Early October, the 8th to be exact, there was excitement in the air around THS. Why? The first pep rally of the year was slated to be that day. Most of the sophomore and freshman classes had never experienced one before, so when the opportunity came up to interview Ms. Cipriano, the main coordinator of the whole event, I took it immediately. I got to sit down with her and ask her about the pep rally, what goes on behind the scenes, who helps out, and more. Here’s what happened. 

The interview started off simple, asking how long the pep rally had been in planning for. There was an interesting answer (and one I certainly didn’t expect) which was three weeks. It seemed like such a short time, we had barely been in school that long. Following up by asking if faculty or students help in the pep rally efforts, and, as per my expectation, the answer was yes! Wide scale school things like this are all hands on deck. Also, for my own curiosity, asked when the last time there had been a pep rally at THS. The answer wasn’t that surprising (thanks, COVID) December 2019 (Ms. Cipriano also added that the last virtual pep rally had been in spring 2020).

These next few questions tried to dig a little deeper, these were questions one could hear floating around the halls that were picked up for the list. To start, how Ms. Cipriano was feeling about the pep rally (nervous, excited, etc) was the question. She answered that she was nervous, but for a reason one wouldn’t have thought of. This was the first outdoor pep rally ever, and she was worried about how the students would react to it. The next question was if there was anything she wished she could have done that just couldn’t happen, for whatever reason. One might think things like money constraints or time constraints, but the answer was, surprisingly, no. (She did mention she would’ve liked to decorate the fence more, but that was it). Now, this might have been a question only on a few peoples minds, but the question just had to be asked- was there another pep rally being planned out?. The answer was yes! There is another pep rally being planned out for right before homecoming. 

These last few questions might not have been on only a few people’s minds, but they had to be asked, so given the opportunity, they were. One might wonder why they would put on a pep rally during the school day, instead of maybe immediately after school. The answer? To increase school spirit and student participation. It seems to make sense. If it was after school there’d be maybe three people per grade there. The next question asked was about themes (a lot of sophomores were boiling in their black outfits) and was told they use themes for class unity. That also makes sense, that way you could pick out which grade is which in the huge crowd. The final question was how the class themes were picked, and was told usually the class cabinet would pick it, but this year, since everything was done very fast, it was done by the homeroom representatives. They were already behind in regards to pep rallies, the first one of the year usually being in the first two weeks of school, but you never would have known had you seen the way things were done (as all of you reading this did).

So, that was that. The interview was finished, I closed up my Chromebook and immediately went home to write. Some think pep rallies are a lot of fun. They show class unity, school spirit, and at the last one they threw around candy. Some didn’t like it that much. At least we had the experience, ya know?