Just like that, it’s homecoming week, and the parade is back with more excitement than ever. This year’s homecoming theme was carnival. The parade included sports teams, class floats, and court representatives. Each class had a carnival theme for their float: seniors represented a Ferris wheel, juniors a carousel, sophomores swings, and freshmen dunk tanks.
The freshman representatives were Audrey Reinhart and Peyton Payne. Audrey Pyle hosted this year’s float building at her house, and as a freshman, she expressed how it was fun to show off the float that they worked so hard to build. ” I think it was really good, and we basically made everything from scratch,” Pyle explains. “All of the small details, like including the names of everyone in our class in a giant carnival ticket, made it special.” She enjoyed doing all the things for the parade, as in her first year in high school, she wanted to make memories and participate in as many as she could.
The sophomore representatives are Delaney Colburn and Austin Taylor. The float was built at Allie Morris’s house. Allie was proud of how it turned out. She enjoyed watching the little kids’ excitement. “I wish more kids had shown up and shown more school spirit, but other than that, it was a lot of fun,” Morris shares. “Our score was 70-20, and we will win by 50 points. Allie participated in float building last year as well and thinks the float this year was more successful.
Junior representatives were Reagan Mehl and Adam Miller. The junior’s float was a carousel that functioned to move all the way around. Avery Arbuckle participated in float building every day and added how fun it was to do it with her friends. “There were a good number of people and they all helped, which was nice.” She continues to explain, “I wish we had had more time because everyone who helped was an athlete.” Arbuckle says that she would have added more things to the float since there’s really just the carousel.
The senior float had a rotating Ferris wheel to match the carnival theme. Court representatives were: Emma Burbo, Trenton Frazer, Brady Garrett, Lillian Vandenburgh, Mina Slone, Nate Fritz, Jaylin Knoblett, Tylend Allen, Macy Sinden, and Isaac Krieger. Marissa Mandrelle and Connor Stevens rode on the float during the parade. Mandrelle explains how she was excited for the parade because she was excited to give kids a bunch of candy and see everyone. “Our float was unique but a little empty. Our whole friend group helped,” she shares. “I definitely helped the most I could with the float, and it was so much fun to do it with everyone as our last year.”
The seniors won the float, sophomores got second, juniors got third, and freshmen got fourth. Every grade contributed to show the community their creativity: No matter what place they got, everyone enjoyed building their floats and bonding with each other to start homecoming night.
