From school-wide pep rallies to talent competitions and school dances, high school is filled with opportunities for student experiences. However, these events feel different for each student. For seniors, all events are their last, while for freshmen, everything is new. Four different students each from a different grade reflected on some of their favorite activities from this school year.

SENIOR
One of the first and biggest school-wide events of the year is homecoming. For the past two years, SGA has put on Gloco after the homecoming football game. For seniors, they have had two Gloco events and two traditional homecoming dances. Commonly, kids will go to Gloco Friday, and then go out and eat dinner and take pictures in their formal attire on Saturday for a more traditional homecoming feeling. Students have mixed feelings on Gloco, as some miss having a typical-style dance. For senior Santiago Cubero, it was the opposite. Cubero felt like going out for dinner wasn’t needed. “I went to the football game and then the Gloco event for a little. Other than that, I just didn’t feel like going out,” Cubero said.

Aside from homecoming, Cubero participated in the annual talent show Puttin’ on the Hitz (POTH). Cubero is a member of senior planning and therefore helped plan and set up the show. He also helped with the planning of Wootton’s Got Talent, formerly known as Thursday Night Live (TNL). However, he did not attend Wootton’s Got Talent and has not attended in previous years either. Cubero had said that he had never planned on going to any of those events in high school, despite it being his senior year. He did attend POTH and helped out during the event. “I was involved in planning things like POTH and helped set up concessions,” Cubero said.

Throughout the year, SGA plans pep rallies to celebrate sports and arts and find ways to engage students. In previous years, combined with a pep rally, SGA had planned the color run; however, this year it was replaced by Patriot Games. Senior Elizabeth Griffin loved the color as she thought it was a ton of fun and preferred it over this year’s Patriot Games. Aside from Patriot Games and the color run, Griffin liked pep rallies. Specifically the pep rallies that took place outside on the stadium field were the ones she found to be the most fun. “Being on the field and watching people on the field feels like such a high school thing to do. Being outside is how I remember the pep rallies,” Griffin said.

JUNIOR
Junior Mia Stubbins was also of the mindset that Gloco was a better option for students as opposed to a more traditional type of homecoming. Although she did not go last year, she did go this year. She said Gloco is more fun than a traditional dance, and she would go again; however, she wasn’t super excited for the event, knowing it wasn’t her last. “I was more excited freshman year, but I don’t think I was as expected for school-sponsored events as a junior,” Stubbins said.

Stubbins does like going to the football games. Although they were not her favorite thing to do, she would still go with her friends. Some of the games were hard to make it to as she played for varsity soccer, which often had overlapping games since football games got moved to mainly Thursday nights. “I think it’s really annoying that they started scheduling on Thursdays, because I feel like people can’t go to that,” Stubbins said.

Stubbins did not go to either of the two school talent shows held this year. In the future, she would’ve participated in POTH as a part of the girls’ soccer act, but didn’t find either of the events that much fun overall from the outside. “It just didn’t look like the most fun thing, and I went last year too and it was kind of like you just sat there,” Stubbins said.

As for pep rallies, Stubbins often preferred to go home instead of staying. This year, she was not at school on the day of Patriot Games, and did not participate in the Color Run last year, instead choosing to, again, go home early. However, she does think that next year she will want to be more involved. Junior Isy Caban however is a fan of pep rallies as she thinks they are a good way to boost school spirit among students and staff. “I especially enjoy when sports teams from different seasons introduce themselves,” Caban said

SOPHOMORE
Sophomore Alex Rabin has gone to Gloco both years, and as a sophomore, had never had a more traditional dance experience. However, she did feel that this year she was able to be a lot more involved in the activities and therefore enjoy them more. “In my personal opinion, I enjoyed Gloco and the football games a lot more this year than I did last year,” Rabin said.

Rabin did participate in POTH with girls’ soccer this year and last year. She did not go to Wootton’s Got Talent since she wasn’t dancing for POTH. She said she found it fun to be able to see all the other groups perform, including grade performances and sports teams. “I found POTH really fun where every grade and sport performed and competed against one another for money towards the program,” Rabin said.

Pep rallies were something Rabin did participate in, as she was on the field for the fall pep rally. She was a freshman during last year’s color run and participated in the event. Rabin also said that she did enjoy playing in this year’s Patriot Games this year with some of her friends. For her, the pep rallies and color run/ Patriot games were a fun and engaging way to get students to interact at pep rallies. “Last year, I found color run super fun, and this year I found Patriot Games so creative, and it really got everyone involved,” Rabin said.

FRESHMAN
For freshman Hannah Yuan, her first year of high school was filled with engaging in school-wide events with her friends. This year, she did not go to Gloco because her friend group had made other plans, however, she had said that she would like to go next year, and that it did sound like a fun event.

Despite not going to the event, she did go to the homecoming football game as well as several other games throughout the season. She did say not all the games were fun, as attendance at some games was lower due to the time and date of the games. “I personally loved the football games, but they were either a hit or a miss, especially because the turnout for each game was unpredictable. But the ones with high turnout were so much fun,” Yuan said.

Since Yuan was on the varsity soccer team, she got a spot on the field during the fall pep rally. She then played JV lacrosse in the spring. Although she was not here for the color run last year, and she did play in Patriot Games this year, Yuan had said that the color run sounded more fun to her. “I would say even though I wasn’t here for the color run, I feel like I would have enjoyed that more than the Patriot Games,” Yuan said.

Since she was on the girls’ soccer team this year, Yuan was able to participate in their POTH dance earlier in the year. As for Wootton’s Got Talent, she was not in the show and did not go since she had soccer practice at the same time. When it came to POTH, though, she was involved and had a lot of fun being in the performance with her soccer teammates. “POTH was so much fun with girls’ soccer and is honestly so underrated,” Yuan said