Popular Homecoming Dance Is Back-to-School Highlight

A new school year has started at Dimond High and that means the very important Homecoming dance.

“This year’s dance was very interesting. The music was different than normal. They played Metal music which the majority of us probably don’t listen to,” said Sophomore Emily Taylor. 

This year the DJ decided to play metal music instead of the more popular hip-hop and rap music that is usually played. 

“We tried to play different music to possibly get rid of the inappropriate dancing,” Dimond Student Services Principal Chris Kleckner said. 

 The planning of the Homecoming dance has been placed in the hands of the Dimond High Student Government. 

The first thing that goes into planning the dance is deciding the date the dance is going to take place. 

“When deciding the date we look at the football schedule for the year and which home game we would like it to be on,” Dimond Student Government teacher Lem Wheeles said.

This year the dance was on September 7, and the football team played against Dimond’s rival school, South High School. 

“We were deciding between the seventh and the twenty-first but ultimately decided on the seventh because when you reach the end of September it begins to get cold and we did not want a bad turn out to the Homecoming football game,” Wheeles said. 

Next on the agenda for Student Government is the actual planning of the floats and the dance. The Homecoming floats are designed by each of the different classes at Dimond. 

Each class is in charge of creating its own float based on the given theme, which is usually one of the assigned spirit days. Students are able to volunteer their time during lunch and after school to decorate the float. 

“We get to pick our spirit days and themes for the floats. We generally try to build the floats around the spirit days,” Wheeles said.

The floats are presented on the day of Homecoming during half-time of the varsity football game. 

“When setting up for the dance, I, as well as my Student Government students, get to school around 8 a.m. Setting up takes anywhere from two to four hours, it depends on how involved the Student Government students are,” said Wheeles. 

Student Government is also in charge of hiring and finding DJs for the dance. 

“We hire and pay for the DJ and the school gets security and APD coverage,” Wheeles said.

Homecoming is usually the most attended dance of the year, and many students like to bring guests from other schools. 

“Homecoming is a pretty big dance. It is one of the two dances that we allow outside students to come to,” Kleckner said. 

The dance is one of the most popular dances and one that all grade level students look forward to. 

“Student Government always does a really good job at setting up the gym and making it look good for the students. Homecoming is always fun and I really enjoy going,” Senior Lexi Senoran said. 

Due to crowding in the previous years, Student Government had to move the dance to the gym area instead of in the commons. 

“Because of such large turnouts in the past we now have to limit guest passes to 50 guests. We also had to come up with a system to decide whether it is in the commons or not. 

“Seven hundred or less we will be in the commons, 700 or more and it’s in the gym. But, our turnout is almost always 700 or more,” said Wheeles.

Many of our Dimond seniors were excited to see how their last Homecoming will go and who was going to win Homecoming Court.

“I am so excited for my last Homecoming. It is fun to dress up with friends and spend an awesome night out with them. It is also super awesome to see my friends on Homecoming court. It seemed so far away freshman year and now here we are,”  Senior Shanliegh Sullivan said. 

The winners of Homecoming Court is always announced halfway through the dance. The boy nominees this year were, Ryan Hendrickson, Noah Hoefer, Isaiah Moses, Jaren Carle, Logan Fletcher, Dezomnd Bland and Max Keller. 

The nominees for the girls were, Mary Reinbold, Mauri Butzke, Hailey Rogers, Avivi Cohen, Kana Matekai Breckynn Willis.

The winners of the 2019-2020 school year Homecoming Court were Noah Hoefer and Hailey Rogers. 

“I was really excited to see Hailey win. I definitely voted for her and she deserved it.” Senior Mikaela Lawrence said.