A Good Spirit Week
Ridgeview's Spirit Week is always slightly out of the ordinary, owing to our lack of high school sports. I've had several students from other schools in the area ask me how and why we have a Spirit Week in the first place. So why do we? Because our students are energetic and excited, ready to celebrate and make our school community even stronger. This year we continued old traditions and started some new ones of our own, and I think that the student body would agree that it was a great week.
Our Spirit Week days were Western Day, Crazy Hair/Hat Day, Decades Day, "Prepare for the Flood" Day, and Spirit Day. Some people really went all out - girls dressing up in 50's poodle skirts, rocking neon colors and high-tops from the 80's, people cowboy hats and Santa hats, bandannas and camouflage, and plenty of RCS gear and colors on Friday!
On Tuesday, the seniors participated in the annual senior fundraiser, the Senior Soak, where other students and even a few teachers bought water balloons to throw at the seniors. As cold as it was, it was a blast! Not only was it a lot of fun, but all the proceeds from the Soak go to the senior-host nights that will be happening throughout the year.
On Wednesday, the whole school came out for Ridgeview's second annual First Responders' Day, where local first responders bring their vehicles and equipment and talk to us about what it means to serve. This was such an interesting experience. I'm really glad Ridgeview provided us with this opportunity and that so many servicemen gave up their time to talk to us! I had some really great conversations with Flight Nurses from Medical Center of the Rockies, the Colorado Forest Service, State Troopers, and many more. It is really important that people know what they do and what they sacrifice in order to keep society functioning, which made Wednesday a really good day.
Friday at study hall, high school students flooded the PAC as StuCo hosted our first Pep Rally! For it being our first one, I think it went really well. We first voted for Homecoming Royalty (congrats George and McKenna!) and then introduced the two teams for Ridgeview's first Ultimate Frisbee Homecoming Game. We had fun music, cheerleaders, and a LOT of face paint.
After the Pep Rally, students headed down to Edora Park to watch the game. The game was initially pretty uneven because it was seniors vs. underclassmen and our more experienced seniors towered over the younger kids, but then more players were added to the younger team and it evened out. The seniors did end up winning, however, with a score of 12-8 (Go seniors!). This was a lot of fun to attend, and a great new tradition to start. I'm sure that it'll keep growing in future years too.
Later on Friday night, school-wide community members attended the Faculty Recital. This is one of my favorite things to go to in the fall because the recital is always a combination of beautiful music and flat-out hilarious acts. My favorites this year were Mrs. Binder, Mrs. Halseide, and Mrs. Faust-Frodl's Bollywood dancing, Mr. Ayers's performance of the Bee Gees' "Staying Alive," and the Finale, in which all of the teachers performed the Star Wars theme song on hand bells.
The last event of Spirit Week was the Homecoming Dance on Saturday. I personally had a really great time at the dance, and it definitely seemed like others did too. I loved seeing the freshmen so excited to dance with upperclassmen and to get involved in the non-academic side of Ridgeview. The theme of Homecoming was "Autumn's Eve" and the Dance Committee decorated accordingly: golden pumpkins, candles, leaf garlands, and orange tulle transformed the gym. There was plenty of good music, swing dancing, and laughter, and I am so glad that people enjoyed themselves.
Spirit Week has definitely been my favorite week of the school year so far, but there will to be many more weeks just as good and even better to come. There's so much to look forward to this year, and I am ready to enjoy it all with my Ridgeview family. How are you celebrating the fall?