High School Homecoming and Spirit Week

Rowan

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Anyone still in high school or remember Spirit Week and Homecoming?

I know activities vary widely by school, but I'm looking for ideas! For instance, did your school have a parade / pep rally / dance? What was your spirit week schedule (activities, etc.)?

Did you work on your float (class, sport, cheerleading, club, etc.)??

Was your game on Friday or Saturday night? Dance the same night? (Stuff like that.)

THANK YOU!
 

Chris P

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Back in the late 1980s in Iowa, spirit week usually meant wearing the school colors (we didn't have uniforms) at least one day of that week. The theme was picked by some committee a few weeks before hand and Homecoming king and queen were chosen by an election (on Monday?). The school clubs would make floats and decorate storefronts downtown along the parade route, painting on the windows "Trounce the Trojans!" or whoever we were playing. The parade was on Thursday night. The end of the school day on Friday was a pep rally that lasted about 45 minutes, and the football game was that night. The dance was on Saturday night. Our dances were dressy affairs, but not tux-dressy (not nearly as formal as the prom). The decor was (obviously) autumn and football.
 

Cyia

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We had theme days, depending on the year they changed:

Nerd day
Toga day
Hippie day
50's day
70's day
Backward day
Come As you Are day
Trash the Competition day
Spirit day

JV played Thursday or Friday
Varsity played Friday or Saturday

Fifth Quarter was a dance directly after the game, Homecoming itself was on Saturday night.

We had competitions between the classes (Frosh, Sophomores, Jr, Sr) where each was assigned a hall to decorate. There were penny jars in the front hall to collect money (pennies = points, but silver coins or dollars = deductions)

This was is Texas, if it matters.
 

blackrose602

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I graduated nearly 20 years ago, so things may have changed. I also went to a private Episcopalian school rather than a public school. That said:

We had a pep rally and a dance. Pep rally was Friday afternoon, game on Friday night. Dance on Saturday night. No parade, so no floats.

Spirit week mostly consisted of bizarre dress days. I remember pajama day, and Friday was blue and gold day (our school colors). I don't remember the others. The yearbook staff was all over the place that week, taking tons of photos of us in our strange outfits and getting quotes about the upcoming game or our thoughts on the amount of school spirit we had. Voting for homecoming queen and king happened in class, I think right after lunch two or three days before the pep rally.

Football was pretty big at our school compared to other small prep schools in the area, but nothing approaching the football hero-worship at the public schools. So spirit week was just a few activities around our regular rigorous class time, rather than taking over the school completely.

Hope that helps a little!
 

CtS

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I'm a senior in hs now actually. For homecoming, we have a parade, pep rally, and dance. The pep rally is during school on friday, the parade is sat am, the game is sat at around 12 or 1, then the dance is sat night. For spirit week we usually just dress up according to different themes. Friday is almost always school color day, then mon-thurs will be whatever the committee comes up with. Opposite gender day is VERY popular and extremely entertaining : ) Usually homecoming has a theme, so there will be a day dedicated to that. The school is also decorated HEAVILY thurs night. Each class(fresh, soph, junior, senior) has a section of the school based on where their lockers are and will go nuts according to the homecoming theme. Usually the poms and cheerleaders are in charge of that I think.

Each class gets a float each year as well. Some of the sports and clubs will as well, but that's up to them to decide. Clubs and sport floats are strictly senior projects. Hope this helps!
 

Chase

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I went to high school ten years, four in the '50s and six in the late '70s and early '80.

One thing missing in the others' activity lists is the real meaning of "homecoming." We honored alumni--former students, and since homecoming was always during football season, especially former gridiron greats (and not-so-greats). Even former teachers were invited "home."

This aspect was also true in college and grad school.

We also had a big bonfire at the rally before each year's game.
 

Rowan

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I went to high school ten years, four in the '50s and six in the late '70s and early '80.

One thing missing in the others' activity lists is the real meaning of "homecoming." We honored alumni--former students, and since homecoming was always during football season, especially former gridiron greats (and not-so-greats). Even former teachers were invited "home."

This aspect was also true in college and grad school.

We also had a big bonfire at the rally before each year's game.

Thanks, Chase!
Yeah, I remember College homecoming, but High School's kind of a blur. ;)

We did the alumni / bonfire at the rally thing too though. That I remember!
 

charlotte49ers

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We had the coronation ceremony on Thursday during school. All of the girls wore their formals and their dads escorted them. It's when they did the actual crowning. Then on Friday, we had a huge parade with the court and all the people who were in town for reunions. We started claiming convertibles before we even knew if we were nominated. lol

I used magnets letter cut-outs instead of a poster for my name on the side of mine. I was pretty proud of that! Decorating them was a big deal. We wore our formals for that, too.

The rest of the days were random themed stuff.
 

Kitti

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Don't forget the powder-puff game! Senior women would square off against junior women while the men got pom-poms and did cheerleading.

And there was always the penny game, where you set up jars in the main hallway and everyone brought in pennies to put in their class jar, and silver coins (nickels, dimes, quarters) to put in the other classes jars - pennies are positive points, other coins are the respective number of negative points. Seniors always win and Juniors always get creamed....
 

Rowan

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Thank you, Charlotte & Kitti!

Cyia mentioned the penny game too. I can't remember if we did that. ;)

I think I've got the scheduling mapped out--there seems to be a lot of flexibility since it varies widely by school and region, etc.

How many of you had a Friday night game v. a Saturday game?
 

NiaR

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I had theme days like-
Mon- Switch Day (boys dress like girls and vs versa)
Tue- Crazy socks day
Wed- Team Spirit Day and so forth...
The dance was the same night, Fri, after the f-ball game.
 

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Our Spirit Week wasn't tied to Homecoming, and it involved crazy dress-up stuff.

Homecoming still had the big game on Friday night. We had 2 homecoming queens - one black and one white (can you believe it?) because white girls had kept winning it exclusively, so it was proposed to separate them out. Everyone cheered for everyone during halftime when the pretty little procession and awards were done.

We had floats made by folks in the various social clubs, on their own time. Float night was Thursday, where you stayed up all night drinking and finishing the float.

Friday during the day had a long pep rally in the auditorium, and there were many performances. I was on the kick team, and we performed a special routine for the stage, and we'd still perform a new routine for football at halftime that night. And we were sleepy and hungover from building floats ;)

Pep rallies seemed to entertain folks. They got out of class, and most of the stuff was dance. They were encouraged to whoop and yell. None of this boring pep-speeches stuff. Very little, anyway.

Float night was so wild, college kids drove home to help with their old social club's float, and to drink, etc. They were allowed at the pep rally during school hours.

The game was kind of quiet compared to everything else, really. Parents were there, too, so the mood was different. And alcohol wasn't allowed!
 

Rowan

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Thank you, NiaR and backslashbaby! :)

backslashbaby---when was your parade???
 

backslashbaby

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LOL, well, the floats were just kind of on display outside all around the auditorium where we had the pep rally. They weren't really made to be mobile :D

They were made to be displayed, like a club's own individual scene outside. Folks were allowed to wander around chatting and looking at the floats before the pep rally started (like for at least an hour, just chatting :D).


eta: folks in the auditorium watching the performances were allowed to dance themselves, too. I didn't get to club-dance out in the crowd because I was on stage, but it really was very fun, all of it :D
 
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mtrenteseau

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I went to an all-boys school, so while there was a prom we didn't have a Homecoming with dances or a homecoming queen.

There were three big events associated with "homecoming." There was the Alumni Weekend - classes celebrating 5-year anniversaries would have separat events in addition to anything going on at the school. We'd usually have two or three gentlemen show up for their 65th and 70th "reunion," which is a testament to the loyalty people had to the school, as well as a student body made up of old money families who weren't likely to move away.

The second event was Color Day, where the school was divided into two teams, Blue and Gold. Team loyalty actually ran in families, so if your grandfather was Blue, so were you. Each grade (K-12) would have a competition ending with the seniors in a tug-of-war.

We also had a day in which we played against our long-time rival in every sport that we both competed in, wrapping up with the football game in the afternoon. When I was there over twenty years ago they were about to celebrate the 100th annual event.
 

Rowan

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LOL, well, the floats were just kind of on display outside all around the auditorium where we had the pep rally. They weren't really made to be mobile :D

They were made to be displayed, like a club's own individual scene outside. Folks were allowed to wander around chatting and looking at the floats before the pep rally started (like for at least an hour, just chatting :D).


eta: folks in the auditorium watching the performances were allowed to dance themselves, too. I didn't get to club-dance out in the crowd because I was on stage, but it really was very fun, all of it :D

Oh, wow. Okay! We actually had a Homecoming parade--mobile floats! The court rode in convertibles, like Charlotte described, and streets were shut down, etc. :)
 

Rowan

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I went to an all-boys school, so while there was a prom we didn't have a Homecoming with dances or a homecoming queen.

There were three big events associated with "homecoming." There was the Alumni Weekend - classes celebrating 5-year anniversaries would have separat events in addition to anything going on at the school. We'd usually have two or three gentlemen show up for their 65th and 70th "reunion," which is a testament to the loyalty people had to the school, as well as a student body made up of old money families who weren't likely to move away.

The second event was Color Day, where the school was divided into two teams, Blue and Gold. Team loyalty actually ran in families, so if your grandfather was Blue, so were you. Each grade (K-12) would have a competition ending with the seniors in a tug-of-war.

We also had a day in which we played against our long-time rival in every sport that we both competed in, wrapping up with the football game in the afternoon. When I was there over twenty years ago they were about to celebrate the 100th annual event.

Thank you! Was this a private or prep school?
 

mtrenteseau

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Thank you! Was this a private or prep school?

It's a private school, which expects all of its graduates to go on to college, so technically it's a "preparatory" school. Several schools considered our equals had the word "preparatory" in their names. One that didn't, ironically, was chosen to represent our city in The Official Preppy Handbook.

Our school seal identifies us as a "public" school. I don't know if we ever were "public" in the American sense, even three hundred years ago.
 
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Rowan

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It's a private school, which expects all of its graduates to go on to college, so technically it's a "preparatory" school. Several schools considered our equals had the word "preparatory" in their names. One that didn't, ironically, was chosen to represent our city in The Official Preppy Handbook.

Our school seal identifies us as a "public" school. I don't know if we ever were "public" in the American sense, even three hundred years ago.

Thank you--this actually helps for a peripheral character. :)
 

mtrenteseau

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After re-reading my comment about every graduate being expected to go to college, I just remembered a friend who had an excellent SAT score but only moderate grades.

He had his heart set on a small, expensive out-of-state engineering school and was optimistic (or delusional) enough to want to apply only there.

It took a great deal of persuasion to get him to apply to a larger, closer, state school as a back-up.

He got rejected at the small school and accepted at the big one. Due to a family situation that to me seemed simultaneously oppressive and uncaring, he went off the deep end once he got there. No alcohol or drugs, but he found a girlfriend who was nearly thirty and spent finals week of his second quarter at her apartment rather than taking his exams. He failed out and ended up getting readmitted years later.