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A week to remember
Students, staff and players reflect on Homecoming Week 2021
By Jada Price-Williams
Homecoming Highlights Photo Credit: Jada Price-Williams
Homecoming week requires a lot of hard work, so it can be stressful and distracting, but somehow, every year, Holt High School pulls it off.
One person that makes homecoming week become a reality for students is Family and Consumer Sciences teacher and student council advisor Kellie Sweitzer. Sweitzer is the one in charge of making student ideas happen this week.
“Well over 80 people [were] at the first meeting, and so we picked a theme. We've put all the different theme ideas on the board, we picked the theme, we picked [the] dress-up days, voted on things and so it's all student-led and I just then organize and plan the rest of the stuff,” Sweitzer said.
Homecoming week requires a lot of prep and process, so it can be stressful at times, but Sweitzer still has a favorite part.
“It was over, am I allowed to say that? Just for the person who plans it because the parade on top of it all is a lot. My favorite part was just to see the kids having fun getting to see kids in person, having fun,” Sweitzer said.
The Holt community won't soon forget the show-stopping band performance at the football game. Band director Mike Emerson spoke about their preparation.
“Homecoming was wonderful because we weren't able to do this a year ago, but essentially, homecoming is a huge night and week for the band. We have our normal practice on Wednesday night, except we bring the homecoming court in so that we practice the tunnel with them at halftime,” Emerson said. “And put that all together so we got a little extra on Wednesday night. Of course, we needed to make sure that we were all set for our pep assembly for our performance there, and then we also needed to devote some practice time to parade marching for the parade.”
The band had a lot of preparation for Homecoming Week. Emerson described this process.
“The day of homecoming, it'll be the pep assembly, the parade, and the game, so there's a lot of extra work, but it's a lot of fun,” Emerson said.
Homecoming week gets the most action during the football game, where students, parents, and Holt faculty come together and support the varsity football team.
Homecoming means many things to different people. Holt student Thomas Quaserano shared his excitement about being in the homecoming court.
“It was cool, it was definitely a good experience that not many people get to have,” Quaserano said.
There were a lot of nominations for homecoming court; overall, there were two freshmen, four sophomores, six juniors, and eight seniors nominated.
Senior Jenny Nguyen was crowned homecoming royalty during halftime of the game.
“It felt amazing to be on homecoming court. Senior homecoming was my second time on court and I was shocked I was nominated on it again. It felt great to be selected to represent my senior class. I did not expect my name to get called. The fans were cheering and my peers were smiling and clapping. When my name got called, I saw my parents in the background and I’ve never seen them so happy and proud at the same time. It’s definitely a memory I will carry around with me forever,” Nguyen said.
Social studies teacher and varsity football head coach Chad Fulk shed some light on this special week.
“There's a lot that goes into it, especially with all the distractions that you don’t normally have, and they’re good distractions cause it’s homecoming, right? And everyone has fun; they're supposed to have fun, but that just also takes away from focusing a little bit on the game,”Fulk said.
Fulk was happy with the team's performance during the game that produced a win against a tough Waverly team.
“It feels awesome. You want to play well, but there [are] also times when you don't play so well. That you get kinda frustrated, but it's still a win, so you gotta be happy with that. Our only job is to win a homecoming game, cause when everybody comes back, they want to cheer and have fun. So that was our one job and we did [it], so we can celebrate that a little bit,” Fulk said.
Running back Bryce Cornelius played a significant part in winning the game against Waverly. This is his first year playing on varsity.
“The game went extremely well. I think we played probably the best one of our best games so far. I was really excited and happy winning one of our hoco games. It was pretty special for us. We've been working for it all week [and] It was really cool to pull it off,” Cornelius said.
The players were not the only ones who contributed to the win. The student section also played a role. Senior quarterback Seneca Moore said it helped the players get into the game.
Moore said, “After the game, going over to the student section and being able to sing our fight song, that was a pretty eventful part, but also being able to play is pretty exciting comes game time the school and the student and the community. [It’s] really thrilling, you know, vibe to the game and [it] really helps our team get amped up for the game, as well, so the atmosphere around here, I would say, is pretty good.”