With Homecoming afoot, participants from each grade gathered and decorated in friendly competition.
Disco balls, cowboy boots, rockstars, and pop lyrics. These are all sights students can see in various halls around the building as spirit week progresses all to build up to the big night; Homecoming. With the 2025 theme of “Pirates Got The Beat!”, each class was assigned a different genre of music to decorate their assigned hall with.
Beginning with the freshman class of 2029, they were assigned to upstairs Paxton with a theme of “pop”. With both sets of stairs lined with colorful streamers, students are welcomed upstairs not by flashing lights, but more of a rose-colored glasses feeling. The hallway is decked out with a balloon arch located at the far end of the hall, and wallpaper stretching the length of the hall along with streamers and records, and song lyrics from various artists, including Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, and Rihanna,
The freshmen also decided that they were bulletproof, with nothing to lose, and put up their own photo wall with the lyrics, “It feels so scary getting old,” by Lorde. This action was not taken lightly among some seniors, stirring up tensions while decorating.
“It’s our first time and last time being able to do this,” freshman Emily Perkins said. “We just wanted to do it before we could never do it again. We weren’t trying to ruin your guys’ [seniors] tradition, we weren’t trying to disrespect you at all.”
It is still to be determined whether the new building will permit hallway decorating for the next few homecoming seasons, due to the walls being brand new, so this truly could be a first and a last for the freshman class.
As students Rock n’ Roll down to the sophomore hallway, located across the Performing Arts Center, they are welcomed by wrapped walls, the spirit day schedule, and life-size cutouts of rockstars. With streamers and tinsel leading to the engineering room, the sophomores let the rest of the school know, “they’ve paid their dues time after time, but they’ve come through.”
As students continue way down yonder through the old building, you can find yourself entering Platte Country. The juniors, being given the first section of the hall leading to the North Gym and the theme of country music, made sure to decorate so they could say “that don’t impress me much” to the other classes. With a “Platte Country” sign, a sunflower farm, red barn with an inflatable cow, and more, the juniors made sure everyone knows they got something to be proud of.
“I feel like we could’ve definitely developed a better plan to start,” junior Camden Noller said. “But the people who showed up did a good amount of work.”
Noller also mentioned how he sees the seniors as the juniors’ biggest opponent, commenting on how it seemed like they did alright, but was unsure if he liked the category.
Now, let’s hear it for the seniors as students boogie on down the hall past the north gym, and are welcomed to the Final Disco by disco balls hanging from the ceiling, lockers lined with paper and select song lyrics, and of course, the Senior Wall. The lights and walls are blacked out with paper, with silver tinsel accents and song lyrics in pink and orange.
Then the beloved photowall, where we’re looking so old in pictures of us. (“Pictures of You” – The Cure). Including memories from the past four years, such as football games where students painted their whole bodies, pulled through the Culver’s in a Drake mask, and pictures with friends and the cheesiest smiles, living in the moment. Surrounded by silver star tinsel and disco balloons in a 26, the wall is definitely the focal point of the hall.
“It’s a bit of a competition, we want to win,” senior Kylie Kinzey said. “I’ve been here every single year, this time it was a bit sentimental. We were playing music while decorating and some of the music choices were making me cry a little bit. It’s so sweet to know just, hey, this is our final chance to just do something we love, have spirit and represent our school.”
It’s going down at the Homecoming pep rally where the winning hallway will be announced as we close out this spirit-filled week. Students walked the halls with country bumpkins in Platte Country, rolled with rockstars on a regular Wednesday, and will wear –not black and yellow– but orange and black as Platte County soon takes this sweet, sweet, victory against the Warriors on Friday night.