With Homecoming week coming to a close and the dance finally arriving, all of the festivities also came to an end as the seniors took first place for Hallway Decorating.
Hallway Decorating is a tradition for many schools when it comes to Homecoming week, setting the atmosphere for the upcoming dance. Along with the spirit days, Homecoming Parade, and Friday night football game, decorating the hallways gives students a sense of unity and excitement throughout the week.
The Homecoming 24’ theme was “Game On!”, centered around board games like Candyland, Clue, Monopoly, and Operation. As for Hallway Decorating, each grade had the choice to pick one or two games and combine them into one hall. Seniors chose Monopoly and Life, favoring Monopoly. Juniors chose one game, Candyland. Sophomores picked Battleship and Scrabble, Freshman chose Operation and Clue.
Freshmen, picking Clue and Operation as their games, chose a few different ways to represent them. To represent Clue, the freshmen made different decorations to represent each room from the game and hung caution tape from the ceiling. To represent Operation, they created a cutout of a person and decorated it like an operation board.
London Hulett, a freshman in her first year of StuCo who helped with hallway decorating, described Hallway decorating as “fun, long, and hard work,” despite low numbers. Even with not many people to help, the freshmen were still able to take third placing above the juniors and below the sophomores.
Sophomores picked two contrasting games for their decorations, Battleship and Scrabble. To represent Battleship, the sophomores created a large-scaled battleship board, placed blue balloons around the hall, and placed colored paper over the lights to change their color. To represent Scrabble, they created a large paper scrabble board with the words “Sophmores” (SIC), “Hoco”, and “Pirate”.
Keston Wimberly, a sophomore in StuCo who helped with hallway decorating, believes that the sophomores deserved to place second.
“We did both of our games and with what we were given, and with two opposite games it was kind of tough to work,” Wimberly said.
Juniors with a bold move, decided to only choose Candyland as their game. Taking heavy inspiration from the game, the hall was covered in many colorful decorations including candy themed cutouts, colored paper over the lights, streamers, colored blocks along the lockers, and a paper gingerbread castle.
“In having the best theme, we didn’t plan anything,” junior Camila Zalava said. “We just thought we were going to show up and Candy Land was going to show up.” Juniors placed fourth overall in the hallway competition, a shock to many all things being considered.
As reigning champions, seniors came prepared and ready for this year, choosing Monopoly and Life as their games. The hall was covered with elements from both games, including a jail, monopoly money, blocks inspired by the monopoly board, and the senior wall.
Senior Elizabeth Webb, talked about how hallway decorating is a good chance to talk and reconnect with peers who you may not see often during the school year.
“I’ve done it the past three years, so it’s fun to see the same people, even if you don’t have the same classes with them,” Webb said. “It’s fun to see them and be there with them, and just reconnect.”
