Homecoming week wraps up with crownings

At halftime of the football game against Los Altos on the evening of Oct. 16, all the traditional pomp and circumstance was on display as Homecoming royalty was crowned and scores were announced for each grade’s performance in the annual celebration. The football team did its part, winning the game 40-10.

This year, the final round of elections for Homecoming royalty was done through an online voting, a change from previous years in which paper slips were used in each classroom. The preliminary round of elections, however, still used the traditional way of paper slips in each classroom. 

“We had to spend many hours counting the ballots by hand to determine the names that would appear on the official ballot,” Elections commissioner Jennifer Veis said. “The second round of voting was much easier because the online system counted the votes for us.” 

However, the elections commission had to face the difficulty of not having the entire student body logging onto the online portal to vote. 

“We had to put up posters around school about Homecoming in order to encourage enough of the student body to log online and vote since this voting was not required or in class,” Veis said. 

After the votes were counted, the Homecoming royalty were announced as freshman Prince Roshan Verma and Princess Cameron Lin, sophomore Prince Akhil Marimuthu and Princess Mohini Dutta and junior Prince Bryon Wong and Princess Taryn Frank. The senior royalty included a total of six people with three princesses, Anne Rollinson, Alice He and Katie McLaughlin, and three princes, Nihar Agrawal, Luke Salin and Davis Robertson.

At halftime, seniors Anne Rollinson and Davis Robertson were crowned Homecoming Queen and King. Rollinson and Robertson, who have been dating, were not originally paired together when election results were announced but went to activities director Rebeca Marshburn to ask for a special request to walk together. 

Their victory came as a mild surprise to them and for the crowd as it challenged the tradition of enthroning mainly marching band members. 

Robertson, who is captain of the water polo team, and Rollinson, who, though out with a knee injury,  is captain of the field hockey team, both said that they were pleasantly surprised upon their coronation. 

“I am very honored to have been chosen by the student body as King,” Robertson said. “I would have never guessed that it would happen but I am glad that it did. There is nobody that I would rather have as queen.”

English teacher Erick Rector also announced the winners of each Homecoming category. Each class was judged on the same three categories: Overall, Quad Day and Decorations.

Seniors won overall Homecoming with a total of 489 out of 500 points and won Decorations. The Juniors won Quad Day with a total of 235 out of 250 points. The Homecoming commission helped make the score sheet for the teacher judges and also bought the crowns and sashes for the court.

“The end of Homecoming was bittersweet; everything came together perfectly and everyone had such a great time that it is sad to think that this is our last one,” Rollinson said.