After being unable to run last year due to South’s virtual state, homecoming is back at long last, and it’s going to be grander than ever.

According to Michael Rennell, social studies teacher and Student Association leader, this year’s dance will be entirely outdoors to ensure the safety of students, and thus features an enormous tent and dance floor.

“[The COVID-19 restrictions] really allowed us to be a lot more creative when [homecoming] is going outside,” Rennell said. “We had to think outside of the box on everything because nothing has ever been done before.”

Due to this outdoor setting and the innovation it enables, South’s Student Association has searched high and low for exciting activities to entertain students at homecoming. These activities include basketball hoops, a foosball table, pacman, jumbo jenga, cornhole, bonfire pits, and more.

“We’re trying to make [homecoming] not just a dance, but an event,” Rennell said. “Not everyone is going to fit on the dance floor, so we’re trying to create some other enjoyable things for people to do.”

Among other recent additions to the dance are the freshmen and sophomore classes, neither of which have experienced homecoming in its full-out form. This second unfamiliar class has presented as a tricky obstacle for Student Association president Claire Blake ’22 to navigate.

“It’s a lot on the seniors trying to remember what it was all like and what goes into planning it,” Blake said. “No one else really knows.”

One instructor working closely with the underclassmen is Shannon Sugamele, English teacher and class of ’24 advisor who has been pleasantly surprised with the enthusiastic participation of her students.

“It’s been awesome to see that they really didn’t skip a beat,” Sugamele said. “A lot of the students that have been coming to float parties [as well as] class council are excited to actually have this event, and you can tell by the way they’re showing up and sharing out.”

Despite working around COVID-19 restrictions and rewriting the guidelines for traditional dances, Student Association and the Class Councils have managed to pull together a fresh event unlike anything South has seen before, and the consensus is that it will be exceptional.

“People are working on this- staff, students, parents,” Sugamele said. “This is going to be a super awesome event, I think even more than other years because of the year off that we had to have. Come out, because people have put a lot of work into this, and it’s going to be a really fun time.”
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