomings [on the same day],” Buckingham said.
Regardless of the busy schedules, students can look forward to homecoming week with all of the events planned. “I think the pep rally’s really fun, especially because they’re going to do their tie-dye the day before, and then hopefully they can wear their colors that they’ve tie-dyed at the pep rally so it’ll be all spirited with their grades and they’ll get to see the floats that their grades have created,” McCarthy said.
