Pep rallies have been every school’s tradition around the country for years to support some kind of athletic team. With the fall sports over and the winter sports beginning, HHS hopes to debut the first pep rally sometime soon.
“We want to continue to celebrate the success of athletes here at Hastings High, but it has been difficult to plan because of everything going on,” Activities Director Tracy Douglas said.
Due to busy schedules and lack of planning, Hastings High failed to have a pep rally to celebrate the success of the fall sports.
“We want to have more than one. We want to have one possibly in January after break for the fall sports as well as the winter sports,” Douglas said.
In the past either the Student Council or the Cheerleaders were in charge of putting together a pep rally for the school. However this year, the school administration has taken over for the job.
“We have only been in charge of one or two pep rallies [a year]. We have never been in charge for them for the entire year,” Student Council advisor Jim Fielder said.
Student Council President Justine Steiner says that when she asked about having pep rallies at the beginning of the school year, she was told that administration would be running the pep rallies at the end of every season.
“Student council would love to have a pep rally sometime soon, and that is something we are looking into,” Steiner said.
Nonetheless Steiner believes that pep rallies are a good way to increase awareness about school activities coming up and that they make people realize that HHS has the potential to have great school spirit, which is something she thinks has been lacking this year.
“I like pep rallies because they get me excited for all the school activities coming up,” Steiner said.
As far as increasing school spirit here at Hastings High, Steiner has ushered in fresh, new ideas for pep rallies. Steiner would like to instead of just senior members talking about the sport that they are involved to have those members teach the students a specific cheer for their sport. For example, the swim team seniors would be able to teach a cheer that people could use at swim meets. Steiner thinks that her idea would get students to be more interested in attending more activities if they knew they would be able to do more cheers.
“I think that if everyone knew the cheers, then the student section would be louder and more supportive,” Steiner said.
