When the school year starts everyone is looking forward to the most fun week of the school year, HOCO spirit week! This week happened to fall during the second week of school, which gave the school year a really fun start.
Each day of spirit week brings a new chance to dress up with the theme. This year, the themes were USA on Monday, country vs country club on Tuesday, Barbie theme on Wednesday, class colors on Thursday, and GHS spirit on Friday in honor of the pep rally at the end of the day.
The pep rally is always something to look forward to during spirit week. All the students love watching it.
Sophomore Zayd Cartagena, shared why he enjoys the pep rally, “I really liked this year’s pep rally. Seniors Caiya Fuentes and Tyler Filetti did a great job being the MC’s, and I liked it a lot better than last year’s. My favorite part to watch was probably the cheerleaders doing flips, and the poms team, and guy poms,” Cartagena said.
Guy poms is one of the most fun things that seniors can get involved with during spirit week. The poms team teaches them a routine within the three practices they have during the week. Then during the pep rally they perform the routine in front of the whole school.
“Guy poms is always so fun to watch, and it really adds to the fun of the pep rally. This year’s pep rally was definitely my favorite part of spirit week. With everyone shouting and cheering the energy in the gym was so high it made it so fun to be a part of,” junior Olivia Vitrano said.
Another fun moment from the pep rally is when the Homecoming king and queen get crowned in front of the whole school. This year the Homecoming queen was Abby Hajewski and the Homecoming king was Jackson Stewart.
“I feel very honored and proud to represent my senior class! I am grateful and humbled that my classmates voted for me,” Hajewski said.
While spirit week and the pep rally is a very fun experience, students should appreciate all the hard work the Student Council puts into planning spirit week and the pep rally.
“My favorite part of spirit week to plan was definitely the pep rally!! I loved helping to plan the order of everything and the relay/class games,” Ayanna Lapointe, the event planner on Student Council, said. “I also really loved just each spirit day and getting pictures from everyone and posting about it on Instagram with Tess Zaja,”
The advisers were very happy with how Homecoming turned out. New student council adviser Elizabeth Parsons said, “We started our homecoming week preparations in August with weekly StuCo meetings. The student council advisors are new this year, and the students were extremely welcoming, helpful, and SO ready to dive in and plan a great school year and homecoming week- even in the summer! Spirit week/homecoming preparation consisted of lots of brainstorming, creating, shopping, and organizing (to put it very simply).”
This year’s Homecoming had two new fun events. This first event was the outdoor movie on Wednesday where they played Teen Beach Movie on a projector in our new courtyard at GHS. The second event was before the Friday football game where they had food trucks outside of GHS in the parking lot.
“I loved the new fun events during spirit week. The outdoor movie was such a good opportunity for students to get together and have a nice night with their friends. Also, the food trucks were such a good idea and had such a good turn out,” sophomore Gabi Trauberman said.
Both of these events added to the fun that spirit week brings to the school. While this week only happens once a year, it’s always something students can look back on and remember the fun memories they made during Homecoming spirit week.
