It’s arguably the most essential building block of any coming-of-age high school movie: Homecoming.
The lights, the music, and the rise of class spirit set the stage for a memorable school year for everybody. History teacher Brad Anderson puts in 110% when formulating the Homecoming plan that could do exactly that.
He may be the head of the Homecoming committee at FHC, but Anderson is not the only person responsible for the success of each year’s Homecoming week.
“I am the designated Homecoming coordinator,” Anderson said, “but, obviously, I have an incredible team of staff members and students that I work with, and we’ve been doing that for years. I coordinate it, and I’m the man behind the scenes, but we have a lot of staff members who are offering a lot of their time. Plus, of course, the student council has everybody involved. It’s a big team, and my job is to make sure it’s going in the right direction.”
“There’s no division, no politics, no “this class or that class;” it’s just one big community.”
— Brad Anderson
While Homecoming week can certainly be a bit stressful for anybody involved, Anderson does his best to make sure that there are good opportunities for all of the students at FHC.
“I love seeing people come together,” Anderson said. “I love the community aspect of it when people are having fun, enjoying each other’s company, and showing pride in Ranger Country. My favorite moment of the entire week is usually seeing the smoke over the tailgate site when the football team is coming in and parking their cars. I think the Friday assembly is great, especially for the seniors, since it gives them the time to get on the floor as a class. The Powderpuff game was really fun; it was a bit different not being under the lights, but we improvised, adapted, and overcame despite a lot of scheduling circumstances.”
In the community at FHC, it has become a norm for staff and students to try and come together through Homecoming week in a way that allows for further upward growth throughout the rest of the year.
History teacher Laura Stiles is one of the biggest proponents for this dynamic at the school, and she does her best to invoke this same feeling in the students and faculty members she is working with.
“I am the student council advisor,” Stiles said. “I tend to call myself the assistant coach. For whatever Brad [Anderson] needs, I do my best to rally the student council in order to help. I love my role in Homecoming, and I [love being] the official parade coordinator, and I make sure everybody is set up and safe. I always like to be running the music at the assemblies, too. It’s always a big week for student council and a big week for me.”
For this school year, there have been some never-before-seen changes to the processes associated with Homecoming week, but Stiles loves each event just as much.
“Tug-of-war was awesome, and the teachers won, so that makes it even better,” Stiles explained. “Powderpuff was different this year, and that was really fun to watch. The bonfire was on a Monday this year, after the soccer game, and that was different. The parade is always super authentic, and I always really enjoy it. We made a couple of changes this year, but I would really like to get some feedback from students about more of it. Eventually, we’ll sit down as a team and decide what we should and shouldn’t do moving forward.”
With all of the changes, more people are getting more responsibilities through the whole ordeal, especially senior class president Ayla Ahmetovic.
She has been working hard to effectively do her job as president and has been more involved than ever before with the student council and planning of the festivities.
“For Homecoming, I coordinated the class lip sync, float building, and ticket sales, and we had a say in the theme days,” Ayla said. “Even though the rest of the student council helps a lot, I kind of organize most of the things we do, but they help me a lot with everything. If people have questions about what’s going on, they usually ask me about it. For the lip sync, we had to figure out when and how to do it and what would make people more effective in learning it, so there was a lot [of time spent].”
What many people may not understand is the amount of time and energy put into the Homecoming week planning and executions, and it is something that should be more widely recognized in our school.
Regardless, as any student—whether involved or not—likely would be, Ayla is excited to see the turnout of the lip sync amongst other aspects of the week as it comes to an end.
“My favorite thing about it is that, in the end, I’ll get to see how it all turns out,” Ayla said. “Even though it’s really stressful throughout the week, it’s going to be really rewarding to see how it all ends up working. The lip sync is probably the most stressful part because there are so many people texting [me] about it and asking for different things. It’s taken up a lot of my time, but it’s definitely somewhat of a love-hate relationship because I’m also the most excited to see it when it’s done. I really just want to see everybody come together and dance as a class.”
With many different groups of people becoming involved in different activities, there are opportunities for everybody to participate in some way.
Nevertheless, Anderson isn’t likely to change his favorite tradition of the week anytime soon.
“I love the point where I take the court and walk around the track,” Anderson said. “There’s alumni, current students, and future Rangers in the stands under the Friday night lights. They’re about 30-40 yards behind me as I lead them over, and it’s such a great feeling to look over and see them in their element with Rangers past and present. Then, you get a view of the crowd on the opposing side, and it’s this feeling of our community and our town. That’s where everything comes together. There’s no division, no politics, no “this class or that class;” it’s just one big community.”
