Tuesday, October 9 marked the beginning of Centennial’s annual Homecoming week. The week was full of festivities, with Eagle spirit running high through the student body. Behind these elaborate events was a team of dedicated students who made this year’s fantastic Homecoming week possible.
Homecoming week was jam-packed with the spirit days, pep rally, pancake breakfast, Homecoming parade that was brought back, Homecoming football game, and of course, the Homecoming dance itself. Each event had a different set of steps that needed to be taken. The Student Government Association (SGA) worked to plan these activities for the school, beginning as early as the end of last school year. Kelli McDonough, one of the sponsors of SGA, detailed that “the board itself was able to divide the different tasks” to prepare for the exciting week.
The SGA started with deciding the spirit days for the week. They created a Google Form for the students to vote for what the four spirit days would be. The spirit days were Barbenheimer, Pajama Day, Adam Sandler, and Color Day.
SGA president and vice president Renee Wu and Allie Liu prepared all Homecoming pep rally activities, including the workshops during the day and the activities at the football stadium. Not only did they organize, but they also directed the sports runs for each fall sports team during the event. Pep rally day was class color day for students, so each class wore their class colors to boost their school spirit. There were a range of performances to enjoy, like the drill team and marching band performed in the pep rally for the halftime show of the powderpuff game.
A sometimes overlooked but still equally important part of the homecoming events was the pancake breakfast, held on the morning of the dance. The breakfast included pancakes, pork and vegetarian sausages, baked goods, and fruit. There was a lively performance from the jazz band. Students enjoyed being able to hang out before the parade, football game, and dance that would take place later that day.
Immediately following the pancake breakfast, the Homecoming parade began. The parade was an event that was brought back this year by the SGA. The parade preparations required an endless amount of work with the SGA. They had meetings with the administration in August. They also needed to buy things for the parade, like candy and bracelets to give out to the student section. The SGA team also had to see what clubs and sports teams could and could not put on their floats. They needed to plan the signup process and organize everything, since there were a lot of activities in one day. To garner support from the community, the SGA had gone out and put flyers near the neighborhood about the parade, said senior SGA president, Renee Wu. SGA sponsors Kelli McDonough and Shalonda Holt had to obtain permits from the Howard County police to block Centennial Lane off for the parade. Despite the rainy weather, all the planning paid off, resulting in an exciting event with performers like the marching band playing the fight song along with a routine from colorguard.
The next event after the parade was the highly anticipated Homecoming football game. The marching band, colorguard, and cheer teams got ready for the halftime show as the choir quintet sang the national anthem. The Eagles lost to Mount Hebron with a score of 50-8, but spirit was in no way lacking. The student section was still full despite the downpour that afternoon.
Finally, the dance was held in the evening. Sophomore Angela Huang, class of 2026 board member, says that to prepare for the disco-themed dance, there was “a lot of building, painting, and crafting.” SGA had to decorate the gym and school with lights, as well as have everything cleaned up before and after the dance.
All of the Homecoming events this year were a success thanks to a lot of behind the scenes planning that students and staff do. Without the SGA, none of these events would take place.
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