Sophomores dominated Spirit Week this fall, winnning with 30 points, followed by juniors (27 points), seniors (26) and freshmen (21).
The week of Oct. 11-15 allowed all students to show their pride through two activities each day, a competition between all the classes, and a specific dress-up battle.
The winning class from each of the two activities received four points for coming in first, three points for coming in second, two points for third, and one point for last place.
Points were distributed based on the percentage of students who participated in each grade, not the total number.
Spirit Week kicked off with “Community Pride Day,” when students were encouaged to wear their favorite sports team jersey and bring in canned food goods for a school food drive. Spirit Week organizer and Lions’ Pride advisor Rebecca Gauvin summarized that this event was all about bringing the community together as a whole.
“Sports are highly looked upon and unite not only the players but the student body as a whole,” she said, adding that the can food drive allowed people to help out those in need within the community.
The sophomores swept both events on Tuesday by bringing in 385 cans. Seniors came in second with 223 cans, followed by freshmen and then juniors.
“I took a total of 1000 cans to the shelter Tuesday morning,” said Gauvin. “To see [the shelter workers’] shocked and overwhelmed faces made me extremely happy and so proud of our school.”
Wednesday began with Personal Pride Day when students were asked to “dress to impress.” The competitive part of the day involved the overall attendance and on-time percentages for one week from each class. The class with the best attendance record won.
Freshmen took first place in the overall attendance category with only 18.9 percent of their overall grade absent, followed by the juniors, sophomores, then seniors. Juniors placed first on the on-time category with only 17 percent of their grade tardy, with the sophomores, seniors, then freshmen lagging behind.
Seniors placed first in the “dress to impress” category with 42 percent. Two bonus points were added to both the sophomores and juniors because they had the best dressed male and female of the school, as chosen by the cafeteria staff.
Thursday emphasized class pride; students were asked to wear their class colors (seniors wore green, juniors wore yellow, sophomores wore blue, and freshmen wore red), while at all three lunches a representative from each grade participated in a “Minute to Win It” competition.
“With this day, I wanted the school to represent their classes and cheer them on through various competitions,” said Gauvin. “I wanted them to join together as a class and really show their enthusiasm by all wearing their class colors with pride.”
Seniors won the event with 82 percent of their grade demonstrating class pride by wearing their class color of green.
The final day of Spirit Week focused in on school pride where students were asked to wear maroon and white, followed by a four-way tug of war competition at halftime of the school’s football game. The Tug of War competition was postponed due to the football game being cancelled. The tug of war returned on that following Sunday (at the make-up football game). Gauvin said the winners shall remain nameless for now and will be revealed at the next spirit week in December.
“I am exceedingly overjoyed with the overall turnout of the student body’s reaction to school pride day. Seventy percent of the whole school wore maroon and white, but the seniors won the final competition with 82 percent of their class participating,” said Gauvin.
As spirit week came to an end an announcement shocked everyone, unleashing the news that the sophomores had won it all. They cheered down the hallways and ran to the auditorium where they were congratulated and gifted with a t-shirt with the school motto on the front and the saying “Pride Week Winners” on the back.
“I’m so proud of the Class of 2014,” said sophomore class advisor Charles Cangemi. “When they were freshmen they won ‘deck the halls’ and Mr. Woodman and I knew this class was special.”
Overall, many were pleased with how many students participated in Spirit Week.
“This spirit week was one of the best we had. We had a wonderful amount of support from all departments in our school to make it a greater and more affective event. The secretaries counted all the tallies, Ms. Nemeth thought of the prizes, while the cafeteria staff picked the best dressed boy and girl. I only hope all this school pride and enthusiasm will carry on to December,” said Gavin.