Every year for homecoming, there are five designated dress-up days for students to participate in, to raise excitement for the game and create school spirit. It’s a time for students and staff to come together and have fun while building a closer relationship between the two. Some past themes ranged from color wars to fictional characters to decades day.

The homecoming theme for 2023 was Creek’s Got the Beat, which includes four, “in school dress up days that are connected to popular songs. Tuesday was “Thrift Shop” for mismatch clothes, Wednesday was “Hey Mickey” for fictional character day, Thursday was “Party in the USA” to wear patriotic colors, and finally Friday was “Circus” and Creek out.

“I think they’re all good, it’s cool that they work with songs,” Senior Bryan Stevens said. “I’m going all out for Patriotic Day. On Friday some friends, and I are going all out wearing clown suits.”

There are many students who enjoy the themes and the feeling of community and school spirit with others who do dress-up.

“I enjoy them a lot, I think they’re all fun,” Senior Sydnee Simmons said. “It’s a group effort and a fun way for people to participate in school spirit. I think other people are too worried about other people’s opinions to dress up and commit.”

However, some students did not like the theme for this year, saying that some days aren’t appealing to them or are harder to dress-up for than others. Additionally, some students also aren’t participating because they see others not participating, and don’t want to be the odd one out.

“The themes aren’t that interesting, but still fun,” Senior Millie Wheeldon said. “I don’t think other people like the themes this year, because I haven’t seen anyone else really dressing up and going all out.”

There are also some students who are dissatisfied with their lack of “say” in the themes and wish there was more student involvement in picking the dress-up days.

“I think that students should have greater control over the spirit days,” Senior Kendall Cavalier said. “Students should be able to decide the dress up days and themes. I think Mrs. Orr shouldn’t have the final vote and it should completely be the choice of student council.”

However, the process of picking the homecoming spirit days is not that straightforward and takes months for the final themes to get approved. First, Student Council (StuCo) comes up with ideas for the spirit themes which goes to Assistant Principal Shane Zelenski, who takes them to the administrators meeting for their and Principal Ashley Orr’s final approval. If some ideas are crossed out, then StuCo has to go back to the beginning and the process restarts.

“It’s frustrating trying to make everybody happy; I don’t think we succeeded,” StuCo-Sponsor Jayme Petersen said. “The football spirit days were picked at the end of last year and there’s a lot of things that go into it. Sometimes not enough people participate. The kids and I work hard, and we want everyone to participate in it.”

Overall, there are plenty of mixed feelings about the dress up days despite the main purpose of uniting students and staff and the participation rates are not where they should be according to some students.

“I feel like it’s hard for people to dress up for some days,” Senior Shivani Patel said. “I like the themes, but I think more students need to dress up for spirit week for it to matter and have a positive effect on our school spirit.”