Yamhill-Carlton High school has had a recent history of lackluster school dances. This year the leadership classes are dedicated to bringing in the community and part of that effort is bettering the high school dances.
With the idea of the theme, Haunted Homecoming, this year’s leadership class plans to go all out with decorations. With the effort being put into decorations, there’s hope this will extinguish the awkward middle school dance vibe that most students say YC dances hold.
A change in location is also something that will be a big change. Every year for the last three years, YC’s dances have been in the YCIS gym. This fact is very much attributing to the middle school dance vibe. 2024’s Haunted Homecoming will be in the YCHS old gym.
Other complaints have often been about the music. For some there are too many line dances, or too many slow dances, or even not enough slow dances. People often feel left out, while it is hard to make everyone happy all the time, AvaLina Rigamonti, a member of the decorating committee, spoke of something exciting she thinks will help.
“We also actually put in the money for a DJ, having an actual DJ. We’re really gonna focus on the playlist and having songs that people actually really love and dance to,” Rigamonti said.
This year’s homecoming has also been pushed back. In the past few years the shut down time has been around ten or eleven, but this year, they’re aiming for people to stay longer and have more fun with the dance. The hope is that a shut down time of midnight would give more opportunity to the cheerleaders and football players participating in the homecoming game.
Madison Guinn, another homecoming committee member, said, “We want the football players and the cheerleaders and then the genuine fans of the game to be able to go for the whole (dance), if not the majority of the time.”
With the goal of building up the YC community, the leadership classes have taken a different approach to the homecoming week hall decorating. In the past, students have gathered in the school on a Saturday to decorate the hallways of their assigned theme. This system often led to quite disappointing decorations for some hallways because it was dependent on whether or not students showed up.
This year’s leadership classes have taken the reins and began decorating each hallway themselves during their leadership period and advisory. With this approach students can join in however they want with not much commitment involved. Students have already seen the difference, taking note and pictures of the various decorations.
