Rally commission to hold five rallies this school year

Rally commissioners celebrate after making their entrance to the Large Gym during the first rally of the year on Aug.26.

As the music began to play in the Large Gym, the hundreds of students in the bleachers waiting to see what the 2016-17 Rally Commission had in store for the first rally of the year on Friday, Aug. 26.

Soon the eight commissioners skated out onto the floor, encouraging everyone to cheer and participate in hopes of increasing attendance at school-wide events and rallies in the upcoming year.

“We really pushed [for an extra rally],” said senior Nolan Chao, the head rally commissioner. “We are hopefully trying to get every student involved and maintain the spirit built in the rallies and other events.”

With the addition of the leadership class period, the rally commission no longer has to spend countless hours after school to prepare, said senior rally commissioner Emma Kovac.

“Thankfully to the leadership class we’re able to work on [rallies] during class, so we don’t have to do as much the night before,” Kovac said.

Though the commission had more time to prepare for the debut rally, they still ran into problems with their preparations. The commission had to scramble for freshmen streamers the night before, resulting in yellow streamers instead of green. They also had issues with the administration concerning their routine.

“Our [skating] routine was about to get cut because [principal Paul] Robinson did not want us to roller blade across the expensive gym flooring,” Kovac said. “But he was very understanding and we worked it out.”

Other leadership students have also been able to contribute new ideas for increasing spirit at rallies during the leadership class. Alongside the rally commission, leadership has come up with the “spirit trophy,” which will be awarded to the class with that has the most attendance. There are also individual spirit competitions, where students with the most class spirit will receive a prize for their efforts.

“Last year we want to have a ‘rally schedule’ where we have rally events throughout the entire day,” Kovac said. “Hopefully we will be able to implement it this year or in future years.”

Chao as well as new recruits such as juniors Alex Metz and Will Turpin have also brought different talents to the group to create more interactive games and increase attendance.

“The newbies are full of energy and have lots of great and funny suggestions for games and the script,” Kovac said. “We are going to try to incorporate more new people and have games where the entire classes compete against each other.”

The commission aims to have more participation in school events for not just football, so they have started to recognize other sports and music events during rallies to highlight other parts of the school.

“Our goal as a commission is to bring the school and all the classes together,” Chao said. “We really want kids to get excited about their school and hopefully encourage them to attend all the school events and get involved in the rallies to raise spirit.”