Gallery • 8 Photos

Zoe Clark

A BEARY HAPPY HOMECOMING At the end of the school day, Chris Kubisty, sophomore, asks Jennifer Barajas, sophomore, to homecoming with a sign.

Saying goodbye to the days of parking lot dances and ideas “to-be-determined,” Lily He, junior, looks forward to her first normal Homecoming dance. With seniors being the only class to experience a truly normal Homecoming, underclassmen have only ever had a dance last year when it was in the parking lot by the tennis courts. 

“I honestly have no idea how Homecoming is going to be inside,” Lily said. “I do feel like without covid everyone has been so busy and people have had less time to prepare for Homecoming, so I’m sort of winging it this year.”

Regardless of feelings, this year brought new traditions and old to the halls of MHS.

For the first time since 2019, Student Government will decorate the fieldhouse the morning of the Homecoming dance. Arriving at the fieldhouse at 8 a.m tomorrow, members get to see their vision come to life. 

“Homecoming is such a staple of high school and it’s so fun to be a part of it,” Asha Patel, sophomore, said. “I’m really looking forward to setting up all the decorations with the other members of Student Government and making the dance feel special.”

In addition to changes with the dance, switching spirit days has also been a topic of discussion. Traditionally, seniors have the same spirit days for the week leading up to Homecoming—nerd day, senior citizens, random costume, 80s workout and college. Once some seniors posted the new spirit days, it sparked controversy on whether or not the tradition should change. 

“At first I was frustrated because I wanted to continue traditions that have been followed for years,” Brooke Vivian, senior, said. “I have been looking forward to those days since freshman year. However, now that we have two sets of spirit days, hopefully there will be more participation.”

As a result of the conflict between seniors, many different versions of the senior spirit days spread across social media platforms. On Monday, there were students dressing up as multiple different spirit days. In the middle of the day, administration sent an email confirming official senior spirit days—country club, nerd, random costume, 80s workout and jersey day. Although the senior spirit days are typically orchestrated by a student while Student Government organizes days for the rest of the school, some students believe that new ideas should be incorporated. 

“Thank god we still had the 80s workout,” Costa Tsakopoulos, senior, said. “That’s like a special senior tradition. It’s better to have the decades be 70s and up because rarely anyone dressed up when it was 50s or 60s day, so there are more options now.”

Rewind to Homecoming’s Past: 

A look back at old yearbooks

Although some students seem resistant to the spirit day changes, there have been many broken Homecoming traditions in the past. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was common for seniors to sneak up on freshmen and smear lipstick on their face during the week leading up to Homecoming. Also during that time, there was an ongoing tradition of having a pie eating contest at the pep session. 

“Classes would design t-shirts around the theme, so one of my class t-shirts was ‘Bam Bam the Warriors’ because the theme was Flintstones,” Mrs. Kathleen LaPorte, social studies teacher, said. “The biggest tradition I miss is spirit trucks. We always had half days, so each grade would rent a huge truck that people could stand in.”

Gallery • 4 Photos

Paragon

DOWN TO THE WIRE Constructing their floats, Mr. Joe Sokol helps seniors Mike Dovelles and Adrian Gutierrez wire up their float for the 2010 homecoming parade.