To kick off the 2022-2023 school year, Student Government organized and executed a variety of events around campus to connect students in new and exciting ways: two of these activities were Spirit Week and Homecoming.
Planning Spirit Week involved various SGA representatives, including senior Mac Louis, junior Cici Freeman, and sophomores Clara Drag and Joey Kalinowski. It was these students who made this community-building event possible. They worked hard devising a list of themes for the week, putting on a fashion show in assembly, and sending out reminder emails. “We came up with all the ideas, and then we voted at Student Government,” Cici said.
The committee was in contact with Dean of Students Kata Baker to ensure each day’s theme was appropriate and evoked the most enthusiasm to participate. “We had to go through Ms. Baker because she’s the Dean of Students,” Cici said, “and then we had to go through Student Government and vote as a whole.”
Upper School SGA representatives reached out to Student Government in the Middle School to spread spirit school-wide. During Spirit Week last year, the Middle School had different themes each day, and there was a divide on campus, which detracted from the Spirit Week experience.
Another highlight of SGA’s back-to-school list of events was Homecoming 2022, which took place on Saturday, Oct. 8, between the turf fields and the senior green in a massive heated tent. SGA representatives went all out on the decorations, doing their best to incorporate the theme “Into the King’s Wood” into the setting of the dance as much as possible.
When SGA was planning the decorations and lighting for the dance, the homecoming committee reached out to Director of Technical Theater Micheal Bane, who really stepped in to pull the event together. “I cannot emphasize enough how much of a help Mr. Bane was in all of the planning and the decorations and the lights,” senior Keira Sullivan said. “If he hadn’t been involved, I don’t think it would have been as much of a success as it was.”
Mr. Bane gave SGA a box full of vines used in last year’s Fall Play, and they were all tied together in a massive knot. “Even though it was a little bit of a pain to untangle all of them and tape them up around the place, I think it helped make the atmosphere more immersive,” Keira said. “That’s why we put in all the work of untangling those vines. It felt really good knowing that all of the hard work we put into planning paid off.”
The Homecoming committee had to approach the challenge of not having had a “real” homecoming in a few years due to COVID, but the atmosphere and theme for the dance provided a great opportunity to move back to a more traditional KO Homecoming. “Last year’s homecoming was unique because there were still COVID restrictions and we had to be outside,” Keira said. “It was a really pretty atmosphere, but I think sometimes when you’re dancing, you want to feel kind of enclosed.”
By hosting the event in a tent, students were packed onto the dance floor, bringing them closer together both physically and socially. “We achieved that goal of being crowded and in that type of fun, vibrant setting,” Keira said.
Members of the Homecoming Committee were just as excited for the night as most of the student body because they were the ones who had planned the dance, and it was both relieving and affirming that the event ran smoothly. “This was my first fully-decorated and all-taken-care-of homecoming,” senior class president Jacob Joseph said. “I worked really hard on it, as did the rest of the group, and I think that really made it important to me on a personal level.”
Keira added that even though events of this size are bound to have flaws, the night was a success overall. “I think it was a really great feeling to see the event come together, seeing the tent decorated with all of the lights and the vines, and then seeing everybody dance,” she said.
On the whole, the beginning of this school year gave students and faculty a great opportunity to get involved and engaged in the community through both Spirit Week and Homecoming, and KO can’t wait to see what next year’s Student Government does for these events!
