More than 200 people attended The Homecoming Dance Oct. 28. According to cheer advisor and Spanish teacher Heather Davis, this is 100 more students attended than last year.
This year’s dance had an 80’s theme, and Davis, who helped coordinate the dance, thought that the theme attracted more students.
“Whenever you advertise something with a theme, it just gives it its own little personality, and if it sounds fun people will want to come,” Davis said.
Senior cheerleader Julia Cimler helped decorate and coordinate the dance. Cimler thinks that the dance has improved since last year.
“I think it has improved since last year because there are actually a bunch of people here and we got it moved to the gym,” Cimler said. “That’s a lot nicer than the cafeteria.”
However, the Northwood dance is not near as popular as past Northwood dances. Northwood data manager and 1979 Northwood graduate Bonnie Morris recalled her Homecoming at Northwood.
“Homecoming when I was in school here was a huge, huge, huge deal, not just for the school, but for the community,” Morris said. “The clubs always did floats for Homecoming and we had a parade downtown.”
When Morris went to school the clubs were responsible for getting local businesses to sponsor their floats for the parade, and local car businesses like Ford and Chevrolet provided convertibles to take the Homecoming Court to the football game. Because of all of the festivities on and around Homecoming, it was a huge deal to be a part of the Homecoming Court.
“Being on Homecoming Court was huge,” Morris said. “I remember my senior year I was devastated I lost. I was so mad I lost by two votes, I was like, “Recount, recount!”
When Morris went to high school, few activities were offered at Northwood, so Homecoming was a bigger deal. She thinks that because more opportunities have arisen in expanding Pittsboro and nearby locations, current students don’t take Homecoming as serious as her class did.
Junior Abbie Calhoun thinks that Homecoming has changed because it is not advertised as much.
“The news should be spread more,” Calhoun said. “I didn’t even know that it was formal or a bring a date thing.”
Cimler, who has old friends who attend another school, sees pictures on social media of big Homecoming proposals that don’t exist at Northwood.
“Homecoming has changed because it’s not a very big tradition at Northwood,” Cimler said. “A lot of the schools I see, especially the school I used to go to… they make it a big deal to ask each other to Homecoming.”
Other students think that Homecoming has lost it’s popularity because it was taken away for a period of time.
“I think because they stopped doing it, a lot of the popular crowd thinks that it’s lame,” senior Hannah Urbas said. “They don’t go, and because they don’t go, their friends don’t go.”
Both students and staff believe that the dance has a chance of coming back.
“I think if [Northwood] brought back the parade and advertised a little more and kind of got it more pumped up, [it could come back],” Morris said.
Cimler also thinks the dance has a chance of regaining popularity.
“I think it does have potential, but you still have to get more and more involvement,” Cimler said.
Senior Dalton Heath, a student who has gone to Homecoming the last two years, feels that students should cherish this opportunity.
“You only get dances in your high school years,” Heath said.
This year, the cheer and dance team started bringing the community back into Homecoming by providing discount tickets to students who provided canned food items for CORA.
“We are here for a reason more than just to cheer on the team; we want to have a purpose,” Davis said. “So we are going to help the community.”
– Whitney Bennett
