It’s spirit week. Look around. How many people do you see with crazy hair, neon clothing, or even mismatching shoes? Lately, almost no kids dress up for spirit days. This hasn’t always been the case. Kimberly Copadis, Dimond High School Class of 2005 alumni who is now an intern with the Journalism class, says that everyone always dressed up when she was in school. “Spirit weeks were always crazy,” says Copadis. Along with losing spirit, Dimond has lost quick-hitters. Some juniors and seniors may remember these lunchtime activities lead by the commissioners of spirit and other kids on student government. Quick-hitters were usually fun contests in which random students were asked to participate. “I really miss the quick-hitters,” says senior Heather Philpott. This sentiment is shared amongst many who remember them. “We need student government to get everyone more motivated and bring back some of these activities. Then maybe people will start dressing up again,” says senior Rebekah Skinner. The lack of spirit may be related to the lack of fun activities to get kids pumped about dressing up, but it may also be that spirit days are too complex. Homecoming week included stone age, space age, the golden age of pirates, western age, and Dimond age. The day that saw the most number of students dressed up? Dimond age. This might be because it was the least complex of the week. “I don’t have the time or the energy to dress up,” says senior Kjirsten Tornfelt, “ it’s too hard.” “I’ll dress up for blue and pink day,” says Philpott. Most kids seem to agree, if the lack of pirates and cowboys in the beginning of September was any indication. Spirit days are also repeated from year to year, so while upperclassmen may know what’s coming and have ideas from previous years, the freshman are on their own. More freshmen dress up than upperclassmen, however. A lot of seniors are tired of the repeated days. “The days are the same every single year!” says Skinner. This year the homecoming spirit days were ones Dimond hadn’t seen before, but that didn’t change the fact that an overwhelming majority of students didn’t dress up. Except on Dimond age. Lots of students took the maroon and gold out of the closet and went all out on Dimond Age Day. So Dimond does have school spirit, when pertaining to maroon and gold, just not pirates. “If you go to running meets or football games everyone wears maroon and gold and cheers like crazy,” says Skinner. It’s just a matter of channeling that spirit into spirit weeks.