By: Michael Palmieri

     This year, Eisenhower hosted its annual Homecoming spirit week, with games, special themes, and a Homecoming pep rally. This spirit week was put on by Student Council, who did a great job creating fun themes and encouraging students to participate.

     This year’s spirit week themes were as follows: Monday was Birks vs Boots, Tuesday was dress like your dressing, Wednesday was pajama day, Thursday was barefoot blue jean night, and Friday was blue and gold day.  This spirit week included an impressive amount of student participation. In an interview with Student Council advisor and reading specialist, Mrs. Lobdell, she explained, “By far this year was the most successful and most participated spirit week in a while.” Student Council did a fantastic job coming up and advertising this year’s spirit week.

     The school spirit continued with the pep rally on Friday, September 18 before the Homecoming football game. The event started with an introduction to the football team and a pre-game hype speech from captain and quarterback, Joseph Gigliotti. Gigliotti shared, “It was supposed to get the crowd’s attention to come and support the football team that night. They showed up for us greatly.” After that great speech, the pep rally moved on to the introduction of Homecoming court. The freshmen class representatives were Lilly Tarr and Owen Ash. The sophomore class representatives were Alex Vangelder and Camdyn Black. The junior class representatives were Katie Upton and Carson Ferman. The senior class was represented by Austin Hanson and Caitlyn Pikna, Joseph Gigliotti and Izzy Grosch, Samantha Anderson and Ollie Boozer, Gavin Reynolds and Kinzlea Chase, and Paisley Lawson and Michael Palmieri. The senior representatives had fun with their introductions, as each couple had their own unique walkouts for the pep rally, with flips, handshakes, and unique dances.

     Then the pep rally games began. Lawson discussed with The Squire the process of choosing which games to include, explaining, “When coming up with the games it took a lot of consideration.” With the first game being “the cup game,” here one student would flip a cup and the other would try to catch the cup in their own cup. The next game was a jump rope race between the sports combined with a blowup horse race, which tied into the Homecoming theme of “A Knight Out West.” The next activity was a finish the song game, where teachers and senior Homecoming court would be given a word and were told to come up with a song that included that word. To put it lightly, the teachers upset the students 11-2.

     As spirit week concluded and the pep rally cries faded, Homecoming week officially closed for this year. This spirit week, students and staff celebrated together and the focus shifted to school spirit and also IKE Pride. Spirit week is a great reminder of what this year should look like with togetherness, fun, and school spirit.