Cole Schnell
Contributing Writer
WGHS has a two-day Spirit Week for the first time: going to have the Wednesday of Spirit Week off. KWHS has had the Wednesday of Spirit Week off for the last fourteen years.
WGHS has Wednesday off because it has become a trend in other schools to let students and teachers have a jump start on travel. Then Kirkwood took it off, and so Webster decided to wait a while to decide if it would as well after seeing if the extra day off caused Turkey Day Game and other Spirit Week events be affected.
Pat Voss, alumni relations, asked Kirkwood if Spirit Week events was affected by having Wednesday off in past at KWHS, Kirkwood said it didn’t but last year’s game had one of the lower attendances for a Turkey Day game where Varsity played with 2,872 tickets sold.
By comparison, in 2012, the JV game (due to the gentlemen’s agreement) sold only three fewer tickets. The falter in attendance, for last year’s game, may have been due to the weather; snow covered the field on the day of the game.
WGHS took Kirkwood’s word on it and decided to take off Wednesday this year.
Without school on Wednesday, Webster will combine Tacky Day and Theme Day into Monday. This made it so students didn’t dress up as their themes, but just red and white: mocking Kirkwood’s colors.
The count will be used towards the overall Spirit Week score unlike previous years that has a count for theme clothes. The theme day part is just the decorations in the cafeteria. The count for Tacky Day will be taken during third period on Monday. The combined day is called Tacky Day.
The Turkey Day assembly will take place seventh hour on Tuesday.
Even though school is out on Wednesday, the Chili Fest will take place Wednesday night 5-7 pm. Then the pep rally 7-8 pm and bonfire 8-9 pm follows Chili Fest as usual.
This year’s contests includes bowling at Monday lunch in the PV commons, the banners being put up Tuesday morning, the decorations in sections of the cafeteria, Tacky Day clothes and tug-of-war during the Turkey Day assembly. The cut of days in Spirit Week caused car smash contest to not be used this year: having one fewer contest.
The themes this year for banners and cafeteria decorations are board games: the freshman has Guess Who?, the sophomores has Chutes and Ladders, the juniors has Monopoly, and the seniors has Candy Land.
Spirit Week hasn’t changed that much over the years: having Wednesday off has been one of the bigger changes.
Voss said, “It just evolved.”
For instance the bonfire used to be at Moss Field, and students would parade the torches there from the high school. Also there were more decorations, like Voss’s favorite door posters, and the high school held a morning assembly that served breakfast. The senior line dance hasn’t changed, but it has been around for as long as Voss can remember, she said.
