You might say there’s an elephant in the room when it comes to our homecoming festivities this school year: Homecoming 2024 will take place in December instead of October. To show you why this change was necessary–and how it will make Homecoming even more exciting!–read on.
For multiple years now, RMA has held homecoming week during football season–so late September or early/mid-October. Prior to that, Homecoming was during basketball season every year from at least the late 2000s to the mid-2010s. So why have we switched back?
The cause for the change this year takes several things into account. First, North Carolina has incredibly unpredictable weather. In recent years our Homecoming football games have been canceled or not as well attended due to rain. This made a basketball Homecoming game more appealing because the odds of weather interfering with an indoor event are almost zero.
Another reason our fall tradition was not as successful as its winter counterpart has to do with our recent alumni’s college schedules. College students typically do not have a break in September or October, so they couldn’t make it to our football game to celebrate Homecoming, but with winter break being a long intermission, most college students will be home and have the opportunity to visit their home territory.
So let’s look at an overview of this year’s Homecoming week!
We are trying something new this year by having our Homecoming dance be the event that starts Homecoming week instead of the final destination for high schoolers. If you’re an RMA Upper School student, please make sure to make an appearance at the dance on Saturday 12/14 where SGA has made it a top priority to have a DJ and an awesome theme. The DJ will be open to suggestions, so don’t be afraid to request one of your favorite songs! The theme was voted on by SGA, and the overall consensus was a “Snow Ball” theme to highlight the fun of switching up the timing of this year’s event.
Although we enjoyed a spirit week in the fall, we will have our Homecoming Spirit Week from the 15th to our half-day of pep rally fun on the 19th. Most days this week are pretty self-explanatory like Christmas PJs on Monday, Tacky Sweaters on Wednesday, and Eagle Spirit on Thursday, but Tuesday’s theme–Christmas Character Day–might need a little explanation. Just dress up as one of your favorite Christmas movie characters to get into the spirit. Anything from Buddy the Elf to Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation would be awesome, so get to brainstorming for that one!
The start of the whole-school pep rally on Thursday will be dedicated to honoring our winter athletes and the Homecoming Court. Then, we will have a basketball game with Upper/Middle School teachers facing off against the Lower School teachers. This will be a quick and fun game for the students to watch. Finally, we’ll wrap up the pep rally with some holiday fun: the annual All-School Sing, where our youngest students, various clubs/classes, and faculty will entertain us. The highlight will surely be the annual “Senior Song,” where seniors rewrite the lyrics to well-known Christmas songs. This is just a quick overview of the pep rally, but the real deal will be a lot of fun so all students, make sure to attend!
Although sports take center stage when it comes to Homecoming, Homecoming Court is another important tradition we all look forward to. The Court was announced last week with Catherine Cobb, Maggie Paszek,Garrett Bellamy, and Griffin Williams for ninth grade. Zoey Barnes, Annika Plonski, Hunter Parker, and Oscar Seale, for tenth grade. Becky Hunter, Hannah Garris, Mario Ruiz, and Spencer Thorne will represent the junior class. Last but not least the running for Homecoming Queen and King has been narrowed down to Charlie Crumley, Isabella Daza, and Abbie Hooks, and Hank Berry, Thomas Honey, and Wyatt Wells. The senior boy who has been named king will be announced at that time. Another fun tradition that we haven’t lost with the new schedule is having Upper School students’ little buddies walk with them during the Homecoming Court presentation on Thursday morning.
Thursday night, we finish out this year’s festivities with four basketball games against Liberty Christian Academy. Between the JV and varsity games–so after the JV boys–we will announce the 2024 Homecoming Queen.
Let’s make the most of this switch until we see if we want to make winter Homecoming a permanent fixture or go back to the way it has been the past few years.
