Spirit week is seen as a stress reliever and a source of fun for students and staff. RBHS has days like jersey day and era day, when students competed to see who could have the best outfit amongst their peers.

This week is run by Student Association, the group that strives to bring students closer together and make the overall school atmosphere better. Dress up days and door decoration were part of the homecoming fun. 

“I absolutely loved it. It was student planned, student-created, and student implemented,” said RBHS principal Dr. Hector Freytas. 

The first year principal claims that his first spirit week was a good one and that he couldn’t think of anything better than what the students did. Spirit week even helped build bonds between the student body and faculty. 

”I think that this was an experience that brought us closer together,” said Freytas.

The door decorating competition allowed the teachers to join the festivities as well.The creativity around the school blossomed and the door decorating competition was even brought to attention on the social media website ¨TikTok,” and the video ranked up to over 47.5k likes. 

The cafeteria also got involved by providing new food options like the ¨Bulldog Burger,¨ which was a hit for the students. Some of the specials included enlarged portions for a ¨Bulldog¨, extra sides, and other things as well.  

¨I think that new food options that are fun and creative with the day of the week helped the school have more enjoyment in every aspect of school,” said sophomore Tommy Tepavchevich. 

Although many students thought the spirit week was amazing, it did receive some mixed opinions for some. 

¨I think that spirit week could’ve been better because we have the same spirit days every year. We need to change it up a little. No one wears anything for decades day and god forbid dress like a celebrity day,” said junior Marshall Jebb.

RB staff and students this past homecoming participated in a new competition headed by Assistant Principal of Student Affairs David Mannon. 

For this year’s Homecoming, Mannon came up with a contest to promote the theme of Homecoming and school spirit. He talked to other administration officials who supported the contest. Teachers and their second period classes then proceeded to decorate their doors with Hollywood themed decorations following the regulations of the contest. 

“It really shows kids getting involved and one thing we’re trying to do now is create an atmosphere of spirit with kids, but also have kids take ownership of their classroom and door,” said Mannon.

Many classrooms ranging from art classes to academic classes took part in the contest, which concluded with two victors. The winners of the contest were announced at the Homecoming pep rally. 

“I think it created a lot of school spirit within the academic classes, often times homecoming is often celebrated outside of the school day besides spirit days. It allowed the class to come together and do something spirited for Homecoming,” said Spanish teacher Jenna Osburn.

 “It created a lot of community in my classroom, students were able to take the lead. There were a lot of students who stepped who I never would’ve expected to step up and take the lead,” said Osburn.

Osburn, with her second and third period Spanish classes, decorated her door for the contest. Their door not only included RB and Hollywood themes, but also Spanish themes such as famous Spanish celebrities. 

“I think it was a very fair contest and I think everyone had a lot of fun with it,” said Osburn.

Teachers and students were tasked with providing their own supplies for the contest, which caused some stress if they weren’t prepared accordingly or joined in the competition late. 

According to Mannon, the contest was a success and has ideas to expand the competition to more areas around the school based on class and grade for next year. 

”I’m always trying to think outside the box so if kids have ideas, no idea is a bad one, I’ll have them come in here [referring to his office] and let’s talk through it and see how we can implement it.” Mannon said.

Saruta, or known by her American name “Serena”, Khuanwilai is from Krabi, Thailand and will be spending the 2019-2020 school year here at RBHS as an exchange student living with a local host family. She will be writing a column detailing her experiences here in America for the Clarion, as well as other articles. 

My first ever Homecoming, or spirit week, was last week, from the 30th of September to 4th of October. I knew what Homecoming is from some American series or movies and also from returned exchange students telling us stories about it at orientation camps. For the most part, in my home country, we don’t have anything like this so I found it to be weird but also really fun. 

Homecoming is an exclusively American tradition so being an exchange student here gave me the opportunity to experience these activities. As soon as I heard about this week, I was curious and eagerly awaited it. I was thinking about my outfits for the whole week but to be honest, I didn’t follow the theme every day.

Monday, September 30th was the first day of my spirit week and the theme was “Breakfast Club Day” aka “Pajama Day.” I had never heard of the movie, “The Breakfast Club” before and my host sister explained to me what the movie was about and it made me want to watch this classic American movie. I think most people wore pajamas and night dresses to school. I wore a t-shirt, gray jacket, and elephant pants that I brought from Thailand.

The next day was “Decade Day.” The freshman year dressed up in the style of the 60s, sophomore 70s, juniors 80s, and seniors (including me) in 90s. This was my favorite day  because I usually like to dress up in 90s outfits. I wore a red striped shirt that my host sister gave to me, fancy jeans, hair pins, and a belt. I also liked this day because I saw some fancy decorations for homecoming at the entrance doors, the ceramic room and on the windows. 

Day three of spirit week was “Jersey Day”. I didn’t participate on this day because I didn’t have any jerseys.

Thursday was “Red Carpet Day” and I saw some crazy and weird costumes such as Bob Ross. I also skipped this day because I didn’t have anything appropriate for the theme.

Friday was “Crazy Blue and White Day,” and we wore blue and white, our school colors. This was an easy day, periods at school were shorter because we had a big assembly called a “pep rally” the last hour at school. It was very fun, there was a school marching band, color guard, cheerleaders, and students cheering for their class. They also have a dodgeball game between teacher and sophomore year. At the end, they crowned the homecoming king and queen. 

That night, there was the homecoming football game. After school, I came back home for my host sister’s birthday celebration. Then, we went right to the football game where my host sister explained American football to me. We just stayed for a half an hour of the game because my leg was hurting from standing.

Saturday night was the event that I was most excited to experience– the Homecoming dance. I decided to go with my host sister and her friends. I was wearing uncomfortable shoes so after we left the dance at around 10 p.m., my feet hurt so bad. At first I felt a little bit awkward because there was a big circle in the center of people dancing. For about half an hour, I just watched people dance but then I started to dance and have fun. As this was my first homecoming dance, I had high expectations but it was not a big deal. I had a fun and great experience anyways.

As an exchange student, it can be hard sometimes not to think of your home country and of your friends and family so but staying busy helps with missing home. This was the first time I experienced a big event in American culture and I think it was a great experience! I can’t wait to do other fun things like this.