Every blue-tier club was given the opportunity to decorate a door on campus to celebrate this year’s homecoming. The door decorating contest happens every year with different themes keeping each year fresh and exciting. Clubs started to plan ideas on what their doors should look like weeks prior to Homecoming week. They had to make sure they kept up with the homecoming theme “Party like it’s 2005,” and still fit some representation of the club.
The process of the contest is bigger than most students think, all of the leadership teachers put a lot into these contests and decorating doors isn’t the only one. Higher clubs, [black tiered] like honor societies are given an entire hallway to decorate for a separate prize and the silver clubs were assigned to create games for club carnival.
Leadership teacher Kari Miller and other administrators who took a big part inside the contest have quite the judging process for these important prizes for club organizations.
“Me, Mrs. Bearss and the other leadership teachers, usually a couple of administrators and then a couple of additional staff judge all the doors. We judge them based on neatness, creativity, relevance to theme and they’re scored. We then take all of the scores and total them together to choose the winners,” Miller said.
There’s always a spot for honorable mentions, so if someone doesn’t win, they could know how close they were.
“We usually have a winner and a runner up or sometimes two winners, one runner up, depending on how all the scores get totaled,” Miller said.Decorating classroom doors isn’t just a competition, it’s a collaborative experience within every club that participated. In the end, everybody is a winner as long as they had fun celebrating Hagerty’s homecoming and gave a shot for an organization reward.
The winners were announced Friday Oct. 25, the winners and then all of the organizations will get prize money. The most outstanding doors so far based on the looks but also the story being told. The winners of the hallway decoration were Thespians/Tri M and Future Educators of America. The runners up were Rho Kappa/National Honor Society and Science National Honor Society/Beta Club.
The winners of the doors decorating contest were Education Rocks and Best Buddies. The runners up were JSU and Mod Squad.
All of the winning clubs will receive $100 for their organization and the runners up will receive $50.
“The organizations take the money to buy supplies for the organization, like robotics bought stuff for themselves. They can spend the money on a pizza party, ice cream. It’s their money they can do whatever they want with it,” Miller said.
Eating donuts off a rope, face painting and a limbo contest—on Monday, Oct. 24, students had the opportunity to participate in club carnival, a free event held during both lunch periods to kick off homecoming week. Sixteen different clubs participated, each bringing a small game or activity for students to play.
“One of our focuses this year was to ask all of the clubs and organizations on campus to contribute to homecoming week,” leadership teacher Kari Miller said.
The carnival is just one part of a whole week of homecoming festivities. A new development this year was the greater involvement of clubs in homecoming preparations. Sunday hallway decoration for each theme was done by black-tiered clubs, blue-tiered clubs were assigned to decorate their sponsor’s door, and the silver-tiered organizations were asked to participate in the club carnival.
“Sometimes people think they are too cool to play the games and honestly I had lots of fun. I won a bunch of candy and a squishmellow, and all I had to do was play a game,” senior Sydney Schmidt said.
One of the silver clubs that participated was The Fashion Club. They had two games: skeeball and mini-golf. With the help of leadership, they were able to successfully organize their table and get the materials needed like golf balls and cardboard.
“I think it was a good activity for silver clubs to do because we are still new and small, so I think that providing that little space for us at club carnival was very helpful,” fashion club president Misa Gibbs said.
The winner of the club carnival booth display was The Majorettes and the runner up was The Drawing Club. The winner will receive $100 to go towards their club, and the runner up will receive $50.
During the second quarter of Tuesday night’s powderpuff football game, senior Olivia Cachat scored a 40-yard field goal against the junior girls. The seniors kept a steady winning streak against the juniors, winning 30-0.
“I didn’t think I’d make it since it was so far but it felt so good and I made my team proud,” Cachat said.
The powderpuff game is an annual event during homecoming week that many students look forward to.
“The game was definitely not as complex as a typical football game but having fun was the main goal for many of us,” Cachat said.
Powderpuff is a Hagerty tradition where the senior girls go against the junior girls in a flag football game. During the game, the boys perform cheerleading stunts and routines on the sidelines.
There were a total of three practices prior to the game for both the football players and cheerleaders. Due to Hurricane Milton, practices went from six practices to just three, so everyone involved had to make do with what they had.
“The practices we lost were made up the week after but were cramped in, so it was stressful for everyone near the end,” junior Jolin Alcindor said. Alcindor was a flier for the boys cheer team.
“I felt good throughout the game, we never let them score so every point we got was one closer to winning,” senior Marin Mendell said.
The class of 25’ is the only class to have won two years in a row.
“I thought we’d lose, but not that badly,” Alcindor said. “We were absolutely destroyed. It makes sense seeing that ’25 beat the seniors last year, so props to them for staying undefeated.”
Overall, everyone involved in the powderpuff tried to recover the time they lost due to weather.
“There was a lot of scrambling. The coaches tried out a bunch of strategies to see what would work best and in the end it paid off because we had a lot to work with,” Mendell said.
As senior class president Valeria Romero had her hand-painted, she knew that this would symbolize the beginning of the end of senior year. The 16th annual ‘Paws on the Wall’ took place Tuesday, Oct. 25. Seniors got to leave their mark by dipping their hands in paint, then putting them onto the wall and signing their names in Sharpie next to their handprints.
Paws on the Wall was previously held during Club Crawl, an event to preview clubs before the school year starts, however, it was moved to homecoming week to become more of a main event.
“It was better to do it during homecoming week rather than before the school year even started because it allowed for more seniors to come,” Romero said. “I also think that [Paws on the Wall] and powderpuff helped incorporate seniors into homecoming week since a lot of the events are more tailored towards underclassmen.”
This year’s event was planned by the senior activities committee, led by Sebrina Mediaville and chair of the Parent Teacher Student Association Gaynor Brock-Edgar. The committee created a photo spot for students to pose with balloons that spelled out “seniors.” Also, to celebrate 20 years since the school’s opening, the committee coordinated an ice cream bar. Parents donated vanilla ice cream and an assortment of 20 toppings including oreo crumbles, gummy worms and more for students to assemble their own creations.
“The buzz around the cafeteria was amazing. This was the best Paws I’ve seen yet, and the date change [from club crawl to homecoming week] made it that much more of an important event for seniors and just focused on celebrating the Class of 2025 as a whole,” Brock-Edgar said.
Paws on the Wall is one of the first senior-focused events of the year, allowing seniors to be celebrated as they cemented their legacy onto the cafeteria wall.
“Paws on the Wall has been something that I’ve looked forward to since freshman year, and I think it was really special. It felt really bittersweet, and after signing my name I was thinking ‘Wow, I finally did it,’” senior Mallorie Nusbaum said.
Building up to Friday night’s football game, the neon glow pep rally on Oct. 24 took place from 7-8:30 p.m. at Sam Momary Stadium. This event excited both students and faculty about Friday’s homecoming football game and Saturday’s homecoming dance.
“The neon pep rally has kind of become like ‘the Hagerty thing’ for homecoming week,” Principal Robert Frasca said. “Most schools do a parade, so it’s kind of our unique event, and it’s my favorite event of the year, and for a lot of our students, it’s their favorite too.”
The event featured the cheer and dance teams, football team, powderpuff cheerleaders, as well as multiple members of faculty and staff. In the stands, the student body, separated into sections based on their grade level, and donning corresponding neon-colored homecoming shirts, cheered and celebrated the approach of homecoming.
“My favorite part was dancing with my friends and dressing up in neon and wearing glow sticks,” senior Jazmine Burton said.
On the field, a DJ played songs both new and old accompanied by the student body cheering and singing along with their favorite songs.
“I loved that during ‘Don’t Stop Believing,’ everyone just started swaying with random strangers,” junior Olivia Robertson said. “It really made me feel part of Hagerty huskies.”
The pep rally included many activities such as a ring toss, cheer, competitions between sections in the stands and a dance performed by teachers and staff which was a fan favorite for the event.
“Thursday night’s neon pep rally is always one of my favorite school activities to volunteer in because it is fun to be a part of something that makes my students laugh,” english teacher Dana Donovan-Bowers said.
This event is treasured by students and staff alike and has been a staple of homecoming week for five years.
“I love watching our kids have fun. I mean, everybody that comes has a great time,” Frasca said. “They’re dancing in the stands, they’re singing, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.”
Varsity football went into the homecoming game with hopes of an upset against Seminole on Friday night, but Seminole, the #3 ranked team in 7A, did not let that happen, beating Hagerty 42-7.
“The biggest challenge would be our mindset. Just getting over the idea that they’re so big and great, and really just looking at them as another football team,” senior Porter Williams said.
After taking advantage of a fumble recovery, Seminole started off strong in the first quarter by scoring two touchdowns and getting out to a 14-0 lead. Seminole’s dominance continued into the second quarter where they scored three more touchdowns for a total of 35 points in the first half.
While quarterback Caden Mitchell managed to connect with wide receiver James Ketron for a touchdown in the second quarter, that would not be enough. Along with a struggle on the offensive side of the ball, the defense also wasn’t able to stop Seminole.
“On the defensive side of the ball, we were trying to make positional adjustments, Coach [Mikles] was trying to put us in better positions to make bigger plays. We ended up stopping them a few times, so it ended up working,” senior Kale Encarnacion said.
The positional adjustments worked well as Hagerty kept them off of the scoreboard in the third quarter, and they minimized the damage to only one touchdown in the fourth quarter. While the defense was more effective in the second half, the offense was not able to get going throughout the game with costly turnovers.
“We were trying to keep the intensity up, doing what we do best, which is playing football, and keeping the energy,” Williams said.
With this loss to Seminole, Hagerty fell to 1-2 in district play. On Friday, Hagerty travels to Lyman where they will play their last game of the regular season and aim for their fourth consecutive road win.
“For the next game, we’re gonna prepare the same way that we always do. I think the seniors are really going to step up this week because this is the seniors’ last regular season game for the rest of their lives,” Encarnacion said.
All of the photos from homecoming week can be found at hagertyjourn.smugmug.com.
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