Homecoming week is always the week of the last home football game. This year, HoCo week was from October 14-18, with the homecoming adventure dance on Oct. 19th. Planning for this event begins immediately after kindness week. ASB only had three weeks to plan for homecoming, which is a much longer process than people may think.
Since 2006, Shannon Hurtado has led ASB and Leadership. Now, in her 18th year of running these events, Hurtado knows what works best for coming up with ideas.
Students in leadership brainstorm ideas and come up with a theme, then they come up with dress-up days and lunchtime activities. They then present the theme to all of the leadership classes who vote for what they think would be the best choice. Elliane Cha and Olivia Pinkston thought up this year’s theme, “Time to Shine.”
“We [vote on the theme] because way back in the past, we used to have the entire school vote,” Hurtado said. “The problem sometimes is that it’s hard to narrow it down, and sometimes it’s not as workable.
Theme pitches include dress-up days they think would work best under their chosen theme. Once a theme for each day is selected, the class decides whether each spirit day chosen is big enough for many participants.
“Our vision is [to] make moments matter for as many people as possible. So when we choose our dress days, for example, music T-shirt day, there are kids who love music and they go to concerts,” Hurtado said. “So those students are going to feel like they can shine that day. A lot of kids wear black, so that’s why you have a blackout [day], so it’s something that’s in your wardrobe.
Other dress up days were based on previous years themes.
“We had such success [with the neon theme] last year at one of our home football games that we thought it would be a great ‘time to shine’ so to speak; that it would be a great way to end the week,” Hurtado said.
With Homecoming being such a big tradition and event, the leadership team puts a lot of work into making it an event for students to remember.
“We usually have over 1,000 kids. It takes a village to manage that many students. Most high schools only have a dance, [but] we’re doing fire pits, movies, video games, live music, cotton candy. It’s just a lot more [work],” Hurtado said. “Usually [the event is] in a gym, [but] this [is in an] entire classroom wing and in the MPR, so I think a lot of times students don’t understand all the work that it has taken us to do this.”
Due to the workload, each member of ASB has a specific job throughout the whole year. Students in AIM and Link Crew work with the ASB leaders to ensure everything gets done properly, especially for the two biggest events of the week—Friday’s rally and Saturday’s dance.
As Rally Commissioner, Capri Carrington (‘25) plans, prepares, and runs every rally of the school year.
“My favorite part is honestly, [when] we actually do the rally, the day before, [because] it’s seeing your whole vision come into place,” Carrington said. “When the rally actually happens [on Friday], it’s rewarding seeing the [plan] just come together.
Run-throughs of each rally throughout the year occur the night before to make sure everyone knows what they are doing and what they need to fix before Friday.
“I’m in charge of getting the stage set up, making sure all the homecoming court is prepared with what they need and just making sure everything gets done in general,” Special Events Commissioner Ernest Rogers (‘25) said.
On Saturday morning, set up begins at 10 am— with many things that need to be done. The 200 wing classrooms get decorated and set up for different activities. Leadership prepares desserts and sets up decorations in the MPR, which are just a few things that need to be accomplished before the dance that begins at 7:30 pm.
Photo courtesy of Alena Rodriguez
After it ends, leadership stays behind, cleaning everything up after the event, with some students not leaving until one in the morning.
AIM Commissioner Alena Rodriguez (‘26) was one of the students who got to school early to help set up and stayed late after the dance to help clean up.
“The day of homecoming is really stressful, but it was fun,” Rodriguez said. “We had to clean out the classes. We had to take the desks out, get food everywhere, we made sure lights were up, the televisions were working, and just made sure that everything was in order for the dance.”
ASB, Link Crew, and AIM worked hard to put this week-long event together in such a short amount of time. While everyone went home each day, many members in leadership would stay behind preparing for the next day’s activities. Leadership’s dedication and effort to making these events for students is what makes AGHS so special.
