Homecoming 2009 photo gallery

PHS halls transform into Candy Land, celebrates successful 2009 Homecoming with festive activities

by Caitlin Bartnik
Festive halls decked with Candy Land characters and colorful streamers full of students in coordinating class colors greeted the start of PHS’s Homecoming week Monday, October 12.

One of the Homecoming Committee leaders, senior Steph Stanczyk, explains the choice of the Candy Land theme,“The Super Mario Bros themer went well and was a fun idea and we thought everyone knew this board game and the theme makes it easy to do a variety of activities.”

Monday’s theme was class color day; white seniors, blue juniors, purple sophomores and gray freshmen filled the school. The staff even displayed spirit by dressing in red. The Sunday before girl’s powder puff and boy’s volleyball players honed their skills in preparation for Monday night’s tournaments.

In Powder Puff the seniors bear the freshman due to a fowl for shenanigans given to the freshman near the end of the game. Juniors beat the sophomores. In the rainy cold, juniors and seniors faced off for the Powder Puff finals. The juniors won despite seniors best efforts. Seniors fared better in the Volleyball tournament. The final round of the Volleyball tournament consisted of two senior teams The Doogsters and the Prestige. The score was close throughout the game, but The Doosters pulled ahead for the win.

Like Monday, the rest of the week included themed dress up days. Tuesday’s Pajama Day theme made it easy to just get out of bed and go. Wednesday was Taste the Rainbow Day and the students mismatched colorful plaids and stripes. Musketeer Day was like a triplet day and students found two friends to dress up similar to. Like past Homecoming weeks, Friday was Panther Pride day to prepare students for the game at seven that night.
Even with the cold weather, the annual Homecoming parade went on as usual. The parade included fall sport floats, Rivererview and the high school band, and some school clubs. Homecoming court and the King and Queen were paired up and brought down the parade route in convertables.

The spirited week culminated in a Homecoming pep rally organized by seniors Elizabeth Galba and Kirsten Solonika. Seniors Jesse Gambrell and Rheannon Schramm MC’d the rally in a multitude of amusing outfits. After recapping points accumulated during the week, all the fall sports (except soccer) performed a dance. Judges all picked different winners so a three way tie was declared. The rally also included a Plymouth’s Got Talent portion where each grade was supposed to have a representative perform their talent.
No one from the Freshman grade tried out so sophomore representative Brady Peterson did a traditional Mexican scarf dance. A variety of music styles came on and Peterson enthusiastically twirled scares to all of them. Next Junior Tyler Bruggink played a self written song on an acoustic guitar. For the senior talent, Rick Graf and Lauren Puetz submitted a music video to the Miley Cyrus song “Party In the USA.” Gambrell and Schramm led a clap o meter to determine a winner. Each act received enthusiastic applause but seniors were deemed the winners.

Other entertainment included performances by Danceline, Cheer Leaders and the Comic Improv Team, The Jolly Pranksters. After the various acts, English teacher and Homecoming organizer, Sara Hansen, brought out the results. It turns out, like past years, the results had been stolen. A film showing came on showing seniors Gambrell, Max Gatyas, Madeline Nesemann and Schramm playing Candy Land and being sucked into the universe of the board game. They successfully fight bad guys like Lord Licorice and finally Scramm runs off with the results for PHS’s Homecoming King and Queen.

The twenty court members chosen from included senior girls: Emily Cecka, Leah Glassford, Rebecca Halverson, Jana Hiti, Kristin Holschbach, Nesemann, Jolene Prahl, Ashley Siech, Stanczyk and Clare Witkowski and senior boys Jon Criter, Max Gatyas, Josh Hunter, Ryan Klecka, Patrick Leick, Ian Murray, Robby Paese, Greg Rhude, Ryan Schmitz and Quinn Titel. The mini king and queen were Ben Knaus and Sydney Rautmann. The court assembled for the second time and Hansen announced Criter and Witkowski as PHS’s 2009 Homecoming king and queen.