There are many traditions on the Friday of homecoming week, from decorating floats for the parade to playing water balloon toss. However, the student council is always looking to improve the fun experience on Friday, and this year was no exception. 

One of the improvements was a change from last year that was kept.

“The 1 p.m. dismissal last year was a big change. It was kind of an intimidating one, but in general, I feel like that’s been one of the best things that we could have done because it gives us the full day to do as much fun stuff as we possibly can. So it’s a day really dedicated to school spirit, having a good time and working together and all that fun stuff,” student council sponsor Alyssa Hansen said.

With this change, students and teachers were able to fill the entire day with many activities and no class, which is something the students enjoyed.

“I liked how we had just games all day. Not going to class was nice, and it was good to just connect with my classmates,” junior Olivia Chapman said.

Even though it was a shortened day, the student council still faced challenges with using the time to fill the day with activities everyone would enjoy.

“We don’t want to give too much time to something that kids aren’t having fun with because that’s how you get inappropriate behavior. But we want to make sure that there’s enough time to do things that kids are really excited about. So just making sure that the timing is thought out and the timing is the best for the activities involved is pretty difficult,” Hansen said.

One thing added to the day of fun was class rotations, which replaced last year’s morning full of dodgeball.

“Last year, we did a dodgeball tournament for two full hours with all grades 7 through 12. This year we changed to doing game rotations in the morning so that kids got the chance to be involved in a bunch of different things,” Hansen said. 

For this part of the morning, each grade had 20 minutes at four different stations, which included kickball, freeze tag, poster making and card games. The most popular station was kickball.

“My favorite rotation was kickball because most people participated and we got to go outside and run around and have fun,” freshman Ashtyn Anderson said.

Other stations were not as popular.

“I didn’t really like freeze tag because no one really tried and it wasn’t very fun,” senior Tyler Witt said.

A few games that were added to the schedule this year were powderpuff and powderbuff. Powderpuff was a game of flag football that the junior and senior girls played against each other while powderbuff was a game of volleyball that the junior and senior boys played against each other.

Both classes took it very competitively and even held practices to prepare.

“My favorite thing about it was definitely our practices. We got together on the football field on a random weekend and we made plays. Our coaches (the junior boys) made a playbook with like 40 different plays that we practiced. It was really fun, and I enjoyed the team bonding,” junior Kylie Krajicek said. 

These practices led the teams to success and helped them learn a lot more about the sports they are not very familiar with.

“We definitely learned that you aren’t allowed to touch the net and all the other rules about volleyball. The practices taught us how to actually spike the ball and pass the ball,” senior Owen Egr said. “They also helped us build better team chemistry. Our very first practice, we could not set the ball or bump it, and we didn’t know any of the rules, so all the girls taught us those things.”

This event was a favorite for upperclassmen, though the underclassmen wished for more interaction.

“The powderpuff was so much fun to watch, and I can’t wait to be able to participate next year,” sophomore Aubrey Zeleny said.

The student council plans on using the students’ reactions to the new activities to improve next year’s schedule.

“I just think we might change some of the stations that kids go to, and I want the kids to leave with something that is a physical memory of the day,” Hansen said. “I also want more time for kids. They have said that they want more time for flag football, which I do think is a good idea.” 

Despite some feedback that may lead to future changes, overall Hansen felt the students enjoyed the improvements that were made this year.

“I am always excited when it goes well. The kids were super excited about powderpuff football and super excited about volleyball, and getting to see how pumped they were to do that was really exciting,” Hansen said.

Although the Friday of homecoming was a hit, the student council and staff will continue to do their best to improve it every year. 

“There’s always opportunities to make it better than it was the year before,” Hansen said.