Bowie held its annual Homecoming dance on October 28. Students had the opportunity to get dressed up and enjoy themselves with food, a movie, music, and games. Since the school year started there has been much planning and preparation for the dance.
Student Council leaders, presidents, and members put in a lot of time and effort into making the Homecoming a night to remember for Bowie students. Senior Student Council President Riley Harris helped lead the rest of the Student Council to make homecoming happen.
“The preparation to set up took a long time,” Harris said. “We have been planning for a while and talking about it for a couple of months.”
Student Council’s goal was to turn Bowie into a fun and exciting environment for all students to enjoy. They wanted to increase student attendance and the experience from years past.
“I think this year people enjoyed it more because it was a better environment resulting in a better time, this also resulted in a great turnout,” Harris said.
Preparation on the day of the dance took a lot of time and many people were there to put in the work. Student Council members and parent volunteers spent the day setting up everything
“During the day though it took around three-and-a-half hours,” Harris said. “Stuco helped set up tables, decorations, drinks, and put everything together at school. My co-president Charlotte Hill and I as well as the vice presidents and regular student council volunteers help with the student council and get other people to help.”
Along with Student Council, parents volunteering through the PTA is important for the dance’s success. Student Council advisor, Alejandro Garcia, and the PTA planned and organized all of the outside businesses to be at the dance like the food trucks and DJ.
“The PTSA got all those people, but they started working on that at the beginning of the school year,” Garcia said. “I think for the actual DJ, they start at the end of last school year when we find out the day of Homecoming because they had to secure themselves or secure those vendors.”
Garcia led Student Council members through the planning process by allowing them to work together to design decorations and plan advertisements.
“I kind of provide that guideline or the outline of what needs to happen,” Garcia said. “I let the students’ creativity take control, like whatever they want to do.”
Student Council took charge of getting the word out and promoting the dance to students by posting online and telling faculty.
“Social media posts, we had posters everywhere, flyers everywhere, word of mouth everywhere,” Garcia said. “Mr. Robinson’s announcements, just everywhere you looked there was information about when the homecoming dance was.”
Junior Sara Hernandez heard about the dance from students around school and through the advertisements made by student council.
“I think it was definitely well advertised because they’d make announcements about it everyday and there were a bunch of posters around the school,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez came with her friends to see the music and enjoy all the games and activities.
“My favorite part of homecoming was being able to enjoy it with my friends and take lots of pictures together,” Hernandez said. “I also loved seeing everyone in their dresses.”
Along with other students, Hernandez had feedback about the dance and how it can be improved to keep getting better compared to the years before.
“I think it could’ve been set up a little better only because everything was outside and it was really hot that day,” Hernandez said. “Other than that they had good food and good decorations.”
The dance floor in the pit of the courtyard and the photo booth were very popular places the night of the dance. The photo booth gave students the opportunity to create memories with their friends.
“I think the area you could take photos in and the area where everyone could dance was the biggest hit. Everyone was taking pictures with their groups of friends,” Hernandez said.
